JustMeMike’s New Also on Video

Hakei, Chichiue-Sama / Dear Father
TV Series broadcast on Fuji-TV from January 11 to March 22, 2007
now available on an All Regions DVD - 3 Discs - 11 Episodes

Kagurazaka is an intriguing word. I mean it has 4 A’s, a K, and a Z. It is made up with 5 vowels and 5 consonants. A word like this would be great on a Scrabble board except for the fact that it has 10 letters and in Scrabble you only get 7 letter tiles. So forget that. As for saying this word, it is not as hard to say as it looks if you break it into syllables. Ka-gu-ra-za-ka. Easy.

Megumi Kagurazaka

For those of you who have read my columns either regularly or infrequently; you should recognize the name Megumi Kagurazaka. Back in 2003 she was discovered while working in a department store by a sharp-eyed talent agent who signed her up for gravure modeling. She had the looks, and the body to delight both serious collectors of the gravure genre, like me, and most of you, as well as many otaku or fan-boys whose interest in something, even bikini idols, could edge into an obsession. In any event, her Idol career did take off and Megumi-chan became quite popular. Between 2004 and October 2007 she appeared in at least 18 DVD’s, most of which were reviewed by yours truly. You can find some of the more recent reviews on my pages by using the search feature on the homepage.

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While Yoko Matsugane was getting ‘up and down’ (or making pars), possibly on a golf course in her home prefecture of Ibaraki, I too was picking them up and putting them down in Japan. Okay, maybe not quite at the same time. Okay, she was playing golf and I was playing the role of tourist walking here and there when I wasn’t riding on one of Japan’s high speed trains. In this  article, I’ll give you a peek at some of what I saw, both in words and pictures, taken with my very own camera.

The flight in from Hong Kong is rather long - five hours and change plus a one hour difference in time zones. I landed at Narita. Last time I went to Japan, I thought the immigration part was extremely long in the amount of time it took to get my visa. But things have brightened up considerably. I got my passport stamped and my visa in no time at all. They’ve updated the hardware and now they take a picture of you while you stand in front of the immigration officer. Some travelers have older passports - this gives them an up-to-date picture of you. Read more »

Mah-chay, agua mineral-e, san-ouiches nat-chu-ral, coca, cerveja, ulla-ulla!! I had been daydreaming about the woman lying on the beach (photo right below) a few paces away from where I had requested my umbrella and beach blanket be positioned.

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