I
thought
what
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do
was,
I'd pretend
I was
one
of
those
deaf-mutes
Animated Infection
Week 9
So...the work week. The usual pretty much. Continuing to be very busy these days. I had 6 classes Tuesday, 3 classes Wednesday, 3 classes Thursday, 4 classes Friday and 7 classes Saturday.
The one exception was Thursday, when I took a little walk out and bought a couple of DVDs for the lobby of the school and, more importantly, a hibiscus plant for my house! We used to have one at my house in Wakefield way back in the day. I figure we took it out of it's native habitat, so I might as well have one here when the situation is reversed. It started blooming today, so I'm happy.
My unhappiness outweighs my happiness quotient because I got a cold on Friday. Nothing bad, but my colds always follow the same cycle and last about 5 days and I feel like utter shit all the way through the first couple and about 85% okay through the last three.
Day 1 and 2:
Sore throat, extreme weariness, headaches.
Day 3 to 5:
Extremely runny nose combined with intense sinus pressure. This somehow combines into an awesome phenomena where my eyes burn and water like goddamned Niagara. Basically, I cry a lot. It's a riot. Not really conducive to a professional demeanor while teaching either. I really hate it...a lot.
That kind of put a halt to my plans for the weekend. I was supposed to go out to another teacher's party on Saturday night, but that ended up not happening due to the aforementioned viral salient. I didn't really have anything planned for Sunday, so ultimately I just ended up hanging out doing nothing. Turns out there are also vitamin gel packs for vitamin C, which actually taste really good, so I sucked a number of those down on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night actually I bought a liter of Orange Juice and drank the whole thing when I got home. I think my Vitamin C intake in the last couple of days was more then in the last couple of months.
I played Medieval: Total War all day on Sunday and had a good time, although I had to abandon the first game I played after putting a few hours into it. Maybe I'll pick it up some other time, but I had backed myself into a corner. Perhaps a couple months down the line.
Monday was much more interesting. I met up with the Fuji-Yoshida delegation comprised of two members of my training group (Winny and Kevin) as well as the former manager of my school (Chizuru) and their JET (Naomi), as well as one more manager from the region. Our destination was the Studio Ghibli museum.
Week 9
Konbanwa!
Another night of blog writing ahead of me, although this week's should be relatively brief due to the lack of intensely interesting things that occurred this week, due mostly to me contracting a virus on Friday. Also, I just felt my second earthquake in the last hour. Unusual seismic activity! (edit: I think this still ended up being long)
Another night of blog writing ahead of me, although this week's should be relatively brief due to the lack of intensely interesting things that occurred this week, due mostly to me contracting a virus on Friday. Also, I just felt my second earthquake in the last hour. Unusual seismic activity! (edit: I think this still ended up being long)
So...the work week. The usual pretty much. Continuing to be very busy these days. I had 6 classes Tuesday, 3 classes Wednesday, 3 classes Thursday, 4 classes Friday and 7 classes Saturday.
The one exception was Thursday, when I took a little walk out and bought a couple of DVDs for the lobby of the school and, more importantly, a hibiscus plant for my house! We used to have one at my house in Wakefield way back in the day. I figure we took it out of it's native habitat, so I might as well have one here when the situation is reversed. It started blooming today, so I'm happy.
My unhappiness outweighs my happiness quotient because I got a cold on Friday. Nothing bad, but my colds always follow the same cycle and last about 5 days and I feel like utter shit all the way through the first couple and about 85% okay through the last three.
Day 1 and 2:
Sore throat, extreme weariness, headaches.
Day 3 to 5:
Extremely runny nose combined with intense sinus pressure. This somehow combines into an awesome phenomena where my eyes burn and water like goddamned Niagara. Basically, I cry a lot. It's a riot. Not really conducive to a professional demeanor while teaching either. I really hate it...a lot.
That kind of put a halt to my plans for the weekend. I was supposed to go out to another teacher's party on Saturday night, but that ended up not happening due to the aforementioned viral salient. I didn't really have anything planned for Sunday, so ultimately I just ended up hanging out doing nothing. Turns out there are also vitamin gel packs for vitamin C, which actually taste really good, so I sucked a number of those down on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night actually I bought a liter of Orange Juice and drank the whole thing when I got home. I think my Vitamin C intake in the last couple of days was more then in the last couple of months.
I played Medieval: Total War all day on Sunday and had a good time, although I had to abandon the first game I played after putting a few hours into it. Maybe I'll pick it up some other time, but I had backed myself into a corner. Perhaps a couple months down the line.
