Wally Nes’ Blog

Back for over 3 months now.
Did all the things that I wasn’t able to do for a year. Japan is a great country but there’s just certain things you can’t get there.

Licorice for one. It is a fair trade I suppose. You can’t find a decent sushi place here to save your life.

Now that I have been back for 3 months things have settled down. From the “rut” in Japan (Yes, seeing new places EVERY weekend? Man, you get sick of that I can tell ya) to the rut back home.

It is now that I can see some of the residual effects of my stay in Japan.

I duck when I walk through doors. Yes, Still!
I bow to people when saying goodbye. Much to the amusement of other people.
And I get annoyed at the attitude of people around me.

I am back at my old job but the company remodeled while I was away. I had to work in the temporary solution for a month and a half but we have been in our new spot for about 5-6 weeks now. Obviously there is a lot that still needs fixing. Some things which weren’t thought through properly when the design was made. And some numbers getting mixed up resulted in a hole for 2 carts that sorta do fit 2 carts, but only if you push one in sideways.
Overall there are a lot of things that just don’t work as they would have in the old situation. So there’s loads of chances for people to take a problem and fix it. Lots of chances to leave a personalized stamp on the new place.

Instead I have lots of people around me that sorta do some work and will ignore stuff that doesn’t fit. Pass it on to the next shift if they are at all able to.

And outside of that people don’t make much of an effort. There’s stuff laying about that needs sorting, restocking, finishing and people will ignore it in favor of just talking at the counter.

Is that the pride you show in your work?
Is that the image you want the company to have of you?
Is that the effort you are willing to put into bettering the company?

I can’t imagine having formulated these thoughts 15 months ago but here they are.

I’ll let you know if I am happy with these impressions when I’ve figured out if that applies.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former

- Albert Einstein

While the true meaning of this saying does not apply here. A more literal interpretation of the saying does, most certainly, apply.

I have hit my head on doorframes. Au

Advertisements. Au

Overhead luggage rack. AU

More doorframes

Food vendor cart umbrellas. Damn. Painfull AND you could put someone’s eye out with that

A smoke alarm. AU. Small fucker, didn’t see that one coming

Traditional houses. AU!

A cherry tree. Pretty. But painfull

A Mother-forking door. AU!

Not only doors, the accesories that come with them aswell. Fuck

One of them things to suck away the fumes from cooking. Made of shiny metal and PAIN!

Another mother-forking-AU-tree!

Train gates. OK, this isn’t my head but this thing is made to hit your thigh. I’ll give you 1 guess what I have at Japanese thigh level. And don’t let anyone tell you kneecaps aren’t important. AU!

Know what this is? it is attached to the door of your toilet to hang your coat/bag from. These little mother-forkers will forking blindside you like no tommorow. DAMN these hurt.

The door. NO, OF COURSE NOT THE FRIGGIN DOOR. I do LEARN you know. Damn sign after the door. Sharp forking corners too.

The Pastry shop. Damn. At least it made up for it by free fig cake

Another doo . . . Fork that. That ain’t even big enough to call itself a door. Get the Fork outta here

Fairly forking Obvious, isn’t it! Fuck That hurt

Yeah, the FORKING MRI scanner. You think I do all that hitting and not get checked up. DAMN, I keep telling ya. This shit hurts

Another MOTHER FORKING TREE. Doesn’t ANYTHING grow to normal sizes in this short-ass forking country

The MOTHER FORKING CEILING? YOU GOT TO BE FORKING KIDDING ME. THIS ENTIRE FORKING COUNTRY IS OUT TO GET ME. AUUUUU!

ANOTHER CEILING? WTF? Huh, OK, maybe not. I’m sorry but I may have gotten a tad paranoid.

Another Mother-Forking-SHIT-JEZUS that hurts. DOOR!

The very roof. AGAIN! AU

Fucking METAL DOOR!

And of course the grand prize winner. The metal bar in the bus. The one that knocked me out and sent me home for 5 weeks with a cerebral concussion. Just ‘&%!$ing GREAT. FORK YOU HURT

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Quote of the day:

After the last post concerning all odd things Japanese, a follow-up had to be made. There are, after all, many many more weird things happening here everyday. Right in front of my eyes. I just have to open them and see, like I have never lived here.

We will start, with an every-day item. Because in everyday items we can often find the goofiest stuff. I give you: The toilet.

OK, it’s a hole in the ground lined with some poercelain. The Japanese were not content to hover above these. (As sitting is not really an option)

So being Japanese they invented a better one.

If you think this is largely similar to what you have at home, you’re right. Largely is the key-word here.

