Well, it’s been another month and a half or so without a new post. The reason behind my lengthy absence is that I’ve been spending most of my time down at the bottom of an old, dry well at the back of a vacant lot down the alleyway behind my apartment. I’ve found that it’s the only place where I can get any kind of thinking done. . . .

Okay, not really. In truth, my month of March was a nonstop pleasure cruise of marital bliss; for you see, Judy came to visit! While I toiled away my days at work, Judy took walks around the neighborhood and enjoyed the fine early spring weather; she unpacked most of the remaining boxes that I had lazily left undisturbed since their arrival from Tokyo; she organized and decorated our apartment; and she even crocheted an entire blanket! Evenings and weekends were spent out exploring California, shopping for furniture and making plans for her greatly anticipated move down here. The time we were together was nothing short of magical, with every moment filled with laughter and smiles (*pukebarfretchcheesiness*). For one month, life was beautiful; but then, as abruptly as she had arrived, Judy was gone. The sun retreated back behind the dark clouds, the garden became overrun with weeds and an endless torrent of melancholy metaphors spewed forth from betwixt my buttocks.

I miss my wife.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be seeing her again for quite some time. Mere days after Judy left, I received a notice from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informing me that our petition for a K-3 visa had been denied “due to abandonment.” Apparently, a request for further evidence had supposedly been sent to me in November, but I never received it. Curiously, the USCIS website never indicated that a request for evidence had been sent out (I had been checking on the status of the case on a nearly daily basis since October), so I had no way of knowing that a request had been sent and thus I didn’t respond to the request that I didn’t receive and didn’t know had been sent until I received a notice stating that my failure to respond had resulted in the petition being denied. Phone calls to the USCIS proved fruitless and a desperate appeal for assistance to my local congressman’s office appears likely to reach an equally unsuccessful conclusion. Fortunately, our I-130 petition is still pending and has been progressing slowly-but-steadily, so I have some remaining hope of someday being able to get settled with my wife and move forward with our lives together in this country.

Although this situation has been maddeningly frustrating, at the same time, I can’t seem to help but feel that my own relatively petty troubles are hardly comparable to the no-doubt far worse pain and misery being experienced by others elsewhere at this very moment. While I’m getting my panties in a bunch over the evidently limitless incompetence of the US government bureaucracy, people in Iraq are being blown up, people in the US are being gunned down and countless others all over the globe are suffering from whatever other unimaginable acts of violence, cruelty and injustice we humans seem to take great pleasure in inflicting upon one another.

So it goes.

Gee, three posts in. . . three months. Not too shabby, eh?

I’ve been telling myself on a daily basis to set aside some time and just post something on this stupid site, but I’ve still been having trouble finding a spare moment to write anything. Of course, it doesn’t help that for the past three months I’ve been sharing an internet connection (literally plugging & unplugging cables) with my parents, and they’re busy folks themselves. Nonetheless, today, in a desperate effort to keep this site from slipping into the deep oblivion of the interweb, please allow me to post yet another pointless self-centered update on the Entirely Uninteresting Life of Me.

To start, Judy came down here for a 10-day visit at the end of last month, as planned. I’ll spare whatever poor souls might actually be bored enough to be reading this and refrain from being all gushy about the details, but I will say that it was (obviously) great seeing her again after having spent three months apart. The time she was down here absolutely flew by, but we did manage to have a little fun, get some Christmas shopping one, celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday (effectively killing two birds at once by baking a turkey-themed birthday cake!), and. . . we even found an apartment! It’s a nice little place in a convenient location, not too ridiculously expensive, and living there will make my commute to work a breeze! I actually already “moved in” this past weekend, although I use that term loosely, as the fact of the matter is that at this point in time, the only furniture in the place consists of:

• a kotatsu shipped from Japan
• a 13″ television I purchased in 1995
• a single floor lamp I purchased last week at Ikea (yes, I’m still a cheap bastard)
• an inflatable mattress on loan from my parents

And that’s it. So, as you can imagine, the place is a bit sparse at the moment. Hopefully, Judy will have her visa interview and be down here again soon enough, and together we can furnish it (since my doing so alone would surely violate some sort of husband/wife dynamic, not to mention give people yet another reason to question my masculinity).

So I guess that’s that. I’m hoping to get internet service set up at the new apartment early next month, and hopefully then I might even be able to return to — gasp! — regular blogging! Could such a thing ever happen??

Yeah, I kind of doubt it, too.

Perhaps it can be seen as an indication that it has been a bit too long without an update that recently both my wife and my mother have told me, in as many words (although not in these specific ones), to “hurry up and post something new already, dickweed!”

The big news—and the primary reason for my second lengthy unplanned hiatus from the internet—is that in addition to the Democrats winning both the House and the Senate last week, the recent freezing-over of Hell has had another positive effect: I got a job! I am now working as a Marketing Communicator/Technical Writer at a company here in the Bay Area. The offer came on the 30th of last month, just in time to allow me to meet my self-imposed deadline to find work by the end of October. Yep, so I am now a working man. Unfortunately, the resultant obligation of having to actually leave the house and spend all day doing real work, combined with the freelance translation & copyediting that I’ve been doing on the side plus my search for a place to live outside of my parents’ house, has left me burning the candle at both ends, with precious little time to spend on leisure activities such as eating, sleeping, etc.

The good news doesn’t end there, though. This past week, I received a notice from the US Department of Homeland Security informing me that Judy has been approved for a visa! She still has to go through the interview process, but this means that I get to see my wife again! In fact, she will be making a visit down here at the end of this week so we can look for apartments together and celebrate Thanksgiving.

It looks like things are finally starting to come together!

Well, hello there! Thanks for stopping by! Surprised to see something new up here after no updates for seven weeks? I know I am!

My apologies for the very long silence. Contrary to speculation, I am in fact still alive (thankfully, the reverse culture shock I’ve experienced thus far has been of the non-fatal variety) and I certainly did have the intention to resume blogging again once I had had a chance to settle in a bit in my new country of residence.

To be honest, though, I haven’t exactly been up to all that much over the past month and a half. However, for the sake of trying to put some new content up on this website, here’s a brief rundown of what’s been going on since I last posted:

I left Japan!
Well, duh. Although we had always planned to return to North America, it was definitely hard for Judy and I to say goodbye to our home for the past five years. Sure, I took the piss and ranted and raved on this website, but I really did enjoying living there and will always cherish the memories I made and the experiences I had. I definitely miss the place and look forward to the next opportunity to go back. Now, ceasing with the retch-inspiring sentimentalism. . .

I went to New York!
Arranged at the very-last minute after a tentatively-planned business trip was canceled, I ended up making a short visit to the Big Apple to attend my aunt & uncle’s 20th wedding anniversary party. I hadn’t been out there since May 2001, so it was great catching up with relatives and seeing a bit of the city as well. I also had the additional pleasure of serving as tour guide and interpreter (half-assedly so in both regards) for a family friend and his niece who also traveled in from Japan for the festivities. Sadly, Judy was not able to come along. Speaking of my beautiful bride of nine months. . .

My wife and I are separated!
Geographically speaking, that is. Following our departure from Japan, Judy returned to Vancouver to spend some time with her family and to get some much-needed time away from me (I kid, I kid. . . I think). Naturally, I miss her terribly, but she has informed me that for various reasons, she will remain up there until I find gainful employment (or until another man steals her heart, whichever happens first). Speaking of my inability to find work. . .

I’m still unemployed!
Gosh, no one wants to hire a shiftless layabout with the social skills of a drunken baboon and the bodily reek of the same — who’da thunk it?? Despite my lack of immediate success, though, my search for employment continues on and I am optimistic that I will find a job some day soon (hopefully before my wife leaves me and my parents kick me out of the house). In the meantime, I have decided to embrace my lack of occupation and have cultivated a healthy growth of stubble in order to complete the ‘unemployed’ look, as nothing says ‘malingerer’ quite like a face several days unshaven. I have, however, been bathing somewhat regularly in a feeble attempt to preserve a modicum of self-respect, although the ever-present stench seems to indicate that my efforts thus far have been somewhat less than sufficient. I do fortunately still have some income coming in, but unfortunately it’s not enough to enable me to get my own place or to entice my wife to come back to me. Now, one might think that being unburdened by the obligations and constraints of regular employment would give me plenty of time to maintain a blog, however. . .

My computer broke!
Well, the hard drive failed, to be specific. And it happened on a Friday night while I was taking a break from job-hunting to watch the movie Ju-on: The Grudge of all things, causing the computer to freeze during one especially creepy-ass scene [the faint-of-heart might not want to click that]. After replacing my soiled underpants, I set about trying to diagnose the problem and whether I would need a specialist (or perhaps even an exorcist) to rectify the situation. Sure enough, I sadly ended up eventually having to rely on the services of a professional, something that hurt my pride as well as my wallet. Fortunately, I’ve got my computer back with a working hard drive and am ready to start blogging again (assuming that I can come up with something to write about).

So that pretty much brings us up to today. Barring any further computer problems or the arrival of an actual job offer (I can only wish), I’ll try to keep up with posting whatever I can manage to pull out of my behind, although I’m still not certain what that might turn out to be (An Analysis of Color Variation in Excremental Material, anyone?). Until the next post, I leave you with some crappy photos™ from my recent travels to New York and San Francisco. Toodeloo!

Lamest thread title ever, I know.

I’m sitting here in an internet cafe in Shinagawa, sipping overpriced ice tea and wondering where the time went.

Five years.

Unfortunately, after having slept only a few short hours last night thanks to one particularly obtuse friend who took the pleasure of using my computer for several hours to apply for jobs online while Judy and I scuttled around him, organizing the last of our belongings and thoroughly cleaning the apartment, I’m not exactly in a frame of mind to wax sentimental. I probably will at somepoint, though, so consider yourselves warned.

I seriously can’t believe we’re leaving Japan tomorrow. A new life awaits us. . . here’s hoping it’s a good one!

Sorry once again for allowing real life to get in the way of blogging (for shame!). Actually, I’ve been away (I still am) and haven’t had much time to sit down and vomit on to the keyboard to create something to post. Everything’s been going well, though — last Monday was my last day at work, we’ve nearly packed up/gotten rid of most of our belongings and we’re now trying to enjoy the rest of our time here in Japan. Oh, and it’s freakin’ hot. Thank goodness I no longer have to wear a suit and tie every day!

Well, I’ve got to run. Here’s a typical “Ooh-Japan-is-so-like-spiritual-and-enchanting” photo since it’s the only one I had available at the moment. Will try to post again soon!

My first day on the job here in Japan, I was presented with an employee ID card. On it, my name was written as “ジェルリー” (Jerurii instead of Jefurii).

This afternoon, one of my coworkers sent out an email announcing my official farewell party next Monday night. In it, my name was written as “Jeffry.”

It’s nice to know that after five years of working here, my colleagues still don’t know how to spell my name.

My apologies again for the lack of posts. I’ve been pretty busy recently. With only one week left at work and only one month left before we leave Japan, things have been pretty hectic. We’ve even begun the monumental task of going through all of our stuff and deciding what is to be sold/given away/thrown away (most of it) and what is to be shipped back across the ocean to the States (as little of it as possible).

Will try to post again soon, but in the meantime, I offer you yet another crappy photo:

Well, Judy and I have finalized our departure date: August 22nd. It’s so hard to believe that we’ll be leaving Japan in less than six weeks. Today was Judy’s last day of work and I’ll be leaving for the first of my farewell parties in about 20 minutes. It’s so strange to think that it just a few months we’ll be living completely different lives: new jobs (hopefully), new apartment, new friends, new car (ugh), new everything. As you can probably imagine, our feelings about leaving are pretty mixed; on the one hand, we’re excited about moving on to the next chapter of our lives (to use that clichéd line for the billionth time), but on the other, it’s going to be hard to leave Japan, our home for the past five years. We’ve made an agreement, though: if, for whatever reason, things fail to turn out well after giving it an earnest go in North America, we can always come back to Japan.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy free food & booze!

After our somewhat less-than-enjoyable red-eye flight from Tokyo to Honolulu, Judy and I managed to move our connecting flight to Kauai up a few a few hours (with the guy at the check-in counter stating no less than three times, “I’m supposed to charge you to change it, but I’ll wave it for you.”) and finally arrived at the Kauai Marriott Resort in the city of Lihue at around 10:00a.m.

We had requested early check-in since we knew that we would be arriving in the morning, however we were disappointed to learn that there were no rooms available when we got there. Having some time to kill, we headed down to the poolside restaurant for breakfast, but we hardly had an appetite in our state of exhaustion. We also looked quite ridiculous sitting at a poolside cafe in Hawaii wearing long pants and sweaters, with winter coats resting over our seatbacks. Eventually the desire to sleep became too strong, so we ended up spending the next few hours dozing off at various locations around the hotel, including on the beach, in the garden and on a couch behind the big Christmas tree in the lobby (where at one point we awoke to the sound of a little boy asking, “Mommy, why are those people sleeping over there?”). Finally, a room became available and we were at long last able to take a shower, take a nap and begin our vacation.

Looking back, our four days in Kauai are a bit of a blur. The majority of our time was spent finalizing everything for the wedding: meeting with the wedding coordinator, getting our marriage license, preparing decorations and gifts, ironing all of the last-minute details, etc., etc., etc. However, despite all of the running around, we did manage to enjoy ourselves quite a bit. We were able to spend time with the various family and friends who made the trip out to join us, we took a dip in the ocean, played volleyball (albeit horribly), relaxed on the beach. . . and, oh yeah, and we also got married!

More to come soon! For now, here are a few photos!

Hmmm. . . been a while, eh?

Two weekends ago Judy and I were in Kansai to attend the wedding of the daughter of a family friend. It was our first time to attend a wedding in Japan and Judy’s first time to attend a wedding ever (not counting our own), so it was all new to us and a pretty great time.

The couple met through omiai, which is still surprisingly somewhat common these days in Japan, and only first met four months ago, if you can believe it. Nevertheless, they seem to make a great couple.

After arriving on Saturday in the small city of Kashihara, Nara where the wedding was to be held the following day, Judy and I had a few hours to kill so we took a walk to explore the area. Whilst enjoying our leisurely perambulation, we happened upon something truly glorious, the likes of which we had never seen before:

Yes, that’s right. We finally got our hands on a Nintendo DS Lite, which are still incredibly hard to come by in Tokyo. It seems that the solution for Tokyoites wishing to obtain one is to go out to Bumfuck, Nowhere, where they’re apparently aplenty. Anyhow, it has turned out to be tons of fun to play and so, combined with watching World Cup matches, it’s been hard for me to focus my attention on this site, let alone on anything else even remotely productive.

But enough rambling, back to Mario. . . .

My friend Josh and his girlfriend Wei Wei came out to Tokyo from Taipei this past weekend, and Judy and I did our best to give them The Tokyo Experience. We only had a few days, but we tried to see/do as much as possible during that time, and as a result, despite it now being several days later, I still have yet to fully recover.

I’ll try to put up some photos from the weekend within the next few days, but in the meantime here’s one of a scene we came across while passing through Ginza on Sunday:

The model dressed in geisha garb was on the street for less than two minutes, during which time nearly every single person in the vicinity in possession of a camera came rushing over to snap her photo [that’s Josh & Wei Wei on the right]. As is usually the case in such instances, almost immediately one of the photographers in the front began shouting that it was a private photo shoot and telling everyone else to stop taking pictures. Within moments, the model and main photographers quickly departed and everyone else continued on back in their respective directions, bringing with them a slight smile.

Sadly, I only managed to get one clear pic amidst the bedlam and the composition and lighting suck.

One thing I love about living in Tokyo is that you never know what you might come across during the course of any given day.

Last Friday was Judy’s older brother’s birthday, and to celebrate, his girlfriend planned a surprise dinner for him and invited the two of us join in. The festivities took place at a restaurant called Tooth Tooth in Ebisu, a pretty nice place with an eclectic aesthetic, smooth ambiance and a French-inspired menu. However, the coolest thing, without a doubt, that the restaurant had to offer was what we discovered upon entering the party room in the back:

THERE IS NO NEED TO ADJUST YOUR MONITOR.
YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU.

Yes, that’s right: The centerpiece of the party room at Tooth Tooth is a freakin’ life-size replica of an Imperial Stormtrooper (!).

Now, as one can imagine, as all of us in attendance that evening were in our mid-twenties to early thirties, the effect of being in the same room with such an awe-inspiring object was of pants-peeing proportions, especially amongst the males in the group (the women were predictably less impressed). Thus, it was only natural and, in fact, inevitable that following the consumption of numerous alcoholic beverages during the two-hour all-you-can-drink period, we would gravitate towards the figure, much like the Millennium Falcon caught in the tractor beam of the Death Star. Poses were made, photos were taken and a good time was had by all.

For about ten minutes. Then we got scolded by a waiter who told us that we’re not allowed to touch it. It was fun while it lasted, though.

You know what kind of translations I hate the most?

“No,” you say. “We couldn’t care less.” (Unless, of course, you’re American, in which case you say “We could care less,” which, I’m sorry, doesn’t make any sense.)

Well, regardless of whether you could or couldn’t care less, I’m going to tell you anyway. Ready?

Spreadsheets.

This morning this ridiculous mess arrived in my inbox with a request to translate it by 5:00pm:

Yes, a single A3-size sheet of paper, stuffed full with all sorts of charts, graphs, boxes and lists, all requiring translation into English. Never mind that an English sentence requires something like a minimum of three times as much space as its Japanese counterpart; splitting the document up isn’t an option. And thus, in an effort to preserve the formatting, text is shrunk, columns are widened and even more hair is lost from my rapidly balding head.

The worst part is that deep down, I know that no one is actually going to read it. Sure, it might be skimmed, glanced at, looked over, but certainly no careful perusal is going to be taking place. Thus is the triviality of the translation of spreadsheets. A letter has its recipient, a presentation has its audience, but a spreadsheet exists for no one.

Things have been pretty hectic at work ever since I gave notice last month. My company was having some difficulty finding my replacement, and almost immediately began asking me if there was any way I could extend my stay. I declined several times at first, but after talking things over with Judy and agreeing that we were a) in no real hurry to leave, b) hadn’t found new jobs yet and c) that another few months’ pay wouldn’t hurt, we made the decision to change our plans to stay in Tokyo through July.

So that’s the news. Although I’ve been spending a lot more time in the “real world” than on the internet lately, hopefully I’ll be able to get myself back into posting regularly now that I’ve got a bit more time to spare.

I don’t really have anything else to say at this time, so how about a boring photo?

Last Friday night, Judy went out with her friend Sachiko to watch the latest Kwon Sang Woo flick, while I, after being the last person to leave the office, went home and plopped myself down in front of the TV to watch the least dreadful of whatever rubbish could be found on Japanese network television (yes, the exciting life I lead astounds me too at times).

Anyhow, around 10:00pm, Judy called and said that she and Sachiko were heading to an okonomiyaki restaurant in Ebisu and asked if I wanted to meet up with them. So I finished up my beer, dusted the chip crumbs off my shirt, put on some pants and headed out. Thirty minutes later, I arrived at the restaurant and greeted Judy and Sachiko (whom I hadn’t seen since the wedding) and met Sachiko’s boyfriend Makoto for the first time.

We consumed loads of monjayaki, okonomiyaki and probably a bit too much alcohol, and in short, had a gay old time. At one point, Makoto revealed to us that, in addition to being able to draw a mean sketch of a car on a napkin while drunk, he also has a far more amusing talent. Announcing that he was going to do an impression of the “Japanese royal family,” as he put it, he turned his back on us, removed his glasses, messed with his hair a bit, and then turned back around to show us this:

Judy and I promptly pissed ourselves laughing, eventually leading Makoto to tell us that we were laughing too much and to stop it.

