Your Japanese word of the week is...

"jidou" which means automatic. Certainly Japan is no stranger to automated-ness what with vending machines (jidohanbaiki) or a car (jidosha). Cars are also referred to as "kuruma" but..... whatever......

And since it's been a while since I've talked about cars, I thought I'd throw in a few things I managed to see this past two weeks.

I guess I'll start off with a week ago, when I was in Shibuya. I saw this...

... the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. Now, I'm the first to admit, this isn't exactly a triumph of styling cues. In fact, I struggle to think of any new Ferrari in the past 5 years that I would call truly "beautiful". Aggressive maybe, but aesthetically pleasing?? Not compared to their cars from yore. A point seemingly proven by the fact that I was the only one even remotely concerned that it was even there, the black stallion by itself on the side of the road.

It certainly doesn't look like most other cars on the road, but perhaps the appeal of the car is more because "it's a Ferrari" rather than its actual styling. But having said that, the mechanicals are worth mentioning, with its massive 6.0-litre 611bhp V12 up front, transaxle gearbox in the back, and electronically controlled dampers.

On a slightly related note, if you ever see a truly expensive car in Tokyo (and the 599 GTB is worth more than $250,000), the license plate will almost always be registered to an address in Shinagawa, there being where all the truly rich people live.

Moving on.......

On Wednesday I saw this......

... the TVR Tamora. This was almost a better sight than the Ferrari because these British TVR's were sold in America only for a very short period of time, mostly because selling overseas nearly caused them to go bankrupt. In fact, I've never seen a TVR (or heard of anyone seeing a TVR) in Vancouver so seeing on in Tokyo was truly rare. TVR is a British-based car firm known for building very light, very fast, usually scary, and often unreliable sports cars. They really do market to a niche crowd but in doing so, they often find themselves some very devoted owners.

The Tamora weighed in at a very light 2500lbs but came stocked with a 3.6-litre 350bhp inline-6. For reference, that's 100lbs lighter than my Integra but with twice the power.

Tamora is, apparently, the Queen of the Goths.....................

Next up....

...the McLaren MP4-23, the current McLaren-Mercedes F1 challenger. I suppose this is just cool in that it's rare to see an F1 car and even more rare that it's not just some mock-up with no engine.

Seeing as the Japanese Grand Prix was last weekend, it seemed fitting that Mercedes put one on display. These things are amazing to look at simply because of the detail that go into designing them. Every edge and shape is designed purely for speed and that's cool......

I should point out that the picture was taken inside Shinagawa station. As if you needed more proof that Shinagawa is where the money is...

and lastly, on Monday I finally made a stop by this...

... the Audi Forum, in Tokyo. Found a 10-min walk from Harajuku station, this building, also known as The Iceberg, houses an Audi dealership on the first two floors, a hair salon (???) on the third floor, some kind of kids-science-discovery place on the 4th floor, and a very fancy restaurant-type area for wedding receptions and such on the upper floors.

Although my picture doesn't really do it justice, it's really a very interesting piece of architecture, perhaps simply because it different from all the buildings surrounding it. It's one of those things that looks like it was built just for the sake of building it. It's not like those edges make for more floor space or help it dissipate earthquake of typhoon energy.

The inside is appropriately classy and the Audi showroom had some appropriately expensive cars on display. Some noteable ones include the diesel-V12 Q7, the $200,000 V10-powered S8, and my personal favourite, the RS4 Avant.

They also had an R8 which, despite how great it is, I still find to be visually stunted from some angles......

Not that I'm judgemental or anything =P haha.....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kondeiru". It's a very appropriate word meaning "crowded", and this weekend, I went to the Tokyo Game Show 2008 which, as you can imagine, was extremely crowded.

The Game Show is a show about...... games.... It's a gigantic convention hall that remains half-lit on the inside so that thousands of LCD TV's can show off the latest and coming video games so companies like EA, Konami, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, and Tecmo (to name but a few) can increase their share of the video game market in Japan, worth some 238.8 billion yen (some $2.3 billion CAD) last year.

And despite the nature of video games, it was something every company took seriously, spending lots of money on booth design, brochures, staff, and props. In fact, there were actually very few children there since, as might be obvious, the video game market in Japan has just as many adult players as there are children, if not more. Part of that is, I suppose, due to how much time people spend on trains, which means the portable game market (whether on handheld systems or on phones) is huge, evidenced by the fact that major cell phone providers had displays at show as well.

