Lady Lara Jones' Adventures
~ Blog, Photography and Video ~
Make every day an epic journey, an awesome quest or a hyper-speed jump to a galaxy far, far away.
I don't even want to remotely spoil this link for you. Just trust me when I say that it's Super, Epic and Awesome all at the same time. It's a new twist on the NES Classic, Super Mario Bros. with some added characters and fun. Just click over. You know you want to.
My personal favorite part of this crossover is that I can play as link AND upgrade him to not one but TWO different tunics and use his boomerang!!!
Every day when I come home, I check the mail. Not that all that many people are going to be sending me snail mail here in Japan (except for those bill....people)...I still have to check it every day.
Why? Because if I didn't, it would explode apart from all the adds people shove in there every day. Pizza, sushi, apartments, gardens - there are TONS of high gloss adds just waiting to tempt your wallets. Maybe it's just that I'm from the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, but I'm honestly not used to seeing so much junk mail. Worse yet, this stuff isn't always junk I can just throw away, because it often features glossy photos of sushi and pizza which make me unbelievably hungry!
Look at that Sushi...I mean seriously, that's good stuff! The food in these photos is probably wax...
but they look amazing!
Whatever photographer has this job knows how to make people hungry, that's all I'm saying. Whether they spray the food or it's made of wax...it still looks fricken delicious.
In other news, I'm missing Free Comic Book Day this year in the US. For those of you that down know, the first Saturday in May ever year in the US is Free Comic Book Day and that means there are free preview issues for many series available at your comic book store. Get there early in the day, and there's also often some pretty sweet free stuff to be had from your favorite comic book companies! Get there late, and in my experience you won't even get all the preview issues because they're out. I seriously recommend getting to your local store before 10 AM if you want the goods stuff (earlier if your store opens really early for the event). I'm a little sad to be missing it, but I guess I'll just be going online to see what I'm missing this time. Feel free to let me know if anything's going to be worth picking up via Amazon.
The Pink Cow cafe and bar in Shibuya, Tokyo.
Our documentary cosplayer profile, "Today, I'm Julia" premiered at the Pink Cow last Sunday. The Pink Cow is a sweet cafe and bar in Shibuya that is a chill place to see art events, etc. while getting DELICIOUS foods like 3 layer lasagna, delectable sandwiches, homemade guacamole and fresh toasted tortilla chips (which are tough to find in Japan due to avocados costing more than they ever should). I have to admit that the prices are very reasonable considering the American-sized portions you get (and yes, I mean real American sized portions, not this "reduced Japan-ized" portion...stuff...)
I definitely recommend it to anyone that hasn't had a chance to go there yet. See if you can go on an Art Mixer, Live Music or other event night and check it out for yourself. Good Food, Good Drinks, Music, Art, Film and more! Their website is here.
Watching Temple University Japan student documentaries at the Pink Cow. The inside of the cafe has an excellent, mellow feel with string lighting, tapestries, and select artists hanging around the rooms (which change each month, meaning you can always see some cool new paintings, etc.).
I guess that's it for now. Longer post later when I've collected my brain from this week of teaching. Golden week just started, which means I get a few days off. Golden week is a week in Japan that happens to contain four government holidays. Many companies give a whole week off, calling it "Golden Week." This means many places are crazy busy, but if you just want to relax at home or your local park it's an absolutely wonderful week to take a break from school and work.
Thanks for reading,
Lady Jones
This is a sweet butterfly that was beneath our door yesterday morning. Reminds me of Tiger Swallow butterflies we used to have in NH.
Hope things are good for you wherever you're sitting right now. I just got done my first week of full-time upgraded teaching (from part time) and it's very nice to finally be on a set schedule that isn't changing every time I turn around. Of course, things have been pretty tough financially for us up until now, but I'm happy we stuck through it because now that Brian and I are both teaching we hope to get ourselves back on our feet.
