DearScotty

It’s summer time! How do you cool down to beat the heat? Does a large class of refreshing Ice-T, or maybe a nice juicy red watermelon hit the spot? Well, if you’re like the Japanese and love to cool down with a long thick cucumber then Pepsi has the summer drink sensation for you! What better way to “chill out” then with an Ice Cucumber beverage!

Sadly, if you were hoping a fresh bucket of cucumber juice were to splash on your face as you gulped down your first chug of Ice Cucumber, then you’d be heartbroken. Pepsi’s Ice Cucumber is more like Crystal Pepsi with green food coloring. Although, I was able to detect something minty. The mint was probably intended to cool you down. So far, the best Pepsi I’ve had in Japan was Pepsi Gold. It came out around Christmas time and had a bit of a ginger bread flavor, kind of cinnamon like.

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I helped teach four classes in a row and hadn’t eaten anything all day. I was starving. You could imagine the joy I felt when it appeared we were having fried shrimp for lunch. They can’t mess that up? Could they? Not exactly, no. On closer inspection we were having battered fish. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I do like fish sticks back home. I took a bite and waited to taste something weird, but that didn’t quite happen. I assumed from the first bite it was safe to eat. As I brought the fish in for another bite I dropped the fishy on the plate. I was eating pregnant fish. I’ve heard about this before but never tried it. It was loaded with tiny white eggs. I manned up and finished the first one. It didn’t taste so bad, it was more of the idea that made it difficult to eat. I was about to try the second one when I noticed it’s eyeball. Apparently, the batter doesn’t stick well to the eye sockets. That was it; I couldn’t eat the rest of my meal. I normally eat the cigarette ash noodle things (cognac) but couldn’t stomach it today. Kyuushoku defeated me today. You bastards don’t know how lucky you are to have Taco Bell’s Crunch Wrap Supreme and Carl’s Jr’s Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.

Having used up the last of the Kleenex, I made a special trip to the grocery store for some good old TP. I guess this is my chance to tell you about Super Daiei! It must be one of the worst grocery stores in Japan. It’s a florescent oasis of bad deals and limited selection. While listening to a radio blast this week’s specials, you can buy a few chopped up pineapple hunks for three bucks, or a package of wilted strawberries for ten. If you’re also in the summer fruit mood you can buy cantaloupes for twenty dollars (have been around 40 dollars at other stores). We also have apples for nearly 2 bucks a pop and that, well, completes the fruit section at my store. Anyways, I needed toilet paper but the only option is a 24 pack tower of toilet paper. It’s very huge and isn’t something you want to be seen holding while trying to keep your balance on your bicycle. Also just purchasing it without other items makes you feel a bit strange and I didn’t want to have to pretend to anyone that I was merely purchasing this mass of tp so I could use the brown tubes for a science project.

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The office enkai is some sort of drinking and eating party designed to get everyone acquainted with each other. There are four new teachers in the first grade, and since I’ve, for some reason, been placed with the first grade teachers, they asked me to join them. I actually like the new teachers, maybe it’s because they actually try talking to me. It was also pleasant to hear the new English teacher explain to me that we had just three more days left till the weekend. I found her eagerness to finish the week to be quite warming to my soul.

There’s a new history teacher who really gets a kick out of talking to me. We chatted it up a bit about beers until it started to get strange. He asked me if Budweiser had a nickname… “Bud?” That wasn’t it. He backed his seat up and started pointing to his crotch and waving his hand over the region as if to say, “I’m this big and I come in three different colors and styles!” I was floored, he saw my confusion then explained it a little bit clearer. He was under the impression that in America we call our Johnson rods, ‘Budweisers’. Anyways, this just tipped me off that he must be gay.

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I was once again invited to a feast for the ages. Luckily, I knew in advance and brought some snacks to munch on before the clock struck death. I’ve become a regular at these “secret” lunches and so I’ve grown accustomed to the paralyzed boy coughing up all his food and the (few chromosomes short of a baseball team) retard girl eating directly from the main dish of food. I’ve learned to scoop the food up before retard touches it, and finish before wheelchair boy starts throwing up. Today my plan didn’t quite work. It appeared as though wheelchair boy acquired a Pavlovian response to the sound of the scissors mincing up his food. No, he doesn’t start drooling, rather, he starts coughing and gagging. Here I am, trying to get the cold stir fry (which was previously fried for about 4 seconds) into my mouth without barfing at the sounds around me. Retard girl begins eating the potato salad directly from the dish and is sure to lick her chopsticks clean after each bite. I managed to finish my plate by somehow zoning out. Sure, contestants on Fear Factor can drink pig anus shakes, but can they eat a piece of pie while retarded children throw up around them?

