Happy Black Friday Eve!

Since I'm not American, Thanksgiving in November means nothing to me (except for Labour-Thanksgiving Day which was a holiday in Japan yesterday). Regardless, here are a few items that I'm thankful for.

While everyone else is chowing down on their turkey, I chose some Godzilla Curry for my meal. Unlike most curry in Japan, it has a bit of a kick to it.

A while back, I discovered this rubber strap and though it was 650 yen, I had to at least get one. Not too shabby.

Here are the rest of the collection. I think I'll wait and see if I can find them used.

Speaking of used goods, I was playing host to a quartet of Canucks and showed them around all the nerdy sites of Sendai. Our final destination was the Book-off and they had an hour to kill before their Shinkansen, so I killed it with them. That gave me time to sift through all their goodies on the racks and I discovered something I'd never seen before. I don't know anything about them but these four Sporting Godzillas must have come out during Millennium and somehow flew in under my radar.

Soccer playing Gojira!

Baseball playing Godzilla!

Hipster Godzilla flashing a gang sign.

I am not certain what this pose is supposed to be. Perhaps Rodin's Thinker?

Speaking of Rodin, here is Rodan in flight with his eager passenger.

I also landed this little stuffed Shin-Godzilla. It wasn't cheap but I'd never seen it before and therefore it had to be mine.

As most of you have heard, we had a little quake on Tuesday with a tsunami warning in effect. Normally these get shrugged off yet ,this time, my schools kept the kids home and cancelled classes. There was no damage to my place apart from this pair of books that fell next to my head while I slept. An omen?

One last thing that I am most thankful for is my apartments ability to stay sturdy during these shakeups. I usually measure a quake by the amount of toys that topple yet this one corner has remained unaffected no matter how severe the earth rumbles.
(Although the James Kirk over to the left is a recent addition. He has taken a dive a few times, he's such a drama queen.)

The Torch Be Yours To Hold It High.

In the past on 11/11, I usually post something about Pocky Day (the long chocolate covered pretzel sticks look like the number one), but this year I haven't made any Pocky purchases lately. (Click the Pocky label and go to 11/11 to see previous posts over the years.)

Instead because today is also Remembrance Day, I'll go that route instead. One person that I'll never forget is Leonard Cohen who passed away today. Here he is reading "In Flanders Field":



"Hallelujah" is an amazing tune that has been covered by almost everyone and my friend Yvonne does a kick ass version of it at karaoke.



We really need some actual "Democracy coming to the USA" these days.



Speaking of the USA, I've had my Grade 6 students prepare little presentations about different countries using the phrases, "I want to see...I want to eat...,etc." Most of them look something like this.

Yet wait a sec, when I looked at this poster last week, these characters in the lower left corner weren't there.

One of the lads drew in portraits of Obama, Hillary and Trump. The message in the word balloon from Trump is 暴言です (Bougen desu) which means "Reckless or Rash Words". Rather fitting, I must say.

On a more pleasant note, another group spoke of Canada including a famous Canadian landmark.

The house of Mister Michael. Not a bad likeness, I must say.

RIP Mr. Cohen and Happy Pocky or Poppy Day to everyone.

Believe in Godzilla.

This is not exactly the happiest day of the year, so at times like this, it's best to believe in something. I choose to believe in Godzilla. For those who need a bit of cheering up, here are some nifty-looking Kaiju from past Gojira movies to aid in your recovery.

Starting with the original from '54, it's Gojira himself.

   

Next his latest incarnation, Shin-Gojira.

   

His greatest nemesis, King Ghiddorah.

Our next guest is Mothra, a frenemey of the Big G.

One of the wackiest names for a giant robot has to be Jet Jaguar. He helped Godzilla battle the tag-team of Megalon and Gigan.

This psychedelic swarming swamp of sewage is Hedorah. I have a great fondness for it and this mini-keychain captures his essence well.

Here is Hedorah's butt.

Biollante was the first movie of the Heisei era that I was able to see and I instantly fell in love with this flowery clone.

This dancing pair of titans are the stars of War of the Gargantuas, Sanda and his more violent "brother", Gaira.

and here are their butts.

I was lucky enough to catch Atragon the other day on the tube. Here we have the serpentine dragon known as Manda embracing the vessel, Gotengo (轟天号 or Roaring Heaven). This is my favourite of this set of characters.

Sadly, I drained this particular Gatcha-Capsule machine of all its contents and was unable to acquire Mecha-Godzilla. If anyone ever sees one out there, please grab me one!

As you can see, the above are not your normal looking figures. That's because they were carved in the style of 墨絵 (sumie or ink paintings). I scammed a couple off the internet to show you the style in question.

Another Godzilla item that I picked up recently is this Face Mask. I didn't open it and apply it because I want to save it for a rainy day. (Also my beard gets in the way.) Once I do use it, you'll be the first to see it!

Cheer up everyone, put your faith in Godzilla!

A Post-Countdown to Halloween Post.

I have several odds and ends that I never had a chance to write about during the Countdown to Halloween, so I'll try and wrap them up over the next few days, that is if my monitor doesn't cease to function again...

Here are some more depictions of Halloween by my 5th and 6th graders. I'm going to start with the sh*ttiest one.

While playing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes with the younger grades, I feign tiredness (Ha! feign!) after the second time and let my friend take over. Hilarity ensues.

Speaking of the younger grades, I attended a workshop presented by the Grade 2 kids who spoke of Dental Hygiene. I was SO impressed that these wee waifs were able to remember their script and all in all I probably would have learned something if I understood more of the lingo. Below you will see a couple of mushi-ba or cavity-makers.

More artwork from the kiddies as the week progresses.