The Art of Toilets?

BBC had an article recently about the Japanese art of... toilets. Yes that's right, toilets. These things are totally crazy... the one in the story linked weighs in at a purported $3,000USD! And this would be above and beyond the cost for the toilet itself- that's $3,000 for the seat alone.

I don't know exactly which one makes it cost that much, but some of the crazy functions for this thing include:

• sensors that raise the lid when you approach the toilet, including a sensor that lifts the seat if you stand in front for guys
• glow in the dark seat
• heated seat
• built-in bidet
• speakers that play classical music
• a special tank that cuts down on water usage
• monitor to measure body/fat ratio

My favorite quote from the article?

A poem recently published by a stressed-out salary man captured their comforting appeal with haiku-like brevity. "The only warmth in my life is the toilet seat," he mourned.

The caveat to this of course is that making these thrones a reality in your own house back home is difficult, given the needs for extra plumbing and electrical outlets that most American bathrooms are not equipped with. Sigh.

Yes we can!... in Japan

As much as I'm sure I missed out on most of the excitement of the election process, what with being halfway across the world and all, what you may not be thinking about if you're in the US is how much buzz was and is going on about the election abroad. Besides being historic in nature, I think Obama has a good chance of raising the hurting image of the US in other parts of the world - check out this for what I'm talking about.

As such, this is one election that the whole world was interested in - if the rest of the world could vote in US elections then the vote would've been even more lopsided than it was. Japan is no exception to this rule either, and Obama is quite popular even if he isn't President yet.

First there was the town called Obama in Fukui Prefecture (福井県小浜市), and now there's this guy Nocchi. Nocchi is a "comedian" (a very loose translation for what Japan refers to as "tarento") who is currently making a living by going around impersonation Obama, which basically involved him getting a haircut, wearing a suit and saying "Yes we can" over 10,000 times. He even went as far as to go to the US to try and garner recognition as a look-a-like in Chicago, earning him a spot in the Tribune believe it or not. He actually got Obama's barber to cut his hair and got to shake Obama's hand after a speech. Personally I don't see him lasting much longer than the long list of one-shot, one-line wonders that pop up periodically out here, but I guess he's gonna ride the gravy train as long as he can. He's definitely better than the last one-shot wonder in recent memory, but falls way short of the best of them.

Here's some more video of the Obama guy if you're interested.

Shinkansen? Psshaw.

Well, they've been talking about it for a while now, and it looks like they're finally making some headway on talks of installing a maglev train in Japan. What's a maglev you say? Well it's basically a cross between the Shinkansen and Marty McFly's hoverboard, and it's got a top speed of something ridiculous like 581km/h (361mph) - according to the link "imagine a commercial jet aircraft flying past at full throttle at ground level."

Now my feelings on this are rather mixed... the inner nerd in me thinks it's a cool idea and would love them to push the technology forward to the point of commercial viability. The technology has been around since the 1960's, and it's about time someone's making it work right. Currently the only working specimen of this that I know of is the maglev in Shangai servicing the airport, which from what I hear is a total waste of space and is actually slower than normal travel due to the poor planning associated - a white elephant of the highest degree. There are no really nationwide-scale applications of the technology anywhere... the why comes next.

The pragmatist in me, however, knows that the reason the technology hasn't really seen widespread use is because it's frickin expensive: the Japan project tops off at a sombering 28,530,743,199 Doll hairs... in Zimbabwe. Ok, it's 5 trillion yen ($50 billion USD), but that's still a lot. And this is just to connect Tokyo and Nagoya, which means it's still got a long way to replace the Shink in practicality. It will eventually go at least to Osaka, which is a big step up.

And the payoff really isn't all that much - the Shink will get you to Nagoya in 100 minutes or so, while Osaka takes a little over 2 hours. In contrast, a plane ride from Tokyo to Osaka would take you about an hour, which is roughly how long the maglev would probably take. Ok, so maybe it would be nice to cut down on the flights in the whole gas-guzzling, carbon footprint clean technology sense, but it would probably still be quite a bit more expensive than a plane ride unless they totally redo the pricing schemes and cut Shink prices.

And the Shink has been around since the 70's... ok, so maybe by 2025 it would be nice to start waving in the next big thing. It's no flying car or hoverboard, but I guess it'll just have to do.

