Moving

As you all have noticed, posts have become quite sparse here at old Atomic Romance. Part of that is do to being a Daddy now while another part is due to all kinds of craziness at work. But for October things get really insane because the Swinebread gang is moving. I will have no time at all for extras. So I guess I'm taking a short break to get through the next month.

take care

Swinebread

He's 1!

I wish I had more time to jot something down, but I just wanted you all to know that Swinebread Jr. is One-year-old today!

We had a birthday party this last weekend. It was so much fun. It was just family but everyone had a wonderful time especially Swinebread Jr.


Of course the party's theme was spiderman... except for the cake which was Looney Tunes.

Junior's headband says Taisho, which means big boss.

I just can't believe it's been a whole year!

Happy Birthday Oh son of mine.


-Swinebread

Jr. No-No's

I'm thinking that playing Axis & Allies is NOT something that I should do in my household.

Little Swinebread would have to play Germany all the time so he wouldn't deveolop some sort of complex... and that, in and of itself, would make him absolutely develop one.

Can you imagine him creating an atomic bomb and using it in this game?! *shiver*

I guess I'll have to stick with Arkham Horror and Samurai Swords (formally known as Shogun).

I've had board games on the mind lately... not that I have the time or opportunity to play them...


-Swinebread

My wife is so awesome. I've been working a lot of overtime and she felt kinda bad for me so Mrs. SB bought me a couple of books to sooth my doldrums.


The first book is Yokai Attack! It's a nice guide to traditional Japanese monsters. I've always enjoyed creature tomes but this is the best one I've come across. It has the more famous yokai like the the onibaba, the Kappa and the Tengu but also contains weirder stuff like the woman with a mouth in the back of her head, the hand washing demon and the tree with human faced peaches. My personal favorite is the slash-mouthed woman. Yokai Attack is presented as a survival guide, but what really makes this work so well is that it concisely describes the various monsters while putting them in a cultural context that's easy for a westerner to understand. The readability of the test is due to the biracial husband and wife team that wrote the book. It's worth noting that the art is wonderful too. It's a nice cross of modern manga styles and traditional wood block printing. Highly recommended to creature fans and folks interested in Japanese culture.

Here is a video about the writers of Yokai Attack! (and uh Halloween in Japan)


Yokai Attack also makes a nice companion volume for fans of Japanese horror films.



The 2nd book Mrs. Swinebread got for me was a volume of Oishinbo (the Japanese Cuisine story). Oishinbo is one of the most popular manga series of all time. I was quite surprised that portions of it are now being adapted into english because, well, Oishinbo is about food. It had a huge affect on Japanese culture so I guess, now that I think about, it was just a matter of time for Viz to publish it. Now when I tell folks that comics can really tell any kind of story I'll have an edition of Oishinbo to prove it. One of the guys I work with is a Gourmet, and he's salivating to to borrow my this book once i'm done with it. here's copy from VIZ website:

Each volume of Oishinbo follows Yamaoka and his colleagues through another adventure on their quest for the Ultimate Menu. Now, the highlights from the hundred-plus volume series have been selected and compiled into A la Carte editions: bite-sized chunks of story arranged by subject that add up to a full-course manga meal!

Japanese Cuisine introduces us to the fundamental ingredients--rice, sashimi, green tea, and dashi (cooking stock)--that constitute the soul of the Japanese kitchen. In each story we learn about the proper preparation and presentation of different dishes, as well as their history and cultural significance. The result is a moveable feast of a book, as informative as it is engaging.

Now those of you that love food but say you don't like comics no longer have any excuse.


-Swinebread

Our Never-Ending Story

One time, before my wife and I were married, I puffed up my upperlip with air to make a funny face. I thought it might make her laugh a little.

When Mrs. Swinebread saw me, she screamed "FALCOR!"

...And the rest was history.

I found out she REALLY liked The NeverEnding Story when she was a kid.

So I guess looking like a Dragon makes you attractive to women... who knew?




-Swinebread

There's No Business Like Josh Business

How can I do another post on Atomic Romance after my friend Josh died? It just seems pointless and extremely crass. Also, the sadness is just unbearable.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about Josh’s worldview since he passed and about what a considerate guy he was. Would Josh really want me to stop doing something others and I enjoy… …of course not. He would absolutely want me to continue with Atomic Romance. He was an actor after all (among other things) and the “show must go on” would actually be something he would tell me about this. Plus, Josh loved comic books and superheroes. I’ve realized that I’d be letting him down by not continuing.

How do I restart the wacky narrative that is Atomic Romance? How do I push passed the death of one the most important people in the world to me when all I want to do is keeping talking about him forever? I don’t want Josh Westhaver to be just a guest star or a couple of posts here on Atomic Romance. Well, that’s why I started the Memories of Joshua Westhaver. I want the discussion about how great he was to go on forever and it will. There are just too many memories from too many lives to let Josh go silently into the night.

On another note several people thanked me at the Remembrance Ceremony for my posts about Josh here on Atomic Romance and for starting the Memories of Joshua Westhaver blog. That warmed my heart. All I can say back is thank you for caring about Josh so much.

To get things restarted here with a little bit of joy, I thought I’d share something with you that many have been waiting for. I’ve been kinda weird about posting pictures of Swinebread Jr. on the net but I thought now was a good time for you all to see how much I’m truly blessed and what it is that has been keeping me and the wife going during these very sad days. I give you my son.


What a beautiful bundle of joy huh?

So it is with much tears for what we have all lost and with much hope from the children in our lives that Atomic Romance returns to it’s regularly scheduled blogging… only now it has a sister site dedicated to a great human being that I’ll miss for as long as I live.


-Swinebread

Comic Book Break-in

Last week, someone broke into to a relative’s house where I was storing most of my comic books… Now, I was greatly concerned about the safety and wellbeing of my relative but of course when I was told some of my comics were dumped on the floor and rifled through, I freaked.

My relative’s stuff looks OK for the most part and I told them about securing themselves from ID theft, but it really looks like the perp(s) were looking for money of which there was none. After looking around at what was searched through, I realized that the perp(s) spent the most of their time looking through my comics. Weird. I don’t have them in any kinda order despite a few title groupings, so I can’t be entirely sure that they didn’t steal any comics but if they did, they didn’t take much. I think they might have grabbed a random stack out of one box. I don’t have any real valuable comic books anyway, but I do have a few Bronze Age gems that they could have grabbed if they knew what they were looking for… but thankfully, they didn’t. I thought at least my early ‘80s X-men would have been taken but I guess they wasted their limited ransacking time by looking at Alpha Flight, Excalibur, and Power Pack.

A few comics were damaged but I’m just glad my collection is basically intact. This is one of the few legacies’ I have to give to Swinebread Jr. Needless to say, I removed my collection post haste to a new location.

Weird Fact: I discovered, while checking my comics over, that I have three copies of the Ambush Bug Christmas Special. Hmmmmm…. …all in excellent condition…




Here you can see the boxes are open and the comics are on the ground. I wonder if Gilded Lily on the cover of Alpha Flight #20 freaked ‘em out so much they stopped searchin’ TRY TO FORGET HER!


The drawer style storage boxes had been quickly opened and checked. Nope, no Action Comics number one here…



This drawer box was looked through by pulling up a few random issues but then the perp also shoved the box closed and bent fuck out of Amazing Spiderman Annual #20. You know this issue. It’s the one where time traveling Arno Stark kills the Blizzard…

-Swinebread

It Went So Quickly...

Swinebread Jr.'s grandma went back to Japan today. There was much crying. She's been such a big help to all three of us it just seems strange that she won't be here anymore. It was so special to have her here for the baby's birth but now she's gone. She'll only get to see him once a year at most.

We tried to give her as much time as possible with her grandson these last few days. She greatly appreciated that, but she made sure her face was turned away so we wouldn't see her tears as she held our son.



-Swinebread

Everybody Wants to See the Baby

We’ve been keeping Swinebread Jr. at home and away from the crowds. He’s been putting on a lot weight and he’s starting to look like a Rubenesque Cherub. We had a small medical scare yesterday but our little one is completely healthy and happy, so no worries.

