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Wednesday after work I went to Takadanobaba to hang out with this dude who I don't really know that is studying at Waseda but used to be an eikaiwa drone in Toyama a few years ago. Seems like an okay guy, wants to play Settlers sometime, maybe we will if we can find another person or two. We had dinner at Shakey's, so that was my first time ever going to a Shakey's... it was kinda crazy, very American-pizza-place decor, and we both did the all-you-can-eat deal for 1800 yen (it made sense if you saw the prices, a whole 12" pizza plus a drink would be more than 1800 yen, and this way you could get many different kinds). The pizza wasn't bad, it was actually fairly decent for Japan, but in the US there is no way I would spend $20 for all-you-can-eat of this crap. Though the deal also came with one soft drink and some fried chicken and french fries and a salad, so eh.
Thursday, today, is Thanksgiving. School kinda sucked for various reasons. I did tell the kids this morning a little about Thanksgiving (their reaction being "So it's like Christmas with no presents? Lame.") but... anyway, whatever, not in a public entry. I stayed late to sync timing up so I could see a 9pm movie in Saitama Shintoshin without heading home first.
Basically, at Shintoshin I knew I could actually eat turkey, see.
But what I had for dinner was a turkey sandwich on toasted wheat bread, with fries and onion rings, at Kua'Aina, the Hawaiian sandwich shop. Hooray. It still counts, kinda, right?
Then I did some shopping. First a stop in at Kinokuniya, where I found the college baseball magazine I'd been waiting for with the fall review, as well as a JR pocket timetable for Seishun 18 usage. Then, a stop at Uniqlo. I was originally just looking, not buying, but they had a sale and a whole ton of the long-sleeve shirts were 690 yen! That's DIRT cheap! So I bought 5 shirts. Two are actually replacements of older shirts of mine that look like crap after going through my Japanese washing machine so many times, but still. I got paid yesterday so it's okay to do a little shopping. We don't have Black Friday here anyway.
So, I saw the 9pm showing of Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteru, or "Feel the Wind". This is a movie about a bunch of kids at a made-up college (I think) who are in the track club, only their track club doesn't really DO anything until one day their club leader Haiji recruits a new kid named Kakeru, and says, "Okay, club, we're gonna run the Hakone Ekiden!" and they all say "Haha you must be joking", except obviously then we have 2 hours of guys training together and bonding and eventually running the freaking race. There actually isn't really much more to the movie, to be honest. I mean, there is a lot of backstory -- WHY both boys quit running for a while (injury, conflict, etc), and there ARE 8 other guys on their track team, so the movie has to bother establishing all of those guys as characters and even gives a few of them backstory as well. The characters are actually really interesting and it was cool seeing the Saitoh twins again since the last thing I saw them in was Touch. And they have a token exchange student dude from Africa as one of the characters -- apparently international students running the Ekiden is a common theme. And the international student was played by Dante Carver, aka The Black Dude In The Softbank Commercials. There's also a token female character. But really... I dunno, I learned quite a bit about the Hakone race, I guess, but in reality, the only reason to see this movie is if you are either a Keisuke Koide fan or a Kento Hayashi fan, or are really into track and running.
Me, I loooooooooooove Keisuke Koide, so I was perfectly happy to watch him be himself for 2 hours and run a lot. Seriously. I'd never seen Hayashi before but he was pretty good too.
(More Keisuke Koide in 3 weeks when the Nodame Cantabile movie comes out! I've never read the manga or seen the dorama or anything but I might go see the movie anyway.)
Anyway, I still have a cold and a runny nose and it sucks. I'm going to sleep.
Thursday, today, is Thanksgiving. School kinda sucked for various reasons. I did tell the kids this morning a little about Thanksgiving (their reaction being "So it's like Christmas with no presents? Lame.") but... anyway, whatever, not in a public entry. I stayed late to sync timing up so I could see a 9pm movie in Saitama Shintoshin without heading home first.
Basically, at Shintoshin I knew I could actually eat turkey, see.
But what I had for dinner was a turkey sandwich on toasted wheat bread, with fries and onion rings, at Kua'Aina, the Hawaiian sandwich shop. Hooray. It still counts, kinda, right?
Then I did some shopping. First a stop in at Kinokuniya, where I found the college baseball magazine I'd been waiting for with the fall review, as well as a JR pocket timetable for Seishun 18 usage. Then, a stop at Uniqlo. I was originally just looking, not buying, but they had a sale and a whole ton of the long-sleeve shirts were 690 yen! That's DIRT cheap! So I bought 5 shirts. Two are actually replacements of older shirts of mine that look like crap after going through my Japanese washing machine so many times, but still. I got paid yesterday so it's okay to do a little shopping. We don't have Black Friday here anyway.
So, I saw the 9pm showing of Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteru, or "Feel the Wind". This is a movie about a bunch of kids at a made-up college (I think) who are in the track club, only their track club doesn't really DO anything until one day their club leader Haiji recruits a new kid named Kakeru, and says, "Okay, club, we're gonna run the Hakone Ekiden!" and they all say "Haha you must be joking", except obviously then we have 2 hours of guys training together and bonding and eventually running the freaking race. There actually isn't really much more to the movie, to be honest. I mean, there is a lot of backstory -- WHY both boys quit running for a while (injury, conflict, etc), and there ARE 8 other guys on their track team, so the movie has to bother establishing all of those guys as characters and even gives a few of them backstory as well. The characters are actually really interesting and it was cool seeing the Saitoh twins again since the last thing I saw them in was Touch. And they have a token exchange student dude from Africa as one of the characters -- apparently international students running the Ekiden is a common theme. And the international student was played by Dante Carver, aka The Black Dude In The Softbank Commercials. There's also a token female character. But really... I dunno, I learned quite a bit about the Hakone race, I guess, but in reality, the only reason to see this movie is if you are either a Keisuke Koide fan or a Kento Hayashi fan, or are really into track and running.
Me, I loooooooooooove Keisuke Koide, so I was perfectly happy to watch him be himself for 2 hours and run a lot. Seriously. I'd never seen Hayashi before but he was pretty good too.
(More Keisuke Koide in 3 weeks when the Nodame Cantabile movie comes out! I've never read the manga or seen the dorama or anything but I might go see the movie anyway.)
Anyway, I still have a cold and a runny nose and it sucks. I'm going to sleep.