Halloween 2008

Well, another Halloween is in the bag. After the craziness that went on last year on the train, the police beefed up security to keep partiers from going crazy and breaking stuff while getting naked again. Seriously, I don't see the problem with having a party on the train if it's only once a year and isn't during rush hour or something, but some people definitely overextended their welcome last year and it apparently pissed a bunch of people off to the point where they may have ruined it for everyone for at least a couple years.

I am unfortunately camera-less at the moment, so it may take a little bit for pictures to make their way back to me this time - patience is a virtue, and I fully expect that this one will be worth the wait. :P

In the meantime, if you're wondering what the ad in the post is all about you can enjoy the lovely stylings of the latest and greatest Tokyo Metro ads here. I love those things.

Japanese Tug-of-War

Tis a slow day... sigh. Anyway, apparently this is how Japanese people play tug-of-war. Enjoy!

Little red horsies

Hey, look what showed up at work 2 days ago! Forgive the quality of the photos as they were taken with the camera phone.

Also, the other day I was pretty close to buying a '95 Skyline GT-R, but we decided against it because of a nice puddle of oil dripping from the engine. I will have one soon enough though.

Ridiculous rates!

OMG, seriously has anyone been keeping track of the exchange rates lately? My job has me looking at them frequently lately, so I'm probably more up to date than most, but I'm sure you all realize the turmoil the stock market and financial districts across the country, as well as the world for that matter are doing. The UK, Ireland, and other countries around Europe have been pulling similar "socialist" acts as the US bank bailout, but all attempts to save the sinking ship that is the world economy seem like a bucket brigade for a 5-alarm fire. I've recently found that I have one friend who lost their job as a direct result of this, with very little warning and no severance of any kind.

I personally don't really think the bailout was that good of an idea and wouldn't mind those to blame for the whole deal to writhe in the filth of their own makings (e.g.: the people who loaned beyond their means and the banks that goaded them into it), but that's easy to say from way over here on the other side of the world. From here though, it didn't look like the bailout was very popular on that side of the pond either, signaled by the fact that it took 2 times for it to pass. My favorite report on the whole thing came from our friend Jon Stewart over at the Daily Show, with a series he calls "Clusterf#@k to the Poor House":

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Anyway, over here we have an entirely different problem - the Japanese Yen is probably the only currency in the world that wasn't hit hard by the bank fallout, probably since Japanese banks went through a similar crisis about 7 years ago and are already on the way out of the whole mess. While currencies around the world are dropping like a tactical nuke on Iraq, Japan's Yen remains the financially robust stalwart that is weathering the storm - the beacon from the lighthouse shining over these rocky financial times if you will. The problem is not only that the US Dollar, Euro and all currencies tied to them are falling around the world including the British Pound, Canadian Dollars, NZ Dollars and Australian Dollars which I've been watching, but also that many people around the world are buying Yen because of the security they provide, which drive the price even higher. What do you get then? Well you get 93.9yen to the USD when the rates were at 107 just a month ago, or 127yen to the Euro which was at 160, or 150yen to the Pound which was at 200. That is a full 33% increase on the value of the Yen related to the Pound, meaning that if for example you wanted to buy something from Japan that costs 2million yen you will now have to pay 13,333Pounds instead of the 10,000 price of a month ago.

In short this means that I as an exporter currently have a large uphill battle in front of me and am pretty much forced to weather the storm. Shit. Worldwide recession? I think it's a possibility.

Now of course the flip side of this is that it would be a great time to send money home... if I had any to spare. Damn moving fees.

Doug picks

I would like to take this time out of my recently busy schedule to give you guys a few choice selections from the recent Doug recipe book - I am of course speaking of the drink menu as I have been stocking up the bar as of late. Besides the fact that I have a counter just screaming to be bar space, the idea is that a finely mixed drink should be easier on the gut than beer... let's hope it works.

