TF Film Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Posted on April 9, 2010 by tokyofox

When Leonardo DiCaprio burst onto the scene big-time after ‘Titanic’ I wasn’t taken in by all the hype around him. That may be because I am a straight hetrosexual man! However, thirteen years on and I have grown to be quite a fan of his acting with special recognition going to his roles portrayed in ‘Blood Diamond’, ‘The Beach’, ‘Catch Me If You Can’, ‘The Departed‘ and most of his other non-wussy films.

His latest movie was released in Japan yesterday (no doubt it was released in Britain and the U.S a while ago as is always the case with films over this way) and I went along to my nearby cinema to see it.

At 138 minutes ‘Shutter Island‘ is inevitably a bit too long for my liking (and for my comfort) but I have to say that I certainly wasn’t waiting for it to end. It’s difficult to say too much about what happens without giving any spoilers so I’ll just say that the plot was far heavier than I expected. In fact it was almost a horror film as much as it was a thriller or crime story. What I thought I was watching turned out to be something very different by the end thanks to the flashbacks and plot twists within the picture. Now I know the outcome I’d like to go back through it but that will have to wait till its available to rent.

Shutter Island

Tokyo Fox Rating 8/10

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Visa Renewal

Posted on April 8, 2010 by tokyofox

I was granted a new three year extension of my visa yesterday. That may sound simple news to you and in the end it was fairly straightforward but it wasn’t always that way. In fact there was a time when I was in danger of actually being given a new one following a decision last year by the Japanese government to link visa’s to health insurance.

It was reported that all foreigners had to enrol on the national health insurance scheme and backpay a couple of years in order to stay in the country. Needless to say that this went un-noticed among the Japanese population and caused uproar among the foreign community saying that, while its fair enough for us to have to have insurance, it is a violation of human rights to be told what insurance scheme you must take out in order to get a visa.

After a flood of enquiries my company eventually sent round a fax last year saying to not panic and change insurance to the national one from the private one which they organise for us. It should be said that the reason many foreigners in Japan have private insurance is because of the extra benefits which come with it such as being insured when going overseas.

Late last year I heard that the immigration office had said that health insurance would not be a sole reason for denying someone a visa which was music to our ears but it still didn’t seem too official. I heard elsewhere that the decision to tie-in insurance to Visa status was a move by the governemt to get rid of some of the other Asian nationalities living in Japan and not paying taxes and whatnot. I have nothing to support that theory but there could be something in it.

Anyway, with my Visa up for renewal at the end of April and the new rule coming into play from April 1st I wanted to get the application under way A.S.A.P. which I was able to do just over two weeks ago when I signed a new contract and made the long ‘pain in the ar*e’ trip to Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa to get the ball rolling. Before that I also had to go to my local City Hall to pay 600 yen for two pieces of official paper which stated that I had paid my yearly residents tax. Finally I returned to Shinagawa yesterday and coughed up 10,000 yen for the ‘extension of stay’ and ‘multiple re-entry stamps and was relieved to put the whole saga behind me.

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Hanami In Tokyo 2010

Posted on April 7, 2010 by tokyofox

It’s been a few years (I think!) since I last did anything when the sakura (cherry blossoms) appear in Tokyo. This is a huge cultural occasion in Japan and the first week in April (or thereabouts) is witness to Japanese people having hanami (flower viewing) party’s under the trees in various parks and gardens. Its the one time when you can get away with drinking and eating in public. As nice as the trees may look, I have never got too excited about seeing them, or certainly going out of my way to see them. I usually just tell people that I saw the cherry blossom a few years ago and don’t feel any obligation to see them every year.

Having said all that, I have made a bit of effort this year and last Sunday afternoon I went to a hanami party in Inokashira Park in Kichijoji which was attended by a handful of teachers and other hangers-on. Unlike the preceding day there was sadly no sunshine and it was indeed very cloudy and cold but good fun to sit under the trees getting sozzled and eating a load of snacks while talking b*llocks with some colleagues! Can’t say that I gave too much attention to the sakura itself other than taking a quick snap when I arrived and crossed the bridge to find my friends. The one below that shows typical lack of communication between Japanese people! They were sat at a neighbouring place under the trees playing on their Nintendo DS’. Very sad!

 

On top of that, I had a bit of time before work two days ago so cycled the scenic way to work (well to the train station which I use!) which is along a river and the cherry blossom did look very pretty on a rare sunny day so I took a few more photos.

   
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Spring School 2010

Posted on April 6, 2010 by tokyofox

I thought I had avoided having to do Spring School this year but last Monday (March 29th) I got a fax saying I had to do this special two hour lesson on the last day of March before doing my regular day on top of that. All in all it wasn’t too bad though the material wasn’t great or maybe it was because the two students were both very good for their level and I can rather proudly say that they have both been taught by me; one in the past and one presently.

 

These Spring schools are based on a theme with this one being ‘Space’ with some simple lexical items taught and used in ways that were very familiar to both students. With that I am referring to prepositions, clothing, colour words, number words and ‘this v that’. I could have basically finished all the material in about a quarter of the given time so had to use all my teaching skills to pad out the lesson with a load of fun games using the target language.

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Not In Peak Condition After A Day Trip To Hotaka Mountain

Posted on April 6, 2010 by tokyofox

I had to be up very early on the 17th March to meet my colleague Ash to go snowboarding on a one-day return trip. He booked it the day before so I had no idea where we were even going. It turned out to be an eventful day at Hotaka in Nagano but for all the wrong reasons.

