Happy Halloween. It's a holidy not much celebrated in Japan outside of foriegners. However, I went to my host family's house. There were about 20 kids when I got there, and they loved the horse face, what can I say? After an awesome dinner, we went out trick or treating at about 10 houses in the neighborhood. My host mother Kinuko organized the whole thing. It was a great time, and I actually got to get some candy. I was going to hit up an adult halloween party afterwards, but I was out to 8am the previous evening so I was a little kicked. The horse face, well let me tell you. I picked that up in Osaka when I was there a few weeks ago. What is interesting was that for dinner, I ate some basashi, which is Kumamoto's local delicacy. It of couse, is uncooked horse meat dipped in soy sauce with ginger or wasabi. Very tasty, but a little difficult to get through the mouth of the horse mask...
The scariest pat of my costume, which you can't really see in the picture, is my Vancouver, Canada T-shirt. Now that is horrific. AHHH~!
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Al Jazeera Documentary
Tonight I just watched a pretty good Documentary called Control Room. Basically, it is a documentary about Al Jazeera's coverage of the first stages of the war in Iraq. It is really interesting because they do a great job of presenting both sides of the media's coverage and each side's bias. It is really interesting to hear some of the discussions between the extremely intelligent Al Jazeera reporters and the US Military's finely tuned media relations gurus. The thing that most struck me from the movie was the well-publicized removal of the Saddam statue in the square in Baghdad. Like many people I presume, I didn't know much about that other than the images I saw on TV, but according to the movie, it was likely all staged. Of course that statue was located in a media heavy area. No reporters at the scene recall any local people emerging from their houses to join the crowd. One Iraqi reporter said the people present at the statue's destruction weren't even Iraqis. Many people, including myself, might not have even realized that this event was put on just to further America's mission of liberation from a brutal dictator. If the Iraqis were this intense in removing a statue of Saddam, then US Troops would easily have their way in Iraq. We were there doing the right thing weren't we? A year and a half and thousands of lives later, Iraq is on the brink of civil war and there's no end in sight. The Al Jazeera home page is pretty good, it's a great alternative for people tuned in only to American or Western news sources. Usually their top stories are things that barely even make it onto CNN.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Game 7 Crew
Biscan, Ben and Ebel enjoy the fine October weather in the bleachers during Game 7 of the NLCS. I wanna see that cup empty, Biscan.
Through the looking glass
Here is Mr. So Taguchi celebrating in top of the dugout. It is exactly the opposite of the previous picture I posted, the screenshot from the NHK broadcast. He had just handed his champagne bottle to the grateful 9-year-old. (I have the footage to prove it)
Saturday, October 23, 2004
joe & taguchi
This image flickered on the screen after Game 7 of the Cards/Astros series. I am pretty sure that is my brother Joe, I'll need him to confirm of course. If it is you dogg, first congrats on being perhaps the first Fingerhut to be broadcast internationally, then I want to know that you were yelling some foul Japanese at Taguchi. Something like "Chimpo dashite kudasai!" Good job.
A Very Shaky Game 1
I was able to get the satellite dish you need to watch the premium sports channel here in Japan so I just finished watching Game 1. What a game. If every game in this series is like this, we are in for some fun. But I am sad now because that is the last one I will probably get to watch, they other games are on while I have to be at school.
You may have heard about the recent earthquakes over here. They happened up in northern Japan, very far from me. It's pretty sad because a lot of the areas hit by the quake are the same areas that got nailed by the biggest typhoon in 20 years last Wednesday. Japan can be a very dangerous place. Since the quake has happened, 1 TV channel has only been showing messages from people. They call the station and give the name of someone they are trying ot contact and they put the messages on repeat. I think the death toll is now at 17, but it will probably rise. One of my friends Amy works in Toyama, not too far from the quakezone, she said her area was not damaged and only felt about a 3-4 level shake. A classic quote from her, "They are saying there might be tsunamis. I wanna go to the beach and look for waves." One of the bullet trains had a minor derailment, and you can see on TV that tons of roads are fractured and impassible. Many houses collapsed and power was out pretty much everywhere in the areas.
Another thing I am pretty excited about--If you saw the picture from the Cards game I just posted, then you can see I can now transmit videos and TV onto my computer where I can then manipulate it and edit in any number of ways. I can do this with the help of my new video camera, a Sony Handycam DCR-HC40. I picked it up in Osaka, it's pretty nice. Stay tuned for more technology in action. Go Cards!
