Sucking Face.

Happy Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday/Carnivale/Mardi Gras! I have no idea how to make pancakes (sorry I never learned) so I picked up a few at the combini on my way to work this morning. Once a coworker explained to me that though it looks like a pancake, it's actually stuffed with Unko -oops- Anko. (Sorry: Unko is poop; Anko is a bean paste. I can't really discern the difference.) I popped into see my doctor after work and gave the Pancakes to he and his nurses as a gift.

Today also began a week's worth of Valentine lessons. As my Japanese Teaching Partner was absent today with a fever, I had to run the show solo. I don't know how much English the kids learned today, but they (and their teachers) did have a ton of fun.
First game: Love is blind: Put the kids in teams, blindfold them and then ask the first kids to draw a shape on the board. So I'd yell out, "Draw a circle please." and they'd oblige with a close approximation. The second round, they'd draw a square then a rectangle, star, diamond etc. and the last round they'd draw a Heart. Grades 1, 3 & 4 were too giggly to take the lesson seriously but the Grade Sixers managed to draw a Cupid's arrow through their hearts.

Second game: Matching Hearts: Give each kid one half of a severed heart and have them strike up a conversation, stating, "Show me your heart!" with other kids until they find their match. Yet again, a ton of fun and lots of giggling. (Dumb pun alert: I would demonstrate with the teacher in a successful match and proclaim, "Match!" I'd do the same with erroneous halves and proclaim, "Matchigatta" which means, "I made a mistake." More giggling ensued, mostly from the teachers.

In the final minutes, I played the third game which admittedly had little to do with English communication but rather cooperation. Breathless: Put them back into teams and begin a relay race using straws and a Paper Towel-Heart. I demonstrated with the teacher (females, natch) and sucking in on the straw causing suction on the heart, I'd pass it to her as she sucked in as well. The Grade Ones loved it and the Grade Fours squealed with embarrassment until we decided to make same-sexed teams rather than co-ed ones. The Sixers did a great job and finally the Grade Threes were a bit too giggly to perform well. To my credit, only one wimpy kid cried mainly because of the hyperactive screamer on his team.

I shall do the same or similar tomorrow with another school and on Valentine's Day proper, I'll be doing the same games with the entire gamut of Elementary kids at a small school. All ages will participate on the same team, I'll let you know how it goes!

My Bride To Be.

When you think of all the Disneyfied Fairy Tales, Cinderella, Snow White and their ilk, you have these relatively normal young lasses (albeit with a shoe or dwarf fetish). Japanese tales often take a different spin.

Case in point this story of a new bride. I won't bother translating it for you (mainly because I can't do it justice) but I suspect that you'll catch on to the story. The title says it all,  へっこきよめさ or "The Farting Young Wife".

 As you can see, it's a really tiny book!

Pretty cute, eh? You can find several other pictures of our flatulent fiancee here.

This cute animation tells a different version of the above (or skip to the 3:24 mark for the toot.)



This is a brief snippet of the story...



This has been a Chinese New Year's present for you all.

Mickey Teas.

Asahi Tea has come out with another gimmick to get me to purchase their brew. In time for Valentine's Day, there are several different Mickey/Donald goodies to collect. I got the last of them yesterday and here we go!
There are four different figures, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy for you to attach to your key chain. Donald is, of course, my favourite.

Next up is a quartet of Pill boxes (not the type that hide machine guns, rather containers for pills.) I like the silver Mickey best.

Finally there are four different memo pads. The covers of these look great but the interior is not up to snuff.

These two are much better but not as easy to scribe your message upon.

Hey, how did those get flipped around? If you'd like to see these in their pristine state and not my poorly photographed version, check out the Asahi Homepage.

More Valentine's goodies to come...

Juicy Fruits!

Last week at the Supermarket in the drinks section, I discovered that the Fruit/Veggie juices were on sale. Not only that but each one came with a different AKBish gal dressed in a different veggie! I got six out of the 10, missing Nasu (Eggplant Empress), Asuparagusu Gal (Asparagus-duh), Horenso Hussy (Spinach) and Miss Mugwort (Artemisia princeps or ヨモギ=Yomogi).

Who did I get? Tomato Temptress brandishing a chicken leg.

Tamanegi Tart (Onion) with one of those breaded wiener things.

