Inagaki Jun-ichi: Kurisumasu Kyaroru no koro ni ha (クリスマスキャロルの頃には: 稲垣潤一)

Here's another Christmas song from my 90s CD. This is not the best recording, nor is it the best song, nor does the guy sing that well, nor is he that exciting on stage... Why am I posting this?

Nakayama Miho & WANDS: Sekaiju no dare yori kitto (中山美穂＆ＷＡＮＤＳ: 世界中の誰よりきっと)

Here's another song from my 90s CD. I don't know anything about WANDS, but the female singer (Nakayama Miho) was also an actor and model. This is fun song and the video is a bit Christmas-y. If possible, enjoy!

Zoo: Choo Choo Train

Only (absolutely only) for the sake of inclusiveness am I posting this video. This is another song from my 90s CD. Only under extreme duress would I admit to singing along with this song while driving.

Dog and garden

One of my students sent me some nice photos of her dog and garden. I will pass them along to you:



(You can click on each image to see a larger version.)

Thelma Aoyama: Soba ni iru ne (青山テルマ： そばにいるね)

This song also plays whenever I'm grocery shopping. I'm very curious about the singer. She went to an American international school (high school?) so I'm assuming she speaks English fluently. There are a number of live versions which are nice as well, and you can see SoulJa, her rapping male partner for this song.

Utada Hikaru: Heart Station (宇多田ヒカル)

I think this is her newest single. Recently, it's all I hear in movie shops, grocery stores, wherever. I didn't really like it much at first, but it's grown on me. I had no idea she was saying "Heart Station".

Utada Hikaru: Flavor of Life (宇多田ヒカル)

I'll give you a break from all the 90s stuff. Here's my current favourite J-Pop song (although the song is not so new). Yuu bought the CD when she was in Yonago and it's full of good stuff. This video has both Japanese and English subtitles so you can sing along. There are a few wee mistakes in the romaji subtitles.

What do you think?

[UPDATE: The English-subtitled version was removed, so this is now a differently-subtitled one.]

Noriyuki Makihara: Donna toki mo (どんなときも 槇原敬之)

Here's another song I really like from my 90s CD. This guy also had quite a high voice, and still does 15 years after. A new version of this song might appear once this video is over.

I think this guy may have gotten into trouble with the law. If any Japanese people can provide some information in the comments, that'd be swell.

Tokunaga Hideaki: Koware kake no Radio (徳永英明 壊れかけのラジオ)

Now, here's a great song, sure to please my mother. The song is nice, the singer looks nice, the video has a nice production quality... It's slow, not too loud, nice instruments, nice melody, probably nice lyrics (I'm not sure though), nice attire, etc.



I quite like this song, although I still can't get over the fact that the singer is male. When I first listened to my 90s CD, I thought for sure a woman was singing.

Kome Kome CLUB: Kimi ga iru dake de (米米ＣＬＵＢ 君がいるだけで)

I enjoy listening to my 90s CD in the car because I don't have to watch the videos. Here's a good example why. (Have you see anything scarier than the first 13 seconds?)

Lindberg: Ima sugu kiss me (今すぐ Kiss me)

Here's another one from the Japanese 90s music CD. This is fun, poppy, song, and this is the first time I've seen the singer. Cute, and a bit boyish, but makes me think Cyndi Lauper a bit.

Enjoy! たのしんで！

Kan: Ai ha katsu (愛は勝つ)

Here's another song from the same CD on which I first heard "Can you celebrate?" This is a fun, upbeat song, reminiscent of a bygone era. I can't really say which era, as I'm a tad too young. Take a listen:



This is quite fun to sing at karaoke. Look at that emotion!

Can you celebrate? (Amuro Namie)

I heard a song in the supermarket today which was a remix of an old Supremes song, sung by Amuro Namie. The song, called New Look I think, was interesting and catchy, and when I got home I searched YouTube and found a short video of it.

I much prefer her older style and voice though. We played her song "Can you celebrate?" at our wedding two years ago. Here is a touching and teary live performance of the song:

A bird on Mother's Day

Mother's Day is only a couple of months away, and I'm eagerly awaiting Seiyu's display this year. (Seiyu is a Japanese department store, which is now almost entirely owned by Walmart.)

Last May, the good folks at Seiyu decided to mount this display outside their store.


This was such a touching display of affection and respect, that my wife and I felt we had to talk directly to management about it. But not before snapping this cellphone photo.

I wonder what we can expect this year? Headless mooning mannequins? Child mannequin abuse? Or maybe a recap of last year?

Whatever Seiyu's (and Walmart's) plans, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

Kofun (古墳)

Kofun are enormous (often) keyhole-shaped burial mounds. They are quite remarkable, and now, with online mapping tools, anyone can get a bird's-eye view of them. Who were the originally intended viewers of these giant keyholes? Certainly not imaging satellites flying hundreds of kilometres above the Earth.

I've scoured Japan and here are a bunch of Kofuns: (zoom in and drag the maps around to see more)


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These are near Heijou Palace in Nara.


