similar, & different, experiences in... Hiroshima, Japan, part 2

Originally, my plan was to move you people from Hiroshima to Kyoto, instead of sidetracking this "miniseries", but instead of completely skipping over day 2 in Hiroshima, I might as well present to you this mind-numbing & sobering account of the Hiroshima A-Bomb/Peace Memorial Museum!

"Today was one of my favorite days of the trip. It was our second day in Hiroshima and it was very educational and emotional.

To begin with, our hotel was beautiful so we had breakfast in a room with glass walls over looking the bay, palm trees, and paradise."

This is where all pleasantries end, & utter sadness begins...

"The first stop on our trip was to the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. We watched a horribly sad video to get us in the mindset for what the museum would eventually show us. We met up with our tour guide who was an amazing man. This man was in his moms womb when the bomb was dropped. She wasn't there when it happened by she went back to Hiroshima days after the bombing and saw the destruction first hand. with our tour guide we took a short walk around the city and saw the hypo center. It is out front a hospital and it was destroyed in the bomb but the doctor who pretty much ran in rebuilt it and it still operates today. We also visited a graveyard where most stones survived the blast. Our tour guide was the first to discover something interesting about the tombstones. He could tell the direction of the blast based on the texture of the stone. we felt on the outside where it was covered in scratched and dents and was really rough (from the blast) but the inside was smooth like it originally was. It was insane. On our tour we saw a bunch of statues in War Memorial Park and the A-Dome and even the bridge which was the target of the bomb."

That video probably affected more than any other video, educational or not, ever... The memorial itself was less stirring than the video, originally filmed in 1987, but it was still just as peaceful as everything else nearby, if for no other reason, to remind everybody that peace always prevails, even in the aftermath of such mega atrocities... 

the flag hanging above everything else

I figured this clock would fit the bleak subject(s) better in black & white, so that's precisely what I did!

the hollowed-out A-Bomb Dome

 "Our tour guide has tours every day of the week because he is very passionate the people know the truth about the effects of the bomb. He said the Japanese government denies any side effects of internal exposure. Even the museum near by denies this so his mission is to educate people on the truth. When we were walking around the park we were getting swarmed by school kids! They literally would run up to us (groups of 4-6), circle us, and ask us questions in English. It was so cute,  yet overwhelming because we could not escape! This happened in Kyoto, too!"

As any Chernobyl survivor could probably tell you, radiation is nothing to mess with... Perhaps that's why almost all hospitals keep their "radiation rooms" in complete lockdown mode, or perhaps it's something else entirely, but when it's an entire national government still doing so, that should be even more troubling to society at large, but apparently, it isn't...

There were, however, so many local school kids running around, apparently there to not only learn about the atrocities of 1945 themselves, but also to complete these little questionnaires, mostly from tourist groups such as ours, & that they sure did, as they kept asking questions of whomever they could possibly encounter, & that continued even up until the time we boarded our bus to return downtown a few hours later, so at least there was some fun to be had in this otherwise bleak environment!

"At the end of the tour the guide told us what a lot of people want to know: Do the Japanese have animosity towards Americans? His answer was amazing. His response was, "No, We did a lot of bad things, too." He said that Japanese people do not hate us after what we did, the slogan is "forgive and then forget" he felt this wasn't right, that it should be something like "forgive but don't forget." The Japanese are very passionate about ending the usage of nuclear weapons so their goal is a nuclear free world by 2020. Sadly, I don't think this will happen..."

Instead of making any derogatory comments about multiple generations of Japanese citizens, I'll just make my pitch here for you people to join the Global Zero Movement:

Even more pointedly yet, I'll let the organization itself make the pitch:

http://www.globalzero.org/demand-zero/sign-the-petition

"PRESIDENT OBAMA,

FOUR YEARS AGO IN PRAGUE,

You stated clearly and with conviction your commitment to seek a world without nuclear weapons. You asked for perseverance. You dared us to overcome our differences. You challenged us to ignore the voices that tell us the world cannot change, and you told us words must mean something.

We heard you.

On June 17-18, when you met with President Putin on the side of the G8 Summit, we urged you to negotiate further cuts to the massive U.S.-Russian Cold War stockpiles and pave the way to bringing world leaders into the first international negotiations in history for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

By signing the above petition, you will be joining the global grassroots movement in support of Global Zero. You will receive periodic updates from us and can unsubscribe at any time. Let’s demand zero and make history together."

The following information is required on the above linked page:

- first name

- last name

- e-mail address

- country

- ZIP code

- a simple security measure

I don't particularly care for either the left or right wing in D.C., but regardless of your overall politics, I'm sure human lives are always more important than some pointless "gamesmanship"... 

"The museum itself was intense. We saw a lot of things that cannot be forgotten. Some of which included before and after photos and replicas, watches that stopped at 8:15 (time of the bombing), a wall covered in black rain, tattered uniforms, and a staircase where a man was sitting when the bomb went and his shadow is permanently printed on it. There were real photos as well and haunting drawings from survivors."

