Tag: english

Food and traffic

April 27, 2009
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Today in Sengawa we had to wait for the chicks at the phone store to get everything ready, so in that time we went around town and checked a few stores. There was a Seiyu nearby and i wouldn’t have been me if i hadn’t gone in for a few stuff—naturally only forgetting the most urgent ones. I got food for lunch for the coming week, five packs of instant stuff for rice, a fish to make it like the sunday one on the wednesday holiday (birthday of the past Showa emperor, or something like that), with which the Golden Week will start (more about that during). That leaves one day to eat some soup (i think this time soba) for lunch.

On the way home by bike from the nearby station where we left them, at a crossing a bus stopped to let us cross. Now that’s something that made me think. I Hungary it’s a rarity if a bus wants to stop, since that’s a lot of fuel for them, and i can understand that BKV is very poor (though the buses here are small and cute compared to our ancient Ikarus beasts), not to mention even if they wanted to it’s not sure they could stop. But here cars also, and just everyone are more tolerant and less aggressive in traffic. Well, except for us, but since we’re the stupid gaijin anyway, doesn’t change that much. Second huge difference is the left sided traffic. Everything’s inverted, and it’s hard to get used to when going around by bike in all the small streets. Third, trains are the rule here, it’s cheap (the Keio-line at least is), quick and convenient (except if you’re on one of the last trains, full of drunk and strange people, either gay or throwing up in the middle of the crowd (luckily into a sack), crowded as in peak hour). One more difference: people are very polite here when you communicate. And very rude and crude when it comes to getting on or off the train, or just walking in a crowded place.

And they love Maximum the Hormone, at least that’s what i guess, since all their coming three shows in Tokyo are sold out, and were already when i checked at the kombini about two weeks ago. Thanks. I want a raw and hard gig! Soon! (Just checked, and there’ll be a ‘Hormone gig in the end of May, i’ll be buying tickets tomorrow. Also, tomorrow there’ll be a Sex Machineguns gig in the ZEPP, and i’m going, if i can get a ticket.)

自発に新宿へ

April 27, 2009
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The title may not be as correct as should be, grammatically—i wanted it to mean: “spontaneously to Shinjuku”. Sunday afternoon was fun. After i finished my long awaited fish dinner i helped Rado with his bike, and we managed to fix it. Then accompanied by some fuel we played table tennis for a while. A pretty long while. Then i decided i really need to review that two hundred kanji due (and today 150 are again due, though i won’t start reviewing them now), so i did. With success, i managed to finish it sometime around half past nine—naturally meanwhile in those short intervals when i got fed up with all the stroke orders and silly stories, i took a few Facebook quizzes. During one of these i’ve seen Adina writing in her status that she wants to go to Shinjuku. (I think i knew under conscience that the night was lost then.) In the end five of us, Adina, Plamena, Jaeyeon, Rado and i left for Shinjuku, sometime after nine. Ate something small and very expensive at a restaurant where all the waiters spoke korean, looked around, laughed at people and came back home with a train around midnight. But then the girls decided that they wanted to study, so we all ended up in Plamena’s room “studying”. I was having fun with a kanji app on Plamena’s iPhone (she could get one, cheater!), the others with their homeworks. And i managed to get to sleep around three… I guess it’s no surprise i’m a bit tired now…

Weather

April 25, 2009
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Weather is interesting here. Wake up in the morning, see the sun shining full blaze, predicting a “nice” hot day, when i melt even if i have only one light layer on me. In the day it’s so. Then the sun sets, and i freeze into that strange molten shape. Not that funny. Next day i wake up and see the whole sky covered by thick clouds. Dress up prepared for cold and rain, just to be welcomed by humid, hot gloom that stays all day. I wonder if there is sometimes such weather already, what it will be like in the summer, which is said to be extremely hot and humid, even for locals, who were wearing multiple layers such days claiming it’s cold… This is how spring is usually said to be: unpredictable. But at home it’s a lot better. Clear. It may rain a few days long but then a week of sunshine and happiness. But here it’s two days sunshine, two days rain. I really need to buy myself a huge umbrella, because my leather jacket doesn’t really seem to like the rain… Huge only because it’s fun. And if i buy one anyway, why buy something that won’t save me from getting soaked?

