7 Things I Like About You (Japan)

Part 2 of a two part series. In this shocking chapter, Mary Lou is discovered to be going steady with Fragnart, that bad orc raider from the other side of the tracks!

1. The food - Okay, well, not all of it. Japanese adaptations of Western food tends to be absolutely horrid. But there are Japanese dishes that are themselves fantastic that I'm going to miss. I'm the self-appointed Ramen King for a reason. I absolutely love the stuff, and I doubt that I'll be able to get anything as good back home. Tonkatsu is similarly delicious, as well as any type of curry or donburi. Takoyaki is alright if I must as well, and sashimi when I feel like it. But ramen reigns supreme.

2. Arcades - Stateside, you're hard pressed to find an arcade that isn't dead, or even one that doesn't exist attached to a movie theater or mini golf. They simply aren't profitable. Either that or people don't think they will be so they're not invested in. The arcade culture is thriving and alive in Japan. Kids will go after school to hang out there, and the hardcore elite will go there to battle each other. The prizes are great in the machines (but that much harder to win) and it's a great way to pass the time waiting for the bus or just for the hell of it. I'm going to miss my Lord of Vermillion when I come back.

3. Culture - By culture I mean more the cultural history, and the fact that it exists. You can find women walking around in kimonos, sumos touring the cities, random traditional festivals, shrines, regional food, and local folklore, pretty much anywhere in Japan that is smaller than Tokyo. It's really nice especially in the smaller towns, where you can get a feeling of a place that's evolved with its traditions over time. You're hard pressed to find that in the US. We don't have traditional garb, all our holidays are historic, not cultural, and all of our cultural history centers around trying to awkwardly honor those people that we've subjugated. Oh, and war.

4. Security - It's an odd sensation, not needing to worry about anything. I've had multiple friends lose multiple wallets, and they've all gotten them back completely intact, and one of them even had a note in it saying "I am sorry you lost your wallet. It must have been stressful looking for it and I hope having it returned puts you in good spirits". Seriously. And things just won't get stolen, either. If you leave a bag somewhere unattended then go to the bathroom and come out and it's missing, that's because somebody brought it to lost and found. Granted there is a large sexual harrassment problem in Japan, but at the very least it tends not to be rape. Oddly enough it tends to be highly, umm... flashing. Not sure what the big thing with that is, but I guess it's popular. There is some awkward touching in crowded areas, but in a lesser of two evils sense it's not being unconscious in an alleyway. Hell, it's happened to me, so, take that as you will. Maybe it really is just saying hello.

5. Television - The television is as awful as it is fantastic. 90 percent of the things on it are awful, awful game shows. Not even funny awful, just bad. But it's that 10 percent left that makes up for it. There are the animes for dorks like me, and I'm okay with admitting to that. But then there is the rare game/variety show that just makes all the other ones worthwhile. Like the woman that lived with a monkey for a month that was trained to slap her. Or "ESCAPE!", a show where a bunch of out of shape people are set loose in an enclosed section of Odaiba city while agents in suits chase them around, as the people try to find people in animal costumes that are similarly wandering around to retrieve objects from them so that they can complete the scavenger hunt. I don't even know how somebody arrives at that concept for a game show, but I'm glad that they did.

6. Did I mention ramen? I did? Oh... Alright, the landscape then. - Japan, for the most part, tends to be gorgeous. It's full of a stark contrast of climates. Beppu alone has palm trees, pine trees, and bamboo all coexisting in relatively the same areas. There tend to be mountains everywhere, streams and waterfalls on the sides of roads, interesting rock structures, and well preserved areas of forest near shrines. Even the cities tend to have interesting looking buildings to compensate for the otherwise lack of scenery. I'll miss riding the bus down the side of the mountain through the forests on the side of the cliff as I watch the city draw closer.

7. Engrish - I will never not love Engrish. The weird half attempts at speaking or writing English, with awkward translations and plenty of misspellings. It never. gets. old. Or maybe I'm just a juvenile for being able to laugh at seeing an "Erectronics" sign no matter how many times it comes up *snicker*. As an aside to that, there is also a weird hybridization of cultures. America tends to blend them all into AMERICAN culture. Japan kind of... accessorizes them. It'll take a kappa and add a sombrero and mustache on it for a Mexican restaurant, and this will be wedged in between a traditional Japanese restaurant and a fancy looking McDonald's that has Captain America emblazoned on it for no particular reason.

But wait, that's not all! A bonus that I forgot from yesterday.

7-2. Smoking - I hate, hate, HATE, the smoking culture here. It is an aspect of the culture itself. Pretty much everyone does it, and places where smoking is banned it's not really enforced. It's the reverse of the transition in the states. When we were transitioning and there were smaller and smaller partitions for smokers, it's the non-smokers that get packed away into the corner. Japan passed a Clean Air Health Act last year that aims to decrease public smoking, but for the most part it's essentially ineffective. It's cool to smoke here and people won't stop doing it, entirely for that reason. It's so ingrained that if you decline a cigarette from somebody they'll ask you when you quit instead of just figuring you don't smoke. And me whining here with my asthma. Cough. Wheeze. Hack.

And that's all, folks. This is Three Dog! live from the Capital Waste- right. Going to Usa tomorrow if things go according to plan. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics.