Annajapanna

2006-02-22T00:33:00.001-08:00

I bought this kimomo undergarment today when I was vintage clothing shopping. It's the silk robe you wear under the kimono so your body oils don't destroy the actual kimono. Do I have a kimono, you ask? No, I don't. I simply cannot afford one at this time. (Cheap ones start at $500-$1000.) So, to satiate my urge to get one, I though the vintage undergarment would be nice because it is still the kimono shape. It looks very innocent from far away, but if you look closer, this is what you'll see.

It's fantastic in every way, shape and form. And, very useful if I ever want to use this an a robe. It's kind of like having a copy of kama sutra laying on your bedside table.

candy

2006-02-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

I have found something I love about Japan. Today, for Valentine's Day, I did not get one disgusting sugary candy heart. Instead, I got a box of chocolate cigarettes. Somehow, this brings a smile to my face, even though I am a non-smoker. That would definately not go over well in the US.

stuff

2006-02-13T05:06:00.000-08:00

If anyone wants anything Japany, tell me soon cuz my days here are numbered. You all should know my email, and if you don't, there is probably a reason for it.

V Day

2006-02-12T03:05:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas was here and gone as well as my two weeks in London. Christmas was terribly depressing, and I ended up eating a store-bought barbequed drumstick and some steamed yams for my Christmas feast. London was lovely, except for the weather, but I am convinced the weather is never lovely in London, so no disappointment there.

It is quickly approaching Valentine's Day, and of course, the Japanese have overdone it again. Since the day after New Year's Day (otherwise known as Jan. 2) the stores appear to have been vomited in by Hallmark. I can't turn an aisle without seeing something red-and-pink heart shaped. Also, apparently Valentine's Day is also known and National-Bake-A-Cake Day. Every department store has huge displays of make-it-yourself cookies, cakes and brownies, all appropriately Valentine-y.

The problem is, almost no one in Japan owns an oven, just a range. So, all of these premixed dry batters are for the microwave. Apparently, the notion of baking is still a foreign notion, because all of these stores have video and in-store demonstrations on how to put two eggs, some milk and water into the batter, stir, and plop into the microwave for 15 min. My second point is this: who wants a microwave cake? I made microwave brownies once in college and they tasted like microwave brownies. I would much rather have my cake taste like store bought.

And another thing...did you know Valentine's Day is only for women to give men presents, microwave cake and chocolates? Men don't give anything. Lucky bastards.

Dunno what else to talk about. Japan is as always Japan. I am coming home in late March. It would have been earlier, but I got a hinie pounding by the company for reasons I will not discuss here. Meh. (And here is where I would type some vulgar kanji if I knew any.)

germ farming

2005-12-21T04:08:00.000-08:00

I have been a bit lax in my blogging and for that I apologize. I guess the strangeness of Tokyo is just becoming ingrained in me.

I have had a chronic cold since October, and it is my belief that my constant illness is from all the gooey germ farms (aka children) that I am forced to teach on a daily basis. I don't know what it is with Japanese children, but they do not cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. I can just see all the disgustingness disseminating from their lips as they sneeze. As soon as I do this, I try to remind them to cover their mouths by fake coughing and covering my mouth. It has not worked, however. Upon observing the adults I teach, they do not cover their mouths either. It's just yucky and unsanitary. But, when I leave this island, I will have an extremely strong uber immune system---superflu I dare you.

Christmas is coming and I am working. Because my company sucks, I am not given any Japanese holidays off, but I am not given any Western holidays off either. To make matters worse, I found out that all the Japanese staff at work is awarded a year-end bonus whereas none of the foreign staff is. I am going to be an absolute evil spiteful person when I wake up on Christmas morning and have to haul my ass on a crowded train to go teach English at 10am to people who think Christmas is a holiday for lovers. Here, Christmas is treated like a more expensive Valentine's Day. Couples exchange expensive jewelry and watches, eat "Christmas Cake" (did you know the traditional Christmas Cake was strawberry shortcake?) and go out for a very expensive evening on the town. There are several stores that sell "Christmas Outfits" which are ho-ed up versions of a Santa costume. They generally consist of red or gold velvet miniskirts with white rabbit trim and some sort of velvet tank top with a fur trimmed hood---and of course black thigh high boots and red fence post stockings. These are going-out-fits, not the kind to keep in the boudoir. I am sure on Christmas Day I will discover even more atrocities commited in the name of Santa Claus. I'll keep you posted.

