Tim’s Ramblings

Been real busy the last few days soooo yeah, been a bit slow on the updates.

It’s been busy on many fronts. Work wise, I think tomorrow is the first morning that I’m not getting up at 6am and start working at 6:02am and staying up working until 12am at night. That’ll be nice.

In theory I am on vacation now. I’m hoping the insanity that was my X-mas vacation (went into work, didn’t sleep 2 nights working, etc…) won’t repeat itself for this one. So far it doesn’t seem like it is likely to happen. Wish me luck :)

B & L made it safely to Japan on Thursday afternoon and they took my advice and didn’t sleep much so I think they are doing well in terms of jetlag.

Thursday night was just an easy dinner and Friday after doing some work early in the morning, I took them out for some shopping and eventually found our way to Ueno Park where the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.

Yes…pictures will be coming very soon once I do some work on them (10 megapixels so each pic is like 3.5 megs…gotta do some cropping and resizing…).

It was absolutely PACKED with people both walking around sightseeing and also sitting under the trees eating, drinking, and being merry. Though honestly, most haven’t started yet and were just sitting there holding the spot until their collegues show up. The cherry blossoms were absolutely gorgeous though and it was a prefect day for it. We got lucky as it was raining pretty hard earlier that day.

Today, I had to leave them alone to fend for themselves as I headed back to my parent’s place with a duffel bag full of laundry. Thank god they live here now. But I have to admit…it totally tired me out. 2 hours to get there and another 2 hours back is a killer… My total travel time to and back was 4 hours while I only stayed at my parent’s place for a total of 5 hours. *sigh* But at least I got my laundry done.

Last night was lots of meat since we went to a shabushabu place. Tonight was even more meat with yakiniku. Tomorrow, we may try to take it a bit easy on the whole “meat fest” thing that we’ve eaten the past 2 nights :)

Anyway, like I said, not much of an update as I’m pooped. Tomorrow being a Sunday, it is going to be a hardcore “Tim’s Tour Day”. Let’s see if they can keep up wtih me :) More updates to come soon. Just wanted to make sure people knew I was alive :)

More “courtesy to non-smokers” signs.

This one from the other side of Kawasaki station. These seem…deeper…for some reason. Like some sort of poetry.

Oh, and on the topic of smoking, I actually saw these campaign girls in front of the convenience store in the lobby of one of our partners actually handing out samples of “tabacco gum”. Yes…they are repackaging nicotine gum NOT to help you to stop smoking but to give you the nicotine fix when you can’t smoke.

I mean…sure…it’s obvious. And I’m sure people use the patch and the gum in the US for that too. But I’ve never seen anyone openly advertise it for that reason. Different country I guess. (^_^)

Ok. Who searched for “what the hell am i supposed to do about tim because he smells like roses”??

Cute….

Since I have been asked by a few of my friends, I am ok.

The earthquake that hit Japan was in Ishikawa on the other side of Japan.

Tokyo is on the Pacific coast while Ishikawa is almost directly west of us on the coast of the Sea of Japan.

It was actually pretty bad with 1 death and after the first big one, in just one day they had over 160 aftershocks. Scary….

There are still tons of people displaced with no where to go and no water and such but our troops are there taking care of business.

One of our partner’s manufacturing plant is out there as well but it turns out everyone was ok including the family of a few of the guys I know from there.

I appreciate the concern though. Actually, I didn’t even KNOW about it until one of my friends asked me.

2 new search terms that found my site.

It’s funny.

But at the same time if this was not directed towards trying to find me, then I just want to know what the HELL they were actually searching for.

#1. tim smells like roses

…um…why thank you? I don’t think I do. I also don’t think I smell bad either. But I don’t think I smell like roses…unless of course I’m chewing that gum. Did someone search for this knowing this?

And even better….

#2. what the hell am i supposed to do about tim

Really.

Someone searched for this on Google.

Come on.

But for this one, I actually hope this is not someone looking for me or referencing me. Because honestly, I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve this type of response!

Ah well.

Oh…and someone searched for “emily hughes sucks”…hmmm…someone’s a bit ticked at her performance at the world’s figure skating championships maybe?

Not much going on tonight. Some work. The usual. Ended up winning another figure. Cynthia from Mobile Suite Gundam 08th Mobile Suit Team series sitting in a sexy pose. For any of you that might POSSIBLY know what I’m talking about, she’s the blond and not the test pilot. That would be Aina. I was trying to get her but ended up getting Cynthia instead. Oh well. I will not post a picture since I think I’ve already embarrased myself enough yesterday with the Gundam Girls…..