8:15 A.M., 8/6/45: the Japanese answer to Pearl Harbor

"A dragonfly flitted in front of me and stopped on a fence. I stood up, took my cap in my hands, and was about to catch the dragonfly when..." This was quote on the wall of the museum."

BUT ENOUGH SADNESS! LETS MOVE ONTO MIYAJIMA ISLAND A.K.A. SHRINE ISLAND!!

Shall we? Absolutely! 

"We took a beautiful ferry ride to this island. It was full of shrines, deer, temples and gift shops.  The island itself is huge but we only had time to explore a little bit of it. We learned the difference between a shrine and a temple. A shrine is of Shinto religion and is identified by having a Tori gate which you have to walk through. A temple is Buddhist and has no tori gate but the roofs are made of clay tiles and have gargoyle type things on them. But you will often see a tori gate at a temple because the two religions blend. Our tour guide Noga said that Japan loves all religions because Shinto has over 8 million gods so whats a few more? They celebrate birth with Shinto, weddings in the Christian way and Buddhist funerals. They pride themselves on religious tolerance."

While that happened, I followed as many of the deer as possible around the island, & I even caught 1 digging into the back of a truck:

After I got done stalking them, as well as buying a few more souvenirs, I headed along the gate myself in order to receive the same "shrine & temple" speech, & after that, I had what I think finally put me closer than ever to becoming a "pescetarian" (1 who mainly eats seafood): these delicious fried oysters, on a stick that had probably been used to skewer quite a few kebabs before then! Actually, I had already tried something similar downtown the previous evening, but being near water just makes seafood taste that much better, doesn't it? 

"Anywho, the island was amazing. We saw a 400 year old bonsai tree and went to a giant red shrines and there was a huge red tori gate in the ocean. To enter a lot of shrines you need to purify yourself by using a bamboo cup with a stick. You take it in your right hand, fill it with water and wash your left hand first, then your right, then you take some water and put it in your mouth and spit it out so that you are completely purified. By the end of the trip we were pros at this."

...& germaphobes everywhere probably just fainted even just at the mere thought of having to do something like that... Well, to those of you who fall into that category, I have the following request to make: Just shut up & purify yourselves already! 

"Today was actually the fourth of July so we planned to set off fireworks on the beach but instead we tried to interpret japanese game shows which were crazy. I then watched Princess Mononoke!"

Meanwhile, I kept trying, & (mostly) failing, to control my continued Haagen-Dazs cravings, both downtown & inside the hotel, while also trying to figure out when the Macy*s fireworks show would start over there... Turns out that the show started around 9 A.M. local time, by which time we would set off for Kyoto! 

"Sorry this was so long but there was just so much to say! Lest we never forget Hiroshima!"

sorry, atheists, but... amen! 

 "Xoxo, Reishi (Lacey)-Chan :P lololol I'm lame"

*can confirm* /sarcasm

Stay tuned for part 4, this time from Kyoto, but before then:

As you can probably tell, the Frozen soundtrack em Português Brasileiro is more faithful to its Latino Spanish counterpart than even the 2 European soundtracks are to each other... I know I took the French-language staff to task last time for leaving the end credits in English instead of finding somebody else to fill that gap, but I just noticed the Portuguese staffs on both continents making what I believe to be an even more troubling mistake: not only leaving the 2nd rendition of (the Latin American Spanish) "Libre Estoy" in there, but then putting the 2nd English-language "Let It Go" immediately after that! Part 4 of these 2 miniseries, though, will feature the Italian-language soundtrack, which, I promise you, will most likely surprise you in a totally different way! 

similar, & different, experiences in... Hiroshima, Japan

(NOTE: This came about 12 hours before I headed about 3 hours/200 miles south, from northern New Jersey to the "Charm City", Baltimore, Maryland, for this long weekend... I know that's not Japan, but at this point, having waited through the mega disaster that was wrought upon Japan in March 2011 to finally visit that incredibly futuristic country... Not even New York City, which I've visited dozens of times now, although I guess living only about 10 miles west of there certainly overinflated those figures, or Montréal, which I've visited about a 1/2 dozen times, & which inspired me to take a bunch of school years' worth of French-language classes, are as special to me anymore as Japan is, although I'll most likely end up catching both the mid-Manhattan Christmas displays, perhaps even with a few of my fellow Japan 2014 peeps, & more NHL/international hockey in downtown Montréal, before I end up returning to Japan, most likely with a few family members/relatives along with me! But I digress... here's part 2 of our journey, this time on the way to, & finally in, Hiroshima!)

"Today we spent our time traveling from Osaka to Hiroshima. This was a loonngg bus ride but we stopped at two separate towns to explore. We stopped at Himeji Castle and a small canal town called Kurashiki.  I want to start off by saying that Japan has french fries for breakfast, at ALL of our hotels. I found that to be strange, a long with the small hotdogs they had and loved."