Anyway here's two of my recent drinks of choice:

Caipirinha
Ingredients:
lime - 1 full
sugar - 2 tablespoons
pinga - 1 or 2 shots (depending on how frisky you feel)

This one is the national drink of Brazil introduced to me by - you guessed it - the capoeira crowd. It's both refreshing and packs a punch, and is highly recommended if you can find yourself some pinga, which is basically Brazilian rum. This is not to be confused with penga, which means something entirely different in Spanish/Portuguese... if you put a penga in your drinks then you've had too many and will never ever ever be making me a drink. Ever. So, a common brand of pinga is Cachaca, but in this case common may be a relative term. If you can't find you some pinga there are rum and vodka variations, but it's not quite the same. I was also recommended to use cane sugar if possible since it dissolves easier and more resembles the sugar used in Brazil.

So to make it, you first slice off the ends of the lime and cut the rest into 4 or eight pieces, then place into a glass or mixer. Slap the sugar on top, then mash with a big spoon or whatever blunt object you have handy to make a sweet and sour concoction... I find that a wooden dough roller I have works best. Pour the pinga in on top, fill the rest of the glass with ice and mix. If you made it properly it'll be more sour than sweet - delish.

Surfer on Acid
Ingredients:
Jaegermeister
Malibu Coconut Rum
Pineapple juice
...all in equal amounts.

I forget where I learned about this one, but I tried it once and loved it - don't worry about how nasty it sounds, it's actually pretty sweet and really good. Technically it's supposed to be a shot, but I usually just expand the doses and make a drink out of it. How could you not want to try a drink called "Surfer on Acid" at least once???

Usually about a double shot of all three ingredients in the mixer with a bunch of ice does it for me... shake and pour, clickity clack.

Some other things I've messed with that are tolerable are Tequila Sunrise with pineapple juice in place of orange juice - I call it Tequila Before Sunrise - and I'm currently trying what is apparently known as a "Jaeger Orange", which is basically a glass of good 'ole OJ with a shot of Jaeger poured over top. Not half bad I guess.

2 interesting Maryland statistics

Yep, just learned two:

1) We are the most educated state in the Union, woot!! 13.65 years of education is the average for adults, yeah baby. In your face Minnesota!! ;P Hmm, I wonder if they count me as 16 or 16.5 years considering I took 4.5 years to get a 4-year degree, not including time spent abroad.

2) Starbucks:Wal*Mart ratio - 3.8. Now this one I'm not sure what to make of. On the one hand I don't really like Wal*Mart, so less of them can be seen as a rather good thing. Simply walking into the Wal*Mart in Germantown gives me the creeps now, and I don't exactly appreciate the smell I was greeted by last time I found myself there.

On the other hand, I don't really drink coffee or caffienated drinks in general for that matter very much, so Starbucks doesn't really do it that much for me either. I guess if I had to choose between the two I would take the smell of Starbucks coffee and products over the average Wal*Mart, and I would say that I'm probably at least 3.8 times as likely to step foot inside a Starbucks as I am a Wal*Mart.

On the 3rd hand (???), I've heard that they both have rather interesting business strategies... Wal*Mart has revolutionized the business of inventory and delivery as well as subsequently changing the face of the retail world as a whole, and is king of "streamlining" their business... sometimes at the expense of their employees, and often to the benefit of Chinese businesses/factories. Starbucks supposedly has an interesting management program and is supposed to have quite a high satisfaction level for employees... if you believe my hippie friend Jeff who (used to?) work there (hi Jeff!).

And finally on the 4th hand, they are both big corporations and thus I hate them both, because I'm white and this is apparently what I am supposed to do.

If you would like to know my new fountain of useless statistical wonderment, you can follow this magical link... oh yeah, and they're pretty sure they know who's going to be President come January as well.

McCain for Lizard King

Ok, I haven't seen the latest Presidential debate or even read anything about it yet as I just got home, but the first thing I saw about it was this! Mike, I hope you got those Photochopping skills ready, because this gem of a beut is just screaming "Somebody play with me!" LOL

Original found here.

Modern Pirates

For those of you not in the know, there is a slowly burgeoning faction of modern piracy, and I'm not talking about mp3s or downloaded media. No, I'm talking "Yarr harr, yo ho!", good 'ol 18th century buccaneering on the open seas Blackbeard stuff, although this time around instead of the Carribean, Somalia and the Red Sea are becoming the central focal point. This is much due to the fact that Somalia has pretty much been without a central government for the last few years and thus doesn't regulate its seas like all the goody-good countries do.