octopus

2005-11-29T04:53:00.000-08:00

So we had a fairly large party for my 25th birthday...about forty friends of mine rented out a room at a bar here. We had an all-you-can-drink special so everyone was in a good mood-myself included. This is what prompted me to eat--get this--raw octopus. It isn't so bad when you are drunk...it is merely a mouth feel because it was coated in a liquid wasabi which could mask almost any other flavor. Most Japanese food is eaten, I am convinced not because of the actual food, but because of the sauce which is on it.

The following day, my real birthday, I flew to Hong Kong with my roommate Nicole. Hong Kong was incredible. It was everything I expected Tokyo to be, but isn't. All the people have some English knowledge, so I could order or take a cab or go shopping without having to do some crazy contortionist sign language. Also, they actually have street signs...on every street I might add and to make it even better they are written in both English and Kanji. It really brought a tear to my eye.

To save you on the boring details of my trip, the best thing I saw was Cirque du Soleil.

In a nutshell, it is a fantastic city for someone who wants to see "East meets West" in a friendly, anglo-loving environment.

juicy stains

2005-10-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Dude-o-rama.

I am over half finished with my Japanese escapades and I haven't left the city of Tokyo. It is too expensive to travel in Japan. As I may have said before, it is more expensive to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) inside of Japan than it is for me to fly off this island to a foreign land. Which is exactly what I plan on doing for my birthday. That's right, next month, I am taking a little Hong Kong excursion.

If anyone has ever thought that American bugs are disgusting, they haven't seen Japanese bugs. For a country who is well-known for its miniature proportions, they sure do have the nastiest/largest vermon I have ever encountered. When I first arrived here, I thought there were hawks flying around in the sky, which really surprised me. Upon second glance, I noticed it was all black. It was a crow. A huge awful man-eating crow with tallons. Standing, it came up to at least my knee.

Another vermon is the bed bug. I had the misfortune of getting these in early September. They are common, I am guessing, by the amount of bed bug bombs they sell in every pharmacy. It had me creeped out/grossed out for several weeks. For about a week, I was waking up every morning with what appeared to be mosquito bites...despite having closed my screens and windows every evening. My roommate finally clued me into the fact it was probably bedbugs and then I spent the next few nights creeped out, not being able to sleep in my bed, wondering how to get rid of them. Then I went to the pharmacy and found something that looked like a dead bug on the canister, assumed it had to be a bug bomb, and then set it off in my room, after imagining the instructions which were only written in kanji.

The last vermon is the cockroach. They are about as common as the housefly. Everyone has them, despite cleanliness or uncleanliness. I thought my apartment was doing really well because during peak cockroach season this summer, we didn't see a single one. However, Monday night I looked up on my ceiling to see a 3" one. I killed it with a book (big mistake) and it left a huge juicy green blood stain running down my wall. It looked like someone killed a turtle. Truely repugnant.

babies

2005-09-26T05:26:00.000-07:00

Japan has a declining birthrate and I have finally figured out why. Shopping centers are completely to blame for the lack of gettin' it on.

I went to the second largest mall in Tokyo on Saturday. Its H-U-G-E. Like, you easily can lose someone for hours on a single floor. There are entire department stores on a single floor---thats how big it is. Anyway, I have been sent on a wild owl chase by one of my friends. Apparently, there was an owl in Lost In Translation which is impossible to find in the US. So, I have been sent to find it in Japan. This is how I found myself on the children's floor of this massive mall.

