Geeklawyer has been in love before. And not always with himself. Sometimes with a human female, sometimes with a technological thingy and sometimes with nothing less than an entire nation: even its sewage system & its local version of chavs.
Take Holland. Please, take it, Geeklawyer is no longer in love with it. A couple of decades ago, when Geeklawyer was a sprightly and energetic young fellow full of the love of all mankind and a noble incorruptible creed, before the malevolent hand of cynicism and bitter experience burned his soul to a crispy smoking … oh sorry, where were we? …, he ventured to Amsterdam where one could get drunk all day (UK kicking out times were in force back then), smoke dope in canal coffeeshops, smoke dope in errr, fuck pretty nice Dutch prostitutes and watch nasty porn in the company of disgusting perverts. But oh, how times change. Thanks to illegal immigration and Islamic scum, some bumping-off film producers, Holland is now in the hands of Calvinist fuck-ups. No longer is it the playground of depraved aesthetes such as Geeklawyer where innocent fun could be had defiling the weak and vulnerable. No. Now it is scanky Russian whores, Allah wailing sand-niggers and bible thumping child molesters. No more liberals like Geeklawyer.
Japan, however, is the new love. What a terrific weird place this is. Utterly utterly incomprehensible. What on earth could account for “Hello Kitty“? This has infected even the Harem. Geeklawyer spent the first two days wandering in Akihabara to get Anime and Hello Kitty stuff for the girlies. Never mind doing sightseeing. As an aside, all Anime stuff is porn! Geeklawyer found only one shop selling stuff that could be safely sent back though customs, without him being accused sending kiddy porn cartoons, thanks to fuckwittery by neo-Labour moralist headline seekers.
But, enough. On from Tokyo, Geeklawyer blazed across Japan in a Shinkansen Bullet Train from Tokyo to Kyoto, some 550 miles, in a piffling 2.5 hours. Had a British train company been responsible he would be arriving about now, 2 days later. Geeklawyer was lucky enough to arrive in Kyoto to see the famous “Gion Matsuri” festival with its huge pointy yama-boko floats. There are photos.
Geeklawyer’s Japanese has improved a fair degree to the point he can make himself sort-of understood within a very limited domain; but he still largely incomprehensible to the poor locals who, given the excessive politeness of the Japanese, swear blind he must be Japanese since he is so fluent. Ermm yea, K. When he gets home he will be suing the bitch who taught him Japanese, lazy inept joru.
On another side note Geeklawyer, having initially poo poo’d (sorry), weird techno-toilets he has had something of a shit epiphany. There is something deeply worrying about excreting electrically conductive fluids and body matter into a toilet wired up to the mains electricity. Really, 240 volts wired into a high current ring main; would you use one wired up by the Italians? No, neither would Geeklawyer: the Swiss or the Japanese, fine, but no-one else. Geeklawyer will hunt around London to see if one can be procured locally. It’ll be a party piece.
And have you been on the metro? Is it true all the stops have their own jingles?
Not the ones I was on. There was a jingly tune & a rather helpful if annoying American accented name announcement but no jingle. There was plenty weirder than that though.
You gotta love Engrish t-shirts!
Sod Hello Kitty, Go for Bad Batz Maru, he is an EVIL penguin….
I am collecting naff t-shirts I assume you were looking at this: http://blog.geeklawyer.org/photos/gallery2/v/Japan/Kyoto/IMG_0014_001.JPG.html. there are some howlers.
My personal favourite was one I bought in Barcelona, with the immortal words “After punk party”.
Whether it was a party for punks, for reformed punks, a political party based on punk ideals, an invite to an after punk show party…who can tell!
I am in Hello Kitty Heaven!! One can NEVER have too much by way of such treasure, you know!!
Minxie, I guess you don’t want any Hello Kitty stuff from Canada… that’s okay… sniff
too fricking’ late - it’s been airmailed from Kyoto yesterday
I do not want to be called ‘infected’ Geeklawyer. What you have done with the rest of the hareem is your problem
Hi GeekLawyer
I am aware tha this is frowned upon- but my friend and I are fellow misanthropes (only when arbitrarily appropriate) and wonder if you might like our blog http://www.tworepressedegotists.co.uk
I am about to take a second first degree in Law. (So another bachelors degree)
I am hoping this curries favour and makes up for my disdain at the puerility of your flipant racism.
A repressed Egotist
I would have hoped it was offensive rather than flippant & thus I have failed. But as a professional egotist I like to encourage promising amateurs and you have been added to my blogroll. A tactical tip on getting on my blogroll is to be more fawning but, in context, I can see this would be difficult.
You have Hull and Bennett in your blogroll? And you call yourself an egotist? You should be ashamed.
I’ll get into an ego cage fight with Bennett & Hull two on one anytime.
If it’s different/strange/wrong Nippon bits and bobs you’re after, take peek at Bondage Fairies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_Fairies
There was a time when I knew a person who liked to collect such things, weirdo!
i once saw a japanese visitor walking around in a shirt that appeared to proclaim he had been to ‘cambridge cricket camp’. even though it was some years ago, my mind hasn’t quite ceased to boggle. i still haven’t found the camp… wasted my life searching!
I suspect he meant the infamous “Cambridge Camping Club”. This was very famous in the 1930’s and played a little known part in the recruitment of pre-war spies by the Soviets. Don’t waste te rest of your time looking for that: you simply aren’t colourful enough.
and did you know that one genre of anime is known as ‘harem’. now can anyone guess what that’s about?
This was very famous in the 1930’s and played a little known part in the recruitment of pre-war spies by the Soviets.
unlike the much better known cambridge spying-for-russia club which reaped the rewards of a brilliant advertising campaign when closed down after 2 days. all its adherents disappeared beneath the murky waters of the cam having been given life membership (briefly) of the cambridge concrete swimming trunks society.
Dearest Mary,
I would be most grateful if you could lay hands on Canadaian Hello Kitty, since even the Sanrio site does not put out the fullest extent of that which is available! Of course, if you can get your hands on Nurse Kitty, I shall be eternally grateful!!
I have the cutest little Hello Kitty fridge magnet..it’s huge clip so I can get her to hold all sorts of stuff.
Have a request for the Geeklawyer Gallery - Kabukich?!!!
OK, your blog didn’t translate the o with the little line thing above it. But you know what I mean.
make sure that you try the tinned hot coffee from the vending machines…..
wow! Nw I call that a good idea; never saw it though. If you can tell me where such a thing is I’d totally try it.
The teashop in the Tokyo Museum, located inside Ueno Park in Taito, Tokyo, is where I sampled it. Sure there must be lots of places with these.
FWIW, it’s a Coca Cola Co product too!
for lo-fi
the Yamanote loop line round Tokyo has a separate jingle playing at each station
If you get a chance, go to the front coach of the local trains. You get a nice view, but watch the drivers…….
where’s my Hello Kitty? Nary a synthetic hair to be seen.