It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Natural Girl's Christ!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat- please put a yen in the old man's hat. Here are a few quick images of things that Christmas-time in Tokyo brings:

I thought the spacing of the words above was quirky fluke but then I noticed more examples of the 

"Christ
mas" 

holiday on signs around Tokyo. Leave it to one of the least religious nations to put the Christ back into a winter holiday that was around long before the man or the religion was! (But this year, the holiday is not for you, all the Fake Girls out there!)

Christmas trees are not so easy to find here. At least, not real ones. When you do find a decent one, they are just a tad more than you might pay in America, like the one I found outside a flower shop at the train station:

At today's exchange rates, that's a $381.91 price tag! There was slightly smaller and more funky-shaped one stashed in a cardboard box- a much more "affordable" dead plant:

Towering over any Hobbit at $127.30- not bad! (Rolls over and dies...penniless.)

Now I lurve me my Christmas, but it's enough to make one consider converting to Judaism. But not to worry- IKEA TO THE RESCUE!!!! Ikea sells REAL Christmas trees for about $20 and the quality is nothing short of spectacular... if you're Charlie Brown.

Supposedly the deal is, if you buy one before Christmas, you can return it after Christmas for store credit! What I wonder is, do they then sell products made from the old twiggy Christmas trees? (Mmmm! These chopsticks taste like pine sap!)

Well, I'll never know because the trees sold out long before I was able to make it to the local (1-hour drive) Ikea. Sighhhh. I may actually break down and get a fakey Christmas tree and spray it with Pine-sol for realism. But if you see me walking down the street with an axe and a large bag and some twine, just turn and look the other direction. I take my 

Natural Girl's 
Christ
mas 

trees seriously.

Randomness Update

Some randomness from a random sort of guy in a random sort of place.

I haven’t updated the goings-on here in a while because I got a job, an actual real job, much sooner than anticipated, and it has kept me BIZZ-E!

Folks in the US (both Japanese and American) said I should have no problem finding employment as an English teacher once I’m in Japan. Even so, with my rusty understanding of grammar and lack of English teaching experience, I assumed it might take me anywhere from three to six months to land a position at one of the many English schools in Tokyo. By the end of my first month, I had turned down two offers and accepted a third. I’m now a very busy full-time teacher at a school chain that caters to mostly children and am zipping back and forth every day from Tokyo to Chiba to Yokohama.

With studio (a word the Japanese pronounce Su-Ta-Jio) locations all over the map, I put a lot of hours in on the trains here and I'm quickly learning how to do things like use the Hyperdia transit planner on my iPhone and ask non-English-speaking transit workers directions to the correct platform. This involves a lot of pointing to my cell-phone train schedule shrugging and pointing and bowing and pointing and bowing. I’m fairly certain it also involves (once I’m out of sight) a lot of laughing and head-shaking.

ANYWAY. I’ve been one busy guy. But since I wasn’t expecting to get a stable full-time job as soon as people said I would, I had gone around to a few acting/yodeling agencies. Yodeling? No, that’s a typo. I meant modeling.

Acting. In the US, it’s extremely difficult to get an agent in the entertainment industry. Agencies only want experienced actors and models. You can’t get experience without an agent. No one wants to hire you unless you’re represented by a legit agency. A vicious cycle. It can take several years to convince any agent to represent you. Once you do manage to somehow sign with an agency in America, you’re pretty much only with that one agency, and they are very picky about what professional headshots you have. You generally sign an exclusivity contract, which says that you won’t go with any other agency of that type (ie, commercial/print, theatre, or tv/film). This contract will also say that your agent gets 10% or 15% of your paycheck for jobs booked, depending on the type of job and your union status. This is standard and strictly regulated by the unions and laws in America.

In Japan, PSSSSHHH! Shyeah, right. No unions, very little, if any, regulations, and no exclusivity among agencies. There are several agencies here in Tokyo that service only foreigners. You can sign on with as many of them as you want: just go in during business hours and fill out the registration form, they’ll snap a couple quick pictures(for free! No $800 headshot package!), explain how they work, thank you for coming, and push you out the door so they can get back to work. Off you go down the street to the next agency. Repeat the process. Diversify and multiply.