Monday was much more interesting. I met up with the Fuji-Yoshida delegation comprised of two members of my training group (Winny and Kevin) as well as the former manager of my school (Chizuru) and their JET (Naomi), as well as one more manager from the region. Our destination was the Studio Ghibli museum.
*sound of a record needle being lifted too fast*
What's Studio Ghibli?
EDUCATE YOURSELF, FOOL!
What's Studio Ghibli?
EDUCATE YOURSELF, FOOL!
Hayao Miyazaki is arguable the most well known anime director in Japan and his films are of consistently high quality. He's often called the Japanese Walt Disney. I've seen about 5 of his films, of which my favorite is Spirited Away. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes cinema, it really is quite amazing.
As was the museum. You wouldn't really appreciate it without having seen a few of Miyazaki's movies, as they figure prominently into the design of the Museum. Miyazaki has a fairly unified aesthetic through all of his movies. The best I can do to describe it is to say that many things in his films look very cobbled together. Architecture is layered on architecture, old mingled with new. This is a theme that I've noticed in a lot of Japanese pop art and I think it partially reflects the nature of Tokyo itself. Parts of Tokyo look like they could come from one of Miyazaki's movies. Or Mamoru Oshii's. More on that later.
The museum was really, really cool, primarily because it mimicked the aesthetic of the films. Lots of random staircases and tiny doors and multiple paths leading to the same place. Some of the exhibits were really neat too. I think Miyazaki likes projectors just about as much as I do. There was a section right at the beginning of the tour that basically functioned as a history of cinema, featuring all kinds of different optical illusions. For example, they had a series of different models posed in different ways set on rotating rings inside a glass partition. When these started rotating fast enough and were hit with a strobe light at the right speed, it looked like a living animation. There were also a number of projectors set up, all in such a way that you could see the internal workings. It was pretty neat being able to look these over and identify all of the individual parts. I was probably the only guy in the room more interested in the projectors then what they were projecting. Very cool stuff though.
The rest of the museum was also pretty neat. They had a small exhibit called "Le Petit Louvre" which was exactly what it's called, a small version of the Louvre with reproductions of some of the pictures. We finished off our tour by watching a Studio Ghibli short that was really awesome. It was about a Diving Bell Spider that fell in love with Water Strider. Miyazaki certainly knows how to make a spider cute. There was also a really neat section of the museum that attempted to recreate Miyazaki's work space. That section was fascinating, really gave you a look into his mentality.
That was pretty much it nothing else interesti-
*tires screech*
*door opens*
*rapid foot steps*
*knock on door*
*door opening*
*slapping noise*
*more rapid foot steps*
*door slamming*
*tires screeching*
Oh.
Right.
I forgot.
As was the museum. You wouldn't really appreciate it without having seen a few of Miyazaki's movies, as they figure prominently into the design of the Museum. Miyazaki has a fairly unified aesthetic through all of his movies. The best I can do to describe it is to say that many things in his films look very cobbled together. Architecture is layered on architecture, old mingled with new. This is a theme that I've noticed in a lot of Japanese pop art and I think it partially reflects the nature of Tokyo itself. Parts of Tokyo look like they could come from one of Miyazaki's movies. Or Mamoru Oshii's. More on that later.
The museum was really, really cool, primarily because it mimicked the aesthetic of the films. Lots of random staircases and tiny doors and multiple paths leading to the same place. Some of the exhibits were really neat too. I think Miyazaki likes projectors just about as much as I do. There was a section right at the beginning of the tour that basically functioned as a history of cinema, featuring all kinds of different optical illusions. For example, they had a series of different models posed in different ways set on rotating rings inside a glass partition. When these started rotating fast enough and were hit with a strobe light at the right speed, it looked like a living animation. There were also a number of projectors set up, all in such a way that you could see the internal workings. It was pretty neat being able to look these over and identify all of the individual parts. I was probably the only guy in the room more interested in the projectors then what they were projecting. Very cool stuff though.
The rest of the museum was also pretty neat. They had a small exhibit called "Le Petit Louvre" which was exactly what it's called, a small version of the Louvre with reproductions of some of the pictures. We finished off our tour by watching a Studio Ghibli short that was really awesome. It was about a Diving Bell Spider that fell in love with Water Strider. Miyazaki certainly knows how to make a spider cute. There was also a really neat section of the museum that attempted to recreate Miyazaki's work space. That section was fascinating, really gave you a look into his mentality.
That was pretty much it nothing else interesti-
*tires screech*
*door opens*
*rapid foot steps*
*knock on door*
*door opening*
*slapping noise*
*more rapid foot steps*
*door slamming*
*tires screeching*
Oh.
Right.
I forgot.
