shutitdown: taking one for the anecdote

Results tagged “Japan”

What people love and hate in Japan

In Japan, people love:
Throwing peace signs (mainly when there's a camera aimed at them)
Photobooth pictures
Shaving their arms (the girls)
Getting drunk and talking in English
Sleeping anywhere they can, mainly on public transportation
Wearing germ masks
House music
Taking their shoes off and on. At a lot of restaurants part of the place has no shoes allowed and part of it doesn't, so the waitresses take
Cantaloupes that cost $150

In Japan, people hate:
Stealing. You can leave you purse on a table in a nightclub and wander away for 45 minutes and it will still be there when you get back.
Wearing short sleeves
Their teeth, they always cover them when they laugh. People say this is because of some ancient tradition but really it's because it's snaggletooth city.
Eating in public
Talking on cell phones in the subway

By Lina on December 3, 2009 12:25 PM

Japan

Call me a weeaboo, call me Rina, I don't care. I love Japan.

Tokyo is like being in a roomful of people whose cellphones are all going off at once.
Tokyo is like a stuffed animal is humping your skull.
Tokyo is like being in a pinball machine waiting to be flippered.
Tokyo is like every car on your block being an ice cream truck all playing different songs.

So as you can probably infer, Tokyo is complete sensory overload. The vending machines have TV screens and shout at you. The giant screens on the buildings that are just a few feet apart are playing different advertisements, loudly. Arcade games beckon you from six-story game parlours in high-pitched, improbable voices. Women stand outside stores with loudspeakers, trying to cajole passerbys inside. The street cleaners play "itsy bitsy spider" to warn you of their presence.

Tokyo is the most amazing city I've ever been to, it's a complete mind-fuck. I spent my first two weeks in Japan there and had to pry myself away to try and see some more of Japan. I've been hiking, I've seen temples, I've seen shrines, I've eaten ramen. And then, I rested.

Now I'm in Yufuin, in the middle of nowhere. During my explorations today I did not find anyone that would cop to knowing English, including any of the guests at my hostel. I spent the day watching the leaves change color, which is a major draw around these parts. Oh, Japan.

By Lina on November 9, 2009 1:50 PM

Getting by in Japanese

Things I have learned to say in Japanese so far:
  • Excuse me
  • Thank you
  • I like tripe
  • "All you can eat"
  • "All you can drink"
  • Can I have some water, please?
By Lina on October 18, 2009 10:03 AM

Chugga chugga choo choo

Right now I am sitting on the train next to a young man in an adorable school uniform who is picking his nose and studiously examining the results. He's been rolling his boogers between his fingers for a few minutes, looking at it as if it might possibly unlock the secrets behind the human genome and possibly bring about world peace. For a country that is so civilized, this kid sure likes to to pick his nose.

I love trains. Trains in Tokyo are particularly exciting. First of all, I will spend the majority of my time on them completely lost. Also, there's a 99% chance that I will be the only Westerner (read: round eye) on any given train. The majority of my fellow passengers are wearing suits or uniforms of some kind all seem to be very busy, despite it being 11am. People here love wearing suits. When I was here last summer they were having a campaign to try and get men to stop wearing ties or at the least, loosen them. Apparently it had something to do with a heat wave and trying to cut down on excessive air conditioning. I don't think it worked though, because they sure love their ties.

Last summer Bla and I wanted to go to the Tsukiji fish market. The deal is you have to go at five in the morning if you want to see men shrieking at each other over tuna the size of 5th graders. The night before our planned visit we were perched in a bar called 'Ghetto' in the Golden Gai--a bar that could seat only four people and that was owned by the star of a Japanese action film who also owned a restaurant called 'Horse' that only served the flesh of that mighty beast--we realized that we'd be fools to leave and try to wake up so early. We'd have a much better chance of staying awake with our new friends at Ghetto and going straight to the fish market from there.

Of course we hadn't considered the effect of the fish market on our compromised systems--compromised by Japanese action film stars teaching us exclamations in Japanese accompanied by shots of soju. Needless to say, the visit was terrifying and exhausting, and we hopped back on the train around 7 or 8 to finally get back to our hostel and go to sleep. Of course we hadn't realized that this was rush hour and the train would be absolutely, horribly jammers. Despite the stories of women getting groped on such trains, the other passengers gave me and Bla a wide birth. Reeking of ghetto, soju and salmon, I can't say that I blame them.

By Lina on October 16, 2009 1:13 PM

¥20,000 ramen

My plans for this bank holiday weekend revolve entirely around ramen, although I may take a short break for udon. I've gotten three movies, Tampopo, The Ramen Girl, and Udon and bought a grip of pork ribs. I can't pretend that I don't hate white people that are obsessed with Japanese culture--everyone does, right? But I think being obsessed with Japanese food is acceptable. At least, I'm telling myself to get through the day.

Sushi was my favorite food as a kid, but apart from sushi, I never had any interest in Japanese food until I went to Tokyo last summer. I'm not going to bore you with the details, but I spent 10 days gorging myself. Then I missed my flight home--cried, stomped around the airport, ate a bowl of unagi and then went back to Tokyo and spent another day gorging myself. Heaven.

On my way out of town, before going back to Narita to wait stand-by for the next flight I stopped at a ramen shack. It was 5am and I couldn't resist one final bowl. Of course said bowl of ramen meant that I ended up missing the train and had to take a $200 cab ride to make it to the airport on time. Sort of puts that $20 ramen I posted about a few weeks ago to shame.

By Lina on May 24, 2009 1:44 AM

nippon

Tokyo was awesome:

plastic food everywhere
hordes of people sleeping in nightclubs so they could wake up and rave more
sushi in 7-11
insane photoboothes everywhere
ramen
the ramen museum
green tea flavored everything
drunken men screaming in the subway "speak english with me!"
6am trips to the fish market
holding a note and remembering that astounded feeling when I was a kid and heard that something was worth 10,000 yen
girls in nightclubs asking, while discofingering, "this is how you dance in Ireland?"
getting lost in a since metro station for over an hour
plastic food

By Lina on July 2, 2008 6:34 PM
1

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