Anyway, I ran across an article on the Scurvy Dog phenomenon on a blog I check out every so now and then and thought I'd share. It appears that this guy thinks that things are really starting to pick up and people are starting to rekindle the old pirate society trends of yore. I for one am all for it, as long as it doesn't directly affect me in any way, shape or form. Go pirates!

Here's an excerpt and the full article:

These similarities have led to something closer to a modern pirate society, which in turn has led social institutions to emerge in modern pirate crews. For instance, Somali pirate crews have adopted a system for dividing booty similar to that of Blackbeard and his contemporaries. They’ve also adopted a system of social insurance as their predecessors did.

And finally,

YYYYAAAARRRRR!!!!!!

New clothes

Totally random thought, but I was just thinking of how great it feels when you put on new clothes. They're all nice and fluffy and stuff usually, just how the designer envisioned them. Shirts are the best, but pants are good for this too. Due to the fact that I apparently have shorter legs than the average designer expects I wind up cutting jeans - try and find any pair of jeans/pants/etc. with a length of less than 30" and you will usually find a waist size of ridiculous proportions, such as 26" or 28" or so. Being as I am not a Barbie or Ken doll and have bone mass along to go with a tad of recently collected meat, this is rather unrealistic... hell, that was unrealistic even back when I was in middle school.

Anyway the point is that freshly cut jeans are the shit, and they, along with just about every other fabric of clothing start to loose their fluffiness with time. Maybe it's the detergent I use or something, who knows. Lately I've been tossing some downy in with the load, and I just picked up some of that Fabreeze spray stuff too.

Long story short, I like that new clothes feel and am desperate to maintain it so I am not forced to constantly buy more.

Trash blows

Hey all,

In case you hadn't noticed by the posting time, my schedule is right back to it's pre-Japan levels now that I live 5 mins. from work and don't really have to show til like 10 or so... loving this place!

So just got paid for the first time in what feels like a good long while... after the move and splurging on a trip to Vietnam coupled with a month off work my savings were definitely hurting, but now things look to be back on track.

Now here it is 1:30am and I'm stuffing trash into these little yellow bags to stuff on the curb... stupid. I thought I'd mentioned trash in this country before, but it's totally frickin ridiculous. When you move into a new place, they give you a trash schedule, and you'd have to see this thing to believe it. Take this place for example: Mondays and Thursdays are your standard combustable garbage.

Which day is recyclables you ask? Well that would depend... if you mean newspapers and magazines then that's on Wednesdays, but then of course glass bottles are on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month, alternating with cans which are on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday. Oh and don't throw your plastic bottles out with the glass ones - those get tossed with metals on the 1st and 3rd Fridays. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I'm actually sorta pissed right now though, because last time I was all happy to put stuff out after checking the schedule to make sure I was getting the right day and all. Then after work I come home and find the trash still right where I left it with a big gash through the side of it! I do what any man would do when something is broken - read the manual for the first time ever - and find that oooh, you have to throw your trash out in their special frickin yellow and pink bags or else "they don't know what to do with it." What the hell is that? I mean it's not rocket science here, you take a bag and throw it in a truck, easy-peasy Japanesey (and I can say that). I refuse to believe that they are that moronic that they can't figure out what to do with a bag because of it's (lack of) color - just look at the stupidly complicated schedule that you guys came up with, and if it's bottle day *and you have bottles*, regardless of what bag they're in you throw them in with the other bottles. Same with trash. Simple.

You know I love this place, but sometimes it can be frustrating dealing with people that follow the rules to the letter without giving a second thought to what the rules actually mean and why they might have been put in place... and sometimes more importantly, when you can bend the rules and still get the same damn results.

I also remember the subject of trash separation coming up with a Japanese friend - he was shocked when he visited the states and found that we only separate into trash and "recylables", and concluded that Americans were not capable of dealing with the Japanese system if it were proposed in the US. I agreed that it would never work, but of course told him that it's not that we're not capable, it's just that separating to that extent is far too annoying and ridiculous for any sane person to agree it's worth while. That's what we hire trash guys for, right? Why don't they just do their frickin jobs? Sheesh.

