Farewell Japan

It's a little late, but as you probably well know Akemi and I have departed Japan (December 2007). We are now living in Jacksonville, Florida, my hometown. I will continue to blog under a new site: www.berndog-ourtinyworld.blogspot.com. Please check it out...

Dramatic Engrish 101

I thought the pictures below deserved their own entry and a little explanation to familiarize you with "Engrish". Engrish is a term that applies to English phrases and expressions found in Japan on all manner of signs, commercial products, T-shirts, etc. that are either grammatically incorrect, grammatically correct but inappropriate for the given subject, or that just make no sense whatsoever. This could be intentional or accidental, sometimes it's hard to tell. But my take on it is that it just doesn't matter to Japanese people because the fact that it's in English at all makes the item "cool". Kind of like Americans getting kanji characters tattooed on their bodies (sometimes to begrudgingly find out later that the characters are either upside-down, or don't mean what they thought they did!). The term "Engrish" in itself is kind of derogatory in that it pokes fun at Asian peoples' difficulty in distinguishing between "L" and "R" sounds (see the movie "Lost In Translation", or the final scene in "A Christmas Story"). So next time you're in a department store looking for a toaster oven, you might check to see which floor the "erectric goods" are on!

And hey, it works both ways - it's almost impossible for American people to correctly pronounce "ryo" or "ryu". Hell, I still hear people butcher "Tokyo" and "Kyoto" (most people incorrectly pronounce them as "To - Key - Yo" or "Key - Yo - To"), and my personal pet peeve, "Karaoke". It's pronounced just like it looks, NOT "Carry - Oki". That's retarded, and if you pronounce it like that, well then you need to be riding the short bus. And I won't even get into "banzai" (the exclamation for good fortune) versus "bonsai" (the miniature pine tree)!

The photos below were taken from three public ash trays in a designated smoking area outside of Saitama Super Arena. They almost tell a little story or poem, like haiku, and the illustrations are very detailed. Just one of the many, many examples of Engrish I see every single day. If you want to see more, check out www.engrish.com. It's hilarious, and you can buy a lot of goods with Engrish expressions taken directly from Japanese products and signboards.

More Fun In Saitama

Here's just a few other photos from our evening in Saitama taken around the Super Arena and at our friends' favorite sushi izakaya. This is probably coincidence, but what were they playing over the sound system all night at this joint...Beatles. Guess they wanted to keep the theme of the evening going...

All You Need Is Love

Hi everybody! Last Saturday we took the train up to Saitama City (Tokyo) to visit the John Lennon Museum with our friends Mika and Mikio. Now I had been wanting to visit this place for a long time considering I am a huge life-long fan of all things Beatle. This museum was created by Yoko Ono, as Saitama City is her hometown, and officially opened on 09 October 2000, Lennon's 60th birthday. The museum is located in a huge arena/exhibit hall called Saitama Super Arena. Multiple concerts and other events are held up there all throughout the year. We hadn't made it up there until this point because it's a good 90 minute trip one way. So, we made plans with our friends to stay over night with them since they live in that area. The museum was very interesting and well-worth the trip and admission (¥1,500 for adults). On hand were multiple personal possessions of Lennon's, including a pair of his famous glasses, his leather jacket from the early-Beatles' days in Hamburg, his sleeveless "New York City" tee-shirt, his second-hand Army jacket, his motorcycle given to him by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, and my personal favorite, his fluorescent yellow St. Pepper costume used for the album cover photo. The exhibit is divided into nine zones, as follows:

Zone 1: Childhood Memories - John's childhood explained under 4 keywords - birth, separation, talent, and rebellion.
Zone 2: Rock & Roll - The time when young John was playing rock 'n roll in Liverpool and Hamburg.
Zone 3: The Beatles - John's success as a member of the Beatles and his inner changes and turmoil.
Zone 4: Two Virgins - John's first meeting with Yoko, Yoko's childhood and her artwork.
Zone 5: Love & Peace - John and Yoko's peace campaign, and later works by the Beatles.
Zone 6: Imagine - John's solo works, centrally the world of the song "Imagine"
Zone 7: New York City - The time when John and Yoko moved to New York and joined in political activities.
Zone 8: The Lost Weekend - The time when John split up with Yoko and lived in Los Angeles.
Zone 9: Househusband - John's "househusband" era, and his comeback on the music scene.

