Owner: Of Rice and Zen: The Memoirs of a Gaijin URL:http://www.memoirs-of-a-gaijin.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:39:21 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: I'm moving to Japan in 5 days... Shit. The. Bed. Site statistics:Click here
Day 888: Keitai voyeurism 2008-07-14 21:47:00 You teach a lesson in Yamashina Starbucks and decide to hang around for a while afterwards to study Japanese for a while. You notice a girl at the table opposite you has ceased the eye-ping-pong and is inspecting her mobile phone. Not for the first time in your life you look at her, looking at her phone and she physically jumps and turns around her keitai to inspect the lens with a admonishing exp
Day 947: To B or not to B? 2008-08-05 20:13:00 Mod is interested in trading his motorbike for a drift car and talks to the bank about a loan. After an hour long sales pitch he's informed that loans are not available to foreigners. No pets, no gaijin. You'd think they'd open with information like that. Maybe they think an hour long meeting will soften the blow of insitutional discrimination.Mod emails you in a foul mood to tell you he's sic
Day 946: The ultrasound 2008-08-04 22:33:00 You are checking your Facebook on your iPhone at work when you receive messages from Bourne and Mick who say they'll be back in Japan soon. Your old AT Docker also mentions a desire to return. You wonder if you can get an old-school reunion on the go. It'd be nice to see some familiar faces after spending the last few months naming rice fields.With a full-time working schedule progress is slow
Day 944: Recognition of reality will not be tolerated 2008-08-04 21:45:00 At Nova Omihachiman you sit in the broom-cupboard-cum-teachers'-room and proudly prod and poke at your shiny new iPhone. You send photos of every favguely amusing thing around you to your Tumblr account and wonder how you ever got along without it. Your manager Wuriko tells you that your school is in the running to win a trip to Bali if we can become one of the top five schools in Japan. You're Read more:Recognition
, reality
Day 942: Miho the Omihachiman racist 2008-08-01 03:35:00 You enter the new voice/kids cublicle and find four adults in the room. Two you recognise as fairly low level, one is a man you don't know and the last is a fairly high level woman named Miho. Short hair, big gums, likes to travel on the cheap. Too many times when you're tired you take the easy option of conversing with the high level students and hoping the lower levels are keeping up. You as
Day 939: Taun-Taun has never ever 2008-07-27 18:24:00 Still recovering from Gaya-gaya, and in your second straight week of partying hard, you decide it would be nice to invite the T-dawg to Kyoto for her birthday. More accurately, you were too drunk, poor and lazy to make it to Osaka for her birthday party, and the mountain's gonna have to come to Mohammed. S has been very unsupportive of your attempts to spend time with Harry before he goes home.
Day 934: The Leo Palace of the mind 2008-07-26 22:10:00 In the morning Mod tells you the bar bill was ¥80,000 ($800) and that he put it on his credit card. At Japanese drinking parties people leave in spates throughout the evening and rarely leave enough to cover their food, drink and cover charge. You know it's gonna be difficult to ask for more money later. You don't envy Mod the task. You all decide that next time a western style bar is a better Read more:Palace
Day 932: Harry's "bye bye" party 2008-07-26 22:07:00 You wake up at Don's house still alive but feeling slightly like a man who drank 13 beers last night. You're like a Templar Knight. It's an unlucky number for you. Mod reminds you that you all went to the conbini after getting back to Nagitsuji and bought shochu. You ask why your sunglass are bent bent. He tells you were wrestling and he punched you in the balls. You ask why you were wearing Read more:Harry
Day 899: The eternal question: BBs or work? 2008-07-09 22:06:00 Mod invites you to yakiniku in Minami Kusatsu. You only eat once a week so you jump at the chance. You assume the boys are going and are eager for a quick break from S's parents' house. While they're extremely kind to you, you can't help but occasionally feel that you are the Nova customer who lingers at closing time. When you get there you realise that there's a group of about 14 people. Mod
Japanstock 2008-08-24 19:40:10 When y-list internet celebrity "A", real name Andy Heather, decided to kill off his long-running blog, Of Rice and Zen: The Memoirs of a Gaijin, the public outcry was stiff-upper lipped to the point of underwhelming. it seems his loyal readership were so distraught at the thought of the long-running story coming to a close that they could barely muster the strength to write in a beg Andy to contin
Samurai Champloo (2004-2005) 2008-08-09 12:05:10 Following up on his smash hit success Cowboy Bebop, Shinichirō Watanabe released the cult hit Samurai
Champloo. Anime fans and non-anime fans around the world fell in love with the series, but what did the team at Manglobe INC get so right?
