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timerippleAt the airport! In the ghetto terminal, but at least there’s free wireless. Ryo's uchiwa is safely in my bookbag; hopefully he won’t get squashed.
Registered for ALA Midwinter. Exhibitions pass only, since I am not made of money. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll be good, whatever it is.
Previously on Fiona and Rachel's Excellent Adventure: arrival, tentacles, karaoke, KinKi Kids, Meiji Shrine (accidentally), Harajuku, rock violin!
The next morning we were too exhausted to plan anything proper, so on Mousi’s recommendation we went to Akihabara. Akihabara is kind of notorious for electronics and gaming and stuff like that, and it was pretty bizarre. We almost got lunch at a maid cafe, but decided that would be too weird and got Italian again instead.
Back to Shibuya, where I made poor Rachel watch the Nodame Cantabile movie in a theatre with me. Japanese movie food is SUPER COOL: I had a green tea chocolate chip muffin, and we both had melon soda. Rachel hadn’t seen the drama series, but she hated the character Nodame on sight, as so many sane, balanced people do. (I happen to love her, but for a set of reasons not really related to her character. So.) Let us be clear on the fact that it is not a great movie. It has neither finely drawn characters nor a compelling plot nor superb cinematography. Japan has realized this by now, and the theatre was mostly empty.
Naturally, I laughed and wibbled and bemoaned the fact that it ends on a complete cliffhanger, what the hell and can’t wait for it to be April when the sequel comes out. In the movie’s defense, the orchestra-playing was mostly unfaked and the selections were incredible. There was this one dark piece that just worked. It looks like the movies are following the series precedent: Chiaki-personal-journey, then Nodame-personal-journey. WANT MOVIE 2 NOW. Nodame needs her turn to kick some musical ass.
Also, whoever has been feeding Tamaki Hiroshi hamburgers and restoring his Chiaki-haircut, please keep up the good work. We should embrace the pretty, not starve it and give it bad hair! (HEM, AHEM.)
Poor Rachel was traumatized by Nodame and demanded angsty Tackey in recompense. This I was happy to provide, and happened *cough* to have all nine episodes of Orthros no Inu on my computer. Much flail (her) and evil cackling (me) followed. We watched the entire series over the next few days.
Marathoning Orthros reveals a few issues that don’t come up so much when you’re watching it on a weekly basis: for example, the tendency to put major spoilers in the episode title. Or to play huge spoilery clips behind the sponsor credits. Or the narrative’s pathological need to keep the lady detective several steps behind everybody else.
COP!KIYORA: What do you mean, corrupt officials/sekrit videotape evidence/plot point picnic?
EVERYBODY: Hello, everybody else totally knew about this last episode, keep up!
AOI-SENSEI: Seriously, even I figured it out without any big exposition scenes.
COP!KIYORA: SHUT UP, DUDE, IT’S NOT MY FAULT. Look, guys, I appreciate the attempted continuity re: information access, but this is getting ridiculous.
SCREENWRITERS: ...
COP!KIYORA: KIYORA SMASH!
Still, while the drama has its flaws, it’s epically entertaining.
January 2: Was this the day we had curry udon for breakfast? I think it was.
Yokohama! We dodged through Chinatown and strolled through Yamashita Park and took pictures of the Ferris wheel that’s always in dramas. In the park there was a guy with a unicycle juggling fire, then fire, a sword, and an apple. Then he ate the apple while juggling all three. On a unicycle. The view from the Landmark Tower was fantastic. I don’t know why there was a five-masted schooner next to the hotel, but it was pretty. A lovely alumna gave us a driving tour, and then we had dinner in Chinatown. Mmmmcongee.
The next morning, I woke up feeling like the Dread Pirate Roberts back from the mostly-dead. After going at my first-ever energy jelly like Spike with a bag of pig’s blood, I could stand, but it was not pleasant.
January 4: We headed back to Yokohama for the Hey! Say! Jump concerts. I survived them only by the liberal consumption of energy jelly and Pocari Sweat, both of which sound totally disgusting but are actually AMAZING. We had decent seats for the first concert, and ridiculously close ones for the second. Hikaru waved and grinned at me. Yuto made the correct hand gesture back at me. A bunch of juniors waved in my general direction. I was happy to see NakaKen get lots of love from the fans, because he was the best thing about Koishite Akuma. We eventually figured out the hand gestures for Romeo & Juliet, which is a disgustingly cutesy song that somehow got stuck in my head for the next week. THANKS GUYS.
Evening shinkansen to Kyoto. Fassssssst. More episodes of Orthros watched on the train. We stumbled into the ryokan half dead (or in my case, mostly dead). Fuuuuuuuutonsssss.
