Darlo's World

Music! Go!

Well the last couple of weeks of the semester have been a hellish fight for survival, but I’m thankful that I can say … “I made it”. That is at least until the exam period in January, then I’ll be completely buggered.

So lets start out with the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). This is an exam taken all over the world at the same time (give or take several hours for time-zone differences) to assess your level of Japanese (not spoken). Here in the UK it’s held at the School of Oriental and African Studies down in London, so for some of us a trip down was needed. Me and a friend went down a day early to do some filming for LSTV (I won’t say exactly what for, but it’s a news story on textbook prices), so I spent the night at YHA London Central. It was definately one of the more comfortable hostels I’ve kipped at, bar the snorer in the bed above me giving me dreams about zombies in an “I am the only one left” kind of fashion.

When applying to take the exam, of which only 1000 people can sit a year, I thought I’d have time to study and revise properly for it. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and I arrived in London horribly unprepared. We headed to a couple of Japanese book shops and bought a past-exam paper and a grammar book recommended by one of my teachers. My intention was to spend the night going through the past paper and cramming as much grammar and vocab into my tiny fragile mind as I could … but again this wasn’t the case.

Sitting in the lounge next to the big ass telly with books spread across my lap, the guy sitting nearby watching the rugby has a look at one of my books. “Do you speak Japanese?” he asks. I look up and bam, instantly my interest in studying goes as my interest in Japanese oral practice increases. By chance I was at the same hostel as a guy who lives very close to where I was living in Osaka! After a few hours of fun conversation he went to bed so once again I cracked on studying … until a new group appears, curious about the text I’m reading. To be fair I did get a fair bit of studying done, but not enough to leave me with confidence for the next days exam.

I woke up in the morning and wanted a full English breakfast. I checked out of the hostel and ventured in search of a Wetherspoons. After a few hours of gormlessly wandering around London (with help from a relative on the phone with the internet), I eventually found the Shakespeares Head in Holborn. Though the service here was fine, the when the breakfast came out I had to look in the direction of the kitchen to make sure the building wasn’t on fire. The vast majority of what was on the plate was burned and almost uneatable, even the black pudding (I’ve never seen a burnt black pudding before). I will say however the sausage was fantastic, too bad I left the rest of it on the plate.

I met up with a friend and we went to face the exam. I left the exam with the feeling that I did as well as I thought I would.

Some of us who came down from Leeds then went to a bar for a post-exam drink, but as they were pretty costly I just had the one. Since a few of us were getting on the same coach back, a suggestion was put forward that we carry on drinking in Victoria so we wouldn’t miss the coach when the time came. For me, I’d spent the entirity of the two days walking around London rather than taking the tube (when did tube prices shoot up so much!?), so I said I’d walk it. After being mocked a bit, I gave my bags to the others and proceeded on foot towards Victoria.

I really should have learned from past experiences that my natural navigatory skills get tempered somewhat when the sun goes down, but more than that I get in trouble whenever I stop for a bog-break. It seems I normally have a tendency to flush away my thoughts about the ‘hear and now’, and normally start off going in the wrong direction. Once I hit the river I knew I was pretty buggered and started running the correct way.

Arriving at our meeting point, the Wetherspoons at Victoria Train Station, there were two things I wanted: a pee, and a pint, I’ll let you decide which came first. There must have been something generally crappy about Wetherspoons in London on that day. I ordered a pint of the Christmas ale, but the guy at the bar poured it with such speed and vigour that instead of a decent head I got a mass of bubbles. Much in the same way a kid would blow bubbles into a chocolate milkshake. I let the pint settle and asked for it to be topped up so I could get a head on it (by a different server of course). It was better, but still very very crap. Leaving the bar area I did overhear the first guy ask what was wrong with it, but was no longer within earshot to hear her response. After speaking with my waiting friends it seemed that they too received service from the same guy that was “rather lacking”. Normally I can associate Wetherspoons with being a great experience, and have always had high praise for both Cuthbert Brodrick in Leeds and Thomas Botfield in Telford, but I think next time in London I’ll have to venture elsewhere.

