It’s a cold cold day.

I am sorry that I did not post some updates sooner. But it is just that I was lazy. It took me too long to edit my photos from Halloween (do not leave a Canon Powershot in the hands of a drunk guy with a Gorilla costume … or else you will have 1000 pictures to edit in the mornings to come).

If you want to see the pics from our trip to Roppongi in Halloween … just go on Facebook … if you just can not go then I will had some pics on this post. It was fun and it made me realize that going out in Japan is much cheaper than every other country I went to. Plus once Japanese people are getting crazy … they go all the way, no half measures here.

The day after Halloween we had the most incredible idea : let’s wash away all the booze we guzzled yesterday by going at the sento (public bath). IT WAS AMAZING. Absolutely the most relaxing thing I have ever done. We went to one of those modern sento – with sauna, bubble bath, outdoor bath with TV, … – in Azamino (3 stations away from the dorm). I felt like I was brand new. I think this will become a monthly or twice-monthly tradition for me (some people like my Scandinavians friends would go everyday if they could afford it).

From Sunday to Monday the temperature dropped a rough 10 to 15 degree … it is crazy. One day I was going out in shorts and the next day I was popping flue pills like a freaking junky. I will have to ask my landlady for a second futon soon (luckily I shipped my winter clothes right before departing from Italy … so they are already here).

That is it. Not much stuff because I have been trying to not spend too much money … so I limited the “crazy fun times”.

I just looooove non-sequitur!

From Harajuku to Shibuya

Yesterday (sunday 25th of October) I decided it was time for me to find some closes (I need a few stuff). So where else is there to go except Harajuku (famous for its clothes shops and accessories and overall crazy styles).

Here is the pics (with comments if you click them).

Results : A belt, a pair of sandals, 2 t-shirts (a bit small but looks good anyway), and a bag.

That’s all for today.

School festival!

Today was Tokoudai’s school festival at the Oòkayama campus.

So after my training (amefuto again) I went around the stands. Here is a synthetic review of the festival :
- Pakistanis kebab : GOOD
- Yakitori : GOOD
- Takoyaki : GOOD
- Hiroshimafu Okonomiyaki : GOOD
- Fried ice cream : GOOD
- Crepes : GOOD
- Hotdog : average (the japanese mustard sucks)
- Takoyaki 2 : GOOD
- Beer : GOOD
- Vietnamese Noodle : GOOD
- Banana coated in Chocolate : GOOD
- Stand about the nikoniko community (my lab was participating) : A BLACKHOLE OF PURE GEEKNESS!

What is the niko niko community? I have no idea but my laboratory supervisor is really into it. And it seems all of japan’s geeks are too.
Should I prepare for a zombie invasion?

So I will go to bed hoping that my muscle’s pain will be a bad memory by tomorrow morning. I know : it sucks to go to bed at 10PM on saturday but I don’t have nor the energy nor the money to out tonight (-. -)

How to ray trace pain?

First of all, my supervisor finally gave me something to do (beside going on facebook all day long at the lab). I have to do a 40 minute presentation in front of his class in 3 weeks. It will be about the current state in software and hardware research about real-time ray tracing. If you do not know what this is : ray tracing on wikipedia.
That is going to be cool. (Does that sounded as geeky as it seemed to me?)

After Wednesday’s practice I must say that I still feel a lot of pain today (24 hours later) but at least my neck is not totally immobile from pain. In fact I think it already got bigger (if that is possible), some of my t shirts fill tight in the neck and shoulder area (or is it only inflammation?). This time I actually could go “boom boom” on people (that’s how I say it in my head once I put my helmet on), in scrimmage AND special team training (I call this “loud boom boom”). That was a truckload of fun for me.

Today I went and visited the training room of the suzukakedai campus. Well the training room part is really good … the problem are the showers : those are a shower version of the biological construction field toilets. The two temp showers are outside because of some works at the building the training room is in. sucks.

That’s it for today.

Great game

Just a quick post about sunday (yesterday) game : the buffaloes won a really nice game against the Toyo Univ. Vikings.
30 – 23 but I am not sure of the score anymore (it was an exiting game).
A few things I have noticed:

• Japanese college do not seem to understand the benefit of “taking a knee” … like avoiding injuries for example.
• They do not know how to manage the clock (like spiking on 1st and 3rd downs for no reasons).
• And they think the goal-line defense is to apply pressure (hence using it anywhere on the field).

