Kaiten Sushi Movie

Someone put a camera on the  conveyor-belt in a kaiten sushi joint. It’s simple but fascinating. I wish I thought of it.

Spring Break Part ’03 Part 2: Chimpy

Hello all. I’m back in my computer geek mini-resort of a cyber-bar. I just realized that this place features free lattes, free razors in the bathroom and for an additional fee massage chairs. I’m half expecting to find a sauna and a hot tub combo somewhere around here.

First a few observations…

1) The Japanese really hate our beloved president, Chimpy McCokespoon. This is subtlely evident in the pictures the media selects to represent him. One pic, which served as a backdrop for a round table of talking heads, featured Bush with his mouth wide open, his beady eyes pushed together under a furroughed brow and his ape-like finger waggling at the camera, making him look both dim and bullying. Another pic for a similar talk show, featured a picture of Bush looking like a colicky baby just after a bowel movement.

2) Daihatsu has released a box shaped car inexplicably named “Naked.”

And now for the travel log…

The day for yesterday, R’s dad took me and R to his favorite sushi joint and proceeded to fill me with more raw fish than Shamu consumes in a week. We seemed to hit it off. He embarrassed R to no end by peppering his conversation with English like “I’m sorry,” “This is sushi” and the like. Yesterday, we went to Mount Aso which is not only the highest peak in Kyushu but also the largest volcanic crater in the world (or so I’m told). It belched up green fumes of sulphur which I heard usually smells much worse than it did. Then we went to Kumamoto’s castle, which was featured in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha. The outside was quite impressive though the inside was remodeled to look something like a Stalinist era library. Later that night, we were met by R’s mom — who was suffering from an ugly cold — and we went to the famed Iron Chief loser’s restaurant located in the basement of the Kumamoto Castle Hotel. The dinner was a bit uneven I did have some of the best squid I ever had there. Light, fluffy and not in the slightest chewy.

Anyway for the rest of today, I’m going to forget about the Oscars and the War and maybe veggie out in front of the computer while being kneaded by a massage chair…

Spring Break ’03 Part 1: Kumamoto

Hello all. I’m fighting a wave of jet-lag related stupor in an Internet cafe in Kumamoto, which sports not only wall-to-wall computers and free green tea, but also racks of comic books, DVDs and a CDs to rent and burn. It’s sort of a home away from home for the computer geek on the go…

Anyway, in spite of the Bush’s evil little war, I managed to get here in one piece. I flew out on Varig — Brazil’s national airline. The company seems to operate on a distinctly latin sense of time because the plane arrived two hours late into Narita and no one seemed particularly bothered or concerned by this. I had to catch a flight from Haneda — Tokyo’s domestic airport — located a good 60 km away. After racing through customs, I was about to board my shuttle when Morimoto from the Iron Chef strode by– sporting a baseball cap and a sumo wrestler’s swagger. I arrived with less than a hour to spare at Haneda, which little did I know, suffered from a massive computer crash that morning. The place reminded me of a train station in India — total chaos. Somehow, I managed get on my flight near a toddler who spent the entire two hour flight screaming and puking.

When I met at the airport by R and her father, I was told that on Sunday we all would go out to a restaurant whose owner famously lost on the Iron Chef. Already this trip is baring the twin themes of panic and the Iron Chef. Stay tuned to see how this plays out…