Though the museum was not crowded at all, cameras and other recording devices are forbidden from use in the exhibit. So all of the photos I've posted are from the entrance of the museum. Being that this exhibit was created by Yoko Ono, it definitely has her slant on things, which is ok depending on how you feel about her and her involvement with (the breakup of) The Beatles. I have mixed feelings, but I think people tend to really hate her or respect her. I didn't know until this exhibit that she was married twice prior to meeting John, first time to a Japanese classical composer and second time to an American Jazz musician whom she had a child by. The child, Kyoko, is now married with kids and living in Denver, Colorado. Yoko was also romantically linked at one time with experimental musician John Cage. So there's always been that artist-musician thing going on there. Also, I didn't know that John whored around with Yoko's personal assistant, May Pang, for 18 months during his "Lost Weekend". So I guess he had a thing for the Asian ladies (right on!). There was nothing else I saw in the exhibit was news to me, as I have seen multiple documentaries about him and The Beatles, but overall I was really pleased to see it and highly recommend it to any other Beatles fans out there.

By the way, I am the walrus.

"The Footprint Of Freedom"

OK - I've mentioned this previously so now I want to tell you about my recent trip to the tropical island base, Diego Garcia. It's probably best if I give you a little info about it first, copied and pasted directly from Wikipedia. In case you can't tell, I really like Wikipedia a lot. Check it out for yourself sometime. Incidentally, D-Gar (slick military abbreviation of the name), has the nickname "footprint of freedom" because it has the outline of a footprint from an aerial view. It really is the "Club Med" of the Navy/Air Force. There was a short blurb about it recently in Time magazine following the president's stopover there on his way to the Far East.


"Diego Garcia (7°19′S, 72°25′E) is an atoll located in the heart of the Indian Ocean, some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south off India's and Sri Lanka's southern coast. Diego Garcia is the largest atoll by land area of the Chagos Archipelago. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), a British overseas territory.
Since the enforced depopulation of Diego Garcia in the years leading up to 1973, it has been used as a military base by the United States and the United Kingdom. Diego Garcia hosts one of three ground antennas (others are on Kwajalein and Ascension Island) that assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigational system."

"The atoll is now covered in luxuriant tropical vegetation, with little sign left of the copra and coconut plantations that once covered it. The island is 37 miles (60 km) long, with a maximum elevation of 22 feet (7 m), and nearly encloses a lagoon some 12 miles long (19 km) and up to 5 miles (8 km) wide. Depths in the lagoon extend to 98 feet (30 m), while numerous coral heads extend toward the surface and form hazards to navigation. Shallow reefs surround the island on the ocean side as well as within the lagoon. The channel and anchorage area are dredged, while the old turning basin can also be used if its depth is sufficient for the ship."


OK, now that that's out of the way, let me tell you about my trip. We departed from NAF Atsugi on a NALO flight at around 0930 last Tuesday, 13 Nov. The flight was in two legs, both going and returning. First leg was from here to Bangkok, Thailand (where the plane was refueled), then from there to D-Gar. Each leg took 6 to 7 hours, so the entire trip took about 13 hours - just like flying to the states. A real ass-burner of a trip! We spent almost 2 days there, where I mainly just gave 3 hours of CE Endodontic lectures and also took in a deep sea fishing trip out on the Indian Ocean. What an experience of a lifetime! I went with the Yokosuka base veterinarian and his assistant on a small 20foot boat manned by a crew of two. We reeled in over a dozen fish, half of which were yellowfin tuna ("hamachi" in Japanese). I've never had that thrilling experience of reeling fish of that size (about 20-25 pounds) from the fixed chair on the back of the boat! It was incredible! We gave all of the fish, except one tuna, to the two crewmen, who were totally stoked! We had our one tuna cleaned at the dock, then cooked up at a local all-hands U.S./British servicemens' club for dinner that night. It was so damn good! And it fed about 5 people, with leftover meat that we had to give away!! I only regret that we didn't get to eat any of it raw at the dock (sashimi-style, with a little soy and wasabi), especially the fatty belly meat (o-toro) which is a delicacy here in Japan (and very expensive!). We departed D-Gar around 0400 on Friday and I didn't reach home until about 2330 that night - a long-ass journey! It rained hard, torrential, monsoon-like rains almost our entire time in D-Gar, but it was well worth going! I would have taken a lot more photos, but I didn't want to ruin our camera in the rain. I think it would be a decent place to be stationed for a year as a single person. There are only about 300-350 active duty people to take care of there for two dentists, along with a handful of civilian merchant mariners. The rest of the population consists of about 1,700-1,800 Philippino and Mauritian contractors which provide a whole array of support services to the base there, including manning the Officers' Club, which was the nicest I've seen yet in the Navy (located right on the northern tip of the western arm of the atoll, overlooking the ocean and lagoon). The contractors actually have their own dentist also, which is nice. Anyway, the trip was great, and that now concludes my trifecta of boondoggles before I separate from the Navy. My next post will be about our visit to the John Lennon Museum up in Saitama last weekend. Later suckas!!

