Mallrats (A Lot of MCs Are Def but They 'Aint Mos)

This morning Charlie and I went to the mall (which was also a ritual of my predecessor, I’m told) to eat at Mos Burger. I have something of a dark secret to admit. Growing up in Wisconsin, I was something of a mallrat, as there was really nothing else to do in town other than go to the mall every day. I eventually grew out of this as soon as I had the means to move outside of the vicinity on my own and have really come to loathe the idea of malls since. Well, I’ve quickly found myself slipping back into the mallrat lifestyle since moving to Momoishi. The fact is, if I want to do anything (eat, see a movie, bowl, play at the arcade, buy groceries), the mall is the only place I really know of to do it and probably the only place I can reach by bike. And what it comes down to is that in my leisure time, I can either sit around and sweat in my oven-like apartment or wander around the air-conditioned mall aimlessly.

Anyway, Mos Burger was terrific. We both had the ebikatsu burger, which was basically a burger made with a shrimp patty, topped with shredded cabbage and some sort of tartar-like sauce. It was really good. I guess Mos Burger always gives you two onion rings with your fries as a rule, which took all of the pain out of deciding for me.

So, even though I’ve promised to post pictures soon, in keeping with my series of inexplicable electronics mishaps, I’ve lost the cable for my camera somehow. Anyway, until I find it or buy either a new cord or a CF card reader, a thousand words will have to suffice. I’m going to go make an omlette now.

My Hobbies Include Hanging Out With Foreigners

I received a call out of the blue last night from Sunil, one of the more senior JETs in the Hachinohe/Shimada area. He told me that all the JETs in the area were meeting up for bowling and lunch or something and asked if I would like to come with. Right before I left today I got a call from Elly, who was on the way with Kate and Alexis and told me to meet them at Baskin Robbins. Well I got there and Lorraine was also there (she’s like one of the prefectural advisors or something) so I told her about my power adaptor woes. She’s also a mac user I guess and she told me that they sell them at this Apple reseller in Misawa (where the American military base is located). So she drove us all up there but alas, the place was closed. So we then returned to the mall where we met up with the rest of the crew and ate at this Italian buffet. I wasn’t aware that tater tots and fried chicken were Italian dishes but I was thankful for the plethora of Western food, regardless.

We then went to this bowling alley in the mall that was so much like an American bowling alley that I completely forgot that I was in Japan for a while. Afterwards, we went over to the arcade where Charlie introduced me to the Taiko (Japanese drum) game, with which I think I will be spending quite a bit of time. Then we broke off into smaller groups, with Charlie, Lorraine, Kate and I heading to Hachinohe in search of my elusive power adaptor, as well as a phone for Kate. I quickly found a generic replacement adaptor at the first computer store we went to and bought an S-video cable (for hooking my computer up to my TV for movies) and some speakers as well. You’d think that I would’ve learned my lesson, having already spent $100 on speakers only to have them break immediately. Not so. After trying out all of the speakers in the store, I determined that only the most expensive ones would be acceptable for my needs. They’re pretty sweet though, they’re like little shelf speakers and the housing is made of real wood. All in all, I spent about $150 at the store.

We then went to the Yamada Denki (large electronics store) to get a phone for Kate, which was about $100 as well, for a cordless phone with answering machine. On the way back to Shimoda, we stopped at a Korean barbecue place (where there’s a charcoal pit built into the table and you cook your own meat and vegetables) and it was delicious.

Upon returning to my apartment, Charlie and I decided to hang out and watch a few movies. Some of you who live in apartment complexes in large cities may know what it’s like to have to park in assigned spots allotted to building residents. Well, every apartment building in Japan is like that, regardless of location. Anyway, I guess Charlie had parked his car in some other guy’s spot and the guy came and knocked on my door and very rudely told us to move the car. Charlie says he wouldn’t have even apologized to the guy but I wasn’t trying to make any local enemies, at least within my first few days of living here. The guy was a real jerk, though.

