Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

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Back in Taipei!

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

I am finally back in Taipei. I am somewhat annoyed that my Red Vines were not waiting for me. But maybe the guy downstairs has them in a drawer somewhere, One can only hope. I am so glad to be back here. Japan made me appreciate the little things that I am accustomed to a lot more.

For Example, In Japan some public restrooms do not have soap or a way of drying your hands when you are done relieving yourself. WTF is that? I say that that is very odd. If you forget to bring your own tissue to dry your hands you can get some from some random guy who gives them out as advertisements. Can you believe it? they advertise on packages of tissue paper. But anyways, since I am black I am basically up shits creek, because they will not give me any of the tissue advertisements because they think that I can’t speak or read Japanese which is a requirement for understanding that ad (and they are correct I know absolutely no Japanese, Nihongo as they call it). Oh well, such is life. So basically if you are in Japan do not use the subway restrooms because you won’t be able to wash your hands properly haha. I didn’t see any other restrooms that did not offer soap or a way to dry your hands, but our host assured us that other places like that are common in Japan, hence the tissue advertisements. I have never seen that in Taipei

Unfortunately I did not get to go see Terminator Salvation as planned but fear not! I was able to see a movie that was somewhat of a substitute! On the plane I watched Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. This was a bad bad bad movie. But it was bad in a way that I could appreciate and laugh at so it was therefore good enough to be entertaining. I feel sorry for Kristen Kruek because she was so good in the movie and actually so was the rest of the cast, with the exception of Chris Klein, who played Charlie Nash. Jesus Chris Klein was HORRIBLE in the movie. Other than Chris Klein the movie just had a Sci-fi B movie feel because it was so low budget. But I would say if you are on a plane and you can watch it for free, then watch it because Chris Klein was so bad that I found myself trying hard not to laugh out loud on the plane. it actually makes me wonder if they made him act like an idiot on purpose so people would laugh at him.

Anyways, hopefully by the end of the day I will have seen Terminator Salvation and have gotten my red vines. Peace out ya’ll! I am out!.

Posted in Japan, Movies, Taiwan, Travel | No Comments »

The Last Full Day in Japan

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Today is my last full day in Japan. I have FINALLY gotten some good food out of this country! And no it was not red vines (the Red Vines should be waiting for me back in Taiwan).

Anyways, today we had nothing to do so I decided to go to Yodobashi Camera in Yokohama. This place is huge! It was  7 levels of fun. oddly the name of the place does not convey what the store aims to sell. Yodobashi Camera is kind of like Fry’s Electronics but on steroids. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Fry’s Electronics, it is kind of like an electronics superstore. But back to Yodobashi Camera! this place is way better than Fry’s. Unfortunately it is better than Fry’s when it comes to selection but not with prices. So I saw all of these amazing things that I could never hope to afford haha.

As I have mentioned before I loved the NEC All-in-one PC’s that are available here in Japan. But what was really odd to me, in a good way, was the selection of Netbooks available at Yodobashi Camera. In the US you have about 5 options, Dell Mini 10, Mini 12, MSI Wind, Asus Eee PC, Lenovo S10. In Japan there are 15-20 different netbooks that I saw today. Companies that we do not know as computer manufacturers even have netbooks such as Sharp. The Sharp netbook has a stupidly cool feature, which is why I remember it. The trackpad is a touchscreen LCD so the one that I played with had a little light that followed your finger around as you used the touchpad. It also had a clock in the background so you could always look down and see the time haha. But there were netbooks from Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sony, and some crazy companies I have never heard of. There were even some netbooks that were also tablet PC’s, the kinds of things that they come up with here is quite amazing. 

The last cool thing I saw in Yodobashi Camera was Cat 7 ethernet cable. Cat 7 is supposedly capable of reaching speeds of 10 Gigabits per second. INSANE!!! and they are selling it at the local store for 1550 yen for 3 meters. Can’t get that at Fry’s, and why would you? No computer in the US supports it.

