Off to Awaji-shima
December 30, 2004
Gonna be gone for a couple of days. We’re driving to Awaji Island and spending the night there. Depending on a number of factors, we’ll hopefully be seeing the Naruto whirlpools and some other things. Be back on the 1st. Happy New Year everyone!
tsunami
December 28, 2004
This earthquake has become something extremely destructive. Current death toll: 22,000.
The quake struck around Sunday morning. I remember reading about it online and seeing the death count to be around 300. The woman and I went out for lunch and when we came back, the death count was 3000. Then a bit later that day, 10,000. It kept climbing and climbing. Video clips from home cameras have been airing in Japan very frequently. Some people at work recognized places they had been to in Phuket to only see those places completely gone. I’d be very scared had I been in one of those places.
It has struck close to “home”. There are a few teachers from work who were in Thailand at the time. I was told to listen for names of people who were supposed to be in the region so that our foreign personnel department could be contacted… just in case. Shit.
On some news sites, it says the waves traveled at 500mph. That’s faster than airplanes.
The fearful part that I see. With global warming already taking place, sea levels will keep rising. Imagine a series of tsunamis hitting this region again, only the sea level is 1 or 2 meters higher… I’m sure the death count will be even higher.
Maybe the world will unite and start focussing on what the real problems are next year. One can dream.
KFC again
December 27, 2004
I took this picture on the 24th on the way home from work. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and the KFC near my place was packed. They had staff outside the store (in the cold) greeting people and instructing them what to do to pick up their reserved orders. On a normal day at the same time, there’s usually no people. I know this because once in awhile I buy something at this time to bring home. It was amazing to behold that a fast food joint could become so ingrained with a holiday! I’m so glad I have a camera on my phone to capture such moments but wish the camera was of better quality. Quite an interesting phenomenon.
Merry Christmas
December 25, 2004
The woman and I wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you have a great bucket of KFC this year.
Successful Blogs No More
December 23, 2004
You know those really famous blogs that everyone visits and reads and drools over? You know, the kind that make a name out of themselves by having a purpose, cutting edge design, and opinions that seem to be so popular with everyone. They were the ones everyone emulated. Their designs were partially, or wholly stolen. They can get away with PayPal and Ebay donations even though they don’t sell anything. Yeah you know these guys.
Well, after years of reading and jumping around to the different sites, I’ve concluded that I really don’t care what their opinions are! I don’t care what they think of the American public now that the election’s been done with. I don’t care which independent bands they’re listening to on their orange ipod. I don’t care! I’m finding that the people who do care, care too much. Instead of following and listening so closely, why not go out and do your own thing? I am going to stop visiting their pages from now on! I quit! I’m deleting the cookies that store my personal settings on their pages.
I’m enjoying the posts that my friends write, about what they did over their weekend. I’m interested in what movie they saw and how good or bad it was. I’d rather read about what I’m missing being so far away from them. I’m into the details now rather than opinions about issues that I’d rather discuss over a cup of coffee instead of such an anonymous medium such as the internet. Those issues they tackle are still important but to get a reply from someone who goes by RainbowCloud1524@yahoo.com is just a bit insulting to my intellect, and yours.
So? A long time ago, I changed my writing style to be more to the point and focus on minor issues. I’m writing about minor things on my own page thinking maybe I’m not the only one who feels that way. I like including pictures whenever I can because as the old cliche goes, a picture has more words per square inch than normal… uh, words… or something like that. Personally, having owned a blog for a good 5 years and having a couple opportunities to read through my old writing, I’m more interested in how I thought about things like school and certain people. I think you’ll have noticed I write a lot less about politics than I used to.
And as for focus, my page will never have a focus because just like in my life, this page goes all over the place. Perhaps a focus would be that this page reflects everything that I do and think about in real life… that is, going about trying to satisfy every minor need and appetite that comes up.
Note: I nor anyone I know has ever contacted RainbowCloud1524@yahoo.com, but can you really see a quantum physicist with that address?
Piccolo Curry House
December 21, 2004
In Namba Walk, one of the longer underground shopping areas in Osaka, there’s a curry restaurant that’s quite peculiar. For one thing, there are weird stained glass windows. The most striking thing is how narrow the damn place is. Once you squeeze through the two “entrances” and sit on a stool, you’ll be backed up against the wall. The counter is about 40-50 cm in width. Behind the counter is the girl who’ll take your order and serve you. The other side of the restaurant is probably about a meter away. You can literally reach and touch the other side of the restaurant.
This place, Piccolo Curry, offers fairly cheap meals. I had a karaage chicken with curry and rice for 580 yen while a katsu curry will fetch 680. They serve hot food quite quickly at reasonable prices. Don’t expect good curry – they serve Japanese curry which is devoid of anything remotely spicy.
If you’re not too tubby, you’ll have no trouble fitting inside. This is another quirky Japanesey establishment.
Note the shopper behind me, in the shopping area. That windowy looking thing IS the front of the restaurant. Picture taken by Mikey.
