Long Live the King!

I'd been waiting for my car to return from its inspection and it is now fit to drive. Soooo...I drove out to the Sendai City Agriculture & Horticulture Center so I could see the newest hay-sculpture. It's King Kong!

I approached him to take a close up...

And was grabbed!

I managed to escape and checked out the Godzilla shrine. The volunteers remembered me from last Halloween and this time suggested I drop some coins in tribute.

There were a couple of sculptures from before. Such as a T-rex and Raptor.

This bull may be new.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this boar before. This time he has a target on him.

I scored three times in a row and won a handful of crisps. (I gave most of them away to the aforementioned volunteers.)

Upon entry, one can see a new tiger. Rather daunting.

There were several booths set up selling arts & crafts and I picked up some pumpkin seeds and spinach. I heard a guitar off in the distance and much to my surprise, it was my old pal Yukie! (Click the label Pony Tails for more history.)

I recorded them performing "Neverending Story", I wish I'd been ready for Lupin.

Afterwards, I wandered over to the (possibly manmade) lake and then grabbed some yakiniku.

Since I was a stones throw away, I skipped over to a nearby ocean. 

I still haven't figured out how to embed a "short" so here is a YouTube link to the sea. See!

Since it's Superhero Day, I broke out my new Batsuit.

Finally, after storing my winter tires behind my tv, I placed some of my stuffed stuff atop them.

Not a bad start to Golden Week!

Rocky!

Since it's Earth Day, I thought I'd dig back into the archives and present some of Mother Earth in all her glory. I'm digging hard for this is almost a year ago!
A friend and I went to Nasu, specifically, 殺生石（せっしょうせき or Sesshouseki)  last Golden Week and checked out a bunch of rocks!

This is my personal mound of stones. I doubt whether it's still standing.

The main reason was to see the Blind Snake Head Rock, see the following for info (cuz I forget.)

My friend has a fox fixation, so we checked out the tail tale of  the Fox with 9 tales tails.

Here are some foxy photos of the Shrine.

And a few other animals etched in stone.

Later that day, we saw some banners and even later went to a zoo. (Click that link for pics of the Children's Day Flying Carp Banners). 

That's about it for Earth Day. I spent today huddled at home except for a trip to the Laundromat.
Yay! Go Earth!

GoGatsu Byou.

The above refers to a common malaise that afflicts people after Golden Week. 五月秒, literally 5th month sickness, is a depression one feels after a long holiday realizing that you're back to the same old drudgery.

It's been 2 months since my world was turned upside-down and though I don't actually feel all that melancholy (baby), I just haven't felt like writing about the quirky parts of Japan and showcasing my vast collection of Otaku-Nerdity. During GW, I started packing away some of my toys, some for the purpose of donating to shelters, others to be junked (though I still haven't thrown any away yet) and others to be boxed up until moving day, whenever and wherever that might be.

I didn't get a certain job I was hoping for because the Board of Education of the new place checked with the BoE of the old place and they claim that the old place plans to hire me back and thus the new place doesn't want to hire me. I certainly do wish that the old place would inform me of this plan and maybe pick up a phone! Perhaps they have other things on their minds like cleaning the sludge out of one of the devastated schools while tripling up the students in its neighbouring schools.

I saw some herons poking around in the rice fields for frogs & bugs and that cheered me up until I looked out the other window of the train and saw huge mountains of garbage. On the other hand, Sendai Station seems as though it's back to business as usual with the second floor now completely refurbished yet the exterior is still covered with an ugly canvas.

All in all, the last two months have been interesting to say the least and I sure hope things pick up for me personally so I can get back to yattering on about the goofy quirky crap I've acquired over the years! (It doesn't help that my camera seems to have permanently conked so I can't even photograph all my junk!)

What's Blogworthy These Days?

I apologize if I haven't been spouting off my words and wisdom and blurry photos of late, but I just haven't been in the mood. It's the middle of Golden Week (a stretch of holidays) and I'm just sitting at home fiddling on my computer and occasionally tidying up but I'm just not in feeling peppy enough to blurb.
Let me show you a little tweet from one of my Facebook pals and that pretty much sums up my feelings...
"Royal weddings, dead terrorist and majority elections? Today we went by the airport; An overturned semi and hills of mud-caked wreckage where a park used to be, house after house, sub-division after sub-division torn apart and scattered by the sea, burnt out industrial complexes and rice fields strewn with pulverized cars and a bowling alley used to store the dead. Sorry to rain on the parades."
Not cheery stuff to say the least.
But I gotta get out of this funk somehow (a guaranteed job next week would be a good start.)
Sooo, here are some of the good times I've had of late interspersed with Wave One of a bunch of toys that I'm gathering up to donate to a worthy orphanage or shelter.

Once I get rid of some of these toys, I'm sure I'll get out of my funk and start getting funky!