I hate the world…

 

Yesterday, New Super Mario Bros. for the DS was released here. I went to pick up my copy in the Bic Camera in Shinjuku and due to my bad Japanese almost ended up accidentally buying a new DS Lite as well. I realised I had been queueing in the DS Lite queue just before I would have had to buy one, and instead just picked up the game. It’s pretty good and has lots of nice new bonuses like the giant mushroom and the tiny mushroom, both of which work really well. The music is also really good, lots of new versions of the classic Mario Brothers tunes. It feels pretty much like playing a remixed version of the original Super Mario on the NES…only much, much easier (which wouldn’t be too hard, seeing as I can hardly finish the first world on the original these days) and much, much prettier. I’m really liking the really simple interface and the small touch screen moments, and especially the nice touch of action moving to the lower screen when Mario goes down a pipe! Looking forward to getting home tonight to play a bit more! I’m starting to get a bit backlogged with games at the moment. I only really play my DS and PSP on the second half of the commute to work (the first half, I read), and so now have about 5 games as yet unfinished…all a good way of preventing me spend any money on new ones though!

The current special at McDonald’s here is the McSalad. Normally I would order extra large fries and an extra large coke in protest at McD’s doing anything that claims to be healthy, but the Tomato Grilled Chicken Sandwich did look pretty good, so I compromised and ordered a BigMac set, with extra fries, large coke and a Tomato Grilled Chicken sandwich as an aperitif. As you can see, it didn’t look much like their picture, but in fact, it was not too bad. The sauce they’ve used is pretty good (and it’s always the sauce that really makes or breaks a McD’s for me), and the chicken was a not-especially-bad approximation of what real chicken should taste like. I was tempted by the yogurt with berries, but that I feel, would have been a step too far…also the hot girl who works in my local McD’s was starting to look at me as if (she knew) I was a freak, without me ordering that too. Incidentally it’s quite revealing having a hot girl working in McDonalds, as it’s made me realise that you can keep the french maid/school girl/police woman/construction worker costumes…a hot girl in a McDonald’s uniform is what it’s all about.

 

At this time of year, just after the start of the new term, students have to do health checks at school. This are usually pretty routine, with students giving blood and having their eyes and teeth checked. It’s a pretty good system in general, and allows poorer students a free check-up and any necessary treatment (ie glasses) that they might need…although it doesn’t seem to have done anything to help stem the flood of interesting and original teeth formations that you see in the average Japanese Junior High School. Anyway, this year, I figured everything would be pretty much the same as usual; students would be called out of class for their health check and would return a few minutes later in tears, to be greeted by the world-wide custom of the post-injection-dead-arm. This was not to be the case. In our pre-class meeting today, I found out that in my new city, not only the students have to have a health check, but the teachers do too. Obviously, being foreign (and therefore almost non-human in the eyes of the Japanese), I don’t have to do this…but the rest of the teachers do. The thing is, not only do they have to do the usual blood, sight and dental checks, but everyone also has to do a urine-test. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when they donate their sample, it has to be collected in the mosy obscenely small tube, about the same size as a thick biro, which is named, appropriately and yet ridiculously enough:

 

A "Pee-pole". Wonderful! I’ll try and take a better picture tomorrow when I have my proper camera. 

Last week was Golden Week here in Japan. It marks the first real holiday most Japanese workers have since the New Year break, and consequently all hotels and travel companies hike up their prices to almost double the norm to try their hardest to make it impossible for anyone to go anywhere or do anything. Tourist attractions have bigger crowds and roads and trains around Japan become even more congested than normal. This year my mum came over to Tokyo for the second time and stayed with me in Kichijoji. Really nice to see her and be able to eat something in the evening other than my current-money-saving-diet of baked potatoes and cheese. We went to some really nice restaurants during the week:

Allt Gott is a nice Scandanavian restaurant in Kichijoji, serving traditional Northern fare (although with the smallest glasses of wine I have ever seen), and was pretty good. Having a menu consisting entirely of strange meats like Reindeer did make ordering a little more confusing than usual…and where do they get fresh Reindeer from in Tokyo? Probably steal them from zoos or something. I thought the Swedish meatballs were particularly good.

