Yukiguni

Yukiguni. Snow country. Where there is snow. Lots of it. Copious amounts. An amplitude of collected ice crystals. A plenitude of frozen water. Oodles and oodles of freaking snow! Please take this time to enjoy the assorted pictures I've taken over December and January of the magnitude of the frozen mass, and I swear if I hear one more person complain about it being 35 degrees at night in Tucson I will ship some of this to you. Express Air Mail.

I'm sure you noticed Aaron being a lovely model in the banner picture, serving as an example of how tall our snow pile has become. The picture immediately above didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but basically at that point the snow was almost a foot deep on the ground.

The above two pictures are of the rice fields behind my house. They're actually incredibly beautiful covered in pristine snow. Why there's a man in the middle of them, shoveling snow in the middle of nowhere, I haven't a clue. But good luck to him. Below, you will find a movie of snow in motion, as it falls quietly down from the sky, softly covering everything in the entire world, making you wake up the next morning to try and find your car in the roundish pile of ice in front of your house. Enjoy!

Things I Love About Japan

Everything is cute. I won one of these things in a UFO catcher, also known as a claw game. I present to you, my beloved audience, square-frog and Arupakyaanan (from Alpaca, it's the actual name the company gave him...). They are narcoleptic Alpacas..... In the little card attached to him, there's a 4 panel cartoon where him and his Alpaca friends wake up at 6am, eat breakfast, start cleaning, and suddenly fall asleep by about 7:30am. Square-frog does not have a back story. He does not need one, he is awesome without it.

I also acquired this guy during my time in Japan. His name is Sannopi, named after Sannohe Town, since their mascot is a cute little owl. The Mario Hat and the red scarf came separately. We dressed him up for Christmas, he seemed like he was cold with all the snow falling outside.

Wedding Surprises!

So, as I'm sure most of you are aware by now, through one form of communication or another, Aaron and I got married here in Sannohe on December 9th, 2009. We signed some paperwork, then went to McDonald's and a used game store and had a blast! It really was tons of fun, and I enjoyed just spending the day with Aaron. ^-^ That's our marriage certificate up above, by the way. It's hand-written in Japanese calligraphy, and it's worth the entire time I spent mired in "Translating Japanese Legal Documents Hell" to me. Below is a close-up of it, and I apologize profusely for the blurry pictures. The glass made it hard to get a clear photo of it, and we couldn't take a picture out of its frame since they originally present it to you rolled up and tied with a ribbon like a scroll, and it refused to leave this curly form unless restrained by something heavy.....


Later that month, on the 22nd, the Kyoikuinkai had a Bonenkai party. Whee! Try saying that three times fast. For the non-Japanese speakers, Kyoikuinkai = the Board of Education, and a Bonenkai is an 'End of the Year' party. It's basically just a party held by most companies to praise and reward their workers for their hard work so far, and to ask for them to continue to work hard in the year to come. As a JET for Sannohe Town, I am technically employed by the BoE, not the individual schools I teach at, and my supervisor Yasuko is also a BoE employee. I only spend half a day a week in the BoE building on average, but everyone there is incredibly nice. So, I was invited to the end of the year party along with Aaron. We went expecting good times and good food, but we ended up getting a lot more. Japanese parties are always started with a speech given by someone much farther up the social totem pole than you, and then everyone starts drinking and loosens up. (By the way, never, ever, try to out-drink a Japanese man. I've seen many a JET try and they end up under the table about halfway in. There is nothing the Japanese love doing more than drinking buckets full of beer at parties.) In any case, after my boss's boss gave a little speech, they called me and Aaron up to the front of the room. Then, after we walked up filled with trepidation, my boss's boss announced to everyone that we had gotten married earlier in the month, and that while we hadn't had an official ceremony, they wanted to do something special for us to celebrate the occasion. Out from under a table, they pulled out a beautiful bouquet of flowers, pictured below, and presented it to me.


They also materialized a chocolate cake from a local pastry shop and presented it to Aaron. In the picture below, you can see the Japanese writing "Sherrie <3 Aaron: Kekkon omedetou", which means "Sherrie and Aaron, congratulations on your wedding!" They even had it made to be entirely chocolate, since Yasuko knows how much of a sweet tooth I have for it.

After receiving these, I had to introduce Aaron to the audience, and then give a little speech thanking them for these amazing gifts, in Japanese. Have you ever tried to speak in a foreign language when trying to hold back tears?

