can't talk... in italy

HEEEYY!!!

super fun happy slide!

Q: What do you call a sheep with no legs?
A: A cloud.

I know jokes in those Christmas bon-bon things are usually lame, but that has to be the worst joke ever. I don't even know why it's supposed to be funny! And yet every year, millions of people spend money on these glorified wrapped up toilet paper rolls (yeah, I saw Play School, I know how they make it!) all for crappy paper hats, lame jokes, and nail clippers!

But yeah, I haven't posted for a while - been busying eating, charading, wrapping, crapping (craps the gambling game, not the other one) darting, and verbifying everything. Plus the whole christmas thing, but that excuse is like 2000 years old anyway. Anywhoo, I'm staying at my Aunt's place in Romsey, which is like an hour out of London - we were kinda even lucky to be here, since there were a number of ridiculous delays here, and some planes got stuck at Heathrow airport because of the fog. So since we've been so far away from London, unfortunately we haven't been able to do any celebrity spotting, so alas, nothing to top the Donald and Sean Penn in New York. We did manage to go to London for a day, which is a pretty crazy idea around this time of the year, since it was pretty busy. We didn't do the touristy stuff though since we did it last time, so it was mainly for my brother to check out some of the art and design museums.

Sounds meh, right? Well, that's what I was thinking, until I saw the Super fun happy slide(s) in the Tate Modern Museum! They were huge - the longest one was like 58 metres and starts on the 5th level of the building all the way to the first floor.To play use the slide though, you have to get tickets to use it. I tried to get tickets to the biggest slide, but the earliest tickets I could get for a chance on that slide was like four hours later. I didn't think I could really find a way to entertain myself in an art museum for four hours and sacrifice a day in London to justify going on a big slide. Fortunately, when we were heading off to see some art stuff, a guy offered me his tickets for one of the slides, since he couldn't be bothered waiting.



Despite the coolness of slides, in particular super fun happy ones, I'm kinda glad they're not a standard means of transport around buildings. I don't think I'm ready to be regularly seen giggling giddily like a little girl in public.

“I’m fighting for something real for the first time in my life”

Move over Raise Your Voice. I think I’ve found an even more clichéd movie – It’s pretty much Raise Your Voice 2 since it’s also based at a school of arts. So, if you love clichéd teen movies (you know who you are), you have to watch Step Up. During my long, delayed flight to London, I decided to watch it, since I figured if I fell asleep at any time in the movie, when I woke up, I would still know what was going on, and what was going to happen. Boy, was I not disappointed.

There are so many clichés in the movie, I don’t even know where to begin. Well, the two protagonists are from two totally different worlds: The guy comes from the wrong side of the tracks (which, as we see in the movie, is the result of coming from a broken home with the standard alcoholic/negligent foster dad) who at first hates the rich girl. Little does he know how much they have in common.

Despite the rich girl seemingly having everything – she attends the prestigious arts school, has good ethnically-diverse friends, and also the prick of a boyfriend – her mother doesn’t believe in her dream of becoming a dancer, but we find out in the end that she does in fact, truly care, but is just being overprotective and only wants the best for her daughter.

A million clichés later, including the guy finding something he truly believes in, a comic-relief sidekick, tragedy, and everything going smoothly until exactly two-thirds of the way through the movie when it all appears to fall apart. What's going to happen in the end? Will she be offered her dream job of being in a theatre company? Will he, guy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, learn the error of his ways, and find the one way to escape his movie-rate thug life? Who knows? It's not like it's an overclichéd teen-dancing movie!


...Oh wait...

food!

I can't be bothered writing anything that blogworthy, yet I feel obliged to post a blog since it may be the last time for a while I'll be able to blog - I'm in the JFK airport in New York, waiting for our flight to at 7:30 to London. Fortunately, almost everywhere here has WiFi, (I think it's pronounced why-fy, not "whiffy") so I'm on my MacBook trying to use this unlimited internet before boarding and going to London, where I've heard I won't be able to access the internet as much. So anyway, I've just decided to post pictures and captions to one of my hobbies- food!