A simple observation

Here I'm starting my new job in like 9 or so hours, and I'm still up pecking away at a keyboard... sigh.

So walking around and stopping by the local equivalent of a Japanese Wal*Mart today, I noticed that there are an assload of kids and families living in my newly adopted environs. This made me think 2 things:

1) Lots of families implies that I've picked a nice place to live. I could care less about the schools in the area, but this means that the area affords me good access to daily amenities and stores - 24-hr. supermarkets and most of the things I need are really close - and pretty quiet, peaceful surroundings with plenty of wide open spaces and green stuff around (no, not that green stuff) are most definitely appreciated. It's hard to find good parks like this if you're downtown!

2) What happened to all that talk about Japan's rapidly aging society and all the problems associated with it? Meh, whatev.

Getting your license in Japan

Okay, now it's time to get down to business: getting a license in Japan. I'm sure it sounds fun enough - not quite as good as some Jello pudding pops, but at least as much fun as the MVA/DMV back home, right? Ohhh, if you thought that was a pain then you don't know the half of it, mhaw, mhaw.

See now for some of the luckier amongst the foreigners here in Japan, getting your Japanese license can be a total breeze. If you just plan on being here for one year or less, then you can get by just picking up one of those international driver's permits at AAA for like $15 like I did at first. Only problem is, that only lasts a year. If you want to drive more than a year, you need a real license, and that's where it can get fun.

For the uninitiated, getting a license in the US is about as hard as beating my mom in a game of Super Mario Kart (and I'm pretty sure she's never even heard of Super Mario Kart). They should pass them out free with Slurpees at 7-11 or something. Getting a license in Japan on the other hand can be an actual achievement... depending on where you're from.

Remember driving classes back in high school? Well Japanese kids who spend their whole lives in Japan get to go to driving school to get their license, which takes months and costs around 300,000 yen... that's $3,000USD. They're guaranteed to get their license at the end of all of it, but I hear there's a 200-question exam at the end and you have to get a 95% or above, then take the driving exam. No cake walk, and takes a chunk of your savings.

Foreigners who have a license from home can just get it transferred though and skip the course. Simple, right? Wait, there's more...

So I’ll walk you through the process using my own experience. First, you have to get your license translated… but you’re not allowed to do it yourself, even if you’ve been translating stuff officially for about 2 years. No no, you have to go to JAF, which is the Japanese equivalent of AAA, and have them translate it for 3000 yen. What a scam. Oh, and of course this office isn’t in an exactly convenient location as there are only really 2 in the Tokyo area apparently… took me a good chunk of time too (at least 2-3 hours round trip).

Ok, so now that you have your translation, you have to take it along with your foreign license, your passport, and foreign registration card to the Japanese MVA. Now here it gets a bit goofy – they check your passport to see how long you had your license in your home country before coming to Japan. If you renewed your license within 3 months of leaving your country then they won’t even give you a license without an official driving record from back home… within a year and it’s the same deal or else they try to class you as a new driver and make you stick one of these spiffy “I’m a noob” stickers on any car you drive for a year. Shyeah, that’s gonna happen. When I talked to them, they seemed totally oblivious to the fact that when you renew a license they don't let you keep the old one and just expect you to carry it around with you.

Now at this point the next step depends on what country you’re from: if you’re lucky and you’re from a handful of countries including England, Germany, Canada (!!) and others, then you just pay them like 2100 yen or so and go pick up your license. If you are from the US, however, they group you in with the countries like Vietnam where people can’t drive and make you run the skills test gauntlet. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to argue that an American license is worth any more than just over the cost of laminating it, but how the hell did Canada get an exemption!!?? This is probably one of those things best not thought about too long unless you’d like to pop a vein in your forehead and die of an aneurysm, like how Celine Dion has somehow accumulated 5 Grammys over her lifetime.

So anyway, skills test. The place I went had whack hours for the tests… 8:30-11:00am and 1:00-3:00pm, no weekends or holidays for the initial step and Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:40am by appointment for the driving portion. The initial step is simple – eye test and a 10-question computer test with such mind-benders as “can you drive after drinking?” (Answer: No, unless you’re Chuck Norris) If you fail that then you either don’t understand English (yes, the test is even in English), or you don’t even deserve an American license. Oh, and even if you breeze through this, they've scheduled things to guarantee that you cannot get everything accomplished in one day.