So what do you think?

So here I was, innocently believing that nothing stranger had happened in Hawaii than my being recognized in the Honolulu Airport. . .

Then I saw this comment left by someone calling himself “hawaii guy” with a link to this photo.

*Cue me soiling myself in shock*

Seeing that photo literally left Judy and I speechless. . . I mean, what kind of world are we living in where some pencil-necked schmuck with absolutely zero claim to fame is somehow recognized by a complete stranger thousands of miles away from home, for the mere reason that he spends too much time sitting behind a computer? It’s madness.

The photo itself reminded me of that feature in Us Magazine that shows photographs of various celebrities going about their daily business along with silly captions pointing out how, despite all of their fame and riches, deep down, movie stars really are “just like us” (e.g., “They take out the trash!”, “They get speeding tickets!”, “They throw extravagant drug-fueled orgies at million-dollar mansions with women more beautiful than you could even imagine!”, and so on). Yet somehow, I just can’t see that voyeuristic fascination extending to the world of blogging.

Click to see larger size

Obviously, there will never come a time when bloggers will hold any near a prominent position in the eyes of the world. Despite however much some of the people out there pounding on their keyboards may wish it so, the reality is that the general public wants absolutely nothing to do with us (heck, even I don’t want anything to do with us most of the time). That said, it is rather amusing when the little internet world spills over into real life.

Seeing as it’s already been over a month and a half since Judy and I returned from Hawaii (and in light of the outright demands kind requests I’ve received of late), I figure that it’s about time I actually mentioned something about the trip here on this site. The truth is that I’m still exceptionally busy these days with work, looking for a job, filling out immigration paperwork and so on, so I haven’t had the time to post anything other than mindless fluff in a desperate bid to keep people coming back to this site in order to provide some sort of pathetic validation to my otherwise fragile ego.

Okay, frivolous run-on sentence out of the way, let’s carry on.

Our trip to Hawaii began with a six-hour overnight flight plagued not only by an exceptionally dire selection on in-flight entertainment, but also EXTREME TURBULENCE FOR NEARLY THE ENTIRE DURATION OF THE FLIGHT. The meal service was stopped, flight attendants were running down the aisles, and the plane shuddered and swayed much like I do on the toilet after an evening overindulging in the dangerous combination of alcohol and sashimi (huh?).

After managing to survive our version of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (minus the hairy creature on the wing, which surely would have been flung off during this flight), we finally made it to solid ground at the Honolulu airport. Whilst retrieving our baggage in a sleep deprivation-induced haze, I was startled by the sudden sound of a voice behind me that said, “I like your blog.” I turned to identify the source of this strange statement and came face to face with a pretty woman with short hair who appeared to be facing my direction. Now, despite my natural eloquence (ha) and charm (double ha), I only managed to confusedly stammer out a feeble, “Who me?” before the woman disappeared into the crowd.* Needless to say, I was quite surprised to discover that an actual human being reads this website, let alone one of the female variety. Who knew?

“Stewardess, it’s that guy from conbinibento.com!”

Anyhow, despite our (literally) shaky start, the remainder of the trip turned out to be a complete blast. We visited the islands of Kauai, Oahu and Maui (in that order), each of which provided its own unique sights and experiences. Furthermore, the gods were certainly smiling down upon us, as we fortunate to enjoy nothing but sunshine and warm weather for the entire duration of our time on the islands. It was almost enough for me to put aside my inherent aversion to clichés and be tempted to use the word “paradise” to describe them (although I have thus far refrained from doing so).

Well, I think I’m going to stick in a “To be continued” right here with a promise for an update along with some photos in the very near future (cue someone asking where the rest of the Korea photos are…). Stay tuned!

- - - - - - -

*The woman in question has since identified herself and is well on her way to recovering from the close-range exposure to the overwhelming stench of my body odor.

I gave notice at work last week. . . the beginning of the end, as it were. I had spoken with my boss about my plans last July so everyone more or less knew, but this has now made it official. Since my boss has been out of the country for the past six months or so, I had to give the news directly to the president of the company; fortunately, he was really nice about it and he actually tried to dissuade me from leaving (although I can’t imagine why). He also said that I can come back to work here if I end up being unable to find a new job, which, although very generous, also makes me wonder whether he doubts that I’ll actually be able to find work anywhere else.

So now I’ve got about six more weeks of employment before the paychecks stop coming. It’s quite scary if I think about it, but I’m (self-deludedly) optimistic that I’ll eventually be able to find something. I don’t know why, though… I can’t imagine that there are many companies out there actively seeking a barely-literate halfwit whose only “skills” (and I use that term loosely) are limited to semi-neat handwriting and the ability to say “You can’t prove I’m the father so pay for the abortion yourself!” in Japanese.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

- - - - - - -

Speaking of work, a big reorganization took effect on the 1st of last month and my department was eliminated. Previously, I had been working in the Global Operations Group, but I’ve since been transferred into the newly created Global Operations Division within the Global Marketing Headquarters [did somebody say “global“??].

The practice at my company is to give every department a three-letter abbreviation to be used in internal email/memos, mail groups and the like. So, where I had previously worked in the GOG, I now work in — you guessed it — the GOD. Yep, so following the usual fashion within my company, I now end all emails like this:

Best regards,

GOD Jeff

In an amusing addition, this sign was also recently put up in my office:

The title reads: “GOD Mission Statement”

On Saturday, Judy and I took a trip up to Omiya in Saitama to have dinner with some friends. We arrived early with a couple of hours to spare, so we decided, despite the freezing wind, to take a little stroll around and revisit some of our old haunts. Naturally, the place we headed first was our old apartment.

I’ve written previously about the many tribulations we experienced while living there, but it was still nice seeing the place again. The shitty “brick pattern” plastic siding concealing the original rotting-wood-and-damp-paper structure beneath, the mailbox where I received approximately five pieces of mail over the course of an entire year, the window through which a burglar came in and robbed me of all of my valuables, and so on. Oh, and my old bicycle, which has since become an extremely dusty trash bin.

Yes, that’s right: I abandoned my bicycle when we moved to Tokyo two years ago. I am a very bad person.

But please allow me to explain. There are basically three ways to get rid of an old bicycle in Japan: 1) arrange for it to be taken away and properly disposed of for a fee, 2) leave it outside of a train station or other busy area to either be stolen or taken away by the city, or 3) abandon it in a nondescript location to either be stolen or eventually become part of the landscape of urban decay. I hadn’t intended to do the latter; in fact, I had originally planned to take it with us when we moved, but there ended up not being enough room for it in the mover’s small truck, and so the two guys from my company who lived nearby and were helping us move (one of whom had actually given me the bicycle, third-hand), told me to just leave it behind. And so, with a lack of time and more favorable immediate options, I did.

And to this day, there it sits; a gradually deteriorating eyesore, its former road-weaving glory long forgotten as it gathers layer upon layer of dust while now acting as nothing more than a convenient receptacle for passers-by to deposit their garbage.

I wonder how long it’ll be before someone decides to have it hauled away. . . .

Well, Judy and I are back from Hawaii. The wedding and the honeymoon were more incredible than could ever have been imagined and the time absolutely flew by. It was so great being able to see our families and friends again; I only wish that we could have had more time to spend with everyone and catch up.

I’m planning to write a bit about the wedding and the trip as a whole, plus I have a ton of photos to post, but right now I think my mind is still processing all that took place. That, and I’ve been incredibly busy since we got back — not as busy as before we left, but pretty darn close.

My apologies for the three-week absence without so much as a “Hi, I’m in Hawaii and it’s warm and sunny so neener-neener-neener!!” I had originally planned to set up daily random photo posts as I have when I’ve been away in the past, but I didn’t even have the time to do that. I’ve got a few ideas for new posts in mind that I’ll put up as time permits, but for now, here’s a small sneak peak of some of the photos to come:

Gosh, how cheesy can you get, right?

With the wedding now just over a fortnight away, Judy and I have been scrambling to get everything ready in time. All of the main arrangements have been made, but there are still about a million loose ends to tie up before we hop on the plane in two weeks’ time.

With a “to do” list about 10 pages long, I haven’t had much time to even think about this site, much to my great regret. I’m hoping to put up a few more posts before we leave, but realistically, I’m not sure how that’s going to pan out. Anyway, I’ll do my best.

For today, I thought I’d put up another Smoking Manners sign that I discovered on the platform of Gotanda station a couple of weeks ago. It’s not as poetic or esoteric as the others, but this is one ad to which I wish more Japanese people would take notice.

Personally, I don’t understand the appeal of smoking whilst urinating and/or defecating, but it seems to be quite a common practice around these parts. Telltale cigarette burns can be found on the toilets/walls/floors of just about every public restroom, and many even have ashtrays or similar receptacles available for those wishing to have a puff while pinching one out.

The unpleasant result, of course, is that bathrooms commonly reek of stale cigarette smoke to the extent that one’s eyes burn and it becomes difficult to breathe. That said, however, I suppose one has to consider whether the cigarette smell might actually be somewhat more favorable to what would likely be there otherwise: the overwhelming stench of poo from all of the unsightly splatter surrounding the average squat toilet. But then again, perhaps if people focused more on doing their business instead of trying to get in a few more hits of nicotine, they might be able to get all of their “output” into the proper destination in the first place.

So there we were, Judy and I, last Friday night on our way home after having dinner with my second cousin and her husband from England who were in Tokyo for a single day on their way back from a trip to Australia. Transferring from the Hibiya line at Ebisu station, we walked up the escalator to the crowded Yamanote line platform, where who should we happen to see, but…

(more…)

Well, The Japanese Tradition: Sushi and Hard Gay videos are all back online. Generous thanks are due to one and only Daniel Drucker for kindly informing me of the existence of Coral Cache, which has allowed me to put the videos back online and (hopefully) not have to pay any more than the $16.61 in extra bandwidth fees that I’ve already been charged.

Oh, and just in case anyone thought I was joking about the inordinate number of visitors recently finding their way to this site via web searches for “gay,” here are the Search Query graphs from my web host’s stats from the past three days:

November 14

November 15

November 16

Interesting, to say the least.

I’ve actually come to find quite a bit of enjoyment in discovering what sorts of search keywords lead people to this site. While I don’t check the logs as often as when I first began polluting the internet with textual excrement, doing so always offers me a fascinating and highly amusing look into the depravity and licentiousness that define the human race, and honestly makes me feel pretty good about myself due to the fact at least I’m not as whacko as some of you are.

I’ve previously posted some common search words that frequently bring visitors to this site, but in light of the recent gay video searches, I thought I’d go through the list that I’ve been keeping for the past year or so of the most disturbing and revolting queries this site has received and post a few of the gems. Behold:

· nude meteorologists

– I don’t know why, but something about the combination of those two words totally cracks me up.

· where to find girls who like to give men blow jobs

– Along with the origin of the universe and the meaning of life, this must surely rank as one of most pondered questions in mankind’s external existential quest for truth.

· why do men find breast fondling interesting?

– Yet another question of the ages.

· i want someone to fondle my breasts in vancouver

– Don’t we all?

· effects of excessive breast fondling

– Hmm, I’m sensing a theme here.

· nude pictures of girls with camel toes

– Wait a minute, if they’re nude, how can they have camel toes?!

· old jap nipples

– I honestly don’t know if I can think of anything more disgusting than this.

· pictures of old fat women in bikinis

– Oh wait, yes I can.

· drawings of nintendo girls in panties

– Ooo, Princess Peach, sexxxy.

· morning musume using the bathroom hentai pictures

– I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t think of anything hotter than cartoon drawings of young girls emptying the contents of their bowels. (NSFW!)

· forced salad tossing

– Toss my salad, bitch!

· what is reaming the anal area of women?

– A good time.

· photo sex women between 10-12 years

– This one came from Saudi Arabia, no less.

· photos of naughty celebrities wearing schoolgirl outfits

– Gee, cliché much?

· sexual fantasies about matronly middle aged women

– Paging Dr. Freud…

· scaring the shit out of your wife at 2:00 am

– Now this guy sounds like a fun person to live with!

· how to become a slave in japan

– Get a job at a Japanese company. (*rimshot*)

Man, there is nothing quite like entertainment at the expense of those who are even more fucked up in the head than you are.

This past Saturday, Judy and I headed out to Chiba to check out the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. I suppose it was just as was to be expected: insane crowds, girls in skimpy outfits, creepy men with fancy cameras taking photos of nothing but the aforementioned girls in skimpy outfits, insane crowds, and did I mention the insane crowds?

Oh, and I think there may have been some cars there or something, too.

Truth be told, it was a bit disappointing. The first time I went in 2001, I had been in Japan for two months and it was a really exciting event for me (just as pretty much everything else was at the time, including mundane things like going to the supermarket and discovering a porn vending machine). Now that I’m no longer that wet-behind-the-ears young lad with eyes filled with wonder and have since withered into the miserable, embittered bastard who posts on this site, enduring the typical tourism-in-Japan routine of pushing my way through a throng of thousands of Japanese people in order to get a quick look at something that isn’t all that great in first place has kind of lost its excitement.

I suppose that the most amusing moments of the Motor Show were had witnessing particularly brazen examples of creepy men reeking of desperation unabashedly snapping dozens upon dozens of photos whilst the subject of their attention, some vinyl-clad race queen, stood in awkward pose with an incredibly forced smile concealing her seething contempt for the pathetic, ill-smelling lechers crowding just inches around her. I swear, degenerates can get away with so much in this country.

I’m not going to bother posting any photos from the Motor Show since everything I took was crap (crappier than usual, that is). For anyone interested, photos of the cars can be found here and photos of the girls can be found here. Enjoy!

Imaginary Friend: Happy Halloween, Jeff!
Me: Thank you, my imaginary friend. Happy Halloween to you, too.
I.F.: So, did you do anything fun to celebrate?
Me: Well, only if you consider having a tube shoved up your nose and worked down your esophagus, through your stomach and into your small intestine to be “fun.”
I.F.: Yikes, that sounds rather unpleasant.
Me: Indeed it was.
I.F.: Have you ever had tubes inserted into any other orifices?
Me: Why yes, I have.
I.F.: Really, where?
Me: Well, let me just say that it would take less time if I were list the orifices in which tubes haven’t been inserted.
I.F.: Oh. . . ew.
Me: No kidding.

Happy Halloween!

I have a goddamn confession to make.

Well, actually, I’ve already made it.

Son of a. . . .

I called in sick to work today, something that I am extremely loath to do since it’s a waste of a completely good day of nenkyu that could otherwise be used to do something fun.

I used to love autumn and the transition from summer, but over the past six years or so I’ve consistently fallen ill at this time of year and I’m now coming to dread it. It’s especially annoying this year with my wedding now only two months away. Unlike most brides-to-be (including my own) who worry endlessly about losing/maintaining their weight in order to fit into their wedding gown, I’m terrified that I won’t be able to gain any in time for the big day so I don’t look like the scrawny little boy I resemble now.

Oh well, here’s hoping the NyQuil I just received covertly in the mail last weekend will do the trick and I can get back to hopelessly stuffing my bony face with food.

After an incredibly exhausting week at work, it’s always great when you walk out of the office on Friday evening and know that that you have the entire weekend ahead of you to relax, hang out with friends, pursue hobbies and burn effigies of ex-girlfriends who left you because they couldn’t handle your overwhelming manliness (*cough*). Anyway, despite my high hopes for this past weekend — especially since it was the one three-day weekend that my company affords us scummy, miserable employees — I ended up being nearly as busy as I was at work in the five days preceding. Judy and I had an entire list of things to accomplish both in and outside of the house, and in the end we were left with very little time to kick back and be the lazy bastards that we are wont to be (okay, that I alone am wont to be).

Well, in betwixt the numerous chores and errands, Judy and I found the time to cash in on the many points that we have accumulated over the past four years with our respective mobile phone carriers (DoCoMo for me, Vodafone for her) and get new cell phones. Completely ridiculous, I agree, but with the points and other various discounts, I ended up paying next to nothing for my new phone, and Judy literally did pay nothing for hers. Pretty sweet deal, although completely and utterly frivolous.

For the sake of absolutley nothing in particular, I took a [very half-assed] photo (edited to remove wear) of the three phones that I have used during my time in Japan, below. The one on the right is the newest — ain’t it purty??

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently. I was the last person to leave the office every day last week, and if today was any indication, I may be the last one every day this week as well. In the days leading up to a big business trip to North America by the top management, there’s always a ton of correspondence, presentations and all sorts of other documents that need to be translated into English, which means that I, presently the sole native English speaker at my company, have to translate and/or proofread all of it. At least they’re leaving at the end of this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to take it easy for a bit after that.

About a year ago, I wrote a post on this site about a manager at my company who came back to Japan after a year in the U.S. shamefully addicted to Coca Cola. Well, as it turns out, he was eventually able to miraculously overcome his addiction, but not before spreading it to several other people in the office. How the heck does one “spread” an addiction? Well, seeing as he’s a pretty high-ranking manager and therefore gets whatever he wants, he requested that our office start stocking cans of Coke for the employees to drink. Sure enough, two days later, the first in what would become a steady stream of deliveries arrived.

Since that fateful day, I have watched several of my coworkers succumb to this ravenous addition. They can be frequently seen furtively leaving their desks at intervals to head to the kitchen area for a fix of 160ml of fizzy, sugary goodness, often going through 4 or 5 cans a day each. I wish there was something I could do to help them, but to confront them directly would be madness! I am but one man. . . .

I had to work late tonight in order to finish up a translation for one of the directors at my company. In return, he treated me to dinner & booze at a small mom & pop izakaya that he always visits every time he comes to Tokyo. These kinds of places can be found all throughout the city, usually tucked away down side streets and embellished with little more than a small, unassuming sign and tattered noren. After consuming the best yaki-nasu (grilled eggplant) ever I’ve ever tasted plus an entire bottle of nihonshu, I saw the director (who by that point was rather sloshed, as he had consumed a much larger bottle of shochu) off at the station and stumbled on home, where I now sit.

And now, in light of my inebriated state silly mood, here are a pair scans of some purikura that Judy and I recently took. As you can see, actin’ the fool is what we do best.

Don’t you hate it when inconsiderate jerk bloggers don’t update their blogs for, like, days on end?

Yeah, me too. I’m such a prick.

My apologies, once again. After suffering through the past few weeks with barely any time to spare, when I finally found myself in a position to ease things up a bit, I couldn’t resist the urge to just do nothing for a little while. So instead of putting any time into this site, I caught up on some sleep, did some reading, frequented the gym and watched last week’s Evolution Schmevolution special on The Daily Show (a torrent of which — QuickTime/61.0MB — can be found here, courtest of onegoodmove). It was fun being a bum for a few days.

I’m planning to start posting semi-regularly again this week (hmm, sounds familiar) and I’ll do my best to keep it up. For tonight, however, here are two photos from the trip Judy and I took down to Minato Mirai on Sunday afternoon: one of some geezers taking photos of the night view and the other of the inside of the Keihin-Tohoku Line train on our way back to Tokyo. Completely not at all worth posting, I agree, but they’s all I got at the moment.

I don’t feel up to attempting a “real” post this evening, so I’ve decided to blatantly copy the successful format of Patrick’s ‘Today’s Five Things‘ blog. I certainly hope I can do justice to the original. Here goes:

1. Buy me this, and this, and this!
Judy and I recently set up a wedding gift registry via the Wedding Channel website. While at first it seemed like it would be fun to go through various online shops and basically choose anything that struck our fancy, we’ve since come to find the process to be a tad. . . laborious. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that we’re looking only at small images of products on a computer screen and trying to select items that we will be expected to use for the rest of our lives. I have a hard enough time picking out a pair of shoes that I’ll likely only wear for a couple of years; I can’t handle having to consider whether items that appeal to my tastes now will still be tolerable a few years down the road. It’s like, “Is this the particular dish that I want to have flung at my head during a heated argument with my teenage child regarding his/her performance at school?” or “Is this blanket sufficiently thick to keep me warm when my wife makes me sleep on the couch for two weeks after making what I thought was a completely innocuous remark about the perkiness of our next-door neighbor’s breasts?”