Samurai Champloo is a single series of 26 half-hour episodes. Each one stands alone [...]
Studio 246 Rehearsal Room/Recording Studio 2008-08-04 05:05:36 Rocking out with the band at home may be a possiblity in some expats’ home countries, but in Japan it is likely to merit a call to your guarantor faster than you can say “keep on rockin’ in the free world”. At times like these bedroom heroes need a slighty more professional space in which [...] Read more:Rehearsal
, Recording
, Recording Studio
Softbank iPhone 2008-08-03 20:30:25 Not all iPhone
s are equal as Of Rice and Zen found out in our dealings with Softbank
, which, so far, have had the strained amicability of a peace talk.
Of Rice and Zen used to be Softbank customers. We had a beautifully functional Nokia N73 and a fairly expensive Softbank contract. With it’s incredible Karl Zeiss [...]
Yoidokoro (よいどころ) 2008-07-28 21:43:53 If you’ve ever fantasised about a trip to Okinawa to sample the delights of taco-rice and goya champuru, but lack the necessary free time, perhaps you should consider making Minami-Kusatsu the unlikely next stop on your itinerary.
Yoidokoro in Minami Kusatsu escapes the notice even of regular Kusatsu visitors and commuters. While Kusatsu station itself is [...]
Pizza Salvatore Cuomo 2008-07-28 21:36:42 Salvatore Cuomo is an Italian pizza chef living in Tokyo who has opened over 40 branches of his pizza chain. His new restaurant in Sanjo, Kyoto gets a lot of attention because of it’s location and supposedly high class food. Nestled as it is on the corner of Kiyamachi and Sanjo streets it is passed [...] Read more:Pizza
, Salvatore
Honey and Clover (2007) 2008-07-26 22:53:45 Honey and Clover
(蜂蜜とクローバー) is an adaptation of an anime of an adaptation of Chika Umino’s manga originally serialised in Shueisha’s CUTiEcomic magazine from 2000 to 2001. It depicts a group of art students in the prime of their youth coming to terms with the end of college, the end of their creative haven and [...]
Introducing karaoke 2008-07-26 00:52:14 Coming to Japan from England you may have been led to believe the very concept of karaoke
was unbelievably crass and evidence of our diluted culture cannibalising itself. After a couple of weeks you’ll be in love it.
Karaoke Japanese-style
There are two potential reasons for this preconception. One is that in some western countries, moreso than [...] Read more:Introducing
Tekkon Kinkreet (2006) 2008-07-24 12:13:33 Tekkon Kinkreet (鉄コン筋クリート) is a groundbreaking anime from writer Anthony Weintraub and director Michael Arias. Yes, you read those credits correctly. Two western names at the helm of a big budget anime release. Heck, Arias even managed to got eclectic British duo Ed Handley and Andy Turner - aka Plaid, a one-time backup band for [...]
Paprika (2006) 2008-07-24 09:03:32 Paprika (パプリカ) is an anime movie from director Satoshi Kon who is best known as the director of Perfect Blue (1997) and Tokyo Godfathers (2003). His movies are often said to be characterised by their psychological depth and offer a refreshingly satirical look at postwar Japanese culture. Kon’s movie-making philosophy that derives heavily from Takashi [...]
The Art of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea 2008-09-10 10:54:50 Ghibli are a small studio who undertake a feature length every project every couple of years. Big boss and genius behind the operation, Miyazaki Hayao knows that each production could be their last if it doesn’t strike gold. Luckily for them Ghibli movies usually do.