Beyond that were the chances to try out lots of games (provided you stood your way through line-ups as long as TWO HOURS), see lots of people dressed up in costumes, see lots of unpaid fans dress up in even more complicated costumes standing outside, and, this being Japan, watch throngs of cameramen move from booth-girl to booth-girl.

I went with my roommate, his girlfriend, and a few of this co-workers (who all work as computer engineers) and while it was fun, I didn't find it as satisfying as the auto shows. While that might seem like a pointless statement to make, coming from me, the reason I say that is because at auto shows, no one expects to be able to drive the cars. The point of the show is simply to be able to have a chance to see the cars in person. After that, information is available if you want it.

At a game show, everyone wants to try out all the wares. I wanted to try GT5 but there was a 2-hr line-up for that game since everyone else wanted to as well. And likewise with all the other booths. So, in the end, it's slightly unsatisfying in that you end up wandering around looking at stuff when what you really want to do is play the games.

Having said that, there was still some really great stuff. I particularly liked the section of the show that had games from computer programming or design schools. These student-made games rarely had lines to try them and while some of them really weren't that great ("Let's jump from cloud to cloud" or "Let's stomp stick-figure zombies"), some were designed with really fresh thinking coming from the next generation of video game designers.

Yes, someone dressed as a robot. No, he wasn't part of the event.

The other interesting part of the show was Konami's Metal Gear Solid Online World Championship Final Round. Having qualified from all over the world, individuals and teams all met to determine who was the best...... umm....... Metal Gear Solid Online....... Soldier...... At any rate, I only watched the individual match which was pretty interesting, especially with the energetic announcer shouting out "HEADSHOT!!" every so often. Well, technically, he said "HEADDO-SHOTTO!!" but anyway....... Perhaps unsurprisingly, the title of world's best MGS Online gamer went to some 13-yr old kid from Japan. At least 4th place went to a Canadian soooooo....... I guess Canada has the 4th best MGS Online gamer..... yeah!!

Oh...... and I took a picture with Bomberman....... yeah!!!

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"shihan" which, despite not being in my dictionary, is an honourific word for a teacher. But more than just a regular teacher, shihan actually refers to a master and is one step above "regular" sensei. And while academic teachers are referred to as sensei, it seems that shihan are people who've mastered some kind of art form, be it painting or archery or music or martial arts. It's also something that's seemingly given to the masters by students out of appreciation. For example, a student may start referring to his teacher as shihan while some others still refer to the same teacher as sensei. But this is just what I've gathered, I have read elsewhere that some people actually receive a shihan diploma........... Regardless, but it does add that extra edge.

In my case, Arakawa Sensei refers to his teacher as shihan. And rightly so, as Takagi Sensei (or Takagi shihan) is brimming with knowledge. I've trained at his dojo a handful of times and his speed, strength, timing, and general understanding of body mechanics and thus applications of karate always amazes me. And it's not "amazing for his age", it's amazing, period.

Like today, when we had a special 3.5hr seminar. Admittedly, I was nursing an injured foot, but I still learned a whole lot. And now that I'm living in Tokyo, I can start attending Takagi Sensei's classes once a week, so this is sort of like the next stage for me. Suffice to say, Takagi Sensei is on the Wadokai technical committee and is generally regarded as one of the few sensei still alive who can be linked directly to Wado-ryu's founder, Hironori Otsuka.

So, onwards and upwards!!

Aside from that, I went bowling tonight with my roommates............. turns out all this karate training had no effect on my terrible bowling haha........ oh well =P

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"bunkasai". It translates into "cultural festival" and this past Saturday was Seiritsu's own bunkasai (hence the late blog entry, since I was waiting for it to finish before I wrote this heh)....



What is a "cultural festival"?? Well, in the case of the school anyway, it's more like a school fair. All the homerooms and almost all of the clubs prepared displays or decorated their rooms or was doing stuff like selling food on the day of the festival. There were dance shows, band shows, a karate demo, a taiko drumming demo, and lots of other great stuff.


I spent most of the day working the English Conversation Club room, mainly because I've started to help run the club. And it's exactly as it sounds, a club where all the students meet once a week and we chat in English, usually over a game of cards or some improv games I teach them.


