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06.27.07/15:43 pepsi ice cucumber
The toughest thing about writing a review like this, was that I actually had to drink something 'combining cola with the refreshing taste of the cucumber.' As evidenced by this post, it didn't kill me. Maybe. So, here goes.
My first impression was a kind of medicine-minty taste, with a thick, syruppy burpy flavor I've only ever tasted in KMX energy drinks. It's a very thick, but cool, clear flavor that, while not something I'd drink under normal circumstances, might just be biting enough to mix with shots of Everclear. It's actually a distracting enough flavor that it could mask grain alcohol.
If you get a shot, I recommend trying it. Most of you will never have the chance to experience the combination of cola with 'the refreshing taste of the cucumber,' but it's interesting enough to justify spending 240 yen (half for the bottle of Ice Cucumber, and the other half for another drink to wash the taste out of your mouth.) 06.18.07/16:34 hitoshi & keiko's wedding Wow. Phenomenal and amazing. Hitoshi is just so....kakko ii. And his wife is beautiful. This is where you'd probably expect me to go on and on about the differences between the Japanese wedding and all the American weddings I've been to, but you'd be disappointed. They had a western-style wedding, and it was basically the same as the other ones I've been to.
Wait, Okaasan and Atsuko wore kimono. I guess in that way it was different. So, here's how it went down: we congregated at Umeda Sky and walked over to the ceremony. Then we went next door for the reception. People gave speeches, there was a lot of great food, and somewhere between my fifth and sixth glass of beer or red wine or nihonshu, I played a little guitar. Not great, but not too bad, either.
We weren't five seconds away from the place before Okaasan pulled her hair down and that signified the start of the nijikai. The second party was at a small bar in Tenmabashi, not too far from the hotel. It was pretty cool, maybe 20 or 30 people drinking until 3am.
At some point, Quinn showed up with my suitcase and I could finally change out of my suit. For some reason we found it necessary to walk from Tenmabashi to Yodoyabashi. We got so lost that we hit Yodoyabashi from the opposite site. It took about an hour and a half, but we finally made it to Sam & Daves and Quinn met some old friends. I stayed til about 8am.
Then, for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to walk all the way back to the hotel. And I ducked out after a shower and shinkansen'd my way back to Tokyo. Yesterday was another set of adventures for a different post that I'm too tired to get into.
Today, I'm pretty tired. It was a good time. 06.12.07/00:14 dashite'ing some genki
My new television is pretty sweet, and does a good job of rendering 12 in all it's twelvetastic gloriousness. And the tiny sword was a present from Mark, who also thought it was pretty funny to put a big handicapped sticker on the front of my door the other day.
What else? This weekend is the wedding. Should be good times, and it will be nice to hang out with a member of the sannin and to tour his tiny suburb. For now, that's all I've got. Everything. 06.04.07/02:25 some japanese death words 切り死に kirijini death by swordfight 銃刑 juukei death by firing squad 凶弾に斃れる kyoudan ni taosareru assassination (by gun) 轢死 rekishi death by being hit by fast-moving vehicle 窒息死 chissokushi death by choking or suffocation 溺死 dekishi death by drowning 焼死 shoushi death by fire 腹上死 fukujoushi death during sex 凍死 toushi freezing to death 過労死 karoushi working to death 獄死 gokushi dying in prison 狂い死に kuruijini dying while in a state of insanity 06.04.07/02:06 six months and counting Sometimes, I get really fucking dispirited. Yeah? I know. But I mean it. Today marks exactly six months since my arrival here. I have to wonder if I've learned anything at all since I got here. Sure, maybe I've picked up a few new words, or learned some new skills, but is it worth the time that I've wasted, stewing in this tiny room a pebble's toss away from the biggest city in the world?
Bah. Maybe I'm just reeling from the Mug Yamazaki.
Today, I went with my instinct, I listened to the advice of the naive 10 year-old Jordan who lives inside my head. He doesn't speak much, but his intuition is spot on. Precise. Deadly. Accurate. He's never let me down before. Well, okay, he did once. ONLY once. Until today.
&@#$^!!!!!
I can't vocalize it. I cannot string together a series of letters that will accurately describe how I feel. Expletives come close, but with those the balance is far too much toward anger and not close enough to infinite desperation. Breathing is too much effort.
But I will prevail.
This is the halfway point of my tenure here; I need to pass the Nikyuu so I can have some certification to back my Japanese skills so I can get a real job. I need to stop preserving and start persevering.
You know, when I first conceived this post a few days ago, it was going to be about my new television.
It was going to be about going to my student's rock concert, and it was going to be about kanji cards and redecorating my room with some new hyaku-en stuff and about Eric suffering away in Kitakyushuu in his hospital bed for a month. I really did. I thought those were my primary concerns. Even this morning, I was really motivated to tell you about some guy named Mister Nabe who bought us drinks at the opening of the new tachinomi near the station.
But we're past that. It's been a strange night, and I don't think things will be good or normal again for a long time. I'm not so enamored with this country as I once was, and there's a lot I need to do. Time is not on my side. I'm getting older every day, and the years of tobacco and soda pop and fast food are starting to catch up with my organs. I've seen blood come from parts of me that blood should not come from.
Hahaha. That's not a joke. |
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For the summer of 2007,
Pepsi's Japan subsidiary released a drink 'combining cola with the
refreshing taste of the cucumber,' a rough translation of the short
explanation on the bottle. Seeing this, I knew there was no way I
could escape buying a bottle for posterity, and another bottle for a
review for the site.
Man, that post from last
week is so depressing. Looking back at it now, I've almost forgotten
what could possibly make me so upset. Almost. But that's over,
it's the future now and time for some good times, and some pictures.
It's been a decent
weekend. I went to see PotC 3 over the weekend, in English w/
Japanese subtitles. I think I want to see it in Japanese and see if
I can understand any of it (doubtful). I liked it. I don't
know if it was the most artistically-inspired thing I've ever seen, but it
was fun and I'm all for that.