Know Before U Go: the earthquakes are FAR from over

Before the M9 in Northern Japan on 3/11 the research institutes in Japan were already predicting within the next 30 years, there will be an M9 in SOUTHERN Japan.

That has not happened YET.

And while I was still trapped in Japan, I was living in Southern Japan.  Living in Southern Japan afforded me the privilege of not only seeing first hand how poor the Japanese government responded to a disaster of that magnitude, but also gave me access to information only accessible to the Japanese citizens.

Information such as the fact that during one of the episodes of "Eye on Kansai"series about the tsunami and earthquakes (an evening TV show about Southern Japan  、かんさい熱視線 ) they discussed how UNPREPARED that region still is for the upcoming mega-quake.  In that series they also mentioned how the research institutes were revising their estimates for that upcoming M8/9 earthquake.  Revising them to estimate an earlier date of occurrence.

In other words, Southern Japan is looking at its own M8/9 not within the next 30 years, but sooner.

This main site through Yahoo Japan will not only give you constantly updated information on tremors and major quakes, but information on past quakes.

The following are only the most recent earthquakes OVER level 5 under BOTH measuring systems after I left Japan on June 27th.
However, do not be fooled into thinking these are irregular occurrences.  Japan has been getting M5 and M6 on an almost regular basis between 3/11 and the end of June.  (You can check the history of the quakes through that Yahoo site)
You don't want to be visiting Japan now or anytime soon.
You want to be LEAVING.

7/31 M6.4

7/23, M6.5:

7/15, M5.5:

7/05, M5.4:

But if you still feel like playing Russian Roulette, we happened upon a nice collection of images and videos of the 3/11 M9 Earthquake-Tsunami disaster.  (And these are not even touching upon the nuclear reactor meltdown and fallout.) 
You don't need to understand the words, just look at the pictures.  :9




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被害届け： a visit from Jack Sprat and his wife

Life is filled with first's.
First crush.
First kiss.
First baby...

This was a first I could do without.

I made my first call to the Japanese Police this past Monday! (The 13th, incidentally.)
There were obvious signs that someone had been in my apartment while I was away at work. In other words, my very first actual case of breaking and entering. Not a very competent job fortunately as nothing was missing, only messed and.. increased? (They didn't take things, but they left things. ) However, I called the police anyway since if they entered once, they could do it again. And it was too freaky to think what they might be handling while I am not there. And what might happen to Ranmaru?!?

They took their time getting here, or at least it felt like it, but when they got here...
It was like a bizzare bridal procession for Jack Sprat and his wife. Officer "J", we will call him, was not tall like in the story but just as skinny and uninspiring. I am quite sure he was wiry-strong, but I am just as sure the gear he was wearing weighed more than him.
And his pledged partner Officer "W" was a retired sumo wrestler?
There are no really overweight people in Japan beyond the sumo wrestlers and comedians.
However, he seemed to have found the situation inappropriately amusing so maybe he fancied himself a comedian on the side. (All I could think as we approached my door was how is he going to get through the foyer to the back of the apartment??)

I filed an official police report.
They advised that since nothing was missing this time, that would be best course of action. If it happened again (and it does.), then they would call the detective in and it would be officially investigated whether or not anything was taken . They asked me about calling a detective this time too, but that was kind of unsettling so I went with their suggestion of just filing a report for now.

Oh, and like I mentioned above, the a$$h01e$ invaded again.

This time we were waiting for them though.
They triggered my door "alarm" and Ranmaru's very own ferret "alarm" - jerk stepped in a ferret landmine waiting by the front door.

That was the situation when I returned from work on Friday.
Once is more than enough.
But MORE THAN TWO TIMES!?! And in the same week?!
Camera came out for evidence pictures and I went to talk to the landlord who was actually in for once.
They immediately called in a locksmith...
Who then, as an apology of sorts for not being able to come immediately on Friday, arrived Saturday 30 minutes EARLIER than planned and before I had even gotten dried off from my shower.
... ...
At least it got done.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Assignment, Set and VOLLEY!

I have decided that instead of being merely pumped for information by the a$$h01e$ at work, I am going to jump in the court and play with them.

I could go into the details (and will later), but suffice it to say that at this current place, beyond a few early... mistakes? shall we call them? no one has actually ever spoken TO me. Mostly, they have talked AT me, always with the intention of pumping me for information about what I am doing. (Seriously, VILLAGE of the DAMNED here.) This makes me sad really given I always struggled to speak to these people in their native language, speaking to them as people, not as some f)(&'%&$#"g assignment for work.

