April 22nd, 2007
10:29 am
騒音公害反対 Against Noise Pollution
Recently all around Japan there have been loads of election candidate vans running around with HUGE load speakers that are pretty annoying.
Instead of just complaining about it, I thought it’s a good opportunity to have some fun!
Enter the 騒音公害反対 (Souon kougai hantai), Campaign Against Noise Pollution mobile!
Yes. It’s my car with a giant banner on top! It took me five hours to make!
Here I am joined by the wonderful ALTs, Tyler, Travis and Gareth from Takikawa. Yes I’m going to campaign in someone else’s town!
Our first encounter! なかた (Nakata)!
They were certainly surprised to see us, and we followed them around a few blocks. The problem was that the pedestrians didn’t have time to read our sign.
The lads decided that we needed to stick some banners behind and on the sides of the campaign mobile.
Right back to campaign headquarters.
Simple banners would have to do for now.
Time for one more photo before setting off though.
Our next encounter was 田村 Tamura.
I think Mr. Tamura can see us! But why doesn’t he turn off the speakers? Ah well, next.
Mr Sekitou had a car behind his van with extra substitute campaign people in. Just as well really, since it must be pretty tiring to have to speak into the mic continuously. You can see that they’ve noticed us here, they’ve stopped briefly to come up with a plan. Eventually when they headed off again the behind car slowed down to try increase the distance between us and their van.
So we over took that car and got even closer to the van!
Yes we’re coming for yeah 水口 Mizuguchi. Muahahaha!
The man stuck in the window works for 堀しけお Hori Shigeo.
Occasionally the vans would stop and be quiet. When that happens we would stick our hands out of the window and applaud. Then they’ll start off again and I’ll rev my engine.
Funny that car’s called a “Chaser” when its the one being chased! みかみ Mikami seems to only have one speaker.
Haha.
やまき Yamaki seems to be taking a break.
Back to the more noisy candidates.
Our tenth and last catch of the day! 本間やすあき Honma Yasuaki.
After two blocks he decided to come out and talk to us!
It was all friendly, and we had explained that we didn’t like the noise, to which he asked us for alternative methods for campaigning.
We thought it was fair enough for him to continue with the noise since it was the last day, although we pleaded to him to discuss with the other parties about quieter ways to campaign in the future.
やまき Yamaki
しばた Shibata is the lucky dude who got off our hook. But check those speakers!
I was questioned by two police officers regarding my motives. Asked if I had any other political objectives. It was kind of flattering I thought.
Later on in the evening while going to pick a friend up for Tyler’s party I saw Honma walking to my car! Apparently I had parked right outside Honma’s campaign headquarters!
April 2nd, 2007
12:38 pm
A Mac fan
She reminds me of you Gigi
April 2nd, 2007
10:11 am
The Holiday
Hey I’m back from the sunny hot (40℃) Thailand ☀.
Yes it’s still cold here in Hokkaido ☃雪, and I have the damn cold again ☢
So any way, the first day I arrived in Seoul, Korea to check them out. I didn’t know anything about Seoul (or Korea), but luckily I met a girl called Semi on the airport bus.
After calling her mom to say that she’s not going back for dinner she took me around down town for some delicious Korean food.
There was a huge police presence there in preparation for the some sort of free trade meeting, thought about waiting around too see some Korean protesters vs. the regime violence but alas I didn’t have time.
“I parked my horse here!”
These guys were partying like it’s 1373.
What’s a visit to a country without visiting its station?