This week saw me battling with my old nemeses, “history” and “academic reading”, in order to pull out a 3000 word essay on the US Occupation of Japan. Though I thoroughly believe that my essay itself was a massive load of fudge, I’m pleased to say I did learn a good amount of what happened. That is until the several parties over the weekend to celebrate the end of the semester. Great hangover cure by the way, have a big controlled vomit (that is get yourself prepared, glass of water, mint, position yourself, vomit on your own terms) followed by a bit of kip. Or an even better way to avoid hangovers, cut down on the booze ^_^.

In creative news I’ve done a bit more work for Lotaku in that I have finally finished the design for the WebComics Tarot Project. I’m hoping to spend a bit more time on the comic over the winter break and crack out a couple more pages before classes start again. Likewise I’m very close to completing the Learn With Anna animation, just having a few snags with exporting.

And so to play us out, the literal version of The Safety Dance!

So as I mentioned in my entry on Tuesday, my only real plan for today was a trip to Nishinomiya Gardens to listen to Rie Fu performing. Something I’d forgotton about though was that the dorm had planned a little bit of a lunchtime party for us as a welcome to the large group of students who’d recently moved in. I could only stay for half an hour, which was enough time to have a little food, do an introduction to the group and pick up a very generous gift of some snack foods from our dorm manager. It seems a lot of the new guys go to an entertainments school in the area, and the one guy goes to that anime university I found not too long back.

Perfect weather meant that there were lots of families enjoying their time in the garden area of Nishinomiya Gardens, the spot that “Nishinomiya Live” was (and has been) taking place. Kids were running through the fountains drenching themselves head to toe, older couples enjoyed spots in the shade, and even the litter pickers seemed to have a non-forced smile. As I made my way to the stage area and the sitting spot I could hear Rie Fu and the crew doing last minute sound checks to make sure everything was on and up to scratch. I took that time to whack out a sketchbook and started doodling. After a while I started to think more about the locations that I’ll be using in Lotaku, and started to try and draw pictures from my old school. My crappy memory aside, the weird shapes and layout of the buildings didn’t help much when trying to make a birds eye view pic.

As expected, Rie Fu’s set was awesome. I don’t see live acts very often (buskers being the obvious exception), so whenever I do go it’s normally a real treat. She opened with my favourite song of hers, Life is Like a Boat, which coincidentally was the first song that I sung at karaoke since coming to Japan. I did take a video of it, but was told off (I didn’t know you couldn’t film >_< ).

After the performance she was signing copies of various CDs, so I picked up a copy of her newest album, Urban Romantic, which also came with a DVD. When I was getting mine signed I hit a bit of a snag. In the few seconds we had to talk, rather than say something meaningful or anything relevant, I say the one thing that I myself always hate to hear; (in Japanese, and for me substitute one language with another) “Your English is really good”. Like a pro though she responded positively “you gotta keep trying, right?”, whether or not this is one of her song names I’m not too sure though. Either way I went and sat down feeling like a right plonker. After wards one of the camera guys asked me a few questions and although I tried to answer in my mangled Japanese, I don’t think I answered any of the questions the way he wanted.

As the second set (she was performing twice) was going to be the same as the first I headed off earlier. I’ve just had a look on Rie Fu’s blog and there are a few pictures up. In one you can see me looking like a plank, camera in hand, but seriously it was a great show. So to sing us out with a song from her new album, it’s Rie Fu and Present.

Today is one of Japan’s many national holidays, 建国記念の日 (kenkokunen no hi, National Foundation Day). On this day, Japanese celebrate the founding of the nation and the imperial line by its legendary first emperor, Jimmu, who established his capital in Yamato (thank you Wikipedia). To be honest with the exception of not having to make the commute to University in Kobe (and of course not receiving any food for the day), it didn’t seem to have the same kind of holiday atmosphere as others have done. This could be just me due to the fact that it was around 8 o’clock this morning that I finally went to bed, emerging sometime in the afternoon.

Why was I up so early? Well after re-watching the Sexy Vampire animation by James ‘Gosha’ Franzen, I felt inspired to crack on with the next page of the Lotaku webcomic. Didn’t get it finished mind you, but felt I made a decent enough dent in it.