Long bus rides... small towns... Come to think of it, I can relate to both of those situations:

- there's this bus service throughout northern N.J. that does business as "Spanish Transportation, Inc.", but calls its service either "Express Service" (for buses heading into N.Y.C.), or "Airport Service", depending on where you're looking to go on any given day... Now, the bus ride from here to Times Square should be only about 20 minutes to a 1/2 hour, but 99+% of the time, that somehow ends up becoming an hour-long trip, with everybody boarding at wherever, & also leaving at wherever, with no concern whatsoever for anybody else's potential time constraints! D***it, people; you were given these wonderful things normally referred to as "legs" for a reason; now, just use them already instead of pestering the rest of us just looking to enjoy an afternoon &/or evening in Manhattan!

- I usually avoid small towns wherever I go, but put 1 of those next to a canal or river or some other body of water, & suddenly, I'm all for whichever small town is closest to said body of water! (see: Lake Placid, N.Y.; New Hope, PA; Bar Harbor, ME; Moses Lake, WA; Manhattan Beach, CA; so on & so forth)

"Himeji Castle was beautiful but sadly it rained all day. We only got to tour the outer gate of the castle because the inside was under construction. The hallways lead us through the entire castle and it was filled with a lot of rooms, windows, and small bedrooms. Here we encountered our first incident where small children were in love with seeing us and kept yelling "hello!" to us. It was our first taste of this strange concept of D-list celebrity status because we are white and have different hair and eye colors."

the D-list? please... The castle itself was a bit of hike for being accessible only by road, but for those of us used to hiking more local trails to other castles, or for myself, used to walking multiple miles' worth practically every time I end up getting dropped somewhere in Manhattan, that hike was nothing... The design of the building is mostly homage to the Edo/Meiji eras, when Japan was still regularly invaded by other east Asian armies, & as such, it contains many circle/triangle/square shaped windows which were originally used to lob weapons at their enemies; that is, if said enemies weren't so intimidated by the uneven terrain leading up to the castle that they simply fled & looked for something that they thought would be easier to invade, only to encounter the exact same terrain at every other castle!

"Here's some history on Himeji Castle:

-it is one of 12 castles in Japan

-During the Meiji restoration castles were a sign of the old order so many were destroyed. Instead of it being demolished it was put up for auction. A man bought it and wanted to harvest it for its clay tiles but he found the tiles were too big for houses. Instead he just decided to restore it.

-A tower was damaged by a bomb in WWII"

...aside from the fact that it is 1 out of 12 current castles - there was a time where there were hundreds - everything above is not only historically correct, but also (especially that last point, about the WWII "carpet bombing" campaign) quite terrifying to those of us opposed to such unrestrained acts of war!

"On to Kurashiki. It was a small town but really beautiful. There were canals and weeping willows everywhere. We saw some swans and it was perfectly Japan. The live action movie of Rurouni Kenshin was filmed here because it looks like it did hundreds of years ago. In the Edo time it was used to store rice. The Shogun took 60% of the rice as tax."

As I mentioned earlier, put a small town near some body of water, & I'll gladly visit it... Such was the case in Kurashiki, which was (mostly) split by the aforementioned canals between restaurants & souvenir shops; while I'm not sure why Japan is so intent on keeping its historic places almost entirely intact instead of allowing them to slowly modernize themselves in order to serve tourists better, I am glad that they are able to use them as filming locations for films set in some long-ago historical eras, instead of having to use stages & other fake environments to fill in for those locations!

"When we arrived in Hiroshima we immediately were released into the downtown area. Once again there was a giant indoor/outdoor mall. For dinner we ate like a pro at this yummy ramen shop. It's strange because you pick and pay for your food through a machine. You look at the picture, choose your food, pay, and take the ticket to the cooks. It was pretty interesting."

Downtown Hiroshima, Japan... what ended up being just the beginning of what I would later find out was a full-on Frozen obsession over there!

I didn't take their suggestion the 1st night; instead, I ended up visiting that city's equivalent of Best Buy/P.C. Richard & Son (an N.Y.C.-area electronics retailer, most famous for its 5-note "whistle" sound that has been all over its TV/radio advertising throughout my life!)/etc.: 

I know that picture is of the Shinjuku/Tokyo location instead of the Hiroshima location, but my overall point still stands - it's easy to get lost in there, & especially if you repeat my mistake of going in there with no time-keeping devices whatsoever, leaving me occasionally checking some sort of screen somewhere for the time in order to be able to catch up with everybody else on schedule! In the end, however, I did end up meeting everybody else on time, & even better: that took place in front of this little dog shop, with all these puppies & (fittingly enough) this Shiba Inu in the back of the store! The hotel, even, was miles ahead of the hotel I struggled until 1 A.M. to find in Osaka; wi-fi which actually worked throughout the building - something we wouldn't find again until Tokyo - a mini convenience store downstairs in the lobby, which sure served my Haagen-Dazs cravings (which, mind you, lasted the entire trip) well, as well as my other craving - Orangina orange soda, which, naturally, I 1st tried back in middle school, not in Montréal, but in 1 of my many French classes, since my teacher back then had too much time on her hands to be collecting various French beverage/non-alcoholic liquor containers!