I found this everywhere in Tokyo - It's apparently beauty tea supposedly making you, well, um, more beautiful I guess...


Just goes to show that you can find almost anything in vending machines in Japan, no matter how questionable, tacky, and closetly-homosexual.


Yay Mos Burger! I don't know if it was the perfectly-stacked, round burgers, or the amount of effort to find one of these places, but it was pretty good...


The vending-type machine in the Ramen noodle place - In an effort to rid the restaurants of waitresses, you purchase tickets for your food through this machine... and then give the tickets to the waitress...


... and moments later, steaming hotRamen!


We went to this robatayaki place, which is pretty much just cooking things over hot rocks or embers or something. kinda like a Korean BBQ, only in this photo, less ribs and beef, and more tentacles.


A huge day for me - my goal was to eat as much stereotypically-American food - so ate this pretzel, which really did make me thirsty! Later that day I also had a hot dog and a chilli dog, and a huge-arse steak, though wasn't able to finish it as well as my brother...

I even ate at a diner, with booths! Though oddly, I felt the need to order cereal during the afternoon, talk about nothing, and ask what was the deal with a number of things while I was there.

Next goal on my list of stereotypically American food-related goals: become obese!

tv & celebrities in new york

Boy, it's only been a couple of days since my last blog, but boy, the stories I could tell...



...Well, I guess I should tell you what's happened then. We've been doing the standard sightseeing thing lately of popular attractions and all the like. Today we we walked down Fifth Avenue, which is pretty much the rich street here with all the fancy shops and stuff, and apparently costs a fortune to get a shop on the street - apparently, there are quite a few stores that lose a lot of money since they don't attract enough customers to the store, but keep their shop anyway for the prestige associated with being on Fifth Avenue. What's really weird is that there are a bunch of Target ads all in Times Square, and there isn't even a Target in Manhattan!

Anyway, the highlight of the day shopping-wise probably would have been the NBC store, since it had souvenir stuff from The Office, Scrubs & Friends. After wondering why I loved the store so much I came to the realisation that two major facets of my life are watching TV and shopping, and this just combined the two. I was a little sad, but consoled myself with buying some stuff in the store. I was so close to actually buying actual Scrubs-Scrubs, but decided against it, considering I probably wouldn't wear them and that I'm too lanky to wear them anyway. Plus, I'm going to the CBS store tomorrow, so hopefully I can pick up some Amazing Race stuff.

Also went to the NBA store as well - two levels of unbelievable basketball merchandise, with jerseys, bobbleheads, a lego Lebron James, action figures, clothing, and Basketball Baboushka dolls. It was every basketball-lover's dream... too bad it was wasted on me. So after perusing (which is another facet of my life, mainly because then I can say it more) for 20 minutes , I ended up just sitting in the store for another 40 minutes twiddling my thumbs and wishing I enjoyed organised-competitive-physical group-activities, or "sports", if you will.

I wonder if video games will ever be considered a sport? I watched this documentary on the plane to the US about a guy who was a professional video game player, and has a contract and is a millionaire already. Apparently in South Korea it's also pretty huge, with people going to stadiums to watch other people play. I remember seeing it being covered on TV in Korea. I can't wait till that trend hits Australia. I'd love it if I could be paid to play Guitar Hero - then I could be a professional rocker without even knowing how to play an instrument.

Probably the coolest & noteworthy thing in New York though is celebrity spotting that's happened so far. It's way cooler than Australia since you see people other than Toadie from Neighbours. But anywhoo, while we were eating a restaurant near the hotel, Sean Penn came in to the restaurant and sat a couple tables away from us. I tried to do the keep-cool-and-pretend-it's-nothing thing, which pretty much means I tried not to stare too blatantly, and glanced repeatedly instead. Was also too afraid to ask for an autograph or take a picture since he seems like a kinda edgy guy anyways.

Also, after while visiting Trump Tower to getApprentice-related photos, I got to see the biggest celebrity there - you guessed it, Trump's hair! And also the guy attached to it! The acting cool thing didn't work this time- mainly because everyone else was staring and taking photos, so me and my brother decided to join in on the fun:

live, from new york, it's saturday night!

