Oyce has landed

I safely retrieved a slightly late oyceter from LAX last night. That gave me the time to read volume four of Planet Ladder, featuring more Angst of the Giant Robot Chicken. Oyce is peacefully sleeping in my bed right now, having ignored the "you get this side and I get this side" system we arranged earlier, and having rolled over into the middle and sprawled, slowly and cunningly pushing me over to one side as I slept and depriving my cats of their usual spot at the edge of the bed. Given their preliminary sudden leap on to her stomach last night, I suspect that tonight they will get their revenge.

I cannot improve upon her account of our dinner at Furaibo, so I direct you to hers. I was thrilled that, unlike most people I ferry around the city, she immediately declared that she likes LA! (Cuddles my poor, under-appreciated city.) Today we are going to go downtown to get dim sum and walk around Chinatown, and then drive to Little Tokyo to visit the historic mochi shop and Kinokuniya and Daikokuya Ramen. After being hypnotized by the brain-frying nature of the picture in Kazuya Minekura's Salty Dog 4 (see the gallery here of the same title), I decided that I need to own it. They are so much more arresting in person, especially the sepia one of the ikkou and the one of Hakkai with an orange. I cannot wait for her next art book, where there will undoubtedly be full-color art of Youkai Hakkai.

Oyce has landed

I safely retrieved a slightly late oyceter from LAX last night. That gave me the time to read volume four of Planet Ladder, featuring more Angst of the Giant Robot Chicken. Oyce is peacefully sleeping in my bed right now, having ignored the "you get this side and I get this side" system we arranged earlier, and having rolled over into the middle and sprawled, slowly and cunningly pushing me over to one side as I slept and depriving my cats of their usual spot at the edge of the bed. Given their preliminary sudden leap on to her stomach last night, I suspect that tonight they will get their revenge.

I cannot improve upon her account of our dinner at Furaibo, so I direct you to hers. I was thrilled that, unlike most people I ferry around the city, she immediately declared that she likes LA! (Cuddles my poor, under-appreciated city.) Today we are going to go downtown to get dim sum and walk around Chinatown, and then drive to Little Tokyo to visit the historic mochi shop and Kinokuniya and Daikokuya Ramen. After being hypnotized by the brain-frying nature of the picture in Kazuya Minekura's Salty Dog 4 (see the gallery here of the same title), I decided that I need to own it. They are so much more arresting in person, especially the sepia one of the ikkou and the one of Hakkai with an orange. I cannot wait for her next art book, where there will undoubtedly be full-color art of Youkai Hakkai.

(no subject)

See Oyce's entry on LA: Day Two for what we did today.

I will add that we also had cha siu bao and somewhat doughy mochi which I adored anyway because they were stuffed with sweet black sesame paste, which is one of my favorite flavors. We ate so much dim sum that we didn't even have room for dan tat (egg custard tarts) at the bakery afterward, though after several blocks in the blazing sun, we were grateful for an air-conditioned boba tea place and lychee (mine) and watermelon (hers) slushies. A CD shop was blasting a J-pop-sounding remix of Ennio Morricone's theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as I bought a pink hat so I wouldn't keel over from sunstroke.

There are three anime/manga/memorabilia/gift shops in Bamboo Pavilion, which houses the dim sum place. I warned Oyce off buying any anime DVDs, which are all Hong Kong bootlegs with awful subtitles, like the infamous Wolf's Rain DVDs, which I am mailing to someone who will appreciate them, which translated "Impossible!" as "Flubdub and gulf!" The anime is about the attempt of four post-apocalyptic wolves who can project the illusion of being human to find Paradise. Paradise, which is discussed a great deal, was translated as "amusement park," leading to dialogue like, "I don't care if I die, as long as I see amusement park," and "Ha-ha-ha-ha! At long last, amusement park is mine!" Also, the wolf Hige, which means whiskers, kept getting his name translated as "Wolf Beard," then "Beard," and once, if I recall correctly, "Moustache." This led to dialogue like, "Moustache, save me!"

Anyway, we did not buy DVDs. I bought three teeny-tiny Naruto mystery figurines, which I was pleased to see were Iruka, Naruto with the scroll, and Sakura fierce with shuriken. I also bought two larger ones, of Naruto with the scroll (again) and Shikamaru doing his shadow jutsu. But I am still frustrated by the lack of Jiraiya, Hinata, and Rock Lee.

