Massive Kit-Kat, crazy weather, new music

Yupp! I so it has been life as usual the past few days. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. I did find a huge Kit-Kat as the convenience store though! I know in Canada we have the Kit-Kat bar, but that is a little different from the actual Kit-Kat. This one is just a giant Kit-Kat stick! Take a look



The weather here for the past two days has been intense. Massive rain fall and almost non-stop thunder and lightning for 48 hours. I love lightning storms, so I was have a grand time, but most people here were freaking out. The lightning one day was really close to my house, probably a kilo or two away. It's all clear today, just on overcast. So it looks like I'm going to be sweating bucks again wearing my suit to work. Arrrgg...

Also, NEW HOUSE MIX
If the link expires let me know and I will re-upload it.

Firework festival time for Japan

Yupp, summer is firework festival time in Japan and it's definitely worth pushing through thousands of Japanese people to see. Originally around 1800, after the development of fireworks in Japan, the festivals were competitions held between different groups in Japan. Although now, most festivals are just a party with a great display of exploding powder. One of the best parts of the festival is all the cheap food. The amount of small booths (most run by Yakuza) is amazing. You can get everything from shaved ice to full on meals for really cheap! The display of fireworks usually last for about 1 - 2 hours and depending on the city can be quite big. A lot of people wear what I call the "summer kimono". It's a lot more comfortable than a kimono and definitely a lot cooler. The one I went to down in Numazu is really famous in the surrounding areas. People come from Tokyo (about a 2 hour highway drive) to participate in the fesitval and I don't blame them. Since I am from Vancouver, this isn't the first time I have seen fireworks, I'm sure most of you are familiar is the HSBC Celebration of Lights. I usually go to watch 2 or 3 of the shows every year, but that comes no where close to the atmosphere of the festivals here. I can't really explain it in words, so I'll just upload a few of the videos and photos. Hopefully you can figure out how great these evenings are.







Sorry guys, I forgot I have to transfer the Videos on the other computer. I will try and get them up as soon as possible! Enjoy the photos for now. Cheers!

Ever wonder what a Japanese grave yard looks like?

Probably not, but that won't stop me from showing you. If you didn't know, almost everyone who passes away here is cremated. After the funeral service, the close guests go to the grave and put the remains (bones and ash) into the grave. Also, graves are not separated here by person, but by family. Most of the grave yards are really well kept and often get visited by the family with flowers. I took a few shots of the one I went to today in Numazu before going to the fireworks festival.

Back to work, new tunes, and an interesting find

So today was my first day back at work after a long vacation (a.k.a wait for VISA). It was business as usual, english, english, and more english. Today was a good 30 degrees, which is death in a suit, but that's life in Tokyo. Lucky for us the government says you don't have to wear a tie after a certain time of year, so that adds at least a little comfort to the heat.

Also, this morning before I went to sleep I came across a huge MF DOOM music collection. Obviously the first thing I did was grab the entire thing. He is by far my favorite true hip-hop artist. If you have been following hip-hop for some time, or know somewhat of what I mean by "true" hip-hop artist, you should know who MF Doom is. If not, hurry and take a look on google.

Some newer Doom


and Doom's original group KMD


Also, I finally found the newest and first of it's kind cigarette out in Japan right now. Recently there has been a huge rise in menthol cigarettes here. Mild 7 has released a menthol cigarette, Marlboro has a new menthol flavor, Kool has a 4 new flavors, with the addition to the one I found today. Kool Boost is the name and it is by far the coolest cigarette I have ever seen. If you just smoke the cigarette it is like a normal Kool menthol, but there is a little capsule inside the filter you can break open and releases a mint like liquid. This soaks into the filter and enhances the menthol flavor by about 3 times. It goes for 330yen which is 30yen more than the average cigarette, but DAMM it's cool. Here are some pictures.

The outside of the box.


Basically just crush that spot with your fingers and it breaks the capsule inside.


I tore open the filter for you guys to see the capsule. After breaking it in my hand the liquid felt like I had rubbed Vics Vapor rub on it. Pretty innovative if you ask me.