I didn't, however, take part in the Karate Club's demo, partly because I didn't have any time to prep anything with Richard nor am I really "in" the club, although I do train with them once or twice a week. That would be Richard on the far right in the picture below.


So most of the week was just preparing for that and, now that it's over, I'm on a very very rare 4-day holiday (most schools don't even have this "Fall Break", just Seiritsu). And I'm just relaxing heh...........


But make sure you check the Seiritsu homepage every so often, as more pictures of the event will come up. Til then......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"manzoku", meaning "satisfaction". And what was satisfying, you might ask?? Well, this past Monday was the 5th Annual Tobu Taikai, which involved quite a few dojos from around the eastern part of Saitama. Although, if I'm honest, some parts were satisfying while others weren't.

Like every other tournament in Japan, I entered kata and kumite. And like (almost) every other tournament in Japan, kata was in the morning and kumite was in the afternoon.

Kata was a bit unsatisfying because there were only three people entered and one of them didn't show up. So it was just a dual between me and Carl..... a sort of International Shiramizu Intern Showdown, if you will...... doubly unsatisfying was that I didn't perform my kata very well. It was mostly fine except for a move or two, but I expect better of myself. However, they still awarded me the win and I got a gold medal for it, despite what I think.......... so, yay!

Kumite was a bit of the same. With only 6 people entered (1 of them being the aforementioned no-show), I was immediately seeded to the semi-final round. There I faced off with Ueno-san, also from Shiramizu. He's also very tall (6'2" or so), which meant his arms were much longer than mine. Despite that, I only lost by one point (2-1) so that wasn't too bad.

And after that was a party with all the Shiramizu people not only to celebrate a good tournament, but various other things. So, all in all, a good weekend out =-)......

And in case you're wondering, this is indeed all of us doing the famous "Kamehameha" from Dragon Ball haha........ yeah, good times heh......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"yaru". Generally it's means the verb "to do" and can be thought of as a slightly more informal than one of the first verbs anyone ever learns in Japanese, "suru".








In the case of this poster, the last three hiragana say "ya-ro-u", which is a sort of commanding way of saying "yaru", often heard by sports coaches or whenever seniors talk to juniors. And these kinds of posters are endemic to the Japanese rail system. There's lots, especially now, saying stuff like how music that's too loud becomes an nuisance for others. One good one in the smoking areas outside train stations warn of how lit cigarettes are held at the height of a child's head.........



I personally like this one though......

....... largely because of the huge debate that spawned on the site that found it. It says "Please do it on the mountain" (which is does), and people had no idea what "it" is.......... but really, I kinda figured it made sense........ "it" is like camping- hauling lots of gear and, like that seated woman, having your forearm-sized onigiri while on the train and stuff. But I suppose it's more fun to say "Please do it on the mountain" heh....

Anyway, other things I've been doing?? Work....... mostly........ Monday the 15th is the Tobu (East) Tournament, consisting of lots of dojos from the eastern part of Saitama. Check back to see how it goes!

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"hairu" which means "to enter/join". And this can mean to physically enter something like a building, to join a class, or to sign-up/join a group. For example, if I'm late for a karate class, I warm-up on the side and then, during a break in the action, I saw "hairimasu" ("I'm joining") and then find a spot to join the action.

This past week saw three new students join the regular three at the Seiritsu International Department. The three had signed up to a private company that specializes in places foreign students in Japanese schools and Seiritsu had agreed to take them in.

And they really do help the department become more international as we now have a new Canadian, Thai, and Dutch student joining an Australian and two students from New Zealand. You can check them out at the Seiritsu International website.

In other news.................... actually, there is none. I'm working a regular 8-4 job and have weekends off...... almost like I'm a real adult haha.......

But being in the heart of Tokyo, and with really awesome roommates, it means now I have time to really see what the city is like. Armed with my cultural and linguistic learnings from the past year, I'm not at all uncomfortable making my way around the city and meeting people, so it'll be a great chance to add to my experiences here.

The only downside so far?? It's still pretty hot and humid............ but only a few more weeks of that and it'll be over. And then it'll be a short wait until November, when the World Karate Federation will hold its championships here in Tokyo.

The WKF is an all-styles event and draws the best of the best from all over the world, so it goes without saying that the karate on display during those four days will be incredible. But that's not for a few months and I obviously won't be competing in those haha........ so til then, stay tuned for some results of some local tournaments that I will be in =P......