Monday 22 February 2010

Paper forms and verb forms

Another blog entry so soon after the last, what IS this world coming to?

Let's start with yesterday's church, which was especially good for a number of reasons. Firstly Mark wasn't there (I kid! It's a joke!). Also the preacher this week, to my utmost surprise, was female. I guess I'd just assumed that with the traditional setting and traditional hymns, Doshisha church's beliefs would be likewise somewhat traditional. But no, nobody seemed to have a problem with the woman, though I still can't remember her name. She gave an interesting sermon on the tenderness of the Holy Spirit, linking Jesus' torment in the desert to her own long-suffering allergies. It was easily understood, too, as she was using more conversational styles of Japanese that I was used to from lecturers. Also met another Christian fan of Gundam, which was simply superb. He likes Zeta and Wing, and was interested in hearing what I had to say about 00. Next week is udon week, so I hope to meet the guy again. Can't remember his name, either.

So today was important for two things. Firstly I was going to get my form (Urgh) handed in that states that I can get back into the country after leaving for Korea in March. Second was dissertational research.

The form in question looked almost identical to one I handed it not too long ago, the form for working part time with a student visa, so I assumed the procedure was the same. Collecting together my passport, alien card, student I.D. and the form itself, I cycled off to uni to hand them all in. I first cottoned on to things not being right when I gave the woman at the desk my form, and she looked at it blankly and asked 'What is this?' You should know, was my desired reply, you gave it to me on Saturday! After handing it round to seemingly everyone in the whole office, it tagged to someone that they don't deal with them, you have to hand them in at the Immigration office yourself.

...

So off I went, map in hand, to find the Osaka General Immigration Office (Kyoto Branch), which was apparently on Marutamachi street, east of the river. No problem, I thought, cycling off to the riverside, extra-specially nice in the spring sun. Did you know there two Marutamachi's, parallel to each other? I guess they wanted to save time in naming the streets so thought 'Hey, it's practically the same road!' So after walking down past the Kyoto City Hospital, which incorporates the Kyoto University Medical School so is massive, I realised my mistake and headed south by one to get to the desired street.

The Immigration Office lies of the fourth floor of a bigger building. Handing over my form to the woman at the desk (who spoke unnaturally quickly), I was told that it would cost 3000 yen to get the thing processed. Not that surprising, I had been told about this before, so I fished into my wallet for the money. But oh no, Japan wouldn't make it so simple for me. On seeing my actions, I was told that I can't actually pay with money.

....

Holding tight to Ticket No. 29, hoping beyond hope that it didn't get called before I got back, I rushed to the thankfully close post office to get a stamp. A stamp!! And with that I could pay the form fee. The people at the stamp shop, by contrast, were very nice, and even gave me some discount vouchers for the duty free shop at Kansai International as thanks for buying their stuff. And when I got back to the office, I found that No. 29 would never be called, because I first had to put the form, stamp attached, into the box at the desk. And they neglected to tell me this... why?! I had to watch someone who knew what they were doing (somehow) do it first before I realised!

So that's that sorted. Now I can leave Japan and still get back in again.

So there's this building called a Daikyoukai (lit. big church) right near the Immigration office. Looks Buddhist, but I really couldn't tell. And there were people living in it. For the life of me I could not fathom such a building's purpose. Was it a themed hotel? I had no idea! I spend ages walking around it out of simple curiosity (and hoping to put off the next task on the list) and could not find out what the people in the building were meant to be doing.

Anyone know what this is? Please, tell me if you do.