Perhaps registering for gifts would be more enjoyable were we to do it in an actual physical store where we could examine the goods in person. Plus, we’d get to play around with one of those price-scanner gun thingies, which to me seems like quite a lot of fun (in case anyone hadn’t already realized, I’m incredibly easy to amuse). There’s also the issue of being unable to shake a slight feeling of greed as we browse through and try to select items for other people to buy for us. However, I suppose that we’ll have to try to ignore this guilt, seeing as it’s probably better than ending up with three different sets of tacky napkin holders.

2. Hot & sweaty
I haven’t mentioned this before, but the air conditioning in my office has been broken since the beginning of June (!). Thus, I have had to endure the entire frickin’ summer sitting in a hot and stuffy room, alternating between fanning myself with an uchiwa and wiping perspiration from my face, while trying to fit in some actual work in between. In a feeble attempt to ease our sweaty suffering, in July a large fan was brought in to blow cool air from the meeting room next door where the air conditioning is functioning (welcome to Japan! – perhaps the only industrialized nation in the world to shun central cooling/heating); however, every time the meeting room is used for an actual meeting (several times a day), the door is closed and we lose our only source of minimal relief from the heat.

Everyone in the office has been complaining about the problem and hassling the General Affairs Dept. to hurry up and have it fixed, but alas our complaints have fallen upon deaf ears. Apparently the entire cooling system needs to be replaced, which would end up costing around a million yen (about US$10,000), so my company made the decision simply not to fix it. Hence, last month we were requested to gaman until the weather cools down in autumn. Heartless bastards.

3. What’s small, hard and gives me a boner?
Nintendo’s GameBoy Micro was released in Japan yesterday, and after work today I headed to an electronics shop near my office to check it out and play with it a little. My first reaction: “Wow, that really is small!” My second: “. . . and totally not worth the money.” Call me a parsimonious old miser, but as much as I’d love to own a Micro (and rub it tenderly across my naked flesh), for now I’m more than content with my SP. Maybe if I haven’t yet come to my senses in six months or so when the price drops a little, I’ll reconsider it.

4. Ouch
You know that it’s been a bit too long in between visits to the gym when the day after you finally go for a workout, you can’t lift your arms above your head. Putting on deodorant this morning was a bitch.

5. Zzzzz
Well, I’ve finally put up some more photos from past visits to the Tokyo Disney Resort. They’re beyond typically dull, but here they are:

- - - - - - -

You know, that was actually pretty fun. Straight and to the point, enables me to cover a variety of topics in a single post, no need to delve too deeply into anything – perhaps I’ll copy Patrick more often (although not too often, I promise!).

Well, hello there!

In case anyone was wondering, yes, I am still alive (although to what extent is debatable). I realize that it’s been an entire week since I last posted anything on this site, and for that I apologize. In addition to being rather busy at work, my evenings and weekends have been filled with nothing but wedding planning and thus I have had precious little time for much else (i.e., sleeping, eating, maintaining my prize-winning collection of sock lint harvested from betwixt my toes, etc.). However, I’m pleased to report that all of the wedding invitations have been sent out, the wedding website is 98% completed and after nearly succumbing to exhaustion this past week, I am no longer afraid of death, as my great-grandmother who visited me from beyond the grave the other night informs me that ain’t half bad, albeit slightly drafty.

There was another event that occurred this past week — one that didn’t involve me screaming like a little girl and wetting myself in fright– and that is, as hard as it is for me to believe, that last Monday marked the passing of four years since my arrival in Japan. I’m not going to even bother reminiscing about experiences good and bad that have occurred or pontificating about what I might have possibly learned about myself or mankind as a whole by living amidst a foreign culture and all that jazz; however, I will write briefly (well, as brief as I possibly can be) about the plans that Judy and I have for the future (although I sincerely doubt that anyone could possibly care).

You see, upon originally landing upon this soil, the two of us figured that we would likely stay for a maximum of three years before picking up and moving on elsewhere. Although there were occasions throughout that time when I felt that I was ready (or even desirous) to leave, overall I was enjoying my experience here, and we even extended the timetable for another year after we moved to Tokyo and found life here quite pleasant.

As time went by, we realized that were weren’t quite ready to leave just yet, and thus after weeks of constant discussion (at times during which one could have sworn we were reciting lines from a certain Clash song), we decided once and for all to postpone our departure for another six months until after the wedding, at which time we’ll hopefully have a vague idea of what the heck to do next. Although I know I would be content staying in Japan even longer, inside I can’t deny the reality that I would never be able to truly settle down here due to the (at times) overbearing social pressures, highly limited career prospects and utter lack of quality Mexican food.

Thus, the week before last — just three days before my visa was set to expire — I headed down to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau to apply for an extension. If all goes well, I should be allowed to stay within these borders for another three years, although right now we are sincerely planning to depart “for good” some time next May. I admit that there’s definitely a part of me that doesn’t want to leave, and I’m sure when the time comes I’ll be second-guessing myself and lamenting my decision like crazy, but ultimately I think it’s time to move on to the next unexciting chapter of The Incredibly Tedious and Uneventful Adventures of Jeff.

As for what will become of conbinibento.com, I honestly do not know. I definitely plan to continue polluting the internet with my typical banal mindless drivel and mediocre photos (hopefully with more regularity than as of late), however I imagine that some shift in content will likely be inevitable. I certainly don’t want to become that-guy-who-used-to-live-in-Japan-and-won’t-shut- up-about-it. In the meantime, I’ll try to continue what I’ve been doing and hopefully once the current period of extreme busyness is behind me (if ever), I can get back to putting a bit more effort into the crap that I post up here.

Uh. . . so that’s that. As always, if anyone has any suggestions for improvements to this site (i.e., “Shut it down already!”), please don’t hesitate to share.

To anyone who’s made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope you don’t feel too resentful for my having wasted approximately five minutes of your life with this pointless post. I’ll try to put something semi-interesting/amusing up in the next few days; in the meantime, your patience is appreciated!

Judy and I are still finishing up the wedding invitations, so unfortunately I don’t have time at the moment to write a proper post. The goal is to get the invitations out by Wednesday the 31st, and it looks like we’re hopefully going to finish in time.

Anyhow, here’s a photo of the creepy building that houses the Akasaka Jewelry Design School, which Judy and I stumbled across while walking aimlessly from Shibuya to Akasaka one day last spring. At first I thought it was some kind of cult headquarters, but in fact, the camels have nothing to do with the Korean church next door. Just a completely random choice of building design.

Well, Judy and I are back in Tokyo after our short excursion to Korea. Overall, it was a very nice trip — we saw some sights, enjoyed some of the local cuisine, learned a bit of the history and culture — and the very minor challenges that we did encounter were so insignificant as to be a source of amusement more than anything else.

Rather than give a play-by-play overview of our trip (since I sincerely doubt that would be of interest to anyone), I thought I’d try to keep my usual verbosity to a minimum and just mention a few points about our time there.

The Package Tour
After looking around at different airfare options to Seoul, we eventually decided to go with a package tour offered by a travel agency that included the airfare plus accommodation due to the low price. The only catch was that while we could select our days of travel, we had no choice with regard to the flight times, nor could we choose the hotel. Thus, our fate rested in the hands of the knavish rapscallions at the travel agency.

A week after making our reservations, we were informed of our flight schedules and the name of our hotel. On the appointed day, we made our way to the airport and departed on an evening flight, arriving in Seoul shortly after 10:30PM, where we and the other members of the tour were met by a member of the local branch of the travel agency.

Now might be a good time to point out that the primary reasons for which most Japanese people visit Korea are as follows:

1. To buy foreign brand-name luxury items that are only slightly less expensive than those sold in Japan;
2. To eat Korean food that is exceptionally more spicy than that found in Japan; and
3. To indulge in wholly unnatural and unhealthy obsessions derived from watching way too many insipid, melodramatic Korean television dramas.

Thus, the 45-minute high-speed bus ride from the airport to our hotel was spent being verbally assaulted by the travel agency rep, who gave a non-stop recitation about where to buy this-and-that and where to eat this-and-that and so on, all the while I was secretly hoping that our vehicle would hit a pothole and send the rep and her stupid microphone through the front windshield.

As we hadn’t signed up for any of the tour-related activities (being taken to buy overpriced brand-name goods, being taken to eat overpriced Korean food, etc.), our relations with the travel agency and fellow passengers ended upon our arrival at our hotel. That is, however, until we were picked up on our day of departure to be transported to the airport. On the way there, the bus made a detour and all passengers were taken into a shopping complex staffed with middle-aged Japanese-speaking Korean women who proceeded to feed us sample after sample of different kinds of kimchi, after which they looked us in the eye and motioned to their wares, essentially saying, “Okay then, which will you be buying?” Now, seeing as most Japanese people have an innate aversion turning down others outright and the resulting loss of face, the only recourse our fellow passengers had to appease the vendors and extricate themselves from the predicament was naturally to purchase something. Strangely enough, while I considered the entire ordeal to be akin to a subtly-performed shakedown, most of our travel companions seemed to revel in the opportunity to have one last chance to shop before reaching the airport (where they would no doubt go on to shop at the numerous duty-free shops as well as on the plane back to Japan itself).

The bottom line: I am never taking a Japanese package tour like that ever again.

The Hotel
As I mentioned previously, we were given no choice in the selection of our hotel and thus all we could do was cross our fingers and hope for the best. As a result, we found ourselves staying at a place called the Poong Jun Hotel, which is depicted in the image at right. Unfortunately, the person responsible for the creation of that image took some rather blatant artistic liberties, as the hotel looking absolutely nothing like that (hint: replacing those pretty trees with shitty, run-down concrete buildings might provide a more accurate representation).

To our surprise, the hotel room itself was actually quite large (at least compared to what we’re used to on our ghetto budget), but it was also quite old as well. The walls and carpet were stained, the bathroom was moldy, the bedding showed considerable wear and the decrepit hair dryer was just laughable. However, what is most worthy of mention about the Poong Jun Hotel is that, despite having striven for the past 35 years to be “the leader in the frontline of Korea’s tourism industry,” they apparently missed the memo about English having become one of the most widely-used languages in international tourism, and thus none, yes none, of their staff could actually speak it. Unfortunately, we didn’t come to realize this until about halfway through our stay, when it became quite obvious that no one was actually understanding anything we were saying. For example, when I kindly inquired whether it would be possible to borrow a functional portable hair dryer to use during our stay in lieu of the antique monstrosity on the bathroom wall, the woman at the front desk responded by telling Judy and I that there were taxis queuing outside. After about five seconds of the two of us staring at each other in confounded silence, it finally dawned on us that the clerk had apparently misunderstood “dryer” to be “driver.” The worst instance, however, was when regular visitor to this site and all-around good guy, Marco, telephoned the hotel in attempt to reach me in order to make plans to meet up for drinks, but was hung up on not once, but twice by the front desk staff because they couldn’t understand him. Finally, they acquiesced to take a message, however they wrote down the wrong phone number, and as a result, my tentative plans to hang out with Marco (or “Mark,” according to the message from the front desk) were not realized.

- - - - - - -

Well, I’ve clearly failed in my attempt to avoid my typical circumlocution, so I think it’ll be best for me to split this entry into to parts, as my eyelids are growing increasingly heavy as I write this. I’ll try to get part two of this uninteresting adventure up within the next couple of days, but in the meantime, here are a few preliminary photos from our trip:

I had incredibly grandiose plans to put up quite a few posts this week, but unfortunately my situation at work has been completely insane recently with big things going down concurrently in both the States and in South Asia. Thankfully, tomorrow is the last work day before the summer holiday, which means that I’ll finally be able catch up on some much-needed R&R.

Seeing as it’s quite late and I can barely make sense of what’s appearing on the screen in front of me as I type this, I’m just going to post one link and one photo and then call it a night.

The link is to a list of common giongo, which are Japanese onomatopoeic words. Giongo are used far more often than their English counterparts; in fact, most people tend take advantage of any and every opportunity to use them instead of actual words, which is mighty frustrating to the beginning Japanese learner, who has no idea what those seemingly silly sounds mean [yikes, where’d that alliteration come from?]. Anyway, here is the list, courtesy of the good doctor known as Dave, conqueror of Tokyo and shooer of cats.

Now, on to the photo. The other day I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Tokyo Disney Resort gallery that I set up last month, so I’m going to try to prepare some additional typically boring photos to stick in there in the near future. For today, though, I offer you a photo of one of the brazing furnaces at my company’s plant in Ibaraki. Were you to stick your hand in there, a-chi-chi-chi!! would probably be the giongo you would use as the flesh was seared from your bones in a matter of seconds.

And with that, I sleep.

My apologies once again for the lack of posts over the past few days. I was stricken with a mysterious illness that left me with a 40.5°C/105°F fever and vomiting like it was going out of fashion (even at work, which is always pleasant). I’ve recovered for the most part by now, but my reflection in the mirror and my disappointed fiancée both tell me that I lost a bit of weight as a result of not being able to eat anything while I was under the weather — weight that I unfortunately cannot spare to lose. Alas, I fear that my long-aspired dream of escaping from skinnywhiteboyhood shall never be realized.

Anyhow, a bit of personal news: Judy and I will be taking a short trip to Seoul, South Korea in two weeks’ time to do a bit a sightseeing and visit a friend of mine from university. As has become tradition, expect a week of nothing but crappy photos during our absence. In the meantime, we’re still trying to figure out where to go and what to do, so if anyone (*cough* Marco *cough*) has any suggestions, we’d be very happy to hear them.

Let’s see. . . in keeping with the trivial nature of this post, in other insignificant news: Judy and I recently bought a rice cooker.

Yay.

This past Saturday, Judy and I headed to Tokyo DisneySea for the second round of her birthday festivities. Although I hadn’t been to the Disney Resort since our previous trip last year, we’ve probably gone at least half a dozen times during our nearly four years here in Japan (a fact that I am somewhat loath to admit). As hard as it may seem to believe, the Tokyo Disney Resort, especially the relatively new DisneySea park, is actually quite a popular dating destination for young Tokyoites, so we felt absolutely no qualms about spending the day mingling amongst grade school children and departing with wads of cash in exchange for overpriced baubles and scarcely palatable food items. Nonetheless, we actually had a pretty good time.

Well, I’ve returned from my brief leave of absence from the internet. The reason behind my furlough lies in the fact that last Thursday was Judy’s birthday, and thus it was necessary that I dedicate my time to the preparation and implementation of a memorable birthday experience.

And, as would be expected, I failed miserably.

Okay, it wasn’t a total snafu; however, there was one particular mishap that threatened to derail the otherwise enjoyable evening. As we returned home to our neighborhood following a lovely dinner downtown, I led Judy into the confectionery across the street from the station from which I had days earlier ordered a decorated cake for the day’s festivities. I presented the sales clerk with my order receipt, and Judy and I then spent the next several minutes perusing the shop’s enticing delights while we waited. Eventually, the clerk returned with a slightly abashed countenance and timidly informed me that they had apparently forgotten to prepare the cake that I had ordered, thereupon shattering all of my lofty preconceptions about the reported unparalleled wonder that is the Japanese service industry.

I turned to Judy with apprehension to ascertain her reaction, however, as a testament to her fine character and graciously tolerant nature that reinforce the fact that she is clearly far too good a person to be engaged to a good-for-nothing galoot such as myself, she responded with neither disappointment nor displeasure, but rather with unfettered amusement. The shop clerk was unremittingly apologetic and, partially restoring my faith in the reputation of Japanese customer service, offered us a choice of any of the shop’s fine desserts — gratis.

Thus, Judy and I returned home and concluded our celebration of her birth in a somewhat smaller, yet in no way diminished, fashion.

Note to self: Avoid posting when in a literary frame of mind and severely sleep deprived to boot.

A little over a year ago after I first set this site up, I wrote a post about a comment made on a television program (about Harry Potter of all things) on which one of the show’s guests used the word gaijin, a rather controversial Japanese word for “foreigner”. Not feeling like opening up that particular can of worms at the time, I wrote the following:

Although I won’t go into depth about my thoughts on the word gaijin at this time, I’ll just say that it’s a discriminatory term and there’s really no need for it to be used when their are several other inoffensive alternatives. While some may argue that gaijin is simply an abbreviation of gaikokujin (foreign national), the true meaning is quite simply “outsider” and carries derogatory connotations. Despite this, many Japanese people continue to use the word freely despite knowing that many non-Japanese people find it offensive.

I received an email recently from a Japanese person asking me to elaborate on my opinion of the word. After procrastinating for a while, I finally stayed up late one night and tried to write out my thoughts on the matter. Well, today I figured I’d go ahead and put that email out there for public consumption, essentially just for the heck of it, since I can’t imagine that anyone would especially care to hear about what some suburbanite punk on a lark has to say about a particular word in a language that he can barely speak.

Anyhow, the email (slightly edited) is below. I apologize in advance for the length; regular readers should know by now how long-winded I can be at times.

- - - - - - -

My basic view about the terms gaijin and even gaikokujin is that they are both highly overused. Not only are they used in instances when people’s names and nationalities are already known, but also when nationality has no relevance to the situation at hand. For example, I have heard Japanese people talk about their “gaijin friend” or “gaijin neighbor,” when there are other much more appropriate (not to mention more specific) descriptors that can be used, such as “my friend, Paul,” “my neighbor from Canada,” etc. Also, I have had experiences in shops when I am referred to as “gaijin-san” by the staff, rather than “okyaku-sama,” as all of the other [Japanese] customers are called. The word “gaijin” singles people out for not being part of the “group” (i.e., Japanese), and in most instances, there’s no need to do so. A friend is a friend and a customer is a customer, regardless of their nationality or appearance.

Another issue I have with the word gaijin is that it is used to indiscriminately clump together groups of people who otherwise have no relation whatsoever, other than the fact that they happen not to have been born in Japan to Japanese parents. As a result, people with different ethnic backgrounds who don’t share a common culture or even speak the same language are often considered one in the same by some Japanese people.

Even worse, many Japanese people often tend to assume that everyone they consider to be “gaijin” all share the same characteristics, behavioral tendencies, likes and dislikes, etc. For example, I would imagine that every foreigner in Japan has at time or another heard statements such as, “Gaijin eat bread, not rice,” and “Gaijin are very loud,” as well as been on the receiving end of questions such as, “Can gaijin eat sushi?” and “What do gaijin think of Japan?” Similar statements and questions are often said/asked about “gaikoku” (foreign countries), as if all countries outside of Japan are identical [I like to refer to it as the The Magical Kingdom of Gaikoku]: “Gaikoku is very dangerous,” “Gaikoku don’t have four seasons like Japan does,” “Do you have cars in gaikoku?,” etc. (Yes, all of those are actual statements/questions that I have heard spoken by supposedly educated Japanese people here in Japan).

In my opinion, what makes words like “foreign” problematic is that they emphasize non-membership. For example, if I mention that a friend of mine is Brazilian, it expresses that she belongs to the Brazilian group; however, if I only say that she is “foreign,” it expresses that she doesn’t belong to any group, which may give the impression that she is somehow less significant than a member of a group.

Many people argue that gaijin is merely an abbreviation of gaikokujin, the official word for foreign national. However, if one examines the history of the term, one would learn that long before the arrival of visitors from other countries to Japanese shores, gaijin was used to refer to other Japanese people from different regions or villages. In this regard, the meaning of the word is a literal reading of the kanji characters — “outside person” — and has inherent exclusionary and somewhat disrespectful connotations.