.... I work with the nicest people in the world.

Things I Love About Japan

Totoro pan. It's bread, filled with chocolate, shaped like my favorite animal character from one of my favorite movies. It's delicious and adorable. Enough said. (My supervisor Yasuko gave these to me when I caught Swine Flu and was stuck at home for a week, because she's amazing like that. ^-^ )

Tokyo: Part Four. Shinjuku and Ginza.

That picture above is of a random business in Ginza at night, which is an incredibly ritzy and upscale place. But we went there at night, and there was a whole day leading up to this, so I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we went to Shinjuku.... which incidentally, is also an incredibly ritzy and upscale place, but for teenagers and 20-somethings. We basically spent the entirety of our last full day in Tokyo cruising around places that we could never possibly afford to even eat something in. Then again, it's always interesting to see how the other side lives.

The main reason we went to Shinjuku was for the above store: Kiddy Land. It's a 7 story toy-store, and I wanted cute Japanese plush things something fierce. I was originally looking for a squished panda character called Tarepanda, but unfortunately for me he's 10 years old. Most Japanese in Shinjuku would sooner die than be seen with something that was out of fashion for 10 months, let alone 10 years. So, alas, Kiddyland had no Tarepanda merchandise whatsoever. However, it was still an amazing place, and I found other cute things to console me.

The above pictures are of a giant stuffed Yoshi that was about the size of a 3 year old child, and the 'Hello Kitty' section of the store. Keep in mind that is ONE section, of ONE floor of the store. All 6-7 stories of the store were packed full of cute things like this. It was amazing, and I bought lots of cute little Totoro things and a lego cockatiel, which is currently assembled in memory of my pet cockatiel Marley.




This was the best part of the whole freaking store. In the video above, one of the employees is demonstrating a toy car. On the wall. IT RUNS ON THE WALL!!!!! It's the car Spiderman would drive if he had one, and it makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too, by proxy. :)




Kiddy Land actually doesn't fit in too well with the rest of Shinjuku. You might remember at the beginning of this post I mentioned that both Shinjuku and Ginza are areas for the financially well-endowed, except Shinjuku is more for 20-somethings. It's basically like the fashion district of New York. The Porshe-driven roads are lined with shops by Gucci, Louis Vitton, Versace, and other impossible to pronounce or spell designers. To illustrate this, the above movie is of a sculpture at the front of a random clothing store. You know you're in over your head financially when you see a modern-art whirlygig.




After puttering around Shinjuku for a while, looking at things we could never afford to buy and could never be fashion savvy enough to pull off wearing, we found somewhere to eat, and headed to Ginza. There was one big reason that we wanted to go to Ginza, and that was because the Sony Store is there. The video above is of the outside Christmas display they had, which was much prettier than the video would lead you to believe. The Sony Store is an eight story building, five of which are devoted solely to Sony products. The other three floors are random high-end shops that Sony graciously lets share space with them, and one of those stores sold foreign food. We walked out with Andes Mints, and were prodigiously happy. Yet that is only a small part of the experience; the main point of going to the Sony Store is to see the Sony things! Oh, and how many Sony things there were. There was one entire story devoted to nothing but TVs, one to video and photo cameras, one to the Playstation 3, one to home theater products, and another to random electronics like cell phones and music players. They had TVs that would turn themselves off when the built-in motion sensor saw no one was watching the TV, video cameras that would deliver a steady picture no matter how shaky your hands are, and photo cameras that professionals take on safari in Africa. The coolest thing about the Sony store is all the products are out and on display for your perusement and enjoyment. If you wanted to buy anything, they had sealed product hidden away that would magically appear as you presented your credit card. That $3,000 camera? Feel free to take pictures of your friends mouth as it hangs open in awe. That $12,000 TV? Feel free to go into a private room and watch a movie that thoroughly flexes it's HDness. The Playstation 3? Please, choose one of the many controllers and play what you wish. It was absolutely amazing, but very dangerous. Being able to play with the merchandise makes you realize how awesome the products are, and tempts you into buying one whether or not you can really afford it (or need it). Aaron almost walked out with the aforementioned $3,000 safari-worthy camera, credit card interest be damned. As for me, I almost took one of these home with me. It's a little mp3 robot that holds all your music, and rolls around on the floor and dances around in sync with whatever it's playing at the moment. I was honestly willing to part with a good $50-$100 for it. At $400, it stayed in the Sony store. Pity though, it really was quite cute.