What interests me

April 24, 2009
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Actually… i have no idea what to do with my life. Don’t come with that culture shock pep talk of being of high value and stuff—i’m not depressed. I didn’t really know what to do from the beginning. I chose information technology to study at home because i liked to code websites and thought it might be fun. It was, but not that much. Then there is what i applied for here: economics, diplomacy, politics. Interesting stuff, with a lot of money in them, a lot of possibilities and not least ways to help my country. But that’s still not my dream. I have two goals: comparative linguistics and typography. At least so i think now. The problem is, i have no former education of either. I was in maths and history advanced class in high school, didn’t have a thorough education in arts or languages, and have already forgotten most of what they tried to teach me. But still. Languages are interesting. I think. Typography is fun to do. I think. From the outside… From the “outside” programming seemed fun as well… It was interesting to see the integral signs in my maths book in high school, but by the time we got there it was just another thing we had to learn, nothing special. I guess the trouble all comes from that i actually have no dream. I just see a few stuff, think it’s interesting and jump in. Later it might not be so fun… (But japanese typography surely has to be improved, it’s just simply terrible.)

Taste

April 22, 2009
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The tastes around here are so strange. All the foods have the basic flavour composed of those unidentifiable veggies, and then comes something additional. On the other hand, even if i make my own tea, with water, tea, milk, honey, it’s not the same. I think the water boiler does it: gives the water a strong plastic flavour. I’ve felt that flavour on a couple of things here and it’s quite disturbing. But at least the rice cooker’s not doing that—i’d go crazy if i had to eat plastic flavoured rice everyday. I hope very much that the water boiler will lose that flavour as well.

Curry is all right. At least the ones i ate so far lacked both the annoying veggie flavour and the plastic-ish too, that’s why i eat curry every second day and something else every other. Like i have some kind of… topping? for the rice (no laugh, i really don’t know how else to explain that), one which is only veggies and such, the other also has some meat but the flavour is more or less the same. But that won’t be all: i really want to make myself some nice fish dish (what a rhyme, oh my, what a rhyme, i’ll go and rap under the sky!), tomorrow i plan to get the ingredients, and make it just as it should be. I hope i’ll manage. And maybe friday for lunch i’ll take udon, i haven’t eaten that yet. Fujimura sensei said that’s the best (even though she has a catchphrase: no way she would start a sentence else than それでは、じゃ～ (soredewa, ja…)—funny only at first). I also should get myself soba, some kind of sushi and whatever else traditional japanese food there is. Suggestions welcomed. (For other meals as well.)

Know yourself!

April 20, 2009
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Yesterday evening i was free, had nothing really to do, so i took a few Facebook quizzes. Stopped somewhere around fifty… It turned out, that i’d be a mercenary mage in an rpg, Jimi Hendrix in the ’60-s rock-scene, though i’m more akin to the ’40-s, with star tattoos all over me, teaching fifth graders, have the nature of Robin Scherbatsky from HIMYM (hope not), and that of House from his series (hell yeah), though i alone am Megadeth, and the muppet Janice, really crazy, kissing adventurous, a pure-bred golden retriever, around the mental age of seven (according to another test between 11 and 20, correct), with eyes shooting red energy beams (thus i’m Cyclops the X-Man), should be able to identify with the Beatles song I’m the walrus, and since i’m out of metal (chinese zodiac iron snake), i’m the transformer Jazz, on a boat munching Reese’s cup (whatever that would be), in the form of Edward Scrissorhands, watching the movie Footloose, majoring in criminal justice, having the typical house of an avid adventurer, am Dionysus in human body, with a freak style from the ’60-s, will probably (not) name my daughter Jordan, drinking ice coffee at Starbucks without sugar or cream, know women about 50%, am (not) black as Kanye West, with the spirit of Rambo, and also am a zombie banana, was a stoner in high school (almost), among friends i’m the happy-go-lucky who was british in his past life, not to mention the spirit of Fidel Castro possessing me, since i’m the king of the night, also purple, have a crush on someone (really?), supposed to be a loyalist (am i?), shouldn’t get into a relationship just stay “best friends”, since bachelorhood is my forte, and am sexually fierce (hehh), am the summer itself, my intelligence is “very good” and i managed to type all this stuff in a not so long time.