Man, it's been a long couple of days. Actually, more like one really long day and one shorter one. We left Tokyo on Friday around 7:00, and arrived in New York at midnight on Friday. Doesn't sound like much of along day, but we went over the international time line, so in between those seemingly short 5 hours was 10 hours on a plane to Dallas, 2 hours in the airport, 2 hours to New York, a fat guy sitting next to me taking up all of my armrest and intermittently leaning on my light button on the plane, and a number of plane/landing delays in between. It does feel weird to not be in Japan anymore, so I'm trying to look on the bright side. Not so much the bright side, but focusing on the sucky things on Japan so I don't feel as bad...

1. Couldn't find a Nintendo DS anywhere in Japan! apparently they're sold out in the country! I doubt there are shortages overseas, in fact, in Australia, they seem to be everywhere! Why didn't they spend that manufacturing time making Nintendo DSes for Japan, in particular the light blue one that you can supposedly only find in Japan? Shame, Nintendo, shame.

2. For a place notorious for it's crazy TV, I didn't really find that much crazy TV. Well, there was that show that involved two people trying to set the record for eating as much sushi humanly possible, and eating around about 100 plates of sushi at a sushi train restaurant, but still, not that zany, and only shown during the afternoon/night!

3. Banana Fanta. Eeew...

Anyway, New York's been pretty cool so far. I did enjoy some New York pizza, so I just have to eat a pretzel, and a hot dog from a questionable street vendor, and I'll be able to check everything off my New York list. I think I should have put an extra check box for watching Saturday Night Live live from New York as well. It's not the best show, but I think it sounds cool to have done it anyway.

also, my phone's working now, so I should be able to get any messages, should anyone wish to tell me how they're going in Guitar Hero, Starcraft, or anything else noteworthy. I've heard that international roaming doesn't accept SMSPup messages, or anything involving Gilmore Girls, so if you do message me, you might have to just use your own phone and avoid any Lorelai references...

By the way if there's anything you might want from New York, let me know -I expect to be receiving requests anytime now...

towel origami

What does patience, persistance, and a chillaxing (I don't care, I'm going to keep using that word until it catches on) night in a Tokyo result in?



(by the way, it's supposed to be a chicken...)

why i won't be on australia's funniest home videos

Today we returned to Tokyo after spending a couple days in Kyoto - Kyoto was pretty cool, got to see the Gold Temple, which was surprisingly all covered in gold, and the deceptively-named Silver Temple, which isn't silver at all.. Unfortunately, we tried Geisha-hunting with little success, but on the plus side got to try some quality tempura and teppanyaki.

We got back to Tokyo at around 1:00, and tried to find Mos burger - think of a classier McDonalds, but with good burgers, and that's Mos Burger - they cook your burgers to order, and they are made so meticulously and everything! Anyway, for the second largest burger chain in Japan, it was surprisingly hard to find ,but we managed to come across a small one, which was cool but didn't have the full menu. I just wanted to see if they had their Takumi Burger, which is a 10-level burger with like imported Australian beef, avacado, and other stuff as well.

The rest of the day I spent having flashbacks of Big, and tried to remember all the notes to chopsticks, thanks to the funky stairs in the Sony building!

In the end, I decided against trying to play a song, out of fear that I'd trip and break my neck on the stairs. Then it'd be REALLY akward, since the stairs would make the beepy noises as I fell, kinda like the sound effects you hear when people get hit in the balls on Australia's Funniest Home videos. Awkward.

yay japanese tv!

i feel violated... and not in a good way...

I thought I'd be nice and share what I wrote this on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto...

I feel so violated. And not in a good way. i thought today was going to be just an ordinary day, holiday-wise. The plan was to check out of our hotel, catch the bullet train to Kyoto, and depending on what time we get there, some sightseeing. Seems like a typical holiday-day, right?