Being broke can have its advantages when you have high speed internet. I've been spending a fair amount of time stretching and doing yoga, learning more Japanese and wasting a buttload of time surfing some interesting sites on the internet. Well, I suppose it's not really a waste if you feel like you're getting something valuable out of it. I mean, I seriously reduced my facebook time in an effort to try to stay on facebook less than ten minutes a day (seriously, I need to achieve this because I'm becoming addicted.) To be fair, facebook is my only connection to friends back in the US right now (plus those that have skype) so I do spend a lot of time on there, but do I REALLY need to be spending more than an hour? Absolutely not. I might as well begin grafting my brain into a laptop because I am seriously concerned with how much time I can spend on the internet sometimes...
Thus has begun my effort to try to use the internet more as a research and blogging tool (which I should be doing anyways, sorry readers!) rather than wasting time strolling around on facebook.
This week I learned some neat things and found some cool gear around the interwebs that I thought I'd share with you. Highlight #1 = They're making Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Words cannot describe how awesome I hope this game is. If you haven't played the 2nd one, you can pick it up as an online download on either PSN (for PS3 users) or XBox Live. I highly recommend it even if fighters aren't your fave. Here's the trailer for those interested:
The first is googling "What's the longest running anime series of all time?" Believe it or not, I was acutally guessing the Dragon Ball series' to be the top contender for this, but it was not even close to the winner.
Doraemon is the story of a robotic cat who travels back in time to help a young school boy. Together they go on adventures and it's been a family favorite in Japan since 1973.
Anime News Network says, "Doraemon is the top dog of all time, having over 2000 episodes on its resume. Sazae-san comes in a close second with over 1700 episodes, even though the series has been on the air longer (since 1969, versus Doraemon in 1973). Some thirds (though they're hardly close in count) would be Dragon Ball/Z/GT with 500 episodes, Detective Conan with 400, and Pokémon with 400.
The longest running manga title is Kochikame (Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo) by Akimoto Osamu and has run for over 110 volumes in Shonen Jump." - wow....talk about a lot of episodes!!!
Dragon Ball: Ah Yes, Dragon Ball. It's a series that I watched when I was about 10 years old in the US, making it pretty much the first series I watched in entirety (yes, even through GT). It follows the story of Goku and his friends (and then Goku's offspring and his friends) as they journey to collect all 7 dragon balls before anyone else can - making sure that the wish granted by the dragon is a good one that will keep the world safe from evil. The only real problem with this series (admittedly, it can be a big problem at times) is that it has way too much filler! Some episodes occur in which literally nothing progresses in the story line and you see characters go Super Saiyan and yell at each other for a solid 20 minutes straight...and it can get...excessive. But yeah, I was a kid when I started watching this, so I loved it at the time. Filler didn't matter back then. Now, I press fast forward...a lot.
And speaking of Dragon Ball, Brian and I caught this hilarious photo on the Friends of Irony blog.
Manga = Truth? lol.
Among my other finds on the internet this week was some really sweet stuff from Etsy - the craft version of Ebay where people can sell their home-made goods. It's a really great site, and if you haven't browsed it you should really have a look.
Awesome Steam Punk Ring. Check out those gears! It's all about the detail here folks, and steam punk can be pretty fancy and cool at the same time!
Really adorable Strawberry Teacups that look like cakes when you flip them up-side-down. When in use they rest on those adorable strawberries. So cute! I really want a set. My BFF back home and I have a thing for Ichigo (strawberry) glasses, and this has taken that cute concept to a whole new level!
This is Hand Blown Glass Pendant with a cute fake robin's egg nest in it! I absolutely adore it but it's a little out of my price range ($57.50 USD). Saw it first on the "Must Have Cute" blog and had to give it a glance though! The "cute" blog and Woodland Belle (where the necklace is from) are both sites worth checking out with some really cute stuff.
