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名古屋で人生を楽しむ

I haven't written in quite a while for many reasons. One is that I've been spending a lot of time studying for the Kanken, or Kanji Kentei, or Japanese Chinese character proficiency test. Maybe that doesn't make sense to some people, anyway, to put it simply, much of Japanese is written in Chinese characters, so it's good to have proficiency in them if you want to learn Japanese.

A few months ago, I signed up online to take this test today. I actually took two tests, level 7 and level 6. The highest and most difficult is level one, the easiest is level 10. The tests are exactly one hour long, and I'm sure that this is an experience that Japanese go through untold times in their lives. This experience was quite interesting. For the first test, there were 100 test takers. Three of us were adults, the rest were all very young children, probably around 8-11 years old. In the second test, there were 80 test takers, and two of us adults. As you might imagine, it's a little humbling to have an eight-year-old child finish a test 20 minutes ahead of you when you're struggling to finish in time.

One nice thing about these tests is that they allow you to take the question sheets home with you, so you can check and see how you did right away. I'm pretty confident about my level 7 test, and even my level 6 test, I think I got enough answers correct. However, it might depend on if I wrote neatly enough and my characters were well-formed enough to be marked right. We'll see. Anyways, next time, in October, I'll at least take level 5 for sure, and maybe level 4. I am looking forward to the time when I can take the higher levels when there might be more adults taking the test. Anyway, if anyone's interested, I scanned my test papers, and you can see them here:

Level 7 part 1
Level 7 part 2
Level 6 part 1
Level 6 part 2

Went back to Tokuzo in Imaike last night to see Bob Log 3. Hadn't seen him since, I don't know, 2002 or so in SF (at Bimbo's). He's exactly as I remembered, although with the smaller club it was a little better view. Plus there were three other bands, all pretty memorable, although the third one, ハッチハッチェル・バンド (Hachihacher Band? I'm not sure what it means) was pretty memorable. They had us all singing a song about monkeys and gorillas at the end of their set.

Dang but this camera takes crappy photos for the most part, doesn't it?

Saturday night, went to Casablanca, this really close and wonderful Moroccan place. The food was really amazing. I've been to many great Middle Eastern restaurants before in San Francisco and in the UAE among other places. But I was really pleasantly surprised at the new flavors we were treated to. The shish kebabs had mouthwatering whitefish. The hummus had exceptional spiciness. And there was a great chicken dish with cinnamon, dates, white beans and sesame seeds. And I met some interesting new people. Oh and to top it all off, I made a fool of myself on stage dancing with a belly dancer. And I wasn't even drunk.

Casablanca

Oh, by the way, today we walked up a mountain six times. すごい気持ちよかった。

Yesterday's randomly picked city to visit was Obama, in Fukui prefecture. It's a really tiny town on the Sea of Japan that I chose, of course, for its name. Ever since Barack Obama started running for president, this little town has started a publicity campaign of its own, basically trying to cash in on the name. There's a little local group that supports his candidacy, and some correspondence between the candidate and the mayor. I'm not sure how much it's done for the tourism trade, however, because I visited on a holiday weekend and there wasn't too much tourist activity. Oh well, it was a nice relaxing day by the sea, and I got some good views of some hawks, a really dangerous-looking fishing pier, and a closeup view of a bunch of those concrete things they have around harbors using them for whatever they're used for. Also the train ride there and back was pleasant enough. A day well spent.

小浜

Today, because my company generously cares for our health, I went to the doctor for the first time in Japan for a checkup. I certainly experienced some of the differences between Japanese and American medicine. The first thing was I got to take a stool sample for the first time in my life! It was greatly aided by this poster with the cute little turd on it demonstrating the correct way to sit on the toilet to collect your sample. I found this a little strange. I mean, do anthropomorphised turds shit out little people?