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It goes there on Friday accompanying by friend of girls. It must goes there by adventure path of trains to Hisao station. American styling paralleling sea diner experience in America! It is true! Appearance coming inside store out of a Hollywood movie! The ornaments of menu engender strange feeling and English letter of it. It has found English magazine placed in diner for fanciful reading a must!

As for menu options It ordered eggu bagaa at 1200 yen. Pricing of expensive amount but of decisions to pay for fun taste. Theresa placed order of cheezu bagaa. Of drinks it has ordered a Lolling Lock beeru as for Theresa order dieto docta peppa. Of wondering why she ordered docta peppa because serious dealings I have such drink in my cooler at the mansion.

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I’ve finally discovered the mysterious flavor of the cold wilted salad that’s served with the fish. For school lunch we get a bowl of rice which is usually safe to eat and a bowl of hot soup. The main dish is normally some cold piece of meat or cold undercooked omelet thing. Next to the main plop of cold meat is a mysterious wilting salad consisting of grass, spinach, carrots, bean sprouts, and other mysterious greens pulled from the ocean. I can never figure out what this taste is, but I eat it anyways so I don’t offend anyone.

Well today I discovered what it is that I’m actually tasting. After realizing that I’d been eating salad dressing that comes from squeezing out sweaty gym socks, I choked a bit, put down the sticks and quit. Somewhere in pre-modern Japan, a future chef was fighting with his older brother about green tea until it got violent. They fought and rolled into a western camp where the older brother grabbed some used underwear of one of the foreigners and stuffed it into the younger brother’s mouth. The fighting ceased and the soon to be nutritionist for the Japanese education system soon found himself sucking on the underpants trying to squeeze out all the sweaty goodness. A new trading system was developed for used underwear and socks that is until the Japanese finally started to wear underwear of their own. Remnants from this dark past are still visible in Tokyo where men can purchase used women’s underwear from vending machines.

While catching up on season 2 of Prison Break, I’m rudely interrupted by the large woman who I’ve yet to learn what her position is. I take my headphones off and give one of those infamous Japanese, “Ehhh??”s to her. She gives her best impression of a starving Ethiopian that you see on late night TV eating flour meal that costs 9 cents a day. I know what this means; I have to eat food prepared by the school’s “Underachiever.” I don’t know how I became the guinea pig but I find myself these days trying food that has been sneezed, coughed, and drooled on by the special student. Don’t get me wrong, the girl is a sweetheart, I just don’t want to be eating her home-eck homework. I’ve already had bizarre flavorless miso soup, some strange pickled potato thing that they kept calling cognac, and some tomatoes marinated in sugar water. I am told that I will get to try food later, that this was just the warning.

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On today’s menu was natto, fermented soy beans. I got a heads up on the menu so I requested just a small portion just so I could say I actually tried the dish. When I got to the desk with my lunch, I found a bowl of soup, bowl of rice, and a filled bowl of goupey yellow stuff with potatos, carrots, and peas… ah natto! Thanks for the extras! I also scored a dessert, couldn’t tell what it was, but it a had a cute cartoon baseball player on it so bound to be good.

With my strawberry milk ready to wash down the natto, I first attacked the potatoes. Wasn’t so bad, got a little shiver down my spine, but I was doing alright. I then tried the hunks of tofu looking things… well, kind of firm, not so bad… I tried not to smell it because of all the horror stories associated with it. It was a tough ordeal but I managed to eat the potatoes and peas and leave the tofu goop alone. Desert time!! I asked the secretary what the desert was and she replied, “Natto.” A cold wind blew through the room, “So this is tofu and potato?”, “No, that’s chicken.” I thought I could finally say I ate natto but I wasted my efforts on chicken. So I finished the chicken goop which turned out to actually taste a lot better when you stop thinking it’s natto. I put the desert (natto) into the fridge and defeatedly walked back to my desk.

Try to stop imagining tacos whirling around on ice skates dancing to the sounds of Disney’s Mexico on Ice. Although the show is still running in El Salvador and has been running for 72 weeks straight, I want to draw your attention away and onto the Japanese Buffet. Last weekend, Theresa and I went to Canal City in Fukuoka so we could admire this six story shopping center wrapped around a man-made canal. We had “gelato,” watched some hip-hop dancers, and a guy doing his best to tap dance. That made us a bit hungry so we decided to eat at the buffet.

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