The ups: They’ll take pretty much anyone, no experience necessary (and I was banking on the hope that my (cough!) experience as a hoity-toity Hollywood actor would put me in the forefront of their minds). And multiple Japanese agencies will be submitting you to all kinds of projects, instead of one American guy maybe choosing one of his other clients over you. When multiple Japanese agencies submit you for the same project, you get to pick which one will represent you at the audition (if you’re wise, you’ll choose the one that takes the smaller percentage out of your paycheck.)

The downs: No actors unions and a lack of industry ethics and regulations means that the agencies can take whatever percentage they want, and many take around 60% of your paycheck (some more, some less). MWAHAHAHAAA! (Rubbing hands together and twirling long black mustache).

Generally they’ll tell you what percentage they take when you sign on (if you remember to ask) and when they call with a potential audition, they tell you what you’ll take home if you book that job. I think you can generally trust that you're getting the agreed percentage (although it can take months to receive your check!). Their way of thinking is that without them, you wouldn’t get the job in the first place, so it’s like a partnership where 50% or more would make sense. As an actor, this seems wrong when I point out that the agency has scores of clients constantly earning them money, whereas, as an individual actor, I’m the only one earning money for myself. Therefore, no need to be greedy, let's go with the American standard of 10% to The Man.

However, rumor has it that a foreigner can still make a comfortable living as an actor in Japan more easily than in America, where less than 10% of actors work enough to support themselves on acting alone. Anywhere you go, though, an actor’s life is unstable, never knowing when and how much the next paycheck will be. As a family man, this gives me pause. Hence, my full-time job.

I only got to go to one audition before I got my “real job.” By the way, anyone who ever thinks that professional actors don’t have a “real job” never looked at the crazy hours of continuous training and freebie plays and film projects, auditioning, headshot renewing, resume writing/mailing/submitting we do, not to mention the amount of money personally invested in the above exploits, and all for the hope of booking one single job. It really adds up (especially considering that the average day on set is 12 hours). Serious actors are hard workers; it’s a little-known fact. I was on the way to my first and only audition in Japan when I ran across this little pet shop in Roppongi. Check out what they’re selling:

I kind of feel bad because Meerkats are social creatures. I hope whoever buys this one gets two.

The audition, btw, was for a series of videos for an English school teaching little kids English, a direct competitor of the place I now work for. One of my agents met me outside of the station to walk me through the audition process and act as translator as I was told by the director to make the form of “W” with my body, and to be VERY excited about it. I didn’t book that job.

This was back around Halloween. Also about that time, I got a package in the mail one day, a mysterious box courtesy of Mom:

Price: roughly $40. It was SO worth it. I love me my Halloween.

The things that come in boxes over here and the prices attached always surprise me. A couple of melons are no big deal in the US. In Tokyo, $50 will get you this:

I've learned that a really-really nice gift to someone in Japan, especially if they aren't feeling well, is a cantalope or honeydew. Very expensive!

And now for our trip to Costco! The idea that Costco is now in Japan baffles me. Japan is notorious for having no extra room for storage, and therefore, things come in smaller sizes, food is bought fresh and eaten immediately, and the idea of bulk is often for the rich and excessive. So Costco, who deals almost completely in large bulk packages, shouldn’t logically work out here, right?

Well, pinch my toes and call me a jelly donut, the place is very popular. Although, the crowd in Costco (a very long drive from where we live) is a little weird. Turns out it’s a popular hang-out for the local housewives and their babies. Maybe it’s the novelty factor, I don’t know. But there are so many women just standing around there with their strollers and Ergos with sleeping babies, heads all-a-flopping, grabbing the famed Costco samples by the armload. Japanese people LOVE samples. They’re ALLABOUT samples. If a bakery announces fresh samples at a shopping center, the mobs that show up rival the zombie hoards of “World War Z”.

Maybe this is why Costco works here, because of the samples. I’m just spit-balling. What do I know. They have peanut butter and oatmeal. That's all I care about.

