Grrr
Dear people of Japan, please stop writing Japanese words (for which you actually have kanji) in Katakana and then being surprised that foreigners don’t understand them. Thanks.
Seriously, Japan, I mean seriously
The chair is an awesome damned invention. It’s not that hard, even. I’ll give you four legs and a plank, you figure out how they go together, throw
in some unnecessary but somehow cool technology, and stop with the sitting on the goddamned floor
already.
Glass houses
So I’m talking to a French guy in my Japanese class, and he’s complaining that his cell phone doesn’t work here.
I explain that Japan (and South Korea) use different cell tech than most of the rest of the world, so unless he has a phone specifically designed to work here it probably won’t.
He’s all “man, why is it that one country has to be stupid and use a standard that nobody else in the world uses?”
And I look at him for a minute, to make sure he’s being serious, and I say unto him:
“Dude… SECAM?”
And to his credit he looked sheepish and mumbled something apologetic.
And then we changed the topic.
Cheap shots at Japanese use of English
OK, everyone loves to make fun of the generally use of random English on stuff in Japan. I’m going to hold myself above that – mostly – and restrict myself to making fun of situations where they really really tried, but got it wrong by just a tiny bit.
Like, say, this display of small decorative accessories for girls:
Thank you, Yodobashi Camera, for having this display on your Toys & Games floor and making today’s update among the easiest I’ve ever written.
Font choices, poor:
Seriously, Japan, you don’t need to make things this easy for me.
Oh, god, not Tokyo Tower again
So this is my fifth trip to Japan.
The first time, I went to Tokyo Tower as a tourist.
And the second time I went there because I’d broken something my wife had bought there on our first trip and I needed to replace it.
And the third time, I went up there because I’d never been up at night and I’d heard that the view was really good at night.
For the record, yes, it is.
But I was seriously done with Tokyo Tower at that point.
And then my father came to Japan at the same time as me on my fourth trip, and I had to show it to him
But this trip I wasn’t going to go.
And then I kinda got roped into it anyway.
Like, grrr.
But it managed to be fun anyway, mostly because of a massive Michael Jackson tribute that was going on outside the tower. There was a stage, and a DJ playing Michael Jackson songs, and a whole bunch of Japanese people trying to dance on it.
There was also this big damn Shrine To The Gloved One:
You see all the white roses, right? There was a little table about 20 feet away selling white roses for Y500.
Now, I’m not a cynical man.
OK, I am a cynical man.
And as a cynical man, I’m going to bet that a good number of those roses were on their third or fourth trip from the table to the little shrine and then back to the table. 
Anyway, the tower itself was, uh, you go up and look down on stuff. I’m a big fan of going up and looking down on stuff, but it was a pretty overcast day so the view wasn’t much.
I did see this sign. It’s in braille. There’s something weird about a braille sign in front of massive windows that are 150m off the ground that you have to pay Y820 to go up and look out of.
I kinda want to know what it says. I have my own theories but none of them are very nice.
I did take one nice photo of the tower on the way out though. I’m going to call this my “Tokyo Tower Upskirt Shot” and I am going to enjoy the extra hits that throwing that into a blog update will bring.
What was inside the tower, however, was more fun.
This thing:
It’s a “4D theater” attraction based on Fatal Frame II.
And man I love me some Fatal Frame II.
4D theater, in this case, means that you watch a six minute 3D movie while the chairs you’re sitting on tilt back and forth and puffs of air blow at you.
All the footage seemed to be newly done for the ride, too, it was pretty cool and the 3D effect really worked.
There was another 4D theater ride that I didn’t really want to go on, but that I kinda wanted to go on for the bit AFTER the attraction was over. Sadly, there wasn’t an option to see the Sega History part of it without sitting through the Sonic thing, so I opted to save Y500.
Odd that there’s not a Dreamcast in that mix of hardware.
Last but not necessarily least, it’s good to know that security, if not necessarily English, is being taken seriously at the tower:
…aaaaand I’m out for now. More as it comes to me.
Definition Time!
Satisfaction, n:
The feeling you get when a high school girlfriend looks you up on Facebook after 20 years and you’re able to report that you’ve been happily married for 15 years, working on a degree, and are currently enjoying an expenses-paid seven-week trip to Japan.
OK, that might be a little petty. But it WAS deeply satisfying.
