Apropos of nothing

This is the strangest thing I have seen in a very long time.

Peeing in Japan

After drinking all that beeru, it's inevitable that you're going to have to use the facilities sooner or later. Hopefully you are still sober enough to figure things out.

Toilets in Japan come in two main varieties: holes in the floor, and super-high-tech-crazy-toilets. The holes in the floor are common in public places, like at temples, but often there is also a choice of a "Western-Style" toilet (i.e., one with a bowl). Luckily we didn't end up having to use the "Japanese-Style" ones very often.

The much more interesting toilet phenomenon in Japan was the super-high-tech-crazy-toilet, often called a "Washlet" (this is one of the common brands). These toilets come with control panels full of buttons labeled in Japanese. If you are lucky, there are also little icons that gave you an idea what each button does.


For example, I quickly learned that the button with the musical note on it would play a recording of flushing sounds. This was apparently developed to save water, as some Japanese flush the toilet continuously to cover up any sounds that might be emanating from... other places.

By far the strangest aspect of these fancy toilets was that fact that for many of them, the control panels could actually be removed from their positions on the wall and used as remote controls. Huh? Scott and I amused ourselves endlessly at our hotel by sneakily stealing the remote control and trying to stealth-bidet whomever was using the toilet. Alas, the remote didn't seem to work through the closed door.

If, after reading this, you are still confused about using the toilet in Japan, please watch this, followed by this.

And now for a random photo from Japan

What do you think they are trying to communicate to us, the consumers, with this particular packaging design?

In my next life, I want to be a graphic designer in Japan. But really I made this post to let you know that I've finally uploaded a bunch of photos from our trip.

Everything you ever wanted to know about beeru...

ビール一杯ください。
(If you find yourself in Japan, print the above out and point to it in case of emergency.)

Our Japanese friends were kind enough to school us in the proper beer-drinking etiquette in their country while we were there. First of all, please note that the Japanese word for ‘beer’ is ‘beeru’ (pronounced bee-roo). This word is so much fun to say that you may find yourself ordering beer you don’t even want just because you can’t stop repeating it.

• In Japan, beeru is often served in large bottles that are shared by everyone at the table, and it is drunk out of hopelessly small glasses. It is considered very bad form to pour your own beeru.
• When someone is pouring beeru for you, it is polite to put both your hands on your cup and say ‘oh thank you, you’re too generous’ and other crap like that to the person pouring it.
• If you find yourself out of beeru and wanting some more, it is a good idea to start refilling the glasses of the other people at the table, even if they are no where close to empty. If you are lucky, this action will prompt someone in turn to fill your glass.

Here’s a demonstration of how to pour beeru in Japan:

And here’s me showing how it’s done where I come from:

[You’ll never believe it, but by the end of the trip my drinking manners were indistinguishable from those of a Japanese businessman. Except I never tied a tie around my head (not in Japan, anyway).]

Feeling a little too happy?

Then try some of this!

And now for a little illustration of what Deeppresso can do for you...






















(I know, we're freaks.)

Big fun in Tokyo

Japan offers endless opportunities for novelty entertainment. We were often entertained at things that weren’t specifically designed to be entertaining, like in women’s hosiery stores and while choosing beverages out of vending machines. But a lot of the entertainment is on-purpose entertainment, too. Here are just a couple of the things we tried:

Pachinko. Giant, multi-level pachinko parlors occupy every single corner in some areas of Tokyo and Kyoto. They are louder and busier than a slot-machine-filled Vegas casino, and all the people inside have that same dead-to-the-world glazed-over expression on their faces. The game itself is kind of like pinball, but less fun and requiring less skill. We knew we had to try it, and our Japanese friends Yoko and Ko humored us long enough for us to lose 1,000 yen apiece into the machines (I think we were in and out in less than 5 minutes). Luckily they were there to explain important things to us, like where to stick the money in, what button to push, and who the people spinning around on the screen were (turns out they were stars from a Korean soap opera that’s popular in Japan). Good times.

Maid café. I had been promised bizarre experiences in Tokyo, and bizarre experiences I got. When you arrive at a maid café, the waitresses (dressed in French maid uniforms) come to the door and say ‘welcome home, master!’ (at least that’s what Yuji said they were saying to us). Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the maids, but they were adorable. I should note that we weren’t typical of the clientele there – we would have fit in better if we were 20-something solitary men who spent a whole lot of time on role-playing games (and had spoken Japanese).