You may have heard about the recent earthquakes over here. They happened up in northern Japan, very far from me. It's pretty sad because a lot of the areas hit by the quake are the same areas that got nailed by the biggest typhoon in 20 years last Wednesday. Japan can be a very dangerous place. Since the quake has happened, 1 TV channel has only been showing messages from people. They call the station and give the name of someone they are trying ot contact and they put the messages on repeat. I think the death toll is now at 17, but it will probably rise. One of my friends Amy works in Toyama, not too far from the quakezone, she said her area was not damaged and only felt about a 3-4 level shake. A classic quote from her, "They are saying there might be tsunamis. I wanna go to the beach and look for waves." One of the bullet trains had a minor derailment, and you can see on TV that tons of roads are fractured and impassible. Many houses collapsed and power was out pretty much everywhere in the areas.
Another thing I am pretty excited about--If you saw the picture from the Cards game I just posted, then you can see I can now transmit videos and TV onto my computer where I can then manipulate it and edit in any number of ways. I can do this with the help of my new video camera, a Sony Handycam DCR-HC40. I picked it up in Osaka, it's pretty nice. Stay tuned for more technology in action. Go Cards!
Friday, October 22, 2004
Cardinals in 6
Wow, I cannot believe this. I am ambivalent about this whole world series thing. I am stuck here in Japan checking the very slow internet between classes while my brothers and sisters in St. Louis get to GO TO THE GAMES! Is that fair? Of course it is because the Cardinals are in the World F ing Series. I have to figure out how I can creatively watch or at least follow the games live next week. Go Cards, bring home the ring and lift the infamous Frank Viola curse.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
The Tokage Disappointment
You can probably see in the news that this latest typhoon, Tokage, was pretty bad. The death count now is over 60. I woke up Wednesday morning and saw that the typhoon was making a right turn (east) before hitting southern Kyushu, thus avoiding the Kumamoto area, located on Kyushu's west side. Our neighbors in Miyazaki got it pretty well. We got a little wind and it was pretty rainy, all day, but overall not the most exciting typhoon of the year. Lots of people were buried in mudslides, some fell into swollen rivers and some were swept away in high waves.
Other than that I have been spending my time the last few days following the League Championship Series' in the states. I hadn't really cared too much about the American League but I was happy to see Boston make their amazing comeback to beat the Yankees. I saw a picture on some site of Curt Schilling at a hocley game a while back and at first, it looked like he was wearing a Yankees hat. I looked closer and saw that it was a YH - Yankees Hater. That was the first time I'd seen that, pretty hilarious. That guy is a warrior, huh. But most importantly, it's all about the Cardinals. Game 7 starts in a few hours. I will be at school while the game is going on, and I have 4 classes in the morning so I'll only get to check between classes. I'll have the game taped. I know it would be best to wait until I can watch the game to learn the result, but come on, is that realistic? Time to see what those 105 wins this year meant...
All the talk about Japanese geography above convinced me to throw a map up of where I live. Kyushu is the southern-most of the 4 main islands of Japan. There are 5 Kens, or state-like areas. I live in Kumamoto in the capital of the Ken, Kumamoto City. There are about 700,000 people in the city, 2nd biggest to Fukuoka on Kyushu.
Other than that I have been spending my time the last few days following the League Championship Series' in the states. I hadn't really cared too much about the American League but I was happy to see Boston make their amazing comeback to beat the Yankees. I saw a picture on some site of Curt Schilling at a hocley game a while back and at first, it looked like he was wearing a Yankees hat. I looked closer and saw that it was a YH - Yankees Hater. That was the first time I'd seen that, pretty hilarious. That guy is a warrior, huh. But most importantly, it's all about the Cardinals. Game 7 starts in a few hours. I will be at school while the game is going on, and I have 4 classes in the morning so I'll only get to check between classes. I'll have the game taped. I know it would be best to wait until I can watch the game to learn the result, but come on, is that realistic? Time to see what those 105 wins this year meant...