The actual checkup was pretty normal for the most part, except for some key differences. It was pretty much like the kind of thing we used to have to do in the military, where you go around to all these different stations with your folder and you get checked out for each diagnostic - blood, chest X-ray, eyes, ears, etc. Except it was much better organized and no one was yelling at me. The most significant part, by far, though was the stomach cancer screening. You can't eat or drink anything (including water) from the night before to prepare you for it. Then you stand on this platform, and take some white stuff, (basically just like pop rocks) which give you gas and you're not supposed to burp. The big thing though is that they make you drink a thick slurry of white stuff - this is barium. Now I was told I could refuse to take the stuff, but my Japanese is nowhere near good enough to convince anyone of anything, so I gave in. (Barium is a low-level radioactive substance, and if there's one thing we learned in the Navy Nuclear Power program it's that any exposure to radiation increases your risk of cancer, so I still try to reduce my exposure to X-rays and stuff as much as I can). Now, the reason for this procedure is that Japan has a high rate of stomach cancer (10 times higher than the US). And they were really adamant about how important this procedure is. "If you do this we'll diagnose if you have cancer. You don't want cancer, do you?"

The procedure itself is actually pretty neat, because you can watch a screen and see the stuff go down your throat and into your stomach. You can see your spine and all your organs in real time, just like those fluoroscope movies of people eating they used to show us as kids. Then, the guy moves the table into all sorts of positions to see how the barium flows and if there are any growths, I guess there would be irregularities.

But anyways, my point is, this stuff is nasty. Immediately after giving it to you they give you this big warning sheet and a couple of laxatives to make sure you get the stuff out of your system as soon as possible.

I'm just thinking that perhaps the Japanese have such a high rate of stomach cancer is because they all do chest X-rays and drink barium shakes once a year, you know!

Anyways, I give this checkup 3 Godzillas.

They did give me a coupon for a free drink at the local cafe, but still, a checkup isn't supposed to make you feel worse.

So today I had ramen again for the first time in like three weeks. I went to the Ramen Ninja, and discovered that a place called Hasegawa is really close - just a block from the TV Tower. I had the Spicy Beef Ramen - geez, I haven't had beef ramen in like two years, if ever. It was really Chinese-tasting, something about the vegetables (not MSG-y). Even though the soup was light, it was full of spicy beefy flavor, and even though the noodles were the curly kind, which I don't like so much, it was a really satisfying bowl. I think what really made it was the atmosphere. The place was really clean and bright, with lots of windows and pleasant, seasonal decorations. The tables were highly polished wood, there was a big table in the middle that seated like twenty, and smaller couple tables all around. Also the chairs were really cool heavy circular objects that were a joy to sit on. It didn't hurt that some of the customers were not unattractive. I'll be patronizing this establishment again. Four godzillas.

Now, back to Days of Our Lives. I really dig John Black's character these days.

Just got back from a long-awaited vacation to Hawaii, where I met up with my great friend Greg. It was just about perfect. We rented motorcycles for a couple of days. I ate a California-style burrito, we swam in the ocean and relaxed on the beach. It was really a relaxing trip, and I came back perfectly relaxed, ready to come back to work. Just as a vacation is supposed to be. Rode in a motorglider for the first time. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Hawaii 2008

Today really felt like the first day of spring. First day this year I went out without my heavy jacket, and I left my door open all day long without need of the heater. So after getting all my winter fur chopped off my head (at the barbershop where I actually was able to read an entire newspaper article about cameras understanding all of the kanji and only having to look up a few words), I went to Ichinomiya (一宮) to pick up a futon from my friend John, who is the only other remaining person from the initial training class at Aeon from two years ago. We went to a park where we saw some of his students and shot some hoops.

2008-03-08 一宮

In the evening, I went to a Chinese place near Fukiage (吹上) recommended to me by my co-worker Rieko. I had the tantanmen, which was pretty popular I hear. Anyway, apart from me there were only two people there, but the place was pretty interesting. The staff were all Chinese (and spoke Mandarin), but there were pictures and menu items from all over China. In fact, there were probably about 300 different items on the menu, from Dim Sum to Taiwan Ramen to Tantanmen. The Tantanmen was pretty good, although the soup was a little watery. It does look like a good place to go for a big party though, so I'll probably try it again. One interesting thing about the place is on the menu they bragged that people from 52 countries have visited, from places like San Marino, Andorra, Mauritius, and Tanzania.