Also, as I mentioned previously, it is not a necessary word — there are countless other more specific and more appropriate words that can be used in its place according to the context, such as, “John,” “the British guy,” “the guy in the gray sweater,” “the friend I made when I studied abroad in university,” etc. Although there are a few words to express the concept of gaijin/gaikokujin in English — foreigner, alien, etc. — in my experience, they are rarely used outside of situations relating to official immigration matters. In fact, outside of such circumstances, I hardly ever used these words before coming to Japan.

I think that the most compelling argument against the use of the word gaijin is that regardless of whether some Japanese or non-Japanese people disagree, many people do in fact consider the word to be offensive. Because of this alone, it seems only proper to try to avoid using it.

- - - - - - -

Well, that’s my imbecilic rant on the word gaijin. As you can see, it was neither well thought-out nor particularly coherent.

Just for the sake of clarification: I’m not some sort of neo-colonialist rabid anti-Japanese crackpot. I love living here and hold in high regard all of the people that I’ve been fortunate to get to know here. As a non-Japanese person living in Japan, gaijin is a word that I hear with relative frequency, and thus the issue surrounding the use of the word is something to which I have given a considerable amount of thought (well, I meant to, anyhow).

By the way, I doubt I’ll be sinking to such depths again to actually write another pseudo-serious post any time in the near future. I’ll try to put up some new high-quality low-brow content in the coming days. In the meantime, here are a few hardly relevant links:

* Gaijin glasses
* Gaijin newscaster disguise
* Some might argue that we bring it upon ourselves

Well, only six months to go until the big day. I’m pleased to report that we are on schedule with the preparations (although it feels like we’re ridiculously behind) and have been making steady progress with all of the necessary arrangements.

Judy has been going dress shopping the past few weekends with some friends and was allowed to take photos at a few of the shops she visited. Thus, this past weekend I was granted a special one-time-only sneak preview of the radiant vision that I will next see walking towards me down the aisle six months from now. Behold:

Doesn’t she look exquisite?

With their intrinsic convenience and relative affordability, it’s no surprise that cell phones are beyond ubiquitous in Japan. From teenagers who accessorize them with a bulky array of straps and trinkets to middle-aged men who clip them to their shirt pockets or wear them proudly around their necks, cell phones have become so integrated into society that it seems strange for a person not to own one.

Nearly all keitai models released within the past few years have come equipped with an email option, which many people (including myself) tend to rely on nearly exclusively for communicating with friends, since one can send an email to any address for a mere fraction of the per-minute cost to use the phone to actually make a call. However, the huge number of subscribers nationwide combined with an incredibly annoying junk mail problem (requiring frequent address changes) has resulted in the tendency for people to select extremely long and convoluted email addresses, usually comprised of a combination of elements such as their nickname, birth date, random cutesy English word, kaomoji verticons, dimensions of their genitalia, etc.

Anyhow, this is all background information for a conversation I had recently with a friend after exchanging keitai email addresses. The friend’s name is Sachiko, and thus, following the formula outlined above, the address she had chosen was the following:

A clever little portmanteau there, no?

After taking nearly a full minute to write it out, she admitted that the address was tad long even by most standards, and therefore she had shortened it when she set up a web-based email account a few weeks ago. When I enquired as to just how she had shortened it, she wrote down the address as follows:

You know those times when something so unintentionally hilarious happens, that without warning you instantaneously let loose a loud guffaw while a few droplets of urine escape into your underpants? Well, that’s exactly what happened at that moment.

With a quizzical expression, she asked what was so funny and I was thereupon obliged to give a brief impromptu lesson on the variety and versatility of English slang, all the while stifling giggles like a schoolboy on the first day of sex ed. Upon discovering that her email address was likely to give the impression that she is one of the HOT YOUNG SLUTS!!1 that, if spam mail content is any indication, apparently make up the vast majority of the people on the internet (and are just gagging to meet a hot stud like me), Sachiko’s face turned bright red, she thanked me for the explanation and informed me that she would be no doubt changing her address post-haste.

Talk cultural exchange at its best, eh?. Maybe now she’ll be able to see the humor in this.

I took the day off from work today. For some reason, I haven’t quite fully recovered since my trip to Nara last month, and this morning I woke up with a fever and felt like crap so I called in sick. Although it was great being able to sleep for most of the day and to relax during the time that I wasn’t sleeping, I honestly can’t say I feel that much better. Oh well, it was nice not having to go to work, at least.

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. I haven’t been feeling well, work has been quite busy, and I’ve been a bit occupied with other things. Hopefully I can get back into the flow of posting again shortly.

In the meantime, here are three photos of typical Japanese countryside views taken in Nara earlier this month:

I’ve mentioned previously my fianceé Judy’s unhealthy endearing addiction to Korean dramas, and the subsequent obsession with all things Bae Yong Joon-related that developed as a result. Well, fans of the genre will be pleased to know that she has since been branching out to dramas featuring actors other than Yon-sama (most recently, Stairway to Heaven, starring Kwon Sang Woo and Choi Ji Woo), as well as starting to explore the wider arena of Korean cinema.

Thus, over the weekend, we hit the video store and rented the 2001 romantic comedy My Sassy Girl on the recommendation one of Judy’s friends. I hadn’t even heard of the film prior to renting it, but based on my past experience with Korean dramas, I figured that it would be just another sappy melodrama filled with forbidden love, overbearing parents and lots of tears.

Well, actually, all of those elements did play a part in the storyline, however, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the film was vastly different from what I had expected. In fact, I found it to be downright entertaining! Sure, there were certainly moments bordering on melodramatic, but the barrage of comedic scenes coupled with the superb acting on the part of both Cha Tae-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun made the quirky film thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

Now, seeing as this film is already four years old, and as I’m not one to blather on about plot lines, dramatic intent or any of that, I’ll just say that I recommend this film to anyone looking for something different from the usual Hollywood schlock. Sure, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for fans of Asian cinema, I believe it’s definitely worth a viewing.

Incidentally, while reading up about the film after watching it, I learned that Dreamworks has already purchased the US remake rights, and the American version will be directed by Bend It Like Beckham director, Gurinder Chadha, and possibly star Rachael Leigh Cook in the titular role. Like most American remakes, I imagine that the end result will likely be a steaming pile of doo-doo (see: The Office), but that’s Hollywood for you (i.e., pander to the lowest common denominator by including as many explosions, tit shots and fart jokes as possible).

I’m tempted commence with a rant about American audiences’ inability to appreciate subtlety, but I reckon that it’s about time I shut the hell up. Therefore, I shall do just that, and leave you, dear readers, with the pitiful photos below taken recently at a kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) joint here in Tokyo. Kaiten zushi shops are one of my favorite places to eat in Japan, as they’re quick and cheap, yet oh-so delicious (assuming it’s a decent place that serves fresh fish).

Actually, I could really go for some sushi right now. . . .

Well, I’m back from Osaka. Actually, due to a last-minute change of plans, I ended up spending the majority of the time in nearby Nara prefecture, but that worked out just as well.

The people I went to visit are basically my family here in Japan. . . my family in the States has had a relationship with them for over forty years, since my mother and the father here in Japan became pen pals when they were in primary school. Letters and gifts have been exchanged, various relatives have visited back and forth, and since coming to Japan, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know them quite well, and they are all incredibly wonderful people.

The reason for the change in plans, however, was due to a rather unfortunate accident. Late one night last month, the father was walking along the side of the road, returning home from a reunion with some old friends, when he was suddenly struck down by a drunk driver. Luckily, the extent of his injuries weren’t as bad as they could have been, but he did suffer from a shattered kneecap, tibia and fibula, as well as a broken tooth from when he landed on the windshield. I visited him in the hospital several times during my visit and he’s doing quite well. After having to wear a cast covering nearly his entire leg for the past month, he’s now undergoing rehabilitation and is expected to fully recover within a year.

In addition to the hospital visits (which were actually kind of fun, since his entire family seems to find it hilarious that he got hit by a car, and everyone, including him, cracks jokes about it), my holiday was spent hanging out and relaxing, and playing with the adorable granddaughter (who seemed to regard me only as her personal plaything à la Richard Pryor in The Toy). The high points of the trip were probably the day Judy visited from her grandma’s house in Kobe, the afternoon spent digging up bamboo shoots in the forest behind the mother’s family home and the night out at karaoke with two of the daughters.

The low points were the terrible cold that I caught right before the holiday that left me with the runniest nose that I’ve ever experienced for the entire duration of the visit, and my drunken rendition of The Real Slim Shady by Eminem at the repeated urging of the youngest daughter during the aforementioned karaoke night (luckily the obscene amount of alcohol consumed that evening has left most of the memory gone from my mind, however what remains shall haunt me with unescapable shame until the end of my days).

As was expected, since returning to Tokyo, I’ve been absolutely swamped with work. In addition to my usual tasks, I’ve just been assigned to be actively involved with our operations in India in response to some recent developments at our joint venture over there, and this has left me busier than ever (I’m in need of another vacation already).

Thanks for putting up with the random photos while I was away. . . perhaps I’ll just do that again on occasion when I can’t be arsed to write a proper post. For the time being, however, I’ll try to keep up with regular posting as time allows, despite the poor quality that you’ve all no doubt come to expect.

My apologies once again for the dearth of posting as of late. My boss is on a business trip this week, and while I thought that would mean a breezy time at work, in fact it has been quite the opposite. Not only have I been swamped with several big translations all due tomorrow, but my office is also being host to a new intern from Thailand this week and I have been assisting with her training.

In addition, I recently downloaded obtained by legal means (*cough*) the full three seasons of The Family Guy and have been amidst the throes of an unrelenting addiction. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages! However, the culmination of these and additional factors have left me unable to fulfill my duties as the operator of this infantile and wholly inane weblog, and thus I hereby regretfully submit my resignation.

Just kidding.

Actually, starting this Friday, the Japanese holiday season known as Golden Week will be upon us, and I will be taking advantage of the much-needed five days off from work to get the heck out of town and live a little. Thus, I will be heading down to Osaka for the duration of the holiday and likely will not have an opportunity to update this site due to a combination of the following factors: inebriation, exhaustion (sexual or otherwise), lethargy and the fact that I probably won’t have regular access to a computer.

Therefore, I’ve decided to try to set things up so that a new random photo will be posted each day for the duration of my time away, starting Friday night at midnight (Japan time). Hopefully it will work as planned. Of course, one could just go take a peek in the galleries and look ahead at the photos that are going to be posted, but I certainly hope that people will refrain from doing so because that’s just no fun at all. No one likes a spoilsport.

While in Osaka, I’ll be spending my time with some family friends who live in the region, the youngest of whom is this precious angel:

The last time I paid the family a visit was Golden Week 2002, so I’m definitely looking forward to catching up. I’m hoping that my Japanese has improved sufficiently since then that communication will run far more smoothly than previous visits. One can only rely on body language so long.

Well, it’s late and I just got back from the kangeikai for the new intern so I really should take a shower to remove the stench of cigarettes and booze from my body and then head to bed. I’ll be back again with the usual tripe next week. Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy the mediocre photos!

Oh, sweet irony. How you make me chuckle with glee and cry with misery at the same time.

Here was the scene yesterday morning:

It was about 8:30 a.m., and I was on the Yamanote line heading to work. As the train neared Shibuya station, the usual announcement played, stating that the doors would be opening on the right side and that there is a gap between the door of the train and the platform, so proper caution should be taken when exiting the train. At that moment, the following half-thought popped into my otherwise haven’t-had-my-coffee-yet brain-dead mind:

“Why do they always announce that there’s a gap between the door and the platform? Surely, everyone on this train has ridden on trains countless times before and is well aware of the presence of the gap. Is it really necessary to announce it at every single stop?”

As the train came to a stop, I made my way through the crowd towards the door. Suddenly, at the precise moment that I placed my left foot on the metal edge of the doorway (which was wet with rain) in preparation to extend my right towards the platform, I received a sharp shove from behind by an impatient fellow commuter. My foot promptly slipped off the edge of the doorway, and sure enough, down into the gap my left leg dropped. My body fell forward and a loud thwack! resounded as the palms of my hands hit the ground to stop my fall, sending my umbrella into the legs of the man in front of me.

I quickly stood back up without missing a beat and noticed through the corner of my eyes that every head in the immediate area was turned in my direction. At that point, I did the only thing a person can do in such a situation: hobbled away as quickly as possible without looking anyone in the eye.

Upon reflection, I realized that perhaps those “mind the gap” announcements aren’t such a bad idea after all. Now, if they only they had a “NO PUSHING, YOU MISERABLE CUNTS” announcement to go along with it, my commute might be slightly less unpleasant.

Last night, some of my officemates and I went out for an informal kangeikai (welcome party) for a guy who was transferred to work in our office in Tokyo. As our decision to go out was a bit last-minute, none of our usual haunts had room for our group, so we ended up going to a chain izakaya near Shibuya station called Kaasan. Kaasan means “Mother” in Japanese, and the chain markets itself as providing homely fare prepared with a motherly touch. Accordingly, the kitchen and wait staff are composed entirely of matronly middle-aged women who dote on customers with a maternal demeanor whilst supplying them with large quantities of alcohol and reminding them to finish their vegetables.

Since it was a Monday night, we all decided to limit our intake of alcoholic beverages, but achieved varying degrees of success. It’s actually a tad difficult to keep track of how much nihonshu you’re drinking when someone refills your cup after every sip. Nonetheless, we all made it to the station afterwards without anyone puking or passing out (which is quite an accomplishment in itself), and parted ways.

Upon returning to my apartment to find Judy sound asleep, I realized that I had to return a DVD to the video rental shop before midnight, and so I headed back out and managed to get the DVD into the hands of the cashier with about three minutes to spare. As I walked past the station on my way back to my apartment, I happened to pass by a guy who I’ve seen many times playing the saxophone and trumpet (albeit not at the same time) beneath the elevated train tracks. Feeling somewhat chatty after my numerous beers and countless glasses of sake, I greeted the guy asked him, “Do you play here often?” (which, in retrospect, does indeed sound like a cheesy pickup line, much to my dismay).

We chatted briefly about our respective backgrounds and time in Japan, and I learned that he was originally from New York and had spent the past 15 years in Tokyo. Unfortunately, within minutes the conversation quickly took a turn towards one-sidedness and the guy began to rant and rave about everything from the film industry to the American government to the lamentable prevalence of ignorance among the youth of today. He seemed like a rather intelligent guy, but he was definitely on a different level than most “normal” folk. I’m hesitant to just pass him off as some whackjob, but when people advocate the overthrow of the government and say paranoid things like “Don’t you see? They don’t want you to know what’s going on!”, it certainly makes one wonder about their mental stability. I barely managed to get a word in edgewise the entire time, but since I’m not the type to rudely interrupt others when they are speaking, I ended up standing there for over an hour listening to his tirade.

Since then, after having thought a bit more about some of the things that he was saying, and considering the depth of his knowledge and analysis of each issue he mentioned, I’ve come to realize just how intellectually inactive I’ve become in the last few years. I definitely felt more socially aware when I was in university (although I forwent the traditional scraggly facial hair, “Free Mumia” pin and other clich´s), but in the years since, while my knowledge and understanding of social issues and world events have increased considerably, I’ve found that my priorities have shifted a bit and I no longer focus as much energy on them.

Could this be due to disillusionment? To laziness? To having become complacent from living in a society regrettably known for its ignorance and shallowness? Perhaps it’s just from growing older and now being in a position where I’m relatively comfortable enough to enjoy the small pleasures in life, rather than dwell upon the inequalities and injustices in the world. Or maybe I’m just a bad person.

I suppose my biggest question is: Why do my coworkers insist on getting soused in the middle of the week? My head hurts.

- - - - - - -

My apologies for the particularly inane ramblings as of late. I promise I’ll be back to writing about boobies and eccentricities in Japanese society and whatever else shortly. In the meantime, why not take a peek at this video of J-Pop super-group and fodder for Japan’s legion of pedophiles, Morning Musume, squeal and squirm as they watch a clip from the Japanese film Ringu.

Apparently there are few pleasures in life comparable to that attained from scaring young girls.

It’s strange how our dreams — the result of nothing more than brain activity in the unconscious state — can affect us as much as, or possibly even more than, our actual conscious experiences. Recently, I’ve been having lots of dreams in which people I used to know but have lost touch with — old friends, classmates, significant others — make appearances. Although the dreams haven’t been particularly remarkable or perplexing, I usually wake up in a funk and remain that way for the rest of the day.

Lately, there have been two guys in particular who keep showing up in my dreams. One is a guy named Adam, who I knew from about grade 2 through my junior year in high school (grade 11). He was probably one of my closest friends in elementary school, but we started drifting apart once we got to high school. He got involved in drugs and was eventually kicked out of school for getting in too many fights. The last time I saw him, he was drunk and had apparently stolen one of his friend’s parents’ gas cards, and he came by my house and offered me free gas and cigarettes (I declined). I last heard that he had had a few run-ins with the law, but has since cleaned up his act and is now very active in the volunteer community through his church.

The other guy is named Jason and we were friends ever since the day I met him during the first week of kindergarten and later came home and discovered that he lived in the apartment block just across the street from my own. We were tight all the way through elementary school, junior high and even high school, and the childhood experiences we had together are countless. After we graduated from high school, I went off to university and he stayed in California and did some schooling and later started working full time. Even though we weren’t all that great about keeping in touch while I was in university and especially after I moved to Japan, every time I went back to my home town to visit he was always around and up for hanging out.

However, two years ago when I went back to California for a visit, I was mysteriously unable to get a hold of him. None of his phone numbers worked, and I eventually learned through the grapevine that he had moved to the East Bay. I tried to get a hold of him again when I went back at the end of last year, but I failed. No one seems to know where he is now or how to reach him. The last time I saw Jason was in June of 2002, when we hung out at our friend Gilbert’s house for an afternoon. Tossing around a football at a local park, it was like old times: reminiscing about experiences when we were younger, talking about our plans for the future, and just hanging out and having a good time. He was someone I always thought I’d know forever, so it’s strange to think that I might never talk to him again.

Okay. . . before I ramble any further and start quoting lyrics to old Beatles songs or whatever, I’ll STFU already. It’s just that with all of the weird dreams I’ve been having lately, those guys (and a few other people) have been on my mind. I guess I just wonder where they are now and what they’re up to. . . .

- - - - - - -

Today I finally had time to put up the first batch of photos from my trip to Asakusa earlier this month. They’re all pretty dull, typical tourist photos and I’m a bit disappointed in myself for taking such drab pictures, but I figured I’d put ‘em up anyway. I have quite a few more, so I’ll probably put some more up when I can make the time (although they’re equally as crappy).

Today’s photos are from Sensoji (also known as the Asakusa Kannon Temple), which is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo, and is also considered by many to be the most impressive. It was especially crowded on the day I went, so it was tough squeezing between the tourists (both domestic and foreign) to get around and explore. Anyway, here they are:

It’s no secret that fads come and go in Japan as quickly as the little plates at a kaiten zushi joint [ha, how’s that for a bad simile?]. Something can be the the national obsession one minute and then completely forgotten the next, abandoned for some other bauble of empty stimulation providing fleeting entertainment to the masses who desperately seek an escape from the humdrumery of their vapid existence [sometimes I make up words, too!].