Kyoto! I would just like to state, for the record, that the blankets at the ryokan were AMAZING. I woke up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat, which when you’ve got a bitch of a cold actually feels pretty good. I don’t know what was in those pillows either, but they were great. I could have happily stayed in bed forever. To prolong the bliss, we watched the Orthros finale because I was cruel and had refused to finish it on the shinkansen the night before.
Unfortunately we did have to get up eventually. We had come to see Kyoto, and damn it we were going to see Kyoto. Once in the train station/mall, I got Rachel to take my picture with one of those ubiquitous bookstore posters for Toma’s movie. Then we had tempura for breakfast/lunch, and I tried a mushroom (normally I insist I’m allergic). It tasted fine and I didn’t get itchy, but I felt kind of weird for a couple hours afterward.
RACHEL: Let’s get ice cream!
ME: Wheeeee!
RACHEL: Ew, dried seaweed smell.
ME: Wheeeee!
RACHEL: I am starting to think there might be something more than usually wrong with you.
ME: Wh--hey, the floatiness has stopped. *pout* I was enjoying that!
RACHEL: *facepalm*
We took the bus to Ginkakuji. It was with great relief that we alighted, because we are two normal American-sized people who were squished into a tiny, tiny seat that wouldn’t even fit two Japanese-sized people comfortably. My lower intestine was Not Pleased. The shrine was pretty, but the walk had me wheezing like an old lady, since of course it was halfway up a mountain and my cold was apparently epic. And it was freezing. We huddled in a coffee shop until the bus came, stirring our drinks and trying not to ogle the waiter too much because he was already freaked out by two foreigners ordering in Japanese. Kinkakuji was lovely-- we got there at sunset, and the gold was very, very pretty. If I ever get my pictures up, there are a few nice ones. I think it was here I got my omikuji (fortune for the year) in English. It was terrific, and I refused to exchange it for a Japanese one for the rest of the trip. Though its predictions for love cracked me up.
Back at the ryokan, we collapsed. I for one would have welcomed a visit from either Tackey or Ryo’s character at that point, but sadly we had run out of Orthros episodes. Rachel convinced me that trying the bath instead would be a great idea, which it kind of was, because I felt a lot better the next day.
Also I had stocked up on energy jelly from the train station conbini. Rachel was unamused.
Registered for ALA Midwinter. Exhibitions pass only, since I am not made of money. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll be good, whatever it is.
Previously on Fiona and Rachel's Excellent Adventure: arrival, tentacles, karaoke, KinKi Kids, Meiji Shrine (accidentally), Harajuku, rock violin!
The next morning we were too exhausted to plan anything proper, so on Mousi’s recommendation we went to Akihabara. Akihabara is kind of notorious for electronics and gaming and stuff like that, and it was pretty bizarre. We almost got lunch at a maid cafe, but decided that would be too weird and got Italian again instead.
Back to Shibuya, where I made poor Rachel watch the Nodame Cantabile movie in a theatre with me. Japanese movie food is SUPER COOL: I had a green tea chocolate chip muffin, and we both had melon soda. Rachel hadn’t seen the drama series, but she hated the character Nodame on sight, as so many sane, balanced people do. (I happen to love her, but for a set of reasons not really related to her character. So.) Let us be clear on the fact that it is not a great movie. It has neither finely drawn characters nor a compelling plot nor superb cinematography. Japan has realized this by now, and the theatre was mostly empty.
Naturally, I laughed and wibbled and bemoaned the fact that it ends on a complete cliffhanger, what the hell and can’t wait for it to be April when the sequel comes out. In the movie’s defense, the orchestra-playing was mostly unfaked and the selections were incredible. There was this one dark piece that just worked. It looks like the movies are following the series precedent: Chiaki-personal-journey, then Nodame-personal-journey. WANT MOVIE 2 NOW. Nodame needs her turn to kick some musical ass.
Also, whoever has been feeding Tamaki Hiroshi hamburgers and restoring his Chiaki-haircut, please keep up the good work. We should embrace the pretty, not starve it and give it bad hair! (HEM, AHEM.)
Poor Rachel was traumatized by Nodame and demanded angsty Tackey in recompense. This I was happy to provide, and happened *cough* to have all nine episodes of Orthros no Inu on my computer. Much flail (her) and evil cackling (me) followed. We watched the entire series over the next few days.
Marathoning Orthros reveals a few issues that don’t come up so much when you’re watching it on a weekly basis: for example, the tendency to put major spoilers in the episode title. Or to play huge spoilery clips behind the sponsor credits. Or the narrative’s pathological need to keep the lady detective several steps behind everybody else.
