100 yen day

It's 100 yen Mr. Donut day. A reason to celebrate. onto other things...

The other day I had my first real ride in a car in Tokyo. It was pretty exciting. Tokyo looks so different from a car than from the trains. Since I'm in the suburbs of Tokyo, we had to drive a while to get out of the suburbs and into downtown. I hadn't realised how much the suburbs of Tokyo resemble Johnson County. It was kind of scary. I also didn't realise just how many convienient stores there are here. When you walk in Tokyo you see a convienienve store about every 10 minutes or so, but when you drive you see one at least every minute. It's crazy, and they usually are the same chains over and over and over again.

Yesterday I went to 池袋 (ikebukuro) with a friend, Rie. Ikebukuro is like Shinjuku jr. basically. We went to some strange exhibit about ice cream around the world. I had no idea Turkish ice cream was so good. I had no idea that Turks even made ice cream. There was also this sort of haunted house exhibit, which you could tell before you even saw it because you heard all kinds of Japanese girls screaming. But there was nothing scary about it. It was really funny. Just the girls would be screaming if they saw a skeleton or something. There was a zombie dressed up like Elvis singing, but the girls' screaming at it made it seemed like they just witnessed a murder. And I though middle school American girls were obnoxious...

Some pics of the day


Pigeons galore.


The sign for it in Japanese. Side note: Ikebukuro litterally means "Pond Bag".


This is actually in Shinjuku. I passed a large group of people taking pictures so I went to see what it was and it was some sort of foreign celebrity being interviewed by a Japanese talk show host. I don't know who either one was. I think the foreign lady was a clothing person because she kept on talking about clothes. I took the picture because it seemed to be the cool thing to do.


Today I was woken up by the dorm manager and some guy with a pole. It was kind of strange. They were testing the alarm system I think. But they just walked in and say "I am committing a rudeness, I have no excuse for my actions". (a typical Japanese "excuse me") This whole private space and privacy issue has no meaning in the Japanese sphere. I could have been typical westerner and complained but it's all in the experience. So I just turned over and went back to bed. During this confusion, Atilla (the token Italian) had just returned from Austraila and came into my room and was even more confused by the electrician in the room rummaging in my closet looking for something and me asleep.

Oh and I got "tagged" by Kansas Kate, so apparently that means I have to fill out a online survey. It's boofing long as well. It's part of the responsibility of a blogger, filling out these things.

A. Four jobs you've had in your life:
1. Concession stand worker at Cinemark!
2. Caterer
3. Research know-it-all at Baylor Libraries
4. English teacher

B. Four movies you could watch over & over:
1. American Beauty
2. Spice World
3. Rocky Horror Picture Show
4. Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain

C. Four places you have lived:
1. Johnson County
2. Waco
3. In a room with Andrew Shelton (believe me, it counts as a seperate place. arguably planet)
4. Tokyo

D. Four tv shows you love to watch:
1. Degrassi
2. Strangers with Candy
3. Arrested Development
4. Little Britain

E. Four places you've been on vacation:
1. Winnipeg excursion 2003!
2. Kyoto
3. Minnesota
4. Rockin' the cabin at Crystal Beach, Texas

F. Four websites you visit (almost) daily:
1. bbc
2. japan times
3. friends' blogs
4. wikipedia (yeah i'm a nerd)

G. Four of your favorite foods:
1. yakisoba
2. onigiri
3. japanese psudeo-curry
4. miso soup

H. Four places you'd rather be right now:
1. the great white north
2. okinawa
3. a bedroom with a proper bed
4. a familiar envrionment

I. Four of your favorite things to do:
1. politicking (im not sure this is a word. but it's what my dad described my mom when she talked to too many people when he was ready to go)
2. sleep in real beds
3. be sarcastic
4. Trips to Good Time Island

J. Four of your favorite drinks:
1. water
2. tea
3. milk tea
4. caramel milk tea (I'm exciting like that)

K. Four people who will respond* (this means you're tagged) :
1. Eh not too big on responses
2.
3.
4.

L. Four most important people in your life:
1. whoever invented 100 yen stores in Japan
2. the person who thought up the canadian $5 bill
3. the guy who left 100 yen in the ticket machine yesterday (thanks!)
4. Jerri Blank

Walking the streets

Yesterday I was returning from the grocery store about the time when they let all the kids out from school. They all were saying "Konnichi wa" to me and so on. So when I said it back, these two kids had the most surprised look on their faces and said "wow, he can speak Japanese. Let's show him we can speak English". So they said "See you!". Good times. They teach "see you" here in english classes as the way English people say goodbye to each other. And it appears to be the most popular phrase with kids. But the way they say it always sounds so funny. I don't know why.

So I went to check on my grades today, I had a pretty good surprise. All A's and two B's. Only in Japan. That will help with the Baylor grades. I still can't believe they call this "university", but it gave me 7 a's, so who cares.

Also today was one of my english students. He is going to go to Hong Kong next week and wants to know some 旅行会話 (ryokou kaiwa-Traveling conversation). He was telling me that he wanted to "walk the streets" in Hong Kong. I laughed and told him that "walking the streets" implies that he is a prostitute looking for business. The things you learn.

Root Paste

I forgot to mention last time that the lady I was teaching was trying to describe a drink that they have in America but not here. She was trying to describe it as a minty coke-flavoured drink. Then she told me it tasted like toothpaste. Needless to say I had no idea what she was talking about. But when she said "no Japanese person likes it", I knew what it was. Root Beer. I had never heard it described as toothpaste before.

Two nights ago we went to a buffet of sorts for a friends birthday. It had a chinese theme to it, bu t the food wasn't chinese. And on the side of the wall they had a huge picture of children who looked like they were poor and starving. I don't know what the marketing genius behind that was thinking of.


Here's a picture of most of the people that were there. The guy on the left had just hit his head on the ventilator thing.

Not really too much more to say. So here's a picture of a used car lot. Complete with tacky decorations. Actually I can add that the Diet just passed a law to outlaw the sale of used electronic products past a five year date. I can't remember if that applys to cars. But for a country who has no room for trash and is supposedly big on environmental things (i.e. the Kyoto protocol), it's amazing the amount of trash and waste they allow.