It’s funny because the baby on this Alien Encounters cover almost looks like Swinebread Jr. I’ve observed that expression from him several times already. Hmmm… I wonder what he’s really seeing when he does his baby gawk.


-Swinebread

Foxxy She-Hulk

The other day, between feedings and diaper changes, my mother-in-law, and my wife were relaxing while I scanned through cable channels. At one point I came upon Disney 2, which was showing the Incredible Hulk cartoon from the 1990s. Now, I’ve never seen this show because I was outta the country at the time it aired, so I’ve always been interested in it because the 2nd Season starred She-Hulk. The particular episode that was showing did have Shulkie and it was fun to see her in action. Apparently, Jennifer went home for her high school reunion and all broke hell broke lose when the Gargoyle’s minions attacked. He was in love with her and the Gargoyle thought he could force her to be his lover (makes me wonder what the Silver Age Hulk tales would have been like if She-Hulk had been around then).

Anyhoo, my wife and my mother-in-law actually watched the cartoon for a little bit. They found She-Hulk intriguing. My SO remarked, “wow! She’s really tall,” and then she explained to her mom that She-Hulk was the female Hulk in Japanese while making a few more comments. This was fun for me because my wife has seen me read the She-Hulk comics but has always tuned me out when I talked about the character before. I guess it’s another thing entirely to see She-Hulk in action even if it’s just a cartoon. I hope that Shulkie will be in the next Hulk movie that way more folks will get see how cool she really is.

After watching that episode for a while I realized that I’ve heard She-Hulk’s voice before. Rather quickly, I recognized that She-Hulk had the same voice talent as Foxxy Love from Drawn Together… minus the jive of course. Cree Summer provides the voice work for both characters. I’m thinking It would be fun if She-Hulk did have Foxxy’s speech patterns though, imagine She-Hulk saying: "Hey Hey Hey" or “I'm like Sherlock Holmes, if he played tambourine and shaved his cooch.” Hmmmm… sounds like a good idea for a youtube.


-Swinebread

Manga-ized

My brother-in-law's girlfriend drew a picture of my family in honor of the birth of Swinebread Jr. and sent it to us from Japan. Isn't it great? It doesn't look like us and it looks exactly like us at the same time, amazing.


-Swinebread

Birth

It’s awfully hard to describe what I’m feeling. The birth of my son has been such an epiphany of joy. Of course it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to bring him into the world and I felt so terrible that my wife had to go through such pain, but now she’s doing great and we’re so happy with our beautiful son.

The events began at about 12:30 AM on the 22nd when my SO woke me up with word that her water had broke. Half in a sleepy daze, I ran around the house making sure we had everything, which we did of course because my wife had packed the week before. So, it was off to the hospital with a cool breeze on a warm summer night.

They triaged my wife first before they moved us to a birthing room where her contractions slowly increased throughout the day. Since we were both at the maternity ward we had to activate our backup plan and have my sister’s husband (Snabulus) pick up my mother-in-law. That’s right; mom was actually on a plane over the Pacific Ocean when my SO’s water broke. Hence Snab was kind enough to bring her straight to the hospital. We were worried that she wouldn’t make it but she did.

My Dad also stopped by, and I could tell his head was in the clouds because he was about to be a grandpa again. He can be a little clueless sometimes though, because he wanted to have one of those hospital chats, while my wife was having spasms of pain. So eventually, I led him out to the waiting area, which worked out well because Snab came back to the hospital with my teenage niece in tow. She kept Dad entertained for a while until he went home to get some sleep as he had worked the nightshift.

The pain got so bad for my wife later in the day that she opted for an epidural. She found some relief for a time and was actually able to talk to her mother that had flown all the way from Japan. My niece decided to stay for the birth and I tasked her with taking pictures, as I knew that my wife would need me when the time came to push.

My wife practiced pushing several times but our son just wasn’t quite low enough until about 7:30 P.M. The Doc had stated earlier that he thought the baby would arrive by sundown. He would be right. When the really hard pushing began we all cheered my wife on but she was in such pain and the epidural wasn’t doing anything by that point. The Doc and the nurse had to instruct her how to push properly so she wouldn’t get too tired and also so she wouldn’t blow out all the blood vessels in her face.