The Sky Crawlers
Those who have had the inestimable pleasure of knowing me these past 6 or 7 years may have heard me exhort the virtues of one Mamoru Oshii at one point or another. He was responsible for making the two Ghost in the Shell movies, the first of which is a masterpiece of cinema, while the second one is a little bit too cerebral for it's own good. My favorite works of his are, however, the Stand Alone Complex series of anime. It ran for two seasons and currently holds the coveted title of "Best Television Series I Have Ever Seen." It features exceptionally complicated storytelling, especially the first season, which has one of the absolute best payoffs I have ever seen. Just look past the jumpsuit the Major wears for the first season, it gets better in the second.
Let's redirect this tangent back into a segue way with the original topic of this blog. There was a section of the museum which contained a display for Miyazaki's next film as well as Oshii's, which is called The Sky Crawlers. I got extremely excited because I recognized the art style immediately. I can hardly wait to see it.
We left the Museum (which was in Mitaka) and took the faithful old Chuo down one stop to Kichijoji, which I'd been meaning to visit for the longest time but hadn't gotten around to it yet. It's the biggest city near my apartment, making it the theoretical focus for most of my more advanced shopping. We stopped for lunch at a small thai restaurant. Very weird aesthetic, kind of like a military base in Saigon or something (I'm aware that Saigon is in Vietnam). Lots of stainless steel. It was buffet style, which for some reason is called 'viking' in Japanese. I've asked a couple of people why that is, but they can't explain it.
By the time we finished lunch it was about 3 o'clock, and boy, was it hot. I think the temperature was 33 celsius before the humidity was applied, which was of course also extremely high. We went to the park in the middle of the city and walked around it, which was quite pretty. We also stopped by the requisite temple. We headed off to a cafe where I had a hibiscus jelly tea. After that it was off to Shinjuku.
While we were waiting for the last bus out to Fuji-Yoshida we took a little walk around Kabukicho, which is the red light district of Shinjuku. I wasn't really all that impressed, it was kind of small and not really all that seamy. I'll visit it again some other time, maybe see a movie at the theater there or something.
I headed home at about 7 PM or so when my cold started to act up again. The train was PACKED. Almost to the point that I couldn't move. I'd have enjoyed it if I hadn't been sick, but what can you do? Did some shopping on the way home, got home and chatted for a while before passing out.
Not the most impressive weekend, I know, but I still had fun. I'll just throw in this little fun fact: bus drivers and cabbies all wear white gloves in Japan. It's part of a uniform thing or something, tradition I believe. Pretty unusual.
Anyways, that's it for this week. This is Koganei, signing off once again...
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
Let's redirect this tangent back into a segue way with the original topic of this blog. There was a section of the museum which contained a display for Miyazaki's next film as well as Oshii's, which is called The Sky Crawlers. I got extremely excited because I recognized the art style immediately. I can hardly wait to see it.
We left the Museum (which was in Mitaka) and took the faithful old Chuo down one stop to Kichijoji, which I'd been meaning to visit for the longest time but hadn't gotten around to it yet. It's the biggest city near my apartment, making it the theoretical focus for most of my more advanced shopping. We stopped for lunch at a small thai restaurant. Very weird aesthetic, kind of like a military base in Saigon or something (I'm aware that Saigon is in Vietnam). Lots of stainless steel. It was buffet style, which for some reason is called 'viking' in Japanese. I've asked a couple of people why that is, but they can't explain it.
By the time we finished lunch it was about 3 o'clock, and boy, was it hot. I think the temperature was 33 celsius before the humidity was applied, which was of course also extremely high. We went to the park in the middle of the city and walked around it, which was quite pretty. We also stopped by the requisite temple. We headed off to a cafe where I had a hibiscus jelly tea. After that it was off to Shinjuku.
While we were waiting for the last bus out to Fuji-Yoshida we took a little walk around Kabukicho, which is the red light district of Shinjuku. I wasn't really all that impressed, it was kind of small and not really all that seamy. I'll visit it again some other time, maybe see a movie at the theater there or something.
I headed home at about 7 PM or so when my cold started to act up again. The train was PACKED. Almost to the point that I couldn't move. I'd have enjoyed it if I hadn't been sick, but what can you do? Did some shopping on the way home, got home and chatted for a while before passing out.
Not the most impressive weekend, I know, but I still had fun. I'll just throw in this little fun fact: bus drivers and cabbies all wear white gloves in Japan. It's part of a uniform thing or something, tradition I believe. Pretty unusual.
Anyways, that's it for this week. This is Koganei, signing off once again...
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
1 comment:
Thats not to bad of a weekend, it sounds like you finally had a day off (even your weekends sound busy,) but being sick sucks, I hope you're feeling better.
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