Ok, so next it's time for the driving test. This test really isn’t that hard, but what it is is excessively anally nit-picky. They'll fail you for things like not being as far left as you could have been before making a left turn, not signaling exactly 30 meters before changing lanes and stopping on the line for a stop sign/signal instead of behind it. For this reason and this reason alone, most everyone fails on their first time excepting those that take lessons, and a lot of people take many, many more times, which sucks since you have to pay the registration fee of 2100 yen every time you take the test and wait until the next available testing date. I met a guy from Nepal (closer to Vietnam than the US on the driving scale) that said he was on his 7^th time. My girlfriend who lived out in CA for a while said she failed her first 2 times and got scared by the instructor laying into her the second time, then passed the 3^rd time after waiting like a year and taking a few brush-up courses for 20,000 yen or so. I myself got it on the 2^nd try – 1^st time hit a curb on their super-narrow S-section (nerves I guess), and passed the 2^nd time.

So it took me 4 days spread over two weeks and about 9000 yen, but now I have my license again! Plenty of Japanese people that live abroad, even if just for a few months, will get their license abroad and get it transferred like my girlfriend did, just because of how much cheaper it is… 300,000 yen?!?!?? Compared to that, 20-30,000 yen is nothing. Wow, just wow.

So here’s the finished product – I’ll be writing a guide to the process and driving test in particular as a project for work for those interested, just give me a week or two to get everything together.

What the hell is up with the economy?

Could somebody please tell me??

I leave the country for a week, then hear that a whole bunch of big ass banks are out of commission or on the ropes... Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, the US government bails out AIG, Merrill Lynch bought out by Bank of America... what the hell?? Aren't these like frickin' huge names? Now I hear that of the 5 biggest investment firms in the US only 2 are left standing? Wow, we really suck.

This reminds me of the bubble crash in Japan in the 1990's... not quite as drastic (yet), but potentially disastrous if someone doesn't right the ship soon. I am sooo glad I get paid in yen and live halfway across the world right now... I have a feeling my money shall be staying away from the US, at least until things bottom out.

Speaking of which, any speculators wanna let me in on exactly when that'll be and what signs to look for? If not then I'll just assume that this is the end of the US as we know it and the terrorists have won. Pretty soon Iran, Saudi Arabia and Columbia are going to put all their oil funds together and buy out the US and rename it United Stackistan, the Confederacy of Oil Conglomerate Kingdoms (just because it has a nice abbreviation), then stick G.W. in a Saddam-like little cubby hole for a few weeks before having Dick Cheaney shoot him in the face, and hang Al Gore upside down by his wee-wee from a eucalyptus tree with a hemp rope and run around on camels screaming "I told you so!" in Arabic. Then Skeletor will rise up and take over control of the White House from the oil guys, of course renaming it Castle Greyskull. Dark, dark times abode for the US, and only He-Man can save us.

PS: yes I'm exaggerating, but that's only because it's fun. That is, it's fun when I do it, not when the news does it since they just make the problem worse by freaking people out.

Vietnam, in a macademian nut shell

Ok, back from Vietnam and all rested up! Time for a quick summary of my impressions of country #7. First off, my 6 days took us from a flight transfer in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to the beaches of Nha Trang, then up to Hanoi for a night and out to Halong Bay for a day before flying back to Narita. Pretty busy for just under a week, but unfortunately that's how vacations usually go out this way as time off in Japan is rather limited.

On the total opposite end of the spectrum, Vietnam is great if you'd like to forget about all concept of time and just relax. They're not too big on schedules out there from what I could see... or maybe that's just how the beaches work. In any case, a watch was definitely not needed or of much use in Nha Trang.

My top 3 impressions of Vietnam:

1. Nice people
2. Traffic in Hanoi
3. Crazy tropical fruit


Nice People

At first I was rather sceptical, as the big scam in Vietnam with expensive taxi rides from the airport that take you to their over-priced hotels was my first impression. Now while I say expensive, I'm talking basically of a difference between normal at about $15 to expensive at maybe $25 or so for a 35km ride. In otherwords, expensive in Vietnam is still cheap, and once you get the hang of how things work you can get around the ripoffs.

