survival Japanese: assortment

When in doubt and looking at an unreadable menu, look for the words 盛り合わせ, which means assortment.If you can understand the words following it, even better, otherwise you might get an assortment of raw liver or something ;)

Just kidding. Usually they have assortments of chicken skewers (various parts of the chicken, and I mean from all over the chicken), or assortments of sashimi (raw fish), etc. I've never seen an assortment of raw liver, as there's usually only one type of liver available.

SoftBank Ad: Cameron Diaz

The ad:
Cameron Diaz walking rapidly and talking (unheard by viewers) animatedly on the phone as "Walk this Way" plays (not the Aerosmith version, as far as I can tell).
And the end of the ad, the SoftBank logo appears. I presume they're advertising the fact that Vodafone has become SoftBank, but that's just a guess, as there are no explanations in the commercial.

It's kind of funny to see these Hollywood stars on TV and billboards.

Tommy Lee Jones is the face of Boss Coffee. If they could get Bruce Springsteen to advertise Boss Coffee, that'd be cool, but Tommy Lee Jones isn't bad either. The commercials that Demi Moore's ex-husband (what is his name?! The only thing coming to mind is Billy Joel, haha) has been doing are a bit on the cheesy side though. Angelina Jolie's commercials for Shiseido's Integrate cosmetics line are a little strange too. I don't know why, but they're a bit off.

This week, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas and Lindsay Lohan have suddenly appeared on magazine covers (separately). I assume Fergie is appearing because of her solo album, but not sure why Lindsay Lohan is making appearances.

NHK has the best documentaries

Today I caught the tail end of a new documentary from NHK called 72 hours. They continuously film a place or person for 72 hours.

I only caught 10 minutes or so, but what a brilliant 10 minutes. They filmed a popular area of Tokyo where a fireworks display was being held. A bunch of young people gathered the night before the event to stake out a place to watch the fireworks. So that morning, the camera went around and interviewed a homeless man who lives near the viewing site. He complained that he couldn't sleep at all last night, because the young people were too noisy. So the camera wandered over and said hello to the young people, who had been camped out since last night. They chatted about that, then segued into asking what the people thought of the homeless people in the area. One young man said that he'd like the homeless problem? to disappear. The country isn't being effective in fixing the problem. Another young man said that in an ideal world there wouldn't be any homeless people, but realistically it is a difficult problem. He then mentioned that it's possible for any of them (the group of young people) to become homeless at some point in their lives. The first young man said that it's not possible, but the second person insisted that it was. "You never know what could happen." The first young man repeated his assertion that he could never become homeless. But then he said, because he just made that bold statement, he's probably the most likely to become homeless.

Man, I need an English transcript of the show. I'm sure that I've made all sorts of errors in my retelling.

Tokyo Game Show

Thanks to Gamania.com I got to see the Tokyo Game Show. It was pretty interesting. Huge and lots of glittery displays. Sony's section was quite impressive. I was entertained by all the cosplay going on. Sadly I forgot my camera so I didn't take any pictures. The Wii looks like a lot of fun. I want to try the monkey darts game they have. They had girls dressed up to match the games they were demo-ing. The girls playing the sword game looked really bored, sadly. I think I'd have a lot more fun than they did. The two girls demonstrating the sports games were fun to watch though. One girl got the hang of the games a lot faster than the other girl.

There were a lot of fanboys taking pictures of the various booth girls. It was funny to see both the girls and the boys posing for pictures.

Have you seen any of these films?

Some of my favorite movies include:

Strictly Ballroom
Postmen in the Mountains （山の郵便配達）
Children of Heaven
Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し）

Other than Spirited Away, not that many people I know have seen any of the above films, so I'm wondering how popular they are in general. I don't think Children of Heaven was widely released in the U.S.; I believe I saw it at a local international film festival in Boston.

update on the local tai chi class

Very excited, I rush to the bus outside of the train station, and hurriedly check that it stops at the location specified on the map that I got from the website. Mostly elderly people fill the bus. The bus driver was occupied with killing mosquitoes with his white-gloved hands. My stop is only the second one on the bus route, so the ride was over before I knew it.

I get out of the bus, but nothing helps me orient myself with respect to the map, so after looking around for a while, I ask a nearby lady on a bicycle. After a moment of confusion she realizes what building I was looking for and points me in the direction in a very friendly manner. I thank her and rushed to cross the street. The building is just a minute away and I walk in and ask the receptionist about the tai chi lesson. He informs me that they'll be admitting people at 6:15 so I should wait until then. Then he asks me if I have "uwabaki" (上履き) with me. I don't know what "uwabaki" is, so ask him "What is uwabaki? (上履きは何ですか？)" This throws him for a loop and he is at a loss for how to respond. Then I explain that my Japanese is not too good and that seems to make everything clear to him. He says I'll have to wear socks inside, and I say that's fine. Personally, I think it would have been nice of him to explain what "uwabaki" means, but I guess he wasn't up to the challenge. Apparently you have to bring indoor-use only shoes with you; no street shoes allowed. One of the secret rituals!

Quite a few people eventually filled the gym for the class. There were two teachers who seemed quite nice. All the students were regulars; I was the only new person. I think only 3 or 4 people were under the age of 50 out of 26 or so. They play music to go along with class which was an interesting change. A voice counted numbers in Japanese over the music. They use the Chinese names for the various parts of the forms. I don't know what style of tai chi they teach, but it seems to be different from Chen style tai chi. At two hours long it seems like quite a lengthy class, but very cheap since it only costs 100 yen to attend. The teachers must be volunteers.

tai chi

I'm looking forward to visiting a tai chi class in a local gym. I hope the teaching style suits me. I will also be making a long overdue visit to the dentist.

Word of the day: 食通（しょくつう shokutsuu）:gourmet

If you're ever in Shimokitazawa, I recommend Pistol Pinoko as a friendly little bar/cafe.