DearScotty

You may remember last summer’s soda sensation Pepsi Ice Cucumber, well, this year Japan has moved away from the chilled pickles and have brought us Blue Hawaii.

Blue Hawaii would seem like an awesome fruity drink, but sadly, it leaves a lot to be desired.  But, it smells great!   As you twist the lid off, the fizz turns into the sound of your local ice cream trunk coming around the corner.  You sense that this will taste similar to a snow cone.  How wrong your senses are.  It tastes a bit like a balloon with a little kick of fruity wax.  All you end up having is a blue tongue.
Bummer.

PS
I just got to watch an English teacher attempting to record a listening quiz by speaking directly into the stereo speaker.

“Do you smell that?”

I inhaled deeply but found no mysterious smells. The teacher next to me was on to something. He was quite positive that something funny was going on. So, I gave it another shot and nearly singed my nose hairs trying to detect the hiding aroma.

“Nope, I don’t smell anything”

“I think it’s the toilet.”

“Thanks man… thanks a lot.”

Instead of getting upset that he brought the smell of a filthy bathroom to my attention I decided to play detective with him. Was it something burning? Were kids burning toilet paper? By now the smell was getting stronger and I was genuinely curious about its origins. Is there a leak in the pipes?

“Maybe you should close the doors?” I propositioned to the teacher. He didn’t really care for that solution and decided to ask the teacher across from us if he knew what that smell was. The teacher solved the riddle.

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It’s been awhile since my last post. I suppose one gets used to living here and the humor and mystery that is Japan slowly vanishes. But here are some random things I’ve experienced this past month:

Last week I didn’t wear a jacket for the first time in the last six months while in Japan.

I found 150 yen on my bike ride home yesterday.

I purchased my first watermelon.

Saw Propagandhi in Osaka on the 17th. Great show, great guys!

I can now jog/run 4 miles in under an hour.

The basketball coach at school is my new buddy.

Drinking parties with teachers are still just as boring and horribly expensive.

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Besides catching up on a decades worth of TV shows that I’ve failed to ever watch, to kill some time I like to jam on the guitar. I’ve never formally introduced her so, here goes. I bought James for a few hundred bucks when I first arrived in Japan. I don’t know who James is, but he makes good guitars. Playing in between episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report can get quite boring so I’ve decided to get a band together. My friend Shou is an amazing guitar player, who makes my guitar skills look like a five year old playing a squeaky recorder. That said, I have demoted myself to bassist. The only joy in this is getting to buy myself a new bass. My previous basses have been beginner basses, except one that was a step up from beginner. So, this time around I decided to go all out and get me a manly yet beautiful bass.

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… be messin with my tubes and konnekshunz.

I have been constantly baffled every time I enter a men’s bathroom in Japan. I will undoubtedly find a drenched floor in front of every urinal. One might think that Japanese men stand too far back from the urinal and thus have a tendency to spill. But that couldn’t be further from the truth as Japanese men appear to be getting sucked in by a urinal vortex. It’s possible they start before they reach the porcelain goal line, but I haven’t exactly witnessed early touchdowns. I concluded that the Japanese men lack the concept of completely emptying the well. There are many methods to choose from but it seems the Japanese men prefer to walk away while the faucet’s still running.

Well, my mind was blown again when I came across this article on the intertubes:

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On my way home from school I spotted this gem:

Maybe this explains why the Japanese don’t trust foreigners. They think we turn into werewolves no matter the time of day or moon cycle. We also have amazing body shrinking skills.

I’ve learned two things this week. 1. I don’t have the half moon on my pinkie nails any longer. 2. I don’t have to double space after completed sentences. Apparently I’ve held on to the practice of double spacing from the typewriter days. Computers have corrected typewriters with proportional spacing so it makes it easier to catch the difference between sentences.

Because this week is reserved for testing, I have no classes. I also don’t have hair on the top of my pointer finger above the first joint. All my other fingers have hair there. I also completed the 10k gold “fun” level on desktop tower defense with a score of 23,500.

Japan is boring but! but! Theresa and I are going to Tokyo Disney and DisneySea this 3-day weekend. Let the jealousy help warm my frozen toes.

Every single person’s reaction is priceless especially the smug beer drinker.

I almost wet my pants when I saw the above photo, but then I came across this one:

Here’s an interesting article that clears up my role in Japan and why I can never be taken seriously, no matter how logical or compassionate I am, I am foreign, and thus bad.

IMMIGRATION: JAPAN’S UNFRIENDLY SHORES
‘One culture, one race:’ Foreigners need not apply
Despite a shrinking population and a shortage of labour, Japan is not eager to accept immigrants or refugees

GEOFFREY YORK
October 9, 2007

TOKYO — In the Turkish village of his birth, Deniz Dogan endured years of discrimination and harassment by police who jailed him twice for his political activities on behalf of the Alevi religious minority. So he decided to escape to a country that seemed peaceful and tolerant: Japan.

Seven years later, he says he has found less freedom in Japan than in the country he fled. For a time, he had to work illegally to put food on his table. Police stop him to check his documents almost every day. He has suffered deportation threats, interrogations and almost 20 months in detention. In despair, he even considered suicide.

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