High School Festival

A couple of weekends ago, Yurie and myself went and checked out the Kakuda High school festival. It’s basically an event where student have booths and displays of their club activities. It’s pretty much expected that each student be a member of some after school club. These can range from sports, art, music or even science.There was some interesting stuff to see. I especially liked the art club exhibit. There are a lot of talented young artists in Kakuda. One girls painting were so good it was unbelievable! They looked photo realistic. I’m sure this person will go on to be a professional illustrator. If they don’t they’re wasting their talent. Other highlights were see a shambolic performance by the rock club, and meeting a fellow Kakuda foreigner. She was originally from Ghana and has lived in Kakuda for a long time. Her daughter have only gone to Japanese schools, and despite both their parent being from Ghana they totally act like Japanese teenagers.

Arcade Mania!

I got this book on Saturday at Maruzen in Sendai. It’s “Arcade Mania!” written by Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku fame. It basically covers the whole arcade scene over here in Japan. From fighting games to mahjong to photo sticker machines, it has it all. The book is packed with great photos and tons of interesting info. It’s also incredibly current. If you want to know what Japanese arcades are like right now, then read this book. I highly recommend it. It comes out in North America soon, so buy it.

Dragon Quest 4

This is my current video gaming obsession. The DS remake of Dragon Quest 4. I play it almost every free moment I get. You might be wondering what makes an 18 year old RPG game so compelling. Well they updated the graphics and made everything fancier of course, but I like it’s simplicity of it the best. Even though it’s simple there’s tons of variety too. Every chapter feature new characters and different variations on Dragon Quest. To easily put it, it’s brilliant!

Super Games For Super Famicom

In the recent week I picked up three more titles for Super Famicom. The first is the one that I was looking for the most, Super Mario World.

I love this game so much. I played the English version a lot and actually finished every level in the game (which took a long time, since there was 124 levels if I remember correctly). It’s so nice to play it again after so long. I also got it’s sequel.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. It’s similar to the normal Mario games, but with quite a few different game mechanics. You play as Yoshi and you carry Baby Mario on you back. You can also shoot eggs and the like at stuff. Lastly I got Super Metroid.

It’s considered to be quite the classic now, shaping how a lot of exploration type games would play. I liked it a lot back in the day. The best thing about the Japanese cartridge is you can switch the language to English. An extra good bonus!

Yes, I’ll have Some Wine With My Pringles…

I got some “gourmet” Pringles the other day. Herb roasted chicken to be exact. The flavor was really good, very tasty. The chip was also thicker and more crunchy. Also quite good. Even the can looks luxurious in it’s gold and maroon. Quite posh indeed! Now i know why Mr. Pringles wears a bow tie.

Birdhouse or not?

When I went to summer camp for one of my jobs we built a musical instrument. It’s called a cajon. It’s a type of box drum from Peru. I painted mine in a Super Mario motif. My cajon was very popular with all of the kids. Mario being beyond age and time. The funny thing however is that my Mother-in-law thought it was a birdhouse and hung it up in our garden. Here is the photographic proof.

Tiny Gun

I got this at the grocery store. They have a little section of small toys for kids.

The box claims it’s a “real action gun”. I have to admit it is pretty realistic, but also incredibly tiny. There’s an actual clip, and you have to load your bullets into it.

It’s quite difficult to do with my big fingers. After that, you then cock the little gun, like shown on the back of the box.

Then you’re ready to fire. The trigger is even too small for my pinkie finger so even that is difficult. I’m sure there are warnings all over the box in Japanese saying not to shoot at someones eyes. This would never come close to getting sold in Canada.

Yummy Basil

I got these the other day at the grocery store. I love basil, so basil flavored Pretz was a natural thing to try. It was super delicious, and really tasted like fresh basil. I think  I might pick it up again some time. They also had a tomato flavored one. I’m curious about that one now too.

Beer For Kids! YEAH!

I imagine that’s what kids said after they came out with this product in Japan. Yes it is beer for kids.

Finally after a long hard day at elementary school, a kid can now kick back and enjoy a nice cold one. No it doesn’t have any alcohol in it, and it doesn’t really taste like beer at all. When you pour it though it does look like a nice pint of beer. I bought the new winter season type of kids beer.

It has a nice lad in a toque and a scarf drinking a pint. On the other side there is also a cute young lass holding up the pint for you to admire.

One might wonder why they are selling a winter season kids beer at the end of summer, and rightfully so. I am wondering that as well.

Pop Band

A couple weekends ago, while we were at the Diamond City shopping mall. Some incredibly generic pop band was there signing autographs. Their name was LG Yankees.

I personally have never heard of them or seen them on any of the pop chart ranking shows. What was amazing is that there was a large group of people lined up to get their autographs. I thought the members looked like they work at a cheesy Japanese host club.

When Japanese people say the word “Yankee” they usual mean delinquent biker gang members. These guys don’t even come close to fitting the bill! I couldn’t find any videos or songs on-line, so you’re lucky you won’t have to suffer through hearing them.