Squampton.ca
Living Out Of A Suitcase
Miscellaneous
Fisheye
May 24th, 2010
I think Steve and Erica might recognize where this photo was taken from. Kai might know too!
Hanging Screen (Taremaku, 垂れ幕)
May 13th, 2010
A thin straw screen separates tables in a busy restaurant.
Vending Machine (Jidou Hanbaiki, 自動販売機)
May 12th, 2010
Most serve soft drinks or cigarettes, but in the sticks you can still find the old school booze vending machines. This is a deluxe model, selling both beer and smokes altogether.
Beer (Biru, ビール)
May 11th, 2010
One of the big three beer companys in Japan (Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo), which all taste like crap.
Stopgap
Mar 19th, 2010
Been too busy to post much here recently, as you can tell. Got a few posts and photos drafted, but just haven’t had the time to sit down and finish them. In the meantime, check out my Wordle below.
Christmas Dinner
Dec 26th, 2009
Instead of doing the KFC thing (a strange Japanese Christmas traditional meal), or buying a pre-cooked glazed leg from the supermarket, I went on the hunt for a whole bird yesterday. I searched a couple places and finally found some 3-4 pound birds for sale under Sendai Station.
Get Fit Or Die Trying, Part 2
Dec 9th, 2009
As anyone that is on my Facebook can see, I’ve been running a lot lately. There’s a great park just minutes from our place so I don’t have to deal with traffic and exhaust and all that other crap. Anyways, here’s the playlist I run to. I don’t even know when I made it, but it’s been sitting on the iPod for a while. I gotta update it though… any suggestions?
What’s been happening…
Oct 8th, 2009
Hi everyone, been a long time since I’ve posted anything, eh?
Since we moved to Sendai in April, Kyoko and I have done a lot, yet we haven’t really been anywhere. When I lived in Furukawa we were trying to get the heck out of there almost every weekend so I had many opportunities to explore. Right now I’m still exploring Sendai, which is an amazing city to live in!
I just picked up a used Nikon D40 DSLR camera, so I should have some pictures of this city, and my place in it, in the Autumn months ahead.
Until then, you can check out a different website project I started recently — trying to be a baseball writer. Since I live just a 10 minute walk from one of Japan’s professional baseball teams, I’ve gotten back into baseball in a huge way. Japanese baseball, anyways. By the end of the season we will have gone to well over 20 games! There are precious few websites covering Japanese baseball in English, so I thought I’d try my hand at some writing. The good thing is that there’s always something to write about. The bad thing is that it may get repetitive after 80 or 90 games. There’s no clear goal for this project. It’s a hobby and an exercise in writing. Who knows though, perhaps this will lead me down a different path in the future. Anyways, if you’d like a glimpse into the world of Nippon Pro Baseball, be my guest and check it out.
http://theeaglesblog.com
I hope everyone is doing well, and doing their best to enjoy life.
Andrew
Side Project
Jun 12th, 2009
Last month I started a “social networking experiment”. I’d been using Twitter for over a year now, but never really got into it until a few months ago. Personally, I think the key to enjoying Twitter is to find your niche, and follow people who share that common bond. I finally figured out mine: foreigners who live in Japan. I started following them, reading their great websites, and quickly realized that there is a great online community for English speakers living in Japan. Perhaps inspired by what they were doing, I came up with a way that I could get in the game and take an active part in the community as well.
The concept was based on the cassette/CD swaps of the 80’s and 90’s. I actually participated in a CD swap back in university, but by then I think it’s time had passed (thanks Napster!). Instead of mailing a CD to someone though, we would be mailing a bottle of sake to each other! Sake production can be very regional; most breweries do not widely distribute their wares throughout the country. Sake is also experiencing a decline in popularity, battling beer, whiskey, and shochu (a Korean liquor) at the bars and izakayas (Japanese-style restaurants). There is however, a growing movement to restore sake to its previous glory as it gains popularity overseas. We’re talking real, high-quality sake that’s meant to be drank chilled, not piping-hot like you’ll get at your Chinese-run sushi restaurant on Robson Street.
So I made a simple website and posted a couple messages on Twitter to see if anyone was interested in joining this experiment. Our first event is wrapping up as we speak; we had 6 people join from varying parts of Japan. I sent off 2 bottles of sake, one to Tokyo and one to Shizuoka. I received 2 bottles as well, one from Tokyo and one from Toyama. Pretty cool to say the least.
I just opened up registration for our second event, and upgraded the website to accommodate reviews, links, and so on. The word is slowly getting out despite minimal advertising. It’s a great way to try sake from different parts of the country that you would otherwise have no opportunity to sample. You don’t have to be a sake expert to join, in fact it’s a great way to learn about nihonshu (sake)!
Check out the site and see what has transpired so far. There are a couple reviews up already, and links to some great food and sake websites.
Kanpai!