Majestic Fujisan

Ohayo gozaimasu Fujisan! Just wanted to post a few spectacular photos of Mt. Fuji as seen from the plane as I flew from NAF Atsugi to Diego Garcia (more on that trip next post). You rarely get to see Fuji this close from an aerial view, especially with perfect weather conditions. You can see a good bit of the mountain is now covered with snow - the official climbing season is definitely over. If you look close enough, you can see one of the hiking trails snaking back and forth up the side of the mountain. I can't believe I hiked this thing 3 times! That's enough for me. Besides, climbing it a fourth time would probably be bad luck (the number four in Japanese also means "death" or "suffering"). When you hike it you can never appreciate it's overall beauty because it's basically all just dusty volcanic rocks and sand. Up close, it looks like what I would imagine the surface of the moon to look like.

Checkmate! - Yokohama-style

So here I am again with completely useless information just for you. After our 10K run in Yokohama the weekend before last, we did a little spontaneous sightseeing in the Port of Yokohama and visited a few historic buildings which for one reason or another are named after Chess pieces - King, Queen, and Jack. All built 80 to 100 years ago, they are actually important historical landmarks in the development of Yokohama as Japan opened its doors to trade with the outside world at the dawn of the Edo era (circa 1860s). "King Tower" is the Kanagawa Prefectural Government building; "Jack Tower" is the Port Opening Memorial Hall; and "Queen Tower" is the Yokohama Customs House. "Queen" was my favorite as it featured a free museum tour showing the history of the port area as well as a detailed description of how all foreign goods entering Yokohama are screened by customs officials. On display were multiple luxury/designer goods and their Chinese counterfeit copies which have been confiscated. One display case has the copies and the originals and you have to guess which is which. I did so poorly - I got one right out of about a dozen pairs!! Guess I'm not the guy to put in charge of determing which Prada handbags are real and which are fake! Also shown were samples of confiscated illegal drugs and all of the ingenious ways dealers have devised to try to smuggle them into the country, including inside antique furniture, Budweiser beer cans, and behind "blind" walls inside of shipping containers. Several volunteer retirees were on hand to provide more information than you could ask for. Overall a thoroughly interesting place to see if you have a hour to kill in Yokohama. Below, the buildings from top to bottom are King, Jack, and Queen. The last pic is, I guess, the Customs House mascot "Sniffy" - he can tell "Gucci" from "Pucci", "Chanel" from "Channel", and "Coach" from "Goach". But then again, doesn't every government building in Japan have its own adorable cartoon mascot?

The Shins - Club Quattro, Shibuya

WOOOooooooMyGod!! Last Monday, November 12, Akemi and I went and saw The Shins perform the first of a two night set at Club Quattro in Shibuya. It was fantastic!! I mentioned in a previous post that this is my new favorite band, and this show confirmed it. I loved it - they put on a great show! In true Japanese concert fashion, the show went on like clockwork at the prescribed time of 7pm (no opening band). Club Quattro is an interesting place in that it is located on the 4th and 5th floors of a building above a sporting goods store. The size and ambience of the place were very reminiscent of Einstein A-Go-Go, a club I used to go to in high school and college, with the exception that this place served booze. The audience was about 75% gaijin and 25% Japanese - not surprising since The Shins are from Portland, Oregon, and are still a relatively minor band in the U.S. and Japan. They played for a solid 90 minutes. I recognized all songs in their set save for one. They also did a Pink Floyd cover, though I couldn't tell you exactly which song it was as that I'm not that familiar with the Pink Floyd catalogue. Between-song banter was kept to a minimum, though the band was extremely appreciative of the audience turnout and seemed genuinely stoked to be touring in Japan. Who wouldn't be - foreign bands are treated like kings here! Next stop for The Shins was Osaka. Hope to catch them again in the future. This concludes my concert-going experience in Japan. During this tour I've been able to catch Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Belle & Sebastian, Beck, and The Shins - all great shows. The camera nazis were not in force during the show, so I managed to take quite a few pics. Here are few below. Early the next morning after this show I left on a 3 day trip to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, so I've got several more posts coming up...