When we were about halfway through the pushing, my mother-in-law was overcome with emotion and walked over and said something in Japanese to her daughter with tears in her eyes. Her feelings were so mixed because here was her only daughter writhing in the worst pain imaginable and yet her grandson was being born.

By this time of night, I was actually having mild auditory and visual hallucinations because I was so tired but when my wife gave a huge final push and I heard my son’s loud cry, all my tiredness went away and tears welled up in my eyes as they placed him all bloody and gooey on my wife’s chest. My wife was now a Mom and I was now a Dad. Amazing.

My niece was snapping pictures like crazy and she got a good one of me cutting the cord. Somehow all these nurses showed up out of nowhere and began weighing and cleaning my tiny little boy and also attending to my wife. He was so blue but he began to turn pink right away. He was (is) so perfect and cute too. I couldn’t wait to hold him and when I did my brain exploded… …when it reassembled itself, I just wasn’t the same person. My niece got a shot of that moment too.

Finally, when I was able to remember who I was, I returned to my wife just as they had removed the rest of the placenta and cleaned her up. We brought the baby over to suckle and my wife was so happy to finally be able to see her boy because she didn’t have her glasses on before.

Eventually we made our way to another room and collapsed from exhaustion. Ready to spend the rest of our lives caring for our little one.

It’s so strange, in the days since our son’s arrival because having him around seems like the most natural thing, like he’s always been with us. It’s a surreal and wonderful feeling all in one. I also realized that for a moment I knew what it felt like to be superhuman (sort of), because when I saw the birth of my son and held him in my arms for the first time I realized that my wife and I together had created life. That life being the little one we now live and breathe for.



-Swinebread

The Amazing Super-Baby

Just a quick post to let you all know he's here! The Amazing Swinebread Jr. Super-baby is really here!

He's healthy and so is his mom!

He was born at 8:30 P.M. on July 22nd.

more to come soon.


-Swinebread

Born to the Comic Books

I’ve just read Conan: Born On the Battlefield and I have to say I’m very impressed. I’ve always been interested in the rain soaked landscaped of Cimmeria, (maybe because I’m an Oregonian?) and Conan’s boyhood. This volume provides all that and more in spades. Plus, Greg Ruth’s art is a gift that just keeps on a giving. He’s got an amazing watercolor style that captures both the moody nature of the barbarian’s homeland and the thrill of combat. Here we have the literal birth of a heroic icon and his formative years as a boy and teenager. I recommend this volume, and in fact, I highly recommend Born on the Battlefield to women. If you’ve been looking for an “in” on the whole Conan phenomenon, this is a great place to start, partially because it’s really the beginning of Conan’s story and because this trade is just that good.


You can see from these two frames just how wonderful the art is. It’s hard to imagine what Conan the baby could really look like but Greg Ruth pulled it off superbly. Here, Conan is a newborn but you can still see his power and willfulness that becomes so memorable in his adult adventures.

When I read Born On the Battlefield and took in this image of baby Conan, I came to a decision to reveal something to all of you, my blogger friends, that’s going to drastically change my life in ways that I can’t even imagine yet. My SO is pregnant and in just a few weeks she will give birth to our son. It’s an amazing thing to wrap one’s head around, and I’m sure glad you get nine months to get used to the idea. We actually discovered Mrs. Swinebread was pregnant while on our short trip to Japan, which was nice because the information lifted my in-laws spirits at a sad time.

I had planned on waiting until the baby was born and surprise all of you with the news, but I realized that I will have no time when my son arrives for blogging beyond a few posts here and there. You all might have noticed that I’ve been a tad neglectful when is comes to commenting, which I apologize for, but much of my free time has been taken up with preparations for the baby. Rest assured though, Atomic Romance will continue although with more brevity.

There are so many thoughts, worries, and joys that keep swirling around my brain. I’m so afraid that I could be too forgetful or clumsy and somehow Swinebread Jr. would get hurt. But then I remember that everybody has these fears and I’m just joining the club. Soon, I will unite with those of you that have children. I’ll begin the long and paradoxically quick journey of watching my son be born, grow into a boy, then teenager, and finally a man. At least, I hope with all of my being that I will.