Beverage Culture

Today was my first full day in the office. Having absolutely nothing to do (as school doesn’t start until the end of August), I basically sat around and studied kanji all day. I “worked” from 8:30 am to 4:15 pm and was allowed a one-hour, paid lunch break, during which time I went home and made a grilled cheese. This actually seems shorter than an American workday to me but I’m pretty sure that JETs don’t work nearly as many hours as everyone else. I’m told that educators in Japan generally work fewer hours than people working in other sectors, for whom 8:00 am to 12:00 am workdays are routine (especially if you figure in “mandatory” after work drinking parties and such). As Charlie later said to me, “It’s like going home to see their wives is the last thing they want to do.” I think in reality, it’s probably slightly more nuanced than that, although it cannot be denied that Japanese work culture often has a chauvinistic slant to it.

On that topic, I’ll briefly address the topic of beverages in Japanese offices. It’s widely believed that there are young women whose primary responsibility is to serve tea to their male superiors. From what I have observed so far, that is entirely true. Whenever someone from outside the office visits to talk to someone, it’s customary to bring out tea for all parties involved (usually Japanese green tea or iced mugicha-barley tea), even if no one drinks it. So that day that I went around visiting everyone, I drank probably 10 cups of tea. Cups are very small here, though.

There are four people who work in my office, not including me; Kondoh-San (my boss), Mrs. Okubo (the office assistant) and two other mysterious office ladies. One of them is responsible for, among other things, the distribution of beverages throughout the day, to both normal staff and visitors. Here is a rough schedule of beverages that were delivered to those working in my office today (note that they were simply presented to me without my asking):

8:20 am – Arrive at work
9:00 am – Iced Mugicha
10:30 am – Coffee
12:00-1:00 pm – Lunch Break
1:30 pm – Iced Mugicha
3:00 pm – Cappuccino

I must admit, it’s actually quite nice to have these things spontaneously delivered to my desk, aside from the subservient position that it puts the office lady in. I’ve never heard of (or seen) a man working in such a position in Japan but I suppose that’s just how it works. I have been told by other JETs though, that the type of service I’ve observed in my office is somewhat atypical.

美味しい！！！

Sure enough, this morning, I was taken to the mayor’s office, the offices of the principles of all four of the schools that I’m going to be teaching at and the offices of a few other random bureaucrats in the ministry of education. It was pretty exhausting, as it was hot outside and I was fairly tired. I gave my formal introduction in Japanese to the mayor and he said my Japanese was very good (although I’m sure that’s a fairly standard compliment to give to a foreigner). Elly and Alexis were also there, as well as Charlie, who has been here for a year so far and is my assigned “big brother”. I was quickly whisked away for my next engagement by Kondoh-San (my supervisor), so I was unable to talk to these people at all, but I did manage to get Charlie’s phone number before leaving.

One of the bureaucrats I met looked kind of like a Yakuza boss or something. He had a stuffed owl in his office. There was also this guy there named Kamera, who was a pretty funny dude.

One of the schools I went to has a stuffed alligator in a glass case in the entrance to the school, I’m not sure why. Taxidermy seems to be far more popular in Japan than I had anticipated.

Well, after all of this, I was taken to the bank to set up my bank account and then to the grocery store to buy some food. The grocery store was in Shimoda, the next town over and was located in a huge mall. The mall is actually really close to my apartment (probably about a mile or two away). After I got home, the first thing I did was set up my speakers so that I could listen to some tunage while I set things up. I busted out my step-up voltage converter that I had special ordered for $100, as well as my 120V power-strip and my beloved (and brand new) Creature II speakers. Well, halfway through Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs the speakers inexplicably died. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get them to power on. I now found myself trapped in a strange place without either a computer or music.

Adding injury to insult, I somehow managed to stub my big toe pretty badly on my 70 lb. suitcase and it started bleeding like a madman. Luckily, after some minor surgery with my nail clippers, it was back to (somewhat) normal.

