Don't. Move.

This is the stationary aisle.That's right, it's time for more Engrish! This one is just a typo, I realize, but frankly I expect more from English speakers - this was taken at the NEX, on base.

This post, by the way, is for Grammy Atwood - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! to one of the first people I learned grammar from. I hope you have a fun time. (She is so irritated at me right now!)

As for Engrish, here's one from a mall I visited with Nadine - we did not attempt to eat at this restaurant, let me assure you.I'm not sure how upset I should be about the misappropriation of black American language in this poster - I mean really, it's pretty absurd. You must click the picture to enlarge it and read the text - it's unreal.

Then there's this oldie but goodie from Nadine. It would be in rust with natural salt. Happy New Year, everyone!

U-S-A!! U-S...oh.

Tokyo took Emily again last weekend, when I took the train to Chichibu rugby stadium for the USA vs. Japan matchup. The band was playing before the game, and they got a few extra tickets for family members - me and the parents of one of the sax players. Since the guys all went up in a fancy charter bus, I met said parents at the train station and we co navigated ourselves up to the game. We had fun chatting, and even more fun checking out the ads on the train - I caught one in Engrish:
Because the privacy of your home is so passe.

One of the guys in the band is Japanese-American, and he had not only printed us train directions, he wrote down some Japanese on the paper that must have said something like "Please excuse me, I am an American idiot who cannot find a GIANT SPORTS STADIUM that is FIVE MINUTES' WALK from the train. So sorry. Would you please interrupt your more important task to walk my dumb ass to the entrance?"*

It worked! We showed it to a Lexus dealer (yep) and found the stadium.

Two hours before the game started.

Yeah. We had to be there early to meet the guys at the gate, since they didn't get our tickets until they arrived. They snagged us a couple box lunches, gave us our tickets, and left to get changed and play. And look how well we could see them!
I'm lying, of course. That's a crop of a zoom of a jumbotron. Here's the original picture:
And here's what it really looked like from our seats:
It was so disappointing. The band was super far away with no lights on them, and the PA system had a 1s delay, so the really fun upbeat songs were all garbled. But I finally got to see the brass band perform - Josh on the Jumbotron!! - and they managed to get the crowd clapping and cheering, despite the technical issues. They played a great set and then got to go change into people clothes for the game.

While they were changing, a Japanese jazz vocal quartet sang the American and Japanese national anthems, and I actually got a little misty during The Star Spangled Banner. Not so misty that I couldn't document it, though - good blogger, right? The team in white is the Americans, red is the Japanese.

I thought it was really beautiful. So were the rugby players I MEAN BAND. SO WAS THE BAND. That's what I said, right? Right.

So about the game...the Japanese fans were really polite and quiet during the game. They cheered really loudly when Japan scored (often) and when the officials called a penalty against the U.S. team (also often) but otherwise were nearly silent. This was useful, as it allowed every rugby player and fan to hear each American fan screaming WOOH WOOH WOOH! KILL HIM. KILL HIM!! USA WOOOOOOH! during, say, a scrum or running play or, you know, time out. Yikes.

Also we got spanked. The Japanese team was faster and better organized than the US of A, and I learned after the game that the US team hadn't won since 2006, save a match against Uruguay last week. A match from which all the Uruguayans' European players were absent. Go Amurricuh!

It was a really fun game, despite the loss and the fact that it took Josh and me two nauseous, standing hours to get home on the train. We'll figure this out, I swear.

And now for your viewing pleasure, rugby players doing funny warmups. If you squint, you can see individual players, I swear. Kisses!


*Okay, Shin probably didn't write it exactly like that. But it would've been accurate.

Engrish from America!

For real. What is this about?

I love Newman's Own. The salad dressing, the salsa, the charitable giving - it's a great company! And while J and I usually make our own pasta sauces, Newman's Sockarooni is a good, tasty alternative when (for example) we're stuck in a horrible hotel room with atrocious cooking facilities. It is not, however, "an intimate companion my pasta will never forget."