Toriyoshi is a nice yakitori restaurant right next to Inokashira Park, that for ages I thought was the ground floor of the Primi Baci restaurant upstairs. They have a beautiful graden entrance and serve good yakitori and lots of it at a pretty reasonable price. Came out at about 6000 yen for a good feed with drinks.

The Kichijoji branch of Mos (Mountain Ocean Sun!! HA!) Burger Classic was also good. Mos Burger is one of the Japanese hamburger chains and is usually pretty good, although similar to other burger chains. The Classic variation is much better. It’s down some steps next to the Armani store in Kichijoji and has a nicely designed interior featuring a shirt signed by Alex Santos. The burgers here are fantastic, towering affairs, completely different from the usual Mos Burger fast food variant, and really require you to eat them with a knife and fork, although I refuse to do that on point of principle. Really good avacado, bacon cheeseburger.

Primi Baci (above) is a really nice Italian restaurant above Toriyoshi with a terrace overlooking Inokashira park. They served really amazing Italian food, certainly the best I’ve had in Tokyo and definitely comparable to that back home. The tomato salad was really good as was the steak and blue cheese sauce. I would definitely recommend going on a Friday night as there is a really hot waitress working there then, and after all, that is what’s really important. The meal was expensive (about £75 quid for three courses), but well worth checking out when one has some money to burn, or when wanting to impress a ladee. Very nice indeed.

It was also very nice of my mum to introduce me to two new (at least, to me) gardens in Tokyo. The first was the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden in Iidabashi (above), just behind the Tokyo Dome. A really beautiful and surprisingly big Japanese-Style garden that will look amazing in the Autumn and when it snows. Really cheap too, at around £1 to get into. Looking forward to spending some more time there when the weather is more appropriate than the current rain. There are lots of nice things to see there, like the remnant of old tea-houses and shrines, most of which were unfortuantely destroyed during the war.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum in Meguro (above), was also a really good new discovery. A little bit more pricey at about 1200 yen for entry to the house and gardens (less for just the gardens), but definitely worth it. They have a really nice lawn outside (a rare thing in central Tokyo), and lots of people were picnicking when we went. The exhibition in the museum, on Scandinavian design and Arabia Pottery in Finland was pretty nice, but completely overshadowed by the house itself. Built in 1933, it was the home of Prince Asaka and his family. The Prince had been taken with Art Deco during his studies in France in the 20s and employed designer Henri Rapin to build him a residence in the Art Deco style in Meguro. The house has stunning glasswork by Rene Lalique and some wonderful marble by Ivan-Leon Branchot and every room has beautiful details with amazing light fixtures. Definitely worth going to, even if the exhibition showing there isn’t of interest. I really enjoyed it and will go again soon.

A good Golden Week then this year, although I am still puzzled as to why women can’t find any nice navy-blue sandals except for some ridiculously overpriced ones from Jimmy Choo? Oh well, another of the great mysteries of the universe I suppose. 

 

 

So in yet another triumph of clueless Japanese PR people, the new Nintendo console, codenamed Revolution, has been named: Wii. What was wrong with the name Revolution? It summed up the the console pretty accurately, the revolutionary nature of the controller and the backward compatibility of the downloadable games from Nintendo, Sega and NEC. Instead, Nintendo have gone with a name that will have unfunny people like myself going into game stores and saying things like "I need a Wii" and "Is this the right place to come for a Wii?". The press release from the Nintendo website clearly reveals the damage-control exercise that the English-speaking departments of Nintendo are having to go through:

Introducing… Wii.
As in "we."
While the code-name "Revolution" expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.
Wii will put people more in touch with their games… and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?
Wii sounds like "we," which emphasises this console is for everyone.
Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.
Wii has a distinctive "ii" spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.
And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.
So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.
Because, it’s really not about you or me.
It’s about Wii.
And together, Wii will change everything.

Pretty awful to say the least. But to be honest they could call it the Nintendo Piss Machine and I’d still buy it on the day of release!

 

 

This is the new journal, albeit a temporary one, until I can afford to buy myself some webspace and start playing around in css for real. Nicer than the old site, but harder to use, all good to get my head round though. Also been fiddling with some HDR pictures after seeing the tutorial on Pingmag. Here’s the first few from this weekend…click them to view in a new window with added bigness…

The Tokyo International Forum.

Some steps in Inogashira Park, near my flat.

The temple in Inogashira Park.

 

A stream in Sensoji Temple, Asakusa.