The Red Army

On our recent trip to Shanghai I couldn’t resist picking up some interesting historical items of days gone by. The first was this magnificent alarm clock.

When the clock is wound Chairman Mao waves his red book passionately at the adoring crowd. I got some playing cards too.

Each card has a different propaganda slogan and an old propaganda poster on it.

The next item I bought was a nice watch. The Chairman waves his arm to the adoring public. The second hand has a nice red star on it too.

Not pictured here is a commie T-shirt that I bought as well. All of these items cost me less than $10 Canadian. How’s that for a bargain!

Keitai

In Japan cell phones are called “Keitai” which roughly means handy portable phone. Just a couple of days ago, the wife and I went out and bought the one in the picture above. In Japan almost everyone has one, they even sell versions for little kids. So we decided it was about time we got one too.

Of course the cell phones in Japan are among the best in the world and are light years ahead of the ones in Canada. I got the simplest and cheapest phone and it still does so much stuff. Japan being a small country area wise, the coverage for reception is incredible. Also there is no long distance for calling anywhere in Japan. Pretty nice!

In the picture below you can see the display when it’s closed. It does all kinds of things to notify you of different things while the phone is closed. Another nice thing, you can switch the language to English so all of the menus are in English too.

Kozoji Temple

On Sunday Yurie and I went to visit a temple near by called Kozoji Temple. It’s supposed to be the oldest wooden building in Miyagi prefecture. It was supposedly built in 1177. It was really old looking but in good shape too.

The woods in the area around it were very beautiful. There was also some really old giant trees near the temple you can see two of them in the picture below. They have sacred ropes around them. This place is about 15 minutes from our house. Nice eh!

Fun Deana

I went to Sendai recently and saw this beauty shop and thought the sign was funny. I don’t know who Deana is but apparently she likes to make fun.

Airsoft

In Japan owning or possessing firearms in super illegal. In fact not even all of the police officers are allowed to carry them. Despite that Japan still has a fascination with guns. At any toy store or big electronics store you can buy Airsoft guns, which are basically what we know in Canada as pellet guns. The thing is though these are exact replicas of real guns.

You can see in the upper right corner a sign saying don’t use it in public, because people will thing it’s a real gun. They also sell ones that look like machine guns and rifles. The run about $100 to $200 Canadian.

I apologize for the bad photos, I had to snap them quickly while the staff wasn’t looking at the store.

Real Kiaida

I got this out of a vending machine lately. It’s supposed to be an energy drink that contains caffeine, ginseng and other high power vitamins. I was attracted by the burly wrestler screaming on the can (click on the picture to get a really good look). The drink is kinda like grapefruit mixed with sweet soda and a little bit apple juice thrown in. It was actually quite delicious. I will buy it again.

Edit: Due to the hard work researching on Jeff’s part you can watch this nice Real Kiaida promo video. Good Job Jeff.

The Garden

In a previous post I promised some nice shots of the garden, so enjoy.

My mother in law spends a great amount of her time everyday taking care of all of these plants. So much time in fact that even though she is retired she says she’s too busy most of the time.

Recently three men were hired to trim and shape all of the trees. That’s why their shape is so nice and beautiful.

Interesting Items

I was at the grocery store the other day and I found a couple interesting things. The first is, in Japan they have Cheerios as well…..

Although it is not actually a healthy breakfast cereal.

The next thing was this incredible 2 litre bottle of Asahi beer. It was also made out of glass, not the usual plastic bottle used for 2 litre soda. It was also really heavy. Thank god for the handle!

Weekly Famitsu

In Japan video games are so popular that the magazines come out weekly. The most popular of all of these is “Weekly Famitsu”, which has been around since the old NES (or Family Computer in Japan, Famicom for short). It often sells out very quickly too. It has articles on games of course, but also new movies, new food at convenience stores, DVDs, CDs, etc. It’s my favorite magazine to peruse when at a book store or convenience store, and occasionally I pick up a copy if the articles look interesting. Oh, and some times they feature cover models instead of game related artwork. This is common for pretty much every magazine aimed at men no matter what the subject.

My Nemesis

Yes, my evil nemesis in Japan is a nice looking welsh corgi that the neighbors own. Watch out though this dog is pure evil. Since I started visiting Japan 5 years ago, every morning from around 6:30am on this evil dog barks constantly for hours. Why our neighbors continue to let this happen is probably a giant conspiracy to drive the lone foreigner resident out of their neighborhood! Or it’s just because they are terrible dog owners that have no common sense. Take your pick.