Someone crawling…

I don’t know why…but I’ve liked zombie movies since I was a kid.

Now that zombie movies got typical. First of all, something happens. Depending on the movies, some virus might spread out, some chemicals might leak. Finally, it gets pandemics.

There are many kinds of zombies in movie, such as zombies who run fast, who can talk, who rape women. However they get colory spieces, all their wants are simply “bite” and “eat” people.

The first movie I watched is ‘The Return Of The Living Dead’ (called batarian in Japan) directed by Dan O’Bannon in 1985. I excitedly watched it in the movie thater when I was a kid. Even now, “Zombie movies? They already got in the one track mind! Biting and eating…and casualties widely spread…and in the end, they become zombies themselves, right?” most of my friends say so, I like watching them. I don’t know why.

Last year, I bought one FPS game. It was ‘Left 4 Dead’, featuring Zombies. To be correct, the enemies in this game are not zombies, but infected people by some dangerous virus. The players you operate have to escape from where you are, fighting zombies.

During the play, you face some special infected in the game, such as ‘Tank’, ‘Boomer’, ‘Hunter’, ‘Smooker’ and ‘Witch’.

‘Tank’ has so strong skin and power that you have to shoot it from a distance. Fire, like a molotov, is very effective.
‘Boomer’ is an ugly and fat thing, and sometimes vomits disgusting things. They let many zombies gather.

‘Hunter’ looks like human at the first glance, however, its jump is so fast and once you’re caught by it you must face your death without other’s help.

‘Smooker’ has a long tongue. Hiding on the roof of the building, it aims you to catch by its tongue.

‘Witch’ is normally meek. You can hear her crying in the distance. Don’t get her mad… Her ‘Death Embrace’ will take you to heaven.

You can play this game with many people all over the world. You and your three partners get a party and proceed to the escape zone. In November, ‘Left 4 Dead 2’ is going to be launched. I think it must be exciting one.

This is my play in ‘Left 4 Dead’.

Many differences between translations and understandings

I got some trouble in other blogs which I run in Japanese. At the blog, I’m writing how to learn English, how to express English and so on. Translating English songs into Japanese is one of the contents in the blog.

I’ve thought that there are many differences between translations and understandings. For example, feeling the meaning of the song’s lyrics in English is not so difficult, however, expressing it beautifully and lyrically in Japanese is quite difficult.

Actually, I know it’s difficult to translate contracts or something from English into Japanese (or from Japanese into English). You can find there are tons of technical words and expressions in them. You need to aquire the knowledge not only on English but also on itself.

On the contrary, translations on lyrics of songs require some sense so that the works make the readers feel something emotional, such as sorrow, pleasure.

One visitor in my other blog started translating one song in my blog’s comments space.(ofcourse I haven’t asked him to do it.) I wanted to read it because I have no chance to check others’s translations.

Unfortunately, his works was not so well for me… First of all, he directly translated lyrics from English into Japanese with English-Japanese dictionary, so his Japanese translated lyrics sounded like not smart. In other words, his tranlated lyrics seemed to be…like sentences in textbooks.

I was not supposed to say it to him because choices of words while translating are free even if they have good taste or not…but what’s worse…he seemed to misunderstand English grammars. How to interpret “will”, the difference between “will” and “be going to”, the difference between “some” and “any” etc, those misunderstanding ran him incorrect interpretations of the lyric itself.

I don’t know how come he started translating it and left his works in my blog in the first place. The more I pointed his mistakes out, the stronger the fear for trouble between he and I was. Finally, with my words got him angry. I completely don’t know why he got angry. Did I ask him to translate the song? Did I beg him?

I wondered if his interpretation on the background of the song was correct, so I googled it. Ironically, it seemed he had mistake for it…

I’ll tell myself I must be careful with my comments for other blogs… I believe it’s good to point out his/her mistakes, but it’s not good to try to beat him/her.

I’ll give him some words in this blog… “Too Many Confidences Will Kill You…Sometimes” Am I so ironical??? hehehe

Striding the center of the bridge! …at the Ikkyuu temple.

Do you know the Japanese animation, “Ikkyuu-san”? It’s the comical but heartwarming story, in which Ikkyuu-san is pregnant with wit while his religious training.

Ikkyuu-san was actually not such a character in the real. He dedicated himself to Rinzai Zen sect and was known as his funny behavior opposed to traditional Buddhism styles.

For example, Bonzes, which are Buddhist priests, must shave their hair, not drink alcohol, and not do sex, however, he did as much forbidden things by Buddhism as possible because he criticized traditional Buddhism discipline. He thought it’s important to feel free, not to suppress myself.