Okay, so the big challenge of today. I cycled off to Shimogamo Shrine, the local one, with my new dictaphone, and started asking people what 'Praying' was. I think it went quite well, all things considered, and Shimogamo is a much better place to spend 5 hours standing around than a lot of other places I could mention. I was also blown away by just how nice everyone seemed to be. Well, maybe not everyone, but enough to make it count. The first woman I interviewed, for example, could not have been more helpful, and used lots of lovely keigo for me to analyse when I don't feel so sleepy. There were a lot of similarly kind people around, but I couldn't interview them all. People with cameras, I decided, were out, because they obviously weren't just here to pray. Same went for couples (and why is it that shrines are big date spots, huh? Why aren't cathedrals the same?) as they may have influenced each other's choices (plus I'd feel like a third wheel). So I was targeting the people who went in without any kind of photo-taking device (which made me look like a thief), and anybody who bowed on their way into the shrine complex was a dead cert for interviewing. Oh, and these people were clearly out of the question:


What I found is that people DO use keigo when they talk about Shinto gods, which is helpful, and have some evidence to back that up with. Not enough, though. Not quite. So tomorrow's task will be the same as today's: find a shrine and quiz the occupants. Hopefully now that I've mustered up a bit more courage I can save a bit more time. After that I'll move on to Buddhist temples, and on Sunday do the same at church. The I'll get to writing the thing, which I'm looking less and less forward to. Say what you will, Miriam and Mits, I'm not convinced I can get all 8000 words written on just this topic. But hey, I'll give it my best. Maybe if I quote enough other people it'll rack that word count up.

Until tomorrow, then.

***

あぁ、結婚したいわぁ!<3

Saturday 20 February 2010

Take those eggs back in time to before the expiration date; that way they're good to eat.

It's still the holiday, folks, and that means I haven't been doing much. But I have been doing something, I haven't been completely wasting my time away. Although some days that's exactly what it feels like.

A beautiful example: Yesterday I took my brand-new CV, a gorgeous sight to behold, and stuck it in an email with something approaching a cover letter. That email was then sent to a company that will remain nameless, because this anecdote does not turn out well for them. I cannot stress enough how many times I checked, double-checked and triple-checked that email (actually it was just one of each); I even sent it to myself once just to make sure it would come through alright. Then, at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, off it went to, hopefully, my new employer.

So imagine my ballistic rage (the guys on MSN at the time shouldn't have to) when, at 10 o'clock at night, I thought I'd just have a little check in the inbox, just to make sure, and found a new email. And email that I had written just that day! My own email! Attached to it was a brief message from the anonymous internet postman telling me that the email address I sent it to did not exist, and though it would ishhoukenmei try and send it again every few hours it wanted me to know chance of success was small. Small like my patience!

What kind of stupid company, one that prides itself on communication skills none the less, attaches the wrong email to their help wanted ad?! Not just that, to their own flipping website?! Or maybe this was just some elaborate hoax set up by the Osaka Immigration Center, get me enticed by a great-looking job teaching kids English for 4,000 yen every hour and a half, and then remind me that, as a gaijin living in Japan, good things are not allowed to happen to me.

Needless to say, new offers have been sent out, and I sit and wait for the inevitable, familiar voice of the postman.

So that's an update of one of my Big Spring Responsibilities, now the other one. I'm actually quite happy with how the dissertation's going, at the moment. After three solid days (minus the time I spent sleeping until the mid-afternoon, you understand) of reading through often quite interesting linguistics papers on audience design and the role of keigo in style-switching, I was able to write a full 1,200 words of introduction that I am very pleased with. It's a wonderful feeling, knowing it's two weeks into the eight-week holiday, I've only spent a week working on it (if that), and only have 6,800 words left.

Mind you, now comes the really tricky bit, and the reason I was out on my bike for about five hours. I was dictaphone shopping, you see, and those things are both difficult -

Just been invited to a movie night. Sweet!

- both difficult to find and crazy expensive. What kind of hedonistic moron would buy a dictaphone for forty thousand yen? Forty thousand! For that I could pay the rent, health insurance and phone bill for a month and still buy a copy of Heavy Rain on the PS3 (a console I don't have, but would be seriously tempted to buy for that gorgeous-looking game). On the other hand, it's still only half of JASSO for a month, so maybe I shouldn't be the one complaining. The other end of the spectrum was a two thousand yen model which was essentially useless, as the files were recorded onto the 'phone and stayed there. By which I mean you couldn't put them onto the computer. And as the board of markers for Honours Linguistics dissertations is sure to want proof that I really did go and make a royal fool of myself for the purposes of linguistic science that's not going to help one bit.