"Here is when I noticed that a lot of people actually speak English and understand what you're saying even if you don't speak Japanese. Hand movements are the best and very universal. Although there can be a small language barrier, they don't mind and try hard to convey the right message to you. They don't look at you harshly if you don't understand them, they are flattered when you attempt to speak Japanese, and don't really care. They just want everything to be okay and you to be happy. SOOO different than in America. You don't speak English? FUCK YOU. Naw, bro, it's chill in Japan. Although a lot of signs are in Japanese and it's hard to find subtitles on the Japanese remotes and hotel's don't tell you how to find them."

That's what makes me so frustrated with Jersey, in particular, when it comes to simple stuff such as, I dunno, helping others... You'd probably think, normally, that more rural locations would be more "closed-minded" than the Garden State, but you wouldn't know it with how "far behind" my home state has been with most recent cultural phenomena... There's times where I think some of my fellow "Garden Staters" act more like Cuban or North Korean citizens instead of Americans when it comes to "being current"... Back to the main topic, though: we take the English language so seriously, that I think a large part of our population would fit in more with the "Office Quèbècois de la langue Française" (uuuugggghhhh...) than in our more multicultural, multilingual cities... Over there, however, if they're fluent in English, thankfully, they have no reservations whatsoever of making that known, & if they don't, they might haggle you a bit, but they eventually recognize, thankfully, that they're there to serve, not bother! 

"Our hotel was beautiful. It was really fancy and right on the bay. It wasn't around any public transportation but it didn't matter. Either way I had jet lag and ended up going to bed at 9pm. Japanese hotels are so nice! They give you everything you could ever need in the bathrooms. They give you funny PJ's or cute yukatas to wear. Even slippers! They are so detailed oriented it's insane."

While everybody who still had a bit of jet lag slept off their sluggishness, the rest of us had a few "bonding moments" elsewhere on the 10th floor of our hotel, where all of our rooms were located... While getting booted from that single room shortly after 1 A.M. was certainly a "party pooper", the girls in the group mostly "crashed" after sorting out the mess that everybody made, while most of the guys did the same thing, but instead of "crashing", a few of us decided to check out some of the pickup soccer action taking place just outside our hotel, & needless to say, had it not been 1 A.M., & had most of us not been somewhere between buzzed & just plain wasted, I certainly would've tried to school some of those amateurs who were actually playing instead of just watching, as we all were!

"Oh, and all "western" toilets are all smart toilets with a lot of buttons and flushing noises. I tried the toilets that were on the ground and they weren't bad. Most girls refused to use them but hey, when in Rome!"

*Japan, not Rome... But yes, the toilets over there are incredibly futuristic, unlike our totally old toilets! The squat toilets, however; if I was forced to either use 1 of those pieces of **** or risk getting fined for indecent exposure, I'd much rather take the fine in that case! For the Western-style toilets over there, however, the risk is not so much getting stuck to the seat as it is timing your use of all the little buttons correctly to avoid getting burned by the surprisingly hot water that usually gets squirted from the nozzles & everything else inside the toilets!

"Thank you for reading!" Yes... stay tuned for part 3, live from Baltimore sometime this weekend, but if you thought I'd let you get away without seeing this 1st, you're mistaken... 

Whereas last time, I presented you people with the Latin American Spanish soundtrack - the 1 that us TV viewers viewing that movie will encounter from now on - that's its European Spanish counterpart! 

As you can tell, the Spaniards took the "Let It Go" title translation significantly more literally than their Latin@ counterparts, but the rest of the titles are just totally different from what we know here... Heck, they even kept the Argentine Martina Stoessel in the end credits over there, instead of finding somebody to record their own "pop" rendition, but then again, Spanish audiences are probably better off for it, since I find that rendition to have just sucked all the soul out of the lyrics... Instead of being both pivotal to the plot as the 1st rendition is, as well as brilliant all on its own, it just sounds like any other "top 40" song you hear on whichever FM stations happen to serve your area... As I hinted at in part 1 of this dual Japan 2014/Frozen "miniseries", however, at least they didn't make the same mistake the French-language staff did in finalizing the soundtrack over there: 

This is probably just my frequent-Montréal-visiting "alter ego" side revealing itself here, but what the ****, France & Quèbec!? I find it bad enough that the European Spanish soundtrack kept something originally recorded by an Argentine in the end credits, but this? Also, what the **** is with that other title translation of "Let It Go"... This ain't the ******* French Revolution anymore, you *****! ............... This is my only response to that ****: 

(the "they are what we thought they were" press conference... who knew I would feel the same way about the French after seeing how they butchered their Frozen soundtrack titles?)