Regardless of not having to go, I still went to Kobe this afternoon, to the same train station I get off for University. According to a couple of friends, a second hand book, game and CD shop is closing down soon and had put a lot of things on sale. Now this particular shop already had a huge 105 section (despite being second hand this is still a gigantic saving on what you’d pay for one manga in the UK), and it can be very difficult to find a specific title that you’re after. I ended up just buying 2 books but was tempted by some of the games and DVDs (DVDs in Japan by the way are incredibily expensive, and we thought anime was expensive in the UK!).

After a quick stop at McDonalds to grab a couple of hamburgers, I was soon on the train back home. It’s been well documented (I’m presuming, being too lazy to check of course), that the world is in fact small. Well anyway, on the train from Juso I was approached by a polite woman asking about my coat (in English). Like most day’s I was wearing my old PGL Staff fleece top; it’s nice, warm and has many 便利 (benri, convenient) pockets. It turns out that she herself had done some work at PGL at the Boreatton Park site. Where’s that you might be thinking? Well it’s only in my home county of Shropshire of course, herself coming from Birmingham. She’d moved to Osaka in January after working in Hiroshima, a place where we’re all due to take a class trip.

There were a few other mini-coincidences that we compared but here’s the clincher. When she moved to Osaka in January, she became a resident of Kamishinjyou! Just a month after I say goodbye, another midlander moves in (not into the mens dorm of course). It makes me wonder, does Kamishinjyou have a curse where it much always have a resident from central England?

So to play us out, let’s have that Sexy Vampire if you please…

After leaving the new version of Lotaku in a reasonable state after pure destruction, I looked out the window and saw some incredibly fine looking weather. The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky and it looked genuinely warm. The weather for Osaka was predicted to be cold, but since I saw no signs of that I took it to be a balls up on the weather man’s behalf. Dressing lighter than I had been later (eg without a scarf) I headed out and realised it wasn’t quite as warm as I’d let myself believe. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t as cold as it had been, but I could definately feel the nippiness.

Making my way to the local shrine where the Ebisu Matsuri was being held (check the last entry for details on that), I gave a small offering and prayed to Ebisu, participating as much as I possibly could without having a clue as to what I was doing. I was happy to see some of the things I’d learned in my religion class in practice, such as the Kagura and why the shrine maidens were performing it.

I then went for a look around the usual festival stalls, as usual lots of different foods were on offer as well as a range of games and souvenirs for sale. Having known how most of these games ‘work’ I decided to try my luck at the shooting gallery. After shooting off a few light-boxes winning myself some sweets, I had a crack at the impossible stuff. I knocked over the marker for a Nintendo DS, but the rule is that it had to fall off the shelf rather than just fall over. I didn’t mind, of course, I had my sweets.

Winnings – 1 x Milky, 1 x Choco Ball (yoghurt flavour), 2x Fuppii Ramune

I then proceeded to walk south to meet some friends at Osaka Castle. I hadn’t been there before and only had a brief idea of where it would be, so this was definately another one of my fun adventures. Unfortunately for me the glorious sunny (yet frickin’ cold) weather that had been brightening the day went behind some clouds and the cold really started to kick in. From checking the temperature daily on google I knew that last night it was actually colder than back in Telford, but I wasn’t preparing for the snow that began falling from above.

Yes, this was the last thing I was expecting for Osaka. Hmm … well, maybe not the last thing, I’ve still not seen any … um … well, moving on. I rang a friend in Kobe and discovered that it was also snowing there, and from the sounds of it it might have been snowing heavier. Just as quick as it started though, the snow ended. Not even leaving any damp patches on the floor. This was a snowfall for the moment, for the memory.

I met my friends at Osaka Castle but because I decided to visit the shrine (and faff about on a website) beforehand, they’d already been up and around. Not wanting to spend money to run around it while they waited, I made myself pleased to be able to take some awesome photos. Even though this was the first time I’d been to Osaka Castle, it’s a walkable distance from the dorm so I can always come again another (warmer) day.

I decided to have dinner at Matsuya again tonight having with hands so cold they make ice get jealous made using chopsticks a nightmare. Thankfully a spoon was on hand as I’d ordered my old favourite, curry rice.