OK, again a while since the last update. Last week, I was actually feeling really out of it, as my tinnitis was acting up and it was really hard for me to concentrate. This week, it's been slightly warmer and I've been able to run more frequently and sleep more, so I've felt a lot better. So here's a synopsis of what's been going on in my Japanese Blog, plus some other random observations.

On the 22nd, I went to go see Acid Mothers Temple here at Tokuzo in Imaike. It was the first show I've seen in Japan (apart from the many free shows in Central Park and near Osu). It was absolutely my favorite kind of show. There couldn't have been more than 50 people in that little room, and the entertainment was spot on. One of those shows where I really lived in the moment, thinking "This is exactly where I want to be, experiencing these very sensations." Some of the features of the show: Really really long beards. Percussion using various kitchen implements and religious artifacts (like Tibetan singing bowls played on the guitar's pickup), a broken guitar string that didn't matter because the artist was so entrenched in the performance, and a little ditty about Japanese convenience stores. These pictures taken from my keitai don't do it any justice, but in a way it's ok. It's a kind of performance that has a life of its own in my memories. Oh, I also realized that I missed Bob Log III there just two weeks before :P

Tokuzo

Sunday the 24th was my birthday. There was no big party this year (mostly because I didn't tell anyone about it), but it was still fantastic just the same. My favorite person in Japan took me out for a fantastic sushi dinner. She also spent a lot of time making me wonderful cakes and candies. 広美さん、本当にありがとうございました！

２００８誕生日

Other than that, I went to a meeting of people who want to learn to speak French. Of course, it was more Japanese practice for me, but I think I'm going to be spending a lot more time speaking French than I ever thought I would.

At work, I'm in charge of the music, so when the boss is away we have a good time listening to things like 80s music, Persian, and J-pop. And at home, I've just started getting into this 80's J-pop station on USEN.

And my final guilty pleasure I've been getting into is Days Of Our Lives. I've watched that show since I was, like 8, and it had been like 15 years since I've watched it. But it took me all of two episodes to get right back into the storyline, since it moves so damned slowly. Lots of things to wonder: Why did Chris Kosichek turn into Roman Brady? How many times has John Black had his memory wiped? How is it that Patch still has the same unknown checkered past that he had 20 years ago? Does anything ever change on this show? Inquiring minds want to know!

OK, I guess it's been a while since I updated this English blog, hasn't it? So here's a little update. All of this is on my Japanese version, which of course you can always see using a translation tool, if you like.

Let's see... I've been making a lot of nabe and going out to eat nabe too, which seems to be what to in the winter. Including motsunabe. Motsu is basically innards, like intestines and stuff.

I ordered this kanji game from amazon.co.jp that took a long time to arrive because apparently the delivery service is incompetetent or something. I mean the address is correct because it's the same one I've used for other services before, but I guess they couldn't figure it out. Anyway, the new software is fantastic, but I have to start again from zero on this version, whereas I had been up to 1450 kanji on the previous one. But it's not bad to go back and review, anyway.

I tried another Taiwan ramen place, not so hot, but ok.

It snowed heavily last weekend for the first time I've been in Japan. The snow only lasted one day, but I did take a lot of nice photos.

雪

I registered the domain daikoke.com. I was surprised such a short domain was still open. "Daikoke" is basically my name (Gross = "big" = "dai" (could be another reading, but after discussions with a friend, this seemed to be the best) Moss = "koke"). Haven't done anything with it yet, but we'll see.

I ordered pizza for the first time by myself in Japan.

The valentine I got for Valentines Day was from the boss's little daughter. A really cute card and some cookies.

Friday night I went out with a couple former students and a husband of one of them. Later on had really good conversation the likes of which I hadn't had in a long time.

炭やき鳥ぼう家

Tonight, we had a little goodbye party for the last remaining Aeon member of Team Gaijin, basically the group of us who all were in the same training group who started back in March '06. Wow, amazing how time flies. We had a great time and talked about words like twunt and the dogs bollox.

goodbyejoanne