I haven’t much of a legacy to share with my son but I do have a large comic book collection that I built from the time I was 12 years old. All of these four-color adventures will now be his to explore. I keep getting images of teaching my son to read with the help of Tin Tin, Asterix and Spiderman. Of course, at some point I’ll introduce him to Conan and the Hyborian World as well. But I can’t be neglectful of his Japanese heritage either, and tons of amazing children’s manga will fill his bookshelves too. He will be able to speak and read in two very different languages, wow. It will be a real joy to discover what his interests will be and support him in whatever he chooses to do. I just hope his father’s eccentric comic collecting gives him a boost in exploring all the bold possibilities in life.

But what I really wanna know is, will Swinebread Jr. be Marvel or DC? Heh heh, just kidding, he can be what ever he wants. I just want him to read something including novels.

Soon I will be a Dad and the Real adventure will begin.


-Swinebread

Trip to Japan Part V

The next day we didn’t do much. It was low-key. My wife and I took a break and went shopping in the Saitama area. Luckily for me, shopping in a foreign country can still be and interesting endeavor. I guess the big highlight of the day occurred when we went to the Aeon shopping center. It’s a new complex built and organized in a similar fashion to an American shopping mall.

Here’s the outside of the AEON shopping mall. You can see the Saitama Soccer stadium in the background. It was built for the World Cup championship from a few years ago. My Mother-in-law and my wife both complained that stadium cost a huge amount of tax money and that the structure can only be used for soccer so it’s such a waste. I thought about that for a moment and said “I’d rather waste millions on a soccer stadium than a stupid war” My statement seemed make to make them feel a lot better about the whole thing… but not me of course.


It was fun to walk the aisles but what was the most fun was the store itself. Everything was so small but in a huge space. Here was the gigantic building with a very high ceiling but the shelves were all very short, what I might consider a child’s height in the states. Of course the average Japanese person is shorter than the average American, but my western biased mind felt they were wasting so much space that could be filled with products. I felt like Santa Claus in the elves’ town. On the other hand, not having huge shelves made the place feel very open.

Here are a couple of pics of two AEON employees preparing red bean paste for sale. It’s sweet and used in many desserts in Japan. We ended up buying some. I think the gal who sold us the red bean paste was overwhelmed by my appearance as she just filled the containers to overflowing, a very un-Japanese-like thing to do.


Another interesting aspect of the mall was that since it was so spacious, there were combo shopping cart/kid strollers available for families to use. It’s kinda’ a normal thing in the states but to see it in Japan made me realize what a novelty it must be here. I also saw folks in wheelchairs, which was nice. Life in Japan can be pretty hard when your disabled as next to nothing is accessible. This mall was very different as there was plenty of room to move around and it was a straight shot from the parking lot to the mall interiors. It reminded me that disabled folks in Japan put up with a lot of crap and here was the one place they could come and have a normal shopping experience.

The other “important” stop of the day was a second trip to Book Off. It’s a used Book, CD, and Video store. Book Off is one of the few stores created in the aftermath of the economic bubble that’s been wildly successful. Now there’s no point in buying everything new. My wife sold a bunch of old titles that she had left at her parents’ house and picked up some newer titles to take back to the states. When it comes to novels her tastes tend to run in the thriller and horror realms although she’s open to almost anything. Of course they had a fantastic selection of manga and I was happy to browse the aisles. My SO also bought some manga too as she grabbed several Black Jack digests and huge collectors digest of a comics about cooking and food, although I don’t know it’s name.


After we left Book Off, I noticed a different store that had a similar name to Book Off. It was called Hard Off. I had a lot of fun explaining why Hard Off wasn’t such good name for a company. My in-laws laughed about that for days.

We finished up our shopping excursions by swinging by a family friend that runs both a ceramic studio and an organic food store. She’s a great lady and she really wanted to talk to me as she’s been studying English for years. My wife and in-laws affectionately call her and her husband “the hippies” as they run an organic business, love 60s’ and 70s music and are big outdoor lovers. Naturally, they don’t look like hippies but I bet they’d dress a little like them if they could get away with it Japan.

