Night Owl/ 夜型人間

Since returning from Japan my schedule has been kind of weird. I work in the morning come home, fall asleep, wake up in the evening and stay up until some absurd time. The I still have to work the next morning, so the result is that I've been sleeping less.

Anyway, today is one of those nights, and I decided to sleep in the morning because I have to pick my friend up from the airport early in the morning.

I've been meaning to upload some new sketches, and finally got around to scanning a few things, enjoy.

I'm going to really try and update with more work from now on. I'll write when I can but will focus on the pictures for the most part.

Enjoy.

Age Sage

I was supposed to post after I arrived in Japan, but a few things happened that slowed things down for me and didn't let me do things as I wanted.

First off, I didn't have net for a little while so it made things a little hard for me.

After that, I got sick, which didn't put me in much of a mood to write.

But I'm here now, that's what matters.

I had really put a lot into this trip. Since I began working part time in July, I had been trying to save what little money I have to make this the most awesome trip that it could be. Actually, concerning money I was surprised that I was able to make it. Both in saving enough money to get there and saving enough money so that I'm not dead broke, but thanks to various freelance jobs I was able to do I made out okay.

That was one of the various good things that came from this experience. Unfortunately, there were a few bumps on my foray into awesome, and I would like to get those out of the way before I go on.

Of course, it started out with that terrible trip over there, but I already wrote about that. But what really kinda took the air out of my tires was that I came down with a cold.

I had spent the time before my trip trying not to get sick. I exercised periodically in the morning, I ate well and tried to stay away from sugar. I took vitamins, and those immune booster things.

But it seems that life has a funny way of doing things. Sometimes it seems like there is a very thin line between being cautious and being too anxious, and when you cross that anxiety line, whatever it is that you were trying to prevent is exactly what will happen to you.

After all that I did, not long after arriving in Japan, I felt a tickle in my throat.

That was it. The beginning of my cold and the end of my grand plans.

Damn you Irony. I shake my fist at thee.

Now, of course it could have been a lot worse, I was still able to enjoy my trip. But I could have done more, including getting some actual sketches done. It was unfortunate that I couldn't do that.

Alright, with that out of the way I can talk about the cool stuff.
Actually, I'm not really sure where to start, there really was a lot going on in my head while I was there.

This trip wasn't a life changing experience, but it was an experience. It's a bit strange to think about it, but I've spent a good chunk of my actual life studying Japanese and learning all sorts of random things about Japan, but this is only my third time there. In addition, in total I've only been in Japan for a total of about 3 weeks between these 3 trips.

To step on the ground and to be in a place where people are speaking Japanese is surreal. Actually, it was intimidating and relaxing at the same time. Having just got there I was kind of shocked into shyness. The overload of Japanese was like jumping into an ocean when you've only swam in rivers. I had no choice to speak Japanese to buy food and books and things, but I felt like an idiot and was stumbling all over the place. However, as I was there I felt more comfortable with Japanese, and I know that if I had a lengthier stay I would be able to once and for all have Japanese conversation with the same confidence that I can have in English.

But the reality of the situation at the time was that I ended up speaking little Japanese when I had someone that spoke English around me...which was most of the time. I'm a little dissapointed in myself, but only a little...I have to give myself a break because I was only there for about 8 days. If I lived there for a year and did that, well then we have a real problem.

Another thing about Japan, though it wasn't what I expected, was how people saw me. Being African American is one thing in America, and something totally different abroad. Usually it ends up that people are nicer and have less hostile to you but you are still at the will of the various stereotypes that have been perpetuated throughout the world. What is also weird is that you can feel even more like an outsider, because you are, and it's so much more apparent in a country that is 99% ethnic Japanese. In America, though I'm disturbed by how people are mostly identified by race before nationality, I still feel American. In Japan, I'm a gaikokujin (foreigner) in addition to being a kokujin (black guy) compounding the degrees of separation... and hilarity!

I joke.

But it turns out that I didn't really feel much of that at all. Yes, I got stares, mostly from young children. But that was it. I started out having all these ideas of the crazy and strange comments and conversations I would get into, because I was the only black, afro sporting (by the way, I shaved my afro a few days after arriving), guy in the city but in the end nothing happened.


...this blog is going a little long, I'm going to try and wrap it up and skip all the details.

Anyway, I'll give a synopsis of what I did.

-Arrived in Fukuoka, stayed in awesome design inspired hotel (Querega I believe)
-Spent a lot of good time with my girlfriend, and I'm a bit sad without her here...
-Did a lot of walking, eating, looking around Fukuoka city, mostly around Tenjin. I like it a lot, and I prefer it out of all the cities I've been to in Japan.
-Took the bullet train to Osaka and hung out with my friends.

