カラオケ or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the song!

It took me a while, but I finally got my photos from my trip to the Kansai region of Japan over the New Year break up onto Flickr. Have a look and leave a comment if you'd like. For the first time ever I'm actually pretty proud of a few of my photos. If anyone wanted to see the most impressive parts of Japan in less than a week I would definitely recommend the Kansai region (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, etc...). I know I haven't exactly seen the entire country but of the places I have been Kansai really blew me away.

Now onto the main topic for tonight's little update. In case you were wondering, those four characters up there say "KA-RA-O-KE" and yes, oh how the mighty have fallen. Don't worry too much, I haven't started buying SMAP albums (don't google that if you don't know them, just be glad of that fact) or enjoying J-pop or anything crazy like that. However, I have finally learnt just how a mainstream-pop-hater such as myself can enjoy karaoke.

Karaoke is everywhere in Japan (or at least everywhere I've been). There are massive multi-level buildings with many booths decked out with big flat televisions, stereos, microphones and seedy couches. They're almost always busy, whether its school children, young professionals or older people wanting to impress each other away with some slow Japanese ballads. One of the most insane things about karaoke is definitely the cost. From what I've seen the going rate seems to be about 8AUD per person per hour. Lots of the huge commercial places have insane amounts of rules too, such as no drinking (BYE!) and no huffing drugs out of paper bags (yes, they even have hilarious cartoon images to accompany that one, sorry but I couldn't get a photo).

It wasn't until a friend of mine managed to direct a big drunk group of us into a little bar he knew of with a great bar and an even greater karaoke setup that I was finally able to understand what all the fuss was about. Unlike the usual setup which involves private rooms of about 4-6 people singing to each other, this bar had the karaoke setup out in front of everyone. The size of our group and the lack of other customers on that particular night meant that we were able to dominate the machine for a good many hours. At this point I was still highly skeptical and was much more interested in getting a few good glasses of beer in front of me. It wasn't until I realised that this karaoke machine possessed a much much much more impressive collection of English language songs than the usual Japanese karaoke machine.

Quick side note, if you ever wondered where the copyright holders of the music of Billy Joel, BoyzIImen, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams (that's enough and we're still in the B's) were getting all their fat sacks of royalty money from, wonder no more. It is the karaoke bars of Japan! (and probably many other parts of Asia too). The average karaoke joint's collection of English songs really is the worst of the worst of the worst of pop music of the past 30 years with a heavy bias for the late 80s and early 90s.

Anyway, back to "G's Bar" where we were before. I was getting all prepared to down as much beer as quickly as I could until I could safely sit through a Bon Jovi track without wanting to rip my own head off when I heard the beginning thumps and bumping baseline of Another One Bites the Dust. (This song holds a special place in my memory due to its prevalence at baseball games that my old man used to take me to in my much younger days)

There it was, my karaoke yellow-brick road stretching out before me and Freddie was right there ready to take me by the hand. Queen. That's all I need now for any karaoke excursion to put me on a fantastic high (accompanied on "the rocks" by Mr.Osake). Seriously, all the shit, horrible, tragic music that makes it onto the pages of karaoke books only to be discovered by delirious morons who will happily tell you that Bon Jovi really was the world's greatest song writer can just fuck off and keep doing their thing far far away from me. Over here in this corner, we have Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust and Bicycle Race and I defy any person with a musical bone in their body to resist their allure!

For even better karaoke adventures all you need to do is invite your Japanese friends along. I still think Japanese sounds worse than English when sung but when you walk in a karaoke joint you've already thrown the rule book out the window and pissed on it. My Japanese sucks (still... maybe forever) and I can't read enough kanji when I'm drunk to really sing along properly but I never stop enjoying watching my Japanese friends belt out some oldschool Japanese songs. I've got one verse of one Japanese song down pat now so I'm able to join in albeit a fleeting cameo, it's just a pity that it's a power-pop song for a female voice. No worries mate, the falsetto loves the workout.

I would still much rather have the access to fantastic live music that a city like Melbourne affords but there is no way I'm leaving Japan any time soon so while I'm here I'm going to learn to make the best of the poor music situation. So, grab a nice big fat stack of 1000 yen notes and join me in the sake-soaked seedy leather couch and belt out a good hard verse of Bicycle...

you say black

I say white!

Quick apologies... if anyone cares

Judging from the number of responses I received (less than 10) there aren't many of you out there who care much about being able to view my private photos. But in case you are wondering, no I haven't uploaded any photos at all since November. Sorry, but I made the switch from iPhoto to Aperture recently. While Aperture is an amazing program, it has a relatively steep learning curve so I am still unable to export my photos to Flickr. I'll rectify this as soon as possible.

Some people have told me they are unable to see the link to Flickr on the right hand side. I have no idea why this is happening but I care so very little about programming and code in general that I'm not going to try to fix the problem. Suffice to say you can use this link here and then bookmark it.

Again, if you want to see my private photos now you will have to sign up for a Flickr account and then message me with your Flickr account so I can give you permission. I know making yet another account on the internet just to view some idiot's photos is a pain, but I personally reckon Flickr (not to mention people's privacy) is worth the hassle.

When I do get around to uploading some photos I will let you know here.

LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Things have settled down now post-New Year holiday and all that. I've finally returned to soccer after 4 months or so sidelined with my stupid ankle injury. I played a great return match scoring two goals but perhaps more enjoyable was the fact that my Japanese skills have improved so noticeably that my team mates commented. I still feel like I would put myself in the "cannot speak Japanese" basket largely because my ability to construct sentences is still hopeless. However my listening and reading and writing skills have improved drastically so while I might not be able to answer many questions correctly, I can follow a conversation so long as the topic stays away from existentialism or economic theory.

I want to return to my previous style of relatively short entries on interesting topics, so in that vain here comes a piece on Christmas, Japanese style. I know it's late and it would have been much more interesting and relevant pre-December 25th but oh well.

I'm sure 99% of you are aware that Japan is not a Christian nation. Hence Christmas is wonderfully free from any Christian ties (if they even exist in Australia anymore). It is a perfectly capitalist event now with the almighty dollar (or yen) the only god. Japanese Christmas in a nutshell is more like Valentine's Day with a splash of a strange Santa/reindeer motif. Here are a few pictures I found on Google that might explain it better than my words can.


That there is a bentou (lunchbox) in Christmas style.

Christmas is so unimportant here that it isn't even a public holiday. The most important part of the entire affair is Christmas Eve when couples get together for romantic dinners and walks around town admiring the insanely tasteless Christmas light displays. If you've ever wondered what cherubs, love hearts, mermaids, dolphins, and trains have to do with Christmas, come to Hiroshima next Christmas and take a walk down Peace Boulevard where you will be able to see all the aforementioned and much more in twinkling light displays up to 30m tall.

Another crucial part of Japanese Christmas is the Christmas cake. Ahh, something in common with our own you're thinking. No such luck I'm afraid. This is Japanese Christmas cake.


I'm not sure if you can read the price tags there but they seem to start at around 2,500 yen (-AUD27) for the tiny ones. I got to sample a few and I must say they are entirely unimpressive and bland. Plain sponge cake with generic icing, whipped cream and strawberries on top. There are fantastic cakes available in Japan (especially in Kobe) but the Christmas cake ain't a great example.

Quite a number of my students were generally surprised to learn of the difference between an Australian Christmas and their own. They were particularly shocked to learn that we don't eat Christmas cake anything like the monsters pictured above. The fact that in Australia, one of the only times of the year I eat oysters (at least regularly) is on Christmas day seemed to amuse them.

Being away from Australia and all my family and friends at Christmas made me realise a few things (close window now if you want to avoid personal waffle now). Being an atheist, Christmas has nill religious significance for me but that doesn't mean that I can't or don't enjoy some of the religious music of the season. Furthermore I do think Christmas in Australia is a really nice vehicle for family and friends to get together and have a jolly good time. Christmas changed a lot for me when I moved out of home and being absent from my family Christmas(es - one perk of separated parents is the dual Christmas) definitely made me long for the sight of a table covered in delicious treats and the satisfied post-meal relaxation on the couch. The holiday has clearly been savagely beaten by capitalism and if people want to agree to shift the date for their own family get-together to another time that doesn't coincide with inflated prices and massive crowds then go for it. In one regard this is why I envy the Canadians with their Thanksgiving. From what my new Canadian friends tell me, it seems to be the same family-oriented festival of food but without the tacky trappings of Christmas.

Oh, the title of this post "LOVE CHRISTMAS" comes courtesy of the enormous light display on the biggest department store in Hiroshima. I don't think they mean it so sound like an imperative but that's how it sounded to me since it was positioned above the masses of cashed-up shoppers flowing in and out of the department store.

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu (Happy New Year)

Yes, a happy new year to all reading this. It is the year of the wild boar now (いのしし inoshishi in Japanese, a word I heartily enjoy) and it is freeeeezing in Hiroshima right now. I went for a walk this morning at 8:30 and it was so cold that my ipod screen stopped working and my fingers went numb. Good times.

Sorry for the prolonged break over the festive season but judging from my web traffic over that time very few of you were checking in so no biggie.

My manager asked me to do a heap of overtime during December so I got an extra five days off making a nice two week period of no work over the New Year period. I spent a hell of a lot of that time reading a heap of books, drinking coffee, studying Japanese and just generally hanging out with Yuki. I visited Mitaki-dera (dera=temple) on New Year's Day which was crazy busy as to be expected. It's an amazing temple, built high up into the side of a mountain with a waterfall running behind/beneath and then out the front of it. It was a beautifully tranquil way to reflect on 2006 and welcome 2007, listening to monks' low, hypnotic chanting over the sound of massive bells being chimed and the gushing of the waterfall. There is a path winding up the mountain that supposedly passes through a bamboo forest filled with Buddhist statues. According to a friend it is particularly quiet and eerie around dusk so I'm going to head up there soon and investigate.

I have a whole heap of topics I need to type up here soon including Christmas (which is particularly crazy in this country) and teaching Japanese kids (who have taught me such awesome phrases as "I peed myself" and "you're ugly" and "you stink", hooray for kids).

I'm uploading a bunch of photos from Mitaki-dera and other recent adventures around the place so check the flickr account for the goods. I have decided to mark most photos with people's faces visible as private so you will have to make a Flickr account and contact me before you will be able to see them. Sorry, but I want to respect other people's desire for privacy.

Normal programming shall resume shortly, stay tuned...