At Kinokuniya I found The Great Mirror of Male Love, by Ihara Saikaku, which you may remember as the inspiration for the Dutch guy to move to Japan in Samurai Champloo. It was a bestseller in Japan in the late 1600s, and is a book of short stories about the love of men for boys, and why that is so much better than the love of men for women. In one story two men meet on a pilgrimage. One is carrying the ashes of his boy love, and also the ashes of his friend's wife. The man he meets declares that a fine lover of boys should not sully his arms with a woman just because she's dead, so he throws her ashes in the river. In another story, one lover accepts a cup of sake from some random guy at a sake keg party (no, really, it said they forgot that cherry blossoms signify a brief lives, and so fitted the sake barrel with a spout at the cherry-viewing party) and his lover tortures him to death after hearing about it, then commits suicide in remorse. Then everyone sees the two sad sake cups by their bedside and are really impressed by how much the torture-killer guy loved his victim. There's another story where a boy spits in the river, and a connoisseur of boy love runs downstream to drink it, declaring that he wishes to savor the nectar of the boy's saliva forever.

What I actually bought was Saiyuki Reload 4 and 5 and Naruto 28, 29, 30, and 31 (timskip arc) in Japanese. I need scans of the former, pretty please, anyone know where they are? Hazel's language is very difficult, and without furigana everything reads like, "Sanzo, [incomprehensible paragraph] desu yo."

I also saw several ninja books full of poorly documented "evidence," like a photo labeled "Old books showing ninja techniques," claims to be the only American taught by the only person whose ninjutsu school descended from actual ninja, and photos of a dorky white guy in a ninja outfit and mask doing back flips in front of a washing machine. I bought the one that cost fifty cents. One of the chapter titles is "I Am Ninja!"

(no subject)

See Oyce's entry on LA: Day Two for what we did today.

I will add that we also had cha siu bao and somewhat doughy mochi which I adored anyway because they were stuffed with sweet black sesame paste, which is one of my favorite flavors. We ate so much dim sum that we didn't even have room for dan tat (egg custard tarts) at the bakery afterward, though after several blocks in the blazing sun, we were grateful for an air-conditioned boba tea place and lychee (mine) and watermelon (hers) slushies. A CD shop was blasting a J-pop-sounding remix of Ennio Morricone's theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as I bought a pink hat so I wouldn't keel over from sunstroke.

There are three anime/manga/memorabilia/gift shops in Bamboo Pavilion, which houses the dim sum place. I warned Oyce off buying any anime DVDs, which are all Hong Kong bootlegs with awful subtitles, like the infamous Wolf's Rain DVDs, which I am mailing to someone who will appreciate them, which translated "Impossible!" as "Flubdub and gulf!" The anime is about the attempt of four post-apocalyptic wolves who can project the illusion of being human to find Paradise. Paradise, which is discussed a great deal, was translated as "amusement park," leading to dialogue like, "I don't care if I die, as long as I see amusement park," and "Ha-ha-ha-ha! At long last, amusement park is mine!" Also, the wolf Hige, which means whiskers, kept getting his name translated as "Wolf Beard," then "Beard," and once, if I recall correctly, "Moustache." This led to dialogue like, "Moustache, save me!"

Anyway, we did not buy DVDs. I bought three teeny-tiny Naruto mystery figurines, which I was pleased to see were Iruka, Naruto with the scroll, and Sakura fierce with shuriken. I also bought two larger ones, of Naruto with the scroll (again) and Shikamaru doing his shadow jutsu. But I am still frustrated by the lack of Jiraiya, Hinata, and Rock Lee.

At Kinokuniya I found The Great Mirror of Male Love, by Ihara Saikaku, which you may remember as the inspiration for the Dutch guy to move to Japan in Samurai Champloo. It was a bestseller in Japan in the late 1600s, and is a book of short stories about the love of men for boys, and why that is so much better than the love of men for women. In one story two men meet on a pilgrimage. One is carrying the ashes of his boy love, and also the ashes of his friend's wife. The man he meets declares that a fine lover of boys should not sully his arms with a woman just because she's dead, so he throws her ashes in the river. In another story, one lover accepts a cup of sake from some random guy at a sake keg party (no, really, it said they forgot that cherry blossoms signify a brief lives, and so fitted the sake barrel with a spout at the cherry-viewing party) and his lover tortures him to death after hearing about it, then commits suicide in remorse. Then everyone sees the two sad sake cups by their bedside and are really impressed by how much the torture-killer guy loved his victim. There's another story where a boy spits in the river, and a connoisseur of boy love runs downstream to drink it, declaring that he wishes to savor the nectar of the boy's saliva forever.

What I actually bought was Saiyuki Reload 4 and 5 and Naruto 28, 29, 30, and 31 (timskip arc) in Japanese. I need scans of the former, pretty please, anyone know where they are? Hazel's language is very difficult, and without furigana everything reads like, "Sanzo, [incomprehensible paragraph] desu yo."

I also saw several ninja books full of poorly documented "evidence," like a photo labeled "Old books showing ninja techniques," claims to be the only American taught by the only person whose ninjutsu school descended from actual ninja, and photos of a dorky white guy in a ninja outfit and mask doing back flips in front of a washing machine. I bought the one that cost fifty cents. One of the chapter titles is "I Am Ninja!"