It comes with a control box

Sometimes evern remote controlled

And yes, there is a button on there for the flush sound. Honestly, you think toilets make those naturally? One has to provide these things. A good engineer thinks of this when designing something. Good Job Japanese Engineer. A bidet is built in. So is a read end shower (no, these are different things). And then there are 1,2,3,4,5,6 . . . euhm . . A lot of other buttons which will give you something to do while you do your business on the toilet. Reading all that should take 5 minutes at least. And during that time you will be most comfortable on your heated toilet seat, perfectly heated to your specifications.

Ohright and euhm . . .

Vending Machines, yes we have them. Some Coke, a bag of crisps, of course we have them. What are we, living in the dark ages?
Yes, we have Vending machines, but not like the Japanese have vending machines. Do we sell beer and Cigarettes in Vending machines? I don’t think so! (I have one in my dorm, VERY usefull)

Ok, we actually do have those. But they’re not in public.
How about something a bit more odd.

Yes, the first one has vegetables and the other one has Books and Videos.
Right, sorry. My bad. Porn Books and Videos. Again: On the street.

How about a Live Lobster vending machine

Or the ever pupular Used schoolgirl underwear vending machine

We may have vending machines, but we don’t have vending machines like the Japanese do. The original entrepeneurs that started stocking the machine shown immediately above have been arrested and tried btw because they did not receive written statements from the original owners. Used means someone had them before, ergo it is antique. Antiques are serious business in Japan.

http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/index.htm

But, “everyday items” includes food. Let’s take a look a famous chocolate bar

Back home we have gone to staggering heights of originality by adding the Kit Kat Chunky AND the white chocolate version of this.

How about Kit Kat Apple, Kit Kat melon, Kit Kat green tea, Kit Kat . . . well, I’m not sure what that last one is, chestnuts? Edit: Thanks to my lovely assistance Sharon (For that is a fitting name for an assistant) It has been shown to be a Azuki Kit kat

Kit Kat strawberry

Kit Kat Macha

Kit Kat Fruit Parfait. (You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, “Let’s get some parfait,” they say, “Hell no, I don’t like no parfait”? Parfaits are delicious.)

Cherry blossom Kit Kat

And the watermelon flavoured Kit Kat which is one of those chocolate bars that has actually survived 1 week on my desk

So my 6-month train card ran out last friday.

It ran ’till 20-07-08 and I’d asked for the paper bit to apply for a new one and promptly forgotten about it. So this morning I entered the gates and remembered I really REALLY needed to fill that thing in. But I could pay for the trip this once, no worries.

At the office I made my way through the application slip. YEEH! I got everything except the bit that asked for my age. Excellent. An entire form in Japanese filled out to perfection.

Except that my card didn’t expire last friday.

The more perceptive reader will have noted last firday was 20-06-08 (Yeah, I missed that)

The even more perceptive reader will note that my card runs out in 2 weeks!

You see, I live in Japan. (Yes . . . really)

Japan has its own calendar. They use the gregorian easily enough but . . . .
My card runs out in the year 20 of the current Emperor’s reign on the 7th month and 8th day. In other words: In 2 weeks.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t paying attention and started the apply on this thing. I’d've completely missed that

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Hello Kitty, Japan’s ubiquitous ambassador of cute, has built up an impressive resume over the years. Global marketing phenom. Fashion diva. Pop culture icon.

Tourism Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, center, poses with South Korean singer Younha and kimono-clad Hello Kitty.

Now the moonfaced feline can add “government envoy” to the list.

Japan’s tourism ministry on Monday named Hello Kitty as its choice to represent the country in China and Hong Kong, two places where she is wildly popular among kids and young women.

Officials hope tapping into that fan base will lead to a bigger flow of tourists into Japan and push the country closer to the goal of attracting 10 million overseas visitors every year under the “Visit Japan” campaign.

Last year the number of foreign tourists traveling to Japan hit a record high of 8.35 million, up 60 percent since the government began the marketing effort in 2003.

Arrivals from China and Hong Kong, who accounted for 16.5 percent of visitors to Japan last year, are poised this year to become the second-largest group of tourists after South Koreans.

At a press conference, Sanrio Co. President Shintaro Tsuji, whose company created the toy cat, called Hello Kitty’s new appointment “an honor” and pledged the feline would “work hard to attract many visitors.”

Japan’s other goodwill tourism ambassadors include Korean singer Younha, Japanese actress Yoshino Kimura and Japanese pop/rock duo Puffy AmiYumi.

Although this is the first time the tourism ministry has tapped a fictional character for the role, the foreign ministry in March inaugurated blue robo-cat Doraemon as Japan’s “anime ambassador.”