Dotombori Bridge
December 19, 2004
The Dotombori bridge in Shinsaibashi has always been a familiar site for locals and travellers in Osaka. It’s a weird place with many restaurants and shopping areas, many shoppers, many beautiful gals, and shady people coveting them. The area has been under renovation for the past few months. Today while crossing the temporary bridge, we noticed a new walkway open up alongside the river. The previous times I’ve walked by, the walkway had been obscured by barricades and blocks. Today, it was quite impressive how some thought and construction could turn the place into a decent looking area. I’m stoped.
This may become a nice place to come to after dinner to just relax. However the river is notorious for being disgusting. I hope they’ll put in as much effort with the river clean up as the construction.
While walking down there, you can’t help but notice just how many restaurants line the sides. Unfortunately these buildings were quite ugly. To match this new area, they’ll definitely need a bit of a facelift too.
You can’t buy that!
December 18, 2004
Going for a quick shopping stop with a friend, we stumbled onto a store where everything was labelled ‘sold’. It was quite confusing. Dan bought some stuff here while I just scratched my head at the unselection of goods for sale and how weird everything was here. That’s Dan’s arm there handling the goods.
Weirded out.
A Japanesey Tale
December 15, 2004
I’m trying to integrate categories into my updates with Japan being one. This story fits perfectly. There’s a fellow at work, Marc, who lost his wallet a few days ago. Just when he was about to go and cancel everything, someone called him into the office. Apparently, some Japanese guy found his wallet and turned it into the police station. The police station informed the employer (I’m guessing because some work information was in his wallet?). In this country, your employer is very much responsible for you even outside the office. The police like contacting your company to get to you. Anyway, the deal now is that Marc has to arrange for a time to meet this Japanese dude. Traditionally, because he did you a favour by turning in your wallet, you’re supposed to buy a gift for him and thank him. He will then give you a receipt which you then take to the police station to claim your wallet.
Because Marc’s Japanese ability is limited, he’s going to have to ask someone to help him call this dude in Japanese. By doing this favour, Marc’s gonna have to buy another present. When he told me about his predicament, I was about to burst out laughing. It’s so typical of this country to make something as simple as claiming your lost wallet as confusing and difficult as this. Here’s to you, Marc!
Our automobile
December 13, 2004
Our automobile. Also the webcam is from a temple… that’s specifically… for blessing… cars. It was the worst example of blatant ripping off of money ever. Unfortunately the woman’s mother insisted that the car be… “blessed”. I had many thoughts that just shouldn’t be revealed to not piss her off.
Back in black
OK, I’m putting this back up a little early. The blogger import tool worked like a charm. All my blogger posts are back up. Except… ALL the comments have been given up. There’s no easy way to import the comments so I’m dumping them. It’s quite a loss really, some of the threads were quite good. Oh well, there’ll be more comments to look forward to I’m sure. So far, a few pages are still not up and posts made prior to blogger are still down. I’ve updated twice before this so you can go read those too if you’re bored. I can’t wait till everything is back up.
5 Years
December 12, 2004
Sadly, I’m manually inputting the old updates I have that preceded the days of blogger. I’m too lazy to look for a way to quickly transfer them all but I’m not too lazy to copy and paste all five million entries. It gives me a good chance to read through some of my first attempts at general blogging.
It’s only been five years but in these five years I think I’ve changed quite a lot. My emotional maturity definitely increased. In 1999, I tended to ramble on about school, Quake 3, and bad weather patterns. In retrospect, 1999 was a rather turbulent year with many changes. School definitely took up a lot of my focus but at the same time, things with friends at the time also drained a lot out of me too. I think my writing then (as unfocussed and neurotic as it sounded) was an outlet to vent some of that pent up ‘anger’.
I noticed I said a lot of things that I don’t agree with anymore now. Had I known that one day I wouldn’t think the same way, I would’ve avoided it. But, at the age of 19, I thought I was invincible and that I would never change. What a little child I was. I don’t regret writing it because it was genuinely how I felt. In fact, I wish I had elaborated more on how I truly felt about certain topics. There were some details back then that would’ve helped me put ends to some issues I’m still wrestling with now. I bet I avoided them then because I was too scared.
It’s very interesting to read through your own writing, five years later.
Lost Writings
December 05, 2004
Well, because my webpage is down right now, I don’t have an outlet for my writing outbursts. Instead of losing these precious words which in a few years may be treasure to me, I’m writing them on my computer and uploading them later. From this day til the day my webpage gets back online, these updates will be known as the lost writings as no one should be reading them until way later anyway.
Today I drove again. I drove to the woman’s apartment. And back. Alone. It was quite an accomplishment for me actually. I felt much more comfortable doing everything on the other side. Parking is rather difficult from the right side though. I had to really struggle to get the big family car into the really tight “garage”. I think a few more days of practice and I’ll be ready to go somewhere far. I have a week off at the end of the year and from what I hear, traffic is very light after New Year’s. I hope this is true.
Til the next lost writing.
