BUNKO AND THE VERY DEAD FISH

Bunko is…

a. absorbing the final memory of the dead fish so that she can figure out who killed him. She will absolutely be seeking vengeance.

b. thinking that she just found herself some lunch!

c. trying to figure out why her magic touch has not transformed the fish into a cupcake.

d. all of the above.

Answer: Obviously “D”. 

Tip: To see the dead fish in all it’s mummified glory click through to the hi-res version!

CONFUSING STUFF IN JAPAN 02 - “AKASHI AND MELISSA LOVE PETER GABRIEL”

Pictured above is a close-up of a Japanese ema. What’s an ema you ask? Well, according to the internet an ema is a “small wooden plaque found in Japanese shrines onto which patrons write down prayers or wishes”.

I saw quite a few emas during my day spent in Kyoto, but only one was worthy of the What Up With That Ema? award. So, without further ado, I present the first ever What Up With That Ema? award to…

AKASHI AND MELISSA!!!

Congratulations you two, the ema you created together on November 7th, 2010 made very little sense to me!!! Here is what I found to be most confusing about your ema…

1. I see that “retardation” is first on your list, followed by a smiley face. So I gotta ask, are you wishing and/or praying for retardation?

2. Why the “RPG”? I get that you obviously mean “Remember Peter Gabriel”, which is nice and all, but lets be honest, Genesis was nothing until Phil Collins took the helm. Also, as far as I know, Peter Gabriel is still alive, so why the need to remember him? 

3. Your third line reads as follows… “BRIGHT FUTURE. WILD AND STUPID.” I’m sorry, but you can’t have both. Either cross out the “bright future” bit if you want to be stupid, or cross out the “wild & stupid” bit if you want a bright future. You can’t have it both ways… you just can’t.

4. You wrote “BEACH!” twice, which is fine, but it’s redundant and irritating to the viewer. Next time just one “BEACH!” will do, thank you.

Finally, if Akashi or Melissa ever read this, please know that I am just joking and absolutely adore your ema! I truly hope that you two are relaxing on a beach somewhere jammin’ out to some classic Peter Gabriel. And Akashi, if you ever think about marrying Melissa, I think you should invest in a boom box and go the whole John Cusack In Your Eyes route, she’ll love it, trust me.

Anyway, here’s a few more photos of some of the less interesting ema I saw while in Japan…

COOL STUFF IN JAPAN 18 - JAPANESE SOCIETY OF LEAPFROG EXCELLENCE

I’ve gotta hand it to the good folks of Japan, they keep it real with the leapfrog well into their teenage years. In America we tend to abandon leapfrog for dodge ball in around first or second grade. As such, most American adults are absolutely terrible at jumping over their coworkers. Not to worry though, they are great at dodging flying adults, and thus injuries are quite rare.

PEOPLE OF JAPAN 44 - “ROCK CLIMBING MAN WHO MADE ME HAPPY AND SAD”

I sort of remember being all excited when I saw this guy up on the rock. I also sort of remember being all excited when I took this picture.

But here is what I remember most… looking at this picture and complaining to Vicki about the guy on the rock. I remember saying “why couldn’t he be wearing a red jacket, this photo would be so much cooler if he was in a red jacket, and where’s his winter cap, this photo would be so much cooler if he had a cozy winter cap, why did this guy ruin my photo Vicki, why???” I then told Vicki to put on my cozy winter cap and climb the rock and pose like a “little rock creature”. She took my hat but refused to climb the rock or pose like a “little rock creature”.

Still, gotta give this guy much respect for figuring out how to get up on that big ol’ rock.

PLACES OF JAPAN 14 - “CUTE LITTLE RED SNOWBALL STAND SHRINE ON CLIFF”

As we approached this cute little red building I convinced myself that it would be a Japanese snowball stand. I was literally wondering if they would have a chicken teriyaki flavored snowball, and if so, would I try it, or would I play it safe and go with the tutti frutti. Fortunately it turned out to be a shrine so I didn’t have to make this difficult decision.

PLACES OF JAPAN 13 - “WAVES CRASH INTO DAVE MATTHEWS”

Actually, on second look, the waves appear to be crashing into rocks, not Dave Matthews. I apologize for the confusion, Vicki and I spent most of this morning making a Dave Matthews Pancake Sculpture and I guess he was just on my mind when I sat down to write this post. Again, if you spent a few hours looking for Dave in this photo, I offer my sincerest apology. This is very embarrassing and hopefully will never happen again.

Note: I know this may be hard to believe, but the only drug I’ve ever been on is Advil. Actually, that’s a lie, I took Ambien once and literally started talking to the walls in our apartment (Vicki had video of this which I unfortunately made her delete when she showed it to me the next morning). Seriously, if you don’t go right to bed when you take Ambien strange things can happen, look it up on Google, it’s scary.

TUMBLR EXCLUSIVE - “VICKI FINALLY GETS HER OWN COZY WINTER CAP!!!”

After several days of Vicki using and abusing MY cozy winter cap, we finally found her a cozy winter cap to call her own. While obviously not as cozy as MY cozy winter cap, it nevertheless did it’s job. Actually, I take that back, it didn’t do it’s job at all because eventually we had to supplement her cozy winter cap with a pair of cozy winter earmuffs. Good grief, the amount of drama we had with cozy winter caps and cozy winter earmuffs during our brief trip to Japan is unbelievable. I’m not kidding, I could probably write a book about all of our cozy winter cap drama. And poor Vicki’s dad (also pictured above), that guy never had a cozy winter cap, his ears must have been freezing.

PLACES OF JAPAN 12 - “KOCHI BEACH IS BETTER THAN OCEAN CITY”

Vicki and I spent most of our time in Kochi following Vicki’s dad around. He’s a rather quiet guy and English is definitely his second language, so sometimes I didn’t quite know what was happening.

Anyway, on this particular day all I knew is that we were going to see the “Kochi Aquarium” (This was a favor to me as I’m a big fan of any organism that can breathe underwater). So when I hopped out of the bus and walked up some steps and saw this beautiful beach scene my mind was blown. I didn’t even realize we were near a beach, much less a beach with epic cliffs and lush shrubbery.

I should mention that the only beach I’d really been to before this is the rather eclectic beach at Ocean City, Maryland. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have many fond memories of getting stung by jelly fish and getting sand in my bathing suit during summer vacations to Ocean City, and Thrashers Fries are the best fries ever… but never in my life have I seen such beautiful blue water as I did in Kochi. It was quite magical. 

Oh, and if you’re curious, the Kochi Aquarium is just outside of this frame to the right.