Okay so lots to talk about today. For starters I will break down my trip to Japan for you.

Things started off on December 27th when we made our way to the Cleveland International Airport to fly to Detroit then straight to Nagoya, Japan. Our flight to Detroit was quick and easy and even left us enough of a layover to grab a bite to eat. What else would you eat before head off two Japan for 16 days....er, Japanese. I know we should have had our last taste of American food but instead stopped into the only Japanese restruant in the rather large Detroit airport.

Arriving in Nagoya, Japan 13 hours later brought a bit of trouble. Apperently the Nagoya airport wasnt connected to the Nagoya train station which made it difficult as hell to simply jump on a train Himeji where Chiaki's parents were set to pick us up. Usually when flying to Japan we go to Osaka's airport which has its own train station and is only a hop skip and a jump to Himeji. Our choices instead were to take a long bus ride to the Nagoya station or take two seperate trains there. Matters became worse when we decided to take the two train route. Apperently their had been a accident (a death actually...suicide, perhaps) and the train did not move for over an hour. Finally afters hours of arriving in Nagoya we finally made it to Himeji at around 10:30 at night, gracefully greeted by my wonderful inlaws.

This years trip came with many pleasures. Meeting Chiaki's other brother Makoto(who Chiaki had seen in over 7 years), seeing Chiaki's best friend and her beatiful children all grown up, being introduced to Chiaki's other brother Shun's new girlfriend, hooking up with our good friend Miho in Hiroshima, and of course eating great food and shopping like crazy.

I will try to post some pictures on here very soon of both people we met and things we picked up while there. I was going to break the whole trip down for everyone but then realized as I began to write that this could take forever. I instead have decided to break down bits and pieces of the trip throughout my next few posts or so.

I will mention probably my favorite new place to visit was Nakano Broadway when we were in the great city of Tokyo for two days. Nakano Broadway is a geek's cluster of stores (also known as an otaku's wet dream) in a 4 floor shopping complex. While alot of the crazy and unique toys were a pleasure to view and take part in purchasing, my favorite store was a little poster store buried in the corner of the 2nd or 3rd floor. My new favorite place sold Japanese posters for ridcuously low prices, most as low as 1000 yen (between 8-10 US dollars). One of my several gems I found was this poster for a Meiko Kaji film, Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2 - The She Cat Gambler.

Or how about this killer Meiko Kaji 7 inch of her theme song from the series Female Convict Scorpion. Chiaki found this little treasure.

I know your jealous, aren't you. I love it and I have several others just as cool. I will try to put them online as soon as I can.

For now lets move on to another subject...the Academy Award nominations. You are probably wondering what I thought of them. Well, I happen to really like their choices this year. Anytime two of your favorite films of the year are up for most of the categories then I am pretty happy. This year's nods came with that very scenario with both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood rounding out most of the categories. It will be a tough year I believe for the Oscar voters and I will be really happy if either take home the big awards. Two things that are certain are that of course Javier Bardem will take home Best Supporting Actor and Daniel Day-Lewis will bring home the Best Actor statue. While a few other categories such as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actess have clear front runners, nothing much else is for certain. I will be a bit sadden if at the end of the night Paul Thomas Anderson doesn't walk away with Best Director. The man deserves the damn thing. As always, I am also looking forward to the Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography categories. Kazakhstan's selection Mongol happens to star Tadanobu Asano, one of my favorite actors working in international cinema today. All in all some good picks, though as with most years I believe a handful of people got snubbed recognition. Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men was a revelation and I could honestly not picture anyone else in the role.

Alright well, I suppose that is all for now. I will be back in a day or two with more of a breakdown of our trip to Japan along with a possible film review. Also look for my Top 10 films of 2007 list to spring up by Tuesday or Wednesday.