No problems with the weather (sunny), the bus (spacious) or the price (3100 yen) but as we went to get on the chair lift to start we got a bit tangled up and having not warmed up I embarrassingly fell off and lay in agony for a few moments fearing I had damaged my thigh badly. As it was, I was back up and ready to go within a few minutes.

Time to continue from where I left off last year but that didn’t quite go so smoothly either as I had a tumble half way down the mountain which ended up with me badly injuring my little finger. A bad case of cramp followed before our next descend and then I decided to alter the board (very kindly given to me by Ethan last year) to make the foot settings ‘goofy’ (right foot forward) rather than normal (left foot first).

Hoping that it would be plain sailing after that I uttered the immortal words “nothing can go wrong now!” and I was right for the next 2-3 hours before Ash decided to attempt a fairly simple barrel jump (that I chickened out of) which he wanted me to record on his camera.

Inevitably he fell but little did I know at the time that there was anything wrong. He was in agony with a bad wrist and walked back up to the top to get help while I had to carry his board down which wasn’t so easy as I found out when I fell on my ar*e to great pain. When I got to the bottom Ash arrived on the back of the snowmobile and that was basically the end of our day as he was left with no choice but to basically wait till we returned to Tokyo to get it seriously checked as cancelling his bus ticket and taking a taxi to the nearest hospital and back would have been more hassle than it was worth. Ultimately, his wrist was broken and has since been fitted with a metal plate and my finger has yet to recover properly.

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C*ck A Load Of This – Atami ‘Hihokan’

Posted on March 18, 2010 by tokyofox

I’m not really one to spend too much time looking at the statistics for this blog (would make depressing reading!) but when I do look the one article which people seem to look at is the C*ck A Load Of This one from a couple of years back about the penis festival. With that in mind here is a blog entry which could be described as the natural follow up. Last Friday myself and Michael went a couple of hours west of Tokyo to Atami which is loved by the domestic market but not of such interest to international travellers.

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The Japanese are obsessed with onsen (hot springs) and travel far and wide to soak naked in a big communal bath. Not for us though. Instead, we walked along the quite picturesque harbour-front to the ropeway where it was not so easy to actually find a way up the hill as the idea of not taking the ropeway is something that Japanese just don’t consider! We didn’t go in the castle at the top as it seemed expensive. The views across the harbour are supposed to be reminiscent of Naples. I don’t know about that but on this sunny day the view sure was pleasant.

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Our main port of call was a little further down the hill and was Atami Hihokan; the extremely over-priced ‘Adult’ Museum. Needless to say that I was very amused by this sex museum and its silly and fun exhibits. These included a replica of a Whales sexual organs, traditional Japanese sex-art drawings, interactive displays including a Marilyn Monroe mannequin with a crank attached which you turn to create wind for her skirt to blow up, window boxes displaying some funny figurines involved in sex fetishes, amusing holograms, video’s, a 100 yen penis to ride on, old-school video games to grab some cr*ppy sexual prizes and the ubiquitous souvenir shop which inevitably featured a load of phalic shaped food and crafts.

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Posted in Hentai, Japan Life, Japan Travel, Quirky Japan | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

I Am A Machine!

Posted on March 10, 2010 by tokyofox

The new Terminator is revealed….

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Use The Forks!

Posted on March 3, 2010 by tokyofox

Not exactly topical but one present which I got from my sister and brother-in-law while home at Christmas was a spinning fork (I should add that this wasn’t all they bought me!) which is designed for eating spaghetti and possibly even noodles. This could easily be considered a useless appliance and the kind of thing which may have featured in the ‘Useless Japanese Inventions’ book which I bought my dad for Christmas a couple of years ago.

  

These inventions go by the name of chindogu (of which some can be seen in the photos below) although no student I mentioned this to over the years has ever heard of the word! I tried to use the fork to eat a special White cup noodle bought a month ago but gave up fairly quickly. I didn’t fare much better a few days later when eating spaghetti pasta.

     
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10 Years On…

Posted on March 2, 2010 by tokyofox

Last weekend saw Manchester United win the League Cup which incredibly means that its ten years since Leicester became the first Wembley cup winners of the 21st century. That win for us in the final (ensuring European qualification) followed by the 5-2 crushing of Sunderland had us City supporters believing that we were to become one of the Premier League’s top teams.

What happened after that was a downward spiral which saw that great team ripped apart followed by relegation, administration (albeit in a promotion season), relegation, a few years of keeping our heads above water and then relegation to the unchartered waters of third tier.

When the latter happened in May 2008 we thought the worst but maybe it was a blessing in disguise as the club appointed Nigel Pearson, which didn’t exactly capture the imagination of the fans. However, we bounced back at the first attempt with him at the helm and are currently looking odds-on for a Play-Off spot which would give us the opportunity of taking our place back in the top flight. We may not be ready for the big stage just yet but I am a believer that its better to do it ASAP rather than staying in the Championship for a few seasons like some people would seemingly prefer.

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Posted in Leicester City, Sport | 2 Comments

My GF Thinks The Word Jewellery Has A Nice Ring To It

Posted on February 20, 2010 by tokyofox

It was my girlfriends birthday recently so I treated her to some jewellery. Now, I have no idea what women like when it comes to this kind of thing so I insisted that she come shopping with me and choose something. Being a typical woman she couldn’t decide whether to have a ring or necklace that she liked. Apart from having my ear pierced for a while in the year 2000 I have never really worn jewellery and don’t really have an interest in it so wanting to get out of the store I said that she could have both and very pleased she was too. We then went to a restaurant and another bar followed by a karaoke session.

  
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