Cucumber cola.

I decided that in this post, I'm not gonna tell you what I did the past fews days. Instead, I'm gonna tell you what I DIDNT do. And that's enjoy this:



Can you read that label? Yes, it says "Ice Cucumber Pepsi." The genius who thought this idea up had to be, well, probably Japanese. I can't imagine this will ever be released anywhere outside of Japan.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh on the drink. Yes, it's true that if you look in my refrigerator, you will find over half the bottle has been drunk. Well, that's because I woke up with a hangover on Sunday after a night of drinking with Manami, Seth, Johan from Sweden, and Hacchan at an all-you-can-drink izakaya. There was nothing else to drink in my refrigerator. I swear to god. And actually, the taste isn't as bad as you might think. However, what is bad is the aftertaste. One friend described it as "that vomit aftertaste." So, you get the idea, I think.

Still, I've had cucumber pepsi and you haven't.

Why it's labeled "Pepsi" is beyond me. I can't find much in common with it's cola forefather besides carbonation. In a way, it kinda tastes like melon, too. I don't know, I think the drink left me more confused than anything.

Jesus, I almost posted this blog without mentioning something. It came to my attention late last night that Manami and I were indeed both featured on Japanese television. Yes, I spoke Japanese on TV. Kinda crazy shit right? Sadly, neither of us were aware we were gonna be on tv and we both missed it. Apparently, a lot of people didn't miss it though, as many of Manami's friends told her about it and a bunch of my students and teachers saw it too. I think it was a big surprise for everyone. We are gonna try and get our hands on a tape of it, but right now the TV station hasn't responded to emails. Derp.

And finally, a little story. I started working part-time in my new city yesterday. I got around $45 for talking to a man about chicago and my life (in english) for an hour and then helping a woman use her computer. Pretty awesome, but that's not my story. This is about my language ability. So before starting my lessons, I met with my boss and her friend happened to be there. We chatted for a while (almost completely in Japanese), blah blah blah. Now some foreigners measure their Japanese ability by test-taking levels or amount of kanji they can read or whatever. I don't do this, cuz it's not that important (Ahem, I can read around 200 kanji on a good day). Anyways, I was able to explain that mom came to Japan and enjoyed the heated toilet seats so much that she bought one for our house in America when she got back. I thought it was cool that I could explain that. And that's my lame story.

Sorry.

Time flies after a 12 hour airplane....

One year ago today, I landed in Japan knowing a very little amount of Japanese but knowing enough about the culture to annoy my friends with constant chatter about the place I wanted to visit so badly. A year later, I'm still here, but my Japanese still isn't all that good. Damn ridiculously difficult language.

I can't officially call this my one year anniversary though, because I was home from July 23 to August 30th. Still, I've spent the better part of the last year in this country, and had plenty of good times.

As some kind of celebration, I enjoyed my favorite meal this country has to offer- shabu-shabu. All-you-can-eat. It was good.

Nothing that noteworthy happened this weekend, save for the consumption of an excessive amount of alcohol and a bad hangover in front of 7 year-old children. Those are always the best kind. Oh yeah, and I saw "The Prestige." I had never heard of this movie before, but maybe that's because, well, I've been here for almost a year. It just came here, so we went and saw it, making it the first movie I've seen in a Japanese movie theater. The theater was very comfortable, by the way. Apparently, Japanese people sit in the theaters until the credits end, too. Culture shock, man.

Anyone see this movie? It's really good, I highly reccomend it. I thought it was a little weird that it opened with a director's note saying, "Please don't tell the ending of this movie to anyone." Just kinda weird, I think.

After a 6 year absence from the Japanese market, Burger King made its triumphant return to Japan this weekend. I wasn't in Shinjuku, where it opened on Friday, to eat it, but I will make a stop there as soon as possible. I'll probably take pictures, too. The burger on Japanese lips is the teriyaki whopper. I kinda wanna try it.

That's all for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures. It's your fault though for not commenting recently ;)

Fuji me??? FUJI Q!

A mere weeks after one unfortunate woman in Osaka got her head severed as a result of a malfunctioning roller coaster, Manami and I decided it would be a kick ass idea to go to Fuji Q Highland, a theme park just minutes from the ever-glorious Mount Fuji. And it was good. This day, no one died. At least not at the theme park.

I'll start off by saying I rode what was probably the coolest roller coaster I've ever been on. It's called "Ee Ja Nai Ka," which I guess you can translate to "It's okay, isn't it?" or some people think more along the lines of "Ain't It Great?" Well whatever, either way this ride was nuts. The seats you sit in flip 360 degrees forward and backwards. So, for example, on the very first drop (which is almost completely straight down) you're at the top of the summit facing the sky, then you start going down the drop, your seat flips and you're staring straight down at the ground. Then take these same mechanics and imagine cork screws and loop-de-loops. It's pretty insane, intense, and I won't lie, it left me feeling dizzy. But it still kicked ass.

Marvel at the beast-


The glorious Mount Fuji-San-


Lunch at Japanese amusement parks? Either ramen or indian food. Manami stole my nan!


In Japan, you get a raincoat before going on water rides. Doesn't really make sense to me, because isn't the point of these rides to get wet? Well, whatever.


And of course, you can't visit a theme park without taking these kind of pictures. Here we established a pattern:
Manami being cute-


Ryan being gay-


Manami being cute-


Ryan being gay-


There were also other roller coasters like Dodonpa, which begins by propelling you at like 172 km/hour. Can anyone do the math into miles? Either way it's fast. Then there was Fujiyama, which I think until a couple years ago held the record for highest drop and fastest roller coaster.

We were walking around with a little extra time when some guy approached Manami and asked if she knew how to cook. We knew what that meant, because there was a little booth set up for shooting a TV show where a girl cooks and the people she's with taste the food and comment. After much convincing, Manami took the challenge and made some food that if I describe here, probably wont make sense. But it was black seaweed, konnyaku, and carrots....see? told you it wouldn't make sense. Then they asked me what I thought, I said it was okay. Cuz it was only okay :-P ...There's a chance we will be on TV in Japan, which would kick ass. Afterwards, I went to the bathroom and apparently some guy came up to Manami and said "you were just cooking right? you're boyfriend is soooo cool." I guess he's right, though.

Manami doing her best for the cameras-


Good times at FujiQ Highland, but to be honest, DisneySea was more fun. Got a couple more theme parks in Japan I want to visit.

Sunday, Manami, my buddy Dave, his girlfriend Maki, and I decided to have a picnic in Yono park, which is near my house. It was a good time, we had a ton of food, including sandwiches, karage (fried chicken, J style), sushi handrolls, a melon that wasn't ripe enough yet, and shoe cream (which is what the japanese call cream puffs). Sweet picnic food, and plenty, plenty of ants. After we ate, we played some Uno, threw a football, and then saw some high school kids having a water balloon fight. They let Dave and I join, and the wetness began. It was fun, man. I forgot how fun water balloon fights were, and it gave Manami and I an idea to arrange a big water balloon fight with our friends at Yoyogi Koen. We'll see if it happens. It's in the planning stages, so be excited for that one, blog friends. Picture time!





I've talked about how people love their dogs in Japan, right? Here's a couple feeding their dog water from what looks like a baby bottle-



Home for a month in 45 days. Cheers to that.

Ryan being gay-