COP!KIYORA: What do you mean, corrupt officials/sekrit videotape evidence/plot point picnic?
EVERYBODY: Hello, everybody else totally knew about this last episode, keep up!
AOI-SENSEI: Seriously, even I figured it out without any big exposition scenes.
COP!KIYORA: SHUT UP, DUDE, IT’S NOT MY FAULT. Look, guys, I appreciate the attempted continuity re: information access, but this is getting ridiculous.
SCREENWRITERS: ...
COP!KIYORA: KIYORA SMASH!
Still, while the drama has its flaws, it’s epically entertaining.
January 2: Was this the day we had curry udon for breakfast? I think it was.
Yokohama! We dodged through Chinatown and strolled through Yamashita Park and took pictures of the Ferris wheel that’s always in dramas. In the park there was a guy with a unicycle juggling fire, then fire, a sword, and an apple. Then he ate the apple while juggling all three. On a unicycle. The view from the Landmark Tower was fantastic. I don’t know why there was a five-masted schooner next to the hotel, but it was pretty. A lovely alumna gave us a driving tour, and then we had dinner in Chinatown. Mmmmcongee.
The next morning, I woke up feeling like the Dread Pirate Roberts back from the mostly-dead. After going at my first-ever energy jelly like Spike with a bag of pig’s blood, I could stand, but it was not pleasant.
January 4: We headed back to Yokohama for the Hey! Say! Jump concerts. I survived them only by the liberal consumption of energy jelly and Pocari Sweat, both of which sound totally disgusting but are actually AMAZING. We had decent seats for the first concert, and ridiculously close ones for the second. Hikaru waved and grinned at me. Yuto made the correct hand gesture back at me. A bunch of juniors waved in my general direction. I was happy to see NakaKen get lots of love from the fans, because he was the best thing about Koishite Akuma. We eventually figured out the hand gestures for Romeo & Juliet, which is a disgustingly cutesy song that somehow got stuck in my head for the next week. THANKS GUYS.
Evening shinkansen to Kyoto. Fassssssst. More episodes of Orthros watched on the train. We stumbled into the ryokan half dead (or in my case, mostly dead). Fuuuuuuuutonsssss.
Kyoto! I would just like to state, for the record, that the blankets at the ryokan were AMAZING. I woke up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat, which when you’ve got a bitch of a cold actually feels pretty good. I don’t know what was in those pillows either, but they were great. I could have happily stayed in bed forever. To prolong the bliss, we watched the Orthros finale because I was cruel and had refused to finish it on the shinkansen the night before.
Unfortunately we did have to get up eventually. We had come to see Kyoto, and damn it we were going to see Kyoto. Once in the train station/mall, I got Rachel to take my picture with one of those ubiquitous bookstore posters for Toma’s movie. Then we had tempura for breakfast/lunch, and I tried a mushroom (normally I insist I’m allergic). It tasted fine and I didn’t get itchy, but I felt kind of weird for a couple hours afterward.
RACHEL: Let’s get ice cream!
ME: Wheeeee!
RACHEL: Ew, dried seaweed smell.
ME: Wheeeee!
RACHEL: I am starting to think there might be something more than usually wrong with you.
ME: Wh--hey, the floatiness has stopped. *pout* I was enjoying that!
RACHEL: *facepalm*
We took the bus to Ginkakuji. It was with great relief that we alighted, because we are two normal American-sized people who were squished into a tiny, tiny seat that wouldn’t even fit two Japanese-sized people comfortably. My lower intestine was Not Pleased. The shrine was pretty, but the walk had me wheezing like an old lady, since of course it was halfway up a mountain and my cold was apparently epic. And it was freezing. We huddled in a coffee shop until the bus came, stirring our drinks and trying not to ogle the waiter too much because he was already freaked out by two foreigners ordering in Japanese. Kinkakuji was lovely-- we got there at sunset, and the gold was very, very pretty. If I ever get my pictures up, there are a few nice ones. I think it was here I got my omikuji (fortune for the year) in English. It was terrific, and I refused to exchange it for a Japanese one for the rest of the trip. Though its predictions for love cracked me up.
Back at the ryokan, we collapsed. I for one would have welcomed a visit from either Tackey or Ryo’s character at that point, but sadly we had run out of Orthros episodes. Rachel convinced me that trying the bath instead would be a great idea, which it kind of was, because I felt a lot better the next day.
Also I had stocked up on energy jelly from the train station conbini. Rachel was unamused.