S'pose that's enough for now. I have to get up and teach tomorrow morning. 5 different levels of English lessons on Saturdays to give!
I'll write again soon,
Lady Jones
This semester has been crazy, but we finally have a finished product to present:
"Today, I'm Julia" a documentary about American/Asian Cosplayer Julia who has lived in the US and Tokyo and cosplayed in both countries for several years.
We have two files for your to watch. The first is our finished documentary, which was shown at the Pink Cow in Shibuya, Tokyo and will be aired online on vimeo and youtube.
The second video is for those who love cosplay and want to learn more. Details about DANPA and other Tokyo cosplay phenomenon have been left in for those with a much more avid interest.
We hope you enjoy! Please feedback with any responses you have.
A special thank you to Julia, Layers Paradise 2010 Cosplayers, and the Franklin Pierce Gamers Club of 2006-2008 for letting us into their world!
Just stumbled upon this website and you should definitely give it a look if you're starting to learn Japanese and want help with your verbs. It has awesome conjugation charts for all the tenses, sample sentences, listening buttons, and some pretty good Kanji to read along with as well. I was pretty happy to have found it and will be using it to help my verbs along.
I find that the more Japanese I learn the easier it becomes to just live day to day. Honestly, it's truly wonderful to start to feel a little more like you know what's going on around you (and I mean this in an encompassing way). Sure, you can see what's happening, but it's like your whole world changes when you start to hear all the hundreds of voices you're passing by in Tokyo on a daily basis.
More later, I've got some fun sites to share with you this week!
Some mornings I actually take in my surroundings as I'm commuting to work. I have to admit that normally I'm just sort of drifting in a tired daze and slowly waking myself up as I make my way to the school I teach at...but one day last week I was actually somewhat rested and enjoying my commute for once. First, you should probably know that my commute right now (until Brian and I move into our new apartment later this week) is LONG. I take not one but three trains from one end of Tokyo to the other and altogether it takes about an hour and a half to two hours to get where I need to be.
First I walk to the train station from our student housing. This takes somewhere around twenty minutes and is sometimes a great way to wake up in the morning. In fact, it's not the walking that bothers me at all...it's the train to Shibuya that bothers me. Train lines in Tokyo are somewhat like funnels (my friend called them "funnels" yesterday and I decided this is indeed the most appropriate descsription). All the lines funnel in to four major stations on the outsides of the city, and then from there everyone spreads out amongst all the inner-city lines. I happen to go to one of the more chaotic stations in the morning - Shibuya Station - which means my entire train ride in on that first train is ridiculously crowded. Normally I could probably say "Sardines in a can" or something like that - except this is more like if the Sardines were shoved into the can, and then the can was crushed...slowly...until there was barely anything resembling a can left. Yeah, that sounds about right!
So after pulling myself from the Shibuya train and allowing my lungs to take some full breaths of air, I only have two more trains to go. These next trains are considerably more pleasant and I often even get to sit down for the rest of the ride to work. It seems a bit odd probably to those back in the U.S. who are used to driving everywhere - but three trains actually isn't that overwhelming. I personally wish it was a shorter commute, but someone recently told me that the average Tokyo employee commutes at least an hour so I suppose I'm par for the course. Also, I happen to be moving to an apartment that is only 20 minutes to work...so this inconvenient commute will soon end.
Ah yes, back to Thursday morning...I was between trains and riding an escalator...just chilling out to the left side and letting all the coffee charged businessmen rush past me on the right....when suddenly I noticed the young man (probably about 25 and on his way to the office in his polished suit) in front of me had something in his hair. Upon closer inspection, I realized there were little, white, down feathers all through his coif. We're not talking a couple of feathers here - I mean there were at least twenty little feathers poking out from his hair. It was as if his jacket or pillow had exploded all over him and he hadn't noticed. So I wondered to myself, what's the protocol for this? I think in the US I would say something like, "Um, Excuse me, you have something in your hair..." But in Japan I have no idea how to approach this situation (nor do I possess the appropriate Japanese translation for the word "Feathers)." So I continued to ride the escalator debating what I should do to help this poor guy - who was probably going straight to the office and who knows if anyone there would say anything before his boss saw him - when suddenly he got off the escalator and rushed off into the distance. Wherever you are, feather man, I hope your day was not full of problems...