Seriously, what is that about? Is the sauce going to make sweet love to our whole wheat angel hair? Angel hair which apparently has acquired a memory? And will survive long enough to not forget the sauce?

This is the strangest marketing choice I've seen since, well, since the last Japanese commercial I saw.

In other news, I got my first care package in Japan! It was so great. Mom knew I had a hankerin' for some levity, and so she sent these:

and a truly depressing book which she advised I not read until I'm feeling better. Maybe I'll put glitter fairy stickers on every 50th page to lighten the mood! Also, my parents live in South Cackalackie, so I will use the word 'hankerin'' as often as I please. I reckon I might use it again in this paragraph. Hankerin'.

Josh is doing this thing where he makes fun of me for typing. He thinks I look like the fat gamer guy from the South Park World of Warcraft article when I blog. This guy:

I think he should get a care package with coal in it. Don't you?

AAAnyhoo...I had lunch yesterday at a friend's house - let's call her Dorothy. Mary Poppins and another woman were there, and Dorothy made delicious alfredo with spinach, and oven-roasted breaded veggies and chicken fingers. Oh my goodness, we had such a great time! Mary P brought blueberry cheesecake too. I am all about food!

I stopped at a florist on my way to lunch so that I could buy a host gift, and found a nice little hanging plant with pink and yellow flowers. (Dorothy and the Oz's have a balcony). Here's a bad picture, taken on the bus and down into a plastic bag:

Cute, huh? It was not expensive, not at all. But after I paid the florist, he indicated that he wanted me to wait a moment. He made me a present!

Isn't that the best thing ever? It made my whole day - well, so did the lunch, but the flowers were a good start.

B Ur Self

Josh this morning: "I think I might apply to B.U."

Me: "I accept applications every fall, but the race is very competitive."

5,000 words, and then some

1. Josh likes "Mean Girls".

2. Seriously? Seriously.


3. He's still a manly man! Even with a headband.

4. If you want to eat grilled chicken skin on a stick, come to Japan.

5. They make orchid blossoms as big as my hand now. (This one's for you, Grammy Atwood!)

6. Engrish is fun. Click the pic to read the intro to a ramen house menu.

.......this!

Let me just get it out of the way – no, there is no news on the house. We know what we want, it’s just sitting there waiting for us, but the realtor hasn’t come through with a price. Please keep your fingers crossed.

That said, I went out today and bought this

which came in this.

I usually decline plastic bags and use nylon bags of my own, but the yarn shop owner wasn’t taking no for an answer. The bag is hilarious - it’s a disposable piece of plastic which will probably end up in the ocean, it has a picture of a teddy bear, and it’s covered in slogans like “Life is graceful when you sit in time ticking slowly,” and “Calm your mind. Don’t forget. Small nature is next to you,” and my personal favorite “It comforts you when you are down and gently untangles your tense feelings.”

Next stop was the food market. I got all of this

because I wanted to make homemade ramen. Did I have a recipe? Noooooo. Could I find one on the internet? See for yourself. There are a billion recipes for crappy food made from instant ramen, but everybody (except me) knows better than to make the real thing for yourself. Still, I came up with this:

Looks like the other ramen, doesn’t it?

But did it taste like it?

Noooooo.

It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. Next time I’m going out for the stuff.

Now, remember those tiny peppers from the picture? The two dozen of them that I bought? Here they are again.

Allow me to present to you a photo essay entitled “How Hot Art Thine Peppers”:



Yeah, how hot am I? HOT.

Sooo…I could only use two of them in the whole pot of ramen. Anybody need some hot peppers?

P.S.

Hit a wall

Today was the first truly tough day for me. It was a doozy, too, let me tell you. I woke up at one o’clock with a headache: that stabbing, sour kind that sneaks up on you over and over, and then again when you think it’s gone. I slept off and on from there, but got up for good when Josh left for the gym at 6:00. I had a grapefruit and half a PB&J – and a therapeutic chat with Mom on Skype – before hitting the gym myself.

I had hoped that the food, a stop at Starbucks for a double espresso on ice, and a little exercise would kill the headache, and I was WRONG. Wr to the ong, was I, I was wrong. Running on the elliptical machine made my head throb worse, so I switched to weight machines. That actually did help take my mind off it for a bit, but not for long.