If you want to see it, here’s a link to where you can buy it…

http://www.hlj.com/product/BNP43964-B?nav=rss

Right. Anyway, that’s it for today!

These arcades with the crane games are going to be the death of me. Or at least it’s going to suck away all of my cash. Saying that I’m supporting the Japanese economy isn’t really going to help….

See…I blame the fact that I’m here away from home without my usual asortment of diversions. If I’m HOME, then I have plenty to do and I have no desire to go out and find entertainment for myself. But since all i have is what I have in the hotel AND I have to leave the hotel for at least 3 hours or so every day if I want room service with fresh towels and such…well…I gotta do something right?

Some of you may then say that I should just call downstairs and tell them I don’t need room service and stay in. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind that BUT in the morning it gets frickin’ HOT and stuffy in the room. Really really stuffy especially since I can’t open the windows and after taking a shower it’s just a sauna in the room. Since it’s so small, even with the short showers that I take, it’s just plain nasty. I HAVE to get out.

So I eventually find myself wasting time window shopping, browsing for fun stuff, and also trying to win stupid crap at the arcades.

Now, if I was with someone, I would either get embarrassed at what I’m trying to win or worse, even more embarrassed spending so much money on whatever it is I’m trying to win. So I will eventually just go “um…yeah…screw it” and leave. Either that or, depending on who I am with, they will curve my spending habits with a few choice statements including but not limited to:

“You WANT that crap?”

“WHY are you even spending money on this???”

“You DO realize that you’ve spent 2/3/4 times the worth of that toy right?”

“I’m leaving….”

“I’m bored…”

“You’re embarrassing me”

“Stop it….”

“Do you REALY NEED that thing?”

You get the point….

But without anyone around to say anything remotely close to that…well…then why stop? Right??

Last trip it was that Gundam Head Speaker. This trip, up until today, it was just that Mario Mushroom. Today…well…I got lucky.

Oh…don’t get me wrong…I’m pretty sure that I spent more than the worth of at least some of these things but the 2 figures more than made up for it.

To see the stuff that I won just because I was killing time and I didn’t REALLY want, well, click on the link for the pictures :)

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With all the stuff about cherry blossoms yesterday, I forgot to post 2 pictures I took later in the day in Ginza! Ooops.

So here we go.

This is Kabukiza. NOT to be confused with Kabukicho. 2 very very very different things….

Kabukicho i sin Shinjuku and is the adult entertainment district. Kabukiza, here, is in Ginza and is the home of Kabuki theater.

Impressive eh?

You really can’t see this place when you’re walking down the street and it just kind of pops up out of nowhere. And it’s really big. Hard to see from the picture but it’s a good size building. Packed too because we got there just when people were lining up to get into the theater for the late afternoon show. Had no idea what they were performing but it must have been good.

Here’s a closer look at the impressive entrance and the crowd.

Apparently if you want, you can pay to see just one act too as long as tickets are avialable. I have no idea how expensive or cheap it was but there was a pretty damn big line for that too.

Maybe next time :)

So there you go. Kabukiza in Tokyo, right in the Ginza district.

Hakuho won!

He did the same thing that Asashouryu did to win his 13th match. It was actually kind of funny because even the championship match ended in less than a second.

Just like Asashouryu did in the previous match, Hakuho jumped to the side as Asashouryu charged forward and drove his hand down onto his head causing Asashouryu to put his hands down.

Even Asashouryu smiled as he walked off.

Of course, with an unexpected win, the zabuton (cushions that the people sit on in the front section) went flying as people started flinging it towards the ring.

Anyway, it was a fun season. Most of you won’t care but trust me…you had to be there. (^_^)

We have a sumo-off of sorts.

Hakuho won today with a record of 13-2. But then in the very last match, Asashouryu won his match in, I swear, less than a second. His opponent rushed forward an in a blink of an eye, surprising for someone his size, he hopped to the side, drove his hand down onto his opponents back of the head as he rushed past and threw him out of the ring.

It was impressive to say the least from a speed point of view. It wasn’t your typical sumo match with two big guys crashing into each other. More like a bull fight with Asashouryu as the matador.

I’m sure there will be Youtube video of this shortly :)

Now to wait a bit and watch the final match. Looks like a late dinner tonight. (^_^)

Personally rooting for Hakuho (^_^)

Yup. It was a cloudy day and it looked like it was about to rain at any moment during many parts of the day but my outing with Dad turned out well with only a light drizzle near the end.

But putting that aside, this post is about 2 things. Yasukuni Shrine and, you guessed it, the flower that almost defines Japan – the cherry blossom or sakura. About 11 pictures in this post so click on the link for the rest.

To entice you all, here’s a teaser :)

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