Japanese kids are cute. Very cute. Adorable even. Some of the cutest kids I've even seen. Wanna know what is even cuter than Japanese kids? Japanese kids dressed in the cutest clothing imaginable. The sights of adorable kids in adorable clothing on the 8th floor of the mall sent my horomones surge into "I wanna baby" mode. Everything was "too cute" and "how precious." Yeah, I know, if this was spinning though my head, think how a woman who really wants kids must react to it.

So, I was in the baby mode. But then it all went away. Two words. Toy department.

The designers of the mall thought they were so clever to place the toy department adjacent to the clothing department. With this placement, the kids can be bribed with toys if they "just try on this one last outfit."

How I found the toy department was by listening to the children bickering over the sample toys and waiting in lines to try the newest overpriced video game. They were running all over, not listening to parents, whining about wanting something. And then I lost all urge to have children. That was the end of wanting to reproduce. This is why there is a declining birthrate,

And to top it all off, I still haven't found the dsnajhd owl.

vomitus

2005-09-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

In my travels, I have seen a lot of dirty streets in my day. And, I am willing to bet that Tokyo is one of the cleaner big cities in the world. Everyday you see men in the station washing the floors and the walls and doing cleaning tasks that I didn't even know people actually did...like picking up leaves leaf-by-leaf from the sidewalk.

The Japanese people are also very concerned with dog poo...or rather its absence. I can respect the dog owners here. They all carry nifty dog pouches that contain all the necessary objects for poo cleanup...including a bottle of water to wash the sidewalk. I respect that...especially having traveled to several european countries where it is unheard of to clean up after dogs.

So, the streets are clean. Except for one thing. The vomit. I don't know if the Japanese have unusually weak stomachs, but by the amount of vomit I have seen in random places they do. Take this morning for instance, right outside the front of the apartment was a huge fresh puddle of it. This is not the first time it has happened, either. Last month there was another puddle right in front of the store next to my apartment.

Now, if I had a store and there was a puddle of vomit in front of it, I would send out the youngest employee and dump some water on it and wash it away. That's what I would do. That's not what the Japanese do. They just let it sit there and hope it dries and eventually deteriorate on its own. It's gross. i don't know why they are not offended by this, knowing their track record with dog poo. Maybe they have all been desensitized by vomit porn. I dunno.

sashimi

2005-09-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

I finally got up the courage to eat sushi and sashimi the other week. I had been avoiding it entirely, but got tired of telling people I had never tried it because they would always insist I was missing out on the deliciousness of raw fish. So, I decided that maybe i was missing out of delicious sushi and sashimi and that maybe I shouldn't let my phobias of tapeworms and parasites scare me away from Japan's most famous dish.

I made a plan to eat sushi. I would enjoy it as an afternoon treat at the fish market...apparently the only place to get really good sushi at reasonable prices. I even set a date that I would go, so I couldn't back down.

Well, I went to Tskugi (skee-gee) on a miserably rainy day and went to the first sushi restaurant that looked half way respectable. I made a good choice because the chef spoke English---he had lived in the US and worked as a sushi chef at some of the best restaurants in LA and New York. I felt I was in good hands, so I ordered the lunch special which was a mixture of sushi and sashimi.

I quite enjoyed the sushi and ate that pretty quickly. Then, I worked my way though the sweetened egg, rice and nori piece...and then the lemon grass and rice piece....I was trying to work up the courage for my first sashimi piece. They were HUGE and my mouth is very small. However, it is impossible to eat sashimi without stuffing the whole piece in your mouth and making your cheek stick out.

I got the first one down alright, and the second was ok too. But, the third one was more chewy than the first two and I couldn't chew it correctly. Then the realization of having a huge raw piece of unchewable fish in my mouth struck me and I gagged. I had to grab the napkin and spit it out. My stomach turned once and that was the end of my sushi-sashimi experience.

I think the chef knew I was having problems and came over to ask if everything was ok. I assured him it was, but I am sure he knew better. Another gaijin who couldn't stomach the idea of raw fish. I felt slightly embarrassed, and left half a plate of sashimi as I slunk out of the restaurant.