Calligraphy Lesson
It may or may not be obvious, but I’m a bit of an attention whore.
I loves me an audience.
This will become apparent.
We had calligraphy class after our normal lessons today. Obviously, with only an hour to do it, it was less of a class and more of a “let’s have the foreigners mess around with paint.”
I wasn’t very good at it.
The guy I was sitting next to was AMAZING, he’s Korean and apparently he’s been doing calligraphy since he was a very small child.
Obviously, sitting next to him, my first-timer chicken scratches weren’t going to measure up.
Worse yet, since he was so good, he had a constant stream of people coming by to look at his calligraphy. Since they were coming to our table, and didn’t want to seem rude, they of course would look at whatever I was writing and say “jouzu desu ne” before they got on to the real reason they’d come over.
“Jouzu desu ne” is Japanese for “wow, you can tie your shoelaces all by yourself?”
Well, basically.
So I was feeling kinda dumb.
On the other hand, I had the advantage in one critical area: He, and most of my other classmates, were busting out the “love” and “dreams” and “spirit” and “dragon” kanji, and I took a bit of a different approach.
Below: 老人 (“geezer”) and 禿 (bald). While I’m certainly not winning any contests of skill, I did get a lot of Serious Japanese People to bust out laughing.
And that’s what it’s all about.
This Egg Sandwich is Yummy.
Let’s bite and taste it!
Tamago dog! Basically egg salad in a hot dog bun, yours for a reasonable Y100 at your nearest Family Mart.
Out of the package:
And actually it was pretty yummy.
I’ve noticed that expiration dates on food here are super short; I’m used to buying yogurt in the US and having a month or more to eat it, whereas here food has expiration dates of, at best, a week and a half past the day you’re buying it. I’m going to chalk that up to Japan being a much smaller place, making food shipping from place to place quicker, so they’ve never needed to get into the hard core preservatives like in the US.
It is a different mindset, though, and I’ve had to get past my initial reactions of “this food is too close to its expiration date! I can’t buy it now!”
Japan-size me
While I’m over in Japan taking language courses, I’ve been doing some side research on a project of my own – that is, I’m trying to find out if it’s really as hard as everyone says to find clothes that fit.
For reference, I’m not a small guy. I’m 183cm and pushing 100kg, and I wear an american size 12 shoe that equates to a Japanese 29 or 30. I’m a little above average size in the US and I’m a freaking giant in Japan.
I used to be a much larger guy, at 135kg, and if I was still that guy I wouldn’t want to come to Japan. I got down to 85kg at one point, and that would be an even better weight to be here, but 100kg it is for now.
Anyway, from a not terribly scientific sample, I’m not really able to buy shirts off the rack here. Japanese “LL” shirts will fit, but they’re not the kind of fit that’s particularly comfortable, and they’re not even that common. Most places stop at “L” for shirts. I also have a bit of a problem with jeans – I have a 90cm waist and most of the ones in the shops stop around 85cm. Slacks are easier, they go all the way up to 90.
That being said, I picked up a men’s mail order catalogue and it has shirt sizes all the way up to 5L and waistlines up into the bigger numbers, so if I actually NEEDED to buy clothes here I could. I’ve also heard that there are a few “big & tall” chains around; it’s possible that even my much bigger self could have gotten dressed here. I’m going to check one of those out at some point, just to see how “big and tall” they really mean. I expect some amusement.
What I was more worried about was shoes. I’d heard that Japanese shoes were readily available up into the 26 size, with 27 not being too hard to find, but that beyond that was madness.
Either things have changed or I’m in a part of Tokyo where they have particularly monstrous inhabitants, because I walked into both of the shoe stores near the station and found size 29 and 30 shoes in both. One of them actually had the bigger sizes set off to one size, presumably so customers needing that size of shoe wouldn’t accidentally step on, sit on, or eat the smaller shoppers, but the other store had them mixed neatly in with the more common 22 and 23 sizes.
For reference, that’s american men’s sizes 4 and 5.
I bought a pair of sneakers that were size 30 and EEE width and they’re actually roomier and more comfortable than the shoes I wore over here. They were also only Y2900, which I thought was pretty damn reasonable for athletic shoes.
Granted, if you’re over an american size 12 shoe, I wouldn’t try buying shoes here, but then you might have a difficult time even in the states.