All the talk about Japanese geography above convinced me to throw a map up of where I live. Kyushu is the southern-most of the 4 main islands of Japan. There are 5 Kens, or state-like areas. I live in Kumamoto in the capital of the Ken, Kumamoto City. There are about 700,000 people in the city, 2nd biggest to Fukuoka on Kyushu.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Typhoon #23
Tomorrow morning, typhoon #23 of the year is going to roll through Japan. You can see it's projected path here: http://typhoon.yahoo.co.jp/weather/jp/typhoon/typha.html
Looks pretty strong but it also looks like it might swing right and miss us. In any case, school lunch has been cancelled for the entire city so there is no school. It is rather strange, teachers have to go to school. If the weather is so bad that they have to stay home, then they must take a vacation day. I told my vice principal that if the weather improves, I will go down to the board of education. Don't know if I'll do that. Instead I'll hole up here with Manami, watch some movies, maybe get some good footage of some typhoon destruction if I can, and learn a new game called Othello. One of these days I'll start studying for my level 3 Japanese test coming up in December. This year has brought the most typhoons to mainland Japan on record. I think this is the 4th day off school kids have gotten this year because of them. My previous 2 years here, we only had 1 day off and no significant typhoonage.
By the way, a typhoon is usually less powerful than hurricane and tends to move through the area faster. Usually, most of the injuries it causes are pretty preventable like 81 year olds going on their roof to clear a tree during the typhoon and falling or something similarly asinine.
One last thing, the name of this typhoon is Tokage. It is Japanese for Lizard, but I prefer to pronounce it in an alternate way if you know what I mean. 台風トカゲ お楽しみに
Looks pretty strong but it also looks like it might swing right and miss us. In any case, school lunch has been cancelled for the entire city so there is no school. It is rather strange, teachers have to go to school. If the weather is so bad that they have to stay home, then they must take a vacation day. I told my vice principal that if the weather improves, I will go down to the board of education. Don't know if I'll do that. Instead I'll hole up here with Manami, watch some movies, maybe get some good footage of some typhoon destruction if I can, and learn a new game called Othello. One of these days I'll start studying for my level 3 Japanese test coming up in December. This year has brought the most typhoons to mainland Japan on record. I think this is the 4th day off school kids have gotten this year because of them. My previous 2 years here, we only had 1 day off and no significant typhoonage.
By the way, a typhoon is usually less powerful than hurricane and tends to move through the area faster. Usually, most of the injuries it causes are pretty preventable like 81 year olds going on their roof to clear a tree during the typhoon and falling or something similarly asinine.
One last thing, the name of this typhoon is Tokage. It is Japanese for Lizard, but I prefer to pronounce it in an alternate way if you know what I mean. 台風トカゲ お楽しみに
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Kyushu Danji
My friend Adam and I flash the international sign for peace. We met up in Osaka last weekend, good reunion for 2 old school Kumamoto heads. He is the one who told me to get into the blog game - check out his own site: http://cosmicbuddha.com/adam and the one he does with his brother: http://cosmicbuddha.com/rice
Both those sites have some great stuff about Japan and Kumamoto in them. Also another great Japan blog I always check out is http://www.octopusdropkick.com
Both those sites have some great stuff about Japan and Kumamoto in them. Also another great Japan blog I always check out is http://www.octopusdropkick.com
Strange Days
I was all set to post something when I got home from school today. Well here it is, except I got home about 8 hours earlier than expected. I showed up as usual at about 8:15am and noticed that there was no one at school. The doors were locked, there were 2 girls filling up water jugs for sports practice who told me there was no school today because there is a Culture Festival next Saturday. Thanks for telling me, guys! Similarly, last Thursday I showed up to the same school and they were a little too surprised to see me. Apparently, I was suppose to go to elementary school that day. Seems to be a lack of communication somewhere. But who am I to complain, I got a day off today. I gotta find out when the Cardinals are playin and what channel.
I spent yesterday evening having awesome yakiniku and enjoying the company of my brother's future in-laws, the Ishizukas. I haven't spoke solid Japanese like that in a long time, good to know it's still in me.
I spent yesterday evening having awesome yakiniku and enjoying the company of my brother's future in-laws, the Ishizukas. I haven't spoke solid Japanese like that in a long time, good to know it's still in me.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
MtRyugatake.JPG
Here is a photo I took from the top of Mt. Rygatake in the southern area of Amakusa in Kumamoto. Amakusa consists fo hundreds of islands and is gorgeous as you can see.
Welcome to Mark's Kumamoto Experience
Hey everyone, thanks for checking out my little site. Perhaps you've heard of the blog phenomenon. Basically, instead of sending massive amounts of e-mails to keep in touch with people, I have opted to go the blgo route. Hopefully, I'll be able to update this often from what I am doing, what I have been doing, and maybe even a few pictures. Check back when you can, I'll try to keep some interesting stuff up on it. Let's enjoy...
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