Upcoming in part 3: Kyoto, & some other international Frozen soundtrack that hasn't been ruined by its own creators!

similar, & different, experiences in... Osaka, Japan

(NOTE: This will be the 1st of what looks to be around 5 parts - 1 for each tour destination - of not only my experiences in Japan, but also that of whichever of my fellow group members looks to contribute their own recaps, whether little by little, or all at once!)

part 1: Osaka

"So I thought I'd start writing about my trip to Japan."

Same thing here... I know I already did so myself, but why not corroborate my experiences with somebody else who had relatively similar experiences there?

"I took a flight from Dulles to San Fransisco and when I got there, I discovered, along with two other people on the trip, that we had missed our flight to Osaka. This was because our flight from Dulles was delayed. We all were worried we were going to miss our welcome dinner in Osaka but less than an hour later we got a different flight to Japan. The twist was that we would be flying into Narita in Tokyo and have to then fly to Osaka. We were still worried, but managed to survive our 10 hour flight to Tokyo and our 45 minute flight to Osaka. Just by entering the Tokyo airport it became apparent that Japan is amazing. Most things were in English and everyone was so nice. The flight attendants were so adorably cute and dressed up with scarves and perfect makeup and hair."

Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with the same connection -> another connection --> last landing, but I will say this: for the amount of people who were on the main flight out of SFO - I'd say @ least 1/2 the group - United Airlines sure did a darn fine job of finding out that we were all part of the same group! Despite the fact that I spent most of my approx. 2 hours in SFO watching Argentina - Switzerland 1 floor above our gate, & that I was behind everybody else in the group onboard the plane itself, I do see their logic in not wanting the seats to look almost destroyed upon landing, but they took away precious hours in which all of us could've easily started the "getting to know" process!

What I do have, however, are major disagreements with how Narita & Dulles handled my return flights... That'll come in my later "return to sender" post, however!

"We then managed to get a cab and find our way to the hotel in Osaka.  It was fit tightly in a small alleyway, most like all of downtown Osaka. We were close to the action and it was a great first tasted of Japan. For dinner we had this grand meal with everyone and all you can eat food and alcohol. The style of food was called okonomiyaki because that's this type of pancake thing. Osaka has a famous okonomiyaki dinner and so does Hiroshima I didn't really like it but I loved having to cook my own food over a pot of boiling oil. It was nice to get to know people because they eventually became the people I hung out with."

Meanwhile, all of us who managed to find the rest of the group in Kansai Airport in Osaka were officially introduced to the bus that would take us practically everywhere throughout Japan over the next 12 days... That itself wasn't so tedious, but the length of the rides between Kansai/Osaka & Narita/Tokyo are both over an hour in length! I probably shouldn't be complaining about those lengths, considering most of N.Y.S. between the City & Montréal is nothing but Thruway-side clearings & rural areas, but that's precisely why I'm complaining - the Japanese government seemed to build those stretches more like the typical Chinese "superhighway", with tons of factories & industrial buildings!

"After dinner we decided to  make up for lost time and explore the city. Here I first discovered Japan's love for indoor/outdoor malls. They go on for miles!!!"

Having seen what (most of) Montréal affectionately calls "the Underground city", I can attest to those malls being ginormous - However, unlike Montréal, those are mostly continuous, without the occasional office building sticking itself in between department stores/convenience stores/small shops... Doesn't mean they aren't all developed, however!

We eventually popped out at this magical place. There were lights everywhere, this huge walkway, and a river where stores ran parallel with it. It was like coming out of a cave into Times Square. This is where every young person in the city was. Everyone was dressed in heels and to the T. The guys dressed up just as nicely and stood silently as if waiting for someone. This is when I learned that Osaka is famous for host clubs. Basically these guys wait around for women to find them and pay for them and buy them stuff. It's like classy prostitution. There was this insane store that was 6 stories tall full of everything you could ever want and was duty free. There were wayyy too many people in that building. After exploring for a while we returned to our quaint little hotel. Not much longer I woke up at 5am from jet lag."

"coming out of a cave into Times Square"...would that go something like this, per chance?

all Times Square jokes aside, though, the rest of that is true - Japan is much more what I like to call "duty-free friendly" than Canada, the department stores are massive, but unlike Montréal, which I've found to be a massive party location - there's usually bunches of parties there each night, in both English & French, Osaka likes its nightlife "steamy"... Obviously, they still must follow laws, both in the soliciting of "partners" ;) & the actual sexual acts, but that's the thing - almost every major city on the planet prefers different "fun" & parties, but it's up to you to figure out those differences everywhere you go!

"Here were some discoveries/observations I made in Osaka:

-famous for host clubs (absolutely...)

-saw a lot of beautiful men (stop trying to convert me!)

-saw a lot of beautiful women who wore a lot of make up and heels (that's more like it!)

-streets are small but amazing (sometimes, they were too small... I can't even begin to count the # of times I had cars following me along some side street far off from downtown, which I couldn't even hear most of the time, only to have to pull to 1 side of the street or the other just to avoid them!)

-cars/bikes/scooters come out of no where (see above point)

-traffic is a free for all (uuuuuummmmmmmmm...)