That is until we stop at the Shizuoka station, and the guy to my right hops off. Here I am, listening to my iPod, until someone says "excuse me" in Japanese and sits next to me. He takes his jacket partially off, and puts it on back to front, so his hands are going through the sleeves and so the back of the jacket is covering his lap. Sounds a little weird, right? But nothing too out of the ordinary. Until he pulls out his magazine to read... or ogle.

It's a porno - from the quick awkward glances I had (I felt uncomfortable just asking him if I could also have a proper look, or share the experience) It's nothing too hardcore - it had no bukkake or anything - but still... AWKWARD. Doesn't seem like appropriate bullet train reading material if you ask me.

His hands are now officially under his jacket, so I'm fully conscious of him trying to jack off when I'm right next to him... I'm too afraid of even looking in his direction, even to look through the window to look out for Mt. Fuji.

Well, in the end, I'd just like to say that I still haven't seen Mt. Fuji, but maybe on the way back by bullet train I'll keep an eye out...

posse-less & waiterless in tokyo

Finally in Tokyo, and man is it all neon and bright at night - pretty cool though! We ended up arriving in Japan an hour later because of the plane delay, and finally got to use my Japanese! Finally, 3 years of uni paying off! It's a little disheartening though, I knew my Japanese wasn't that good, but everytime I say something, everyone will try to respond immediately in English, which is good because I can understand them, but kinda sucky since I always end up going back to using English anyway...

Since we arrived later, we ended up getting to our hotel at around 10:30 at night, so most things were closed, and couldn't find any huge place to eat. So, ended up right in this great little fast food place right next to the hotel that was open 24 hours, and had neon signs... and golden arches. Yeah, I can't believe my first meal in Japan was McDonalds... I did have a Filet O'Prawn Burger (I'm guessing they don't know what the Filet O' part means) which isn't found in Australia so constitutes something uniquely Japanese, so I ended up doing better than my brother, who ended up with a Bacon burger. There's just something about salty, crispy strips of pork by-product my brother can't get enough of....

So other than that, ended up doing the touristy thing today - (I'll try to post some pictures soon)Went to a Japanese shrine, and and then spent over an hour hunting down some Harajuku girls in Harajuku - hey, it was harder than it sounds! It also means I'm still working on developing my Harajuku posse, so if you know anyone who's interested, let me know! Also went to Shibuya, and saw the huge pedestrian crossing. It's that one where you see like a wave of hundreds of people crossing the street, like in Lost in Translation - we even went up Starbucks to take photos of the crowd, just like what they did for the movie as well (Thanks IMDB!).



The other highlight of the day involved going to a Ramen noodle place, where instead of ordering from a waiter (well, waiters are so 2005 anyway!) you have to buy tickets for the food you want.... and then give it to the waiter, who will give the food to you... I guess they haven't really worked out the whole automated service thing yet. Guess they were afraid of robots taking over too...

yay holidays! well, almost.

it didn't really hit me that I was going overseas and on holiday til like this morning when our taxi came, but since I'm at the airport now, I'm kinda pumped. I always wondered why there are so many shops that sell luggage in the airport - don't you think you wouldn't be ready for a trip if you are just getting a suitcase to carry all your crap the day you leave?

Also, some people may be happy to hear that I beeped - I know it doesn't sound like much, but my last trip to Korea I was the entertainment at the airport since I continually beeped. Well, I didn't make beepy noises, it was the machine, and apparently my belt. I'm starting get the feeling it's me, not the belt since I even pre-emptively was beltless and still beeped... maybe I have too much iron in my diet... better lay off the bacon...

Anyway, my not-so-adventurous adventure is supposed to start in 10 minutes as I board the plane, but according to that big booming voice making announcements about plane times(God?)the airport's been closed due to weather conditions - just looking outside, all you can see is smoke, and even inside the airport it's getting pretty smoky and stuff. Being stuck in the airport for a day just sounds like the plot of a crappy Disney movie - You know, our plans are ruined, but a bunch of people from different backgrounds and stuff come together for the ultimate adventure, one they couldn't possibly expect to have if they did go overseas! And inevitably, hijinx and hilarity ensues.

I hope there's hilarity and hijinx on this holiday...