The Old School Otaku Lounge

_D_ wrote:And yet, I have to ask why leave at all? I did a lot of travelling over the period 1976 - 2000 but I always returned home. There never was another place that I was willing to uproot myself from. Going to die here and be interred here.

This is pretty much me, but in the US. In my head I think I could love living in Japan (I enjoy walking around every time I visit and appreciate certain things about the configuration of towns), but I don't feel the need to uproot myself. Ideally, I want to get to a state where I can visit for a month or so maybe every other year. That way I can visit and appreciate things, but know that I am always returning "home".

For me, the things that I have done here in Japan, I could never do back home. Just a whole list of things you will probably not believe. Like I have met a prime minister, met the secretary general of the UN, met a famous porn star (Maria Ozawa), sparred with a boxing champion and some MMA fighters, been to concerts I want to see and parties I want to attend and some of it is life changing, while others is relatively trivial to a majority of the people. It's just the life I want for myself, I just happened to have it here in Japan. To me, life back "home" is boring and I would just be "settling" like a lot of my old classmates who are now divorced, in jail, probation, no where in life, or all of the above. I grew up with a dad in the military so moving around a lot (living in Nebraska, California, The Philippines, Guam, and Korea),I don't exactly officially have a home town I can claim as my own. My dad grew up in Arizona and my mom grew up in Hawaii and spent time in the Philippines where her family was from as well. I'm just adaptable but Japan has just given me everything I could want out of life and I could never give it up.

But hey, I get that sometimes living life overseas isn't for everyone. But it works for me. I will admit there are some things about living in Japan that frustrates me besides ATM operating hours, most certainly how it is a smoke friendly country and a majority of Japanese adults just happen to smoke and drink. I have personal reasons why I am against smoking and drinking. I had an uncle who died of lung cancer and I lost a friend back in high school because he got cancer through second hand smoke. I also lost a friend to a drunk driver in my youth as well. But for some reason, I don't hear too many stories about people dying of lung cancer in the front page news but then again, Japan likes to water things down, most especially the potential severity of the Fukushima crisis but the international media was also irresponsible for its coverage as well.

No one talks about how there was no looting, that people waited properly in line, law and order was maintained and there was no chaos or anarchy during March 11. Yeah, it sucks what happened but nobody likes to look at the positive side of life at times, most especially in a crisis. Then when Hurricane katrina happened, it was just politicized all over. Things like this contribute to why I chose to stay here.

Well, there was some looting in Sendai. A guy who was on a video game forum who lived in Sendai said that when his father-in-law returned to his home to check things out, there were some "yankee" scum he encountered inside who threatened him with violence. They were there looting. But looting from local riffraff as compared to widespread looting like after Hurricaine Katrina and such... it just doesn't compare. About Fukushima, everyone knows it's a bad thing. But culturally, Japan just doesn't dwell too much on terrible things. It got a lot of coverage at first, but to constantly dwell on it is considered distasteful. Many take it as some sort of coverup, but I see it as a cultural issue.

For me, I find that food (particularly the clean, non-GMO food), the way of life, the scenery, society, and pretty much most things in general to be more comfortable to me than where I am from. I mean, people are far mellower, the fruits and vegetables taste so much better, the kids are cuter, and of course most everything pertaining to my favorite hobbies are native here anyway. Home is where I hang my hat, and I hang it here. I cannot see myself living in America ever again. We've been back for over 2 years now, and my wife and I are often still telling each other how glad we are to be back in Japan again.

Well, to quote Dionne Warwick, a house is not a home when there's no one to kiss you good night.

Last weekend, we visited the Tokai University Aquarium in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka City. This was my second time going there, and I brought along my new camera which can record in HD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeQ01gXTYD4

People who are fond of seeing my daughter will like this, since she is featured in it several times.

As promised, I have (finally) created a photo gallery of the otaku shops in Osaka's Sanbangai, which we visited in April.

http://stevethefish.net/life/life093.htm

Bask in the splendor of glorious nerd bait!

Very interesting. Going to have to show these pix to some friends of mine. Thanks...

Lot of Alf stuff like the DVDs have been rereleased. Too bad they are the edited syndicated shows which are missing several minutes of content per episode...

I have an ALF too!

I have that Star Trek book on my shelf. Got it around the time it was published.