As time went on and I got more used to things though, I found that the people were in general pretty nice, although knowing absolutely no Vietnamese and their spotty grasp of English meant that while they generally got the gist of things, details were definitely lost in conversations. In stark contrast to Japan, however, while most can't speak English everyone tries, even if it takes them beyond their abilities.

Probably the best example was on the way back to the airport. We made a stop at the hotel we stayed at in Hanoi the night before to pick up luggage and take a shower - the plan was to grab some Pho before hitching a taxi to the airport. We asked the guy at the hotel front desk about a good place for some quick noodles... he nods, then gets up and goes in the back. I thought he'd come back with a map, but instead he brings a case of beer and proceeds to start loading the fridge! We didn't have time so I went to look for the other guy manning shop, who was helping someone out on the internet. Then the first guy comes back and says he's going to take us to a Pho place, but as it was sorta far we'd have to hop on the back of his bike. I've never actually had hotel staff escort me to a restaurant before, and this meant that we got to ride through town in the transportation of choice, a scooter. Not only did he take us to a nice place which made for a lovely last evening in Vietnam and fit perfectly into our schedule, but it also leads into the next point of...

Traffic in Hanoi

Amazing... simply amazing. This is one of those things you really just have to see for yourself to believe. By luck of the draw we spent our one night in Hanoi during the Moon Festival - think of it sort of like Vietnamese Thanksgiving and Halloween all rolled into one - which meant that the normal craziness of Vietnamese traffic was compounded by a factor of like 5 or so. The roads are packed with motorbikes and seemingly have no order to them whatsoever, and yet no one seems to drive any faster than about 40kph or so and I didn't see one crash. You get people riding on both sides of the road and weaving all over the place, with pedestrians crossing pretty much anywhere, and yet it all works. With the traffic and watching them shoot off lanterns into the sky for the Moon Festival, we sat at this one interesection for a good 1-2 hours, just watching.

Crazy Tropical Fruit

Ok, so there is fruit in this world that unless you've been around SE Asia you probably have never heard of in your life. I had this one thing called a dragon fruit, there were these others called mangosteens, some spiky-looking lychee things called rhambutans, and some wierd grape-like things with a shell on them. We had fruit pretty much with every meal as it was cheap and excellent.

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See, now I would provide you with pictures of all this, but unfortunately I lost my brand new camera on the last day, dropped in the sea in Halong Bay. I think I miss the 300 or so pictures I took even more than the $300 or so that I lost on the camera... cameras can be replaced.

Other than that I would say it was one of the most enjoyable trips I've had, despite having a cold for most of it.

Good Morning, Vietnam!!

Ok, finally sealed the deal on my Vietnamese domestic transfer, which means that I will officially as of tomorrow night be on the beaches of Nha Trang, Vietnam!

I shall take this week to lick my wounds from failing my driving test today... not totally surprising since most everyone I know that brings a license from the US fails their first time out here. Once I get back I'll work on the "New Doug for 2008" series outlined previously, but as things are running tight here I need to get packing... right after I go pick up my tickets!

Quick note to anyone going to Vietnam: if you checked the prices of domestic flights online, know that those prices are only good WHEN YOU ARE IN VIETNAM. Also, you need at least a minimum of two days with which to procure said tickets, or else you wind up buying them through your local branch and paying the normal [insert your country here] prices. This means that if at all possible, you should stay in Hanoi/Hochiminh for 2 days and fly out on the 3rd to take advantage of this... if you can find 2 days worth of stuff to do in Hanoi/Hochiminh. My suggestion - do Hanoi and hit up Halong Bay or something.

Ok, back in a week with pics and stories!

Angola vs. Regional

In spite of being quite busy lately with various random tasks, including some annoying last minute details on my latest excursion (to Vietnam - this makes country #7!!), I did make time to get out to the Brazilian Festival going on this past weekend in my favorite park in Tokyo, Yoyogi! For anyone coming out to Tokyo, Yoyogi Park is a definite don't miss: all in one afternoon you can get your classical culture fix visiting Meiji Shrine, then get your modern culture fix in Harajuku whilst shopping and oogling random weird people and stuff. You see the most random of stuff on the bridge from Harajuku station to Meiji Shrine, including the famous cosplay girls, as well as all kinds of weird street performers. That, and you can find just about anything in the park, from the Fonzie-wannabe 50's dancers and drum circles to soccer and frisbee to... those weird guys that practice their choreographed sword fights under the trees, and the guys I saw with quite deliberately placed trash can lids and signs on their bodies as they were themselves sprawled across the lawn - whatever your interests it's a great way to spend an afternoon, especially in the summer when the weirdos are out in full effect.