Yeah, I am pretty bitter about this. I'd like to throw a bunch of these uppity, self-centered a$$h01e$ into a totally foreign totally UNFRIENDLY environment where why could barely communicate and say, hey, knock yourself out, Honey.

Anywhoo, I just had the idea that if all they care about is pumping me for information, then that's just what they'll get. I am going to start responding to all poorly-veiled information-searches with some odd and confusing "answers"
After all, why should they have all the fun?

ASSIGNMENT!!

For practice....how would you answer this question?
Remember has to be believable yet leave one feeling a little, huh??

"What did you do this weekend?"

The more basic the question, the harder it is to come up with something off.

Consider that a nice version of what I usually get pried with:
Do you meet with anyone?
Do you meet with other foreigners?
Where do you go after work?
Where do you go on the weekend?
What time do you get home?
... o.0

Look forward to hearing from friends and visitors.
Will post the most promising responses!


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Eternal 1984

I live in the Village of the DAMNED.

Or maybe time has never passed beyond the eighties?
Like 1984?
An eternal Orwellian 1984.

No, really, very creepy here.
As in Big BROTHER is Watching creepy.

As a non-Asian in Asia you live in the perpetual fish bowl. You get everything ranging from the outright GAWKING to most common yet only mildly offensive "Oh, look at the white person." "Oh, a foreigner." to the native language equivalent of "GO THE FUCK HOME!"
After more than five years, yeah, I am tired of it, but I am also thoroughly used to it, completely non-responsive in any case. (Actually, I have been practicing Korean lately so I can mess with them back. It's the little amusements that get you by here.)

But here.... This place is truly creepy with its monitoring and watching and veiled digs for information.
It's subtle too, until the pattern gets repeated so many times so can't NOT notice it.

I got a very large package one day. At my APARTMENT.
The following day at work, I was on duty with someone I normally NEVER see. They were very chatty with me which NO ONE EVER is. In the conversation it came up out of no where, "Do you ever buy things online?"
This suddenly coming from a person at work who can barely turn on a computer.

?

Obsessed with TV much?
Really, how many times can anyone ask me " Do you watch the TV?" before it gets odd? And how weird is it that when the final time it's asked I mention that I remember that I did watch this one program only to then have the TV Collection service suddenly show up out of nowhere the next day after I answer yes??

??

The weirdly distorted ones are almost the creepiest for me though. The one that stands out (and yes there has been MORE than one instance.) is the night I heard a kitten crying outside. I am on the third floor. It was a dark NIGHT. And yet the crying was so loudly insistent that even though I am deathly allergic to felines, I couldn't ignore it. It was obviously a kitten and s/he sounded stuck or lost or hurt or hungry. Whatever was the problem I went to look for the wayward critter.

Now, behind the apartment building is a school surrounded by one of Japan's famous cement block prison-like school fences. So I am looking all over the back, where the school fence and the apartment parking lot meet. That's where the sound is coming from. Over, around, along the Twiggy-thin intervals between houses. Peered into the school ground by the apartment once or twice - cats do sleep there I had noticed before from my balcony. ZIP. NADA.

Give up and go to bed.

So, another morning, another day in hell house (work).
I arrived at my post when curiously out of no where, the person I am on duty with mentions, oh so casually, "You live next to a school, don't you? Isn't that inconvient?! Don't you worry about them peering over the fence into your room??"
Without missing a beat, I blandly responded, "I live on the third floor."

Oh, and did I mention it was DARK out that night?

I don't need to spell out how fu)(&&d-up creepy this is, do I?
who the f%#$ reported what to whom who then passed the message to work and then that message was passed to the VP (most likely) who then assigned the person on duty with me to deliver not just a "warning", but a weirdly distorted allegory of a warning ?!

・・・
・・・

Cheers!
and SMILE!!
remember, we're watching u 2 (^_-)-☆


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All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

B1tch H1tler, again

Another conversation
Unwanted but overheard by the misfortune of being in the same room.
And did I mention she basically runs the Buddhist preschool/kindergarten (or in this case, military academy for short people)?

This was message delivered on behalf of nonpresent employee "A" by another of the staff, employee "B". Employee A had previously had a miscarriage. Traditionally there are specific times at which you go to pray for/to the soul of the miscarried child. Employee A apparently wished to take a day to go to that place and give offering, have rites said, etc.... Employee A was wondering why she was not being given permission to properly pray for her dead child.

