Hit Me With Some Knowledge, Yo!

J got himself a new phone and for a thousand yen a month (less than ten bucks) he gets to use all the internet he wants. the new cell phones in Japan are amazing. Docomo just came out with one that has a bunch of games that you can play on it Wii style. and Softbank has a new Aquos (a super expensive plasma TV screen company) phone. and when you look at the internet on these things, it's just like looking at a for real tiny computer screen. it's cool. so anyways, J looks up all this info on the net and tells me about it every nite. he did a big research on religious cults and we got into a discussion about different sects and practices. he was telling me all about the Children of God cult that Joaquin Phoenix and his whole family used to be a part of and apparently they can have sex with minors? and then J was telling me about Scientology and how it's not just for crazy celebrities but they have booths set up in malls and stuff they don't say they're Scientology booths but you go in there and it screens your stress levels and stuff and then records it. apparently they have miles and miles of underground computers like in Ohio and Area 51 that stores all this info about people, especially those crazy enough to join. creepy, hun? But we were trying to figure out if there are any FORMER celebrity scientologists. they seem to get sucked in but they never come out? it's like an abyss of insanity! if you know of any, please please please let me know as he and i are itching to find out.

In other knowledge news, i decided to take a day out to increase my cultural knowledge. 2 art exhibitions that i really wanted to see are closing on the 1st of July so today was my only chance to see them. i first went out to Meguro to see Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco. The pieces were on loan from the Honolulu Academy of Arts and it was all stuff from 1900 - 1930s Japan. It was such an interesting mixture of Western and Eastern art. many pieces were wood block prints and the areas where the paper was raised and pushed down gave the work a lot of depth that was really interesting to see. most of the depictions were women but there were a few with men and a couple with kids. there was one particularly inertesting woodblock print of two schools girls sharing a book, one in western clothes and another wearing a kimono. It was held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum which used to house the imperial family. it was a beautiful home with sleepy little old docents in each corner. The home itself had a very much east meets west kind of look; even in the massive yard they had a Japanese garden with a koi pond and a tea house and a western garden laden with rose bushes and lawn chairs. How interesting it must have been to live back then! here are a couple pix of a postcard that i got from the museum shop:

here! you can read all about it!: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~nahl/students/Taisho%20Chic.htm


after the museum, i did a bit of shopping in meguro and found that i really like the area. i went out to Ebisu about a week ago to watch The Bridge and that was quite nice as well. i really like the area! and i had the tastiest hot sandwich at Kobeya which is a yummy bread shop near the station. after my brief rest, i went over to Hatsudai which is one stop from Shinjuku on the New Keio Line. There, at the Tokyo Opera City building, i went to see the Architecture of Terunobu Fujimori and ROJO. Apparently they had an exhibition in Venice which brought them some fame. This guy makes the coolest houses. and yes, they are fully functional. He makes treehouses for adults with a fire pit in them so they are known as "tea houses," making them conducive to performing Japanese tea ceremonies. He's a very environmentally conscious architect and he uses natural materials which haven't been processed and he often employs old school building techniques such as snug fitting wood beams that do not require any nails. he chars planks of wood on one side to create a black finish for some of his houses. They really are beautiful. it makes me want a treehouse for my office one day. check it out!


his stuff is really amazing. for more, check out http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/arc/e/10/04.html

Who says culture and edumacation ain't fun!

Birthday Week 2007!!

i love my birthday. i know it's probably childish but i do. birthday week is officially three days before your birthday, your birthday, plus the three days after. mine bled over a couple of days but hey, who's counting? the great thing about celebrating your birthday for an entire week is that it takes the pressure off of doing everything on that one day. i've been doing this for years. since birthday week hits every day of the week, those who can't play on a wednesday for example, will be able to meet for dinner on a sunday. so here's a recap of birthday week 2007 of my 29th year:

Sunday, june 10th: went to the Oregon bar and grill in shiodome with my nearest and dearest. it's a pricey steak joint but even ads found something he could eat. it was a pseudo-surprise (they wouldn't tell me where we were going but since we got on the yamanote and jules let it slip that we were 30 mins away, i deduced that we were heading towards the south of the yamanote loop which put us at shimbashi or shinagawa) which was nice. i was going to host a gyoza dinner but the girls said i wasn't allowed to cook on my birthday. they treated me to a super yummy dinner complete with dessert the view from the restaurant was amazing. here are a coule of pix.