We had a nice conversation in her ceramic studio and the place was full of adult students busily using potter's wheels and other tools as they prepped for a ceramic show that was coming next week. As my mother-in-law picked up her fired piece, my wife and I headed next door to the organic store. It’s a small place mostly stocked with fresh vegetables. But that makes sense, as food, like everything in Japan, is very expensive. Organic food has almost become a luxury but our family friend believes that it’s important to have healthy, natural foods to eat. Before we left, I mentioned that I think she would really enjoy Oregon and that I hoped she and her husband could visit someday.

Here’s my mother-in-law’s ceramic piece in its finished, painted form on display during the ceramic show the following week. The birds nest on top with eggs was my SO's idea.


That day, I think I managed to get another trip to 7-11 in there too.

-Swinebread

Trip to Japan Part III

The weather was glorious on our third day in Japan like springtime. We took the opportunity to travel to one of the greener parts of the Toyko area, Chōfu. This part of the megalopolis has Jindaiji Temple, the second oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo. So we headed out from Omiya by train.

After my SO and I left the train station in Chōfu, we boarded a bus. I kept hitting my head on the overhead handrails and I’m sure that the folks riding with us were laughing on the inside regardless of their stoic demeanor. As we got closer to Jindaiji Temple my wife realized that we weren’t on the correct bus. The one we were on didn’t go directly to the temple but luckily it did stop on a nearby connecting road. So we would have to huff it for a few extra blocks. It turned out to be all right anyway because there was this very odd, cubed shaped house across the street from the bus stop. The strange window arrangement made it impossible for me to figure out how many floors it had or how the inside of it could possibly be arranged.
Strange Huh

After the Bizarro house, we turned onto the road that leads to the Temple and I immediately noticed a drastic increase in the number of trees. In fact there was an obvious decrease in temperature due to the shade. It was very comforting for an overheated Oregonian like myself. What also became apparent as we walked down the street was that there was traditional looking restaurant after restaurant with water wheels. My SO explained that this area is famous for soba noodles.

Before we arrived at the Temple complex, my SO came across a small shrine dedicated two of the Seven Gods of Fortune, Ebisu and Daikoku. I like the Seven Gods a lot maybe because they’re just the kinda thing that would have the fundies pulling their own hair out with cries of idolatry. They also remind me of belief systems that were a part of the western experience long, long ago.

Soon we came to the Jindaiji Temple complex and like most Temples and Shrines in Japan the area was flush with shops and stands selling all manner of knickknacks, food, and gifts. My wife and I had worked up an appetite so we ducked into one of the many soba shops. Apparently this was the best season for soba. The noodles were very fresh as they were white in color, overtime soba noodles will turn a brownish grey. I dipped my soba into a cold sauce while my wife had soba that gets dipped into a hot soup. Both were very good and seemed to be just the right thing to eat on a mild fall day. I'm getting a mixture of daikon and onion to put in my dipping sauce

With our tummies full we walked down the path and up the steps to the temple grounds. I have been to quite a few temples and shrines around Japan so Jindaiji seemed small but it wasn’t crowded so it also felt intimate.
A 3-year-old girl in a Kimono is taken to the temple for a traditional blessing.

Temple goers purify themselves with incense before they approach the temple building.

Jindaiji Temple

Boys go to the temple to receive a traditional blessing when they’re 5 years old, but this kid was trying like hell to get outta’ there. His mother was doing everything but sitting on him to keep him there. I’m guessing that kid must have been scared of the Priest. Oh well, at least the priest had a sense of humor about it. I had to get this pic with the flash off so they wouldn’t notice that’s why it is so grainy.

One of the main reasons we went to Jindaiji was to see the Kitaro teahouse. Shigeru Mizuki created the Kitaro character in 1959. He’s a yokai boy, or monster boy, and deals with all manner of supernatural horrors out of Japanese mythology. Usually, he tries to find a way for both monster and human to leave in peace together. There have been many comics, TV, movies and even a live action film but none of it has ever been translated into English as far as I know, but on my first trip to Japan I was lucky enough find some bilingual Kitaro comics for Japanese wanting to learn English. So I was able to read a few stories but I want more. Most of the creatures are very different then western monsters and maybe the entertainment folks don’t feel they would translate to the states very well. For me though, the strangeness of the Yokai makes them that much more interesting. I picked all sorts of Kitaro goodies including finger puppets, canned drinks and postcards.