Some of the things they offer here that I haven’t seen in the ones in California:

"Git yer fresh Octopi, git’um while they last!" And those are fish eggs, to the right. I use them for bait. Japanese consumers use them for entrees.

Pancakes. Individually sorted and divided in a protective plastic case. To be eaten without toppings of any kind. "Blasphemy!" says I. "Just punch a hole in that plastic case and pump in maple syrup until its full to bursting, then give me a straw", says I.

The drive home was interesting. Many Costco virgins buy more in the heat of the moment than their cars can hold. Japan is not a place of American-style, unneccesarily over-sized decadence. Their cars fit their roads. But not so much their Costco loads ;)

In other news, I just signed the papers for our very own apartment! And when I say “I just signed,” I mean that I sat between my wife and Dad for three hours while they did all the talking and signing. At the time, I was suffering from both a bad cough and Japan’s lack of NyQuil, and was trying not to cough so hard that I was shaking in spasms. I didn’t have a mask on, so coughing would be considered rude and irresponsible. Over here, if there is a bug going around, people will wear facemasks out in public, on the train, at work, everywhere.

They either don’t want to spread what they have when they cough or sneeze, or they are healthy and want to stay that way. So white surgeon masks are a normal sight. Is this the basis for Americans’ belief in the mysterious Japanese Ninja?

Food for thought…

100 Yen Sushi (Ma Fellow 'Muricans)

I recently went to a local 100 yen sushi place with my family. What is 100 yen sushi, you might ask? And how does it work, you may inquire? Well, watch and learn, ma fellow 'Muricans, for I have made you a video of wonders. 

Babes and Tommy Lee Jones

So Yumi and I went to Tokyo Gameshow 2012. It’s like E3. E3 is a GIANT video game technology exposition held every year in LA, and all the big-name video game companies show up tooting their digital horns and showing off and comparing their new soon-to-be-released electronic wizardry. Like a few years back, when Nintendo showed up with a slightly better version of the Wii with an updated controller, Sony brought their new Wii rip-off controller called Move, and X-Box showed up with the Kinect, which uses NO CONTROLLERS. Awwww, sorry Nintendo and Sony. You better go fill out a police report, because X-Box just stole your thunder! 

E3 is primarily industry-only, press included, of course. Many gamer nerds drool buckets just thinking about scoring a pass to get an early peek at what’ll be on everyone’s Christmas list this year, and also to get a peek or three at the “booth babes”. Booth babes are used to add a hint of class and elegance (snicker-snicker) to the whole affair and added a balance of estrogen to the testosterone-laden atmosphere. 

Someone's Booth Babe from E3 2009

Recently, there's been talk that E3 will go in a less exploitive direction and will phase some of the babe out of booth babe. Fans fear there will only be Booth People of the Female Persuasion, sporting the pant-suit/ponytail/pumps triple-combo-of-death. Fact is, women are fast catching up to the predominantly male demographic in the video game industry, and companies at trade shows like E3 need to adapt their marketing strategy to match their changing buyers. And they need to just plain not make women feel like a leg of lamb. Whatever happens, there will always be plenty of Freudian huzzah to be had, even if it will be constrained to the virtual experience.

ANYWAY. Tokyo Gameshow. Twenty twelve. Like E3 but in Tokyo and Open-To-The-Public. MASSES of otaku (Japanese fan-nerds) sweating like pigs- myself included- in grids of very well-established ticket lines for hours before the doors open, some of them with mysterious little luggage cases. And not just Japanese nerds, oh no. Tokyo Game Show is the single most likely place in Japan to see a white guy outside of a Harajuku eikaiwa. And we snarrrrrl at each other. We didn’t come to Japan to see other Caucasians! Go home, white devils, and leave me and my cell-phone camera to my Japanese Booth Babes and Cosplay Addicts! 