2004 will likely be remembered as the year when the “Kankoku Boom” rocked Japan. This sudden and overwhelming influx of all things Korean into Japanese popular culture — everything from movies to cuisine to hair styles — was precipitated by a phenomenon by the name of Fuyu no Sonata (Winter Sonata). Starring Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo, this serial television drama about an incestuous group of friends who play in the snow whilst declaring their love for one another quickly took Japan by storm, stealing the hearts and fancies of Japanese women and leaving Japanese men scratching their heads wondering what was so appealing about an effeminate Harry Potter lookalike with an ever-present vacuous smile.

The resulting mass hysteria was a Japanese marketing executive’s wet dream — a flurried frenzy of excessive consumerism, the likes of which had not been seen in Japan since footballer David Beckham had women licking toilet bowls in the wake of the 2002 World Cup. The Korea Boom is now all but over, but ironically, it did more to improve relations between Japan and South Korea in one year than had been achieved through diplomatic and economic means in the past 50 years.

Despite the fact that you couldn’t walk five feet in Japan during the past year without being exposed to Bae Yong Joon’s (or “Yon-sama,” as he was dubbed by the media) smiling mug, Judy had never expressed any interest in Winter Sonata nor any other aspects of the Korean fervor that had washed over the nation. However, last month, on a fateful visit to our local video store, Judy decided to see what all of the hype had been about and rented the first DVD of the series. In spite of my previous comments about TV dramas, in order to make an effort to partake in the interests of my wife-to-be, I committed to watching the series with her — in full (yes, I know what you’re thinking: BIG MISTAKE).

Like an inner city schoolboy after his first “free sample” from the neighborhood crack dealer, Judy quickly became hooked. Night after night was spent in front of the television, watching episode after episode of Korean actors wearing turtleneck sweaters and crying on cue. Of course, she wasn’t content with only watching the episodes dubbed in Japanese, she would also re-watch a number of select scenes in their original Korean, in order to savor the succulent voice of Yon-sama in all its glory (and also because Japanese dubbing is so craptastically bad, it makes me wonder whether I’m living in a country full of mentally deficient halfwits who need to rely on ridiculously exaggerated cartoon voices in order to tell the difference between men and women).

If any of you were wondering why I didn’t post very often during the month of February, now you know the reason. Yes, twenty episodes, each lasting over an hour, in the period of only a few weeks. Madness, I tell you, madness. Of course, the completion of the drama only fueled Judy’s obsession; she subsequently spent countless hours scouring the internet for pictures, articles, film clips and anything else she could find related to the drama. Thankfully, she seems to be coming back to reality little by little, however she recently started watching another drama starring Bae Yong Joon, entitled Hotelier. This time, however, I made the decision from the start not to watch it with her. That lesson has been sufficiently learned.

[Necessary disclaimer to prevent castration or other acts of vengeance at the hands of my fiancée, who probably won’t find the above amusing in any way whatsoever: Okay, honestly speaking, the drama wasn’t that bad, and I may have exaggerated Judy’s behavior just a little (althoughthatdoesn’tmeanthatanyoftheaboveisuntrue!).]

Last night I went to the gym for the first time since I went back to California last December.

That’s right, three months ago. I had been planning to start up again when I got back in January, but I was so busy at work that I couldn’t justify paying the monthly membership fee if I was wasn’t going to be able to leave the office early enough to go during the week. Believe it or not, a “regular” gym membership in Tokyo (meaning no access time restrictions) generally runs about US$100 per month (!). Utterly ridiculous, no doubt, but they don’t call Tokyo the most expensive city in the world for nothing.

However, seeing as I’m going to be getting married later this year, I figured I’d better try to put on a bit more muscle (okay — a lot more) so I can hopefully look slightly less scrawny in the wedding photos. Skinny white boy genes are a cruel, cruel curse.

- - - - - - -

Here are a few more photos from my visit to Shinjuku Gyoen last spring. Yes, I know, pictures of sakura are totally clichéd and played out . . . but they looked so nice that day, I couldn’t resist pretending that I actually know how to operate a camera.

I really don’t like cold weather.

Growing up in the San Francisco bay area, it never really got cold. There was “cool” and “chilly,” but never “I’ve lost-feeling-in-my-testicles” cold. Of course, when living outside of Boston during my university years, the weather certainly became “my-scrotum-is-an-empty-sack-because-my-
testicles-have-retreated-into-my-body-cavity-and-are-now-socializing-with-my-kidneys” bitingly cold, but there was frequently snowfall to accompany it, which made the temperature somewhat bearable because everything was white and purdy-like.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t snow sufficiently enough in Tokyo to stick on the ground, let alone allow me to temporarily ignore the fact that all of my appendages are atrophying due to frostbite. It’s actually not even that cold here anymore, but the overall dreariness combined with the lack of suitable insulation anywhere makes me utterly and inescapably miserable. Thus, during the winter season, each day is spent in a semi-catatonic state as my mind and body shut down all extraneous operations in order to conserve energy and cocoon myself from the bleakness of reality. I feel drowsy and distant all day long, and I can’t even remember what the sensation of “hot” feels like anymore.

Thankfully, February will soon come to a close and hopefully spring will make a timely arrival. In the meantime, I’ll just have to put up with the bitter cold and the oppressive melancholy and try to keep my spirit warm with copious amounts of booze.

Over the weekend I was looking at some photos from a warmer time and figured that I might post some for the sake of. . . well, for the sake of what, exactly, I don’t know, but for some reason or another. The photos were taken last spring at Shinjuku Gyoen, the park that Judy and I visited last November. However, in the spring I visited the park alone and, as such, was able to spend way too much time talking ridiculously awful photos of the scenery. Here you go:

I’d like to take a moment to digress from my usual asinine ramblings in order to make a little announcement. Visitors to this site who know me in real life are already aware of this, however for anyone else who, for whatever reason, might possibly care, here goes:

After being together for five and a half wonderful years, Judy and I have decided to get married!

While I truly regret the insufferable loss that the world’s single women will undoubtedly experience upon the realization that they will never have the good fortune of having me as their husband [ha], I couldn’t be more excited about the idea of spending the rest of my life together with a woman who intrigues and captivates me so, and whose kind-heartedness and compassion are an inspiration.

I can only wonder why she would want to throw her life away by marrying a schmuck like me.

I actually proposed to Judy six months ago while we were on holiday in Okinawa, but held off on mentioning anything here on this site until we had the chance to let all of our family and friends know first, as well as select a date. Thus, for the past six months, we’ve been trying to figure out the logistics for a wedding ceremony in which the bride’s family lives in one country, the groom’s family lives in another, and the bride and groom themselves live in yet a third. Needless to say, it’s been a bit complicated.

However, last week we confirmed the date and location: Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. We’re planning on keeping the ceremony small and simple, but I’m sure it’ll be special. It’s really strange to think that we’re getting married, or even that we’ve reached the age at which one would even consider getting married, however it actually feels kind of natural (somewhat surprisingly). I guess when you find the right person, everything just sort of falls into place.

Well, that’s the news. . . we now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.

Last week, I had to go up to my company’s main plant in Ibaraki for several days of meetings with visitors from an American firm. Although I probably shouldn’t admit this, the meetings were painfully dull and reminded me of just how overwhelmingly NOT cut out I am to be a businessman.

I had heard that a new intern named Jason had arrived last week from the States to work at my company’s head office, and so I organized a small, informal kangeikai (welcome party) after the final meeting in order to meet him and to hang out with some of my old coworkers I hadn’t seen in a while. Well, as typically happens, the four-person dinner quickly tripled in size, and once alcohol was thrown in the mix, madness ensued. However, rest be assured, it was good madness (like mud wrestling). Even better, since no managers were in attendance, not once did any of the several conversations taking place concurrently ever turn to the topic of work.

Unfortunately, being the only person who had to return to Tokyo that night, I had to duck out early and just managed to catch the last train back. But for everyone else, the party continued until late into the night. The next day brought hangovers to all (except me), and Jason, the guest of honor at the festivities the night before, called in sick.

Good times.

Here are a few photos from the welcome party, but please excuse the poor quality — my skills with a camera are even worse after I’ve had a bit to drink:

On Sunday, Judy and I went up to Omiya in Saitama to spend the afternoon with some friends. From November 2002 through January 2003, I lived there in a tiny one-room apartment about 10 minutes from the station (Judy joined me in September after she switched jobs).

Unfortunately, the majority of my time in Omiya was marked by a number of troubles, especially involving my apartment, such as: the fact that it had paper walls and zero insulation, meaning during the winter it was colder inside than outside; the robbery in June 2003, resulting in the loss of not only all of my valuables, but two years’ worth of digital photos as well; the Humidity Incident of August 2003, during which everything in my apartment became covered with mold; the two ladies of the night who moved in next door and woke us up every day at 4:00 in the morning when they returned from their “exploits”; and countless others.

Yet, despite all of this, when we were back there this past weekend, I actually found myself feeling somewhat nostalgic for the time I lived there. Strange, in a way. All in all, I suppose Omiya is a decent place to live for a person who works an hour and a half outside of Tokyo, but as far as I’m concerned, nothing compares to living in the big smoke (sure, neither place has much in the way of charm, but what whuddaya gonna do?).

- - - - - -

Here are a few older photos taken at the Hikawa Shrine, which is about a 20 minutes’ walk from Omiya Station:

I went to see the doctor yesterday. During the countless hours that I spent in the waiting room with absolutely fuck-all to do, I got to thinking about the differences between the procedure for visiting a doctor in America and the procedure for visiting a doctor in Japan.

Now, I’ve been to see doctors here in Japan a number of times, but I can hardly be considered an expert. However, to anyone curious about what a typical visit to a Japanese hospital is like, the following should hopefully give you a basic idea [and to all those people who couldn’t care less, feel free to go back to looking at porn now].

For the sake of comparison, here is the typical procedure when seeing a doctor in the States:

1. First, you make an appointment for a specific date and time (i.e., Thursday, January 26th at 1:45pm)
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital about 10-15 minutes prior to the appointment time in order to register
3. You go directly to the department in which you have the appointment, register and pay the co-payment, usually $10 to $20, depending on the type of insurance you have (assuming you have insurance, that is)
4. Then you sit down in the waiting room and flip through old magazines
5. About 10-15 minutes later, a nurse will call your name and lead to you a small private examination room
6. You will then sit and wait for another five minutes or so
7. Shortly thereafter, the doctor will arrive and will carry out his/her examination in complete privacy
8. If you require medication, the doctor will illegibly write out a prescription for you on a little pad
9. You then part ways and go to the pharmacy, either inside the hospital or elsewhere (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and offer you a private consultation if you have any questions about your medication
10. OK, you’re done!

Now, here is the procedure at a typical Japanese hospital:

1. First you make an appointment for a specific day, however whether or not you can schedule a particular time depends on the hospital — many only have “Reception Hours” (i.e., generally between 11:30am and 3:30pm), the only time during which you’ll be able to see a doctor
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital and register at the front desk, after which you’ll receive a print-out with your data on it (again, the procedure varies by hospital — some use automated machines, others make you stand in line to deal with an attendant)
3. Then you go to the department in which you have the appointment and give your print-out to the attendant there
4. You take a seat in a (magazine-less) waiting room and wait for anywhere between 1 to 3 hours
5. During that time, you will likely fall asleep and dream about sexy Japanese nurses giving you a sponge bath
6. Just when you reach the point when you’re ready to start randomly taking out other patients in order to shorten the line a bit, you will hear your name being called over the announcement system, requesting you to go sit in the hallway outside of the examination rooms
7. There you will wait for another 20-40 minutes
8. Finally, the doctor will call your name and you will enter the examination room (which isn’t even a “room” per se, but rather a three-walled space, behind which is an open area that connects all of the other adjoining exam rooms)
9. The doctor will carry out his examination while nurses bustle past you in and out of the room
10. If you require medication, the doctor will print out a prescription for you on the computer on his desk
11. Afterwards, you will head back to the main entrance to the payment counter to pay the bill for the day’s visit in total — in cash
12. You can then go to one of the many pharmacies surrounding the hospital (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and loudly ask intrusive questions about your condition in earshot of all of the other people waiting
13. At last, you can finally go home, feeling far worse than you did when you first arrived at the hospital

Yep, there really wasn’t a point to that, except to say that time does not pass any slower than when you are sitting in a hospital waiting room surrounded by elderly Japanese folks who have nothing better to do than stare at the foreigner in their midst.

Oh, and let it be noted that the world can never have too many sexy Japanese nurses!

On Saturday, Judy and I met up with a couple of my officemates to go bowling. It was the first time that I had been bowling in several years, and the first time that Judy had hung out with any of my coworkers ever. Despite the hour-and-a-half wait for an open lane, the rest of the afternoon was a lot of fun and we enjoyed three games of bowling and one slightly poorly-received joke about “superior ball handling skills” (it seems the expression doesn’t translate very well into Japanese).

Afterwards, we went to dinner and, in the Japanese tradition, imbibed a number of alcoholic beverages. As this was the first time for these particular coworkers and I to spend time together outside a work setting, we were able to get to know each other on a more personal level. At one point, the conversation turned to the topic of work (surprise surprise) and I was amused to hear some my officemates’ opinions about our company and some of the other people we work with. It was definitely a relief to learn that I am not alone in some of my gripes about working there. Apparently Japanese offices are miserable places for Japanese people to work, too.

- - - - - - -

Here are two photos from the bowling alley, one of my coworkers and the other of the funky Japanese bowling shoes we were wearing:

I haven’t even been back at work for a full week yet, but I’m already starting to slide back into my old routine of working 13-hour days. I cannot let that happen.

The reason for my overtime tonight relates to a little something known as “the challenges of cross-cultural communication,” also commonly referred to as “dealing with gobbledygook-talkin’ weirdos who smell funny.”

You see, two years ago one of the managers in my company — my former boss, in fact — was dispatched to our joint venture company in the States to help improve operations. Yesterday we received a letter from the American president of said venture containing an extensive list of employee complaints against the manager from my company; apparently he has been undertaking his role as Executive Vice President a bit, shall we say, “unconventionally.”

I’m not at liberty to get into specifics, but as I read through the incident reports in preparation for helping to draw up a response from our side, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how poorly the Japanese management style doesn’t work in America. Sure, you have sucessful management practices that took the business world by storm in the 80s, such as just-in-time production, kaizen (continuous improvement) and the 5S, but beneath the stoic exterior of the typical Japanese businessman lies an uncharacteristicly immature and erratic underbelly.

Therefore, whereas the American side of our joint venture decried actions such as shouting at and shoving employees, throwing objects and wildly striking machinery with a hammer as “unacceptable conduct,” I see them as what they are: aspects of Japanese management that are little-known outside of Japan (well, except for the hitting-things-with-a-hammer part).

By now, most of the world is familiar with the rigid hierarchy in Japanese society. The adherence to theis hierarchy is even more severe within a Japanese company: underlings kowtow to their superiors’ merciless demands and superiors berate and scold their underlings like misbehaving children (mid-level managers can go from superior to underling and back within an instant without even so much as a bat of an eye).

While I personally have never been on the receiving end of such treatment (I reckon I would react in a most un-Japanese of ways), I have beared witness to maniacal displays of managerial tyranny time and time again throughout my company. There’s nothing worse than sitting quietly while your coworker is subject to a five-minute public tirade. . . um, except maybe being on the receiving end on one yourself, I suppose.

Anyway, my company finally created a generic response to the letter, which of course had to be translated by yours truly (once again, despite the fact that my company has an official translator and it’s not me). None of the people on the Japanese side seem to have any problem with the manager’s behavior, but rather are trying to focus on why he chose to act in such a manner, i.e., what the American employees did wrong to evoke the manager’s reaction.

Ironically, during the course of the entire year that I worked under that manager, not once did I ever see him put on a display such as those mentioned in the list of complaints. Maybe he’s just dealing with culture shock as a result of being forced to live in the midwest.

It’s funny how you can be away from work for a few weeks on holiday, but as soon as you get back it feels like you never left in the first place.

Despite the piles of work that greet me each day, I’ve been making a concerted effort to spend less time at the office. So far I’ve only been marginally successful, but I’m going to keep up the fight. I can’t go back to spending all of my waking hours at work.

Must not. . . become. . . Japanese!

Anyhow, I’m kind of short on time at the moment, so I’m just going to throw up a few photos from my trip back to California. Even though I carried my camera with me nearly everywhere I went, I regrettably took precious few photos.

Here are a few that I actually managed to snap of some friends:

Well, I’m back.

After a hectic couple of days running last-minute errands and saying goodbyes to family and friends, it was time for me to catch my plane back to Japan. Despite the delays, it seemed that the 11-hour flight was going to be relatively smooth as usual. That is, until the plane took off and I got acquainted with the man seated beside me.

His name was Phil and he was a tugboat sailor in the US Navy on his way to Thailand to assist with the tsunami relief effort. He seemed like a nice guy at first, but after downing seven or eight consecutive complementary cocktails he became increasingly belligerent and decided that he wanted to talk to me — very loudly — for the entire duration of the flight. Cue a succession of one-way conversations about highly inappropriate and offensive subject matter, such as the fact that the woman two rows ahead of us wasn’t wearing a bra and “forgot to turn off her headlights,” the joys of “bumpin’ uglies” with curvaceous South American women and utterly insipid (yet extremely detailed) tales of drunken sailor revelry. The glares from the other passengers around the cabin had no effect on him, nor did my feigning sleep every time he got up to go to “take a piss” (as he loudly proclaimed each time). Thanks for reinforcing all of my stereotypes about people in the military, Phil!

Judy and I met up in the Narita airport (as she had arrived back from Vancouver about an hour before I got in) and we made the journey back to our apartment. We had a great time catching up, sharing stories from our respective holidays and making plans for what we want to do in 2005. However, by dusk the following evening we were both coming down with a cold. Damn that recycled cabin air!

So now it’s back to the daily grind. Every day since I got back to Japan has been a cacophony of new year’s greetings, as it is the custom in these parts to exchange an “akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” with everyone you know when seeing them for the first time in the new year. It’s fun with the first five people or so (well, not really), but eventually a mumbled “ak’shtebuhb’busssss” is all one can muster.

As always, my time in California went by way too quickly; I wasn’t able to see everyone I wanted to see, to do everything I wanted to do nor eat everything I wanted to eat. But, nonetheless, I had a wonderful time. I’m not one for sappy reminiscences, so instead here’s a boring photo of my hometown of Cupertino (well, part of it) and the surrounding Santa Clara Valley:

I’m not sure yet when I’ll have a chance to go back, but hopefully this post-vacation glow will stay with me for another few days before it’s sucked out of me by the oppressive drudgery of my day-to-day life.

Happy New Year, everyone!

It’s hard to believe that 2005 has arrived and so has my time to return to Japan. I’ve had a great time back here in California — spending time with family, hanging out with friends, eating lots of food, sleeping way too much, speaking English — but now it’s time to go back to my life in Tokyo (and yes, I am excited about it).

All night I’ve been saying goodbye to friends, but now I’ve got to try to find a way to fit everything into my bags and hopefully even get a couple of hours of sleep before it’s time to leave for the airport in the morning.

I hope you all had a fun New Year’s Eve!

Wow, I can’t tell you how goddamned wonderful it is to see a country for which I once had pride and respect being overtaken by right-wing conservative whackjobs. Way to go America!

Sarcasm aside, this country is seriously headed in a dangerous direction. The last time I was back here visiting, the big story on the news was the momentary exposure of Janet Jackson’s nipple on live TV — one of the most un-noteworthy non-events ever broadcast on national television. I saw the flash when it originally aired during the Super Bowl and it was nothing more than a brief WTF moment providing a bit of a chuckle in between ads featuring a horse releasing flaming flatulence on the face of an unsuspecting woman and old dudes talking about their rock-hard, multi-day-spanning boners.