In other recent news, I've been re-watched Venture Brothers Season Three and it definitely reminds me how much I love that series. If you haven't watched Venture Brothers yet, then you're in for a treat if you're into action-comedy cartoons with a sick, yet intelligent sense of humor. They often do spoofs of Johnny Quest and other adventure cartoons, which honestly makes the show even better - but in my opinion the ultimate character on that show is Brock Sampson. Brock is essentially the ultra-macho action hero character pushed to the absolute limits of ridiculousness and awesomeness at the same time - plus, he's voiced by Patrick Warburton and I can't picture anyone else filling the role so well.
Here's a fun clip I like from Season Two:
Let's see, what else have I been up to? Well, other than my incredibly crazy work and school schedule, Ive been finishing up the editing for the Cosplay Research Project Documentary Chapter on Julia with Jasmine. We've been working on this thing forever but I think it's coming together quite nicely and I can't wait to upload it to show everyone.
What's more ridiculous than an American walking down the street toting a bag of McDonald's in her hand - proving that even in Japan she still get's cravings for the fast food she was surrounded by back home? How about an American strolling down the street (McDonald's in hand) lined with massive sakura trees as the wind picks up and causes the blossoms to fly off the branches and dance all around her? Inspire some strange imagery? (It certainly doesn't remind me of any anime I've seen! lol.) I'm sure it seems odd, but that was the scene as I left work today. It was a ridiculously stressful day - not from teaching but from continuing my quest to find us an apartment closer to work and school. After thinking that I had finally found the perfect place for us, it was snatched right out from under me, as this is Japan's busiest season for moves (particularly apartment changes). Not only that apartment, but the next three, were close within my grasp but then taken before I could even go hand over a deposit. This, coupled with the lack of apartments that are both cheap and for foreigners, has made looking for an apartment a near-hellish endeavor. There are tons of services out there, sure, but without some advanced Japanese skills, a guarantor, and a lot of luck, you probably won't find the best deal out there. We've sort of resorted to going to a place that is a bit further than we'd like it to be, but still within our price range and comfort zone of size (under 6 tatami for 2 people, even married people who don't bicker much, is a nightmarish scenario that I refuse to face). To give you a small idea of how much time I'm spending on this search for an apartment, I can tell you quite honestly that I haven't slept more than six hours a night in about a week, and that with my two hour train commute to work (until we move) plus all my work for finals (next week) I'm pretty much at the point of teetering towards disastrous collapse (but managing....using the word "Meh" to try to get me through each day).
Weeeeee!
So after facing a day of teaching, phone calls, let downs, and surfing apartment sites during my break, I decided I had endured enough and went to the nearest McDonald's to get a cheeseburger, an apple pie, and a large, calorie-filled Coca Cola. Hells yes to giving in to wicked cravings from time to time. A part of me even while writing this post is debating going down to the 7-11 and picking up some Strawberry Custard Pocky, because it's really delicious. Yesterday I discovered a kind of Japanese Klondike bar - which is also amazing. Normally to relieve stress I'd go for a run or a dance class or something...but it's ridiculously windy outside and the sun has set so I can't really enjoy the cherry blossoms anymore. I'm content now to just plop myself down in front of the computer and play some Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past (which I've nearly completed for the first time in many years) on my ZNES Emulator and try not to think about the eight million things I've been dealing with for the past week.
Because sometimes, you just have to relax. I have gotten better at this in recent years, but anyone that knows me knows that I am very guilty for piling up way too much stress and work upon myself and then not knowing how to dig myself out of it all. Taking some time to relax has become something I take quite seriously, because otherwise I crash and burn and end up sleeping for 17 hours and missing work - which, I certainly can't afford to do, so I won't.