Monday, June 11th: after an early lesson, and an online conference with my dad, i met jess and her man yutaka (who is absolutely lovely by the by) in odaiba to see the Ashes and Snow photographic exhibition. (check out http://www.ashesandsnow.org) i'd been looking forward to seeing this for quite some time. it was shown at the nomadic museum which is built out of cargo containers. it was expensive for a museum (1900 yen) and the "films" were kinda pretentious and fake-ish but the photographs were wonderful. i was really glad i saw it, if only because i don't think i will ever get a chance to see anything like it again.


after the show, we did a bit of shopping then we went back to jess and yutaka's where yutaka cooked us an awesome dinner. being a teppanyaki chef, he cooked us steak and grilled veggies and a wakame salad. yum! it was like going to a restaurant again! Aren't they so cute together?!


Tuesday, June 12th: since my morning class cancelled and i was already awake, i went down to the Bic Camera to deal with the bread machine. Having spoken with Cor before heading out i went armed with eberything i'd been told i needed and had cor on standby by his phone. the guy balked when he saw cor's full name written out in English with USA underneath and the quckly claimed that it was unnecessary to call him. AAARRRRGGHHHHHHH! after much discussion, i got the cash back and the points returned to his card and went shopping for my birthday present. i got some fridge magnets that i wanted, i had my hanko made, and i got myself a new toe ring! yeah!

a ding dong at the door was a delievery of flowers from the bf. a massive pink floral arrangement which displaced my goldfish from their regular bowl which i had to turn into a vase. they are currently chilling in a smaller facility. but look how pretty they are!


Wednesday, June 13th: my actual birthday! i spent all morning working hard on dad's website then met my japanese friend for lunch in shinjuku. i suggested going somewhere new like Tokyo Midtown or the new Marunouchi building and i was vetoed. my lunch suggestions got vetoed too and we ended up going to TGIFridays which is fine but then got a caloric breakdown of everything. plus i didn't even get to order what i wanted because my friend wanted to share and she doesn't like chicken. who's fucking birthday is it anyways? she's recently lost a bit of weight due to financial restrictions (eg. she's not eating out so much anymore) and now she's intent on ruining any food outings she might be on with friends. yuck. the WORST part was, NO CAKE!!! WTF?! this was the first birthday in several years where i've not had cake on the actual day. what a bummer.

came home more than a little disgruntled and went back to working on dad's website. had leftovers for dinner and then ads came over with some more birthday flowers. we got to catch up for a bit which was fun.

the rest of birthday week was pretty much all work and a bit of shopping. had jess and shelly over for dinner on friday nite which was fun. i made thai grilled chicken and boursin mashed potatoes AND i got to have my birthday cake. yes, i bought it myself and yes, i even asked for a candle. i know, i know, lame! but i felt like i was cheated out of it on my actual birthday.

on sunday, J, jess, and i taught 40 boyscouts who are going to England next month. the language i'd prepared was way too easy for them (i was surprised at how good they were!). they've asked us back to teach again next month before they go again so next time i will have to make it more challenging for them. hmm must brainstorm . . . .

later that nite we had a gyoza/snacky food dinner at the house. i made 2 kinds of gyoza and a chicken feta tomato thing that went on pieces of garlic rounds as well as tomato avocado bruchetta and a smoked salmon tartare. i even made my own sangria! surprisingly easy to make and very tasty as well. for dessert we had more cake! a good group of people came and we ate and drank and chatted long into the nite. fun fun fun.

unfortunately Alisa couldn't make it on sunday so she wanted to have dinner on Monday nite. so last nite me and jules meet up with her at this great thai place on the east side of ike. the food was super good and i will have to try the thai beef salad the next time i'm there! we sat and drank wine and talked well after we'd finished eating but i was so wrecked from having stayed up past 3 am for the past week that after dinner i'd planned to go home. well, a bunch of the former work peeps were standing around at the station having eki beers and we stopped to stay hi. well, "just one" turned into 2 which turned into 3 and since my food had long since made it's way down my GI tract, i was basically drinking on an empty stomach which means i got super fucked up super fast. soon was wearing construction workers' hard hats and making drunken phone calls. bad bad bad. but to make things worse, i got up 5 times in the nite to puke up. i even had to drink water that i knew wasn't going to stay down just so the bile could come up easier. a horrible end to what was such a good (for the most part) birthday week.

The Birthday Loot: so besides flowers and buying myself stuff with the bf's money, what else did i get? let's see . . . . i got lots of stuff for my feet which is awesome cuz that's my favoritest part of my body! foot scrub and foot cream and cushy slippers with toe dividers. i also got a starbucks coffee card and some rose scented linen spray and a classic tin Totoro toy and soaps and banana flavored curious george toothpaste and heaps of really nice hand cream (to keep away the "man hands"). it's been great! i'm really lucky.

and although this is the last year of my 20's, i'm not dreading finishing them so much anymore. sure, my scars don't fade as easily anymore and my ass is gonna be drooping (if it's not already) but that's ok, i have a solid sense of what's important right now. and even though my birthday is now long over, i hope to still dream of cake for the next 365 days.