Earlier this week, The Smoking Gun posted letters received by the FCC in response to the aforementioned nipple-revealing event. With a good number of them beginning with the line “I’m not a prude, but . . .”, the letters reveal just how brainwashed so many Americans are with nutty puritanical beliefs.

For example, one writer decries the national news media as being “anti American, anti Christian, [and] pro death for babies and seniors” and another laments about the entire halftime entertainment show consisting of “songs about Scotch, Methadone, Pimping, F–cking, and partying and having sex with anyone you can find” (which simply sounds like a fun Saturday night to me).

Further revealing the lunacy and perversion present in the mind of the average Bible-thumper, another writer proposes, “Maybe next years Superbowl can include Dr. Ruth and a discussion on group sex and Madonna humping a football.” Another writes “It starts out with just one boob at the half-time show and in a few years half the population will be walking around naked” (the religious right sure do love their slippery slope arguments).

The funniest aspect to me was that many of the writers expressed their concern that the rest of the world will think that the United States is a nation devoid of morals, yet ironically, America is one of the most religious countries on the planet, rapidly approaching Taliban-esque levels of religious extremism as the years go by.

There were also a number of letters from people expressing their outrage over the outrage over the Super Bowl boobie exposure, one of which managed to mention not only “galloping gazungas” and “camel toes” in a single sentence, but also ended with the line, “Pull the pine cone out of your collective butts, you bunch of misguided uptight puritans.” Even more humorously, one letter even posed the question, “Aren’t breasts a major food source for young children?” (in addition to being a source of entertainment for males of all ages).

The Smoking Gun website also features letters to the FCC regarding an episode of the daytime talk show Oprah on the topic of teen sexuality, in which the act of salad tossing (or “oral sex with the butt” as one angry viewer described it) was discussed in graphic detail. There weren’t as many comedic gems to be found in those letters, however the most hilarious one by far said simply this:

The Oprah show described with graphic detail a sexual term known as “tossing salad.” It was so offensive that my child’s head literally exploded. Please ban free speech so this never happens again.

It’s good to know that at least some people in this country still have a sense of humor.

Merry Chrithmas!!

‘Twas two days before Christmas,
And my friend Cary had volunteered
To collect donations for charity
And spread some Christmas cheer

When he told me he would do this, I had to ask why.
“It’s for the Salvation Army, won’t you stop by?”
“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll do that for you.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

At the supermarket, I arrived at ten past ten,
And there I saw Cary, my old friend.
Bursting with cheer, “Good morning!” he said,
With bells in his hand, a Santa cap on his head.

He was ringing the bells as people walked by,
Yet they paid him no attention, not even a “hi.”
We chatted together for twenty minutes or so,
But into the kettle, not one cent did go.

“Hold this,” he said, handing me the bells with a wink.
“I’m going inside to get something to drink.”
And with that, he turned and walked away,
Leaving me alone in the middle of the fray.

I couldn’t believe that he could be so cruel.
“He’d better come back soon, that rat-bastard fool.”
I stood there uncomfortably for a moment or two
And then did the only thing I knew I could do.

My palms all sweaty, my heart filled with dread,
I picked up some antlers and put them on my head.
I forced myself to make a smile, clenching my jaws.
“Ah, what the heck — it’s for a good cause.”

And so I swung those bells with feeling, with grace,
And even managed to keep that stupid smile on my face.
Cary soon returned and joined me in the throng.
He picked up more bells and began ringing along.

At that moment and to our sudden surprise,
Up came a child with joy in his eyes.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out some change
And dropped them into the kettle with a deafening clang.

And before we knew it, people passing began to stop
To make a donation on their way out of the shop.
First pennies then nickels then quarters and dimes,
The next thing we knew, people were putting in fives!

And so it went, until the end of our shift,
People giving from their hearts, what a nice gift!
At first I had been hesitant, but I gave it a try.
Hey, what can I say? I’m just a nice guy.

Today I met up with my friend Gilbert, who I’ve known ever since the fourth grade. Out of all of my friends, he was the first one to get married, the first to have a kid (well, his wife, anyhow) and the first to buy a house way out the in the middle of nowhere (just kidding, man).

Thus, in the morning I headed out for my epic journey 80 miles northeast to check out his new place. The drive up there wasn’t that bad; sure, I missed one exit ramp, but we all make mistakes. During the course of the day, we caught up on what has happened in our lives since we hung out, ate some delicious carne asada prepared by his lovely wife, watched Dodgeball on DVD and even played a selection of games on his Xbox. Good, harmless fun.

Or so I thought.

As I bid farewell and drove towards the freeway, I was surprised to see just how much fog had come in since my trip up in the morning. Once I entered the foothills, I quickly became enshrouded by cloud cover and had to struggle to make out the lane lines on the road ahead of me as I desperately tried to follow the twists and turns of the freeway. At one point I even contemplated pulling over to the side of the road just to get my bearings, but the visibility was so low that I couldn’t even see whether there was any space on the shoulder.

It sounds ridiculous, I’m sure, but for a guy who hasn’t driven in nine months, it was a pretty harrowing experience. Thankfully I made it home alive. . . although I probably wouldn’t be missed, my parents would have been rather upset had their car been totalled.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been back in California for a week already. During the past seven days, I’ve had some time to reflect upon things here a bit. Here are a random assortment of thoughts:

• Jet lag — I still have it. I’m sleepy all day long, but when I lie down in my bed at night I can’t fall asleep. It’s frustrating and I really need to hurry up and adjust my sleep schedule already.
• Brrr — It’s so frickin’ cold. For some reason, my parent’s home in California is colder than my apartment in Tokyo. I’m freezing all the time here and my mom keeps telling me to put on a sweater.
• Vroom — Driving is fun. I hadn’t driven for the past nine months, so it’s exciting (but at the same time, I feel lazy for driving everywhere).
• Make the voices stop! — It’s weird being able to overhear other people’s conversations. In Japan, I usually have to make an effort to keep up with what people are saying in Japanese, so it’s easy to block out conversations taking place around me. Here, I don’t have the luxury of doing that and have realized that people are having pretty banal conversations out there.
• Wide load — Americans are kinda big, eh? I don’t just mean the seriously obese ones either; everyone seems to have a bit more pudge than I’m used to. Or maybe I’m just a skinny, pencil neck loser. Anyhow, when did wearing low-rise jeans with shirts that barely reach past the navel come into style? That roll-of-fat-hanging-over-the-pants look certainly isn’t very flattering.
• White sneaks — Have middle-aged white guys always worn white running shoes with jeans? Am I some day going to wake up with an overwhelming desire to buy all-white Reebok shoes to wear with some Levi 501’s? My God, I hope not.
• “Do you have this in medium?” — It’s great being able to talk to salespeople in English. Back in Tokyo I can make simple inquiries in Japanese, but anything more than that requires more effort than it’s worth. That said, however. . .
• “What do you want?” — Many salesclerks here are impolite. I haven’t seen too many that are overtly rude, but the disinterested attitude and the lack of eye contact leave much to be desired. I hate to break it to you, but working at the mall doesn’t make you cool.
• Supermarket — Holy crap, supermarkets here have everything! A trip to Safeway is like a visit to an amusement park. I must look like an idiot wandering through the aisles with a slack-jawed expression of wonder on my face.
• VH1 — Wow, when did VH1 start showing entertaining programming? The last time I watched it, it was like the Michael Bolton and Celine Dion channel. Do they even show music videos anymore?

Anyway, as you can see, my time here hasn’t exactly been put to use in a very productive way, but hey, what do you expect? I’m on vacation.

Tonight I was going through some old folders on my parents’ computer and I happened to stumble upon my crowning achievement of the summer of 1998. Back at home after my first year of university, I took summer courses at a nearby community college and spent my spare time (well, my spare time when, um, not fighting off the ladies) with an HTML 4.0 book in hand, designing my first website. I initially started off with enough animated GIFs to make even your average Geocities member cringe, but I eventually settled on an ancient Egyptian theme of all things and created the following monstrosity:

Hosted on my mom’s Earthlink account, I think the site got no more than 20 visitors in total during the year or so that it was up. I even had a guestbook, too, filled with comments such as, “WTF is up with the Egyptian theme?” and “You told me to sign your guestbook, so I’m signing it. Happy now?”

Pretty dreadful, eh?

Well, I made it back to California safe and sound. After a hectic morning of packing and tying up all of the loose ends, I bid a sad farewell to Judy and headed to the airport. Like many people, traveling always puts me in a foul mood. The urgency and expected delays aside, there’s just something about being in such close proximity to masses of people that really rubs ones face in the true pathetic nature of human beings.

Maybe it’s because I’m in a state of complete exhaustion and barely awake, but I just have to get a few things off my chest about people’s annoying behavior when traveling (please bear with me):

• When boarding a plane, the idea is to get everyone inside as quickly as possible. Therefore, you need to stow your carry-on baggage as fast as you can and get the fuck of the aisle so others can pass. I don’t care if you absolutely need to get your neck pillow, your bottle of water and your favorite paperback out of your bag before you can sit down; the reason that the people standing behind you waiting to get to their seats are giving you looks that suggest that they hate you is because they do.
• Despite the fact that you get to stay up late and watch movies, an overnight flight is not a sleepover party. There’s no excuse for grown adults to go about in public in pajamas and stocking feet.
• If you need to get up to go the lavatory right before the meal service begins, don’t come back and force the flight attendants to move their cart 10 feet back so you can get to your seat and then demand your meal. It’s not their fault that the aisles are so narrow; maybe if your ass wasn’t so damn fat, you might be able to squeeze past them.
• Don’t be the asshat who opens his window shade in the middle of the flight while everyone else in the darkened cabin is trying to sleep. I don’t care how pretty the cloud are, if you do it again, you will get hurt.
• To the people who jump up out of their seats the moment the plane touches down on the tarmac, I have one question: What the fuck is your hurry? You know damn well that it’s going to be at least another 15 minutes before they even open the doors, and besides, us poor folks in the back aren’t going anywhere for a long time.

Okay. . . now that I’ve got that out of my system, I’m pleased to say that it’s good to be back home. Today I was able to chat with my parents for a bit and catch up, drive a car for the first time in nine months and even eat some yummy Butter Rum Lifesavers. Life is good. It was hard saying goodbye to Judy, but in a way it’s fun to talk on the phone again like the old days.

All right, methinks it’s time for me to go back to sleep. It’s a quarter past seven in the morning and I’ve been up since 3:30. Jet lag sucks balls.

Why is it that the time leading up to a vacation is so incredibly stressful?

I leave for California tomorrow, yet my bags have not been packed, my nengajo have not been written and I haven’t even told a few of my friends over there yet that I’m going back.

Tomorrow is probably going to be one incredibly hectic morning and afternoon, only to be followed by nine hours of sitting deathly still inside of a cramped airplane cabin. Although I’m seriously tempted to heavily overindulge in complimentary cocktails, I’m not even sure whether the cocktails are complimentary anymore. I guess I’ll just have to get loaded before the flight.

Okay, off to start packing. . . .

While many people around the world are currently enjoying the gleeful Christmas season (or perhaps, more appropriately, the Christmas shopping season), we here in Japan are now in the midst of the slightly less-enjoyable nengajo-writing season. Nengajo are special New Year’s postcards that people send out to literally everyone they know, and are delivered on the morning of the first day of the new year.

Commonly decorated with images of the Chinese zodiac character of the upcoming year (2005 is the year of the rooster), they usually contain messages expressing appreciation for kindness received during the past year and well-wishing for the year ahead. Like the distribution of Valentine’s Day cards in elementary school classrooms throughout North America, innumerable acres of forest are destroyed each year as a result of this ultimately frivolous custom.

In order to ensure timely delivery on January 1st, nengajo must be deposited at the post office by December 25th, however, since I will be returning to California long before then, I have just three days to write out approximately 40 more of those dastardly cards. With such little time, I’m seriously tempted to just print this out and send it off. I wonder if anyone would even give it a second glance.

In the middle of a last-minute Christmas shopping marathon weekend, Judy and I headed over to Matsudo last Sunday to visit the Bandai Museum on the recommendation of one of her friends.

Bandai is the third largest toy company in the world and is responsible for introducing the world’s children such wonderful toys as Gundam, Ultraman, Power Rangers, Tamagotchi and those little pink M.U.S.C.L.E. figures that I was unhealthily obsessed with in the second grade (the absolute best-smelling toys EV4R!) , among others.

Now, with a such a diverse and widely-known character base, I was expecting the Bandai Museum to be nothing short of amazing — in other words, the kind of place that brings smiles to the faces of young children and slimy goo to the underpants of children slightly older.

Thus, you can imagine my surprise when the “museum” turned out to be little more than five floors of gift shops, all selling the exact same selection of toys (mainly cheap Ultraman figures). Signs all over the place indicated that there were a couple of special attractions of some sort, but after our initial disappointment, we couldn’t be arsed to spend the extra ¥300 to see them.

Oh well, at least I got to take a photo of Judy chillin’ with the man himself:

Well, I found out the results of my TOEIC exam today. Unfortunately, despite being a university-educated native English speaker, I did not receive a perfect score. Hence, from this day forth until the day that I cease to exist on this earth, I will carry around the shame of my failure like a severely disabled evil Siamese twin whose encumbering mangled form frightens small children and eliminates all chances of intimacy with members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, for that matter).

Thankfully, however, I did manage to get the highest score in the company. . . so it looks like I at least still have a job (I hope).

Actually, because I got the highest score in the company, I was contacted by the General Affairs Department and asked to write up a brief statement offering my advice for the best ways to go about studying a foreign language to be sent out to everyone who took the exam. So yes, because I got a relatively high score on a test of THE LANGUAGE THAT I HAVE SPOKEN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I am now the expert on studying foreign languages. Funny how that works.

Well, all I can say is that it’s a darn good thing that no one in my company knows that there’s also a Japanese proficiency test. . . .

I turned 25 yesterday. Once upon a time, that age seemed pretty old, but unless I’m just particularly immature, it doesn’t feel all that grown-up.

Anyhow, yesterday morning Judy told me that she was going to cook me a special dinner that night and requested that I make it home by 7:00 at the very latest. Predictably, however, this was not to be. I ended up staying at work until after 8:00 (which means that I didn’t get home until after 8:30) because a report absolutely HAD to be sent to America before the Thanksgiving holiday or else apparently everything that my company has worked hard to accomplish in the 65 years since its founding will be instantaneously flushed down the toilet in one fell swoop.

Well, despite working far later than planned, the night turned out to be very pleasant. To my complete and utter surprise, Judy had prepared a meal of nabe and we made it ourselves at home for the very first time. Needless to say, it was delicious and incredibly filling to the point where I was unable to sit down for the rest of the night.

I suppose that it’s now time for me to grow up and start acting my age and thinking more about the future, eh?

But if you think I’m giving up my Transformer collection, you’ve got another thing coming.

Well, it’s official: just like Biggy, I’m going back to Cali.

The arrangements have been made, the plane tickets have been purchased, and miraculously, my company has approved my request to telecommute (or as the Japanese say, “slack off”) from my parents’ home in California for the last two weeks of December. Therefore, come December 11th, I am outta here!

Today, I found myself thinking about all of the things that I look forward to the most about going back to the States. Oddly enough, aside from the obvious ones such as spending time with my family and hanging out with friends, one item very high on the list is food. But the funny thing is, what I find myself craving even more than the scrumptious dishes that are apparently considered too “exotic” to reach these shores — turkey, sandwiches, low-fat milk, etc. — is American junk food. Crap like hot dogs, licorice, Cherry Coke, Sunchips, slurpees, Taco Bell, and so on — “food” items entirely devoid of nutrition, teetering atop the food pyramid whilst mocking me with their deathly delectability.

Operation Gain 10 Pounds is set for launch. T-minus 18 days and counting.

- - - - - - -

Here are some photos taken at Shinjuku Gyoen earlier this month. Certainly not very good, but it was dusk and the lighting was very low. Well, that’s my excuse, anyhow, and I’m sticking to it.

After working 12-plus hour days for nearly two weeks straight, last night I reached my limit. I stood up, said “fuck it,” threw my laptop across the room, punched my boss in the face and then proceeded to set my office on fire.

Well, in my head, anyway.

Murderous fantasies aside, I did actually manage to leave the office at 6:30 yesterday without having to resort to bloodshed or violence of any kind. As I passed through Shibuya station on the way home, I saw this:

Yes, that’s right, soon-to-be-released Sony PSPs mounted on the wall for all to gawk at and splooge upon. Apparently, Sony has somehow managed to overcome the delays in the development schedule and the issues with battery life and whatever else to be ready for a release in a little over three weeks from now, just in time for the holiday season.

Suuure they have. I’m sure there’ll be loads of game titles by available then, too.

Oh well, I reckon that the release doesn’t really affect me very much, anyway. Ever since failing to ever beat the original Super Mario Brothers back in elementary school, video games and I have had a somewhat acrimonious relationship. In fact, in the 10-year period between 1993 until 2003, I probably played video games a grand total of about five times. That all changed last year, however, when Judy gave me a GameBoy Advance SP for my birthday. I now give that thing more attention than I give her!

The PSP looks pretty nice, but I don’t see myself dropping 200 bucks for one any time in the near future. Actually, what I’ll probably do is wait until both the PSP and the Nintendo DS have been released and then compare the two. Only then can I decide which will become my new bride.

- - - - - - -

If you’re interested, you can see a few photos from the PSP display in Shinjuku — which looks arguably cooler — by clicking here.

It’s funny how whenever you think things are really bad, they almost inevitably get worse.

My situation at work has reached the point where I am spending nearly all of my waking hours sitting my desk. I can’t even remember the last day that I didn’t work over 12 hours. I’m perpetually exhausted, I’ve been losing weight and my girlfriend is seriously starting to hate my guts because I’m never home. Last night I even dreamed about work! Ain’t the life of a salaryman grand?

When I first set up this blog, I never planned to write anything about my job unless it was about something interesting or funny that happened, like the time at a drinking party when one of the managers in my department got utterly shitfaced and donned a wig and fake breasts and spent the majority of the evening sitting in the corner caressing said appendages. Or the time when I was out drinking with that same manager, and he said the following to me (in English): “My hobby is pubic hair.”

Man, I miss working with that guy.

But I digress. The fact is that no one really cares about the crap that other people go through at work, and since I have the writing ability equivalent to that of a autistic toddler post-shock therapy, there is no way that I could make my current situation sound even remotely humorous. Therefore, I believe that a little copy/paste action is called-for.

The following was written by Stereolabrat, who so eloquently expressed what many of us feel but are unable to effectively put into words:

My company likes to piss in my mouth. It’s quite refreshing, once you get used to it, I mean who doesn’t like to drink a tall glass of piss, right? Every morning, I go to work with a parched throat, looking forward to the urine that will be waiting for me at my desk, right next to the coffee my boss ever so gently shat in.

(Read the entire thing here.)

I hereby nominate her for the title of Funniest Biatch on the Internet.

Anyway, if your spirits need uplifting, why not check out this site, which demonstrates why you should probably avoid gettin’ busy in the back seat. (NOT work safe!)

- - - - - - -

By the way, if you’re wondering what the title of this post is all about, click here.

Last week, one of the managers at my company returned to Japan from a one year stint at one of our American offices. On the afternoon of his first day back, he announced that he was thirsty and was going to get something to drink. When he came back, a 1-liter bottle of Coca Cola was clutched in his hands. My officemates reacted with a mixture of amusement and subtle consternation over his beverage choice.

The next day, the manager once again left the office in the afternoon and returned with a bottle of the fizzy American devil water. Upon questioning, the manager admitted that he had come to like the stuff while he was living in the States and now drinks it regularly.

