Yesterday, for the first (and probably last time), I went out for a cruise in Tokyo Bay. It's a big piss-up on a boat, 2 hours at 2500円 (about £12) for all-you-can-drink beer and wine. Good fun, and lots of young, drunken Japanese people to chat with, which is always a laugh. Also lots of chances to fail to take good photos. These are again probably the better ones of the night. Click to open the gallery, or just click read more to see them all.
Archive for July, 2008
A typical Thursday evening in...
Today, I went to my school for the last time, to collect the last of my things from my desk, and to check the progress of the speech contest students as they start trying to learn their speeches. I also wanted to take a photo of the Emotion beauty salon on the main street on the way to my school. It's a pretty average beauty salon, mainly used by local, well-off housewives and students at graduation and other important occasions. Walking past this place on the way to work every day for the past year, I have always wondered about the decision making progress that could have lead to the following being chosen as one of the photos used to illustrate the talents of the artists within. Maybe the area is, unbeknownst to me, big with circus performers...incidentally, the other two photos chosen seem to be of continental European lesbians circa 1990, and it gives me great pleasure to know that somewhere in the hinterlands of suburban Chiba, there is a sect of militant Prussian lesbians, shunning the modern world, whose only contact with the rest of us is when forced to work as clowns to earn money to make ends meet...it must be true. Emotion is the proof.
Every year, the schools here have an English speech contest. All the schools in the city compete before a prefecture and eventually country wide contest. The most gifted English students from each school (ie the children of the most pushy parents), all have to perform speeches in English, chosen for them by the English staff at their school. Normally these means that they end up with terrible, terrible speeches, things like Miss Evans on the Titanic (which I'm not sure even exists outside of the world of Japanese Junior High School speech contests - if you do a google search for this, you will see about 5 of the front page links are to lists of Japanese Junior High School students doing this as a speech for speech contest!), or Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech - great when delivered in 1963 by King, awful when butchered by Taro Suzuki age 14 in 2008. Anyway, this year, terrified of having to coach any kids through hours of "I havu a eeto doreemu", I volunteered to write a speech for my first year students. For those not in Japan, NHK are the nationalised Japanese TV company like the BBC in the UK. They give contracts out to people to go door-to-door to collect the licence fee, who inevitably come to my house at 8.30 at night when I am in the bath and are rude and annoying. A large number of people fail to ever pay their licence fee. Anyway, with no further introduction, I humbly present to you:
Three Little Pigs
Student 1: Once upon a time there were three little pigs. They were homeless. They lived under a railway bridge in a cardboard box. One day the police told them to move.
Student 2: They went to the country.
Student 1: The first pig made a house from straw. Because he was very lazy. And fat.
Student 2: The second pig made his house from sticks.
Student 1: Because he was lazy too. The third pig was not lazy, he made his house from bricks, with a nice sofa and a plasma screen tv and a Blu Ray DVD player. He also had a Playstation 3.
Student 2: [To student 1] Eh? Really?
Student 1: Yes. Really.
Student 2: Err OK. Anyway, there was a hungry wolf.
Student 1: He saw the straw house and said:
Both students: Little pig, little pig let me in.
Student 2: The pig said no.
Student 1: So the wolf said “I’m from NHK”. The Pig opened the door and the wolf ate him with some buffalo sauce and some vegetables and some potatoes. Yummy!
Student 2: What?! No [makes blowing noises]?
Student 1: Huh? You can’t blow a straw house down with [makes blowing noises]?
Student 2: Err OK.
Student 1: Anyway, he was still hungry, so then he went to the stick house and said
Both students: Little Pig, Little Pig, Let me in!
Student 2: The Pig said no.
Student 1: So the wolf said “I’m from NHK”. The Pig opened the door and the wolf ate him with some cream sauce and a glass of dry white wine. Very yummy!
Student 2: Huh? Really?! What about [makes blowing noises]?
Student 1: Yes. REALLY. You can’t blow a stick house down with [makes blowing noises]? AAAAAnyway, the wolf was stillllllll hungry, so then he went to the brick house and said:
Both students: Little Pig, Little Pig, Let me in!
Student 2: The pig said no.
Student 1: So then the pig said…
Student 2: What about [makes blowing noises]?
Student 1: HUH? You can’t blow a brick house down with [makes blowing noises]! Tschk. So the wolf said “I’m from NHK”. So the pig opened the door and the wolf ate him up with cherry sauce and some parsnips. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
Student 2: I think you are wrong. I think you are an idiot.
Student 1: NOooooOOOOOooooo!!! IT’S TRUE. So remember kids, never open your door to the man from NHK. Especially if he is a hungry wolf.
Both students: The End.
Bloody marvellous, I think you'll agree. It can't fail to win.
I've been thinking of doing this for a while, and now, with hardly anything going on at work, I've actually got round to doing it. It's a mix of tunes from some of my favourite film scores. Here's the tracklist:
Passion: Peter Gabriel (From "The Last Temptation of Christ")
Air: Hans Zimmer (From "The Thin Red Line")
Morning Pray: Gustavo Santaolalla (From "Babel")
Goodbye: Kevin Shields (From "Lost In Translation")
Prophecy Theme: Toto (From "Dune")
To Heal: Underworld (From "Sunshine")
Tales Of The Future: Vangelis (From "Blade Runner")
Hunger: Hans Zimmer (From "Black Hawk Down")
Zaar: Peter Gabriel (From "The Last Temptation of Christ")
Abraham's Theme: Vangelis (From "Chariots of Fire")
Love Theme: Vangelis (From "Blade Runner")
Only Love Can Conquer Hate: Ryuichi Sakamoto (From "Babel")
First Sleep: Cliff Martinez (from "Solaris")
Ghost Dog Theme (With Dogs and EFX): RZA (From "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai")
Arthur & Henry: James Newton Howard (From "Michael Clayton")
Sunshine: John Murphy (From "Sunshine")
The Echo Game: Shigeru Umebayashi (From "The House of Flying Daggers")
Kaneda: Geino Yamashirogumi (From "Akira")
Message For The Queen: Tyler Bates (From "300")
The last time I was invited to a wedding, I managed to take 3 photos in the entire night. This time, I was determined to take more, and bought a new film on the way. In the end, I got so overexcited snapping away, that I had to leave the after-after party karaoke to buy another film, which I proceeded to shoot all of without adjusting the focus at all from one shot to the next. I don't think I was attempting some kind of peculiar avant-garde technique, I think it may have been just because I was a little bit pissed. Anyway, these were the best shots from the night - I really like the two shots of Seri and Jacob. There's a calmness in the storm there. Congratulations again to Matt and the missus.