Having destroyed just about everything of value to me, I decided to set out on my bike to explore what I could and maybe walk around that mall a bit, just to see what it was all about. Well, the entire time I’ve been in Momoishi, I haven’t really been gawked or stared at by anyone, which I found rather surprising. Well, I soon found out why. I was informed by more senior Aomori JETs that the Shimoda Mall is “gaijin central,” although I wasn’t really sure what was meant by that. There’s an American military base in Misawa (just north of this area), so I guess a lot of the military personnel come down at night and on the weekends to hang out in the mall. And there were definitely a number of obvious Americans walking around in the mall, much to my surprise. So much for being the only gaijin in town.

The mall has pretty much everything I’ll need to survive on a day-to-day basis; huge grocery Store, a 100￥ store, a movie theater, Baskin Robbins, Mos Burger (a Japanese, not really “fast food” burger chain somewhat akin to Culver’s), Tower Records and a small electronics store. Contrary to my expectations, I was able to find size 12 shoes very easily. I’ll probably wait until my first paycheck to pick up a sweet pair of Tigers, however.

Having thoroughly worshipped at the altar of consumerism, I returned home to make dinner. I thought that for simplicity’s sake, I would start with that old standby, the grilled cheese sandwich. Well, somehow the Japanese managed to make this usually mundane task incredibly frustrating (something that I’m increasingly finding that they’re quite adept at). I had bought individually-wrapped slices of Kraft cheese but I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to remove the cheese from its cellophane prison. In the end, I had to rip small pieces of cheese off of the wrapper, which yielded only about half of the slice of cheese and an unnecessary mess. I later found that freezing the cheese makes it somewhat easier to remove from the wrapper, although I still get the feeling that I’m not doing it quite right.

Having nothing better to do, I wasted the rest of the night watching Japanese television. There was this funny show on about “gross foods” where they made various celebrities try foods that they deemed gross. There was a ring above the main stage where a bunch of random people sat and commented on the proceedings. One of them was a black woman who said that she was from Jamaica. When they brought out Kim-Chee she said that she really liked it, so they brought some up for her.

I officially have a favorite Japanese TV show now, by the way. I can’t remember exactly what it’s called (delicious something) but it’s so funny. Basically, these three guys go to restaurants and order like whatever the famous dish is there. Then they take a bite and (if it’s good) start yelling “OOOOOOH! DELICIOUS! DELICIOUS!” (with their mouths full of food). The head guy wears this clock-like meter around his neck (Flava Flav-style) which has various gradations of delicious on it. He then spins the meter until it reaches the appropriate rating and if it’s good, the waiter bows and thanks him profusely.

"It's A Small World After All" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Japanese Television"

Shit. So I definitely left my charger in Tokyo. Shit. I think I’m going to have to call my prefectural advisor tomorrow to see if she can call the hotel to have them ship it to me.

Oh man, I just saw the best ad ever on TV. These guys are fishing on a fishing boat and it’s raining really hard and there’s one guy just hanging out like below deck or something and this other guy walks in and is like “What are you doing, why aren’t you catching fish?” so the first guy pulls out an energy drink and chugs it and then runs back on deck and proceeds to immediately catch this huge squid. Then he holds it over his head and yells “IKAAAAAA!” (“SQUID!”). It’s worth mentioning that energy drinks are really popular in Japan (there’s more energy drink machines than there are Coke machines here) and most of them have nicotine in them, so I won’t be touching the things. It’s also worth mentioning that I had a Coke today and it was terrible, so I’m going to have to kick the habit. I knew that they had to sweeten Coke to suit the Japanese pallet but I didn’t know that they also made it far less acidic and far less carbonated. It seriously has no kick at all, it’s like Coke without the good.

I’ve got to stop watching TV or else this is quickly going to turn into a Japanese advertisement blog. I just saw another completely brilliant one, for some DSL company who’s trying to sell wireless routers with their service. This woman is using a laptop and the Ethernet cable gets really long and starts strangling her for no apparent reason. So she screams and her husband runs into the room brandishing a pair of comically oversized wire cutters and yells “KEIBURU?”. Brilliant stuff, people.

I actually just walked downstairs and picked up a curiously-named “Pocari Sweat” (it’s kind of like Gatorade). According to the can, I’m drinking “the most appropriate beverage to quench your thirst and give your body what it needs in any situation”. Funny, I thought that stuff was called water.

