Tokyo Movie Lovers Meetup: X-Men First Class

I could’ve easily watched this film in Seoul and saved a lot of money: meetup fee included, I payed 1400 yen (about 19000 won). The standard price for movie tickets in Korea is 8000 won (600 yen). It can be a bit more depending on the cinema and if the film is in 3D or “4D”. But nothing beats watching movies with a nice group and that’s why I’ve been to over 70 meetups of the Tokyo Movie Lovers.

It’s one of the biggest if not the biggest meetup in Tokyo. It’s not an arthouse movie meetup and we rarely watch Japanese movies. So it’s in English language with Japanese subtitles. This can be irritating when watching a 3D movie because the subtitles hover in the foreground.

X-Men First Class is a prequel to the three X-Men films. Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr were still friends and John F. Kennedy US president. The mutants were fighting together against an evil group of mutants trying to unleash World War 3.

Great movie – unfortunately I’m going to miss the Super-8 meetup, another must-watch movie. After every movie meetup, we usually head to a nearby pub. If you are in Tokyo, visit the movie meetup!

Aokigahara – Suicide Forest

Aokigahara – also known as the Sea of Trees – is a 35 km2 forest which is so dense and monotonous that you can easily get lost in the woods when you leave the paths. The density of the trees is blocking the wind and with almost no wild life, the forest is very quiet.

Traces of the volcanic rock can be found everywhere. There also seem to be many “holes” in the ground giving the place an even more spooky atmosphere. However, Aokigahara isn’t infamous for the ghost tales which it inspired, but the high suicide rate due to which it became known as the “Suicide Forest”. The forest has been known for suicides for a long time, its popularity in modern times is attributed to the novel Nami no To.

This trip to Aokigahara was the first one of a new hiking meetup. I thought that this location was perfect for the video mode of my very first digital camera, the Vivitar Vivicam 3610. If you watch the video, you’ll know why.

There are not many situations where I’d prefer the video mode of that toy camera over my Canon HV30!

Mega Hanami 2010

The number of meetup groups grew considerably since I came to Tokyo in 2007. Mega Hanami was a meet-up organized by multiple groups and we all came together to Yoyogi Park, probably the best free hanami (cherry blossom watching) spot in west Tokyo. Since I had already had so many cherry blossom photos and videos, I decided to use my new Digital Harinezumi 2 camera to shoot the video. The video quality is pretty bad, and I’m not happy with the camera in color mode. The camera is however a real eye catcher – I’ve seen lots of Japanese taking a look at it because it’s so tiny.

Seoul: LanguageCast meet-up

Joining a meet-up is usually not something you do as a tourist, though there are many interesting ones (especially in the U.S.). Today’s LanguageCast meet-up in Seoul was my first meet-up outside Tokyo.

LanguageCast is held twice a week: On Monday they record talk shows (usually in Chinese, English and Japanese) and on Friday it’s time for speeches. Note that there is no obligation to take part in the talk shows or hold a speech. Everyone who joins learns one or more languages. I joined the Friday one.

My Korean doesn’t go much beyond introductions and ordering meals in the restaurant, so I held my speech in Japanese. Most Koreans seemed to learn Japanese too which is a natural choice considering the similarity of these two language (grammar is similar). So I understood most speeches held by Koreans but I didn’t understand the one held by a Japanese (in Italian). Still, it was very enjoyable.

There’s no critique of each others speech and up to three languages were used by the speakers. Since I graduated from Japanese school, I sometimes lack the motivation to write a speech so this was a great opportunity. All recorded speeches are published on the LanguageCast website. The talk shows are also available as a podcast feed (iTunes link).

Mashiko Pottery Festival

Mashiko in Tochigi Prefecture is famous for its potteries and many people who live there have something to with pottery. Once a year, a big festival attracts from all over Japan: the Mashiko Pottery Festival.

It’s less a festival and more a fair giving you ample opportunity to spend lots of Yen on pottery. Those who plan to go there should get cash before as there are no convenience stores every 100 meter.

I didn’t find a 7/11 one – or rather one with an ATM – so if you don’t have a Japanese bank account, you will likely not be able to withdraw money while in Mashiko.

Which is a shame, because there are lots of wonderful works and most aren’t terribly expensive either. There are of course lots of cups and dishes if you prefer something less decorative:

Since my favorite animals (besides penguins) are cats, I also liked ceramic cats.

Water Walk #1 Oji

One of the interesting new meet-up groups is the water walk meet-up. It follows the places presented in the book “Water Walks: In the Suburbs of Tokyo”. That’s the reason why I joined: To see some places I would usually not visit.

We started at Oji station and I already new four people from previous meet-up and one called me by my Mixi nickname. As with many places in Tokyo, you wouldn’t think that there is something that qualifies as a park nearby when you exit the station. First we walked into the wrong direction which led us to this temple which wasn’t on the list:

So we had to walk to the station and then walk the other way, reaching an almost dried-out river and later some other temples. After that we went to a tall building with a free observation deck, getting a view of Tokyo.

Movie meet-up: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Last movie meet-up for this year! Keanu Reeves latest film has received a lot of attention lately and is used by LG in their commercials for a new handset. The film is of course a remake of the 50′s science-fiction classic with a bigger robot, more explosions and more annoying kids. Of course the big alien sphere landed in New York’s Central Park. There were surprisingly many people in the evening – I thought that one should avoid the Central Park when it gets dark?

Most of the film was quite predictable and of course the army later attacked the robot with everything from a machine gun to jets. Parts of it also reminded me very much of Matrix – so much, that I expected the guys in the suit to call Klaatu “Mr. Anderson”. As Klaatu said in one scene, the new human body takes some time getting used to and by the end he still didn’t master facial emotions.

Photos taken out of the film, when Klaatu makes a short trip to Tokyo

Therefore the director probably thought that to balance things out, Dr. Helen Benson and her stepson Jacob have to show even more emotions. Unfortunately the Jacob character was an annoying brat and **spoiler** when he died for a minute, there was certainly no empathy in our group for him. Unfortunately, he was healed when Klaatu was sacrificing himself, but destroying all of Earth’s technology with a giant EMP.**spoiler end**

Movie meet-up: Wall-E…

… or the “Citizen Kane” of animation films as one German TV magazine phrased it. Yes, Wall-E has probably been shown in about every country but in Japan they decided to to premier in December. I doubt that it has something to do with dubbing, because there is hardly any language in it.

So how does Wall-E compare to the best christmas movie ever made (Die Hard, of course)? The title character sure talks less than Bruce Willis did.

Wall-E is a waste compactor who assembles trash, compresses it and then spits out a cube. His only friend is a cockroach and he watches cheesy musical movies in his home. All humans left and are now living on a big starship, occasionally sending out probes to Earth to find out whether it’s habitual again. These probes look like big iPods and are not the only Apple reference – the other is the start-up sound of Wall-E which is the well-known chime of the Macintosh. You could tell who in the theatre was part of the Movie Meet-up Group because we were the ones laughing when it played for the first time.

Getting to the Wald-9 cinema in time wasn’t easy. Like I mentioned earlier, Ikuta station is not really around the corner and was crowded. So I barely arrived on time

Freezing meet-ups in shorts

Last study meet-up! And it could well be the last JLPT meet-up ever. While there are regularly new people registering for the meet-up at the Meetup.com website, it’s always the same three, four people showing up. And more than once it was just me and Wye-Khe.

Today, we were four and met at Starbucks Omotesando. Everyone practised something else – I concentrated on grammar, while Wye-Khe studied Kanji (even the writing, although the JLPT is a multiple-choice test). After about four or five hours we left and these two young women passed by:

Now guess who was freezing? Yes, of course the left one! The one wearing the shorts didn’t complain about the temperature (or maybe she was just good at hiding it). Just can still see girls and women in short skirts or shirts without stockings in December. But it’s always the ones who are wearing suitable winter clothes who complain about the temperature.

So if “seeing is believing” maybe “freezing is believing” is valid too? Some economists say that companies should invest during a crisis and less in good times. Maybe one should wear light clothes in winter and pants and pullover in summer? As another proof for my theory, we were all freezing – in winter clothes.

Needless to say that we went to the nearby Thai restaurant to warm up…

Movie-going habits

I’m such a regular participant at the Meetup.com Tokyo Movie Meetup that me skipping a few meet-ups raises suspicion – and unfair theories by the meet-up’s organizer But he said that I’m probably only going if the movie’s either in Japanese or there are lots of people dying. In order to prove him wrong, these are the films I recently watched:

• まぼろしの邪馬台国
• The Dark Knight
• The Sky Crawlers (Wikipedia)
• 百万円と苦虫女
• 崖の上のポニョ
• たみおのしあわせ
• ザマジックワアー The Magic Hour (Wikipedia)
• Indiana Jones 4

See? Ah, what the… Um, at least I watched CJ7* with the great Stephen Chow on my flight back to Germany. No dead people and not in Japanese either! (* in Chinese language)