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Last night I watched Super Chample again, and the dance off between the E. X. Men and Spin Crew was one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. It was a battle in the loosest sense of the word, because the E. X. Men just schooled the other crew mercilessly. I can't find any torrents of the show, but I'm looking because my jaw was hanging open by the time it had finished. They were so good they were working in jokes into the music flawlessly, and their... what can I say... athleticism was just crazy. My favourite moment was when the guy ended his crazy spinning leg frenzy flat on his back and one of the other members appeared next to him in a white coat and put a stethoscope to his chest to check if his heart was still beating. All while they were just switching dancers. Incredible.
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Since snowboarding on Monday I've been aching pretty ferociously. It was fantastic, but I'll have to keep going to work up these muscles so I don't feel like this every time. Again it's my arms that hurt the most, whether it's from pushing myself up or from breaking my falls I'm not sure, but at least this year I can raise them above my head. Last year after snowboarding I couldn't even do that.
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The SMAPs are in Sapporo tonight and last night, playing the Sapporo Dome. I just mention it because I have a soft spot for the SMAPs, and I know a few people who are going, so I can't wait to hear how it was.
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For one reason or another I'm getting back into the Gilmore Girls. Actually, it's probably because it's winter and I'm pulling out the Gilmore Girls DVD in the same way I'm pulling out the blankets and with more or less the same effect. I'm pretty sure there's a drinking game to be found in having a shot of alcohol every time someone's drinking coffee in the Gilmore Girls. I love that show, and I love it's really unhealthy attitude to coffee. In fact the drinking game should be you have a shot of espresso every time someone is drinking coffee in the Gilmore Girls - first one to have a heart attack loses.
This Saturday post comes beamed back through time on laser-beams of love because on Saturday night I went to watch Katsuhiko play live, then hit a karaoke box until 6am and came home in this sort of weather:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, staying out all night is infinitely cooler if you can walk out into a blizzard at the end of it. Earlier between the club and the karaoke I also received proof that Ben Cheng is a bad-ass:
In a sub-zero blizzard most people will opt for the hot rice-balls to warm them up, Ben picked the ice lolly. Man's man.
On Saturday I didn't post because I went to two parties and then continued drinking after those until about 5am. This is the Halloween wig my sister sent me, as proof of this:
Sorry about that.
Hey everyone!
I've been posting on the despised "facebook" since I've been in Japan, but probably most of my family and friends still aren't on that particular social networking thing so I thought I'd be good and friendly and start a regular blog too.
I'll probably just be posting the same things in both places, but now my folks (Hi Mum! Hi Dad!) can read too.
Kumaboshi seemed a little too clever at first, then I decided it was too good a play on words not to use. Kumaboshi!
Kuma means bear, boshi means star (in Japanese, dingus), it sounds like umeboshi (a japanese pickled plum, a sort of taste bomb that can reduce grown men to tears), and the North Star is sometimes called Kumaoe Boshi which may or may not mean "The Star Carried By A Bear". My research skills are not what they were. Anyway the North Star and bears are both big things up here, both being symbols both of Sapporo, and Hokkaido. There are stars everywhere, on the logos of the big companies, the flag, buildings. Mostly five pointed, but sometimes eight pointed, or six pointed and made to look like snow-flakes. Bears too, there's a type of brown bear that still roam wild in the national parks to the north of the island, and yesterday I saw some really tacky, cheesy Hokkaido Bear merchandise that I nevertheless thought was thoroughly awesome. I will get a crappy bear t-shirt soon, mark my words.
One last paragraph of explanation before I repost all my facebook crap here. In case you don't know, I'm living in Sapporo, which is the capital and the biggest city of Hokkaido, the most northern island of Japan. Hokkaido is mostly rural with only a few cities dotted around. There are lots of mountains (some small but impressive ones I can see from the city), lots of fishing and agriculture (Hokkaido is meant to have the best food in all Japan because everything's so fresh) and in winter lots and lots of snow.