That’s right, Japan is still going strong in the Booth Babe tradition. Less top-obsessed than America, Japan is a leg-culture. Usually, you’d be hard-pressed to find a neckline cut lower than clavicle-level. Hemlines of skirts, coincidentally, are just about that high. A little cleavage is going the extra mile at this particular event. I’m not ashamed and I’m not gonna lie. You can’t help but notice these things when you’re unabashedly pelted by it in an ultimately corporate event. But sex sells. This is how money is made. Like this guy, for instance. He gets paid to stand there and keep his bright little light on the pretty lady, wherever she may shift her negligible weight. At least, I think he gets paid for that….?

Not only are there still booth babes everywhere you turn at Tokyo Game Show, but there is also the formidable Cosplay presence. Cosplay is short for Costume Play. Fans of anime, video games, card games, etc, dress up in extremely well-executed costumes of their favorite characters. This is where the aforementioned “mysterious luggage cases” come in. There is an entire section of the sprawling facility devoted to Alter Ego Check-In. Many otaku, who already paid good money for their tickets, head immediately to this section and spend an impressive chunk of time donning their hand-crafted, labor-intensive costumes and getting their hair and make-up just right. The slouchy, shy little guy who wouldn’t look his own shoes in the eye suddenly reappears 129 minutes later- A LEADER OF MEN AND GODS!!! Confidently, Otaku-Man strides forth and heartily embraces his Cosplay Brothers and Sisters-in-Arms. I really have to hand it to a lot of these young men and women- their creativity, attention to detail, and talent are actually pretty astounding. Many of them do film-quality stuff and should be employed as such. Aaaaaaand then there’s This Guy:

Pikachu FAIL!!!

Between buildings is a general-use area that has been organized by the masses as a combination lunch-room, nappy-time sleepy-sleepy spot, 

and impromptu Cosplay runway. 

Amateur and professional photographers alike line up to get their non-photo-bombed shots of the best of the best. It’s all very civilized and respectful. 

I’m continuously impressed with how well-developed Japan is as a social whole, especially at an event devoted to celebrating anti-social hobbies, such are video games.

Videogames? Were there those at Tokyo Game Show, 2012, too? Oh yeah, I guess there was that element. I must have gotten distracted, somehow. Some interesting differences between American and Japanese video game trends: In America, we like to blow sh*t up. It’s all about the first-person shooters. In Japan, there are endless social games- primarily, dating simulation games. In them, you have to say the right thing at the right time to try to get the girl or guy of your dreams to, well- you get the gist. These games are for guys and girls, they’re available on consoles, computers, and cell-phones, and many people will spend more time choosing and chasing their digital mates than they will anyone in the realm of the flesh. Also, sports games are huge- soccer and baseball games are pumped out faster than Fast and the Furious sequels. That’s not to say that Japan doesn’t love a good first-person shooter… actually, I’m not sure. Japan might not love a good first-person shooter. Anyone? Also, the Resident Evil series in Japan is called Biohazard, which I think is neat. 

Unfortunately, there were no big crazy techno-revelations while Yumi and I were there. The weekend before was an industry-only exclusive event and I think all the interesting stuff was shown at that.

One strange thing that interested me more than that whole crazy event is a corporate crossover campaign that’s everywhere at the moment. Japanese coffee staple Boss Coffee has teamed up with Softbank (a cell-phone service giant). What the? Japan is crazy about big-business crossovers and this one is just plain weird. Imagine Starbucks teaming up with T-Mobile. And to top it all off, it features the face of Boss Coffee, none other than Tommy Lee Jones, playing opposite the face of Softbank- a little white dog. 

That’s right folks. For years, squidgey-eyed star of MIB fame has been the spokesman for a Japanese coffee company, and has a slew of mind-blowing commercials to show for it. Check these out!

 

Yumi and I recently got set up with our cell phones (a process more complicated than buying a car, I kid you not) and we went with Softbank. Check out the little gift that came in the bag with our iPhones. That’s a can of coffee with reception bars on the bottom, for those of you who don’t read Dog with a Japanese Accent.

And just because this made me happy:

Green o'Lantern, Protector of the Universe, meets his nemesis, Ninja Chef!