Anyway here is some pictures. This is one really dusty ground. (Click “more” at the bottom of this post)

I am thinking of buying the Canon EOS 1000D or EOS 450D (Kiss X2 in Japan). Advices? What optics do you like?

Last note : I should participate in a Zazen seminar soon (if you dont know what zazen it just google it).

I’d like a banzuke with my chicken please.

I would like to share the random event of the day :
As I was planning to eat alone tonight (my roomy having other plans) I decided to go for the local yakitori shop. It is convenient, cheap and tasty … while providing the right amount of proteins before my training tomorrow.
Anyway while waiting for my birds to get grilled the guy at the counter just asked me : “Do you like sumo?” … maybe because I look rather big myself … we will never know (well, not until I am good enough in Japanese to ask it to him). To that I naturally answer : ” Yes I love it (HAI, sumo ha chouuuuu suki ’su!)” And the guy just go : “Here, have one of the banzuke we received.”

1 – this is the first time I see a real banzuke live … and now I own one.
2 – It’s the old one updated before the win of Asashoryu in the last tournament in Tokyo. Here is the banzuke in english (courtesy of the japan sumo association). The new one is not out yet (so Asashoryu is still listed as Yokozuna 1 West … and now east).
3 – NO! I don’t know why a small yakitori shop in Aobadai received a banzuke (my hypothesis : the shop owners association of aobadai is sponsoring a sekitori … to be verified.)

For those wondering my favorite sekitori (pro sumo wrestlers from the top 2 divisions) are : Kotooshu, Asashoryu, Harumafuji (formerly known as Ama) and Takamizakari (formerly known as Robocop) this one I share with the yakitori guy.

BTW … the yakitori was really good (even the liver I took by mistake … I dont like liver).

Today we had a field trip with the YSEP program and other foreign students : Life Safety Center (for details and pictures just go to http://sebule.tumblr.com).

That’s it for today.

The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask!

“Kore nan desuka?”
If there is one thing you should remember in Japanese that’s IT.
“What is this?” if you have the blessing of being provided with at least an arm you could also accompany that sentence with a gesture to indicate what is that you’d like to know about. By doing so you will open so many gates and witness so many new things that you will have to sometime wonder if this not a long lost druidic “abracadabra” that makes people reveal hidden treasures.

Why am I telling you this?
Just go and read the post my roomy had on today : click here.

Here is the photos I took today. Actually 500 meters away from our dorm start the country side.

Getting the rhythm on …

I am starting to get used to some stuff right now. I mean the commuting, the lab, the courses (not that hard since I have done 99% of the stuff they are trying to teach us), …
There is one thing, I think, will take me several month to get used to : the daytime rhythm. I mean in Europe we use solar time adjustment. It makes wake up before the sun, and the sun goes down at around 5:30PM during winter … but here no such thing is in place.
Sun goes up at 6:00 (or around six) and it goes down at 5:30 PM by now … we are in the beginning of October. So it’s still hard to go around when it’s pitch black at 18:00. At least for me.
I feel tired and just want to sleep all the time … so don’t even speak to me about getting up at 5 to go train at 7AM with the football club … or at least not right now. But I will try to push myself a little bit harder this coming week.

On a different note : we got a water filter … this way our tea doesn’t taste like bleach. I found out the name of the japanese style baseball jackets I want to buy. It’s called “Sukajan” which is a japanese style short name for “Yokosuka Jumpers” (since it’s the place it was born in), sometimes tourists refer to them as “Souvenirs Jackets”. Here is a picture to make you understand what I mean.

That’s all for today.

See ya

Late night last second post.

I just felt like writing something before going to bed.

Recently I have found a system to be always sure about what I ask at the counter of the cafeteria. My method is not really that original I guess. I just take photos of the menu’s pictures (or silicon replicas at the entrance of the restaurant), but I only do that only when I can’t read the kanji involved in the dishes’ name.

This helped me at the bento shop.

Anyway I met on Monday night with a former highschool friend of mine. I think we will manage to be a lot closer than when we were in hs … you know we never were from the same click and stuff like that back then. But just from the fact that I could just speak french for 1 whole dinner made me relax a lot.
Apart from that : Shochu is great.

I asked my tutor to teach me how to play shogi. I think I can remember the movements (but not the names) of each pieces. Next I’ll try to learn some strategies.

You’ll notice that our lab’s shogi set is missing a piece … and he still bit me in 10 moves. I’m so much better at go.

That’s it … time to go to bed.