-the pillows have strange straw/bean type material in them which make them uncomfortable (the pillows were something I don't, & won't, miss, & am not looking forward to next time!)

-recycling is super important and everyone and every store sorts it themselves (they sure do take their recycling seriously... Here, you might see 1 large "recycling" dumpster, which, in reality, is full of everything, not just recycling, but over there, you might see multiple distinct recycling bins, which only take recyclable goods, instead of everything people might toss!)

-stayed up for over 27 hours today." (I did the same thing... small world!)

"I work a lot this upcoming week so please be patient for updates and enjoy!!" (& that's why I'm splitting up these recaps in parts myself - You can't throw everything somebody's way & expect them to get your full experience, let alone their own full experience, & perhaps convince them, or even change their mind, as to whether or not to do something they may or may not have wanted to do themselves!)

BONUS: Since I'm not getting over this Frozen obsession of mine anytime soon...

That's the Latin American Spanish edition of the official soundtrack... For some reason, Disney's different international divisions decided to split up the French/Portuguese/Spanish everything into what basically amounted to "European" & "non-European" editions... Basically, that means Quebec got a "Quèbècois" French soundtrack, every non-Brazil down in Latin America got its own soundtrack, Brazil got its own soundtrack, & their respective European counterparts all got their own editions of the soundtrack, with differences that are more noticeable than you might think!

the Latin American official soundtrack titles: 

As those of you out there who also know some Spanish can most likely tell, Disney's Latin American team took quite a few liberties with those titles... Not that I'm complaining, but I'm sure some of you prefer slightly more "literal" translations between languages than that! 

(Then again, the Latino/Euro Spanish teams didn't make the same mistake - @ least what I believe is a mistake - as the Quèbècois/Euro French teams did specifically with the end credit portion of the soundtrack... That's still to come in a later post, however!)

Last but not least, STAY TUNED for part 2 sometime soon, since I'm not planning on shutting down this trip, & the memories associated with it, for the longest time now, or upon any possible future return visits!

the international success of "Frozen", in many dozens of languages

Before this recent 12-day trip I took to various Japanese cities, which I'm not planning on making my only visit there, I was aware of everybody's borderline obsession with Disney's latest animated flick, but while I was aware, I had never actually caught the entirety of the movie - only parts, & the soundtrack, & followed record after record that once belonged to 1 movie/soundtrack or another, only to see all of those records fall within days, all due to the exact same phenomenon each time - that's right, people - I'm referring to the late November 2013 release of Disney's Frozen, which, despite almost entirely taking place in a bleak, yet still spectacular, winter wonderland, is still being aired & mentioned now, over 6 months later! That is almost just as much because of the business side of that film/soundtrack/etc. as it is about the actual story & everything else... If something that broke so many records in such a short time was being ignored, then I'm sure everybody would be complaining about the lack of attention instead of the overload of articles on its success!

Where did this overall run start for Disney, you might be asking? Perhaps you think it started in the late 1980s, as all the animated films that would enjoy all types of sales successes on VHS about a decade later premiered 1 after the other in theaters - this was after the company's main successes were mostly ideas handled by a bunch of transplants from other production companies, working not under Disney, but under Touchstone Pictures! Those early 1990s animated feature films seemed to start what the company has continued with all of those types of films ever since - generally under 2 hours, with a few main mostly original songs, & generally ended up all over other Disney-owned-&-operated outlets after the fact!

speaking of 1990s Disney (with advance apologies to everybody in the city of Anaheim):

Despite EPCOT down @ Disney World in Florida starting off the "new millennium" with the critically acclaimed "IllumiNations" show, 2nd only to the annual Times Square N.Y.C. bash that December, the animation division wasn't having nearly as much success as it did just a few short years earlier, instead letting its 90s "partner in crime", Pixar, take its commercial success 1st, & then watched it take its marketing prominence, as seemingly everything back through the decade of the 2000s was marketed not simply as "Disney", but as "Disney-Pixar" - If that isn't a sign that something should give & force a company such as Disney to find a "breakaway" (to use a hockey term) success to escape Pixar once & for all, then I don't know what is! In fact, if it wasn't for the 3 years (2004, 5, & 6) in which the joint Disney-Pixar contract expired ('04), the 2 companies played "hardball" with each other & the general public, mostly over production issues ('05) & when Disney finally purchased Pixar ('06), dare I say we might not have heard from them for the entire rest of the decade, assuming Disney would even have continued its late 2000s-2010s split from Pixar without such events occurring to begin with!

That 2006 purchase brought 2 of Pixar's most well-known names over to Disney - company president Edwin Catmull & C.C.O. (chief creative officer) John Lasseter, & immediately, they encouraged Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner & the animation division to, essentially, return to its what were widely considered both its old (approx. 1950s) & Disney-Pixar (1990s) roots - original animation instead of live-action, with the following films, released in the following order:

2009's The Princess & The Frog - essentially, a remake of another remake; in this case, a film adaptation of a novel of an old fairy tale!