The bedlam that followed was insane. . . everyone in the room simultaneously launched into a tirade about how unhealthy cola is and how he should quit drinking it right away and drink only Japanese tea if he’s thirsty. It wasn’t just what they said, either, but how they said it: with a fervor so intense that one might think that he had just returned from Burma and announced that while he was there he developed a fondness for chasing the white dragon. Talk about hammering down the nail that sticks up!

I can only imagine the reaction I would receive if I were to come back from lunch one day with a meal set from McDonalds, complete with a greasy hamburger, Coke & fries! Hmm. . . actually, they’d probably just say, “yappari amerikajin da na” (”Naturally, you’re an American”).

Did you know that many Japanese companies have beds/cots on-site for employees to grab a few winks when they are forced to work overnight? Many also have arrangements for discounts at nearby hotels for employees who can’t return home because they worked so late that the trains have stopped running.

Just a little bit of trivia for you this evening, as I sit in my office at 11:00 at night, rapidly succumbing to the combination of exhaustion, hunger and stress. God forbid, I betray the company with my lazy American ways and put off anything until tomorrow morning!

Anyhow, I just wanted to let everyone [all two of you] know that last night I set up a nice sortable archives page for this site. The coding would be far too difficult for a numbskull like me to come up with on my own, so I found a nice plugin instead. You can check it out either by clicking here or on the word ‘archives’ on the menu on the left.

I also installed an anti-spam plugin in response to the onslaught of comment spam that I have been receiving lately from a particular spammer advertising a certain online card game (the tosser). The only problem is that the there’s a chance that legitimate, non-spam comments won’t make it through the filter (as has already happened at least once). Therefore, if anyone tries to post a comment and encounters a message saying that you have been banned from commenting because you’re a no-good, stinkin’ spammer, please just email me at the address on the ‘about‘ page and I’ll try to set things right.

Okaaay, time for me to regresar a mi casa. Have a good night!

Coming from an English-speaking country, something that I had never heard of before I moved to Japan was the TOEIC exam — the Test of English for International Communication. If you don’t know what the TOEIC exam is, here’s a blurb from the official website:

The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. With over three million test-takers per year, the TOEIC Test is the world’s leading test of English language proficiency in a workplace setting.

TOEIC is a major deal in Japan. Despite the fact that it only evaluates listening and reading abilities (there are no speaking or reading components), the test-taking culture here is such that nearly every businessperson who is involved in international business in any way is likely to have taken the test numerous times, and has his or her job prospects, salary and advancement opportunities based heavily on his or her score.

My own company holds TOEIC exams twice yearly and all employees are — to put it nicely — “encouraged” to participate. You see, the company has a reward/penalty system in which an employee’s performance is compared to his previous scores: if he scores more than 5% higher, he gets a bonus in his next paycheck; if he does about the same, he gets nothing; and if he gets more than 5% lower, he gets a reduction from his paycheck!

Sounds a bit harsh, don’t it? Worse yet, all employee results are posted company-wide so everyone knows how everyone else did!

Up until this point, my only involvement with the TOEIC exam was limited to a two-week intensive prep course I taught at my company back in the fall of 2001. However, this year my new boss thought it would be “funny” if I were to try it, and so he signed me up. . . .

Thus, from 9:30 to noon this morning, I was in the conference room upstairs taking the first exam I’ve sat since university. And it was an English exam — yikes, talk about pressure! I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face if I don’t get the highest score in the company. Sure, I’m a native speaker — but I’m also a dumbass! The score results probably won’t come back for a couple of months, but I can only imagine the ridicule I’ll face if I don’t get a perfect score.

Well, at least it wasn’t a Japanese proficiency exam — I wouldn’t even stand a chance!

As I write this, I am the last person remaining in my office. What is normally a noisy, bustling room is now uncomfortably empty. The only sound to be heard is the gentle hum of the copy machine.

Man, I hate working late. It’s Friday night, and although the mood was right and I was gonna have some fun, show you how it’s done, I ended up having to forego enjoyment, nourishment and requiescence in order to finish up my damn work.

I don’t even know why I was given a complex 5-page report to translate from Japanese to English. . . technically, I’m not even a translator. God forbid I finish it on Monday. . . Japan would surely be swallowed up by the sea were I to break the wa that badly.

You know, the “work” ethic (read: “time spent at the office” ethic) is one aspect of Japanese culture/society that I will never be able to adapt to (or even understand, really). Forget about personal lives, families, friends or getting any kind of enjoyment out of life — we cannot disappoint shacho!

I swear, the Japanese obsession with perseverance and doing one’s best seriously reaches masochistic levels. Thankfully, my cracka’ ass affords me some leeway. . . I can’t imagine living my entire life under such pressure and self-sacrifice. It certainly leaves no question as to why the majority of middle-aged Japanese men are miserable old gits. . . .

Anyway, time to go home. Have a nice weekend!

Over the weekend I went to a travel agency in my neighborhood to inquire about flights back to California for the winter holiday. I told the agent my destination and travel dates and he went back to his desk to search the database, while I flipped through brochures advertising the exotic foods and brand name goods of foreign lands.

A couples of minutes later, the agent came back with a list of three different flight options. The first option looked good, but since I’m not yet 100% sure about my plans and won’t be able to make a reservation for a few days, I asked him whether there were still quite a few seats available on the flight.

“Actually,” he replied, “there are no seats available.”
“Oh. . . uh, okay, how about the second flight?”
“Nope. That one’s sold out, too.”
“Then why did you. . . .”

Yep, only the third (and most expensive) flight had any seats available. This kind of thing happens every single time I go to a travel agency. Of course, 90% of the time I’ve ended up buying tickets directly from the airlines themselves, but occasionally there are deals to be found in the agencies. It’s a shame that discount travel websites like Orbitz, Expedia, etc. haven’t found their way to these shores yet. If I were to buy a ticket from any of the American sites, I wouldn’t be able to use them. Apparently Japanese law prohibits buying tickets for flights originating in Japan from sources outside of Japan. Well, actually, it’s not against the law to buy tickets from overseas; they just won’t be accepted when you show up at the airport and try to use them.

- - - - - - -

This photo is from back in August (which makes the context even more bizarre, perhaps) of a promotional event for the town of Kutchan, Hokkaido, complete with a giant snowman and alpenhorns.

Working 12-hour days suck.

I was at the office until after 9:00 last night and then later stayed up until 2:30 in the morning making golf clubs out of cardboard boxes for Judy’s students (don’t ask). Today again, I worked until 9:30.

My brain stopped functioning long ago, and I think I may have soiled myself some time around 8:00 or so.

Okay, this isn’t the latest I’ve ever worked by far, but TGIF, you know what I mean?

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Why don’t you celebrate by watching Japanese girls bitchslap one another? Amateur vs. Actress!

Last Friday morning Judy came down with a cold and ended up spending all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday in bed with a fever. I, being the tender, loving, caring boyfriend that I am, faithfully stayed by her side to answer her every beck and call. Of course, that left me unable to do much else, but after putting a new batch of games on my GBA flash card, I was set.

I hadn’t played video games for hours on end since I was nine years old.

After her condition failed to improve by over the weekend, this morning we went to the major hospital near our apartment and tried to see a doctor. We arrived at 8:30 in the morning, and after registering, were told that Judy we would be able to be seen between 10:30 and 11:00. Unfortunately, as was to be expected, Judy didn’t get to see the doctor until after 12:30 — nearly four hours after we arrived. (Even if you have an appointment, the wait usually ends up being between 2 to 3 hours.)

After a brief 5-minute consultation, she was sent to get a blood test (another 30-minute wait) followed by another hour of waiting before being able to see the doctor again discuss the results. In the end, even after additional testing, the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her and so she was given a bagful of medication (general antibiotics) and told to come back if they didn’t work.

Japan’s medical system is world-renowned, and although the care is generally top-notch (instances of gross malpractice aside), the system is still wrought with inefficiencies like you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to get into it at the moment (nor will I likely ever), so I’ll refer anyone who’s interested in reading more to start with this article.

Anyway, back to continuing my bedside care. . . here’s hoping Judy’ll get better soon!

Well, I mailed off my absentee ballot yesterday. Although I submitted an absentee application way back in March, for some reason the ballot was inexplicably sent to my parents’ house in California, and so they had to forward it to me here. Hopefully it will arrive at the county registrar’s office in time.

While I’m not the type to push my political beliefs on others, I thought I would take a moment to bring attention to a perspective that might not be readily apparent to those living in America:

My fellow Americans, despite what the Bush administration and Fox News would have you believe, THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING HATES US RIGHT NOW.

Since coming to Japan in September of 2001, I have had the chance to meet people hailing from countries all around the globe, and the one thing that has united them despite their diverse origins has been their mutual hatred of George W. Bush and his cronies. I can’t tell you the number of times that, upon revealing that I am American, I have been immediately subjected to rants and tirades against the U.S. government. Uncouth, yes, but the fact is that America’s actions affect not just the American people, but the whole of the world as well. Thankfully, I don’t live in a country where I am at risk of getting my head hacked off simply because of the passport I carry, but sadly not everyone can say the same.

I can only imagine how some people might respond to criticism from people in other countries: “Who gives a flyin’ howdy-do about what some know-nothin’ commy furriners think about us? We’re the greatest country on God’s green earth and the rest of the world can just kiss our fat asses! Ha ha ha! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

I would like to think that I’m exaggerating, but sadly it appears that in fact many people share this opinion.

Obviously, I know that nothing I say on this dinky little speck on the interweb is going to influence the way anyone will vote next month [You are going to vote, right? Riiight?], however I hope you’ll think long and hard about how the outcome of this election will affect not only the American public, but the rest of the world as well. Has the War on Terror ™ really been a smashing success? Is the world a safer place than it was four years ago? What does “stay the course” actually mean, considering the “course” thus far has been nothing but bumbling, ill-conceived operations that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians?

I’ve given a lot of thought to these questions and others over the past several months, and I hope everyone else has as well. We are at a critical point in history at this moment. . . so let’s try not to screw things up even worse, shall we?

Okay, it’s time for me to crawl back under my rock now. Happy voting!

- - - - - - -

Yes, today’s title was a stupid crack at the Japanese L/R problem, but after being asked countless times whether I’m going to vote for “Busshu” or “Kelly,” I just couldn’t resist.

Well, the typhoon on Saturday didn’t turn out to be all that bad. By the time I left my office, it had nearly passed and there was barely a drizzle of rain, so despite Judy calling me an idiot for staying at work, I guess it was good that I did.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night for some reason and so my mental capacity today is even less than usual. Thus, in lieu of my usual inane ramblings, I’ll leave you with a photo of an acrobatic monkey:

Shortly after I took this photo, the monkey lost its balance and fell into an onlooker’s baby stroller. The baby freaked out and started wailing while the audience chuckled (”Aww, so cute”), but thankfully the kid was okay. The monkey got quite a scolding though.

So last night the president wanted to go out drinking yet again, and so everyone in my office promptly and without protest sacrificed another evening with their families to appease the almighty shacho. Thankfully, I was able to get out of going to the nijikai (second party) and got to go home “early” at midnight (the others apparently stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, despite it being THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING WEEK).

Although I limited my imbibation to but a few beers and a glass of shochu, I somehow still woke up with a bit of a hangover. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a problem (seeing as showing up for work with a hangover is a sign of pride for the salaryman), but unfortunately, the first thing on my morning agenda today was a trip up to the company headquarters two hours away for the yearly physical exam. It was pretty standard (pee in a cup, hearing test, chest x-ray), but the experience was exponentially worse than usual due to the crappiness of my condition.

Amazingly enough, however, I somehow managed to score a perfect 1.5/1.5 on the vision test (apparently 1.0/1.0 is the 20/20 equivalent). Now, my vision isn’t normally that good, so I’m left pondering whether the results were despite the hangover or because of it. Perhaps beer goggles are the way to go in times when high-precision vision is crucial: brain surgery, assassin sniper work and, of course, checkin’ out the honeys.

I just found out that I’ve apparently become a verb.

Not in a very interesting way, unfortunately (such as, “I wanna jeff you all night long, baby“), but in a way that I suppose is uniquely Japanese.

You see, the language here can be difficult to pronounce at times (even for native speakers) and so it’s very common for words and phrases to be abbreviated, especially loan words from other languages as they tend not to follow the same sound system. For example, “sexual harrassment” is transliterated as sekushuaru harasumento, which I’m sure you can agree is quite a mouthful. Therefore people use “sekuhara” to describe the national workplace pastime.

Anyway, as the only native English speaker in my company, all English documents are proofread and revised by me before being sent out. I received an email by CC today written by the company translator about one assignment in which she wrote that the “jefuchekku” (”jeffcheck”) had been completed and she was submitting the final draft. I asked her about it, and apparently everyone in her office uses that term for my English checks (i.e., “Has this been jeffchecked?”).

Silly, I know, but I thought it was funny.

- - - - - - -

Only one photo today — cute little Hello Kitty bouquets that I saw in Ginza on Saturday:

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been at work the past couple of weeks. . . I feel like I’m slowly metamorphosing into exactly the kind of stereotypical salaryman whose pathetic existence I pity. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start chewing Lotte’s ‘No Time’ gum because I won’t be able to take three minutes to brush my teeth in the morning.

There’s actually a word in Japanese that means “death from overwork”: karoshi. Companies here are known to literally work their employees into the grave. In fact, in recent years there have been several lawsuits from families demanding compensation for the deaths of husbands and fathers sacrificed for the sake of the bottom line. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near that point (yet). Actually, if I were to reach such a level, I reckon I’d be more likely to flip out and kill someone else rather than succumb myself. I’m just that sort of “take action” kind of guy.

Anyway, back to work. . . .

I’ll leave you with the last of the photos from Kamakura. Enjoy!

Man, it’s been a long week. With two very important meetings yesterday and today, the past five days have been a blur of pre-meetings, PowerPoint presentations, business cards and cheap hookers (well, maybe not that last one).

The good part is that the meetings went well and may have laid down the groundwork for some major global expansion in the next five years. The bad part is that I’m soon to expire from exhaustion any minute now. . . a two-hour train ride to my former office in Ibaraki and a two-hour ride back, both yesterday and today. . . three hours of sleep last night because my boss absolutely needed the minutes from the first meeting by the following morning and apparently assumed that transcribing 8 hours of detailed discussion would be a breeze for me, since “Jeff, your English is so good!”. . . and then, when I went to give him the minutes I had stayed up half the night working on, he decided that he doesn’t need them until Monday after all (!).

I can’t wait to just close my eyes and sleep.

Before that, however, an aside: this week I was reminded that living stereotypes are alive and well. The guests visiting my company were all very nice people, however they completely fit the mold of the stereotypical American: they were overweight, they were loud, they ate chocolate bars for breakfast, drank nothing but Coca Cola, and despite being visitors in a country known for its exotic and tasty cuisine, opted to eat at steakhouses both of their nights here instead of sampling the local fare.

All of my hard work throughout the past three years of trying to rid my coworkers of their misconceived notions about Americans — down the drain in a mere 36 hours. . . .

As one might suspect due to the overwhelming amount of Japanese pornography available on the internet (or so I’ve heard), sexual imagery is everywhere in Japan. From skin mags displayed in convenience store windows to advertisements depicting alluring women in revealing attire to TV game shows in which bikini-clad models compete in physical challenges, one is constantly exposed to titillating and suggestive images.

In fact, not a day goes by when I am not confronted with the sight of nearly-naked women.

But I digress. . . this post is not about my love life. (Thank you, folks! I’ll be here all week.)

The reason that I bring this up (aside from the fact that I’m a lecherous sleaze) is that last night Judy told me about something she witnessed yesterday that I thought I would share.

For those of you who don’t know, Judy is a preschool teacher at an international school here in Tokyo. One of her class’ daily activities is a walk to a nearby park for outdoor playtime, and yesterday was no different. However, when she and her students arrived at the park, she was surprised to see two youngish-looking girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits, surrounded by several photographers. The girls were playing on the slide, the swings and the monkey bars, all the while coyly flashing their panties for the cameras.

As you might imagine, the children responded to this sight with great curiosity and repeated askings of “What are they doing?”. Thankfully, due to their ignorance and naiveté (bless them), Judy was able to quell their inquisitiveness by saying, “Oh nothing, just taking pictures. Now, let’s go play over there.”

While she was naturally appalled that those managing the photo shoot would carry out such an activity in the middle of the day in a location where children were bound to be playing, she was perhaps even more disturbed by the sheer nonchalance of the other people in the park, who seemed to take no notice of the risqué goings-on just feet away.

Perhaps their impassivity was a cultural thing, or maybe repeated exposure to these sorts of occurrences simply causes one to become indifferent. Who knows? But what I do know is that if I ever happen to witness such an event, I’ll be sure to try to obtain photographic evidence.
For, um, sociological research purposes, that is.

Within the rigid hierarchy of a Japanese company, the shacho (president) is the big man on top. When he says “Jump!”, you don’t just ask “How high?”, but also “For how long?”, “What should I think about when I’m up there?” and “May I please kindly fellate you afterwards?” Needless to say, whatever shacho wants, shacho gets. We underlings exist for the sole purpose of pandering to his every whim whilst taking it up the rear with a smile.

For example, yesterday evening, my coworkers and I were all busily engrossed in our work, when the president came downstairs from his office and announced that he wanted to go out drinking. The bedlam that ensued was highly entertaining — I’ve never seen people scramble so quickly to simultaneously shut down their computers, pack up their belongings and put on their coats, all the while responding enthusiastically to every word that came out of the president’s mouth.

The nomikai (drinking party) itself was pretty uneventful, but it marked the third time that I have gone out drinking in the past 7 days. Not a record by any means, but heavy drinking mid-week tends to throw one’s routine off-kilter. The president tolerated our lowly presence until he was satisfied with the outcome of the evening and then promptly departed, leaving behind ¥30,000 (about $275) to cover the bill. Upon shacho’s departure, a coworker of mine who had spent a few years in the States when he was younger immediately spat out, “All right, let’s get the fuck outta here!”

I still can’t figure out why it’s so hilarious when non-English speakers use foul language, but there’s no denying that it is.

- - - - - - -

Here are some completely unrelated photos from Kamakura:

On Saturday Judy and I were in Ginza, where we happened to see Sakaguchi Kenji and Shinohara Ryoko, two relatively big celebrities in Japan. Although I didn’t see any cameras around, it appeared as though they were preparing to film something, as Sakaguchi was pulling a rickshaw in which Shinohara was seated, and production staff were scurrying about telling passers-by to keep walking.

Strangely enough, it was I who recognized the pair immediately and pointed them out to Judy, rather than the other way around as I would have expected. At that moment, it suddenly dawned on me just how much of Japanese popular culture I have absorbed during my time here.

I remember one time a few months after we first arrived in Japan, Judy and I were walking around Osaka when suddenly a young, hip-looking guy rushed past us followed by a gaggle of screaming teenage girls. Neither of us had any idea who he was. Since then, however, without any conscious effort on my part, I’ve somehow become familiar with most of the talento and their particular schticks, and on the occasions when I have seen celebrities in public (Tokyo isn’t that big a place), I’ve recognized them instantly.

What I find even more interesting, perhaps, is that American pop culture is becoming almost alien to me. Whenever I go back to the States, I find that I just can’t relate to much of what’s going on around me. I find popular music to be over-commercialized and uninspiring, I think reality shows like American Idol and Survivor are incredibly lame, and I seriously couldn’t give two shits about the Olsen twins.

Of course, I feel the same way about things in Japan, too.

Has popular culture always been such a vapid wasteland? Maybe I’m just getting older. . . .

