Hakkyou - 発狂

Hey, I’m vaguely getting a hang of the whole “drawing lines” thing

Aku — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:07:52 +0000

Maybe that anatomy book can finally come in handy soon.

I just found out how the chinese say “Panda”

Aku — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 07:42:00 +0000

They literally say “bear-cat”.

Take a bear and make it more similar to a cat and you have the cutest bear in the world.

Good word there.

Meanwhile in Sweden

Aku — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 14:04:10 +0000

Today I have been contacted by TWO friends back in Sweden, both at approximately the same time (one of them called whilst I was chatting with the other in another room, so I missed his call. I guess that was kinda good for him, what with the outrageous international call charges.)

Both of them, in some fashion, asking if I wanted to hang out.

“Sorry, kind of in the wrong country.” :’D

Kinda funny.

Next time, Tysken.
Next time.

Mountain Dew. In Vending Machines.

Aku — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:57:09 +0000

They have Mountain Dew here. In vending machines.

110 Yen for a 500ml Mountain Dew.
In Sweden, that’s less than you pay for 33cl of Any Soft Drink That Isn’t Mountain Dew.

Winning at crane games

Aku — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:54:27 +0000

You know those crane games they have in arcades? In Japan they’re almost all of the brand “UFO Catcher”.
I won at those today. Twice.

Spent 200 yen and won some really cheap digital camera on the first try.
Then I found one with K-On figurines (more specifically Azusa) and after 500 yen spent (one try costs 200 yen, three tries cost 500 yen) an employee came up to adjust the figure (moving it closer to the edge of the stick it was hanging from, as well as straightening it out) to make it easier to win.
When I thanked him in Japanese, he happily concluded that I understand a bit of Japanese.

And then he told me how to win.
I tossed in 500 more yen and won on on the third try that gave me.
Figure is worth 1100 yen (excl. shipping etc.) so I say I just saved money.

And I won at one of those crane games you aren’t supposed to win at. Hell yeah.

Then he congratulated me, gave me a plastic bag and said the he hoped I would create nice memories in Akiba.

Did I mention how awesomely nice the Japanese are?

Sorry about that, giant space monster invasion etc.

Aku — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:49:21 +0000

Yeah, this whole “one post a day” travel blog thing clearly isn’t working out.
There are too many giant space monster invasions to fight off (see, the JSDF needed to charge its Godzilla with gaijin power to fight them off, which meant that I had to go around doing otaku tourist stuff this whole last week) and it’s keeping me much too distracted for me to properly summarize my daily doings in this blog.

So I’ll just go for randomly posting interesting observations and/or events and/or places I run across at a seemingly random interval.

A month in Japan – Day 2

Aku — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:34:16 +0000

Yup, I’ve been lazing around almost all day. Now I’m more rested though. Talked a bit more with the lovely people in the house, made a hort trek to a nearby “New drug store!” to pick up some shower gel, dropped by 7-eleven to withdraw some money (they have ATMs that take international cards there) and buy some food for the day, ate curry-flavored cup noodles, saw Van Helsing, went to a nearby supermarket (mostly to look up prospective future lunches and dinners) and then, kinda saw the second half of Van Helsing again (the guy who was originally watching it had to leave the first time, but I stayed to watch the rest since I was eating anyway, this time he was finishing it up), ate some kind of chicken (with the same kind of topping as yakitori, tasted great) and pasta, and then just lazed around more, talking with people etc.

Tomorrow I’m getting myself a suica (marvelous little things, those) and checking out Akiba.

Tidbits from the day:
* The Bentou (boxed lunch) sold at supermarkets are made and packaged in the store, every other minute an employee says “Excuse me!” and runs over to the section with Bentou to place a freshly made one there. It’s cool. They all look tasty, so I’m gonna have to try around a little.

* They also have large amounts of fish-food. To contrast this however, the tiny amount of beef they have is pretty cheaply priced.

*7-Eleven carries writable Blu-ray discs. Oh yeahhhh.

*There are at least two Otaku in the house, one of them is Japanese. And female. The internet was just proven wrong, again.

*I’m getting some Japanese-talking in too. Good, fun and rewarding. It’s everything the Swedish school system wishes it was! ;D
(It seems everyone expects me to only know very basic phrases and are surprised when I actually compose some more advanced sentences. Kinda funny, in a way.)

A month in Japan – Day 1

Aku — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:32:38 +0000

Long, hot, flight. Couldn’t sleep a second on the plane. Am massively jet-lagged.
Oh and it took me something like two hours to get from the airport to the station where I met Yui (Borderless House employee) and another tenant who was moving in as well (he’s been here before though.)

Lots of nice and fun people in the house, plenty of Japanese-speaking to be had. And plenty of English (A brit, an Irishman, and a couple of other people of various korean and japanese descent are the ones I’ve spent some time with thus far. It’s pretty fun trying to get Ayumi, with her limited knowledge of English, to understand what you’re trying to say.)

And then I went to lie down a little and fell asleep instantly, waking up only 5 hours later. Unfortuntely it’s pretty much midnight, so I’ll have to get working on sleeping again.

Probably going to be out of commission tomorrow as well, then I should be rested enough that I can start exploring.

Mii sought in Hit and Run

Aku — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:18:16 +0000

Original article: Have You Seen This Mii?: Mii Sought in Hit and Run

Much like the Mario article did yesterday, this made my day.

Mario Explains Relationships for Us

Aku — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:02:35 +0000

Mario Explains Relationships for Us

This is just pure awesome :D