Lazy Day

How is that different from any of the others, right? RIGHT? Haha, I slay me.

Anyways, yeah. Nothing special happened today (other than my care package finally arriving. Hurray, socks and sandals! Not to be mixed). So I won't bore you with my random psychoanalyzations of absolutely nothing, and instead I'll just list a bunch of observances from Japan so far.

Bear with me, I'm sure I'm repeating myself on a few of these.


Vending machines are absolutely everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Inside of the stores in the mall there are vending machines, and in the middle of the woods there is a vending machine. And there are stores that are just ROWS OF VENDING MACHINES.

Malls are set up very oddly. I'm not sure if they're ALL this way, but the two that I've gone to are open air. Meaning each store has its designated section, but there are no entrances or walls or anything. So it's all set up like a flea market, except less random gates and less creepy fat nerds who glare at you for inspecting the merchandise before paying the 34 cents for it (I needed to make sure that shoehorn was clean, dammit!)

Internet sucks on campus. And so do the computers here. I've heard this about some of the other campuses too. Anything you've heard about Japan is a mix of lies. They're technologically superior but apparently EXTREMELY CHEAP and won't spend the extra money to get computers that run, you know, XP. Or an upgraded internet connection. I shouldn't have to struggle to watch youtube depending on what time of the day it is.

Nobody carries swords around here anymore, and very few people have pink, blue, green, or white hair. TV has lied to you. I know, take a breath, it's very shocking.

The Japanese are very organized. If you ask them a question that pertains to something outside of the schedule that get confused and uneasy. For example, seeing a foreigner around the corner will terrify an old lady into rigomortis. Also, changing your classes seems to absolutely throw the people in the office. That may just be me though.

I know I've said this before but: Japanese people have no sense of pedestrian traffic. This is particularly troublesome on stairwells where you have no idea which side the person is coming from and you turn blindly into a corner and run into them. GYAH. I've determined that people tend to walk on the side of the hall/sidewalk/road/narrow passageway of their eventual destination. As it stands, this is a person to person basis and until I learn to read minds (trying REALLY hard) then this observation won't really help me.

Japanese youth are more in tune with American culture than their own. I mentioned a band that has been around for something like 15 years and the kid had no idea who I was talking about. This is the equivalent to an American college student being absolutely bewildered when you ask them what their favorite Beatles song is. On the other hand, he likes Van Morissey so... good for him.

Japanese people will laugh at anything. If you've never seen any game show clips, look them up on youtube. There are things such as people guessing what type of baby animal is on screen and everybody cracks up when they guess wrong. Other shows will involve people riding around town on bicycles looking for other people wearing animals on their clothes and asking them what kind of animal it is. And then everybody laughs... for some reason. Also, I saw some kids burst out laughing when a guy mimicked swining a baseball bat. Just sayin.

You're never allowed to acknowledge ANYTHING. I keep forgetting this. I need to learn to respond with no instead of yes whenever anybody says thank you for things. I'm so used to saying "Sure [anytime]" in English that it comes naturally for me to acknowledge the situation. Apparently this is very rude in Japanese and I have not been called out on it yet.

Know the basic counters (hitotsu, futatsu, miitsu), the word please (onegaishimasu), the word thank you (arigatou gozaimashita), the word sorry (gomen[nasai]), and the abiliy to point, and you will be able to get to Japan with pretty much no problem.


That's all for now. Take this opportunity to tell me how much you love and miss me and let me know that you're sending me all the tacos.

Yes.

ALL of them.