Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Hey hey - literature post


A middle of the week entry – because I am in three hour lecture classes and they are hard to sit through without multi-tasking.
A note about my family – I still have yet to see the father, but I hear him. And now I know that he works in Tokyo, which isn’t that far away. That situation is still confusing.
I’ve eaten more at the McDonald’s in Japan than I ever do at home, mostly because it is cheap and accessible and my host family likes it =P. I don’t mind. I get good meals mostly. Today I tried to boil some hot water but the gas stove freaked me out because I couldn’t figure out how to light it. My host mother left really early to go to her friend’s house so that is why breakfast was left up to me.
On Tuesday I had my second karaoke adventure and it was once again awesome. Pretty much the entire JSP group showed up (around 18 kids) and some of our Japanese babysitters. We had 23+ people in a relatively small karaoke room. The place the JSP kids frequent has a weird deal where you pay five dollars an hour for all you can drink. But the mixed drinks are extremely watered down. The beer is pretty good though, and they let you bring in other drinks. Or at least they let Gaijin bring in other drinks. I sang I guess a moderate number of songs because I like singing. And singing with words around drunken people is the best. Drinking and singing is a genius combination.

All right, everyone knows how I love Miyazaki right? (Or you should). Well, in the weird timing of things a new Studio Ghibli movie came out this month. A. Brand. New. Un-translated. Miyazaki movie. On the big screen. I’ve pretty much wanted to see it since I found out it existed. The only problem being that Japanese movies are heinously expensive. Even more so than in America. One ticket costs 18 dollars normally. However today there was a special ladies night and my friend’s host mom took both of us. In Japan you actually choose your seats when you buy your tickets and the screen in the theater I went to was giant. My friend’s host mom bought my ticket which was nice and also intimidating. I know there is some kind of response that is appropriate but I have no idea what it is. I speak a whole different cultural language.

The movie is called ‘Pon-yo’ and it is in the vein of ‘My neighbor Totoro.’ It’s a kid’s movie involving an underwater sorcerer and a water goddess’s offspring that resembles a human fish. The underwater scenes were awesome and without words – which made the movie pretty easy to understand. The art was a strange but awesome combination of children’s book illustrations and Miyazaki’s characteristic and highly rendered images. So this fish-girl thing floats away from the sorcerer and happens upon a toddle aged boy, but in the process she gets stuck in a glass jar. The little boy frees her and he then carries the fish around in a bucket until the sorcerer successfully retrieves his creature. The little fish then grows hands and legs resembling a bird’s and then raids the sorcerer’s magic supply and turns into a real little girl. She then runs off to jump all over her little boy love. The movie is cute, and pretty, and weirdly long. I cannot wait to go to the studio ghibli museum. I am stoked and going to buy lots of cute things.

Also I have a ‘ka-I-ta-I’ which is Japanese for cell phone!!! And I have figured out how to call people in America. But it is extreamly costly. So if anyone wants to get a phone card and call me instead here is my Japanese number : 080-3250-2852. There is the possibility that you might have to dial 1 before that number. The time difference is so extreme that it’s going to a challenge to get a hold of anyone. But I would like to try.

That is pretty much it for me. Although on a side note I have been buying manga. Lots of manga. And they have huge used manga stores!! Which is awesome. I found my two favorite manga artists and their different series that haven’t been released in the US. It was cool. I was stoked.

1 comment:

georges said...

You are so lucky to get to see a brand new Myazaki movie! I can't wait for it to get to the US. Lucky, lucky girl!