So anyhoo, most every weekend in the summer has a different festival, and this weekend was the Brazilian Festival, with my capoeira group was doing a performance right off the bat on the first day. Of course I couldn't miss it, but just for cathartic disclosure I did sleep in and miss the first 10 minutes or so (shhhh!!!). After that there was a free roda (pronounced "ho-da". It’s easy to remember: just think “hoedown”, but way cooler. Heh, capoeira hoedown, yee-haw.) in which people from all around the country and a few in from abroad even played capoeira for a good 2-3 hours. That was one of the most interesting gatherings I've been to in a while!

One theme which reared its head a few times over the course of the day though was a slight bad vibe between the two main schools of capoeira: Angola and Regional. In general, Regional (pronounced "hey-joe-nal") is the newer style and probably the one that most people are familiar with. If you saw someone flipping around and stuff, more than likely it was Regional. They came up with a sort of belt system to mirror other martial arts... it's more about form and show than it is about really being effective as a fighting style though if you ask me, but then the flips and stuff are most definitely fun in their own right. Here's people having fun flipping around, spinning on their lips.

Angola on the other hand is the original capoeira, just as it has been since the slaves in Brazil developed it way back when. It tends to be slower and closer to the ground, which takes more strength and balance. It's much more closed so you don't leave yourself open to attacks as much, and while there's still a bunch of whole lot of inverted stuff going on, it doesn't have as much of that acrobatic element that is so definitive of Regional... Angolistas are also much more likely to take the opening and knock you back on your ass if you let them too. Here's a vid of Angola style.

I started out doing the former and am now practicing the latter, so I'm sort of in the middle and can't really see why the two wouldn't get along, but apparently some don't agree. When I talked to some Regional friends, they would say how they thought Angola was boring, which I can understand since it isn't as flashy (the basics are harder though if you ask me). If you listen to the people in my current Angola group, they sort of talked down at some of the Regional people, saying they were out of control and wild... to their credit, at least twice some Regional player fell into the berimbau while trying some move, which is a big no-no. Still, the mumbling behind backs and all sorta irked me. If you watch them play together you'll definitely notice a difference in styles, but at the same time you can tell they're just two different styles of the same sport.

In the end, the maestres (teachers) all get along and understand how to look at the big picture and keep the capoeira love going... I think when people get to that level they can appreciate each other's respective strengths and skills more. I just wish everyone saw it like that... it's just another in the series of artificial barriers that human nature seems to love to create for no other apparent reason than to make unnecessary friction. Why can’t we all just get along???

Reminds me of a famous Doug's lyrics:

"So why does there only have to be one correct philosophy?
I don't want to go and follow you just to end up like one of them.
And why are you always telling me what you want me to believe?
I'd like to think that I can go my own way and meet you in the end.
Go my own way and meet you in the end."

-Doug Robb, Hoobastank (a.k.a.: the Mountain Dew Band)

Doug is not dead!!

Ok, so technically no, but I have currently had no real internet access for the past week and a half, and won't get real access back for another 2 weeks yet still... and my phone gets shit for reception at the new place. This to me is basically like being dead to the world. I've currently brought my laptop into the (new) office long enough to catch up on mail and things.

When I get the chance, I'll be filling you guys in on what it's like to:
- apartment hunt in Tokyo (hint: nightmare)
- move in Japan (not as bad as apartment hunting, but frickin expensive!!)
- get a license in Japan (results will be in tomorrow on this one... work in progress)

I might be adding more to the list as I start actually writing as that tends to make you think of more. For now, I have completed my move to a place within Tokyo called Komae City, and from the latter half of the month shall be working with cars again - this time as an exporter at a friend's business... this guy has big dreams and bank accounts to match, so I'm hoping this will lead somewhere.

Until then...