 

All this technology-babble makes me just want a breath of fresh air, so here’s a little video I made of a walk from a little nearby grocery store to my apartment building. There are several buildings in our complex, all laid out in a sort of horseshoe around a wooded park maintained by the complex. There's an old-school playset (of the totally unsafe and therefore awesome breed) that I would have loved as a kid, including a zip-line and a very unique Boulder Slide. So this is my front yard. Hope you enjoy:

1st-Timer Shinkansen and Onsen!

That’s Bullet Train and Hot Springs to you and me, bub. They’re both very famous here.  But I’ll get to that. We’ve been busy-busy-busy and I’ve got a lot of nifty updating to do. 

Outside of looking for my job teaching English at an eikaiwa (Conversational English School) and preparing for a couple of upcoming interviews, I’ve been shopping for some of the things that a baby needs- things we had in America but couldn’t take with us. Like a quick-folding stroller. They’re big news in Japan right now because strollers take up a lot of space on the trains, and trains are the life-blood of the metropolis. 

Plenty of room now, but wait for RUSH HOUR!!!

A lot of Japanese riders (younger ones, especially) are annoyed at mothers with strollers because technically, six people can stand in the same amount of space. AS IF WE WEREN’T ALL BABIES WITH MOTHERS ONCE! I say, let’s not make it harder on mothers than they already have it! Either let them in and SHADDUP or provide them space, like an extra car for those with strollers, wheelchairs and walkers, etc. Don’t take it out on the future generation, folks. That’s the end of that soapbox. Phew! 

So anyway, while shopping for strollers, here’s yet another example I found of why Japan should hire me to check their English:

Colorplus = Success!!----------------------------------------------------------- FAIL!!!!

I guess you need to pay the extra 2,000 yen if you want spellcheck.

After being chastised by a sweaty baby-store employee for taking pictures in his store, I stopped at the local Daibutsu with Mom and Dad and looked around, snapped a few shots and picked up a traditional charm for a friend who can use it. 

Daibutsu basically mean HUGE-UNGEOUS Buddha and is one of those amazing ancient-looking I-drove-a-DeLorean-at-88mph places you’ll find in the middle of a suburb. They look like places that don't belong in the 21st century, is what I'm trying to say. But I'm glad they are here. I honestly don’t know how old or new this one is and I’m not even sure if it’s a temple or a shrine. Even some Japanese people get them mixed up! But it doesn’t matter in the end because people just come here from time to time for a bit of positivity in their lives. 

Among some of the great traditional architecture and gardens are these little statues of the seven gods. 

Only one of them, third from the left, is female- and she’s the goddess of  DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN… beauty. No points for originality there! This photo is not her:

You can buy little tokens and place them in front of the god in charge of whatever you need help with. This guy is in charge of money. Very popular. 

We finally got to go up to Hanamaki and introduce Kyte to his great-grandpa. Hanamaki is in Iwate prefecture (like city and state, respectively) and that’s the prefecture that was hit hard by the tsunami. Fortunately, Hanamaki is far enough inland that it wasn’t affected that much. The place is GORGEOUS. If you’ve ever seen My Neighbor Totoro, that’s what the landscape is like (if you haven’t seen it, DO). 

It’s way north of Tokyo, a couple hours via shinkansen (bullet train). And that’s saying something cause the land-speed of those things is about 300km/h (186mph). Kyte had never been on a train before and we were wondering how he would fair. Just another playroom for him! When an express BLASTS through a station at full-speed, it’ll stop your heart and such the air out of your lungs. But when you’re in them, they’re quiet, smooth, spacious and comfortable. You can even swivel your row of seats around to face the people behind you, as you can see from the video, across the aisle. 

And the seats both recline and slide forward more than they do on airplanes, so napping is easy. And the trains are so frequent that they're rarely crowded, and there are no security hassles to get on one... yet. Why take a plane? We need to lay more track!