Some observations on Osaka...
-extremely crowded (but this was probably because it was a holiday for everyone)
-more fat people
-people dress differently
-feels totally different from Tokyo, or the places I've been to in Kyushu.
- the food is delicious, my pallet will never be the same.

- I did hatumode (visiting temple on new year's).
- I bought a lot of books including the newest volume of Detroit Metal City,completed π/Pai, and a few art books by Katsuya Terada
-I watched a lot of tv, most of it was pretty interesting thought nothing to really write about...except full house in Japanese. The voices are really strange and it was interesting how they translated their catch phrases. For example, Joey's "cut, it, out!" is "Hai! Kore de, owari!"

Anyway, a good time was had by all. I'm looking forward to when I can go again, which I hope is soon because I applied to JET and hope I get in.

Also, this trip made me think a lot and motivated me to make this year a better one then the last. I could write a lot about that and be all...thought provoking and sentimental...but I'll spare you because I know hardly anyone reads this, and if they do just probably just want to see pictures. (Actually, I'm just kind of tired today.)

So, on with some pictures.

I posted all of these on my Pro Flickr account actually. So you can go there if you want. http://flickr.com/samurabi



Yes. I took a picture of the bathroom because it was cool. When I took a shower the center of the mirror wouldn't fog up...ah, the future is here.


Hatsumode


Kimchi-nabe


random sign I saw in a bagel shop


takoyaki stand in osaka


Giant Enemy Crab!


View from my friend's apartment in Osaka

Escape from New York

Oh man, what a day...
I have no idea how long I have been up, but in the last 24 hours I've gotten very few hours of sleep.

Anyway, I'm in Narita International Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Fukuoka. I had a lot of close calls though, and almost didn't make it.

It all started yesterday (actually 2 days ago since it's 4pm wednesday here)...
I had completed just about everything that I needed to do, all my errands, packing, mental preparation and what not. After all that all that was left to do was wait...

Unfortunately, that mix of nervousness and excitement led to me being very impatient and increased things on the nervousness. Early that morning I had received an e-mail asking me if I would like to do early check in. I thought that I should just wait since it probably only benefits people who don't have to check in anything, but at this point in time I thought I would give it a try anyway.

So, I log on and there's a problem...
My e-ticket isn't matching up.

I call United and they tell me that my flight was canceled and they have to reroute me from JFK to Newark. When I asked why this happened, they explained that it was a problem with the crew, in other words not enough people showed up to work.

A WTF moment if I ever did see one.

So, of course this inconvenienced me. I had planned to take the subway/airtrain to the airport and it would've cost me about $5.

To go to Jersey takes a little more effort, so I ended up reserving a super shuttle.

So my time arrives. My flight was leaving at 7:29am, but I have super shuttle come at 2:30 just in case. I get to the airport around 3:30, but the counters don't open until 4:30. Finally, they open and I got to the counter and put my info in...

Nothing works...
"Um, I need some help, nothing's working..." I said to a nearby attendant.
"Where are you flying to?"
"Chicago."
"All morning flights to Chicago were canceled"

I was about to break upon hearing this news...
I called united immediately.
Turns out that the pilots didn't show up this time, and the guy on the phone that there was one more chance for me to get to Chicago to get all my flights, but I had to catch a 7:00am flight at LaGuardia.

It was 5am, and I had to check in by 6am...

I rushed out, and luckily I met some people in the same predicament who shared cab from me. I was also grateful for crazy ny/nj cab drivers, because he got us there in 30min.

Finally, I made it.

Since that point there were no problems, and I'm in Tokyo now.

But what really pissed me off about this whole situation is that didn't warn me both times my flight was canceled...I was signed up and everything and I even complained about it after the first cancellation.

Ugh...

Though, my flight was really long and my neck hurts, but that's almost without saying...

Anyway, I'm kinda tired now. I'll update when I get to Fukuoka.

Catching Up

Third and final post of the day. I just want to play catch up and present some points about things that I've done.

-I was very very busy starting in September, it became too much and I had to quit going to the Art Student's League for classes. I really like it there and hope to go back.

-I've gotten more used to my dayjob, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

-I haven't gotten any more Illustration assignments lately, but I am in the newest issue of Women for Hire Magazine.

-I started freelancing as a Japanese-English translator, I like it a lot.

-My girlfriend has been in Japan since July. It's had its ups and downs and I realize more than even that long distance relationships aren't easy, but we've managed and it's been really good recently.

-I'm going to Japan from Dec.25-Jan. 3rd. I'll be around Fukuoka most of the time and in Osaka for a day or two.

-I'm taking the JLPT level 2 test the first week of December. I've been studying everyday.

-For my girlfriend's birthday I made a video for her. We've been watching Flight of the Conchords since summer and we both love the show so I made a video using there song.