So, before my poor computer runs out of juice (68% left), I’m going to try to recount the last couple of days, because I’m sure I’ll forget soon. Yesterday was my last night in Tokyo and accordingly, it was spent “partying hard” as they say. One of the first things I learned is that for most Japanese men, drinking heavily is not an option; it’s literally a requirement. All Japanese offices have what is called “enkai” which basically means “drinking party where everyone gets seriously fucking trashed”. As the stereotype dictates, Japanese people are unbelievably reserved in the office and will rarely (if ever) discuss personal matters. The only way to build good relationships with one’s co-workers and to be liked around the office is to go to these parties and basically let loose. It’s just kind of the lay of the land. They love their alcohol here man, there’s beer vending machines on literally every corner (of even the smallest towns), convenience stores sell it 24/7, public drinking and/or drunkenness is normal and there is no social stigma at all against drinking to total excess (a female Aomori JET was once congratulated by her supervisor for puking out of her window, while she was driving because she was that hung-over).

Well, the JET program certainly wastes no time in getting us acclimated to the idea of bonding through alcohol. We had our obligatory Aomori-ken prefectural dinner last night and, of course, it was nomihoudai (all you can drink). In Japan (as in other Asian countries), it’s customary to pour drinks for others rather than yourself, so you’ve basically always got a full glass. This enkai was followed by nijikai (second party) at a karaoke place and that in turn was followed by sanjikai (third party!) at a bar. And of course, at all of these locales, the drinks just didn’t stop flowing. Keep in mind that we had to leave at 7:30 in the morning to catch a flight to Aomori. 大変だね。I think Mark really put it best when he said, “At first, I wanted to hang out with other Irishmen but after last night, we’re mates for life”.

The first place we went to was an Indian restaurant and it was certifiably the real deal. Naan, curry, the whole nine yards. It was run by real Indians and I swear, the entire time I was in there, I forgot that I even in Japan at all. And man, was it a trip having Indians talk to you in Japanese.

Me and the boys then walked back to the hotel to find Matt Jong-San, who I wanted to hang with before I left but he was missing in action and presumed drunk. So, we walked back to meet up with everyone else at the karaoke place. Well, on the way these two unbelievably ugly Japanese girls (the average Japanese girl is ugly but these two were entirely in a class by themselves) just walked up to us and started talking to Jaran and he invited them out with us, for reasons unknown. Well, being the type of person who’s normally completely reliant on my phone for telling time (which I don’t have anymore), I’ve been carrying around a $5 alarm clock/radio in my bag to tell time with. Those girls thought that was so funny. They just took the clock from me and I didn’t even get it back until much later in the night (I was scared they were going to steal it or something).

Right now on TV they’re showing staged robberies of American liquor stores, dubbed over in Japanese. I think I’m officially in love with Japanese television. Oh wow! The robber was really a priest! No way!

Man, karaoke here is crazy. I’ve never been before but they had a seriously incredible selection of songs. I’m not usually one for public singing but having been properly lubricated beforehand, I ended up belting out “Anarchy in the U.K.” with some Brits.
I became pretty good friends with this dude Matt last night (not to be mistaken for Matt Jong-San). He’s in Hachinohe (about 20 minutes by car and I am getting a car once I have enough scratch), listens to some good music and plays drums. Hopefully this will turn out to be a lucrative partnership.

Today, as I was walking through the Aomori City airport, someone in our group asked me where I was going and I said “I’m just following the other gaijin” and a random Japanese person overheard me and said “GAIJIN? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!” These Japanese people really know how to bring the LOLs sometimes.

So, as it turns out, my supervisor doesn’t speak a word of English. His assistant speaks very limited English and is nervous about using it. This is a good thing, as it will hopefully force me to become fluent much faster.