Going back for a second, I noticed when I was doing the new Lotaku site how easy and useful Wordpress was. This being the case I’ve decided to make Darlo’s World a wordpress site. I don’t know when I’ll convert it over, I don’t know when I’ll have time, but the end result will definately be a nice touch.

I didn’t intend to start yesterday looking for places one could get their kicks, but it’s weird how circumstances can throw you that way. Who knows, if I had the money maybe (and the company of a nice girl) I would have gone that extra step and had a little fun … maybe I should have.

It started out innocently enough, me waking up at four in the morning due to a very early night’s sleep, like today, and deciding before going into University I’ll shop around to see what shops had the Kanji in Context texbook that we needed for the Leeds exam. I left the dorm at around 9 o’clock under the daft expectation that shops opened around that time or 9:30. When I hit the first bookshop at about 9:15 and saw the sign saying it opened at 10, I quickly realised I should have dropped my daft misconceptions and tried to get a bit more sleep before venturing out into the cold.

It was at this point I thought about taking a little walk around some of the areas of Umeda that I’d not yet previously seen, and stop at a cafe or somewhere for some food as I was pretty hungry. Reason for hunger was I’d only had two pieces of toast for breakfast, the rest of the food included mayonnaise so rather than take a plate and throw two thirds away I just thought “sod it” and stuck with the bread.

Whilst walking I passed a number of hostess bars that would normally be enticing people to go in and spend money whilst gawking at the respectable staff members, however this was early in the morning so the only thing they seemed to be enticing were the men carrying drinks boxes to and from vans out the front. Still, mental note made where these were and since one of my friends was looking to visit a gay bar I made a mental note of where the one and only “boys bar” was … thankfully I quickly forgot this after telling her.

After passing a few other bookstores that were yet to be open I soon found myself in what can only be described as Love Hotel Avenue. Having read a little about these establishments in the Manga Sutra I was (and still am) somewhats intrigued about their insides. Apparently as well as a bed where the obvious happens, there’re usually games consoles, karaoke, and a selection of other fun things incase you don’t actually feel like getting your kicks. From the outside the hotels genuinely look like nice places one might want to stop. The main way you could tell that these were hotels of the romance variety was in their pricing structures that were on their walls. For example one hotel’s prices were “Rest: 3,300 yen; Stop 4,400 yen”.

After shops had started opening and I had all but failed at finding my textbooks at any stores (for some reason they loved stocking Kanji in Context Workbook 2 … but I needed Workbook 1), I popped into a manga shop located just off a highstreet. This wasn’t your basic manga shop however, this was a doujinshi shop. If you don’t know what doujinshi is, I recommend you don’t type it into google when you’re at work, school, on your nan’s PC … you get the gist. While it was true that the vast majority of customers in the shop were male, there were female customers too, something I had the pleasure of telling one of my friends who insisted only men would go into that kind of place. Looking around I wasn’t really surprised to see so many pictures of women (and the occasional man) dripping with this, that or the other, or preview videos showing clips of how they came to be covered in this, that or the other, but I was mainly surprised at the prices. I’m not sure if their priced on volume or ‘quality’ but some ranged from incredibly cheap (I’m talking the price of The Beano in the 90s) to the incredibly expensive (the entire Minna No Nihongo workbooks we needed for Leeds last year).

For the record I bought nothing.

I went into Uni and managed to buy my textbook from the university bookshop, which is a relief as everytime I’ve been in they didn’t have it in stock and this was the last copy of workbook 1. I sat in the Ajisai room speaking with a few Japanese friends and set about working on the website for the new Lotaku manga. Want a sneak peak? Click here. I didn’t have lessons that day, they start today, but I wanted to try to get back in my routing of using about 2 and a half hours a day to travel to uni. Plus as I’ve said in many previous entries, Uni seems to be the only place I can freely speak Japanese.

One final thing before I go. If you go onto YouTube looking for the animatic to my Please animation, you’ll find it’s not there. It’s been removed by YouTube for copyright reasons which although I’m a bit dissapointed about it (seeing as there are copyrighted clips which are way more popular on there that haven’t been ‘caught’ yet), I fully accept it’s removal. I’ll probably whack it on Metacafe or the like some other day.