Designed in 1974 by Sanrio, Hello Kitty first appeared on a plastic coin purse. Her image today has become one of the most powerful brands in the world, adorning some 50,000 products in 60 countries.

Hello Kitty — one of mascot-obsessed Japan’s biggest hits as a toy character — is often seen on lunch boxes, jewelry and many other accessories.

In China, Kitty-fever has already broken out.

A multi-million-dollar musical featuring Hello Kitty opened earlier this year in Beijing and is in the midst of a national tour. “Hello Kitty’s Dream Light Fantasy” is then scheduled to travel to Malaysia, Singapore and the United States over its three-year run

Read article here

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Quote of the day:

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

- Wally

Indeed, and long overdue it is.First of all a few random additions. On your right, in the fun and games bit there’s a new link called Earthquakes in Japan
Second, there’s a few new pictures in the Random folder

The first is a tracking system for earthquakes in Japan going back a week. If you’re reading this ontime you can see both 4+ earthquakes of the last week in My and The Fair Maiden’s area. Just press the previous button a couple of times. And then some more, there really are a LOT of earthquakes here. The second . . . is pictures. They include a picture taken in a Hippy bar somewhere in a basement in Osaka. Surprising enough when the manager found out I was Dutch he didn’t ask if I had weed. But offered me some from his private stash.

Drug law in Japan =>

On with the story though. Last weekend myself and the fair maiden made it back to Fuji-san. 3rd time is the charm and all that.

So we went to a different area each time and we can do this because:
Mountains are big
Big mountains are bigger
And the biggest mountain in a county is usually . . . .VERY BIG
Big enough to warret spending 3 weekends in it’s presence without seeing anything twice.

Please excuse this little explanation but I know a vast majority of my readers are Dutch and the biggest mountain in Holland takes approximately 25 minutes to walk around.
On crutches.
Spending 3 weekends on one may be an alien concept to them.

The first weekend, way back in September 2007 we climbed it.
Then in December we visited Hakone, Mt. Fuji viewing prime

And this weekend we spent around the Fuji Five Lakes area.

Now, this meant hours of walking and nice pictures.

Or, in case one forgets his camera, just hours of walking. I suggest going here for some proper pictures but I’ve uploaded some of my own aswell.

Now, as one can read in the wikipedia link earlier on this area has a rather sinister history. And this was well visable as we walked through suicide forest. Trees strangeling trees and snakes crawling over footpaths. Together with the gloomy weather and trees that have not regained their foliage it was a marvelous atmosphere. In the forest were caves. Deep caves, LOW caves, VERY LOW caves. Actually things got lower than that, but due to needing hands to walk on we couldn’t take any pictures of that. There were bat caves.

I have to admit though, no bats in the batcave, no suicides in the suicide forest, it was all rather a dissapointment. I had Raph along though so that made it all better. Between the forest and civilization we had some of this. And other than that the weekend was spent in not-mentionables. It was a nice together weekend.

Well, there was one thing. The Japanese Bass Fishing Championship. Out of sheer awesome I forgot to take pictures of that, shucks.

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Then there was wednesday. I finally managed to get 5 of my colleages to come and tag along to “Oude Kaas“. I reported earlier that they seemed to have closed 3 days before I arrived in Osaka, this was not true: They were remoddeling. CHEER.

How did I managed to get people to come where I had failed twice before . . . . I got my boss to order someone else to organise it. Simple.

Anyway, Oude Kaas is the only restaurant outside of Holland to hold a certificate by the Vereniging van Erkende Pannekoekenrestaurants. But next to that they serve a wide range of different Dutch dishes like Loempias, kroepoek and Nasi Goring. All very Dutch. Ok, check out the ☆メニュー button for the menu. After that it’s all in Japanese or Dutch so I reckon *most* of my readers can make due. They had bitterballen *GLEE*.

Oh there was so much good food, I made an exception of my vegetarianism for 1 bitterball. And then I had to eat 2 mussels to show these people who consider themselves fish-eaters-prime just how you handle one of those (pfffff, Amateurs). Other than that I had the best Friet-speciaal I have ever had. Garlic toast, a real pancake, stamppot, good beer . . . .Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Yummie. Just Yummie. I would offer you pictures but 2 things prevent me

1. It’s food most of you can have every day or has no emotional value, pictures would be meaningless
2. By the time I remembered the camera most pictures came out like this

Oops.

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Quote of the day:

It’s an exception

- 15 different日本語teachers regarding some aspect of the Japanese Language
- Wally regarding the bitterbal