-I got an e-mail on youtube from Jermaine Clement saying that he thought my video was funny. That was pretty cool.

-I'll be in Miami from the 22nd until the 27th.

I think that's about it for now. Here are some sketches and paintings that I've done recently. Most of them are watercolors from my time at the Art Student's League.

The Party That You Missed

Two posts in one day...with one more to come.

So, I had a party on Halloween.
It all started a few weeks ago. My roomates and I had settled on watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer much to our suffering, because there really wasn't much else to do. As expected it was a terrible, terrible movie.
Not just bad, not awesomely bad like Gymkata, it had no redeeming qualities at all. Not even the lure of seeing an almost naked Jessica Alba (who I don't even really think is that hot) can give this any kind of absolution.

It sucks. Plain and simple.

Anyway, we were watching it, letting our brains shrivel into blackened prune like masses when we heard a strange sound eminating from the window. Looking outside, we saw a band of Mariachi's, all dressed up, seranading a darkened window.

This was a very puzzling moment for me. It was probably 9-10pm in the middle of Washington Heights and here I am overlooking a bunch of Mariachi's mid-serenade. I do live in New York, so I'm not surprised. But in comparison, my neighborhood is a quiet place and nothing to strange happens so I had to kind of process the moment.

Seeing that this probably wasn't going to happen for a while, and starved for entertainment after watching bottomless pit into which all mirth and merriment go, but never return I decided I should record this moment...and put it on youtube.



My roomates went to ahead of me as I scrambled for my camcorder. Moments later I finally arrived and began filming. I didn't stay for long, I didn't care much for the Mariachi's as much as for the experience.

But on the way back, as were heading back into out apartment we caught glimpse of the neighbors who live across from us. He was having a party it seemed.

We had caught each other so it was one of those situations where we had to say something. I don't know if it was because he was drunk or if it was because we were caught in this moment of forced neighborly behavior, but he invited us in.

The party itself was ok. My neighbors are classical musicians, and their friends were birds of the same feather. It was a little awkward to talk to any of his friends or even them because I know next to nothing about that kind of life.

But as we sat there mostly looking around aimlessly and trying to think of things to comment on in our environs it dawned upon us that we could do this. Why haven't we had a party all the time. Well the clear answer is that we're pretty lazy, but also things like previous to this, most of us hadn't yet established ourselves, so we would have no one to invite.

But now was the time.

So, there we go, that was the impetus to the creation of our first party. Halloween was soon approaching, so it became a Halloween party.

When it came down to it, it was a surpring success. I had hope for it, but when the clock started ticking my confidence faded. I was extremely busy the week preceeding because I had a gig doing freelance translation. Because of that I wasn't as prepared and didn't get to do as much as I had planned for the party. I basically felt that none of my friends would come and that it would be a bomb, the antithesis of "the bomb or Da Bomb."

I tried anyway though, I did still have my hope, so I invited who I could and tried to promote.

The day of the party came and I had recieved various phone calls and messages since the day before from my friends...just about all of them were. "Sorry" or "Not sure I can make it," things like that. Now, I shouldn't have been dissapointed because I think I do that too people all the time, and I can't forget that I did do everything a bit last second...but I was.

The party had already started and we sat in our living room marianating on our couches to one of our mixes...and hour or so passed and no one came.

I decided that I need to do something. In my anxiousness I set out to rent a video game for Wii since we only had 2 games. I found nothing...but on the way back from the store I received a call from my friend saying he was in my area.

Great! Finally someone came! But I was still worried that he would probably be the only person there. As I came in another peron was there, so the condition seemed to be improving.

Soon after more and more people came about 13-15 people were in my apartment at one time. We had cake, drinks and Wii. A trifecta of party success. Soon my anxieties were relieved.

Though, the one guy that came at the begining was my only exclusive friend that came... I have to be honest and say that I was dissapointed by that. I do realize it's not a big deal and I don't hold it against anyone who didn't come.

But other than that, a good time was had by all. There were interesting conversations, an "interesting" guest or two, and connections were made. This is what a party is all about. Yes...

Anyway, here are the pictures. Enjoy.

A taste of Miami

Just a quick thing before I go into some more serious writing.

I was looking around on youtube and came across this video.
I actually had no idea that "Chonga" was a Miami thing. I mean, I knew of them but hadn't actually heard the word until my roomate had used the word to describe the type of girls that make up the bulk of my neighborhood in New York.

These are a bit old (7 months is old on the intertubes), but now you can get a taste of "Miami."

Dump 9.2.07

Just posting a few things that I've done lately or things that I didn't post before.

Alright, first off, I managed to scan in one of my final assignments from school. We were suppose to draw a model, then abstract it.







Here are some charcoal drawings I did in a class I took at the Stundent's Art League with Nelson Shanks.

















and finally some sketches I've done recently