All they talked about on the car ride back from Aomori City was how tall and big I was. My supervisor said, literally, “You are the tallest person in all of Aomori-ken”. When I said that I was 6’2” they literally could not believe it. Then, they started making fun of my clothes because they thought they were small. I dressed up today because it’s really important to do so any time you’re doing anything office related in Japan. So, I was wearing a shirt, tie, jacket, the whole nine yards. Mark kept saying “You look sharp, mate” to me earlier, he really liked the tie, apparently. And the jacket fits well, it’s really not small on me at all. But I guess the style in Japan is to wear really large jackets, or so I’m told. I’m from America man, give me a break here.

They then took me to the office where we stood around for a little while. It’s the local board of education that I’m working in and it’s so nice. It’s a brand new building and they have a huge library, Japanese-style tea room, a really nice lounge, the works. There were a lot of children there, just hanging out, it seemed like a really cool place to work.

Then, they took me, very briefly to my apartment, which is on the second floor of a tiny complex just like a block down the road. It was so nice and quaint. And it’s fully furnished basically, TV, rice cooker, toaster oven, glassware and dishes, there’s even a bed (which most Japanese houses don’t have). The previous dude, Bo, also left me his bike, which I’m pretty excited about.

I was then taken to my hotel to freshen up and then we went out to dinner. The restaurant we went to is apparently the only Western restaurant in the entire area, so I guess they always go there every time they want to take the gaijin out. It was a really good, really fancy French restaurant located on this farm, so while you eat you get to watch the sheep grazing outside the window. It was awesome.

Well anyway, they took me into the restaurant and I was totally surprised to see two old Japanese dudes and two American girls waiting there for us. One of them was the girl I sat next to on the plane today, Alexis, who lives the next town over. The other was Elly, a second year JET who is moving to New York in a week to go into a Graduate program at NYU. In a totally unlikely coincidence, she is actually the girlfriend of this guy Jeff, who Marian, a good friend of mine from Chicago, dated at one time. The dude (who still lives here) also went to Chicago. Small world.

Well, this girl so happened to be down with the indie rock as well as Murakami Haruki so I had a really great conversation with her. She made me describe my thesis in great detail to her (which I think bored the hell out of Alexis who probably couldn’t give a flying fuck about postmodernism). Anyhow, I had a fairly good time and it was so nice to speak some English again. She said that the moment we stepped off the plane that her and this other dude had already pegged me as a “hipster”. I protested that I wasn’t even dressed “hip” at all and she said, “Are you kidding? You look like an extra from the set of Rushmore or something!” Since when is Max Fischer (or anyone in that movie, for that matter) a hipster? Regardless, I secretly took it as a bit of a compliment.

Alexis doesn’t speak a word of Japanese and I guess no one in her office speaks a word of English. I don’t know what she’s going to do but I’m willing to bet that she’ll pick up Japanese faster than just about anyone ever. It’s going to be a scary first few months for her though, I’ll bet.

I am watching the television show where a monkey puppet talks to a group of young women.

Random observation of the day: Japanese streets do not have names. Seriously. What the fuck Japan.

I think I’m going to have to go to bed now, as I have to eat lunch with the mayor tomorrow. Not kidding. Hopefully I’ll actually get to post this sometime soon. Good night guys and dolls.

Some Bathrooms Are Better Than Others

FUCK. I can’t find the charger for my computer. I could have sworn that I brought it with me (as opposed to leaving it in Tokyo). I really hope I didn’t lose it because I imagine that the only place to get a new one is probably the Apple store in Tokyo.

Well, my troubles aside, I’m here to tell you that Japanese bathrooms are better than American bathrooms. Here are the top three reasons:

3. The toilet stalls are way more private than in the US. The walls are way higher and go all the way down to the ground so that they’re basically fully enclosed. I appreciate that. The toilets also flush super hardcore, it’s almost scary. If you’re at all familiar with Japan, you’ve probably had a good laugh at the expense of Japanese “super toilets” with their bevy of, shall we say, “advanced” features. Well, pretty much every public toilet in Japan is like that. I really wish I had taken a photo of the toilet we had in our bathroom in Tokyo because the little diagrams on the buttons were very entertaining.

2. The soap is better. There are two varieties of hand soap that I’ve encountered thus far. The first is the pre-foamed stuff, like they have at airports and train stations in Chicago, but way, way better. The second is this soap that looks really kind of weak and watery but man, does it ever foam up well.