Off for now, hope everyone is enjoying spring out their way.
And Happy Easter, to those who celebrate. We went to a Fertility Festival in Kawasaki on Sunday, which I didn't even remember was Easter until someone reminded me (keep in mind, this was while we were viewing the procession of a giant phallus shrine...making this officially the strangest Easter I've ever had, but more on that festival later when I have the energy).
Peaceful thoughts,
Lady Jones
(Here's a photo that was taken at the Kawasaki Matsuri last weekend. This is from a nearby Temple. I'll upload more photos later after I've had a chance to catch up on sleep and work.)
I took this photo near where we are currently living in Meguro Ku. The cherry blossoms are absolutely stunning right now!
Hey everyone,
So this morning started with a bus ride of an extremely-crowded lunch rush... so I could get to the computer lab on time. Normally if I have about an hour I can take the train but the bus will sometimes actually get me to school faster when I'm running late. Today is actually my last day working at the computer lab as my work visa for my teaching position is finally on its way! Hooray!
We're in the apartment hunt right now. Hopefully by April 23rd we'll have found a nice place in North West Tokyo to call our homes. To all those foreigners out there who are looking for apartments in Tokyo, I feel your pain! It can be downright frustrating and confusing to find an apartment in Tokyo, particularly if you want a reasonable one that's not insanely marked with up front key-money, deposits and guarantor requirements. Furthermore, if you want to find the best services, sometimes it really comes down to asking someone that's been here a long time (in our case, our student services office) and they can lead you to some places that don't require guarantors or crazy key money (which can sometimes be up to SIX MONTHS RENT in gift money to the owner that you NEVER get back! I know! This seems crazy to most Americans, for sure.) I can now personally recommend Gaijinpot.com, which has some excellent services for foreigners. I would also like to extend my recommendation to the Jourdan Train Finder, which provides a great English train-route service online. If you ever want to map out your train time/cost/route in advance this is definitely the best site in English out there that includes ALL the train line companies rather than just a few "sponsored" ones.
On my way home I took pictures of the Sakura, which are finally coming into full bloom. This Friday through next Friday is the peak-viewing time in Tokyo, and I'm excited to try to take as much video and photography as possible to show everyone. It's definitely super beautiful and every bit the beautiful, epic scene that cinema paints it to be. Even the strangest parts of the city are made beautiful by them. I have to say, the only thing that frustrates me is that I'm so allergic to these few weeks of spring. With a mask and some medicine it helps, but it does make me a little sad that something so beautiful makes me sneeze and have headaches! Cruel irony? I think maybe a little...
But Sakura season is one of the best seasons to be in Japan, even with allergies! There is sakura flavored everything - from Kit Kat Bars to traditional Mochi to Sake - there's something you'd probably love. Also, people have picnics and parties under the cherry blossoms, and it's known to be a time where people relax with friends and family under the beauty of the blossoms.
That's all for now. Enjoy the photos and if you like what you read, or have any questions, please feel free to fill in a comment form! I will get back to you as soon as possible.
It's a series that I watched when I was about 10 years old in the US, making it pretty much the first series I watched in entirety (yes, even through GT). It follows the story of Goku and his friends (and then Goku's offspring and his friends) as they journey to collect all 7 dragon balls before anyone else can - making sure that the wish granted by the dragon is a good one that will keep the world safe from evil. The only real problem with this series (admittedly, it can be a big problem at times) is that it has way too much filler! Some episodes occur in which literally nothing progresses in the story line and you see characters go Super Saiyan and yell at each other for a solid 20 minutes straight...and it can get...excessive. But yeah, I was a kid when I started watching this, so I loved it at the time. Filler didn't matter back then. Now, I press fast forward...a lot.
