Here are some pictures of my weekend so far, if you're curious.
I thought I'd drive up to our place in Karuizawa, to get away from work a little. Unfortunately it wasn't exactly put-the-Miata-top-down weather, and was very dreary going up and coming back down.
I felt more sorry for the poor people trying to enjoy a fireworks festival in the rain. Bleah...
Useful iPhone trick #1713: bookmark webcams of the roads you need to use to check the weather or traffic situation there. This is the intersection nearest where I turn to get to our place. Actually, the car in the intersection is mine ^_^ Incidentally, the iPhone does things like automatically sync your bookmarks with Safari, so you have everything in the same place on both browsers.
Through the drizzle there's Mt. Asama, the biggest and most active volcano in the area. Some gaijin went urban exploring in a building I've wanted to visit myself, an old observatory for the volcano that's been abandoned for 20 years or so.
More rain. I didn't mind so much once I got th our place since all I do is sit in the onsen for as long as I can and then read and laze around the place. I like this effect.
Fairly cool Kirin beer ad using an image from the 1920s.
My cats. Su-chan is the one with read collar, and Komin is the young cat on right. Su-chan just had three more babies but every time I come near she hisses at me and then hides the babies. She hates me.
11 comments:
Too bad you didn't get a change to check out the volcano museum. It's best to go when there's the chance to enjoy the view though.
thanks for sharing the photos! Japan seems more real to me, seeing those. Looks like vans are popular over there. what do nihonjin call "vans"?
the cat hates you? do her primal/neko instincts sense you are not native? heh
wish we had a little of that rain here in North Carolina. extreme drought going on here.
Sorry to hijack, but I found a use for those pesky いただく kanji!
Here it is: 頂戴
Also, cool pics, too bad about the rain.
If I ever visit Japan it'll have to be in august for the rain season, but I love storms. As for the cat, I would guess that it's because you're male, and male cats have a bad habit of hurting kittens. I've heard if them stomping on pregnant bellies to cause aborts as well as smothering newborns who can't fend them off, so I doubt it's personal.
Jason, yes, I've not been to the museum yet. Got to go... There's a village partway down the mountain that got destroyed by Mt. Asama back in the 18th century, and being Japanese they call themselves the Pompeii of Japan.
Vans are, hmm, I guess they use the word minivan (ミニバン). The car in the pic is an El Grande from Nissan, the #1 selling van, and they're nice. I went to buy one once but got miffed that they wanted to sell me an engine that required high octane gas if I wanted such-and-such style of seats, which seemed patently stupid to me. (Even more, with gas so expensive.) So I walked out and have been a Mazda customer ever since.
Redbeard, thanks for the kanji, I'd never known how to write choudai. (Which means "please" and is a slightly more polite word than kudasai, for anyone who's curious.)
Jason, it's not supposed to be rainy season this month, that's mid June to mid July, but it seems that typhoon season (which is usually in September) is coming early.
I'm not Jason, but I'll plan accordingly if it ever comes to pass, thanks for the clarification :)
Thanks for sharing the pictures!
This might sound weird, but I was reminded by seeing the pictures of your (adorable) cats.
How would one conjugate verbs to command a dog to "sit" or "don't eat that?" Would it just be like 座りなさい？ I've always been confused after watching Inuyashi and hearing お座り. xD
Inuyasha* And do ignore the name. I need to change that.
Marshall, sorry about that ^_^
DVKC, the formal imperative for "sit!" would be 座りなさい、 nice and easy since there are no exceptions to that grammar. Informal imperative (e.g. angry) would be 座れ！ (not used that much). For a dog, the "sit!" command is お座り, kind of a special form. Shake is お手, for example, but you'd never say that to anyone else. (It'd be quite amusing to get this wrong, and try to shake someone's hand while saying Ote! ^_^).
I love it when you post photos; it's so fun to see your perspective in Japan.
That Kirin ad is so cool!
And haha, the cats are かわいい but I'm sorry one has such a strong dislike of you ^_^
I swear I saw a blue Toyota bB there in one of those pics. As I browse from my iPhone, I reflect, you should have an iPhone page though the .Mac RSS reader is nice
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