I had McDonalds a few hours later.

flavory tea

2005-09-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

Two more months down. I have been working like a fool on overtime, but for good reason. I am the proud owner of a brand new ibook. Yeah yeah, you pc users, don't roll your eyes at me. My ibook will kick your pc's ass.

In other news, I am no longer able to be shocked or appalled. All my shockers and appallers have been shocked and appalled out. I cannot even begin to describe all the strange things which I have heard and/or witnessed. And even if I did relate these stories, no one would believe me.

I must rave about the wonders of Lipton--the makers of iced tea. Props and kudos to them. In the US, I never was a sweet iced tea drinker...only bitter. However, in a country plagued by burnt aquarium water (green tea) and sweat (sports drink) I have found that Lipton's Lemon Iced tea has become my trusty friend. Every morning I would travel to my convini (Japanese English for convenience store) and pick up a half liter of Lipton's Lemon. Last week, however, I went to the grocery store to find Lipton's Lemon AND Lipton's Grape. Grape? I questioned, not wanting to destroy the perfect image I had built around Liptons. With hesitancy, I bought a Liptons Grape (and a Lipton's Lemon for backup). LIPTON'S GRAPE IS THE TEA TO DESTROY ALL OTHER TEAS. I am totally gonna drink it until I puke..and then I am gonna drink some more. I really hope it gets marketed in the US. Otherwise I might just have to stay here. It is enough of a reason to remain in the country...(but there are rumors that Grape Tea is only released in the fall as a promotional tool.)

In related news, my roommate bought a box of tea that read "flavory." I have always wanted flavory tea. I am glad someone is finally making it. I can sleep better knowing that in the morning I can wake up and make myself some flavory tea.

Thats all for now.

sweat

2005-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

It has been hot here. H-O-T. Woo hoo. I love it. I love the hot humid weather. One hundred percent humidity. Fan-baulous. However, my students are acting like they are going to melt off the face of the planet. I come in, nice and ready for class, and they have sweat pouring off of them. They have these sweat rags that they use to catch the puddles, which is slightly disgusting, but I suppose better than having puddles on the tables. I don't know if they have weird sweat glands or what.

water's on

2005-06-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

Guess what I am doing now. Just guess. I'm boiling water. Thirsty for tea, you ask? Making a nice pasta dinner? NO. I am boiling water because the majority of Japanese washing machines only have cold water wash. Why is this? Because they believe that cold water washes better and that all the germs will die when then hang their clothes out in the sunlight. hfdjohfcjdknbwfjk! Yeah. My thoughts exactly. No one tried to explain to me how the germs die during the midst of the rainy season when everyone has to hang laundry inside. Maybe the germs just commit suicide during this time. I really don't know. Anyway, because of this gross miscalucation of cold water wash, I have to boil large pots of water and throw them on my undies and unmentionables and kind of let them steam in the washing machine before I turn it on.

Here is another interesting fact. Some Japanese toothpastes have sugar added to them so they taste better. If you are brushing your teeth in sugar, is there really any point to brushing at all or are they relying on the abrasiveness to scrub their pearly whites clean? Meh.

As long as I am on a rant, I might a well complain about one last disgustingness. The mesh food bag. Japanese homes do not have garbage disposals. Instead, they have this system of a mesh bag that wraps around the inside of the drain in which to collect food from going completely down. When the bag gets full, your drain stops draining and you get a terrible back up of food and sludge. This is when you have to go into the sink and collect the bag with its weeks of rotting wet food and throw it out. Now, if I were smart, I would try to throw it away before this time, but more often that not my roommates do not wash their dishes and so I cannot get to the rotting food bag in time.

It is a strange feeling...for the first time in my life I am the clean one in the house. I remember trash day and drag the broom around the floor. :/

the rug battle

2005-06-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

Now the neighbors have decided to start repositioning my welcome mat. I don't know why. Every morning before leaving work, they flip up the back left corner. My neighbors are insane, this is what I chalk it up to. They live in some little world which I cannot even begin to comprehend.