Carrot Queen (Ninjin) with an ice cream cone.

赤ピーマン Aka-Piman Princess (Red Pepper) holding what appears to be a cup of takoyaki (octopus balls.)

Kabocha Kid (Pumpkin) wielding a submarine roll.

The last gal of my Legion of Super-Produce is my favourite, Carifurawa Queen (Cauliflower) holding a beer!

In addition to my heroines, if you buy two, you procure a clear file featuring Karaage Chicken, Shrimp Stir-fry or a Double Bacon Cheeseburger. My guess is that カゴメ株式会社 (Kagome Kabushiki Gaisha) Kagome's advertising campaign is something like: You can eat whatever you like and provided you drink our Veggie Juice, you'll never gain weight!

I'm not far off the mark by calling these gals Super-Heroes. The obverse of the clear file features them in full-on battlegear!

Check this out to see them in action!

Now that was pretty cool! This is just a little creepy...

But they do look delicious!

I've Been Punk'd!

Most of the time, I do my movie viewing at Movix but, for a change, I watched Ted and Pi at the Warners Mycal in Natori. I am a little disappointed in the lack of Warners characters for sale but some of the characters are strewn about. Not surprisingly, Taz adorns the popcorn boxes.

What does impress me though is the entrance to the Little Rabbit's Room. On the Mens Room door is Bugs and the Ladies Room is Babs. I didn't want to venture into the Ladies to snap a pic though I did take Bugs's.

Because I saw two movies, I left after the mall had closed. It took me 20 minutes of searching for my car before I asked for assistance and little did I know that I was on the opposite side of the mall and it took ages to get warm again. That wasn't the only vehicular mishap that day, just before I left work last Friday, I discovered that I had been punk'd. (A flat tire in Japan is known as a パンク = panku or puncture.) This huge hunk of metal was yanked out of my tire!

While otaku shopping, I came across this odd pairing but at 400 yen each, I didn't bother grabbing them. Apparently Hello Kitty and Tweety bonded at some point and this was the result.

  

More oddities later...

We Don't Need No Stinking Badgers.

Every year (except the last few), I've written a little rodential tongue twister similar to "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" or "If a woodchuck could chuck all the wood he could chuck, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?"

For those too lazy to click the above, here's a reproduction of them.

"How much ground could a groundhog grind if a groundhog could grind ground?"

"How Much Mud Must a Marmot Muck if a Marmot Must Muck Mud?"

These two are personal favourites:

"How many meerkats can a mere cat mate if a mere cat could mate meerkats?"

"How many capes could a capybara bear, if a capybara could bear capes?"

I thought these up at work the other day and it looks like I'm running out of rodents so I'll have to switch to weasels and insectivores.

How many tins could a tanuki tend if a tanuki could tend tins?

How many malls could a moled mole maul if a moled mole could maul malls.

How many badges could a badger badger if a badger could badger badges?

So what's the prognosis? Early winter or no? Well, Wiarton Willie didn't see his shadow so it means Ontario should get an earlier Spring. Read that article and you can find out how others fared.

Check out the best groundhog cartoon ever. And if you want to see what the groundhog has been up to for the 24 hours prior to his prediction, check here.

As for Setsubun and tossing beans at Oni, I didn't wake up until One am., so I missed the apartment exorcism exercise this year. So alas, I'll be infected with demons for another year. Oh  well.

Chilling With Ted.

Last weekend, I hung out with some of my old drinking buddies, including Ted. We got into a minor altercation (he hates it when I grab his nonexistent balls) but all was forgiven when I hooked him up with a Hooters gal.

We had a few more brews and checked out the merchandise at Hooters, Tokyo.

Since he's become a big movie star, I don't get to see him much though I did get to see his feature last night.

Before and after the Holly Cole concert, I did meet up with a few other drinking buddies, such as Dion whom I haven't seen in over a decade. We immediately conversed as though we'd met only the day before. Nice bar too.

Of course, I'd be remiss in a trip to Tokyo if I didn't have a few with DJ Mixture who's still mixing drinks, mixing tunes and mixed up!
 

The following day, I had lunch with Mark, his charming wife and adorable new daughter. I'll let you figure out which is which.

It was fun to see everyone again and if you get a chance, go see my buddy TED. He's very rude, crude with an attitude but that's part of his appeal.