Last Friday, some of my coworkers from my former office in Ibaraki had a nomikai (drinking party) and so I took the two-hour journey up there to join them. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw that nearly all of the people there were high-ranking managers (i.e., OLD MEN). However, nothing blurs class lines better than alcohol, and sure enough, as soon as the initial kampai! had sounded, we were all headed down the primrose path to drunkenness together. Insults were hurled, drinks were spilled, sensitive topics were tactlessly breached and a good time was had by all.

Sadly, being the only person who had to head back to Tokyo that night and not wanting to be stranded halfway like the last time, I was forced to depart early and miss the obligatory visit to the hostess bar. What a shame. I was, however, pleasantly reminded that a two-hour train ride goes by far more quickly when one is inebriated. I’ll have to remember that.

In order to pass the time, I took some photos of my fellow late-night commuters. They’re nothing compared to anything on Mike Clark’s site, of course, but here’s a sampling:

Within the past few years, “global” has become a major buzzword in Japan and popular opinion seems to be that any Japanese firm that doesn’t declare itself to be a “global company” is behind the times and destined for failure. The company I work for, despite already having over 30 production facilities around the world, has recently joined in the globalization frenzy and has been doing all it can to “think globally,” as the cliche goes.

In typical Japanese form-over-substance fashion, the first step my company took was to add the word “Global” in front of every department name. Hence, the Marketing Department became the Global Marketing Department; the General Affairs Department, the Global General Affairs Department; and so on. This was considered a major step and was lauded within all echelons of the company. Apparently no one realized the utter pointlessness of it all.

The company’s latest endeavor in this globalization pissing contest has been the creation of a “bijinesu manaa” (”business manner”) database containing guidelines for proper business etiquette for interactions with non-Japanese companies. A few weeks ago, I was approached about helping to create a detailed guide to Western dining etiquette. You see, as the only non-Japanese person in my company, I am thought be an expert on all things foreign, and thus, despite being an ill-manner clod, I was consulted on every aspect of Western table manners.

After the guidelines were created, a few of the people in my office were assembled in the conference room to pose for photos demonstrating proper and improper table manners. The guide was posted on my company’s intranet site today and the photos are so laughably bad that I just had to share them. Here are some examples for your viewing pleasure:

[Note: In Japan, X (batsu) means incorrect and O (maru) means correct (like a checkmark in the West).]

This past Saturday night I was relaxing at home after a day spent out and about, when I heard a commotion outside. I went to the window and saw two punks on the street below shouting at a young guy on a scooter who was waiting at the stoplight on the corner. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be upset about something. Suddenly one of punks shoved the guy off of his scooter and then punched him in the eye when he tried to get back on.

It seemed apparent that the guy on the scooter wasn’t going to fight back and was probably going to get his ass beat, so in the most intimidating angry-Japanese-man voice that I could muster, I shouted down, “Oi, nani yatten da yo!” (roughly, “hey, what the hell is going on?!”). The punks must have heard me, because they backed off and the young guy quickly got back on his scooter and rode off.

At that point Judy rushed into the room to see why exactly I was shouting out the window in my most intimidating angry-Japanese-man voice. As I began to tell her what I had witnessed, I pointed down to where the action had taken place and was surprised to see the two punks now standing in the middle of the road blocking traffic. A Mercedes was stopped in front of them, and the punks’ arms were up in the air in the universal “what’s-up-bitch?” pose. Suddenly, one of the punks went to the driver’s side and yanked open the door, apparently to go after the driver. Once again mustering my angry-Japanese-man voice, I shouted down, “OOOIII!!!“. That seemed to do the trick, because the two punks backed away from the Mercedes and (peculiarly) mounted a single bicycle and pedalled away.

- - - - - - -

After our ordeal with the typhoon in Okinawa, Judy and I took advantage of the sunshine the following weekend and headed to the beach in Zushi, Kanagawa to soak up some rays while we had the chance. Some candid photos from that day are below. (Regrettably, the many women in bikinis were forced to go unphotographed due to the fact that Judy would have drowned me in the sea had she seen my camera pointed in their direction.)

It’s well-known that Japanese people have a sincere appreciation of the four seasons. Having grown up in Northern California, where the seasons are essentially limited to two: warm and cool, I find the heightened awareness of the changing of the seasons in Japan rather endearing.

There are, however, instances in which this obsession with seasonal changes goes a bit too far. Case in point: the sheer number of people that I have met who seriously believe that Japan is unique in the world as the only country with four seasons is astonishing. Seasonal food products are another example; in Japan, seasonal items extend far beyond fruits and vegetables into things ranging from tea to potato chips to chocolate. Most of these items are hardly distinctive and tend to sit inconspicuously on supermarket shelves until their time is up and the next batch arrives to fill their place

There is one seasonal product, however, that due to its overwhelming divinity, holds a special place in my heart and a special roll in my ever-burgeoning gut. The product of which I speak (or, um, write) is none other than Kirin’s Akiaji (”Taste of Autumn”) beer. Forget about the temperature outside, the changing of the leaves or the so-called “equinox”, this is what signifies the arrival of autumn:

Yes, folks, autumn has come and it’s in the form a tasty malt beverage made from the finest ingredients and now available in your local store for just ¥218 for 315ml or ¥286 for 500ml. With a distinguished, rich flavor and at 6% alcohol, this truly is the Nectar of the Autmnal Gods.

Japan is pretty well-known for its high level of customer service. I am reminded of just how great it is each time I go back to the States and have to deal with salespeople who act like I’m some sort of rude bastard for forcing them to do their job and ring me up at the till.

Anyway, the last time I was back in California the Apple iPod Mini was released and I, unable to resist my magpie-like lust for small shiny objects, caved in and bought one. I had been very happy with it from the start, but then a couple of weeks ago the sound started becoming distorted and the music would skip whenever the click wheel was touched (even with the lock on). 0.32 seconds on Google revealed that what I was experiencing was not an isolated case, and so the next day (a Sunday) I submitted a support request through the Apple Japan website.

Two days later on Tuesday morning a courier arrived at my door, boxed up the iPod and took it away. Fast forward just one week later to the arrival of a second courier bearing a brand new replacement, despite the 4-6 week retail waiting list here in Japan. And, because it was still under warranty, I didn’t have to pay a thing.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Earlier this month my company announced that the name of my office is going to change from the Tokyo Office to the Tokyo Head Office. This being Japan, of course, the insertion of the additional word is a major affair, and thus everything from the wall plaque to the stationery to the business cards has to be updated and replaced.

A three-member team was created to prepare the new business cards: myself, a male colleague and a female administrative assistant. My company’s business cards are incredibly dull and completely unremarkable, so during the first group meeting my colleague and I discussed ways in which we could make the cards more visually appealing, or kakkoii (cool), as he put it. The assistant, however, was unable to accept the notion that such radical change could be suggested by anyone other than the management and merely hemmed and hawed equivocally until the meeting was over.

After several follow-up meetings, we came up with a slightly more sleek, modern design and submitted it to our boss just before the summer holiday. The new cards arrived yesterday, and with great excitement and anticipation (well, not really), I opened the box and removed a crisp, new card. . . .

And wouldn’t you know it, the top managers had vetoed the new design for being “too different” and no changes had been made except for the addition of the extra word.

Oh well. Here are some more photos from Okinawa:

So we’re back from Okinawa. The trip was a lot of fun, but by an unfortunate and rather astonishing twist of fate, the meteorologists actually managed to predict the weather accurately, and it rained. Well, perhaps “rain” isn’t the right word . . . during our visit, the Okinawan archipelago was subject to a fierce anal reaming courtesy of Typhoon Megi (or Typhoon #15 as it was called by the imaginative Japanese). Seriously, it must have been some sort of karmic payback for all of the times that I pissed on the seat as a kid or something.

However, as a sign that the universe may not entirely have it in for me, for some reason or another our room was upgraded to a top-floor suite with a great view of the ocean, and, on the morning of our last day there, the sun even made a surprise appearance for about an hour and half (although immediately thereafter we were caught in a sudden downpour and ended up having to change our clothes in the bathroom of the lobby because we had already checked out).

Nonetheless, despite the horrible weather, we had a great time. Now it’s back to workin’ for the man, tryin’ to make a dollar outta 15 cents and all that jazz. Here are a few photos:

Well, it looks like everything is set for our trip to Okinawa. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning — actually, it will more likely be dark and early, since we have to be at the airport by 6 a.m.

We were able to get a pretty decent deal by going with a combination airfare/hotel package, but the only catch was that we weren’t able to choose what time our flights would be. We figured that with the money we’d save, it would be worth the risk, and as it turns out, it looks like we’ll be getting our money’s worth: we’re on the earliest flight down there and the latest flight back up. It’s a nice arrangement, except for having to wake up at 4:00 tomorrow morning and then come back at to Tokyo at about midnight Thursday night, especially since I’ve got work on Friday. But oh well, it should be fun.

I just checked the weather report and apparently thunderstorms are expected in Okinawa during the next three days. Great. However, since Japanese meteorologists are notorious for being exceptionally inaccurate, hopefully we’ll still be able to relax in the sun as planned. My fingers are crossed.

I’ve just put up the last of the photos from my trip to Taiwan. Took me long enough, eh? Now I can finally start putting up more photos I’ve taken in Japan.

Next week is the Obon holiday so I’ll be off from work. So far it looks like I’ll be staying around Tokyo, but the following week Judy and I will be going down to Okinawa for a few days. I’m definitely looking forward to kicking back on the beach. Maybe I’ll even be able to turn myself a shade or two less pale, too.

These last photos are just a hodgepodge of random things, but here you go:

On our third day in Taiwan, we stopped by Hsimenting, a hip shopping/hang out area packed with droves of young people. I was pretty surprised to see the considerable influence of Japanese pop culture on Taiwanese youth — it almost seemed as if we were walking through Harajuku (minus the goths and the rockabillies) or Shibuya (minus the kogal and the drug dealers).

Later in the day we took the train up to Danshui, but because it was overcast we weren’t able to witness the sunset for which the area is well-known. It was still a nice time though: we walked along the wharf, visited a night market and stuffed ourselves silly with scrumptious Taiwanese specialities (unintentional alliteration, I swear).

I’m not a very big fan of posed photos (especially when I am the one doing the posing), but these ones actually didn’t turn out all that bad (except for the stupid grin on my face). Anyway, here you go:

My company has just announced that effective August 1st, all offices and facilities will become non-smoking.

Nice.

After nearly three years of inhaling enough second-hand smoke to most likely guarantee a future onslaught of lung cancer, this is great news.

Now I’ll just have to wait to see whether it’s actually enforced.

As you may have noticed, I have a bit of a problem in that I tend not to take very many photos of people. My grandma used to say that if a picture didn’t have a person in it, it was a waste of film; but seeing as Judy doesn’t like to pose for photos and I don’t need to see my ugly mug more than I already do, it’s just easier to take photos of scenery and architecture and the like.

However, most people tend to find those sort of photos a tad dull. Therefore, today’s photos all contain people, some of whom are even LOOKING AT THE CAMERA!

After visiting the National Palace Museum (as mentioned yesterday), Judy and I returned to the city and Josh and Wei Wei took us out to dinner to meet some of their friends. They definitely were a nice bunch of people, but that wasn’t surprising since Josh is an amiable guy and makes great friends wherever he goes (the affable bastard). After dinner, we went a club called Roxy 99, where we proceeded to get quite inebriated, in which state the photos below were taken.

On our second day in Taiwan, Judy and I ventured out to the National Palace Museum, which is considered to be the world’s largest repository of Chinese artifacts. The collection, some 700,000 pieces spanning about 5,000 years, was once housed in Beijing’s Forbidden City before a series of political upheavals eventually led to its arrival in Taiwan. Apparently when the Nationalists fled to Taiwan they brought China’s greatest historical treasures with them. Lucky for us, eh?

Today’s photos are from the Chih-Shan Garden, a reproduction of an 11th century Sung dynasty garden, which is located on the museum grounds.

It’s Friday evening and I am beat. I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes trying to write something, but my brain has decided to turn in early for the night and so I can’t even manage to construct a coherent sentence. So please forgive me if this entry makes less sense than my usual nonsense.

Judy and I went to Taiwan at the end of April of this year to visit my good friend Josh and do a bit of sightseeing. The trip was a blast — we visited some interesting places, met some cool people and sampled tons of delicious Taiwanese food. I even learned how to say “toilet” in Mandarin.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to put some photos up from the trip for months, but I’ve found it difficult to find the time to do so (OK, OK, I’m a lazy bastard, I know). Therefore, I’ve decided that instead of trying to put them all up at once, I’ll just put a few up whenever I get a chance.

Today’s photos are from the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, which was the first place we visited on the trip. Impressive, ain’t it?

When you’re in a relationship, it’s important to occasionally surprise your significant other with gifts in order to get them to touch your naughty bits show them that you care. As I mentioned previously, it was Judy’s birthday last week and so this past Saturday I put my reservations about the Disney corporation aside and we went to Tokyo Disneyland to celebrate.

Being the awesome boyfriend that I am (”haha, you wish” says Judy), I decided to make the event extra special by reserving a room at the Disney Ambassador Hotel. This took a bit of forethought and planning on my part as the hotel is booked solid months in advance, but it was definitely worth it just to see the smile on her face and the excitement in her eyes (awww . . . gagpukepissshit).

Of course, on any occasion when one stays at a nice hotel, it is obligatory to leave with as much complimentary crap as one can carry. This time was no exception, and as an added bonus, everything came in extremely cute packaging. My only regret is that we didn’t bring a larger suitcase.

Behold, the loot:

Unfortunately, in order to pay for last weekend’s festivities, I’ve been forced to whore myself out on the streets of Tokyo. Interested parties please inquire within. Me love you long time.

Wednesday was Judy’s birthday and so after work we met up in Shinjuku to check out a Taiwanese restaurant that I had heard good things about called Seiryumon: Ten to Ichi (”Seiryumon: Heaven and Earth”). The restaurant consists of two floors, each with a unique theme. Care to fancy a guess as to what they are?

We decided to go with the “earth” floor because I had heard that it was the more interesting of the two, and after exiting the elevator, we were amused to find ourselves standing before a small door next to which hung a metal gong. The hostess instructed me to hit the gong three times (actually six times, since I apparently didn’t hit it hard enough the first three times), upon which a slit opened in the door and a creepy mechanical “doorman” appeared and asked us for the password. I gave him the password and the door swung open, revealing a dimly lit cavern filled with small tables nestled about (I later found out that the restaurant was modeled after an old opium den in Hong Kong — how quaint).

Although “earth” seemed more like “hell” (which is rather true, I suppose), the restaurant turned out to be a pretty nice place. The atmosphere was a nice mixture of spooky and kooky, and our waiter was a guy named Toshiyuki Suzuki (haha, I’m such writer). Oh, and the food was pretty good, too.

Continuing with the hellish theme, Judy and I will be visiting Tokyo Disneyland on Saturday for further celebration of the blessed occasion (hey, that kind of rhymes too).

Fish don’t fry in the kitchen, Beans don’t burn on the grill
Catchy tune, ain’t it? Anyway, it’s old news by now, but in January of this year Judy and I moved to Tokyo. This marks my third residence here in Japan, and her fourth (running from the law is tireless work). Previously, I lived just outside of Tokyo in Saitama prefecture, otherwise known as the “armpit of Japan”, and before that, in the inbred wasteland that is Ibaraki prefecture.

Needless to say, compared to my previous two cities of residence, Tokyo is — to borrow a phrase from the Brit I met at the pub the other night — the dog’s bollocks. No longer am I exposed to unsophisticated cousin-marrying plebs sporting tweezed eyebrows, bleached orange mullets and oversized cartoon character-emblazoned track suits with matching Hello Kitty slippers. No longer are the only forms of entertainment in town a run-down arcade and the local convenience store parking lot. No longer am I stared at simply because of the amount of melanin in my body (or lack thereof). Yes folks, in Tokyo I am free to carry on my existence in relative anonymity, surrounded by relatively “normal” people (although that is still debatable). And even though the cost of living in Tokyo is expensive as fuuuck, the city has a lot to offer.

The new place may not be a de-luxe apartment in the sky, but it’s far nicer than my previous dwellings (read: utter shitholes) and I’m far happier here. Yes, we finally got a piece of the pie.

Anyway, I finally took some photos of the place, as promised months ago, and they are now up. Won’t you be my neighbor?

Sometimes when you’re in a foreign country, you’ll see something that you wouldn’t ever expect to see “back home” and it makes you laugh. It could be something funny, something strange, or even something mildly disturbing, but no matter the reason, it amuses you and the memory stays with you.

Since moving to Japan, I’ve certainly had my fair share of such experiences, but rarely have I had a camera nearby to capture them. However, on those rare occasions when I do happen to have a camera handy, I always try to politely snap a photo or two (that is, if I can manage to stop flagrantly gawking and pointing for a moment).

Thus, I now present to you the new Random Japan gallery. (I considered calling it the ‘Weird-Ass Shit’ gallery, but that didn’t seem very catchy.) I’m starting it off with the three photos below and will update it from time to time (i.e., when I can be bothered to do so), possibly with some sort of theme for each update. Today’s theme, I guess, is “people”. More specifically, people being weird. Weird-ass people. Doing weird-ass shit.

So Judy and I caught the third Harry Potter film this past Saturday. We saw it in style on the “Premier Screen” at the Virgin Cinemas at Roppongi Hills, which is essentially the cinema equivalent to the first class cabin. The seats are large and fully-reclinable, sporting tons of legroom and even end-tables instead of the usual cupholders. Also, in addition to admission to the film, the tickets also afforded us one drink apiece in the Premier Lounge with its nice view of Tokyo. It was a pleasant experience, but a tad pricey at ¥3000 (about $25) a ticket. Probably a decent way to impress a first date, but not something you’d want to do every time you felt like catching a flick. (For the sake of comparison, the standard movie admission price in Tokyo is about ¥1800 per ticket.)

As for the film itself, overall, I’d say I liked it. Some of the dialogue was a bit on-the-nose and at times the exposition was rather blatant, but the film was a solid effort and I was entertained throughout. Judy, of course, was downright enraptured. . .you know, ’cause she’s, like, the big fan and all.

By the way, if you’ve seen the film already, check out this site: Harry Potter and the Prisoner in Azkaban in Fifteen Minutes (contains spoilers). “I think I saw a porno like this once” — brilliant.

In April, one of the managers at my company, Soumi-san, invited the company intern, Zach, and I to join him for a day trip to Shizuoka prefecture in central Japan. Shizuoka is known for its excellent views of Mt. Fuji, pleasant weather, sakura ebi (”cherry” shrimp), green tea and strawberries — and we sampled all of it.

Well, actually, make that almost all of it — despite the fact that the weather was absolutely beautiful, some haze prevented us from actually being able to see Mt. Fuji (it was on holiday that day according to Mr. Soumi). However, we were assured that the view is normally quite breathtaking. Despite that itty bitty disappointment, the rest of the day was a lot of fun.

I’ve put some photos from the trip up in the gallery, so please feel free to take a look.

This post is basically just filler, so feel free to skip it.

When I set out to create this site, I researched a number of different publishing platforms before deciding to go with WordPress due to its supposed ease-of-use and its “great potential” that I kept reading about. Getting WP installed was pretty painless, thankfully, however designing the layout to my liking has actually turned out to be a lot of work. I’ve had to rely on vague recollections from the few programming classes I took in university to do just about everything. There’s probably a much easier way to go about doing things, but seeing as I have cognitive abilities equivalent to those of a rhesus monkey, I’m stuck doing each step one-by-one, which has been a very laborious process.

At any rate, I’m hoping to at least get the layout all set up by next Monday (6/7), and then I’ll see about posting photos and whatnot so this site will have something worth looking at on it. Free free to send me some feedback about the site to email (at) this domain.

Well, until I get everything set up, your patience is much appreciated!