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.

The Buffaloes won!

This was a pretty uneventful weekend.
After our saturday trip to Akihabara nobody had plans … except me.

On Sunday afternoon I went to see my new teammates play against another college’s team … the Buffs (my team) won by a messy 21-5 (three TD runs against 1 FG and a safety). While my team didn’t show any spectacular individuality, I was impressed by some players in the other team. Like the number 80 who is an exceptional 190cm tall WR with good route running (and a very inaccurate and panicky QB) and who is also a wicked punter (3 coffin corners or within the 5 yard line punts … and one from his 30 yards).

My team showed a good outside running game and a promising options use … unfortunately too much turnovers and fouls … they need to discipline their offense. The defense just overpowered the other’s team Offensive Line, unfortunately they don’t seem to have much technique … which is bad as they already faced all the team with smaller personnel and now they will encounter the BIG guys from what I understood.

BTW … too much training kills the training. They still went on with intensive mourning training for 5 days from Monday to Saturday … before a match = 6 injured players (3 for more than 1 week) and a lot of cramping and puking on the sidelines. Tokyo is a really moist climate … just don’t make it easier to be tired by doing unnecessary things.

At night we saw a band of tanukis visiting our dorms. They seem to live nearby. We already saw them 2 times … while a lot of our Japanese friends admit to never have seen one. Lucky.

Here is my roommate’s blog (you can see the tanukis) : http://sebule.tumblr.com/