The Kitaro Teahouse

A close up of the Teahouse. Kitaro is on the left and his ratman buddy, Nezumi Otoko, is on the right. They both have umbrella yokai. On top of Kitaro’s head is an eyeball. It’s all that remains of his ghost father Medama Oyaji. The eyeball is also Kitaro’s guide and gives him all kinds of advice.

All the main character’s from Kitaro’s adventures.

The Kitaro Car, I'm not sure what they use it for, but it looks pretty cool

We left Jindaiji and headed to Shimo-Takaido Station in Setagaya. It’s a trendy area with lots of foreign students and accessible shops.

A street near Shimo-Takaido Station

My wife has a cousin who owns a coffee shop there called It’s Café. He’s got a Japanese blog here. It’s a nice cozy place not far from the station. We had a wonderful conversation and I had a yummy piece of pumpkin cake that tasted a lot like pancakes. We gave him a CD of Pink Martini’s album Hang on Little Tomato. He was very appreciative as he’s always on the hunt for new and unique music to play in his café. When we left It’s Café and Shimo-Takaido, I thought this would have been a great place to stay when I was a college student.

It’s Café’s location near Shimo-Takaido Station

It’s Café’s Storefront from the blog

For the last stop of the day my SO and I headed out to Odaiba to see the Fuji TV building. They’re the station with the eyeball symbol, so appropriately they have a huge ball suspended in the center of their rather amusingly designed building.

My picture of the building didn’t turn out so well as it was night, So wikipedia will have to do.

The lobby had all kinds of toys and gifts from Fuji TV’s various shows but the dog mascot was the big draw.

Here’s a view of downtown Tokyo from the Fuji TV ball. You’ll notice the Rainbow Bridge in the middle.

After an enjoyable self guided tour through Fuji TV, My SO and I headed out via monorail over the rainbow bridge to downtown Tokyo to catch a train back to Omiya.

Trip to Japan Part II

A country road in the morning with bamboo


There was so many things going on with friends and family over the holiday weekend that I haven’t been able to update my blog with info about my journey. The good thing about it taking me so long is that my SO is now back (with the camera) and so I’ve got pictures. The bad thing is I hardly took any snapshots, as this was my third trip to Japan. Well, we’ll see what we can do.

On the second day in Japan both my SO and I woke up at 3:00 AM because of the time difference with Oregon. After lying around for over an hour we decided to get up and go for a walk. We took the short stroll to 7-ll, and my SO (who has driven in Japan) commented how narrow the Japanese roads are, obviously she’s be in the states awhile now.

We stepped into the brightly lit convenience store and the smell of cooking oden permeated air. We strolled around the low, well-organized aisles and then I immediately went to the comic section. I haven’t learned Japanese so I couldn’t read any of it but my love of comics propelled me give them a look-see. They had all the regular stuff: boy’s comics, girl’s comics, and various adult comics. The first thing I grabbed was a men’s weekly manga. I could tell it was a man’s comic because of the bathing suited babe on the cover with gi-normous fake boobs which looked even stranger on a Japanese woman. Sure enough, when I opened the comic mag to a random page, my eyes where treated to an expressive girl-on-girl finger-banging scene. For a few seconds I felt like 12-year-old kid getting away with sneaking a peek at the The Joy Lesbian Sex. Of course I wasn’t getting away with anything, so I quickly put that manga down and looked at what else they had.

One of the things that’s nice about the manga stands in Japan is that they also have thick digests that collect older comics. Every time I’ve gone to Japan there never fails to be a digest of Black Jack on the shelf. This time there was a collection of a title called Berserk. I had ignored it the states because it looked like some lame video game thing, but as I flipped through the pages I found the art and the pseudo medieval setting compelling. I realized that this title is horror fantasy, my kinda stuff. I filed it away in my memory.