Ghibli is reknowned for working in a fairly old fashioned way. [...] Read more:Cliff
Kyoto: The Greatest Travel Tips 2008-09-02 22:28:04 This new guidebook from JTB publishing has two distinctive features which may just put it at the top of your shopping list if you’re living in Japan.
Kyoto
: The GreatestTravel
Tips is a well designed new guidebook covering Of Rice and Zen’s favourite city and indeed hometown. Kyoto is a dense city and one best [...]
Pansonworks Indiana Jones models 2008-09-02 11:21:14 if you’ve ever taken a look at models
in Japan, you’ll have noticed that they are extremely ornate and are treated almost like an artform. The only way to improve upon these incredibly beautiful and eyecatching creations is to throw in the added appeal of our generation’s second favourite trilogy, good old speed archaeologist, Nazi [...] Read more:Indiana
Freedom (2007-2008) 2008-08-31 10:04:26 When the name Katsuhiro Otomo crops up, fond memories of The West™’s first anime breakthrough hit Akira come flooding back like repressed psychic powers. His characters designs, through Domu, to Akira and continuing into the 3D generation with Steamboy are distinctive and easily recognisable. In Japan Freedom
is hugely famous and bears his signature character [...]
The Sky Crawlers (2008) 2008-08-27 22:04:49 Mamoru Oshii is best known as the brains behind international anime movie smash hit Ghost in the Shell its spin-off TV series' and its visually spectacular sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Although still better known abroad than it is in Japan, there's still a lot of pressure on Oshi to pull something magic out of the bag to prove there's life beyond the Major's leotard.
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008) 2008-08-26 14:23:15 Well, allow Of Rice and Zen to skip the foreplay and ruin the ending for you. Ponyo on the Cliff
by the Sea (崖の上のポニョ)is incredible. Brilliant. Spectacularly successful and a more than worthy addition to Miyazaki's growing cannon of fried gold classics. If viewers go into this movie expecting Mononoke Hime or Gundam they will be disappointed. But those who are able to go in with an op
Studio 246 Rehearsal Room/Recording Studio 2008-08-04 05:05:36 Rocking out with the band at home may be a possiblity in some expats’ home countries, but in Japan it is likely to merit a call to your guarantor faster than you can say “keep on rockin’ in the free world”. At times like these bedroom heroes need a slighty more professional space in which [...] Read more:Rehearsal
, Recording
, Recording Studio
The New Sony Playstation 3 Video Download Store 2008-09-29 11:41:55 For once-bitten, twice-shy gamers whose PS3s were rendered useless by a recent Sony
firmware update, the latest Playstation 3 firmware update may have looked like a unnecessary risk to videogamers abroad. In Japan, however, you must potentially turn your beautiful PS3 into a large, black, shiny brick in order to do anything online. Luckily, Of Rice and Zen discovered that for us Japan-based gamers Read more:Download
, Store
Introducing… Kanazawa 2008-09-24 23:15:40 Residents of Kansai are a little spoiled for choice when it comes to holiday destinations, but with so many options around on your doorstep why should you choose Kanazawa in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture?
Kanazawa, about two hours from Kyoto by train, is a relatively famous coastal holiday destination for Japanese tourists but is traditionally sorely overlooked [...] Read more:Introducing
Capcom Art-book 2008-09-19 10:10:13 Capcom art has a special place in the collective heart of Of Rice and Zen Magazine. We can’t review this art-book dispassionately and we’re fine with that. We hope you are too.
The Of Rice and Zen staff fondly remember summer holidays when frollicking in fields, camping and catching bugs was something children in movies could [...] Read more:Capcom
Places to see… Kyoto Station 2008-09-18 21:44:00 Kyoto Station
was a spectacular and controversial building upon its release, but Of Rice and Zen asks, is it still worth seeing today? Is it still an exciting and futuristic design statement? Has it aged like wine or bad TV sci-fi? Will architect Hiroshi Hara be remembered as a Kyoto hero or villain?
First, lets get [...] Read more:Places
, Kyoto
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