I bought a Cell Phone!

I bought a little orange(only color they had) clamshell prepaid cellphone from J-Phone. It has a color screen, email, a digital camera, a midi editor, calander, notes, english menus, etc., etc....

My number is : 09066395827 and my email address for the phone is : 09066395827@jp-q.ne.jp
Please be aware of the time difference if you are going to call me.

Oh yeah. I went to about 5 J-phone dealers and never found a pre-paid phone. Seb found a store that sells them in the back of a big shop in the Arcade.

 
O Kunchi was pretty interesting....

O Kunchi is a local Japanese festival, I guess kind a like Saint Patricks day. However instead of a centralised parade they have events spread all throughout Nagasaki. I started at You-Me-Saito where I saw some of the portable pogadas, and then wandered around the fair atmosphere they had set up by the warf. The carnies have different ways to try to fleece you of your money. The most popular one I saw was a game where you drew pieces of paper from a box, and those papers would tell you what prize you won. I saw lots of PS2 and Gamecubes as prizes, but all I won was a portable fan.

Next I wondered down to the Arcade shopping district and saw several performances. There were the big boat on wheel floats that had drummers in them. They would go to from place to place, and do performances. They would stop somewhere and either play the instruments(drum likes things mostly), or do this performance which manly involved spinning the boat thing around. Sometimes they would get one of the kids on the boat to fish for plastic fishes they set up with a net.

The other type of performace was people dressed up in traditional clothing, or old characters and do a little performance to traditional music. At times it got really packed around performances.

Of course the event that really tied O Kunchi together was the bus ride home. There is nothing like being stuck on a completely packed bus about a foot away from a drunk guy. Unless its like being stuck on a completely packed bus about a foot away from a drunk guy who just threw up in the bus's entrance(Which is in the back of Japanese bus's). Who then proceeds to get his head stuck between the folding door and a pole on the bus at the next stop. For a bus that was so packed it was interesting to see how the high schoolers at the back suddenly thought it was a good idea to let the guy sit down. That and the rest of the bus completly ignored the whole goings on...Even if they could smell it wafting up from the back of the bus.

Ah well. I am sure some Americans are no better on Saint Patricks day...Or New Years eve..

 
So far I have read 5 1/2 books while in Japan. I finished Angel Mass by Zahn(Alright...Icarus Hunt was much better), the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy(Which I did find a character I like:Foramir....Bormiars brother), Endgame Enigma, and now A Mature Women. At this rate I will easily be out of books within a month. Though I think I will be checking out a book for my Lit 2 class to read over this 3 day weekend.

I have also started trying my hand at translating various Japanese books. I have two Japanese RPGs I am working on translating, and I am screwing around with some other books as well. I am thinking of going down to the local Book Off and picking up some good cheap Manga to try and translate. I find when I actually try to translate books certain Kanji just stick now. Especially if I see them several times.

 
This last weekend I also had Yakisoba. My host mother called this the Japanese pizza, but it is much more like a Japanese version of Egg Fu Young. It is still really good though. Eating Yakisoba also forces you to learn how to cut food with chopsticks. I think my chopstick skills have been improving, but it was a plus to have some clue how to use them before I came over here. Oh yeah, the sauce that is used with Yakisoba is half mayo and half something kinda like Tonkatsu. I swear the Japanese put mayo on everything. I even saw a TV show about other uses of Mayo.

I also found a food I balked at. I will not eat whole small dried fish. I woudntl do it when my mother brought them back from Hawaii and I still dont feel like doing it. I guess I just prefer most of my meat to not look like the animal it came from. Especially with parts of the animal like the head.

I cant remember if I said this before or not, but I would like a comparison of the exchange rates between countries figured in with how much the money in the country will buy you. For example the Lord of the Rings DVD in Japan costs $43, in America you could get it free with the test drive of a Kiya.

Seb says he has finnaly found the downtown Hard-Off(A used electronics store). Hopefully he will be able to find it again, and I will be able to see if these is maybe a third Hard-Off. I think the next time I am downtown I may purchase a pre-paid cell phone. I also managed to find my to two Ings...

I think I want to go to the Chinese Museum next...