Not that it really mattered anyway, as Bic Camera had none of them!! Seriously, the whole lot sold out! What is this, buy-a-dictaphone... no hi? What are all these salarymen going to use them for? Ridiculous, I tell you. So I've just now made my own Amazon.jp account and ordered a nice, little middle-ground 'phone (something called an Olympus Voice Trek V-22) for five thousand yen (two thousand cheaper than Bic Camera would have had it for), and in true Amazon tradition it tells me it will arrive tomorrow. Which is Sunday, so I do doubt that. But the range of options for Japanese Amazon really did have me impressed. You don't need to put in a credit card number, you can opt to pay for it at an ATM near where you live. The same goes for address; you just have to put in a Lawson's near you and they'll send it there instead. Incredible.

So I won't be making a fool of myself until Monday at the earliest, which is actually a bit of a shame as o-Hi-sama was out in full this morning, and I can think of no better conditions to be harassing the local populace in. However, church tomorrow, and I'm hoping that resident linguistics lecturer Rie-san will be around so I can offload a few questions. Like, can I record some church-goers praying? Don't know how to say that without sounding like a bit of a nut, so I guess there's no helping it. As they say here in Japan, there is no ginger.

There we go, the two Responsibilities. I could feel a lot worse about where everything's going at this point, so I can be thankful for that. And besides, it's the weekend! What better time to do nothing than now!

And what a great time it is for we slackers! Heard of Google Wave? Louise sent me an invite not long ago, and that is one clever piece of kit. It's like an email, bulletin board, instant messaging thing, and it's also a lot of fun. Louise has big plans to run a Dark Heresy game over it, which I think should work stupendously. Also, I still have my eight invitations left, so anyone interested form a line and get your begging faces on.

Another fairly lengthy use of my time recently has been a not-that-recent anime, but one that I have neglected to check out until just now. It's called Kara no Kyoukai, and easily ranks up there as number one most brutal anime I have ever seen in my whole life. It's also the latest attempt by a studio to borrow the incorrect chronology method of arranging episodes from Suzumiya Haruhi (film out soon and I can't wait!), but pulls it off very well. It pulls a lot of things off very well, for that matter, especially episode previews. This show has the very best episode previews I have ever seen, they're just beautiful. Pity I really don't like the main character, but Kokutou makes up for her so it's still good.

And then there's a free, online farming game. I know what game you're all thinking, but you are wrong. This is a game called Mabinogi, which is easily one of the most popular online games in Japan at the moment. It's the one in all the internet cafes, anyway, and has its own magazine. Typical fantasy setting puts your dude into the shoes of pretty much whoever you want to be. Mercia, for example, is a swordsman who moonlights as a lute-player and sheep-shearer. You get experience for fighting, but also for composing, setting up camps, collecting eggs and sewing pretty patterns into clothes. Pretty much everything. Due to not playing it at the right time I am yet to see all that many people online as of yet, but I'm enjoying what I've played so far. Let's just hope it remains free when my character gets to old age and dies (does actually happen) and I need to have him reborn. I'm guessing not.

That's it. Pretty uneventful holiday, and that fact grates on me quite horribly most of the day, but I'll fight through that feeling. That and the bouncing emails, invisible dictaphones, complicated dissertation topics and not having a pen. Seriously, where did all my pens go? I'll just step out and buy some more.

Thanks for reading.

***

もうすぐ、レッド君。もうすぐ。そして…

倒す!!

Monday 15 February 2010

The Frozen North, final

Okay, so this isn't as punctual as the others. But in my defence, there really isn't a great deal to talk about. Certainly aren't any photos or videos worth showing, at least not from my camera.

Day 4, the penultimate day, was spent doing absolutely nothing. I beat the Elite Four three times that day. Three whole times. That is how little we did. On top of that was dinner at Victoria, a mostly-steak-serving family restaurant with an infinite salad bar, and a snowball fight. There really isn't anything more to say.

