Fujian

I recently got a new lens for my Sony Nex camera. It’s a Fujian CCTV 35mm lens. It’s a super cheap lens from China. Just about 3000 yen. Which is crazy when you’re talking about lenses.

It’s completely manual for focus and aperture. The build is very simple, solid, and doesn’t feel like a cheap lens. The interesting thing about it is it can give an extreme depth of field effect. Kind of like those toy type camera effects that are popular recently (like Instagram and such). It came with a few macro rings to add to it as well, and they work pretty good. All and all a good purchase. I can’t wait to use it more. Anyways here’s some quick  photos I snapped in the yard.

Jojo Exhibit

On Thursday I went to the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure exhibit in Sendai. The artist Araki is originally from Sendai, so that means we get an awesome 25th anniversary art show here.

Photos were not allowed in the exhibit except for one spot. Which you can see below.

It’s too bad because the artwork on display was amazing! The detail and complexity of Araki’s art really shines when seen in person. I feel after seeing it I can understand his technique much better.

If you bought the special ticket (like I did) you got this special newspaper.

It mimics the style of Sendai’s local paper. Inside are interviews with Araki, and points of interest in Sendai for jojo fans (two parts of the comic are set in Sendai). In a couple days I’ll post the goodies I got at the show, so check it out.

East Meets Old West

One of my buddies (and also fellow coworker), started his own clothing company called Yancha Digs. It’s philosophy is the mixture of samurai culture and skateboarding culture. They have all kinds of cool designs mixing the two together in interesting ways. Recently I got a shirt from them which throws together two of my favourite things.

Clint Eastwood and samurai swords. How perfect is this combination! Especially since the “Man with no name” character was based on some Kurosawa samurai movies to begin with. Currently this shirt is classified as a prototype, and not for sale, but there are lots of other cool designs on the site and more being created all the time. So check out they’re site and buy something if you like it. They have all kinds of stuff, T-shirts, hoodies, even skate decks. It’s all available at Yancha Digs.

Happy Birthday Canada!!

Dragon Quest Merch

A POST DRAWS NEAR! COMMAND?

What’s this a real post!! I bet everybody thought I forgot about this poor blog (I did a little bit). Truth is it’s all due to laziness (and not having much to write about)! So out of building feelings of guiltiness and neglect, comes a post.

Anyways here’s some of the various Dragon Quest merchandise I bought over the past while. Most of it was for the 25th anniversary. Some of it I actually got at the DQ museum that was in Tokyo last year. First is a special slime for the 25th anniversary.

What’s different about it? Well it’s wearing a bow-tie first of all. Also on the back it has a special patch.

I also picked up this cool slime glass.

I use it everyday to drink juice in the morning. There’s a couple more slimes on the back too.

These special booklets were only for people who went to the 25th anniversary museum.

Inside is some simple quests for you to do while you looked at the exhibit. If you did everything correctly you got a special pin as shown below.

Here’s a slime handkerchief I got. I thought it was really cute.

One thing I tend to do when I go somewhere in Japan is buy a special handkerchief for that place. They always sell them everywhere, and they’re also really handy and useful. A souvenir that you can actually put to use.

I got this book at the local Yodobashi Camera electronics store.

It’s almost what you would call a Dragon Quest history book. It’s filled with tons of info about the series.

I just wish it was in English…

All the artwork is cool though.

Here’s some playing cards.

They have a really cool slime design on the back of them.

Also some the cards have some cool pictures on them.

Finally here’s an Eco-bag. It looks like a Famicom (NES) box when it’s all folded up.

When it’s open you can see the hero symbol on the front of the bag.

So that’s my round of all my goodies. Lately I’ve been acquiring some good Jojo stuff due to its anniversary this year so expect a future post on that.

Crazy Fans

I took this very short video at the COEX mall in Seoul. Some Korean boy band was there signing autographs, and the fans were going mental. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

We went to see Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was interesting. The palace itself it beautiful. I found it looked very similar to Japanese temples, except bigger and tons more buildings. Aside from that the grounds were huge, which only emphasized the emptiness of the place. Aside from the changing of the guard ceremony there seemed to be no other people in period costumes anywhere.   Also most of the artifacts were housed in museums so the real palace buildings were mostly empty. Anyways here’s some pics of the grounds.

Below is some pics of the changing of the guards and a short movie of part of it. Pardon my shaky hands and completely un-smooth zooming.

Korea

Yesterday I just got back from a four-day holiday in Seoul, Korea. It was pretty fun, but also extremely tiring. Seoul is a super busy place, packed to bursting with people. Kind of like Tokyo, but even more amped up.

Above are a couple of pictures of Myeongdong. One of the most popular shopping districts. This was actually when the area was quiet. A couple of hours later it was wall to wall people. My favourite part of Seoul was the food. Not just the Korean food, but all the choices. It makes Japan look terrible in comparison. Any given area of town offered a variety of international food choices. Especially in Itaewon it was like stepping into a different country. I even saw a Tacobell (which will sadly probably never appear in Japan. The Mexican food situation in Japan is dire to say the least. Every place I’ve tried has bordered on awful).

We went to a food market one day and we had some really cheap and extremely delicious chijimi and bibimbap.

I also saw Lotteria, which is a very popular chain in Japan. It actually originates in Korea. Lotte, the company that owns it is one of the biggest companies in Korea.

I have a few more photos on the way of Gyeongbokgung Palace, so come again to check them out.

Anniversary

Well yesterday was the anniversary of the big quake.At 2:46 I could here sirens going off all over town to mark when there should be a moment of silence. I can’t believe it’s already been a year. It seems like it happened just a few days ago. Anyways I was interviewed for an article for the Ottawa Citizen, so please check it out.

Ottawa Citizen article

Big America 3

Yep, the Big America series is back at Mcdonald’s again. This time sadly there is no return of the Texas burger (my favourite). This time we have The Grand Canyon burger.

I’ve already had this one. It’s pretty good, a little bit similar to the Texas burger. The sauce is steak sauce, so the flavour is not as zingy as the Texas burger.  The next burger will be Las Vegas burger later this month.

Followed by the Broadway burger.

And finally the Beverly Hills burger.

All of these look pretty good. I’m looking forward to trying them.  The last time they had Big America I never wrote about the last two burgers they had. We had the big earthquake here in Tohoku and I didn’t feel up to writing about burgers at the time. Anyways now is the time to do it. Below is the Manhattan burger.

It had smoked meat on it, and was really really good. Unfortunately I only tried it once. I’d say it would be one of my favourites. Lastly is the Miami burger.

It had tortilla chips and taco meat on it. I don’t really see what that has to do with Miami. I would have pictured something more Cuban actually. It was delicious anyways. The only defect was it was so messy. The taco meat would fall out so easily. The crunch of the tortilla chips was nice though. As in the past I’ll follow up with the new burgers as they come out. Stay tuned.