Yokohama Marathon

Yesterday Akemi and I ran a little 10K fun run around the Port of Yokohama. It started from Yamashita Park, at the New Grand Hotel (where General MacArthur lived during part of his tenure in post-WWII Japan), circled down around a cluster of big warehouses, and back up again. The weather was overcast, and particularly nippy before the start of the race, but overall it was a really enjoyable run. We followed the run with a light lunch and some Belgium beer at a hip little dog-friendly joint called the Flower Cafe. We haven't been there in over a year and were happy to see that it's still in business. We're looking forward to the Yokosuka Seaside Marathon coming up on 23 November. I'll be running another half marathon that day (20K). Should be a good one because the run goes from Yokosuka City Hall down to Kannonzaki lighthouse, a fairly flat course. Some of the finer points from this past run, and possibly things that you can only see in Japan:

* Guys having a smoke directly before and after the run. Guess the nicotine helps.
* A guy checking his text messages on his cell phone during the actual run.
* A man standing bare-ass naked in the park while he changed out of his running gear!

You gotta love it!! Where else in the world...? Here's a couple photos. The first two are prior to the start of the race, the last two are after the finish.

Awaken Your Inner Hippie

I must be a true flaming liberal, hippie at heart because I really, really enjoyed this movie, which we finally watched from Netflix the other night. Al Gore presents his case against global warming in a clearcut, descriptive, easy-to-understand, and entertaining documentary which illustrates something I learned in residency, "everthing really is related to everything". It doesn't dwell (too much) on the politics, but it does show the apathy of the current administration in efforts to stall the egregious amount of CO2 emissions which are causing warming of the oceans and melting of the polar ice caps. What amazes me is that despite this, we (all developed-countries) continue to produce massive, gas-guzzling automobiles. Even here in Japan, Hummers are becoming very trendy even though they're completely impractical as most streets and parking garages/spaces cannot accomodate their size. Some owners even subscribe to a service based on GPS technology that allows them to see a map which shows streets they can drive on and which they can't (which vastly outnumber the former). Yeah, they may look cool, but what's not cool is the $90 it takes to fill the gas tank ($120 here in Japan). Al Gore may be one of the most despised and ridiculed men in America, but he's got years and years of evidence and documentation to back up his points; oh, and he did win that Oscar. But then again, Hollywood is a hotbed of lefty liberals. Just ask Ann Coulter (whose favorite band is the Grateful Dead - what!?! How does that make any sense!) Anyway, this is a great documentary, well-deserving of any of the accolades it's received, and may even make you consider investing in a smaller vehicle, turning off the computer when you're finished surfing the porn sites, and possibly even using a reusable eco-bag instead of paper or plastic when you do your grocery shopping!

Glorious Tokyo, Pt. 2

I had to continue the previous post because somehow blogger would not let me post so many photos on one entry. So here's a few more, with descriptions.

*The first two are Tsukiji Market. We unfortunately missed the daily early-morning fish auction, where they sell 100-pound tunas to restaurant owners and distributors, but we did get to see everything else imaginable for sale, including all manner of raw fish, kitchenware, knives, and an endless variety of pickled vegetables and fish. The second shot shows a man pouring katsuo-bushi into a bin. Katsuo-bushi is dried katsuo (bonito) fish flakes, which is used as a seasoning for ramen and okonomi-yaki (Japanese noodle or cabbage pancake). It's got a smoky flavor, and is quite tasty.

*The next photo is Ginza, the highest(!)-end shopping area in Japan, if not the world (save maybe 5th Ave. in NYC). That landmark is the clock atop Wako department store.

*The next is Kabuki-za, also in Ginza. This is one of the oldest and most famous Kabuki theaters in Japan. We happened to catch a show here a couple months ago, courtesy of Akemi's parents who are season ticket holders.

*The next two are of MM21 (Minato-Mirai) in Yokohama. The first pic is, of course, Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan at 69 stories. The second photo is inside Queen's Square shopping plaza at the foot of the tower. The giant box structure in the center is actually a Christmas tree being erected out of Swarovsky crystal. Please don't let your children play around this thing. You break it, you buy it!

*Next is the outside of Gonpachi, which I talked about in a previous post. It's a very unique building, with some great architecture. There's also the ninjas...

*Next is the Ice Bar Tokyo. I'm sure there must be several of these around the world, where everything inside is fashioned out of ice. We didn't go in, but it looked really "cool".

*Lastly, is a picture of my car here in Japan. Yes, it's true - I get out there and drive 218mph to work everyday (like the rest of the Americans here). Yeah right! This actually a Lamborghini dealership in Minami-Azabu, not far from the New Sanno Hotel. After I snapped this photo they released the hounds...