On Wednesday I witnessed my first train suicide. I had missed the train I had wanted to take into Tokyo shopping by seconds, so I was waiting for the next train to come. As it was pulling up, the train conductor sounded his horn. The doors on the train refused to open. Everyone's attention was turned to the front of the train. Elderly ladies started running towards the scene. About ten minutes later an ambulance could be heard and the people were filing out of the train through the front right past the suicide. (I really don't know why this is...it is morbid beyond anything, if you ask me.) So, the little old ladies who could not resist seeing the scene came back towards where I was standing and doing everything in my power not to see a body. Apparently, the guy tried jumping in front of the train, but short stepped it and got stuck between the platform, thus getting dragged and split in two. The ambulance workers didn't even try to look like they were going to save the guy. They came up the steps, not with a gurney, but with a large metal box for the body parts.

I guess when there are suicides, the deceased's family has to pay for all the expenses of the clean up, and also has to pay for all lost revenue for the delays...something like a per person fee. So, if you splat yourself on a busy line at rush hour it will be signifinatly more than if you did it on a Monday afternoon in the sticks. And this is the point when I ask, "Have they never heard of a bottle of vodka and sleeping pills in a nice quiet hotel?"

We had some wicked earthquakes on Wednesday as well. Wednesday just wasn't may day I guess.

Thanks to the bad guys who wrote me emails this week. I really appreciate them. :)

the plant battle

2005-05-28T02:46:00.000-07:00

So, when I arrived at my ghetto little apartment, in front on the balcony/walkway there were some pots with no plants and a pot which held cigarettes from someone who smoked a long time ago. One day, the pot was sitting on my welcome mat, just out of the way so I would not kick it over. I thought it might have fallen off the ledge and my neighbor moved it out of the way, so I put it back. Well, talking to my roommate, I guess this had happened a few times, and she kept putting the pot back as well.

I was tired of the apartment looking slightly ghetto, so I threw away all of the old plants/pots and bought two lovely new plants. One with purple flowers and the other some sort of hearty looking leafy thing...possibly a jade plant. So, I thought my neighbors would be happy that it looked pretty and no longer a little ghetto.

Last Satuday, I found just the purple flower plant sitting on my doorstep. But, the weather was windy so I thought they were being nice by moving it out of harm's way where the stems could have snapped. The next day I put it back...

A few days later, I found the same purple plant back on my doorstep. It looked a little dry (and I took this as a clue my neighbors thought so too) so I watered it and put it near the door so it wouldn't get as much sunlight.

Well, yesterday, the plant position had changed again into a different corner of my doorstep. So, I left if there because maybe my neightbors knew something I didn't know about plants.

I get home from work this evening and now both plants are sitting squarely in front of the door. I took this as a clue that they were not welcomed anywhere on the property in front of the house, so I brought them inside where I wouldn't bother any neighbors because I have no idea what the hell they are trying to tell me about my plants.

I know plants are not illegal at the apartment considering the family two doors down have several in front of their walkway and in the same location I was initially keeping ours. And, I know at least the small leafy plant is non offensive because the other neighbor also has this plant outside her house. Maybe the purple one is only for funerals or something, I dunno. I just want to know what all of this is about, which, if all neighbors am I offending and whether I need the permission of the apartment building to keep a few plants...but then, this would have been a problem with the other dead plants I threw away. Maybe my plants were just giving off bad shito/budhist vibes. I really have no clue. I might ask someone at work to see if they know. I have exhausted all of my possibilities.

out of service

2005-05-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

So, the trains here run like clockwork. If they are even a minute late, you can ask for a formal written apology from the station master to give to your employer in the off chance you could be fired for being a minute late. Why would the trains be a minute late you ask? Let me tell you. There are exactly two reasons. One, earthquake, two suicide. Both happen more frequently than desired. In the case of an earthquake, the trains just slow down on the tracks and wait for the rumbling to finish. In the case of a suicide, the Japanese have gotten the clean-up science down to less than 10 minutes, however, that train is then listed as "Out of Service" for the rest of its loop because 10 minutes is obnoxiously long to wait for a train and the station master would be overburdened with the formal written apologies. So, about every 10 or so days, in the morning on the way to work, I see "Out of service" signs.