2010's Tangled - another big-screen fairy tale adaptation!

2011's Winnie The Pooh - in trying to remake 1 of its own classics, apparently, Disney missed the fact that most people had already forgotten all the 90s remakes & sequels just in that series, as this got both rejected by audiences, & panned by critics, which you never want to hear or see if you're actively trying to win over more than 1 different crowd @ once!

2012's Wreck-It Ralph - mainly the result of Disney trusting "outsiders" with 1 of its projects; so much so, in fact, that FOX director/writer Rich Moore directed, & Nintendo, of all companies, made a few "cameo" requests for some of its most famous/infamous characters to appear, not of all of which were ultimately fulfilled by Disney, mostly due to licensing fees!

early 2013's Planes - sorry for being so blunt here, but honestly, I think Disney could've easily done last year without this aberration wasting space in its lineup; what - were the 2 Cars films suddenly "no good", or did Disney have some "unfinished business" to settle with Pixar, or what?

So, judging by all that history, exactly how many records has Frozen already managed to break, through just its 1st 6 months? Well, in an era full of movie studios looking to constantly "1-up" each other, the movie reached the following positions:

over $400 million of revenue just within North America, which easily accounts for almost 1/2 of the film's worldwide box office revenue;

the #1 all-time computer/general animation film: $1,267,828,424 revenue, & still counting, with its continued run in select theaters;

the #5 all-time film of any type: out of the other 4 films up there, only 1997's Titanic, which has reached over $2.1 billion, is not part of a franchise, & that's assuming Disney even tries its luck on a sequel here, which I just don't see happening in the foreseeable future (although that doesn't mean the company isn't already trying to move on :(... more on that later, however!)

last year's #1 overall film, & that was with only about a month left in the year; if Disney was trying to avoid the same "late-year curse" that seems to plague just about every other industry, well, this flick certainly avoided that trap, & then some!

#3 all-time in the country I just visited, Japan, with ¥24.6 billion, only behind (yet again) 1997's Titanic (¥26.2 billion) & 1997's Spirited Away (which set the all-time record with ¥30.4 billion);

...as well as a bunch of awards, both for the movie itself (the Academy Award/Golden Globe Award/Critics' Choice Award/Annie Award (I honestly had to check what exactly this award is - basically, these awards are exclusively for animation)/etc. for Best Animated Feature, & the BAFTA Award (those darn British critics!) for Best Animated Film, while...

...the soundtrack as a whole matched the success of the movie itself: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/entertainment/why-is-the-frozen-soundtrack-outselling-every-other-album.html/

perhaps the most interesting/poignant point in the article is at the very top: "Nielsen SoundScan has released the data for the top-selling albums of the first half of the year, and predictably, the soundtrack for the Disney animated movie Frozen tops the list, having sold 2.69 million copies during the first six months of 2014, according to Billboard."

at the very end of the article: "Meanwhile, Frozen is still sitting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 during its 32nd week on the charts."

The localization process was obviously much more difficult than usual, with producers apparently searching for upwards of 200 different actors/actresses/singers in over 40 different languages, making this 1 of the most wide-ranging "talent searches" ever!

https://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-news/how-these-singers-around-the-globe-pushed--frozen--over-the-top-063739448.html

"Over the weekend, Disney's "Frozen" became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, topping $1 billion worldwide and inspiring a #CongratulationsFrozen hashtag on Twitter.

One reason for the film's runaway success? That infectious Oscar-winning song that says it's okay to be yourself — in fact, let it go and belt it out from a snow-covered mountain top while you're at it. It's a message that has proven deeply resonant around the globe.

The fact that the House of Mouse tailored its snowy movie for several non-English speaking audiences, dubbing it in 41 languages total, didn't hurt a thing. Indeed, fervent audiences in Japan were who pushed "Frozen" into the billion-dollar club this weekend, making it the No. 1 movie there three weekends in a row (and counting).

This new in-studio version of "Let It Go" in 25 languages (seen here first on Yahoo Movies), offers a peek into the arduous process of dubbing the film and its songs into 41 tongues, and shows many of the singers who stepped up to the plate to do their dead-on "Adele Dazeem." (A previous version of the video, which doesn't show the real-life "Let It Go" singers, went viral in late January.)

Translating "Frozen" into so many different languages is exceptionally challenging, says Rick Dempsey, a senior exec at Disney's Character Voices International unit. "It's a difficult juggling act to get the right intent of the lyrics and also have it match rhythmically to the music," he told Yahoo in a recent email exchange. "And then you have to go back and adjust for lip sync! [It]… requires a lot of patience and precision."

Casting the right singers and actors then becomes another challenge. "Idina's voice (or Kristen's voice for Anna) becomes our blueprint. We try to match it as close as possible," said the Disney exec.

Two hundred singers tested for 41 slots, and not all vocalists were fit to act the part for which they were singing. "Sometimes we find a great vocal match with a singer, and a great acting match with a different actress," said Dempsey. "There are close to 15 versions out there that have two different talents performing the role."