Day 5 was the last day, and we were all up early to see Steph off as she left for Tokyo to see her family. With a lot of time to kill before the ferry at 10.30, we split up to go and find something to do again. Mark and I had tempura, then did a trawl of the bookshops of Otaru in search of postcards. I'm sure the others did interesting stuff too. We met up again at 3 for karaoke at the quirky-looking Thriller Karaoke, which was notable for its funny decorations and incredibly cheap 50-yen-per-half-hour price. A lot of fun was had, followed by dinner, again, at Victoria, and then it was off to the terminal. I can report that, due to fairer weather, the boat trip back was incomparably better than the trip there, and it was even quite fun. The maids even managed to rip the mansion into Hell to save it from the explosion caused by a 200 foot tall alien. I also watched the first Pokemon movie in Japanese for the first time ever, which was quite an experience*.

We arrived back in Kansai at 9pm, where we walked to the JR station nearby and caught the last train bound in the rough direction of Kyoto. Unfortunately, the subways having finished about half an hour before we arrived, I was forced to walk the I-don't-know-how-many kilometers back from Nijo Station in the west of Kyoto city center, to the Shugakukan in the north east. It certainly did NOT help that I took a wrong turn right at the start and ended up going south for a good distance. This is what I get for picking the closer but unfamiliar station over Kyoto's distant familiarity. Anyway, it took 3 hours and 2 Big Thunders to get home, by which time it was practically morning and my feet hurt.

The next day I awoke at 3pm with a text, then must have fallen asleep again, and woke up for real at 4.45, 15 minutes before the vital ATMs shut for the day (ridiculous, right?). Waking up to see the sun set is a very scary thing, let me tell you. I also watched the second Pokemon movie* and played Elona for a fair while. Then I went back to bed at about midnight.

So yesterday was an actually eventful day, with coffee at Starbuck's with Mai (where I learnt she was getting a part-time job as a cospla- I mean, as a shrine maiden), followed by farewell karaoke for Angela. Seriously fun stuff. Then we had dinner at Mumokuteki, the vegan restaurant in Teramachi, which was just superb. Thusly we saw the end of a long era.

And now it's today. Plans for today are limited, being pretty sleepy, but crucial. I need to find a job, for example. It seems to me that all of the part-time English teaching positions around here require full degrees before you can even apply, which I guess is what Dina was talking about at the CELTA interview, but if a whole bunch of other Edinburghers have found such jobs without needing a degree then so can I. I need to save money for the sorry-I-was-ill-and-couldn't-visit trips to Kobe and Tokyo. Other plans include research for the linguistics essay, which I now finally have time to start properly. Not feeling good about it, though, as collecting the data is going to be one nasty job. I mean, how do I go about getting recordings of people spontaneously using keigo in some kind of religious discussion? The Christian angle is going to be a piece of cake, as I already know what the result is going to be, but finding practicing Shintoists and Buddhists in a country where the two religions have become cultural icons to the point where even non-believers worship is going to be tricky. Current plan is to buy myself a dictophone (a cheap one) and ask random temple-goers a couple of questions. What those questions are, though, I don't really know, as it's going to be hard to get questions which don't frighten them off, but still get them to use their language naturally. Ever tried asking a Christian to explain their faith? Explaining something like that is not easy, so I can't expect it to be different here. With the data in hand, though, actually writing the essay shouldn't be too hard, so long as I have lots of sources to back up my wild claims. And that's today's job.

But first, lunch.

Thanks for reading.


*Okay, now this is what I really want to talk about today: the differences between the English and Japanese versions of Pokemon movies. I've seen two now, and they've been impressive, but the one thing that has really struck me is that there is not some massive leap in quality between the 'clearly inferior' English and 'astronomically superior' Japanese. What I really found surprising is that I actually prefer the English versions.

I know! Weird, right?

That's not to say I was disappointed with the Japanese films. Let's start with the first film and go from there. Oh yeah, there will obviously be spoilers here.

