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Learning to read hiragana has paid off. I was able to read the labels on food in the 7-11, and so realized that one of the six types of hot buns was filled with sweet black bean paste. Delicious! Pretending that I was a totally ignorant foreigner who had no clue that it's declasse to eat and walk, I inhaled it on the way to the train station. Due to jet lag I was able to leave early, allowing the usual hour to get lost in Tokyo. But between having been here twice before and now being able to read a bit, I did not get lost and ended up whiling away an hour in a coffee shop when I arrived before the Anime Fair opened. The way to get there, incidentally, turned out to be a new elevated train line past a giant ferris wheel and along the bay.
Though the fair was lots of fun, I don't think it would have been a worthwhile business trip if I hadn't been in Japan already. If I'd been there as a delegate from a big company, I could have set up meetings in advance, but it turned out to be quite difficult, if not impossible, to schmooze on the fly. I may have found some good artists, but I'm hoping the pickings will be better tomorrow, when it's open to the public. It did not help that I discovered that I grabbed the wrong business cards, and my company on them is my utterly non-entertainment-related day job company. I had no idea what to say when a guy from Studio Pierrot started asking about it, and I think he thought I was an imposter.
Also, everyone but me was in a formal suit-- well, everyone but the people in giant anime animal suits, one of whom wandered over and attempted to interact with me in a horrifyingly adorable manner. I did duck into a bathroom and put on some lipstick in the hope of looking more respectable, but I think that just made me look like a ragamuffin with lipstick. I was reminded of the conversation I had with my friend Halle a while back, when I asked her if she thought that if I ever became moderately famous I might be regarded as a rumpled sex symbol, like Neil Gaiman. Halle, who is the most loyal person in the universe, responded "Absolutely!" Beat. "And you're not rumpled."
However, considering that on my last business trip, the one where I went to New York in October to meet my publisher and arrived without a jacket, my cell phone, enough money to pay my cab fare, or an ATM card that worked in NYC ATMs, but with two bottles of red nail polish, I think I'm doing OK.
I did get in to see a screening of "Yakitate" in Japanese without subtitles. A small boy, who looked six but might have been supposed to be older, meets a baker whose dream is to be the best baker in Japan. The boy turns out to have an incredible natural gift for bread-making. When he kneads dough, his hands glow gold. He bakes bread for his grandfather which is so wonderful that the old man imagines himself the Pope and surfing on a giant slice of toast. Then the boy joins a baking school where everyone is ten years older than him and he's mocked but he will persevere!
At least, I think that's what happened. It was pretty funny, and I enjoyed it. I could have seen a screening of "Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo," but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks had warned me that it was the worst anime ever made and about intelligent nose hair, so I didn't.
After the bread show, I went to Ueno Park in the hope of seeing cherry blossoms, but all but a few trees were bare. Full bloom was supposed to be April 3, but I guess the trees jumped the gun. So I did not get to have a tragic love meeting beneath the trees, as would have been traditional, or even get drunk and have a picnic, which is also traditional. So I kept walking until I found a lake, and saw that the weeping willows are also lovely in spring.
Though the fair was lots of fun, I don't think it would have been a worthwhile business trip if I hadn't been in Japan already. If I'd been there as a delegate from a big company, I could have set up meetings in advance, but it turned out to be quite difficult, if not impossible, to schmooze on the fly. I may have found some good artists, but I'm hoping the pickings will be better tomorrow, when it's open to the public. It did not help that I discovered that I grabbed the wrong business cards, and my company on them is my utterly non-entertainment-related day job company. I had no idea what to say when a guy from Studio Pierrot started asking about it, and I think he thought I was an imposter.
Also, everyone but me was in a formal suit-- well, everyone but the people in giant anime animal suits, one of whom wandered over and attempted to interact with me in a horrifyingly adorable manner. I did duck into a bathroom and put on some lipstick in the hope of looking more respectable, but I think that just made me look like a ragamuffin with lipstick. I was reminded of the conversation I had with my friend Halle a while back, when I asked her if she thought that if I ever became moderately famous I might be regarded as a rumpled sex symbol, like Neil Gaiman. Halle, who is the most loyal person in the universe, responded "Absolutely!" Beat. "And you're not rumpled."
However, considering that on my last business trip, the one where I went to New York in October to meet my publisher and arrived without a jacket, my cell phone, enough money to pay my cab fare, or an ATM card that worked in NYC ATMs, but with two bottles of red nail polish, I think I'm doing OK.
I did get in to see a screening of "Yakitate" in Japanese without subtitles. A small boy, who looked six but might have been supposed to be older, meets a baker whose dream is to be the best baker in Japan. The boy turns out to have an incredible natural gift for bread-making. When he kneads dough, his hands glow gold. He bakes bread for his grandfather which is so wonderful that the old man imagines himself the Pope and surfing on a giant slice of toast. Then the boy joins a baking school where everyone is ten years older than him and he's mocked but he will persevere!
At least, I think that's what happened. It was pretty funny, and I enjoyed it. I could have seen a screening of "Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo," but
rushthatspeaks had warned me that it was the worst anime ever made and about intelligent nose hair, so I didn't. After the bread show, I went to Ueno Park in the hope of seeing cherry blossoms, but all but a few trees were bare. Full bloom was supposed to be April 3, but I guess the trees jumped the gun. So I did not get to have a tragic love meeting beneath the trees, as would have been traditional, or even get drunk and have a picnic, which is also traditional. So I kept walking until I found a lake, and saw that the weeping willows are also lovely in spring.
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Well, that explains a lot...
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"about" or "about as"?
Is there a word missing in there, or is it literally about intelligent nose hair?
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Re: "about" or "about as"?