1. The most amazing thing by far is, however, the hand dryers. I really think that they will be a constant source of amazement for me as long as I’m here. When I use a hand dryer in America, it always feels like such a pointless endeavor. My hands never really get dry unless I stand there for like 2 minutes drying my hands so I invariably end up just sort of wiping them on my pants or something. Not so in the land of the rising sun. The hand dryers here blow air out super rapidly and your hands are seriously completely dry in just a matter of seconds. Some hand dryers even have a sort of enclosed area where you put your hands in and it warms them while you’re drying them. I swear, these guys really have it all figured out sometimes.

From The Sakura Hotel

Wow. So I’m in Momoishi right now (my new hometown) and so much has happened within the last few days that I don’t know where to start. I’m in a hotel room right now, for reasons that are not quite clear to me. My supervisor and his assistant took me to my apartment where I dropped off one of my bags and then they took me to a hotel literally down the street and told me that I will be staying here tonight. I have no idea why. Anyway, my apartment is so awesome I can barely contain my excitement. I’ll post some photos of it as soon as I get a chance but it’s really nice, practically brand new and fully furnished with the possessions left behind by two previous JETs.

This hotel is really nice too. As you can see from the photo, it’s a traditional Japanese style inn. When I first came into the room it was ridiculously hot, as the windows were shut and I was sweating bullets just standing in the room. So then I had to go down and, in broken Japanese, inquire as to how to turn on the air conditioner, as I couldn’t figure it out after giving it a few tries. Well, unfortunately, I had no idea how you say air conditioner in Japanese, so I just said “airu kondishina” and tried to mimic the motion of air with my hands (I later found out that they call them “kooras”). Well, anyhow, it’s now quite livable in here. I think the woman who runs the inn said that she’s going to make me miso and toast in the morning. Sweet.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to recap the last few days in greater detail at some point in the near future. However, now, I should go downstairs to be taken out for dinner. Itekimasu!

OMG TYPHOON

Yeah, some huge typhoon is supposedly hitting Tokyo in a few hours. They grade typhoons on some numerical scale based on their severity and this one has apparently been awarded the highest rating. But no one seems that concerned, so I guess it's not going to be that big of a deal? We're supposed to be going to Aomori tomorrow but it's unclear if we'll even be able to fly.

In other news, in just a few minutes I'll be departing again for the mean streets of Shinjuku with some other Aomori JETs for Indian food and 飲み放題 (all you can drink) and then I guess I'm going out again after that with Matt? I guess? It remains to be seen how serious this "typhoon" is going to be. Needless to say, if you don't hear from me shortly, please divide my meager internet possessions amongst yourselves.

If I actually get to Aomori tomorrow I will have my camera cord and then (internet pending) will post photographic pictures of Tokyo.

Mehan's wacky Japanese observation of the day!

In Japanese hotels, there are tons of people who stand around and direct you at all times, even if they have no idea where you're going.

かんぱい！

My fear of Tokyo has finally subsided, a side effect, I think, of finally figuring out how to have a good time in this city. Last night we went out-my Oklahoman roommate Jeran and I, as well as two Irishmen, Mark and Martin who wanted to buy digital cameras-to Akihibara. In case you’re not familiar with the area, it’s the electronics district (or, as the signs so interestingly put it “electric town”). Akihibara has the reputation of being the Promised Land for technology fetishists of all flavors, which it certainly lives up to. It was also the coolest place in Tokyo that I’ve seen so far. In Mark’s words “It’s everything you thought it’s going to be and more”.


We took the subway up there from Shinjuku (the busiest subway station in the world, apparently), which quickly confirmed basically every stereotype about the Japanese-it was unbelievably busy, torrents of people moved through the station at top speed, drunken businessmen staggered around blindly and one out of every five suited salary men returning from work had either a manga or gameboy in hand. It was a very confusing and intimidating place.