A relaxing Tuesday night

On Tuesday another one of my friends (Tusgumi) came back to Japan and settled down in Tokyo for a few months this summer. We met up in Shibuya (渋谷) and took at look at the 109 building (all girls clothing with ridiculous price tags). Why didn't you buy anything?! Haha. Anyways, after we went to Shinbashi (新橋) which is basically Ginza (銀座) the most expensive place to shop and eat in Tokyo (東京), we did some searchin ad found a cheaper place to grab a drink and some eats while we waited for the other people to join us. Finally Kaori met up with us an hour late, had a drink, more eats, then headed out to Teppei's bar. His bar is really chill. Nice atmosphere and cheap drinks, 300yen (about $3CDN) for everything on the menu. It wasn't some skimpy menu either, probably about 100 drinks in total. After arriving we just had a few drinks and caught up a little bit. It's been a while since I have seen Tsugumi and Teppei, it was refreshing to see people from Vancouver again. We chatted a little about Japan and some more people that came back recently. This Friday I'm heading down to his bar again with more people from Vancouver and have a long night out. I snapped a few shots of the bar, but it was pretty dark so I couldn't really get any great ones. Cheers!

Stuff was growing out of our noses waiting for Kaori. Haha.


Teppei's bar. It's a stand up, but totally relaxing. You can kind of see the menu. Everything on that menu is 300yen.


Red Spakle and Pina Colada. Tastey tastey.


Haha, poor Kaori. Me, Tsugumi, and Teppei all took the same train. It's all because she lives in Chiba. Poor, poor, Kaori.


I found the Art Directors Club exhibition! I think it's still going on, so I'm going to try and head down when I get some some time.

Drinks, laughs, strawberry cigarettes...?

It was a nice day today. I woke up late, sat and had some coffee, read up on some articles, worked a little on some typography, and then went to my friend's family's restaurant. At first I didn't want to go anywhere because it was really warm and humid today. The heat just sucked the energy right out of me. Now that I got home, I was happy to drag my ass out of the house and go out for some drinks and eats. I totally forgot to take a photo of everyone tonight along with the restaurant, sorry sorry. It was a nice and chilled evening. Basically, drinks and some tasty food compliments of his mother. We chatted a little about plans we have to go to the beach on August 4th. I am really excited for this trip (I have about 3 camping trips planned in August). The beach in Japan is great. Not because it is beautiful or anything, but you can drink as much as you want without worrying about any police coming and taking it away from you. On top of that, you can bring your stereo and blast whatever tunes you want and because it's so loud from all the people, no one says anything. It's always a good time at the beach here. And to prove that, I will show you the following photo from a beach trip in Nagoya (名古屋)



If you are wondering why I added the strawberry cigarettes in the title, take a gander.


Yupp, you got it! Strawberry flavored cigarettes. They aren't so rare and this isn't the first time I have smoked them, but maybe a few of you out there have never seen them. Sometimes here you can find a wall of vending machines with a lot of uncommon cigarettes. Next time I pass by it I will try and grab a few packs that maybe you have never seen.

Well, until next post! Take care.

Mexican food for everyone!

Like I said in my last post... I had a mexican party for two of my friends tonight! There was a massive amount of salsa, cheese, meat, and drinks flying around. We kept the gathering quite small, there were only 5 of us, until late in the evening when my friends boyfriend came to say hello, have a cigarette, eat some cake, and take off. It was a great night, the food was good, my Mexican pizza was was a hit, and we had some laughs. The cake was really nice as well. We grabbed it from an all vegetable pastry shop. Everything in the store is make from vegetables (cake, cookies, muffins, ect.) That's it for now! Enjoy the photos, and if I get some more design done tonight I will post again.

The first setting...

Naoko with the food

The booze: Jasmine Shochu, and I can't remember the other one

Finally everythings on the table!

The mexican pizza

The vegetable cake!

The birthday girls: Ako and Shiori

MEXICAN PARTY!

That's right! There is a Mexican food party at my place tonight! It's a few of my friends birthday parties combined so we are doing a Mexican buffet. Tacos, soft tacos, taco pizza, and probably taco salad. It's been a while since I've had Mexican, so of course I'm really stoked for it! I'm also giving my friends a copy of the best Japanese cartoon ever created: The World of Golden Eggs. Definitely check out the link. It's probably the funniest cartoon I have ever watched, very close to Family Guy. Unfortunately it might be a little difficult to get the jokes unless you know Japanese, or some of the meanings behind them. I think there are a few videos an YouTube, so check it if you get a chance.

Also, today I finally received a package from when I went to Nagoya (名古屋). I went there in the beginning of June to visit some friends and one day we went to make some pottery. I hadn't done it since I was in school, but for some reason it's really fun! It was really cheap and you get a huge block of clay. I made 5 things, but you can only choose to put 2 of them in the kiln and colored. Here is what I made!

