Happy, Happy Japan Time!

Ok, my desire to keep this blog alive and updated has thus far failed completely.  To all my friends and family who I directed to this URL with promises of pictures and stories, I apologize.  My excuse (and I consider it pretty valid) is that our apartment – as awesome as it is – did not come equipped with internet.  Getting internet in Japan is not difficult.  It simply requires a fluent translator to help you jump through all the hoops.  Needless to say, what with training the newbs in their jobs/lives, our wonderful translators have been pretty busy with us already.  Also, our workweek is six days long.  Therefore, we’ve been pretty consistently tied up with other things.  Stolen internet has been semi-successful for Dustin and his pretty, new Macintosh…but for me and my PC, things aren’t as easy.  But now, we finally have our own connection to the World Wide Web once again and my life can resume as normal.

With that out of the way….

Japan is awesome! 

We’ve been here for just over two months now and we’re finally starting to feel like we actually live here.  The sensory overload of those first few weeks is starting to fade and I’m beginning to get through entire days without going, “What the hell is that?” or “Where the hell am I?”

This is a serious improvement.

Driving, by far my biggest fear before coming here (which those of you back home know well), is a worry of the past.  Honestly, it took near to no time to get over the whole “driving on the other side” thing.  Once you get going, the turns and intersections become fairly instinctual.  I’m more afraid of driving in the States again now!  By far, the worst part about driving overseas isn’t that the roads or steering wheels are on the opposite side, it’s the fact that for the first few days you find your wipers randomly scraping across your dry windshield when you go to turn your blinker on.  The terrible noise alone is enough to make you a quick learner.

Since I’ve been absent from this blog for so long – and since SO much has happened – I’m going to be picky tonight about what I talk about.  In later posts I’ll tell you all about the Tsukuba Festival we attended, the fantastic Tokyo Game Show and much, much more.  I am also in the process of writing out a long and tedious step-by-step guide for those of you who have asked me about how to acquire a similar job in this awesome country.  Give me another week or two - I have a lot of good info to give, but I have to sort through pages and pages of documents I created to find it all.  You may want to glance at Dustin's blog if you are impatient and want to get started now. 

For the time being, here are the top ten things I love about my new life.  Ready.  Set.  Go!

10.) Sink Pig

This is my Sink Pig and I love him.  He’s cute.  He washes my dishes.  He conveniently hangs onto my faucet when I’m not using him.  Everything is cute in Japan.  Everything is also convenient in Japan.  Or exceptionally inconvenient.  But that is another topic for another blog.

9.) AKB48

AKB48 is an insanely big, all-girl, pop group right now.  I say big because, yes, they are so popular that you can buy gum, hand towels, mouse pads shaped like their boobies, potato chips, and pretty much whatever else you want with their face - or boobs - on it.  I also call this group big because they are composed of no less than 48 bubbly members.  They do live shows daily in Akihabara – which is how they became popular.  (Get the retarded name now?  AKB = Akihabara) I mostly like them because everyone I know hates them.  (Which doesn’t really help me to understand why they’re so insanely popular.)  Their songs, though terrible, are also really catchy.  Here’s a video of my favorite of their most recent Top Ten hits:

8.) Video Game/Anime Music on Everyday TV Programming

Yeah, that’s right.  I can turn on my TV to watch some senseless, wonderful game show where celebrity comedians are fighting pro-wrestlers while greased up in some kind of clear, slimy jelly, and the Zelda theme will start playing.  Or maybe I’ll be watching a travel documentary about onsens in Hokkaido and the theme from Kiki’s Delivery Service or Totoro will begin to chime in the background.  Or maybe a commercial for some little kid’s bento kit will air and suddenly the sounds of a theme from Final Fantasy 7 can be distinguished in the music.  It goes on like this…everyday…probably without paying the licensing fees...  Wonderful.

7.) Living 45 Minutes Away From Akihabara

Ok, so we haven’t really been able to utilize this fact, yet.  (Being that we’ve been super busy and we have only just now gotten our first full-month paycheck...)  But we’ve gone once already and are going again this week, and we can tell that we will spend great sums of money and massive amounts of time in this geeky haven.  Akihabara rules!

6.) IIAS Mall

This is the gigantic shopping center about 15 minutes from our apartment.  It has everything I could ever want or need.  I could literally live there.  I’ve never been the “shopping” kind of girl, but Japan is going to change that.  How can I resist when there are entire stores dedicated to Ghibli, Japanese candy, and accessories to match every shade of every outfit that I brought overseas???  Here's some plastic food - which could have made this top ten list on its own because I love it that much - from inside IIAS.

5.) Engrish, Engrish Everywhere!!!

If you had asked me a month ago, I would have assumed that this would be closer to the top of the list.  However, the novelty of poorly attempted English is wearing off.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still love it.  It’s not that it’s annoying me or anything.  The truth is that I just don’t notice it as much as I did when I first visited.  Now, it has to be particularly awful (or fantastic, in my eyes) to really make me take a picture.  My intention is to post an Engrish picture once a week on this blog.  Maybe once every two weeks…  Or once a month.   We’ll see.  For now, have fun with this one.  Here’s an awesome guy I caught riding on his motorbike with a wonderful saying on the back of his helmet.  I'm sure this is exactly the message he intended to get across.

4.) Recycle Shops

These are exactly what they sound like.  Think Goodwill, but awesome. Think Goodwill, but without the strange smell.  Think Goodwill, except that we bought our Limited Edition PS3 at one of these stores (in perfect working order).  Yes, that’s Lightning on the top.  Yes, this cost us about 25,000 yen ($250).   There are a million different kinds of recycle shops.  Some are chains.  Some are privately owned.  Most of them have a plushy section which I abuse.

3.) Japanese Crepes

The most wonderful, delicious, beautiful concoction on the planet.  Hands down.  Crepes win.  If I was allowed to eat only one thing for the rest of my life, I would happily beg for Japanese crepes.  If I never get skinny, they are why.  I don’t understand how Japanese people CAN be skinny.  Here are some pictures.  The first is some kind of custard pastry wedged into fresh cream and strawberry.  The second is custard, fresh cream, chocolate cake and banana. The last is a plastic food version to show you what it looks like on the inside.

2.) A World Too Cute for Words


As I said, everything is cute in Japan.  This makes me happy because I love cute things.  Here are some examples.

Food straps for up-sizing at McDonald's...

Some of my favorite Ghibli friends...

Pickachu in my udon...

My sweet, sweet, Loaf-san...

1.) Convenience Stores or “Combini”

Where did all the 7/11s in America go???  Oh, that’s right, Japan stole them.  There are many chains of convenience stores in Japan besides 7/11 (called only “7” by the Japanese): Family Mart, SunKus, Lawson, Mini Stop, CoCo! (not to be confused with Coco’s the family restaurant or Coco the curry restaurant), etc., etc.  They do not have gas stations.  They are simply convenient, little stores with convenient, delicious pre-made food and pretty much anything else you could possibly need on a whim.  And they are everywhere.  Literally.  EVERYWHERE.  We can walk to one in less than five minutes from our apartment.  I can walk to one in two minutes or less from almost every branch of my school.  I love them.

I love Japan.