I went to the Ikkyuuji temple which has his grave.

I was surprised with one thing. Ikkyuu-san a descendant of emperors. As a matter of fact, he is officially not recorded as the descendant of emperor because he was illegitimately born. The priest of this temple, also a curator, he told me that the Gokomatu emperor, who is Ikkyuu-san’s parent, didn’t want him to involve in political wars. At that time, Japan was divided by two emperors in Nanbokutyou era.

He’s a descendant of emperors…so surprisingly, this temple is under control by Imperial Household Agency (which is Kunaityo).

I took a few photos in this temple, so I’ll show you them.

The sound of silence…talks to me something…

Japanese loves gardens like this…

Ikkyuu-san in younger age, He probably said, “Don’t be haisty. Let’s take a break.” (I’m sure Only Japanese can follow this lines…hihihi)

You can see the word “Kunaityou” written in Chinese character at the last line.

Yoshimitsu Ashikaga, who was the third general in Muromachi era, orderd Ikkyuu-san to catch this tiger in the painting. Ikkyuu-san humbly said to Yoshimitsu, “I’ll get this tiger after you put it out of this painting.”

This is a famous bridge and sign saying “kono hashi wataruna (means, Don’t go across the bridge.)”. In Japanese, “hashi” has many meanings, such as bridges, chopsticks, edge. We can find their differences with their Chiniese characters and accents. Take a look at the sign. It’s written in Hiragana, right? So you can interpret “hashi” as either “bridge”, “chopsticks”, or “edge”. Me? Ofcourse I walked across the center of the bridge, not the edge of it…as if Ikkyuu-san did.

This is the opening song of Ikkyuu-san in animation. You can see the edge of the bridge and the tiger in painting I showed you above.

The eyes of Venus got me!

Recently, I started growing some plants.

Today, I got new plants to grow. One is a cactus and the other is a carnivorous plant, which called Venus Flytrap.

When I was a kid, I liked collecting insects, such tag beetles. I explored forests with a pictorial book in my arm, found bugs and checked it in the book. I was also excited with carnivorous plants in the pictorial book and asked my grandmother to buy it. I guess she felt so strange like this, “Is it normal for kids to give such a thing?!”

Sadly, a seven-year-old kid didn’t know how to grow so much that the plant I got at that time died down soon.

Now…it’s about time…to revenge! I got one again!

Venus Flytrap have leaves like shells which close when it catch insects, such as flies, spiders and slug. There are long curved eyelashes like beautiful women have, so people call it “Venus Flytrap”.

In order not to miss this time, I checked how to grow Venus Flytrap on the internet. Many sites on the internet taught me many things.

First of all, “Don’t touch the leaves unnecessarily”. It takes over 10 days for leaves to digest preys, and the leaves will die down in a few times after they close and secrete digestive juices.

Secondly, Something protein, such as Cheeses, is very good for Venus Flytrap. On the contrary, fat is not good.

Thirdly, exporting the flower blobs of Venus Flytrap is banned by Washington Convention, so we have to grow it in the nation.

Anyway, I have to be careful with Venus…yeah, I must gently treat it as Venus, true to its name!

After the meeting, I stopped by the convenient store and got some pieces of cheese. This time, I took a movie feeding Venus.

Incidentally…this is my…cactus and Venus Flytrap.

The GUNDAM has finally stood up in Odaiba, Tokyo.

When I was a child, I did love “GUNDAM”, which is the robot animation of the warfare between the earth federation (Is it a correct expression?) and Principality of Zeon.

Before GUNDAM started, the robot animations typically had the only right and wrong story. The hero was comepletely on the side of justice, and its enemy was always just an enemy. On the contrary, in the GUNDAM, the border line between right and wrong was quite ambiguous. In other words, the characters in GUNDAM had their own backgrounds respectively. Their histories were so deep that we couldn’t verify if they were right or wrong.

It took thirty years since the first GUNDAM. Since the first (We often call the original GUNDAM “the first” or “first GUNDAM) was born, many kinds of GUDAMs were created. Among such GUNDAMs, the first GUMDAM is one of the most famous GUNDAM. For the celebration of the 30th anniversary, this time, BANDAI, the company made GUNDAM at first, decided to built the life sized GUNDAM in Odaiba, Tokyo.

This life sized GUNDAM can move its head and turn light on in its some parts of the body. It also can discharge mists from its thrusters.

I believe that GUMDAM is also very famous not only in Japan but also all over the world, so I guess many sightseers from many countries must come to see it.

I can’t help being proud of the Japanese animations…hihihi

Incidentally, the most favorite GUNDAM for me is “ν GUNDAM”, the second is “Z GUNDAM”.