Saitama visit

Yesterday, I went to go have some dinner at a friends house in Saitama. His family owns a farm so everything from the dinner was fresh! Everyone was eating raw fish (生魚) so his mom made me these crazy good sausage! They are like sausage on a bone, super juicy and really good. I forgot to take a picture because there was just so much to eat. After eating we sat and watched some TV, then came home. His mom gave me these two figures that you put out in your house during Women's day here in Japan.

After coming home I started working a little on the lettering from a few posts back. I've finished the entire alphabet and am now starting to edit the letters that look like crap (s, z, f). I should have a preview up pretty quickly, maybe a few days.

A cheap and fun way to improve your Japanese reading speed

When I got to Japan I could already read Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (カタカナ) but my reading speed wasn't that great. So I went to the convenience store (コンビニ) and looked at a few different comic books or "manga" (漫画). I found a good comic that shows the hiragana characters beside the kanji characters.　For those of you who don't know what I am talking about here is a really quick explanation on the 3 different alphabets used in Japan.

Hiragana - ひらがな
Katakana - カタカナ
Kanji - 漢字

Hiragana is used for native Japanese words that do not have a kanji or if the kanji is really rare. Also things like grammar particles (は、が、へ、の、で), and sentence enders (だよ、です、ですか、だね).

Katakana is used for any word that is not native to Japan. It's actually used VERY often. Before I came to Japan I didn't think I would be using Katakana that much, but I was really surprised when I visited here the first time. It is used in a lot of restaurants, coffee shops, super markets, and pretty much anywhere with non-native food or products.
For example:
cola --> コーラ (ko-ra)
hamburger --> ハンバーガー (hanba-ga-)

Kanji is the tough one. Basically because there are thousands of kanji and at first it looks a little overpowering. It is not particularly hard to remember the kanji, but writting them is a b*tch. So why use kanji? Well that's because there are quite a few words that are spelled the same way in hiragana, but have completely different meanings. For example, went (いった / 行った) and said (いった / 言った). They are both written exactly the same in hiragana, so of course if they didn't use kanji it would probably cause a lot of problems and misunderstandings.

ANYWAYS
Like I was saying... I found a manga that shows the hiragana character beside the kanji. This way if I didn't know the kanji I could still figure out what they are saying by reading the hiragana. These comics are for younger children (Junior High School mostly), but the vocabulary and grammar is easy enough for me to understand (for the most part). My speed has improved a lot after reading through some of these. I can actually keep up with the TV now and sometimes catch passing signs when I am on the train. Like I said in the title, these books are cheap and thick! In the photos I put a cigarette box beside a few of them to give you a idea of scale.

To anyone who is wanting to work on improving general reading ability, I totally recommend this manga. It's "コロコロ" and comes out once a month (in Japan of course) for the cheap price of 550円 which is about $5.50CDN.

Here are a few shots of the issues I have.

What my study sessions produce

Last week I went to the city office to get my immigration card updated after I extended my working holiday visa. After updating the card I decided to head to Starbucks, grab a coffee and study some new Japanese. Well, after getting through a few pages I started sketching on the paper instead of studying. It's been this way ever since I was a little kid and it's not that I have a short attention span, I just like drawing instead of writing. Usually my sketches consist of absolutely nothing, but this day I actually sketched out a few characters.

The work station

Well the title pretty much says it all. What you can't see are the design books and magazines on the shelf above the computer.

In case you are wondering, I use a MacPro (Quad 2.0) with a 20inch Cinema Display, 250gb portable hard drive on the side, my DS for time away from the computer, and some monitor headphones for when I have time to make a new house mix.



My screen at the moment. Wallpaper by me. Icons and skin my someone else.

Recent type play

I have been playing with some lettering recently. Just making an alphabet with a very trendy logotype style. I will post updates when I get around to working on it some more.
For now, here is a little preview.

Let's get typical Japan out of the way

So I know I said I would try and show you the real Japan, but of course I have to get the typical Japan out of the way first. So I'll just throw a bunch of pictures at you.

First off is Sakura (桜). This was taken at the river in front of my place during Hanami (花見) season. For those of you who don't know what either are: Wikipedia

Next we got the infamous Mt. Fuji (ふじさん）

And last on the list is Koi (鯉) or Carp in english.

How do you work this thing?

Well folks, I have to admit this is my first blog and although I am a designer, I am not a WEB DESIGNER. I work with print and haven't really brushed up on anything to do with CSS. So basically it's like the first time I opened Adobe InDesign and said "What the hell is this?!"

I'm going to keep trucking along, trying to figure this out. Hopefully in the next few days (and by days I mean weeks) I will have something worth looking at.


My savior at the moment

Ron the Champ

This first post is in dedication to Ron the screwdriver fiend.