Plus also too, Josh and I have been sharing a single room at the Navy Lodge since August 1, and that is getting old. The sharing, that is, not the Navy Lodge – although I guess it is getting old as well, judging by the carpet. Anyway, Josh likes to go to sleep by 8:30 or 9:00 pm and rise by 5:30, where I am more of a midnight-to-8:00 kind of sleeper. He’s been great about using a sleep mask so I can watch TV for an hour or so after he goes to sleep, but it still sucks. I can’t use the computer because the sound of typing is like an alarm clock to him, for some reason. My flashlight uses funky batteries, which are dead, and which I haven’t found replacements for yet, so I can’t read or knit. I spend a lot of time at night watching bad television with very low volume, or just staring at the thin slit of light that comes in around the curtains. Hours of nighttime boredom = unhappy Emily.

So after the gym, Josh and I met up and left headed into the 90+ degree heat and ridiculous humidity around 11:00. I have experienced humidity, folks – south Florida, Washington DC, Massachusetts in the summer – but it’s worse here somehow. August is the worst month, they tell me, and this is the worst year in recent memory. Let me just take a moment to thank everyone out there who drives a Hummer or votes for Republicans*. Really appreciate the global climate change. Really. Thanks.

The heat was oppressive, and when we discovered it would be another hour before our cell phones (which we’d picked out and paid for 24 hours prior) would be ready, we went to find some lunch. And, for the dozenth time or so since we got here, we realized that the only things we know how to order are fast food and sushi. Since we both refuse to eat KFC (in this country or anywhere else), we sat down for sushi again.

Now, I LOVE sushi. Love. Me. Some. Sushi. But I really, really wanted to eat something more like a balanced meal today, with vegetables even, and the feeling of being foreign hit me really hard. I can’t figure out how to set the voicemail on my phone** because the book and the buttons are in Japanese and the on-screen instructions are in Engrish (“Tools: Using calendar and other function. Camera: shooting picture.”) I can’t have a simple conversation with 99% of people I meet in shops or on the street. I can’t even order a bowl of noodles, because I don’t know how to explain that I don’t eat mammals, but they could kill a chicken and put it on a spit in front of me, and I would dig the hell in.

On top of it all, I lost my water bottle somewhere today, so I’ve been paying ¥120 apiece for bottles of water. And there are no recycle bins for the bottles in the Navy Lodge, so the Earth? Also being killed by me.

Oh, there was more. My feet are like snowshoes to the Japanese, so I have to buy shoes on base or take my chances with the fit on an online order. But the NEX (on-base department store) carries an abysmal selection – if you’re a woman. There’s a whole section of active outdoor shoes for men, with a bunch from Keen, Merrell, Teva, etc. But if you forgot to bring your penis to Japan? It’s high heels and one scant rack of sneakers for you, missy. My one pair of leather flip-flops are not good for bike riding or long walks, both of which we’re doing a lot.

So this morning was really rough, and I’ve spent all afternoon laying down in our sad little room. The headache is gone now thanks to Excedrin, and Josh and I are making burritos with vegetables, and no raw fish, in our room for dinner tonight. I still love this country (even though I may, allegedly, have claimed to hate everything about Japan earlier today. Ever had a fit of pique? I had one.) and I am looking forward to getting over this wall.

Comments and emails and Skypes, please!

*Okay, I know it’s not all Republicans! I know, I know.
But in general? They suck at Earth.

**If you have international calling and want my cell number AND promise to think of the time difference before calling me, please send me an email.

Apropos of nothing, here’s a picture of a $35.00 watermelon.

Radio silence

...broken!

So much to tell you - in the past two days we've purchased ice cream, cell phones, and our first Japanese fruit. I'll write about the others soon, but for now...would you like that ice cream in a cup, or a corn?

Signs

This one is just for fun! These are some of the ads we see on a daily basis, "out in town." I wish I could tell you what the first one says...





Feel wood, everybody.