B1tch H1tler didn't waste a second before delivering her proclamation to Employee B much the way she would sign a paper or write a check, "Time doesn't matter. It's the thought. She can go and pray and come back."

・・・

Not someone I would want influencing my offspring, but it is appropriately a Buddhist school and for the parents of those school children, 知らぬが仏 - The Buddha is unknowning, or in other words "Ignorance is Bliss".


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

coming to a theater near YOU!

Well, not coming to a theater, but definitely coming to an ESL Blacklist in the near future.

And it's just the tip of the ice berg of what this place is like.

I was privy to a conversation tonight through the auspices of having my desk literally IN the VP's office.
Another teacher walked in to give notice of vacation plans during summer vacation. The conversation quickly degenerated and came to a screeching halt with
休みがあるというのは休みが取れるわけない。
Literally, Just because I said there was a vacation doesn't mean you can take vacation.
REALLY.
The foul she-beast then went on to EXPLAIN to the teacher how she had "interpreted" the original comments about the "vacation" time to "suit herself".
REALLY.

My desk faces the wall. I sat there until quitting time, making my little notes for tomorrow, quietly shuffling papers, but mostly ears up and listening. You could hear the confusion in this teacher's voice.
How could anyone not be confused?? I can't take vacation during vacation??
From my little corner, I imagined that the utter confusion was the only thing keeping her from bursting out into tears because that is surely what it sounded like.

Note here, there is nothing ambiguous about the Japanese word she used for vacation. The VP is just being an outright facist sadist twisting any normally accepted concept of vacation that everyone else in the country has to suit her own ends. As a result, this teacher will likely lose the money she spent on a very expensive airplane ticket in addition to having a working summer vacation and spring vacation AGAIN.

A working vacation? Isn't that just WORK?

I think someone at school needs to work on their own language skills.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Happiness is....

getting a paycheck ON TIME
and in the PROPER AMOUNT.

(The way this place is I was naturally suspecting some funny business in this department too.)

Of course, nothing but NOTHING beats a warm fuzzy tunneling through the covers to sleep on your feet at night, but a paycheck is not so bad either. Particularly when you had been balancing how to spend the last 500 yen (about 5 USD) for the past 2 weeks.

In this case, I immediately went out and bought myself a rainbow of happiness.


And there were even more soy milk flavors not shown that I haven't tried yet!!
New ones included oshiruko (sweet red bean soup) and sweet potato flavor in addition to my old favs Vanilla, Chocolate, and the #1, Black Sesame Seed.

If one rainbow is good, surely two must be better.


Yes, a rainbow of sake you could never find anywhere else but in a Japanese supermarket. My old faithful companion, straight up sake by Gekkeikan is on the far right in a double size bottle this time thanks to the spiffy paycheck, but then I added some new friends to the gathering. I had been feeling it was long due time to venture into new frontiers..

On the far left is traditional sweet Umeshu made from local ume fruits (this area is either the top ume producing area in all of Japan or the second one down.), next a blend of sake known as Nigori-zake as it is nigotteiru or "muddied" by the rice, followed by a bottle of gently sweet sake as stated by the cute bunny on front. (Yeah, it was the bunny that ultimately sold me. Also, it added confidence knowning that it too is made by Gekkeikan.)

I shall report my taste findings in the future, if only for my own record.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

a Non-nuclear winter continues

Maybe not exactly sunny skies lately, but no rain, no radiation warnings and temps above 10C.

As a result, we're already in FULL BLOOM.
(I'd love to know what these are.)





And in the school yard, Shinsei's Flower.




Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

ame nochi HARE!

After the rain, come sunny skies.

This is Taka-chan.
S/he hangs out on the roof of the building next to me.
S/he doesn't live there (It's an elementary school.) but at 5-6 floors high it's the tallest building around making it very nice for survelance. I can usually spot her every morning and evening.

Maybe it is just coincidence, but I distinctly recall thinking Friday morning, "No, Taka-chan? Where's Taka-chan?"
The major earthquake followed by days of continuous after-shocks and tsunamis occurred around Friday, 3:15PM.



Now, Sunday morning, for the first time since Friday morning....




Screw TV.
Taka-chan has officially (and more reliably) declared an ALL CLEAR for the Wakayama coast.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

Thanks again for stopping into my little corner of the 'net, and Happy Browsing!

All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.