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These are in Sakai, Osaka.


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These are a bit east of Osaka.


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In Chiba.


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In Osaka.

DVD Recommendations

Recently, we thoroughly enjoyed two short-lived TV series and a movie, all starring many of the same actors and all produced by the same guy, Judd Apatow.

I'm going to introduce them in the order in which we viewed them, but feel free to watch them in any order. I'm not gonna be upset if you tell me you watched the newest one first, and then watched the middle TV series backwards. If that's what you feel like doing, then do that.

A few months ago, I read somewhere on the net that two of the greatest TV shows were Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks. I hadn't heard of F&G and I had been completely uninterested in Undeclared when it was first broadcast on television, because of an irrational dislike of the main character. (The fact that my parents had initially recommended it to me didn't help either.) Nine years had passed since its release (and subsequent cancellation) so my emotions were sure to have dissipated.


So we started watching Undeclared. We immediately fell in love with the show: the quirky characters, the storyline, the music. The setting made me think of my sister's residence at U of T. (I think you'd like the show a lot, sis.) I didn't relate too much to this series, but I thought it was great.


I strongly related to the next show, Freaks and Geeks, which was released a year prior to Undeclared. The reason I suggest watching F&G second, is that some of the characters are slightly more unsavoury than in the other show. Undeclared lets you warm up to some of these actors before seeing them as Freaks in F&G. This show revolves around a brother and his older sister going to high school right around 1980. This is just a touch before my time, but I still felt a strong connection to the show. The sister is intelligent and gets good grades, but she starts hanging out with the Freaks. The brother is short and thin, and he and his friends are labelled Geeks. They play with chemistry sets and Dungeons & Dragons. Looking back at my high school experience, I was a composite of these two characters, moving away from my "geeky" self and getting in with a "different" crowd. The acting and writing are top-notch and I strongly recommend renting the DVDs. (The show might be a bit nostalgic to the former highschool teachers out there too.)


The last recommendation is the movie "Knocked Up". This is like Freaks and Geeks, but fast-forward 10 years into the real world. The Freaks are portrayed here as a bunch of morons trying to start a website indexing all of the nude scenes from every movie known to man. The Geeks are simply the typical 9 to 5'ers, trying to live a "normal" life. It's a fun film, perhaps not so realistic, but worth a rental.

A French Couple

A married couple joined our school last week. They are our first married couple, but what really makes them stand out is that they speak English with French accents. It's quite fascinating. It feels like I'm speaking to someone in Quebec or Paris, France. Sometimes they'll slip into French for connecting words like "donc" and "alors".

What's even more interesting is that they met in Chad, Africa. (Chad's official languages are French and Arabic. That's its flag above.) I believe they also spent some time living in France. So, their French is better than mine. But it's quite a good combination as I can understand both of their second languages and a little bit of their native one.

They might be around for long though since their work takes them back and forth between Japan and Africa. They work for NGOs operating in Africa although I'm not sure of their exact roles yet.

A la prochaine!

The Story of Crow

I recently asked one of my students if she had had any pets when she was a child. She said no to a cat or dog, so I asked her if she had had any other kinds of animals: fish, turtle, etc. No, no, no, she said. But, she continued, she had had a crow.

A crow! I exclaimed. I started asking question after question about the crow. Here is its story.

When she was young, her brother came across an injured crow and brought it to an animal hospital. As he carried the bird there, its companion followed on the ground, hopping all the way to the hospital.

Her family decided to keep the flightless female crow in a covered enclosure in their back yard. Every day, the male companion would come to visit his "girlfriend". Every day for over a year, the male came. My student and her family would watch in the morning as he and the female touched their heads together through the cage. They would stay motionless like that for more than ten minutes. The male would often bring shiny objects to his friend: pieces of metal, bottle caps, etc. The only time the male didn't visit was during extremely windy or stormy weather.

I wonder how he felt after his girlfriend passed away. Did he forget about her? Or does he still wander the skies looking for his black-feathered friend?

Attack of the Cypresses

I just learned that sugi trees (杉) which are known as Japanese cedars, are actually not cedar trees. This is a misnomer. Sugi trees are in fact cypress trees. So my earlier post on cedars should be read again, substituting "cypress" with "cedar".

This is the tree whose wood is used in the construction of many pieces of Japanese furniture, including the drawers which safeguard many of the beautiful kimonos here. I was told that cypress (perhaps like cedar) keeps away worms and other bugs. However, I can't rectify this idea with the following from Wikipedia: "Cryptomeria [the scientific name for the sugi tree's genus] is used as a food plant by the larvae of some moths of the genus Endoclita."

Japanese Snowballs

These snowballs were part of a gift from a departing student. They were damn good! A delicious substitute to the snowballs I missed this past Christmas. They were so good, that I'm going to have to find the shop where they were purchased, and get some more. Needless to say, they did not compare with my Mom's snowballs, which will always be at the top of the snowball heap.

@Kath: If you see these in a cake or cookie shop, buy them.