Here is another little quirky thing about the Japanese work ethic. Most of them only work 8 hours a day, contrary to popular belief. And here is another thing, they are very social for most of the work time, and only at the last second do they put the nose to the grindstone and get anything done. So they slack, slack, slack and then for a half an hour they are completely stressed out because work has piled up, and then they slack slack slack again. At my office, the Japanese staff is notoriously bad for never being on top of things, but it is to be expected by Japanese custom. I really don't get it.

Another day, another blog

2005-05-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then. Yesterday, I went to the number two site to see in Tokyo, according to my guide book---Asakuza. It is the remaining part of the Old Edo period grounds, turned blaringly commercial for people like me. It was nice, there were pagodas and shines and temples, and a place where you could bless yourself in fairy water, and rub smoke on your hair. I didn't quite understand the whole, hair rubbing thing, but I am not shinto either. Then again, very few Japanese are either. *shrugs*

So, I found this amazing 5 story pagoda that I took a bunch of pictures of....it looked really old and beautiful. But, then I got up closer to it and read the sign that said it was built in 1973. 1973! I felt like an idiot.

Another thing I did not like was that all the buildings were covered in some sort of netting, and that some of the statues were wrapped in bubble wrap and had cages around them. It doesn't make for a lot of photo opportunities. Also, here is the double standard. The Japanese people really dislike having their pictures taken, and it freaks them out if they think you are taking their picture without asking first. I can understand this. No problem. But, wherever you see Japanese tourists in other countries, all of them are a crazy pack of shutter bugs. Documenting everything from the road to the homeless person.

The thing about Japanese siteseeing is that there isn't a whole lot to see. I mean, you can look at the outside of a shrine for only so long, and if there are no signs to read, or a lot of things to take pictures of, well, the whole attraction lasts maybe an hour and a half. So, I ususally end up riding the train for an hour or two to get to the attraction, then I am there for an hour or two, and then I turn around and go back home thinking I have missed something. It is quite frustrating for me.

2005-05-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

So, blogger has been stupid to me for sometime. Hence, the lack of blogs.

Not too much has gone on lately. I wish I could say something wonderful and fantastic has been happening in Japan, but I would just be lying.

Work is work. Somedays are better than others. But, that is any job I suppose.

Last week I went to the Emperor's Palace. Which sounds really cool until you realize that you can't actually see the Emperor's Palace, you can just walk around on the grounds, looking at stuff which is explained exclusively in Japanese and Latin. I think they are unwilling to admit that English is the dominant language for most cultural exchange.

I learned my first kanji character last night --the word for mouth. I was trying to look up grocery store terminology in kanji to easy the problems I have while shopping. But, for whatever reason, no one wants me to know this, so I only found a few characters, some of them I have no need to remember. Now, I like kanji, I think it is kind of cool, but you can't write strictly in kanji like the Chinese can with their character system. So, no only do I have to learn a certain amount of kanji for some things, I also have the learn the kata or hiragana around it, which, seems like an insurmountable challenge right now. I mean, why have a written language that can only partially be mixed with other full alphabets? I am of the opinion they should just choose one and stick with it.