And with that, we conclude our Tokyo trip. The last day was spent riding trains to get back home to Sannohe. It was an amazing trip, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I can't wait to go back sometime, especially to see Akihabara, the game mecca. If you get the chance, do yourself a favor and visit the city sometime. Just make sure to bring money, and lots of it. You'll need it.

Tokyo: Part Three. Shibuya.

Day three was mostly spent getting our paperwork from the American Embassy for our marriage, which was highly boring and not much of a different experience than you would expect from a trip to any government building. Therefore, I won't bore you with the experience, other than to say we went, we saw, we received marriage paperwork. This was all accomplished by the early afternoon, and we found ourselves with many free hours with nothing to do. Exhausted from our previous days journey through the nerd capital of the world, we nevertheless decided to set out for another game-related holy place: The SquareEnix store.


SquareEnix is one of my favorite game companies, makers of my beloved Final Fantasy series. I had always wanted to go to their store in Tokyo, as they sell a lot of merchandise there that you can't buy anywhere else. So, we headed to the Shibuya district with high hopes, expecting to spend a good part of the day wandering around there, after we were done with the SquareEnix store. Unfortunately, we were unaware that the Shibuya district would be better served if it were known as the "Business District". We saw very few shops of any kind, and the few we did see were restaurants. Most Japanese companies have their company headquarters in Shibuya, and as such it is a place of tall, imposing looking skyscrapers, with businessmen scuttling about in their suits or cooped up in their offices. However, in this deserted business land, we did finally find the store.


Aaron was less than impressed with its size, and indeed the whole store was probably about the size of our house. It's actually the bottom floor of the SquareEnix company headquarters, and I'm sure just a few dozen feet above us people were working diligently on the next iteration of the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest series. In any case, there was a lot of awesome merchandise inside, and I walked away with a stuffed Tonberry, a mini, chirping, baby Chocobo, an umbrella with Final Fantasy animals on it, and a Mandragora cell-phone strap. I was quite pleased with my haul, even if I also shared Aaron's opinion of it being much smaller than I imagined it would be. However, even though there was nothing else in the area of interest, it was worth the whole journey just to see the floor of the store. Yes, you read that right. The floor was the best part of the whole journey. That's because the floor is made of black, shiny tiles, with a certain portion of it being see-through glass displaying a recessed space, in which an eternally sleeping, life-sized Sephiroth lies in repose.


Sephiroth is one of the more popular villains in the Final Fantasy series, and the statue they have displayed in their floor is absolutely gorgeous. It was, hands-down, the coolest thing I saw in Tokyo. Luckily, I was able to restrain myself from breaking the glass and taking the statue home with me, so we were able to go back to our hotel after this, instead of into the nearest police station.

Engrish of the Week

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this week's Engrish. It's related to the previous post though, I swear!

"NO LOW
NO JUSTICE
All the crimes are hated and hating
all the Bad men are hated.
A Man who fights only for revenge.
the called him
PUNISHER"

Seen in an arcade in Akihabara, Japan.

Tokyo: Part Two. Akihabara.

Continuing on with the re-telling of our Tokyo odyssey, we come to day two of our trip! The first day was just getting settled in the hotel and everything, so this was the first day we really spread our wings and started exploring the metropolis. We decided to start with a district of Tokyo called Akihabara, which I think might be my new home. It is the nerd capitol, the gaming temple, and the home of all things electronic, anime, gaming, strange and unfortunately perverted. There are nine-story department buildings filled with nothing but TVs, DVD players, cameras, games, and DVDs and CDs. Stores that sell giant Alien replica heads, beautifully crafted sculptures of video game and movie characters, giant stuffed adorable animals, whimsical music boxes based on beloved children's cartoons, and statues of girls with physically impossible breasts wearing next to nothing, all under one roof. It's an amazing place, both wonderful and awesome and strange and sometimes terrifying, all at the same time. But enough prattling on, let us begin a more linear tale from this point on, complete with pictures taken by yours truly. Friends, I invite you along with me on a magical tour of Akihabara, the Geek Mecca.

