Star Wars and other random musings.

Colleen and I seem to go through these phases. One of us will be stricken with the writing bug and want to write about everything, while the other one will feel like they've gone to the well and drew up a bucket of sand. This time it was my turn to feel the block. My last blog left us at the Aichi World Expo. We had spent the day with Joe and Leanne and decided it (the Expo) wasn't fun enough for a second day. Colleen's last three blogs have been about the weekend after that. Canada Day, Universal Studios and touring around Osaka City. If you haven't read them yet, I recommend you go here, and check out the last three entries. As for myself, I'm going to talk about all of the other things that have happened.

In the month of May, Canada, the United States and much of the rest of the world was given the opportunity to see a much anticipated movie, that was recognized as the end of a era of science fiction storytelling. Star Wars episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. For some unknown reason, this particular movie was slated to enter the Japanese theatres two whole months after it's initial release to the rest of the world. Again I repeat "unknown reason" because several other movies, such as Batman Begins and War of the Worlds came to the theatres here at the same time as they did in America, well ahead of the Star Wars release. Never the less, we were undaunted, and on July 10th, the day after it was released in Japan (and on the day of our first wedding anniversary) we saw the last (?) Star Wars movie. What you didn't get in North America, however, is the same toys we got in Japan. We all know that for as long as Star Wars has been around it has been a money making franchise the likes of which only my friend Jeremy's basement can attest to. But for the very first time ever, I will have one Star Wars collection that even Jeremy could not achieve. When you match the collectible crazy culture of Japan with an enterprise like Star Wars, you get the Final Star Wars Bottle Top Collection. If you have looked at my toy collection in the blogs before you will have seen my Super Mario bottle top collection. They came in little cellophane bags attached to the neck of the bottle. Each one a mystery as to it's contents, and entirely impossible in Canada because people would just steal them. Well there were 30 Super Mario bottle tops and we got all of them. The Star Wars set, however, had 60 and we have 43 of them so far and two of the bag clips that come with the 1.5 litre bottle. Behold our collection, to date. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. (ten points to Jeremy if he can identify all characters)

I have added one picture to the food and drink section because for one week they were selling SpriteX here, and then it just disappeared. I have also added some photos of the festivals that we never get to see, because of our work schedules, but just so happened to be visible from our apartment. There was the Tenjin Matsuri festival, and a bunch of other festivals so close together we couldn't really tell one from the other, but we got pictures from the balcony to prove it. These two pictures (1 & 2), for example, were taken early one morning when these wagons that were either carried or pulled were traveling around the neighborhood, with lots of banging drums and ringing bells. The one in the picture stopped several times at the cemetery across from our apartment building, and continued on through the streets well into the night, and for the entire weekend. Just last night there was a huge hour long fireworks show that we could see from the apartment. Not well, mind you, but if you want to see the pictures click here. (Disclaimer: They're really bad pictures.)

Traveling shrines are not the only thing waking us up in the morning these days though. I have mention crows before, but these days they seem to pale in comparison. On any given morning you can be woken up by Nationalist Party trucks with people singing and shouting into loudspeakers, electronics recycler trucks with people shouting into loudspeakers, salesmen in trucks shouting into loudspeakers and Jehoavas Witnesses ringing our doorbell (without loudspeakers). The worst, however is the cicadas. Large winged insects with neither the need for loudspeakers or trucks. They are the crickets giant nasty brother, and when captured in nets by the neighborhood children they make a noise not unlike cats being tortured. After a recent rainstorm I found a couple that had fallen from trees, and took pictures. If you aren't squeamish about insects click here and here. Keep in mind those things are the size of my thumb.

Lastly, on my trips through the neighborhood, I have noticed a lot of the cars don't have the same kind of names as the ones back home. Don't get me wrong you still see the station wagons, Mazdas, Lexus and such but the dimensions don't seem the same. They are shorter and narrower (and of course the steering wheel is on the other side) but here are a few of the ones that seemed a little different to me.

I know I started the last paragraph with "lastly" but there is one more thing. In Colleen's blog she brought up a mythical creature that many of you have never heard of, but soon after reading this you will no longer be able to forget. I'm talking about...the Lepricorn. It started in a shopping center as a conversation with Joe and Leanne, and I believe I had slipped into a really bad Irish accent as I am prone to doing. Leanne looked at me, and in one sentence, had the rest of us on our knees laughing. "What are you some kind of Lepricorn or something?". Now I've heard of leprechauns and I've heard of Unicorns, but the idea of a little beer fueled half Irish midget half horse with a horn appendage was too much to handle. People stared at us as we laughed out loud trying to imagine what he might say. "Have you noticed I'm horny?" Or "Would you like to kiss me blarny stones, they're magically delicious?" and our favorite. "Did I mention I'm hung like a horse?" Perhaps in a future blog I will include an artists rendition of the Lepricorn. It just might be the first mythical creature created by a slip of the tongue. Anyhow, that's my time, I'm outta here.

Sayonara. Mata ashita. Carl.