2005-04-29T03:14:00.000-07:00

So, I have been contemplating about what to write for the past day or so. It seems like nothing and everything has happened. Nothing in the sense that I have worked, blah blah, but also that I did stuff which is very difficult to describe.
On Tuesday night I pulled an all nighter with friends, which is almost a given because of the train schedules here. Either you go out and come home very early...catching trains about 11 or midnight, or you stay out until first train the the morning, 5:15 am. So, myself and some friends bought a few drinks and walked around the area (public drinking is allowed.) Here I saw a transvestite parade and a bunch of Japanese who were too hip for their own good. After the public drinking, we went inside a little crappy bar for more drinks and snacks.The Japanese version of the peanut is the soybean. They come steamed in their pods and you pop them out like you would an oversized pea. They are quite tasty and a good bar food, surprisingly, At midnight, we rented a karaoke room in the 10 story karaoke megaplex. We got our room number and went upstairs. I can't even begin to describe this place. It is what you would think some trippy japanese night club would look like, down to the red laquer floors. Our karakoe room was nice, enough to fit me and my friends (here , you just sing with your friends and not in front of people you don't know in a bar.) So, we amused ourselves with this for 5 hours until we went to catch the first trains home. Here is a warning....don't go out to karaoke with native japanese gay men...you will hear the Sailor Moon theme song over and over again...I learned this the hard way.

Alright, that is all I have for now.

2005-04-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

So, at my school instructors have these special classes which are free discussions. Which, consist of shooting the shit for 40 minutes. Today, I had two older women in my free discussions. We were chatting about food and shopping. Two activities which I actively support. Then, a man came in 20 minutes late. He wanted to talk about how Americans view the Chinese position taken against the Japanese textbooks currently released about WWII. Then he wanted to know my opinions about Iraq. And then he wanted to know why the Japanese are still being villafied 60 years after WWII. Train wreck.

all things food related

2005-04-23T03:35:00.000-07:00

As I mentoned before, food is expensive in the grocery stores. I have learned that it is cheaper for me just to buy prepared food than the make it myself. This is illogical, but I have stopped trying to explain it long ago. This is what I have learned.

1. The Japanese like to eat all of the animal. And by that, I mean liver is wildy popular and served in many Chinese dishes. Unsuspecting Chinese dishes. Like General Tso's Chicken (and liver.)

2. The Japanese love mayonaise. (one "n" or two?) Love it. But not the American-style mayonaise, the Japanese style mayonaise. It is yellow, runny and very very eggy. Tonight, I bought sushi. Just your run of the mill crab sushi. It had mayonaise in it. It would have been significantly better without it.

3. They will eat food deemed unedible by every other culture. For example, fermented soy beans. I had the misfortune of ordering this about a week ago. I had gone out with my roommate, and was playing the "point at something" method of ordering. I got miso soup (delicious), rice, a whole raw egg, seaweed and a small plate of the stickiest stuff in the world. (I thought I had ordered chicken.) So, I poked at the sticky stuff with my chop sticks. Like I said, it was the stickest stuff ever. I picked it up and I got strings off of it for a good three feet. Then I got the awful idea to taste it. Think of the worst food you have ever tasted. Fermented soybeans are no comparison. They don't even smell edible. They didn't even resemble something organic in a previous lifetime. So, I got the bean up to my mouth, licked it, and immediately pulled it away from my face. I accidently touched some on the way down. It took me three handwashings to remove the smell. Never ever in your worse dreams order natto.

a pink bunny

2005-04-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

I don't remember if I told this to anyone, but the mascot for my corporation is an electric pink bunny with a beak. Yes. That's right. An electric pink bunny with a beak... It's name is Usagi--bunny in Japanese. However, it is a school which teaches english, so I don't know why they used Japanese for its name.

In other news, my roommate pointed out something very interesting the other day. About half of the Japanese females walk pigeon toed. So, in one of my roommate's classes she asked one of the students if it was a genetic disorder. She was told no, girls walk this way because it makes them seem more vulnerable and feminine. Personally, I think hauling ass around Tokyo in Prada stilettos trying to walk with an impediment is stupid. But, I guess this is what I should expect from a country who bound women's feel less than a century ago. Not that I am judging or anything.

another day. another post.

2005-04-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

Today I took a little excursion around the part of the city I will start teaching in tomorrow. It is a very nice part of the city...I guess highly ranked among the franco and anglophiles based on the number of french and english boutiques and cafes. This is the first area of Tokyo I have really liked. However, today I learned a very valuable lesson.

