Muni-muni

train spot

Thanks to Cone for the story!

beer fest

one of my favorite wheat beers...
Ginga Kogen









Delirium Tremens
aside from the 9% alc content, the taste blew my socks off!

what must it be like to be always happy?

Great weather this weekend, bright, cool and sunny! There was this community matsuri (fair) for kids where I won at the raffle.
I also saw in person this woman who was featured on TV one time. She's in her late 30s and years ago she had an accident while riding her bike. She hit her head on the curb and that damaged one part of her brain, the one that makes us recognize sadness. So now she does not get sad at all, no matter what. She feels no worry, nor grief. She is always happy and has no concept at all of what sadness feels like!

Doctors have given her a choice that she could either live that way or they can try to at least "repair" a damaged part of her brain and that it might make her recognize grief. So far she has chosen to stay "happy" because she does not know what that change would bring her. If you saw her on TV, she always had this permanent smile on her face and her reaction to almost anything was always a happy one. One time she got lost, due to a memory lapse, instead of worrying, she just laughed at her predicament.

I saw her today at the fair, in the flesh. She looked like everyone else unless you knew about her condition. She does wear that smile all the time, the only person I know who is 100% HAPPY.

Trip on these!

pink gloved feet!









this egg's got liver spots and
stretch marks on it!

at least no warts...















creepy!

Vintage Tokyo

This is a typical "gaado-shita", literally means under the tracks.
On my way to Hibiya Koen, I chanced upon an obscure part in this town, Yurakucho which is just next to swanky Ginza.

Most of these gaado-shita around Tokyo have been renovated into really boring bars, shops and restaurants with no distinct character at all since you'd also find them anywhere! I hope the city developers would not touch this nook!

You have these tiny bars all pressed together under the tracks with these treasures on the wall that will sort of tell you what was showing on the screens in those days. By looking at these posters, they might be from the 60s! Just as the Shinkansen (bullet train) debuted! The whole place rattles when a train thunders overhead, so it would not be hard to check on the last train if you go here on a nightout.


And this poster, I googled "Spawn of the North", a 1938 movie!



One more look at the gaado-shita as I emerged from the other end and into a modern part of Yurakucho where the Tokyo International Forum stands.

Jose Rizal in Tokyo

I was on my way to an appointment at Hibiya Park this afternoon when I passed by a bust of someone that made me stop, as if it said "pssst!" Pinoy-style.
Ay, si Ka Jose pala!






I know that Jose Rizal lived in Japan for sometime and that he
had a Japanese girlfriend and what's that other rumor about a love child?! I just hope that that boy did not turn out to be one of those who eventually had a hand in WWII. That would definitely make Ka Jose
roll like crazy in his grave then!