This was found at a monkey park on Mt Takao. I stopped and took a picture of it as I was leaving. While I was taking a picture, one of the staff that was in the vicinity asked me why I was taking a picture and was wondering if the English was correct. After telling him the correct spelling, he thanked me humbly. I then noticed that all the signs in the area were brand new and shiny. I am guessing that the staff in the vicinity just finished putting up the sign right before I decided to take a picture of it.

Anyone remember chemistry?

This year, to entertain my kids and students, I had to dress up for Halloween. I borrowed a mask from my friend who just happened to have one sitting around. Along with the mask, I also used a black rain poncho that my friend had.. thus becoming an alien. Here is me as an alien at a Halloween party…

I decided to be a complete gaijin(foreigner) after the party as I walked from the party to the train station in my costume. Most Japanese people are not accustomed to the idea of Halloween, and a person walking around in an alien costume at night is very strange and scary to most of them. As I walked to the station I saw Japanese people stop in their tracks and move out of my way. Others just cringed and curled up as I walked past them. I heard people say kowai(scary), and from others just a sound of disgust. Closer to the station, some of the younger Japanese found it interesting and came up to wave to me. It was incredibly fun for me to see, yet again, Japanese reactions to things that are not ordinary for them, and this was defiantly one of those things.

Last weekend I climbed Mt. Takao. It’s not nearly as big as Mt. Fuji, but it is the best nature and hiking close to Tokyo. The weather was great, though not perfect as we could not see Mt. Fuji.
Mt. Takao is about 600 meters above sea level. The hike up was great, and the nature and beauty of the mountain was amazing. I am going to climb it again in a couple weeks as I really enjoyed this trip.

This guy wore a WWII Japanese military uniform as he climbed to the top.

At the top! It wasn’t really that hard.

The leaves were starting to change in some places.

This was taken at one of the more expensive department stores in Japan.

I wonder what they serve here? It looks like a nice restaraunt to take the family to.

Can you name the movie refrence?

My friend Jeff came and visited me… uh, many weeks ago. Anyway, while he was here we went around Tokyo and made a trip to Nikko. Nikko was fun despite the fact that it was cold and raining the entire day.
So here are the pictures from Nikko…

The river is even more beautiful when it rains.

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Okay. I am very behind on my posting. I have a lot of stuff to post but have been busy, lazy, or distracted.

So, I will resume posting from somewhat of a chronological order… Maybe.

My friend got a new toothbrush and I thought it was funny:

I have added a list of all my photo galleries in the site navigation.

Here is another video of the an cream guy at the World Festa Yokohama: download (1MB)

As I promised, here is a video of the friendly cat in Yokohama: download (3MB)

And the entire Yokohama photo gallery:

Yokohama photo gallery

My trip to Yokohama

Note: Long post (for my standards)

Last weekend I went to Yokohama to visit a friend. It was the Sunday and Monday after the typhoon hit so the weather was still mostly cloudy with some rain. First some background on my friend. I met Takeshi in Los Angeles at my friend’s house. Actually, he is my friend’s cousin. I was asked to help send my friend his computer, as he was in Virginia at military school, and then set up a new one for his parents. Takeshi was staying at my friend’s house in LA at the time while he was visiting. I took him bowling and went out to dinner with him and my friend’s parents as I refused to accept money for the computer service. That was about all. However, when I got to Japan he asked that I come and visit him in Yokohama and the following ensued.

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Today, a typhoon hit Tokyo which was "one of the most powerful storms to strike the Kanto region in a decade. It became the ninth typhoon to land on the Japanese archipelago this year, a record high.”

Yes, this is a very strange year for Japan. This summer was extremely hot and humid, and hit record temperatures. I had to buy a fan to even survive. Fall officially began on September 23, and since then it immediately got cold. Within a 2 week period the temperature went from extremely hot, to having to wear a jacket. Not only that, but this year there was a record number of typhoons to hit Japan. I, of course, enjoyed every typhoon, but my friend did not find it welcoming as the city of Kyoto almost completely shut down 2 weeks ago as he was there during a previous typhoon.

Today’s typhoon, as stated above, was the strongest typhoon to hit Tokyo in a decade. That means that after half a day at work teaching what little students actually showed up for my first two classes, they sent me home early. After my second class I was told: “You can leave now. ECC has shut down for the remainder of the day because of the typhoon”. Well, that sentence was said in poor English by one of the staff members but I got the point.

Instead of going straight home, like everyone else did, I decided to go shopping for a little bit and buy some Japanese sweets. I timed it perfectly, as I got to my station right as the typhoon was hitting at its strongest. You can not imagine the amount of fun I had as I walked home in extremely fierce winds and heavy rain. Every part of me was completely wet, unfortunately along with all the sweets in my backpack that I had just purchased. I took my time walking home while being pummeled by wind that pushed me in all directions making me walk at strange skewed angles. The streets were completely void of people as they sat cowering in any shelters they could find. As I was about to reach home, I came across the biggest frog I had ever seen also out hopping around and enjoying the same thing I was.

It has been a long time since I have posted anything with the main reason being that I have been busy. Why you might ask? Here is a list:

1) My college friend Jeff stayed with me for a week as he was visiting Japan.
2) During my day off, Jeff and I went to Nikko.
3) We also got hooked to the DrumMania game while at a game center in Shinjuku.
4) I went to work the rest of the week, and taught some devil children.
5) This entire week the network here has been up and down, which has been annoying me!
6) On Saturday, the biggest typhoon all year hit Tokyo. I bet you can guess what I was doing
7) On Sunday I will go to Yokohama to visit a friend for two days.

So, there is the list. There is a lot more stuff that I have done over the last week, but I just can’t remember everything. You may get pictures, it all depends on this damn network and the amount of time I have.

After a very busy weekend and week, I finally have some time to post pictures. On Sunday I visited the Tokyo Game Show which is the Japanese equivalent of E3. It is where every single game manufacturer spends hordes of money to promote their upcoming games and hardware for the next year. Also, most everything was playable depending on how long you wanted to wait in line.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the picture you have all been waiting for:

Some of you may know how much of a significance that game has made on my life and you can just imagine my feelings when I got to see it months before it is released. Not only did I get to see it, but I also stood in line to play it. Yes, you heard me correctly, I actually stood in a line willingly. When it was my turn to finally be able to play Tekken 5 I was filled with the utmost glee, but short-lived as I realized I would be playing a Japanese guy who had beat the 4 people in line before me, which what seemed to be a record at the time as normally people only won about 1-3 games before loosing to the next player.
I came to realize that my life’s devotion to Tekken was not wasted in vain as I proceeded to completely demolish the Japanese player. I then continued to completely destroy the next 4 opponents that dare to challenge me, even picking up a few ‘perfects’ on the way. After I had easily won the next 5 matches, the machine kindly thanked me for playing, at which point I stood up and slowly left the Tekken 5 booth with my day officially complete.

Of course one of the other main reasons that people went to the show was for all the eye candy. Hundreds upon hundreds of Japanese girls dressed up in some sort of costume or small outfit. Photographers stood in lines just for the opportunity to take pictures of these costumed characters.

Monday, was a completely separate story as I went to Tokyo Disney Sea with Jenn, yet again. It was raining on Monday but was still actually very fun as there were practically no people and lines were almost non-existent. There are some pictures, but you will have to wait for them.

Until then, please enjoy the complete Tokyo Game Show gallery here:

The Tokyo Game Show Gallery

I was just thinking about posting random comments.