Pokemon: The Movie (劇場版ポケットモンスター)

The most notable difference here is the introduction. In the original film there is a fifteen minute introduction in which a biological sample of Mew is found, and some scientists work on cloning it. What we don't see in English is that the project is headed up by a scientist who is hoping to clone his own daughter, who died not long before, using the same technology. So we get this lovely scene where Mewtwo, still an infant, talks with 'AiTwo', the scientist's cloned daughter, and the three starter Pokemon in a telepathic, dream-like conversation. However, one by one the clone system fails and each of Mewtwo's new friends fade away, leaving him alone and confused.

The rest of the film is identical plot-wise, and this raises a number of questions. What point did that introduction have if Mewtwo never once mentions it, and though it may have been the driving force behind his change of heart that link is never clearly seen. It makes what was a very touching scene into something unnecessary. Of course, I may just be saying that because I hadn't seen it before, so know that it makes sense without it. Perhaps if I'd seen AiTwo in the beginning I'd feel differently.

There are a number of other little differences between versions that have an impact on the feel of the film. A lot of the jokes that are in the English version are changed or removed completely in Japanese, and there are a few that I just didn't get in the original. It makes it a little more serious, which isn't always what is needed. When it turns out that the vikings that were rowing you to a mysterious island were in fact Team Rocket, you wouldn't be that scared. I mean, it's Team Rocket. They dressed up as vikings, for crying out loud. Oh, and speaking of Team Rocket's blunders, you may be interested to know that they do NOT mistake Scyther for Alakazam in the original, that was the translator's error. I do like, however, their 'Who's that Pokemon?' lines, which are spoken a lot closer to the series' lines, and this makes it a lot funnier.

Music changes a great deal between the two films as well, even in really small ways. Mew's theme in English is a lot different to Mew's theme in Japanese (can't find an example), and I much prefer the English version. It really gives Mew this sense of being something ethereal, whereas the Japanese song (you'll have to take my word for it) is a lot more about Mew being mischievous and less about him being a rare Pokemon. If that makes sense... Another big difference in terms of music is when the Pokemon are all fighting their clones, and it's all very sad. In Japanese you get a song that you'd expect for a normal battle, rather than the slushy song you get in English. Not sure which works better here, but I can tell you that Ash getting turned to stone is FAR sadder in English than in Japanese, and I think the music plays a big part in that.

I do like both versions of this film, but I prefer the English because it seems to have more spirit. As Louise said, it's like the translators have takes risks and tried to put their own slant on the events, and in this case it is a slant I appreciate more.

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 (劇場版ポケットモンスター 幻のポケモン ルギア爆誕)

This will be a lot shorter, as there are far fewer differences in this film. The most important point I can think of is the quality of the voice acting. Lugia, Slowking and the Collector all have much better voices in Japanese than in English. I seriously could not take Lugia seriously in English, and it was good to see him with something of a darker, more monstrous voice in Japanese. Thinking about it, that's kinda the only major difference between them, without me going into overall differences between the two series as a whole.

Okay, now I'm really hungry.

-----

幻のポケモン、ミュウ。不思議で、伝説のポケモン。レッドの時を覚えると、ミュウの不思議さがかっこかったと思った。でも今、ミュウがいて、もうすぐポケモンマスターレッドを勝負つもりだ。

それも不思議だね。

Wednesday 10 February 2010

The Frozen North, part 3

Day three saw the group divided. Ben and Angela were intent on skiing that day, and so they departed early for the ski resort near Otaru (which I think is famous for something) and the rest of us headed for the aquarium. After discovering a few kilometers down the road that it was NOT in walking distance, we bused down the remainder and arrived.

It's been a long time since I've been to an aquarium, so I may be overreacting to what is pretty standard fare, but wow is Otaru Aquarium awesome!



Highlights (and I'm only doing highlights 'cos we're, again, a bit pressed for time) included an Edinburgh Zoo-style penguin walk, dolphins, noisy otters and Doctor Fish in a tank that you could put your hand in. One of the strangest sensations you can experience, having tiny fish eat the dirt and dead skin cells off your hand, and it was hilarious!