Like I said, I was walking around this new part of the city without a map. (I think the Japanese fear all types of maps because I have yet to locate one in the city, but this might make sense considering they also fear using signs to indicate streets, subway stops, and the like.) So, I was wandering around the little side streets with only my sense of cardinal direction to guide me. So, I ended up wandering into a very nice residential neighborhood. This was the first time I have seen an actual house since leaving Wisconsin last week. I was a little nostalic, so I went weaving though this area as well.

I was on a very little street, maybe one car wide, and I saw this large black mercedes approaching me, so like anyone with common sense, I moved over to one side as to not be hit. Well, the car slows down and puts on his hazard lights. I was thinking, "is this a sign that he is turning? am I in his way?" So, the car comes to a stop right next to me, so I just figure I must right in front of his garage. I just scuttle around the car and keep moving. About 10 seconds later I hear very loud Japanese behind me. Some phrase I couldn't understand. (Not that I can understand any Japanese just yet.) I think the guy was yelling at me, but I didn't turn around and just kept walking. I thought this was the best thing I could do. If he really needed to talk to me he could have run up beside me and got my attention. I really didn't feel like being cross-examined in Japanese as to why I was in this nice neighborhood. Or something to this extent. It scared the crap out of me.

So, my valuable lesson of the day is that while the Japanese love french and english/american culture they really hate the gaijin (foreigners.) This has been my impression since I arrived here. There are signs on some restaurants that say, "no gaijin." But, yet the Japanese are always using romanji (roman alphabet) and can't get enough of products which are written in English. It is a frustrating state of affairs.

green tea

2005-04-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

So, I have come to the realization that no matter how many different green teas I try here, they all taste like burnt aquarium water. There is no other way to explain it.

I will not be going to movies anytime soon. One ticket is $18-$20 and the releases are all at least 6 months old. Blah. At least they encourage dvd and cd burning. There are cd rental places which assume you will copy the cd. Ahhhh moving out of the US to avoid copywrite protection laws.

So, I have seen a ba-gillion vending machines. They are all over the place. But, as far as I can tell, they only vend drinks. Lots of drinks. Pink drinks and blue drinks and coke and water and fruit juice and something called "sweat" (which I still have no idea its flavor or purpose) and some sort of creamed corn which baffles me to no end. However, I have yet to find a vending machine which sells snacks or toys or womens panties. (Sorry Shawn.)

This is the other strange thing. The Japanese have no concept of bulk pricing. So, the Y120 coke in the vending maching is the same price per unit if I bought a 6-pack. Its the same with fish and fruit and anything else edible. One of something will cost the same amount as if you bought 10 of that same thing.

Lost in Translation

2005-04-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

So, last time I wrote, I had this huge maginificent blog which refused to post, which I am still a little pissed off at. Yes, I did make it to Japan in one piece. The plane was less that 25 percent full, so I got an entire row to myself. The people in first class can suck it. I totally got more leg room than they did.

My first night in Japan I had to stay in a hotel. This was quite possibly the next largest hotel room up from the sleeping tube. I was sleeping terribly, but it didn't help that the man next to me had a hooker in his room. She knocked on his door at 2:30, got it on, and politely left at 4:30.

On Friday I was taken to my apartment, which quite possibly could be named grossest apartment I have ever been in. Which, is quite impressive. What the previous tenents failed to realize is that when living in a tropical climate, you have to be extra-careful with mold and mildew. Just walking past the bathroom area make my allergies freak out. It was terrible. So, the apartment is small, and by that I mean we have a "common area" which only consists of a dinner table, a refrigerator and a tv/stand. We have no room for the sofa the company provided us, so that is in my room, being used as a futon. Wherever I turn, I am running or bumping into something.

People keep asking me about the earthquakes which happened a few days ago. I slept through the first one because a) I live right near a train station and b) there is a motorcycle gang/club right behind my apartment. The second one I had no awareness of either. Chalk it up to inexperience.

The big tv show here is one which asks, "How much would it cost for you to kill a puppy?" This, subsequently, has also been a main topic for the large group free discussions at school.

I guess this is it for now. I'm a-goin' to bed.

2005-04-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

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