The casting process was particularly complex because native speakers were required. "It's the only way to really ensure that the film feels 'local,'" Dempsey said.

With all the painstaking work that went into the making of "Frozen," translating included, at least we now know it was worthwhile."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frozen-composer-robert-lopez-perils-683171

From the 2nd article, on the dangers of "puns": "The Lopezes took a far more scrupulous approach to making Frozen's appeal global. "We were trying to make the story work wherever audiences were," says Lopez. "Disney basically said, don't write a song where the whole song depends on one pun. A song about 'being in someone else's shoes' was cut — will people get that idea in other cultures? Whenever we drifted too far into punland, we would steer into clearer waters. We had a song called 'Lose Control,' with a pun on 'troll.' But the pun was running away from the song. It makes sense in English, but who knows in other languages?"

As a follow-up to the Lopezes' reference to some song/lyric cuts: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnew92/6-bonus-songs-from-frozen-that-you-need-to-hear-9qja (The 6 songs here would've presumably been squeezed into slots in between some of the tunes that ended up making the final cut, since they all seem to have similar tones to everything that ended up in the "finished product"!)

For further reference, here are the North American/British-U.K./Australia-New Zealand English-language, Latin American Spanish-language, & European Spanish-language localized soundtrack titles:

in order:  Título original (original (English) title)  Hispanoamérica (Latin America)/ España (Spain): 

Frozen Heart(ENG)/Helado corazón(L.A.)/Corazón de hielo(ESP) 

Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?(ENG)/¿Y si hacemos un muñeco?(L.A.)/Hazme un muñeco de nieve(ESP)

For the First Time in Forever(ENG)/Finalmente y como nunca(L.A.)/Por primera vez en años(ESP)

Love Is an Open Door(ENG)/La puerta es el amor(L.A.)/La puerta hacia el amor(ESP) 

Let It Go(ENG)/Libre soy(L.A.)/¡Suéltalo!(ESP) (ganadora del Oscar/Oscar winner

Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People(ENG)/Renos, mejor que humanos(L.A.)Renos, mejor que personas(ESP)

In Summer(ENG)/Verano(L.A.)/En verano(ESP) 

For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)(ENG)/Finalmente y como nunca (Reprise)(L.A.)/Por primera vez en años (Reprise)(ESP)

Fixer Upper(ENG)/Reparaciones(L.A.)/Sólo tiene que mejorar un poco (ESP)

Let it Go (single de Demi Lovato)(ENG)/Libre soy (single de Martina Stoessel) (L.A. & ESP) 

RE: that soundtrack: I can't even begin to mention just how often I heard the Japanese localizations throughout Japan - If there's any other country that could possibly be even more obsessed than we are, it's definitely Japan, & its population...

also: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101651430 (transcript of an interview from 5/7/14 between CNBC'S Michael Faber & Disney C.E.O. Rob Iger):

Faber, asking about any possible sequels: "When are we going to see the sequel?" 

Iger, interestingly enough, actually initially rejected that notion: "We've said about sequels here that we want a great story 1st, then we'll decide to make a sequel. If w just mandate a sequel in the marketplace, & force storytelling that may not be up to the standards of the 1st film, that won't do the franchise any good, so when our creative team is ready, when they have a good story, I'm sure we'll be ready to make a sequel. But, it's something I think I'd like to -- we'd like it to be more "organic" from a creative perspective rather than something forced, because we're interested in the bottom line."

there's also something from the N.Y. Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/business/media/frozen-will-be-a-disney-on-ice-show-too-riding-a-blockbusters-wave.html?_r=0

For those of you, who like me, are located within the Garden State, here's when the show will be "setting up shop" around here:

Prudential Center - Newark: Wed., 11/19 - 7 P.M.; Thu., 11/20 - 10:30 A.M. (!) & 7 P.M.; Fri., 11/21 - 7 P.M.; Sat., 11/22 - 11 A.M. (which is more reasonable on a Saturday morning than a weekday morning, from every standpoint), 3 P.M., & 7 P.M.; Sun., 11/23 - 1 & 5 P.M.

Izod Center (I can't even begin to tell you people outside the Garden State how much I still despise that name change...), East Rutherford/Meadowlands: Tue., 11/25 - 7 P.M.; Wed., 11/26 (Thanksgiving Eve) - 11 A.M. (which is still more reasonable than the scheduled 10:30 A.M. start time in Newark the previous Thursday!) & 7 P.M.; Thu., 11/27 (Thanksgiving Day morning, before all the NFL action starts) - 11 A.M.; Fri., 11/28 - 11 A.M. (which may or may not become completely unmanageable with all the mall traffic nearby), 3 P.M., & 7 P.M.; Sat., 11/29 & Sun., 11/30 - same 3 start times each day as Fri., 11/28 

Everybody else remember this: Orlando, as the home of Disney World, you've got 1st dibs on that show, so don't **** it up for the rest of us, & everybody else check your local listings to check when the show will be landing in your local area!