Archive for category Movies
February 1, 2004 – Cheap movie day
Posted by Barniferous in Marshall, Movies, Tokyo on February 1, 2014
Today was a day off, and man, did I ever sleep a lot. Today is the first day of the month, so it is cheap movie day. On cheap day the price is 1000 yen instead of the typical 1800 yen. Marshall and I took advantage of cheap day to see Mystic River in Shinjuku.
Interesting notes from our movie night:
a) You can buy and drink beer at movies in Japan
b) Marshall and I found the movie theatre in Shinjuku WITHOUT getting lost. This is truly unprecedented.
January 21, 2004 – Avoiding the teacher
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Movies, Teaching English on January 21, 2014
I had a student deliberately avoid one of my voice classes today, which was a bit of a blow to the ego. At the end of each class we have to ask the students if they have another lesson. This helps determine which files we need to get to another teacher. One of the students said no, she didn’t have another lesson, but she would be going into the Voice room for an open conversation class. I told her that I would be teaching Voice next, so that I would see here there.
During the 10 minute break between classes she went to the reception area and booked another classroom lesson so that she would not have to take my Voice class. Ouch!
After work I went back to Hello House and finally got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. It was good, but could have probably been about 20 minutes shorter. I love movies, but living in Japan makes it difficult to keep up on the newest releases. Most movies take a few months to show up in Japan, and the DVD releases are similarly delayed. The result is that I can’t talk new movies with people from home. Oh well, a small price to pay for living in Japan.
December 29, 2003 – Robocop (the good one)
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on December 29, 2013
Most of Japan shuts down round New Year, and for a change NOVA was no exception. The one downside is that bank machines are also shut down, so you need to plan ahead for spending cash. I still don’t understand the need to shut down bank machines at any time, especially in a mostly cash based economy.
The day off was great. I sat on my butt, played video games and watched a lot of TV in the common room at Hello House. Included in my viewing was British detective show “A Touch of Frost” and Robocop. Fortunately this time it was the excellent original Robocop, and not the shockingly bad Robocop 3 that I endured a few weeks earlier.
December 18, 2003 – Robocop 3 is terrible
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on December 18, 2013
In order to fight off my cold, I cancelled language practice and a post work trip to Roppongi. In the evening I decided to drink some cold green tea, because generally makes you feel better when you have a cold. I now know that some kinds of green tea have as much or more caffiene than coffee does. Needless to say I ended up watching late night TV by myself.
For the record, Robocop 3 sucks. I am not talking “is just bad”, it really, really sucks. They took out a lot of the violence and dark sense of humour, then added a robot ninja and Robocop with a jetpack. Seriously. Bad.
December 6, 2003 – The Last Samurai
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on December 6, 2013
After work I went to Shinyurigaoka for dinner and a movie with Yumi. Okonomiyaki is like an omelette pancake with egg, cabbage and meats or vegetables of your choice. You grill it at your table and cover it with delicious sauce. It is delicious and a lot of fun to cook. Seriously, you have to eat this.
After dinner we went to see the Last Samurai at a large movie theatre. This movie theatre, like many in Japan, had reserved seating! This should be standard at every movie theatre. Nobody likes to show up an hour early to get a good seat for a popular movie. The movie, like most foreign movies shown in Japan, was subtitled and not dubbed. Fortunately for me they also provided English subtitles when the characters were speaking Japanese, something that Kill Bill didn’t do.
I was worried that the crowd would be a bit uncomfortable with the hero of the story being a gaijin, and Emperor Meiji being a bit of a weak character. However, everyone in the crowd liked the movie, especially the strong performance of Ken Watanabe. After the movie I ended up catching the last train back to Noborito. Good times!
September 27, 2003 – Less than a week in Japan and I am eating burgers
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on September 27, 2013
Original Post
The only notable thing today was eating at Wendy`s, which is exactly the same as Wendy`s in Canada. But I ordered in Japanese and felt pretty good about myself for it! I watched Jurassic Park on TV. When foreign films play on TV, the character`s names are shown in katakana when they are introduced. It is actually a nice feature that should be in all movies.
2013 Notes
Unfortunately not all movies have the character name pop up. I still think it is a very good idea.
Return to Japan 2013: July 6 – departure
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Return to Japan on July 12, 2013
When you stay up too late packing, 5am comes way too quickly. In a zombie like state I called for a taxi and took all of my stuff out to the curb to wait. Doing this I completely forgot to take out the garbage, which was one of the key thing to do before I left.
The taxi driver was a young Indian man who was very chatty. His father owns the cab and drives during the day. The son gets to drive at night which allows the taxi to make money all day. He had just finished a typical Friday night shift of picking up and dropping off drunk people. If you ever want to get an idea of what your city is really like at night, talk to a taxi driver.
At the airport a young man blatantly cut his way ahead in the security line. Nobody said anything, either due to extreme politeness or because it was 6:00am and everyone was too tired. I hope he got “randomly selected” for extra screening.
My first flight was Winnipeg to Vancouver. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the Rocky Mountains from the airplane. If you ever get a chance to fly over the Rockies make sure you have a window seat. It really gives you a good perspective on how massive (and pointy) the mountains are.
After landing in Vancouver, I had a 4 hour wait before my flight to Tokyo. It’s nice to have some time to relax in an airport, but 4 hours is a bit too long, especially with a shitty free wi-fi connection. There are only so many times you can look at duty free stores that sell the same products.
Finally the boarding started and I got to jam myself into a tiny window seat for the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Shortly after takeoff we got our dinner. The choice was beef or chicken. I chose beef and got served the saddest looking gyudon that I had ever seen (as seen above). I have flown across the Pacific Ocean with Air Canada 8 times before so I didn’t have terribly high expectations, but this was the worst airplane food I can remember.
During my 10 hour flight I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep, ate two forgettable meals, and watched Argo (great), Quiz Show (good) and Identity Thief (okay). Other than the food and lack of sleep, the flight was good and landed about 20 minutes early. The adventure on the ground picks up in the next post.
Drinking in Japan 
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