You Say GOOD BYE, I Say HELLO

[PV] SpecialThanks - You Say GOOD BYE

SpecialThanks is a pop-punk rock band that has been making a bit of noise lately. This song is off their debut mini-album "SEVEN COLORS". The band also surprisingly been getting a lot of buzz including from Japanese punk-rock icon Ken Yokoyama (Solo artist, creator of PIZZA OF DEATH RECORDS and previously a member of the Japanese punk rock band Hi-STANDARD for those who did not know). SpecialThanks has also been getting noticed in America, participating in SXSW 2009. Makes sense seeing as their sound has some obvious American pop-punk influences. Feel free to check 'em out if you like.

Not gonna lie, the last couple of days have been quite a blur to me. A wonderfully amazing blur, but a blur nonetheless. Let's see, I've moved into my dorm near Higashi-Funabashi station on the JR line. It's pretty nice, but I really need to get out to some konbini and get a few things. Namely a towel (which I forgot to pack apparently) and some laundry lines for my room. Drying my clothes in my room is gonna be fun (aka not so fun). I guess the reason I haven't done all this stuff yet is because I've been stacked with a smorgasbord of both fun things and orientation things over the past couple of days. Let me list some of the things I've done already:

-Izakaya (Japanese-style bar) with some of the fellow IES students in my dorm
(Hooray for getting totally buzzed 2-3 days after getting to Japan.)
-Karaoke party that lasted about an hour w/ Dobby, Griffin, Jacquie, and Lindsay
(Hooray for train schedules messing with "normal" party schedules.)
-Exploring the most amazing koen (park) in Makuhari w/ Dobby, Griffin, and Jacquie
(Hooray for staring Japanese children, lots of stray cats, koi, and more awesomeness.)

And much much more. And did I mention that today I might be making a trip into Akihabara? Until next time.

-REG

Carving the Sense of Arrival in Japan

[PV] ACIDMAN - Carve With The Sense

Pretty nice stuff from the newest single from ACIDMAN. To be quite honest, I had previously lost a bit of interest in this band. Wasn't a big fan of LIFE or the latest singles. Basically, in my opinion, it's been way too much of fluff recently from them. But, this single seems to be full of the raw energy that drew me to ACIDMAN in the first place. I hope the next album has more of the same.

So, where to begin? If you did not know, this blog is a continuation of a previous one called Hey STRANGER. [Warning: It is a Xanga-based blog. Unless you have a Xanga account, you won't be able to read it.] But, basically, the layout will (try to) be a video of a song from a Japanese rock band that I find interesting and my comments on said video/band, followed by a brief expose on what's been going on recently for me. This way, if you aren't interested in the band/song/music, you can skip that. And if you aren't interested in my life, then I suppose you can skip that too. I guess this is where I get into the stuff about me then.

Just arrived in Japan late yesterday. It's been quite a surreal experience so far. Went through the TITANIC of airplane flights, both in terms of size and disaster issues. Some of the disasters include up arriving in Japan almost a full hour later than I expected, getting rerouted to Seattle and missing the slim chance to see my girlfriend Michelle in LA, and losing my luggage to top it all off. Hooray for random plane crash at Narita and volcano eruption in Alaska for creating issues. But, I am here and it's been pretty good so far. My room at the OVTA (the site of my program's orientation) is pretty small as expected, but so interesting. Another hooray for having Japanese television and radio at my finger-tips. Being surrounded by Japanese people and Japanese language has also been making me nervous and excited at the same time. Haven't really had the chance to meet many kids from my program yet. Apparently, a lot of them got held up in the same issues I ran into. But I'm looking forward to meeting them. Here's to new starts.

-REG