Left

April 16, 2009
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Yesterday Kim-san offered to teach me how to read hangul, and today in the lunch break i asked her to write down and explain as much of it as possible. I won’t be reading korean stuff fluently tomorrow, but i’ve started on the slope, and there’s no turning back now. If i learn that writing as well, i’ll have the roman, the japanese, the cyrillic and the hangul in my bag in case of need. There’s still way to go, as i don’t yet know arabic, hebrew, khmer and a couple of others at all…

Unrelated. Tomorrow i’m going to buy some food, because something always runs out: now it’s the turn of bread, orange juice, milk and cucumbers. And if i’m there, i’ll get myself rice (five kilos will surely last for a while) and something to put on the rice, such as curry (as of now, instant versions, later on i might try cook something myself). Oh, i forgot to mention in the shopping post that i also bought myself a bowl to eat such stuff from. It wasn’t easy to find the right size, as the normal japanese rice bowls are just too small for me, the larger ones are just too large, but this one’s just fine. Simple looking though… i’ll decorate it somehow once i have any ideas. Or i’ll just ask Adina-san tomorrow, since she said she’ll be coming to Seiyu as well—she was the one who found me the bowl at Nitori. (We’ll continue our “newlywed shopping”, as she noted, we looked like a young couple getting the necessary stuff for their new apartment—the first stuff after furniture.)

Hungry

April 15, 2009
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Today i wanted to have a bento for lunch, but instead decided to try the 400-yen ramen at the university dining place (why isn’t there a normal english word for that?). I was pretty hungry, and wanted a large meal so that i won’t get hungry again by the end of the next class. Successful, though not exactly how i expected. I asked (managed to ask somehow) the cooks if the ramen was a large bowl (then based on my experiences that alone would’ve been enough), and they said no, so i decided to get myself something else as well (a large bowl of rice and some kind of nicely flavoured meat). The problem was that i first asked for these, and then went to get myself the ramen. Which turned out to be quite a large bowl… But i managed to eat it all (still got hungry by six, i don’t know how my insides work, but i don’t think this would be normal). Not without side effects though, i rarely feel so full as i did then. To quote Plamena: not exactly pleasant. (Though to follow Mefi‘s train of thought, getting rid of that feeling was.)

During the last “class” (the movie one) there was a word that popped up multiple times, until i realised it wasn’t what it seemed to be. The word is: 文科系, which is read ぶんかけい(bunkakei) and means something related to the humanities faculty. Similar to anything you may know? (If not, please don’t look for it.)

Propaganda

April 15, 2009
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Today there was an interesting “class” i’ve forgot the name of… We watched an american propaganda “movie” against japanese from the second world war. It was first funny. I mean, it was so visibly full of the worst type of demagogy that i couldn’t help laughing a couple of times. But it was scary as well. Because it could be funny for me right now, but seventy years ago, when there was about no way to get informed except for the media the governments then (and possibly somewhat now as well) controlled, you could easily take even the such stupidity as truth, after the “Japs” bombed Pearl Harbor, the “Japs” you don’t know anything about except that they look different, speak different and write different—after all this, it’s not that difficult to believe that they might as well think different, that they’re just wild people still practising ancient ceremonies, dressing and acting as if they lived in the middle ages and consider nothing else an honor but to die for the God Emperor. And when i thought about it more: even nowadays we have this same thing. Providing people information your way to build prejudice and hate in them–very hard to protect yourself against, especially if unexpected. And the so-called everyday citizen, whose life more or less consists only of waking up, going to work and going to sleep, without any real interest for anything, believing almost whatever the media claims, would still believe such stuff without doubt. And that’s scary.

New music

April 12, 2009
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Last.fm is good not only for making you realise what are your real favourites but also to find new stuff. For example while browsing around suggested artists i found a couple of them really interesting. (Such as Vanden Plas, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree and so on–the problem with these is that they have no material online on the site so i have no idea what music do they actually play. I’m sure it’s not bad, but…) There was one, Pineapple Thief, officially categorized as “progressive indie” that really caught me. They have their whole Tightly Unwound album online, free to listen, and that’s indeed what i’ve been doing whenever i’ve been “at home” in the past days (which wasn’t that much). It’s a mixture of progressive and indie elements, and i haven’t heard anything similar before. Give it a try, i really like it (for now, but how long this relationship lasts we shall see).