My SO and I explored the rest of the store marveling at the, strange candy (like apple kit kat), exotic sandwiches, and ice coffees. The Starbucks brand was available, but what was really interesting was that they had a Japanese copycat brand ingeniously labeled Mt. Rainier. The logo looked akin to the Starbuck’s logo but with a picture of Mt. Rainier instead of the mermaid. We bought a few goodies such as chocolate covered mango bits and left.

We walked on down the road and stopped off at another convenience store called Family Mart. I picked up some green tea and drank it as we strolled through my through wife’s old stopping grounds including her old grade school. Although I’ve been here before I was still amazed at the surprising balance of suburbia and farmland that we passed on the way back to in-laws house. No ground is left unutilized.

Before we went back, we made a quick stop by the graveyard where my SO’s grandparents are buried. We performed the necessary cleaning rituals before prayers. Like a good omen, the sun popped over the trees just as my wife began to her silent prayer. It was a gorgeous morning in the cemetery but my SO told me its taboo to take pictures there so I didn’t take any.

After a nice breakfast of fish, vegetables and miso soup, My SO and I headed into town around Omiya Station for shopping and a haircut. Our first bit of business was to stop by Mr. Donut, as my SO really wanted me to compare the taste to an American donut. Needless to say it tasted like bread and wasn’t sweet at all. No wonder the Japanese students pack on the pounds when they come to the states. They didn’t’ have any decaf coffee either and were completely stunned when we asked for it.

We went to many stores including Loft, Book Off (used books, CD, and DVDs) where I picked up a Record of Lodoss War music CD, and a tiny toy store the size of a walk-in closet. We purchased all manner of items, but I was distressed at the amount of X-mas decorations and items for sale. I know the Japanese get into the commercial side of the holiday but to see it so pervasive was startling. My wife was even a little taken aback. Some of the holiday presents we’d been sending to the relatives that last few years didn’t seem so special anymore.

Eventually, we went and got haircuts at a local salon my SO likes. I appreciate Asian hair stylists, as they understand how to cut my very straight (although very soft) hair, so I had no problem going. I’ve had endless bad haircuts my whole life until I went to a Japanese salon because white folks usually screw it up pretty bad. Most Caucasians have some wave or curl so a mediocre stylist can get away with doing an OK job but my hair doesn’t allow for any mistakes. The Japanese also have many techniques for thinning out hair so I can wear it a little longer and still feel cool (temperature wise).


I do have to mention a hair fad that just mystified me. Right now a spiky, feathered, rat’s nest with a mullet is fashionable. Usually Japanese folks have a very nice sense of style even if it’s different than the US, but his time? Sorry Japan. This trend is totally thumbs down. It looks really bad especially when combined with that fakey brown hair. A Mohawk with a nose ring would look more chic.

Omiya Station not during rush hour

Eventually, we were off on a semi-crowded train to Akabane to meet our familial responsibilities. After that we headed off to Akihabara, the electric town. I had been to Akihabara 2 years ago and went around to the electronic shops. This time I was having none of that and instead looked around the geeky, Otaku toyshops instead. You see I was searching for collectables from Fist of the North star, GeGeGe no Kitaro, and Daimajin. I struck out with Daimajin but I managed to find a few, old, Gashapon pieces from Fist of the Northstar to help round out my meager collection. One store also had a nice full collection of GeGeGe no Kitaro Gashapon that I picked up. Most of the various toyshops were crammed with Gundam figures but luckily I’m not into that franchise otherwise I would have busted our budget right there.

One of the many toy stores, this one had a life-sized Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star although he's not life proportioned.

By the time we were finally ready to leave we felt a little hungry so we swung by a sushi shop for a snack. The fresh fish melted in our mouths. After that, we bid Akihabara’s bright lights goodbye and headed back to back to Omiya Station and had the distinct pleasure riding the train during rush hour. It got a little hot and heavy on the train, meaning that the bags were heavy and at the mass of bodies had me overheating.

Akihabara at night

It was a busy day and I was so tired and jetlagged that I sleepwalked through the rest of the evening including dinner.