Engrish around Nagano Station, and a Little Something on the Side

I know, I know, I already posted today, but this is important. Last night I went to pick up two of my buddies from Tokyo at Nagano Station. I noticed as you head towards a more populated area, the concentration of Engrish greatly increases. For those of you not familiar with Engrish, it's basically any hilarious use of English by Japanese people including replacing l's with r's, improper grammer, and bizzare word choice. For hilarious examples, click here. Anyways, I found some great stuff around Nagano station, try to find it if you're ever in the area:

Then let's go to the beach!

Yep.

I hope I never get one of those.

These are my friends Chris and Yui from Tokyo. They're thuggin thuggin thuggin. This picture was taken right before a kickass day of skiiing and boarding that happily ended with Chris fucking up his ankle.

And this is what I had for dinner last night:

That's right, it's a steak donburi. Really awful idea. Really all you have is a mediocre steak and a plain bowl of rice, and then your out 1000 yen. Gotta love Gusto.

And I have one more treat for you, this is a video Yui showed me today when we got back from the mountains. It's basically hilarious. I give you, "Taking Off All of My Clothes Off."

Nagano Snow: First Post

I'm in Nagano, Japan right now, which I guess is as good a place as any to start something new. I guess this is the result of my excessive free time and my buddy Alex's blogging enthusiasm.

But that's beside the point. Hi. I'm Todd. I go to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, but right now it's my winter break (thanksgiving to new year's YESYESYES), so I'm here in lovely Japan for 3 weeks rather than at home doing nothing.


Okay, I'm assuming you're back here no less 30 minutes later after trying to beat Javanoid, only to realize there's 12 (I think, it would be embarrassing to know for sure) levels of increasing difficulty. It's okay, much like karate, surgery, Beirut, or any other noble pursuit, there is a steep learning curve. Everybody hurts.

Anyway, all of that is distracting me from my main point, being that it's snowing in Nagano and that shit is TIGHT. I'm here visiting a host family I stayed with in high school. I also came to visit Alex in Nagoya. We tore it up a little already when I arrived last Wednesday, but I'm gonna go back there next week too, mainly to catch my plane. So. Let me tell you about snow in Nagoya.

It's pretty much 非常に美しい、extremely beautiful for those of you not in the loop. Today I was going to head out for my usual jog up and down the mountain, but my knee hurt too much, so I decided to go for a walk and take pictures instead. We live in Yamanouchi (山ノ内）, a town up in the mountains and a pretty substantial drive from downtown Nagano. It's mostly farms and mom and pop shops, but everything is exceedingly beautiful and everyone has that country courtesy you won't find in Tokyo. The pictures surrounding this paragraph are from my family's Japanese garden or niwa (庭), literally 8 feet from where I'm typing this now. It's really amazing that it's just some tastefully arranged plants and rocks. Man, gardening kicks ass, someone had to say it. My host granddad was out there gardening hard in the cold today; I hope I can be as cool as him when I'm his age. I think it's snowing more right now, so I guess I'll put up some snowier pictures of the garden tomorrow. It really seems like Japan transforms in the snow, and I have to say I couldn't be happier. If it keeps falling like it is, skiing is going to be wonderful this weekend. Ha ha, わくわくする！