Things I Love About Japan

This is a Devil May Cry 3 slot machine. I have never found a cooler slot machine anywhere, although granted I don't exactly spend all my free time evaluating them. If you are wondering... Yes, I did play it. Quite a few times. I lost all the $3 I fed it, but it was well worth it.


The part around the wheels is actually a TV screen, which shows cinema from the game while you play. It was pretty awesome, and as I love my Devil May Cry something fierce, you know I had to take a video of it... So here it is. Enjoy!

Tanizushi Seashore

Continuing on from the previous post, this was our last stop on my day with Aaron and Chieko. It's a fairly famous beach, even though no one can swim there due to a nasty undertow and dangerous cliffs. It's still known, however, for it's beauty, and people often take walks or have picnics on the shore. I confess I found it absolutely beautiful, and while Chieko was upset that a slight misty fog was preventing us from having a better view, I preferred it that way. It looked like something that you would find in England or Ireland, not Japan.

We all enjoyed walking along the beach, combing for seashells. We found lots of awesome shells, including whole sand dollars and moonstones! It was beautiful, and when it gets a bit cooler again, I would love to go back. I shan't take up your time any longer, however. Without further ado, I present pictures to you! Photodump style!

The water was so clear... absolutely beautiful. I hope you enjoyed these pictures. ^-^ Until next time!

The Birds

About 3 months or so ago, I had a lovely day out with Aaron and Chieko, also known as Ishibashi Sensei. She was another English teacher at my elementary school when I first got here, but she has since moved to another school district, and now we can only see each other occasionally. She's an awesome lady, and I really miss teaching with her.

In any case, we started the day out by going to a fish market in Hachinohe, which was really interesting, if a bit smelly. They sold everything you could imagine there, and then some. Everything from a disgusting animal called a goya, or a sea pineapple, as it's referred to in English, to whale meat, which was a bit of a shock. Whaling is...technically... legal here, since the Japanese are allowed to hunt a certain amount of whales each year for scientific research purposes, and the remains may be sold and eaten. How much research goes on, I don't know, but there certainly was a lot of whale bacon there.

Next, we headed off to Kabushima, or Seagull Island. Also known as Alfred Hitchcock's inspiration, and Aaron's personal hell. There are literally thousands and thousands of seagulls living on a few rocky islands surrounding an old shrine. An old shrine which they have taken over, might I add. When we went, it was nesting season, and you could hardly walk around the shrine for all the seagull eggs everywhere.

The shrine, well aware of their infestation, gives out free umbrellas to use while you walk around. Unfortunately, the day we went was incredibly windy, and umbrellas proved to be more trouble than they were worth. Aaron, Chieko and I were lucky, as we ended up not needing them. The poor military man who looked up at the sky and received a lovely souvenir from the seagulls flying above right in his mouth, was not so fortunate.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the seagulls are also completely without fear. You can walk right up to them, and they won't budge. If they decide they don't like you, they start squawking at you, but that is the extent of their wrath. These particular specimens, shown above, were slightly perturbed at my getting close to their nest, but not enough to do something silly like actually run away.

You would think that the shrine would be upset by their colony of flying rats, but on the contrary they built a statue celebrating them. Apparently the living seagulls like hanging out with their stone counterparts, as seen in the picture above.

They also like hanging out on all the fences, apparently.

Well, let's be honest. They like hanging out everywhere, really. All those white dots you see in the picture above? Seagulls. All of them. And those are just the one's choosing to rest at the moment, there's more flying around, fishing, chilling in the shrine or hanging out on the other small islands.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, there are people who actually pay money to feed them. These poor creatures above are confused that no one is feeding them at the moment. There was a lady who was feeding them before this picture was taken, and she literally became invisible as the seagulls swarmed her.

We went to one other place that day, but that's for the next post. For now, enjoy the horror of a real life 'The Birds'. I know they haunted my dreams for a while, and Aaron promptly declared it the most terrifying place on earth. I tend to agree.