But I opened this thing up talking about food! Before I bored my girlfriend out of her mind by dragging her through every level of a 7 level electronics store, we ate! It is always good to look at cool stuff on a full stomach! I am going to preface this by saying that generally I hate eating Indian food. Indian food is like destruction to my taste buds, so naturally my girlfriend loves it. We decided to go to this Indian restaurant, and boy was I surprised! 

this was gooood

this was gooood

But anyways this place was amazing! If you are ever inYokohama Japan you absolutely need to try this place even if you do not like Indian food. They changed the food a little so that it is still Indian food but it is somehow 3000 times better. Let me put it to you this way, I ordered Tandoori chicken, it was so amazing I had to eat the bones. It was THAT GOOD.

This Indian restaurant is on the B2 level of the Yodobashi Camera building. it is near the west exit of the Yokohama Subway Station.

For dinner we ate something called Okinomyaki. This is a sort of pancake made from a large amount of cabbage, meat, and other stuff that taste very good. If you are ever in Japan you should try it. Okinomyaki is actually from Osaka. This means that is is much better for me because in Osaka they add much more flavor to their food than in Tokyo. So I loved it. I wish I could have had the time to visit Osaka, but alas it wasn’t possible. I had to get the Osaka food experience in the shadow of the Landmark tower in Yokohama.

So this was another great day in Japan but it is also my last. I will be back in Taipei tomorrow. I am pretty excited to be going back because I will be able to see Terminator Salvation and start learning Mandarin. So I will write again later! Peace out Ya’ll and be safe!

Zip it up and Zip it out!

Posted in Food, Japan, Travel | 3 Comments »

Today Was a Good Day

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

  So my last entry was about a bad day in Japan. Today was a very good day. We went around with our friend who speaks Japanese. he is still a gaijin (foreigner) like us but he knows quite a bit of Nihongo(Japanese). Our friend actually went to college with us. But anyways it was such a good day that as I write this I am still drunk! hehe that’s ALWAYS fun.

Today we went to the Gumyoji Market. Once again it was just like a day market in Taiwan but I was able to buy some authentic Japanese green tea, something I could not get in Taiwan. But even before we went to the Gumyoji Market we went to a Japanese restaurant that served Chicken cutlet with cheese. This place was interesting because they actually fried the cheese into the chicken. So on the surface it looked like plain old chicken cutlet but it actually had melted cheese on top of the chicken but under the batter. This was somewhat cool, but once the novelty wore off it was pretty much chicken cutlet with cheese. So if you are someone who loves chicken cutlet then you would love this crap. I, on the other hand, do not like chicken cutlet so it was not that great.

Later on we went to a better Japanese Sushi place than the one that my girlfriend and I attended in Yokohama. It was good but it was nowhere near as good as what we could get for the same price or less in Taiwan. And I know, this place ONLY served sushi so I was forced to eat raw fish for din din, how fun…

After dinner was when I got drunk. It is a place called Rex Bar in the suburbs of Yokohama. It is probably a 5 minute walk from the subway station. The owner actually let my girlfriend go behind the bar and make 5 AMF’s (Adios MotherF*****s) and then later he let her make 3 Hawaiian Ice Teas. It was a really cool experience. The fun part and the most painful part was this…

IMG_6822

The answer is yes. That does say Blair’s After Death Sauce. It is probably the second hottest substance on the planet. Guinness Book of World Records says it is the hottest sauce in the world but I beg to differ. The special hot sauce at Don Antonio’s was way worse in my opinion. But still, I was sucking on ice cubes for about 30 minutes after I put a large amount on a tortilla chip. This sauce is something that should not be taken lightly. It is actually sold in the United States, so it is kind of odd that I would discover it in Japan but whatever the world is an odd place.

After we finished eating chips with this death sauce it was way after the last train. We walked from the Gumyoji Subway stop back to my friend’s apartment. It was a hour long walk haha. Luckily in Japan there is no law against public drunkeness because I was obviously drunk and so was our friend. And the funniest thing is that we, 3 obviously drunk people, walked right by a police officer and he thought nothing of it! Another crazy thing is that 2:00AM is not the last call here. Bars stay open until friggin 5:00AM! so us leaving at 2:00AM was actually early for a Saturday night haha. Basically bars here stay open until first train which is at 5:00AM, what a wonderful system.

Posted in Japan, Taiwan, Travel | 2 Comments »

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