Ultra Cool

I found these funny illustration from the 1960’s of Ultraman on the internet. Ultraman being a Japanese hero/alien type guy who’s always saving the world from alien monsters. The kids at my school all love him so much. I highly doubt that parents would approve of some of these drawings nowadays.

Especially this one where he slicing the poor monsters arm off.

Ultraman leaving a wake of dead monsters.

Why is the turtle riding the tank!?

The monsters even fight among themselves. How counter productive! You won’t destroy the world that way!

The turtle is still hitching a ride!?! Is he part tank or something? Hey wait a second Ultraman isn’t even in half of these!

Happy 25th

Today 25 years ago on September 13th 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Cheers Mario!  Happy Birthday! To celebrate Nintendo is releasing a sweet Mario collection in Japan. The box is really nice.

Check out the video below to see the history of the Super Mario series.

500!!

I just realized that I’ve done 500 posts! That’s a lot. Who knew I could write so much about stupid stuff. This is post 501 by the way.

Rakuten Eagles

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I went to see a Rakuten Eagles game. They’re the pro baseball team for Sendai. Usually I don’t go to sporting events, but I was interested to experience what a Japanese baseball game was like. The perfect opportunity came up when my wife won free tickets to a game at her work.

Having been to some baseball games back in Canada I can tell you it was a different experience. It seemed like it was faster paced. Maybe it was the fact that something was always going on during the game. Almost to the point of distraction. Especially when it came time for everyone to send up these whistling balloons. I couldn’t even see the game! I took a shot video where you can hear some of the songs the fans sing during the game. It’s almost like a soccer match.

For some reason my camera didn’t like the bright stadium lights in the video.

What was strange was after the sixth inning the had dancers come out and then there was fireworks. I guess they have a sixth inning stretch and not a seventh. You can see in the photo below we were quite a distance away, but what can you expect when the tickets are free.

One of the best parts was that you can bring two drinks into the game with you (unfortunately I didn’t know about this until we got to the stadium). Including beer!! Oh, if only I had known!

Paris and Mont St-Michel

Her’s part three. It’s some photos of Paris and Mont St-Michel. Mont St-Michel was great except for the hoards of tourists. You call tell by one of the photos.

Here’s a bonus video of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a little sideways. Just tilt your head. The rain drops make it seem like the air is twinkling. The reason why I’m using this sideways video is I inadvertently caught a shooting star. You can see it on the right hand side.

Bruges

Here’s part two of my European vacation. These photos are in Bruges. I really liked Bruges it was beautiful.

Neighbours

What are they teaching Americans in school?

Do they have maps that only show the U.S. on them? It’s incredible!

Brussels

Here’s the first post of some of my European photos. I have too many to put all of them here, so it’ll the ones I like best. I’ll be doing them by city, and I thought I’d start with Brussels. Enjoy!

The Return

Well I’ve actually been back for a couple of days now (but much too lazy to do anything). The trip was quite good, and we saw a lot of really cool things. I’ll be posting some pictures as soon as I bother to get them off my camera. The only dark spot of the trip was the dreaded Moscow airport!!

I’ve edited the picture above (not taken by me) to more reflect the general feeling while in Moscow airport. It was the worst travel experience of my life. On the way to Europe we had a luxurious 3 hours to transfer to our connecting flight. Little did we know that it would take almost 3 hours of lining up at various security, passport, and useless time-wasting checks. It seemed to be a Russian labor law that only one person can be working at any given post at anytime. This made the lines slower than a normal human being can perceive. Add to that the sketchiness,the filth, and the lack of air conditioning, and you’ve got a wonderful 3 hours ahead of you.

The worst part however was going through that experience and knowing that on our return we only had 1 hour of transfer time! Being very fearful we braced for the worst. Our plane arrived at Moscow actually a bit early, but that wasn’t enough. The same conditions awaited. Thankfully we were taken around a couple of security checks, because we were going to miss our plane if we waited in line. We did however still have to go through a few of them, making us do a last-minute sprint to our gate before they shut the doors, and left us in Hell.

The clincher however was arriving in Tokyo and finding out that our bags were still on a runway in Moscow! Every person on the flight from Amsterdam, had their baggage left behind. It took three full days before we would see them again. Thankfully they arrived safely.

So the lesson here is, if you EVER have to fly somewhere don’t fly through Moscow airport. Pay the extra money and transfer somewhere else. Trust me it’s worth it! I myself swore that I will never set foot in the country of Russia ever again. That’s how bad it was.

Off To The Continent

Yes, that’s right, tomorrow I’m off to Europe for two weeks. Our trip will be through four countries: Belgium, Holland, France and Germany. I plan on eating lots of good food, drinking lots of beer, and seeing lots of old buildings and European stuff. It’s actually the second time I’ve been to Europe, but it’ll be the first time seeing Belgium, and the Bavarian area of Germany. See you in two weeks!