- I am enabling comments for blog posts, (regardless of how badly it rapes my beautiful, valid code) for now, anyway.
- You can now follow me on Twitter if you so desire.
- I updated my banner, see?^ It says "Seisetsu Robo", lit. "Tangent Robo", in katakana (because katakana looks all rad and stuff.)
- I'm going to make an attempt at blogging this whole trip (we leave on Friday) but I might be flipping out too much, so bear with me.
posted by tangentbot @ 9:05 PM
7 Comments
I haven't really had time to post anything, so I'm going to just start posting food! I've been busy studying Japanese, cooking and coding, in addition to preparing for our upcoming trip. I was kind of derailed last week with a cold that kept me from being as productive as I normally am, but I'm okay now! I made hijiki for the first time, a great success, and several other delicious dishes that I will try and post pics of soon.
I have been doing a massive code-clean-up on this site - offline of course - that will allow me much more flexibility in the future. I've also been looking at moving all the posts/images/etc. from my old Japan travel-blog, japanbot, to this blog, in a travel section of sorts. So much to do! I have a million pictures I want to post, recipes to write, music to write, a language to learn...
:3
Labels: busy, food, Japan, misc
posted by tangentbot @ 10:05 PM
Links to this post
Chicken Curry from a box is easy to make... anyone should know this. But why follow some box instructions when you can use MY NEARLY IDENTICAL VARIATION‽ Just sayin'.
Labels: anyone should know this, Chicken Curry, curry, food, Japan, recipe
posted by tangentbot @ 12:49 AM
0 Comments
Links to this post
A co-worker sent me this. I just don't know what to say...
My brother sent me this. I want to do this! For rilz!
For rilz!
Labels: Japan, Mario Paint, Punch Out, YouTube
posted by tangentbot @ 3:20 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
Pink Tentacle, one of my favorite blogs, recently posted about the Edo-period monster paintings by Sawaki Suushi. These things are awesome, especially the Nurarihyon, which has the terrifying ability of assuming the position of 'head of household', if it gets inside your house. He'll just hang out and drink tea and you can't eat until he does - brutal!
Here's the Sawaki Suushi collection over at Wikipedia Commons.
Here is the article over at Pink Tentacle. Check it out!
posted by tangentbot @ 8:56 AM
0 Comments
Links to this post
Here is the newly revised Japan Trip Itinerary!
- Fly into Narita - take the Skyliner to Ueno.
- Stay at the Tokyo Green Ochanomizu for two days.
- Take the Shinkansen all the way up north to Aomori.
- Stay at Hotel Aomori for 5 days, exploring the mountains and Pacific coast. We plan on taking local trains to the coast and around the countryside.
- Take a sleeper car down the Japan Sea coast to Niigata, and a Shinkansen back to Tokyo.
- Take another Shinkansen to Osaka.
- Spend seven days, exploring Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and the surrounding area. We are renting a condo for the week (so cheap!)
- Take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo for the last week, staying at the Tokyo Green Ochanomizu again. I wanted the last portion of our trip to be relaxing and familiar (and how could I possibly skip hanging out in Akiba again.)
Exciting! We've purchased everything except the rail passes (which, alone, cost over $1100.00 USD! - but are totally worth it). I plan on bringing back some new knives and some katsuobushi and a katsuobushi kezuriki. Sandy and I have both been studying Japanese constantly, so we will be a bit more linguistically equipped this time.
posted by tangentbot @ 5:30 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
We are in the middle of planning our return trip to Japan, which will take place in the last 3 weeks of May. So far, our itinerary is thus:
- May 10th - Fly into Narita Airport; take the Skyliner to Ueno in Tokyo and stay one night in Tokyo Green Ochanomizu (The hotel we stayed at in Oct. 2006)
- Take the Shinkansen, North to Akita - stay 5 days in the mountains.
- Take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, and board another Shinkansen to Osaka; Stay there for a week.
- Take a train back to Tokyo and meet up with Mike Tanner (and maybe his GF) - Spend our last week in Tokyo.
It seems crazy and busy and very transity, but I love trains. This trip will let us see more of Japan then our last trip, and we intend to pack very light this time. We'll probably do all of our shopping in Tokyo our last week there, although I still intend to buy knives in Kyoto and at least 2 katsuobushi and a kezuriki in Tokyo (perhaps one of those artisan hand-crafted aluminum pots as well - I wish I could get a few donabe, but I'm afraid of them breaking).
So, that's it so far. I'm going to put a "Japan" section on my site or something - I already have plans on moving my last Japan blog, japanbot, to this website, so I might just do a "Travel in Japan" portion or something. Anything could happen, who knows‽
Labels: Japan, Shinkansen, travel, vacation
posted by tangentbot @ 11:20 AM
0 Comments
Links to this post
I updated the recipes portion of this site with a recipe and picture of yummy curry potato croquettes I made tonight. They're easy to make, go check it out!
Labels: croquettes, curry, food, Japan
posted by tangentbot @ 1:29 AM
0 Comments
Links to this post
Plush toy generation software. So cute!
posted by tangentbot @ 6:55 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
Japanese tradition of whale hunting is once again under fire, but I find the reasoning a bit hypocritical. It seems as if it's alright with these Greenpeace folks if Japan is hunting whales for research, yet as one of the interviewees insinuates, if they fail to show results of scientific research they are simply -
indulge(ing)in whaling.
What difference does it make? If they are already allowed to hunt them, in the name of science or not, shouldn't they also have the option of how to go about the disposal of delicious whale meat to a hungry, Cetacean-loving public? If people in America loved to eat rats, you know that labs would be selling surplus "test meat" to supermarkets in a heartbeat.
Besides, humpbacks are Mysticeti(baleen) whales - they don't even have teeth like a real whale. They're essentially big filter-fish.
posted by tangentbot @ 9:03 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