Hanamaki is country-side, very agricultural. If you’ve ever thought that its stereotyping Japanese country-side to think of wrinkled old men wearing big hats hunched over bright green rice paddies interrupted by small groves of lush trees with forested hills rising steeply under the rolling white clouds- it’s not. That’s what it’s like. Cosmos growing six feet tall along the roadside and a mile between people. The shinkansen gets you from Tokyo to That in about 5 minutes. So we visited Grandpa and introduced him to his first great-grandchild and took 1.27 million photos and eventually were off to lunch (for dessert: ice-cream cones so tall you have to eat them with chopsticks) 

...and then to our hotel at some of the famous Hanamaki Onsen!

Onsen are natural hot springs, fresh pure hot mineral water bubbling up from the ground, and Hanamaki has several and they often have nice hotels built over them. From what I’d always heard, they were more than just a nice hot bath in the wilds of Japan. They been long thought to have medical use, so people come from all over the world to soak in them. Don’t worry, though- I’m not saying that you’re gonna be climbing into some disease-ridden bog of nasty human waste-water. These things are clean, and our hotel offered both private and non-private, indoor and outdoor options. 

Some other guy's photo of our non-private men's bath.

The non-private ones are separated male and female. So we got checked in, a process that comes with a traditional bowl of maccha (Green Tea) and azuki (sweet red bean paste). Yum!

Yumi and I started by reserving a private indoor spring, and after the initial shower to rinse out my deodorant and buckets of hair gel we...(BIG BLACK CENSOR BAR). That's just a little fiction for the ladies. 

The hotel provides everyone with yukata (like bathrobes but you can wear them in public).

 So we all went to dinner in ours.

They don’t withhold anything for the dinners in these joints. All kinds of things appear on the table. I took pictures of the initial spread but they kept bringing more and more and I just had to stop. I’ve never tasted half of what I ate that night, nor can I name it. Some of the things I couldn’t tell if they used to swim around or if they were pulled out of the ground, but it was all quality stuff. As you can see from some of the photos and video, they light little fires under some of the food and it cooks there right in front of you.

That all conked me out pretty hard so I woke up after a good night’s sleep to find out that Mom and Yumi had somehow woken up at 3:30am and decided to take another dip in the hot springs! The non-private ones are open 24-7. Also, Dad woke up at 4am and went as well! What’s with these guys?! I know a hot soak feels great and all, but so does SLEEP! And plus, there are bears out there, man! No kidding, they post signs. 

Well, the next morning, after Kyte and I woke up (some of us have some sense) and ate at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (of more weird things you’d never think of as breakfast food in Iowa) Dad wanted to take one last dip before checking out. So I went along with him. I didn’t exactly relish the idea of bathing all nekkid with other men, curse my American prudishness! It’s just not something I’ve even gotten into the habit of. Plus, the guys here were Olde! The hotel was mostly populated by members of a high-school reunion that must have been from the world’s first high school. I was half-afraid I was going to have to make sure no-one went belly-up mid-bath or give mouth-to-mouth sans dentures. Seriously, though- onsen are great for the elderly.

I didn't take this photo but it is the one Dad and I soaked in.

Turns out it was actually pretty great- no one was at the bath outside, open to the sky and the crows above. So Dad and I had the pool to our "steam our vegetables" in all by ourselves. Or so we thought…

I looked up and Dad was standing, full monty, waving back at a couple of women on a balcony that could juuuust see down to us. Fortunately, it was my wife and Mom. Unfortunately, they had a camera.

FYI, Much Happiness is Choked Up

“Do you want go back to America?” she asked, barely stifling a laugh.

“I want to go to the graveyard,” I replied, wringing sweat from my aching hands.

 

        Yesterday I got my very own bank account! Now I feel like I really exist. Getting a bank account in Japan is a must if you want to get a job and GET PAID. There is no checking system here. Come payday, you don’t get a paycheck from your company. WHAAAAA???

How do you get paid?

How do you pay bills?

Wazzup, Nippon?

All that stuff here is electronic. Automatic deposit, money transfers, etc. It's like The Future here! People still carry little books around that shows their current balance based on deposit and withdrawals and transactions and stuff, but instead of hand-writing the numbers, there is a slot in the bank machines for your book. You put your book in, do your transaction, and take your book back. The machine prints everything on the page for you. Oh, people in Japan still use cash just as much as Americans, just no checks. And if you want to open an account, you might want to learn the language first.