We moved swiftly on at around 2.30 to Sapporo, leaving Sara and Harry to sort some stuff out back in Otaru, where we waltzed over to Freshness Burger for lunch. Those meticulously earnt respect points quickly drifted away on the breeze when it became apparent that they were out of tofu, but I thought the fish burger* was amazing as well. From there we took a roundabout route back the way we came to a huge BookOff just south of the Sapporo Tower, and spent a long time there browing through manga and cheap CDs. Spend 200 yen on 2 manga to keep me busy during the boat trip home: one Shin Megami Tensei manga starring a guy with a nose you could skewer cocktail sausages on and hair that belonged on one of those long-haired rabbits, and also a Persona manga following some of the events of Persona 2 but with different characters. First impressions make them look pretty good, we'll just have to wait and see.

At around 7 we moved on to the shopping area next to the station, and one of my prime visit targets: the Sapporo Pokemon Center. According to Ben that place had changed location about five times in the last few years, but I thought this place was a really nice location. The layout and decorations were all top-notch, and it was right opposite and arcade which was a stroke of genius. Just as planned, I got myself something to celebrate the trip: the first four Pokemon movies... on DS! Like, a little DS video player with the 4 movies on a mini-SD card! The sound quality is top-notch, and though the video quality isn't perfect it still does a stellar job. And now I can finally watch the Japanese versions of the films, and some of the best at that. On testing it out on the opening sequence of the first film, it is clear that 4Kids made some pretty massive changes to the plot. They neglected to mention, for example, that the scientist in charge of the Mewtwo Project was actually using it as a test to see if he could resurrect his dead daughter. Pretty incredible stuff for a kids' movie.


Anyway, dinner at Capricosa, Starbucks, and then the train home just before midnight, where we spent a few hours in the room watching the winter olympics.Then sleep.

Today's plan is to defeat the Champion (that guy and his Dragons... so annoying!!) and just take it easy. Plan is to go drinking tonight, provided we can find somewhere in sleepy Otaru. Really hungry right now, though, so that takes first priority. I'm also pretty annoyed, as the internet appears to not exist anymore, and the computer is insistant that it never existed at all. This little guy is great, but wow can it be a pain when it comes to the internet. I think there's some program on here slowing the poor guy down, need to find what. So for now I am typing the rest up on WordPad and will copy/paste it back on at a later time.

Shall write more later.

Thanks for reading.

*I am well aware of the irony of enjoying a fish burger right after visiting an aquarium.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

The Frozen North, part 2

So, day 2.

Today's big adventure saw us taking the trip down to Sapporo, one of Japan's big 'semi-capital' cities, to see what all the fuss was about. Initial plans the night before had us getting up by 12 so we could catch the train fairly early whilst still giving us enough time to sleep. Things didn't quite turn out as good as we'd planned, but at least things still happened.

So at 2 (...) we left for the station. Ride there was unseemly and not worth talking about, save to mention being able to hear the infuriating sound of someone snorning, but not being able to see where they were, giving the whole thing a rather creepy feel to it.

Sapporo is very different to Otaru, we could see that as soon as we arrived. Sure there's snow, and sure it's a lot more snow than we're used to back in Britain. But be it the meticulous cleaning of the big city, or the presence of concrete, or whatever, there simply was not a great deal of snow actually on the ground. It was still cold, mind.



AND there was definitely enough snow for the city to become Yuki Matsuri HQ, which was the main reason we were there.

So, quick lunch at Freshness Burger (something tells me we'll be returning) and it was off to see the ice sculptures. I don't know what it is, but sculptures made of ice are just not as impressive as those made of snow. I think it's because ice looks like glass, so I get suspicious that it wasn't quite as difficult as it perhaps should have been. Regardless, I was not as enthused by the big ice fish and people as much as I was by the little stick men and their snowy houses back in Otaru.



