Lost In Translation

Monsoon Cafe Daikanyama

Friday I met some friends at the Monsoon Cafe in Daikanyama. It is part of a chain and the food is pretty mediocre, but this particualr branch has a really cool colonial SE Asian feel to it. Upstairs there is a beautiful lotus pond.

This is the MEN's room, if you couldn't figure it out.

Baby Substitute

I saw this woman earlier in Tower Records, she brought her wittle puppy dog shopping with her in Shibuya. At first it sort of freaked me out-you know "Jesus Christ that's not a baby!"

Weblogs: Read & Referred

One of the features of Typepad is that I can see where my weblog is referred from and see how many hits I get a day. It started out being about 55 hits a day and now I'm down to about 44 a day. Perhaps I should send out updates via my personal email. Actually, a few people suggested that I should do it. It wouldn't be that hard, I'll just make a mailing list land send out updates once a week-so let me know if you want to be on it (so send me an email or click on the "email me" link to contact me).

Anyway, I thought I'd present links to websites that refer to my website, websites that are associated to webrings that I belong to that have referred to me, and weblogs that I read.

Referrers: (My blog guru Dave's blog) optica8, Savemefromtears, Ureshiidesu, and Gme (the others are on my links list).

Referrers from web rings: Japan Live, octopus dropkick, and heatshimmer.

Blogs I usually read these days: Jean Snow and Groovevisual Diary.

Soniya: Russian Restaurant

I found a small, intimate Russian restaurant in my nieghborhood (Bunkyo-ku), and yesterday I finally went to it with a friend. It was quite tasty and inexpensive. It was festively decorated for Christmas as you can see in the picture above.

The borscht was really tatsy, recently I've come to the realization lately that I really, really like soup.

The pierogis weren't what I expected-I was tinking more pasta like, but they were sort of like stuffed bread. But I really liked the pumpkin (which was spicy) and the minced beef. The others (chestnut, bean paste, and blueberry) were much sweeter.

In The iPod: Franz Ferdinand

Another recent CD that I‘ve been diggin lately is the self-titled debut of Franz Ferdinand, a new band out of Scotland. It sort of falls into the retro category of post punk 80s sounds that a lot of bands I like recently have (see The Strokes, The Postal Service, The Divorce, etc…). It has a lot of synthesizers not unlike The Postal Service, but instead of a dreamy ballad powered album, theirs is more upbeat and equally distinctive. They get raved about in the UK press, but it seems as if their reviews are more down to earth here in America-you know those crazy Brits always looking for another Beatles or Rolling Stones. Perhaps my favorite tune is the catchy “Come On Home.” However, there are several standouts: “Jacqueline”: “It’s always better on holiday, that we only work when we need money”,”Auf Achse” about sexual obsession, “Michael”-which I feel is a slightly over-rated gay themed tune, and “The Dark 0f The Matinee.” There was a CD with a bonus disk, which was cheaper than the regular CD at Tower Records so I got that one the bonus CD has 5 extra songs or versions of songs. But I would probably rate them behind Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fan Club, if I were to rate my favorite Scottish bands.

Travel Cafe Bliss

Travel Cafe Bliss was one of my favorite places to eat lunch when I lived in Harajuku (it was near my local gym). The picture above is of the Mexican Chicken Salad, which is one of the best lunch specials-I also am quite found of the Keeman Curry. This is a restaurant/travel agency, and inside there are loads of travel books, magazines, as well as a computer to access information about travel.

Japan at the Movies

This month's feature story in Japanzine focuses on movies about Japan. Actually, it's quite comprehensive with some insightful commentary:

Japan At The Movies By James Hadfield...

Vietnam aside, it's hard to think of an Asian country that has cropped up as frequently in Western cinema as Japan. From Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 silent movie The Cheat to last year's Kill Bill Volume 1, The Last Samurai and Lost in Translation, the Land of the Rising Sun has been revisited countless times.

As foreigners living in Japan, it's easy to be dismissive about these films. It's not really like that, we tell the folks back home, as they ooh and ah over yet another - in our eyes - inaccurate portrayal of the country. Japanese people don't spend all their time talking about Zen and bushido, we howl; they aren't all repressed, honor-obsessed, sword-wielding/sexually perverse weirdos. This isn't an exotic, picture-perfect land of ever-blooming cherry blossom - it's just a country, like any other.

How bad are foreign moviemaker's versions of the land we all know and (sometimes) love, though? And are they any closer to getting it right? We trawl through some of the best - and worst - fruits of Western cinema's ongoing fascination with Japan in search of the answers.

Click here to read the entire article.

Aoyama Prada

This is the Aoyama Prada store, which isn't that far from Aoyama Gakuin, where I teach on Mondays. It's a really cool design by a pair of Swiss, Herzog and de Meuron. I'm not really familiar with any of their other work, but the interior is pretty impressive as well. Unfortunately, I can't really afford anything they sell inside.

The Japanes Proficiency Test Level 2: Round 2

Today I took the second level Japanese Proficiency Test again. I expect to do better than I did last year however, I don't think I did well enought to pass it. The first part, which is kanji and vocabualry is usually a strong point, but this year's test was extremely difficult with obscure kanji and vocab. I know I did a lot better on the listening, my strongest area, but the reading comprehension and grammar really kicked my butt again. I won't get the results unitl February!? Oh Well, there's always next year

Schoolboys

These fellas go to one of the schools in my neighborhood. I really like their "Prussian" style uniforms complete with military looking caps with red cushballs on them. But I imagine that those short shorts must get cold in the winter.