Exhibit A:

I walked into the bank about ten minutes before closing time. The weathered security guard glared directly into my very soul. Yumi and Mom were there, which is good because Mom used to work for a bank. There was some initial trouble when she explained to the teller why we were there. Turns out if you want to get a decent account, you have to have lived in Japan for at least six months. I got here a week ago. So to make sure that I wasn’t going to be the next Drug-Dealing Kingpin Yakuza Boss, they gave me the form for The Most Restricted Bank Account Ever Conceived by Man or God. I can't even get a payday deposit for my future job without my future company paying a large future fee. But that's fine- I'll take what I can get :D

The paperwork was a multi-page form all in Japanese… and I had to be the one to fill it out!!! Gulp. Fortunately, Yumi was able to sit next to me and point and explain and translate. Unfortunately, when I finally filled out the entire form (after much sweating and gnashing of teeth) I was told that I’d filled it out WRONG! In the space that asks for first and last name, I hadn’t put my middle name, as was listed on my foreigner ID card.

(See, Japan doesn’t have middle names, so there are no spaces for them in the paperwork.)

So I tried again. I made another mistake and was told that I had to put my last name first. I got another form and made another mistake. Then another.

It was long after closing time now, and the I was in the process of adding my final stamp to the form. In Japan, there’s a lot of paperwork that you sign with your personal stamp, or inkan. When you go to the bank, for example, you need to carry it with you. If you accept a package delivery at your front door, you use your little inkan stamp. It's a small piece of wood, like a thick pencil a few inches long that comes with a little ink pad and carrying case. 

So with a very cramped hand, I put my final mark on the paperwork. The bank-teller’s head dropped with a grimace. The stamp was not complete- it was missing a little ink in the top corner. I had to start over again. Yumi had been shaking with silent laughter for the last half-hour and finally had to move away from me.

Eventually I drilled a hole in the ink-pad with my little stamp, got it right (after being told that my European 0’s, 1’s, and 7’s were unacceptable but they would let that slide this one time) and I was ready to leave, as was the entire staff. I staggered over to Mom.

“Do you want go back to America?” she asked, barely stifling a laugh.

“I want to go to the graveyard,” I replied, wringing sweat from my aching hands. She then told me that it happens that way at banks all the time...

...with the very elderly.

For all its value in precision, you would think that Japan would pay someone to double-check English spelling, grammar, idioms, etc, when selling products with English on them. We went to the baby store today and I saw this gem of a little girl's shirt:



Pardon me, little girl. Would you happen to be carrying a delicious...OH! Well, it says right there!



 There are some more great things I saw Japan pitching to babies, like this snack especially formulated for your toddler:

                                          Mmmmm...Crispy!!!

You’ve heard of Mickey Mouse? Well apparently he’s a knock-off of this guy:

Miki was there first- says so right there on the package. So it must be true. That Walt Disney, wadda thief!

                              No, It's completely different see cause like this one is made up of a big circle and a couple of small ones for the ears and then just a couple more for the- HEYWAITJUSTAGALLDURNMINUTE!

And in honor of the upcoming October festivities, Japan would like to wish everyone a:

I’ve been finding some of the adjustments here a tad difficult, as expected. So the family came through again and surprised me with this little piece of heaven:

It translates to Peanuts Cream! It’s a little carton of refrigeratable food of THE GODS!!!

(Peanut Butter is an American product for Americans in America, I’ve come to find out.)

 But they gave me a little peanuts cream sandwich- I wish I had a picture of the whole thing but I ate this rarity so fast I couldn’t see straight. Two pieces of white bread, crust removed, then sealed all around the edges to make like a Wonder Bread sort of pita pocket filled with Peanuts “OH-MA-FRICKIN-GOSHNESS” Cream.

I recommend it a little bit.

After much lightning and wind and rain, the storm of the past couple days has passed.

Dang. I liked the rain.

But I hear it’s supposed to rain again tomorrow...

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