I wish I had taken videos of us just walking up and down the streets of Akihabara. It's really hard to convey the surreality of it all with just this one picture, but in general, games are much more a part of main-stream culture in Japan. In Akihabara it's everywhere... All the billboards are game related, there's not a single TV show or car dealership advertisement to be seen. The Club Sega in the picture above is a seven story arcade. I don't think arcades even really exist in America anymore. Even rental lockers are game-themed, as shown by the Persona 3 lockers pictured below.

Aaron and I were just wandering around for a good hour, just looking around and pinching each other randomly to make sure we were still somewhere on planet earth. Eventually we got more used to it though, and then we remembered where we wanted to go: Super Potato.

Super Potato is a three story game store, devoted exclusively to older games, or "retro" games as they are more commonly called. Anything before PS3, Xbox360, and Wii's release can be found within these hallowed halls. The top floor is a retro arcade, complete with a donkey kong machine and a life-size Mario statue, pictured above. Also present and 'representing' is Solid Snake, pictured below:

He stealth-kills anyone who fails to get the high score. The first two levels are all filled with games, with the first floor being the absolute oldest systems, and the second floor filled with systems and games that today's teenagers might have heard of, in whispered, revered conversations between their elder, more skilled gamer friends.

Aaron's blurry head made a cameo in this picture, but it should still express the amazing quantity of games this store had on hand. This isn't even all of the Dreamcast games.... it's just the first section.

Similarly, this is a picture of the first part of the PSOne section. The amount of STUFF crammed into this store was unbelievable.

Wherever free space exists in Super Potato, it is promptly exterminated, and filled with gaming-related merchandise and memorabilia. The picture above showcases some of the more adorable free-space killers. It was an absolutely amazing store, and we spent a good few hours in this store alone. I bought a game I've wanted for my collection since time immemorial: Castlevania Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine, a steal at $50 bucks U.S., with not even a fingerprint on it. I also found the first Vanillaware game, one of my favorite game companies. They make Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade if you are unfamiliar with them. Before Odin Sphere they apparently made a game called Princess Crown for the Sega Saturn. It was also recently ported to the PSP. Both versions are now safely in my possession. I think I actually cackled with glee when I left this store, it's just that kind of special place.

Between breaks for lunch and dinner, most of our time was spent shopping in Super Potato and countless other small stores scattered around the area. The rest of our time was spent in arcades. I have a thing for UFO catchers, or claw games. Japanese UFO catcher prizes are especially adorable, and I spend a tremendous amount of spare change playing them. To my credit, I'm pretty good at them and have caught quite a few cute plushy things up to this point. Aaron enjoyed finding arcade machines that he hasn't seen since he was 8 years old and playing the crud out of them. All in all, Akihabara is an amazing place, and I can't wait to go back some day. I wish I had taken more pictures, but the problem with Tokyo is it's so crowded that if you stop walking, you will die. You will be trampled to death by 500 Japanese salary men before anyone even notices you fell down. It makes taking pictures difficult, unfortunately. I did however manage to take a picture of this store's display of Persona 4 goods, which is one of my dad's favorite games, so that's good.



Before I end this post, I would like to share with you my absolute favorite thing I bought in Akihabara. It's actually the coolest thing I've bought since I've been in Japan, and possibly even before then. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first let me tell you why this thing is so amazing. When I was a little girl, my family would often visit my grandparent's house on my mother's side, since they lived in the same state as us. I have many fond memories of sleeping wherever we could in their house, with me and my cousins lying parallel in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room. As we weren't usually in an actual bedroom, we could hear the sounds the house made quite clearly. My grandpa Heinz was particularly fond of old clocks, and there was quite the variety of grandfather, grandmother, and cuckoo clocks in their house. Childhood to me is giggling with my cousins in the dark, and listening to the entire house sing and chime every hour. Since then, I've always wanted a nice clock like that, and in the gaming capitol of the world, I found one that suited me. 'My Neighbor Totoro' is a Japanese children's cartoon, that is beloved the world over. It's one of my favorite movies, and I love the giant, round Totoro forest creatures that the movie is named for. Without further ado, I present to you my Totoro cuckoo clock.

Don't mind the blurry bottom part of the picture, it's the minute hand swinging back and forth. This clock was incredibly expensive, but honestly I don't regret a single one yen coin of it. Every time it chimes, I'm eight years old again, and that, truly, is priceless. Below is a video I took of it in action. It chimes like this every hour, with the little white totoro peeping the current hour. Best thing I ever bought.

Next up: Day Three! Look forward to it!