RJ and the Twizzlers

June 3rd, 2009

Before I start rambling on about today’s escapades I must explain the title of this post. Since Ranting Jamaican is a pretty long addition to every title I have decided to abbreviate. From now on wherever I was going to type Ranting Jamaican in the title I will instead type RJ. Hope you all like it that way because that’s how it’s gonna be!

Anyways today I was doing some more digging on the possibility of getting Red Vines in Taipei because my Ebay Red Vines have not arrived yet. Still no luck on the Red Vines but I found a somewhat OK substitute. As I was searching I found a post on www.forumosa.com (a good place to get info on Taiwan). Haha get it? Forumosa, Formosa? Anyways I found out that I could get Twizzlers in Taipei!

So after a search for the location on a Chinese language map and an English one (because google has everything in Chinese characters and I had to match crap up blah blah blah) I found the location of Wellman’s import store. Basically you take the Red line towards Beitou and Danshui and get off at the Zhishan exit. From here we had to walk east on Fuhua Rd. and make a left on Zhongshan N. Road. The place was like a mile and half walk down Zhongshan N. Road. Boy was it a long walk. When we finally arrived at Wellman’s a choir of Angels sang Hallelujah then I went in and bought my twizzlers.

Wellman’s, of course, sells a lot more than twizzlers but it definitely does not sell Red Vines. Red Vines are way way way better than twizzlers in my opinion but then I figured that twizzlers are an OK substitute since I was desperate. Eh it was a mistake. But back to Wellman’s, in addition to Red Vines they sell a large amount of American products and a few Japanese. They have things like American branded Vinegar, Ziploc bags, blow pops, An assortment of American Soda’s, Snapple etc etc etc. When visiting Taipei for an extended period of time it is a good place to know about even though it is somewhat difficult to access via the subway system.

So after going on this mission to buy twizzlers I get 3 bags of twizzlers. As soon as I ate some of them I remembered why I love Red Vines so much and regretted the purchase. Eh I after all that work I did not even enjoy them in the movie theater. I was too mesmerized by Moon Bloodgood….. oops! I meant Terminator Salvation.

I Will be posting my thoughts on Terminator Salvation at some point in the near future after I absorb its amazingness. it seems that the people who rated it on www.rottentomatoes.com had an awsomeness overload and gave it bad reviews. Jeezus! I hate it when people don’t know how to appreciate a movie.

Posted in Food, Gripes, Taiwan, Travel | 3 Comments »

Back in Taipei!

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

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 »

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