However, there was one sculpture that turned the whole thing around for me:


Wherever I go I am blown away by Japan's fascination with Gundam. It is no exaggeration to say that I have caught something of their contagious enthusiasm, and this sculpture was a real blessing on my robot-addled mind. I am told in certain authority that there is something else I really need to see but didn't have time to, and shall update you on that when next we speak. What this sculpture also did was give me the name 'Gundam Bar Jaburo', which was enough to get me all giddy with excitement. Found out just now, though, that Jaburo is in Yokohama. Then again, so is another Pokemon Center, so maybe a trip out there would be worth it at some point.

Next was a trip on a ferris wheel, something of a big-city tradition.

And moving swiftly on, as we're due to head to the aquarium soon and both Blogger and Windows Movie Maker are being a real pain*, we saw some snow sculptures. Be aware, one of these photos is sickeningly sweet and may turn your stomach.




Then there was sushi and a train ride home, along with a promise to return some other time to finish off the sights. Not much else to mention. Team Korea had adventures in the snow, but that's a story for another time.

Today, as I said, we're off to the aquarium first, followed by Sapporo, whilst Ben and Angela go skiing.

Apologies if these reports are a little more brief than usual. You'll just have to ask me in person, eh?

Right, breakfast.

Thanks for reading.

*I'll stick the videos up seperately later on, I haven't the time just now.

Monday 8 February 2010

The Frozen North, part 1

By reading this I hope you can assume from the get go that exams are over, we arrived safely in Hokkaido and there are no new funerals to attend.

What you cannot assume is that everything went according to plan, which is probably a good thing for you as it makes the blog that much more interesting to read. That thought in mind did not make it any less fun to experience, however.



Boy, was I in a good mood after filming that! Such a novelty experience coupled with the adrenaline rush of overcoming an obstacle of Herculean proportions made for high spirits.

But that is where the fun stops.

I hadn't been on a boat in about 13 years, mind, and the weather conditions we not tip-top to say the least. Which is my way of saying that I got seasick. We all did. Every last one of us. It was horrific. 20 solid hours of nausea, groutch and unenthusiasm. Even the second Gurren Lagann movie (which is so-so up until the end in which it excels itself by staying true to its word and defeating the impossible, making the end even more epic than the original) was insufficient. Everything eventually ran out of batteries, sleep was brief and intermittent, mealtimes were awkward and for the most part unwanted and Maid RPG was comparatively flat. Those 20 hours were the worst in my entire life, I reckon, worse even than that time I worked in that festering cesspit of a catering agency which shall remain nameless.

But that is all behind me now. We're here! We're in Hokkaido, in a little town called Otaru where we will spend the morning and night of each day of this coming week. And it's brilliant! This is the sort of snow I have been dreaming of since I was little and any amount of snow at least felt like this.




The place is ice-sculpture heaven. It's really got that Lapland feel about it, and most definitely not in a cheesy way. It's like everybody chipped in and made little sculptures wherever they thought they would fit, it's staggering. There's also a Karaoke box called Thriller Karaoke which looks fantastic!

Most of yesterday was spent drifting about in lethargic nausea, so there's nothing really else to say at this point. Today we're going to Sapporo (35 minutes by train) to see the REAL Yuki Matsuri, which we are told is far more impressive than sleepy Otaru. Other plans for the week include a winter aquarium and skiing.

I'm very hungry. The so-called free breakfast that the hotel was supposed to supply was not free, after all, not free at all. Breakfast will be left up to us this week. That's a bit of a bother, but not the worst thing that could have happened at this point. And for that I am thankful.

Anyway, I'll just wait for the video to finish, upload it and be gone. Thanks for reading!

-----

レポートします。これでチームはレベル60以上で、デルビル以外イリートフォーを戦われます。そして、ミュウもレベル60にあったので、パワーがすごくて、ちょっと怖いです。
昨日、レッドに会いました。それは本当の怖さでした。これは地球の中で一番強いポケモントレーナーで、僕がフランスで失われたレッドです。戦えなかった...