Japan Bash: October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

October 2010

十月

My High School's open house.

When I took this photo, I knelt in monkey poo.

So good.

Not so good. Next is the diablo version, followed by the carbonara.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

More tidbits from my mailbox. (Part 1 and part 2) These flyers aren't sent through the mail, but hand delivered by some poor schmuck who's job it is to walk building to building wasting trees. Actually, at my previous job, we had to do this. The key to delivering a few thousand flyers is to hit up the high rises. Lucky me, I live in one of those.

First the pizza!

Let's play guess-the-pizza. Go!

Did you guess New York steak with barbecue sauce? Try a medium for about $30.

The massage ads keep getting more and more boring.

Yawn. But what's this...

"Sponsor Bank"

This one stumped me, and I enlisted the help of some of my more fluent friends. It's basically a matchmaking service for one to acquire a sugar-daddy. "You too can feel loved while making up to 10 Gs a month." I guess the overkill of information legitimizes it somewhat.

ルンルン!!!!!!

And as a bonus, an apartment ad. I get about 20 of these a week. Finally one that is (relatively) interesting!

Power Rangers?!?

A Power Rangers comic?!? Awesome! But instead of fighting evil space aliens, each ranger represents... a train line. Go go Yamanote Red! Toden Arakawa Street Car... "Jyan!"

And they never give props to where the apartment is, but give mad props to what it's near. "If you live in North Otsuka, you are a short walk from a train that is a short ride from Ikebukuro... where you can shop!"

バン!

デン!

ドン!

ボン!

ジャン!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

KTM 950 Super Moto

Crazy cosmic powers grant me use of a rad motorcycle. Read on!

I'm into a lot of what could technically be called "new age bullshit" type teachings. I may make some underhanded references to said bullshit, but I promise not to preach the stuff. Everyone hates that guy, yeah?

So, have you heard about The Secret?

Every thought we have is a powerful energy force. You can use this to your own benefit, and by focusing your mental thoughts on something, the universe will bend to your will. The Law of Attraction governs everything in life, including love and material wealth.

Sometime during the summer, I decided I would move on from the Honda CB1000 and ride something new. The choices we all over the place, but in the end a supermoto was the perfect choice. And, being Austrian made, a KTM supermoto would be superb for someone of my height. So I started thinking about it a lot.

Oh snap, dinosaur fight!

I put a KTM as my computer background, I watched videos, and I drew mental images of myself on this bike.

Then a few months ago, a friend calls. He's at one of the few KTM dealers in Japan. And they want a weekly English lesson.

Sure enough, I became the staff's teacher, coming once a week to teach travel English that they can use on their overseas motorcycle rally tours.

After a month of teaching, I mentioned that I was going riding for 4 days up in the mountains. Boss looks at me and offers one of his bikes for a test ride. A week long test ride. Say what?!

So there you go, the universe handed this one to me on a silver platter. Ok, I know I don't own it. And until a little more money is saved, the blog won't be featuring many bright orange bikes on it anytime soon. But still, I was riding this thing for a week all over the mountains of Nagano. Just like I imagined! Scientific proof that my thought waves permeated the universe and created the same outcome I dreamed.

Check out the promotion video for this bike: