Judo "Incidents"

I was doing randori* (free practice) with Erica today and managed to force a lefty osotogari ("large outside trip", literally. Anyway, she's apparently bad at ukemi (falling techniques) to begin with, and particularly bad at them with her right side, which is the side the performs ukemi against this particular throw when it's done left-handed. In addition, I lost my balance and went to the ground as well, and wasn't able to support her fall properly. Install, I added to the weight hitting the ground.
Anyway, the point is that I totally nerfed some poor girl and we ended up sitting out the last few minutes.
Oh, and add that to the fact that I was joking around, tried to grab her eri (collar-ish area) missed, grabbed her left tit, and it totally looked like that's what I was trying to do. I apologized three (maybe four...) times, but she didn't seem to react to it at all.
[Edit: "it" here, refers to the squeezings, as opposed to my apologies. I'm not sure she understood what I was apologizing for. "I'm sorry I groped you on accident." isn't something we've covered in class that I recall. And you all know I would recall that if we had.]
On the bright side, I don't think I hurt anybody else tonight. I usually get someone with something good each night.

Why?

Well, I've annotated all the photos that I intended to upload, but the administrators here apparently feel that Picasa is a scourge upon the world (or something) and have felt the need to block access to it. Since my laptop's battery is already drained, I'll upload the gallery either tonight or tomorrow. I should have a few more pictures from later today by then, too.

Here are some pictures to hold you over.

Backpost

I got a post for Sunday up just now. I wanted the pictures to go with it, so I was waiting for picture upload to stop failing. I wish I could figure out what messes it up.

Shopping

I picked up some really cool gloves. They're designed for taking pictures, and they're thin enough that I can type fairly accurately with them. I mean, you know the dimples on the the F and J keys? I can feel those through the index fingers on these gloves. On the right hand, it doesn't matter, though, as the index fingertip folds back and Velcros to the back of the glove so you can have you index finger exposed because it does so much. Same for the right thumb.

Belated Adventuring Pictures (non-monkey-park)

And here are my pictures from wandering around the city after the monkey park.

First up is a random 人力車 (rickshaw) and its... driver? Puller? Runner? Whatever you call the guy who pulls a rickshaw.
I think the composition of this shot came out well. I'm always surprised when a shot comes out decently, because my artistic sense (the important thing when dealing with composition) is almost non-existent. This shot feels like it has a decent amount of balance, but still has some tension. I caught that pose entirely by accident, but I like it. He looks like the main character out of Ninja Scroll.

I kind of accidentally uploaded this one, but I was playing around with my camera. Can you guess what the picture is of?
I'll check the comments later and see if anybody gets it.


I mentioned that it's Golden Week, and this means that there are random things going on everywhere. I don't really understand it, but there was some robo-sumo going on in the mall. It seemed too Japanese for me to not take the picture, so I didn't. At left.

Another Golden Week thing, I guess. This picture is called "Uberchu.jpg" on my computer, for good reason. I would like to remind you that Pikachu has an official height of something like two feet. I remember it being something like 1' 4", though.
Anyway, this Pikachu is there probably because of the movie/game ad he's standing in front of and because of the massive pile of everyone that's wandering around around this time.

Last up are these maico. Or geisha. I seriously can't tell the difference, so if you can, tell me, please. Nice kimono, in any case. The guy with his hand up is the old guy I mentioned yesterday. You can't see the grey in his hair due to him not being in the depth of field.

Again? It Makes Sense, I Think

I ran into that woman from last night again about an hour later. While my laptop was chugging away, downloading stuff, we talked for about an hour. One of the dogs' names was Kohaku, and I forgot again the other one's name.
Anyway, if it's any indication of how Japanese people are different, she at one point starting talking about how she's really strong, but has no breasts.
By the way, she's older than me by a generation, so this isn't something really new.
This park is very popular, as it's like the yard of probably a couple of thousand people. It's the only thing like it in the area that I know of.

Well, it is Pickled...

I put some ベニショウガ on my rice this morning, and as I was doing that, I thought to myself I better use this stuff up. I'm surprised it hasn't gone bad by now.
...
And then I realized that I was talking about pickled ginger. That had been kept by itself in an airtight container in a fridge. And was opened about a week ago.
Needless to say, I'm not worried about it going bad anytime soon.

Cream Bread

So I think I've mentioned that I like melon bread. Probably.
The first one I tried wasn't actually plain メロンパン, but was a custard-filled variety with the same basic shape. As you should know by now, I have a weakness for pastries, doubly so for those filled with tasty, custardy goodness. The last few posts (feet excluded) have been pretty bare of pictures, so here are some pictures of my クリームパン("cream bread"). The outer wrapper's big words transliterate to "Kobe Custard Melon", written in roman letters below it.
Big surprise, yes?
Now then. From the thumbnail, you can't really tell that the whole thing is covered with a coating of large-grain sugar, but it is. And it's delicious, as things covered with a thin coat of sugar often are. And last we have the filling. It's rather more concentrated in this クリームパンthan usual, and you should have no problems seeing it even in this thumbnail at right as a lump of gooey goodness.
Needless to say, they are delicious. Oh, and they cost ￥105, which comes out to just about a dollar.