Well, we had some reception thing that ran until 8:00 (most shops and things in Japan generally close around 9:00 pm), so we really had to hurry to get to Akihibara in time. It was close to closing by the time we got there, so we ran into Softboy and quickly inquired as to where the camera department was located. This was a good experience for me because I was able to use my limited expertise of photographic equipment, as well as my Japanese to translate between the Irishmen and the store workers. Well, Martin bought a smallish Nikon camera on my recommendation, as it was just about the best thing I saw there within the price range that he was looking at. Well, once Mark saw it, he also decided that he wanted the same camera. Well, at this point it was about half an hour after closing (we had been making various inquiries for some time) and they were out of that model but still agreed to send a guy to the warehouse ten minutes away to get another one. Well, once they had actually produced the camera, Jeran decided he wanted the exact same one too. They were out of it, however, but sold him a higher model for a discount. Throughout the entire process I was amazed by how nice the people in the store were to this strange-looking group of gaijin, considering that we were probably the most annoying customers they had had all month. By the time we were finally ready to leave, it was raining heavily, so we all bought 200 yen, clear, girly umbrellas and caught the train back to Shinjuku. I’m sure we were quite a sight.


(Blue Ray discs are out? Notice that they cost at least 34 USD each and hold up to 50 GB)

Well, after dropping off the cameras at the hotel, the four of us set out again to see what Shinjuku had to offer at night. After encountering a drunk Matt Jong-San in the street (“Mehaaan, you gottta lemme buy you uh drinnk”) we ended up at an all you can drink establishment where we basically paid a flat rate of about $30 for as many drinks as we wanted within the span of two hours as well as a veritable cornucopia of various Japanese snack foods, all of which were very good. The place was set up in a very “traditional” Japanese style-we had to take our shoes off outside, the tables were low and various groups were divided by pull-down screens. It was a lot of fun, primarily because the Irishmen were entertaining to no end. Towards the end of our two-hour residency, some girl came over because she heard us speaking English and wanted to know if we were also JETs. Of course we were JETs. It turns out that she was from the unlikely town of Rockford, Wisconsin; it’s a small world after all.


(From left to right: Jaran, Martin, your humble narrator and Mark)

Well, on our way back to the hotel, we stuck our heads into a few more bars, only to find that most of them had rather exorbitant “sitting fees” (in Japan, it’s customary for a bar to give you a small, gross dish of something when you enter and then proceed to charge you anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand yen for it). Upon exiting one of these establishments we were offered “supa savisu” by a Chinese prostitute, which Mark declared was “heartbreakin” (although I think that Jeran nearly took her up on the offer). We eventually decided, in lieu of going to another bar, to simply pick up some beers at the am pm (one of many convenience stores in Japan where booze is available 24 hours) and drink them on the way back to the hotel.

Upon returning, we started talking to some dudes who were standing outside the hotel and I discovered that one of them just finished a MAPH at Chicago, so I ended up talking to him for probably a good half an hour or so about everything from Hegel to the obligatory aggressive undergraduate in every seminar. I’ve been surprised by the seemingly high percentage of people here who have actually heard of Chicago (such as one girl, who promptly declared me a “smart motherfucker”).

All said and done, your humble narrator managed to have quite the time last night and became more comfortable with Tokyo in the process. Matt Jong-San just invited me out again to go drinking with him tonight. I may have to take him up on this offer, as I probably won’t have another chance for some time. Adios, internet Muchachos.

The Capital in the East

Tokyo is terrifying. Perhaps this is simply what they call “culture shock,” but I feel like if I walk more than one block away from my hotel I’ll be lost forever. So luckily, I’ve been able to enlist the guidance of my temporary roommates who seem far more adept at navigating this alien terrain-and far more confident in their speaking ability-than I. Were it not for their guidance I wouldn’t have been able to eat a bowl of butadon last night (officially my first Japanese fast food ever), as every single restaurant has menus that are almost exclusively written in kanji that I don't know. If any of you out there happen to be illiterate (although I'm not sure how that would work), let it not be said that I do not sympathize with your plight.

Other than that, my only other worthwhile observation is that the first Japanese bathroom I used had urinals clean enough to eat off of, quite literally. More funny observations of the bathrooms are forthcoming.