Karaoke. We had to do it. Unlike in other parts of the world, karaoke in Tokyo is a private-ish thing. Your group gets its own little sound-proof room equipped with a table and seats, a big-screen karaoke machine, an impossible-to-use remote control for said karaoke machine, a couple wireless microphones, and several song lists the size of the Manhattan telephone book. To order drinks or anything else, you pick up a phone on the wall and tell the person at the other end what you want.

The microphone does this weird echo-y thing to your voice that is supposed to make you sound like a better singer. This may be effective for things like ballads, but doesn’t work so well for, say, rap (trust me, we tried).

Our friends Tomoko and Katsu were obviously seasoned karaoke professionals, actually being able to carry a tune and make it through a whole song without bursting out into hysterical laughter (I failed miserably on both of these points). Scott fared a little better than I did, dazzling the (five-person) crowd with his rousing rendition of “Mr. Roboto.” Domo.

Japan: an essay in many parts

I have so many things I want to say about Japan that I hardly know where to start or how to organize them. We had a phenomenal trip. It was so much fun to be so lost, confused, and out of touch with the world around me. It’s maddening to look at writing and not have a chance of figuring out what it says, or how to pronounce it, or even being able to recognize it when you see it again. It’s thrilling to find your way around despite all this, and it’s so rewarding to experience a new culture first-hand. (If you can’t tell, I’m a big fan of traveling, and a big fan of Japan.)

While in Tokyo, we stayed with our good friend and amazing host, Yuji. We have him and his charming girlfriend, Tomoko, to thank for a whole lot of the amazing experiences we had during our stay. Pretty much all the other amazing experiences we had were thanks to the help of another good friend, Sachiko, who made about a gazillion phone calls from London to Japan so that we could do a lot of cool things (like spend the night at a temple) in Kyoto. Thank you guys so, so much for making this the best darn trip to Japan we ever took. (OK, so it’s the only trip we’ve ever taken to Japan, but had we taken other trips in the past, this one would have beaten them all hands down.)

Some of my first impressions of Japan, which came to me during a jetlag-induced haze, were how many things it offered that I liked about Switzerland and that I missed about the US. It was as if Japan had picked my favorite parts of the two other cultures, improved upon those, and incorporated them into its own. As examples:

From Switzerland:

• Clean, efficient public transportation
• Low crime
• No tipping (even better than in Switzerland, where there is minimal tipping)
• Pedestrian-friendly
• Friendly, helpful people in places like tourist information booths, train ticket counters, etc.
• Shockingly clean cities

From the US:

• Excellent customer service, attentive waiters
  
• 24-hour stores, grocery shopping after 8pm and (gasp!) on Sundays
  
• Affordable take-out food (despite rumors to the contrary, Tokyo was delightfully affordable all around)
• Free, unlimited ice water in restaurants
• No wasting time trying to flag a waiter down so you can get the check at a restaurant (you just pay at the front on your way out)
• Ubiquitous air conditioning
• Ice sold by the bag in grocery stores (in case you can’t tell, I really miss ice)

More tragically profound posts about Japan coming up soon. So far in the works I have for you:

• Tokyo;
• Eating in Japan;
• Drinking in Japan: when ‘no no no’ means ‘pour me some more beeroo, fool’;
• Novel ways to entertain yourself in Tokyo;
• Ohara, or how we learned to read kanji in a day;
• Things you should never name a beverage;
• Bedhopping in Kyoto;
• Nara, or How to make Japanese schoolgirls giggle;
• Staying in traditional Japanese inns, or No way in hell am I getting into that dirty bathwater;

...and a couple others. OK, don’t worry, I probably won’t ever get around to writing a lot of those. Just the really, really important ones. Stay tuned.

Did you miss me?

We're back from Japan! Check out the results of our Japanese makeovers:

OK, we actually came back looking about the same as we did when we left (except for approximately an extra 5 pounds each). Japan was a blast, although completely exhausting. Can too many temple visits and too much sushi cause a hangover? Anyway, many posts about our Japanese adventures will be forthcoming. Stay tuned!

Oh wait, I almost forgot... I brought back a present for you, Dear Readers (gift-giving is very big in Japan). Please accept this (picture of a) $100 melon as a small token of my esteem.

Music in Tokyo

As of today, my new favorite band is Bump of Chicken. My love of this group is 100% based on its name alone.
Coming in a close second is Japanese Rap Sta.
Ever wonder what black sounds like?

Fugu me!

Our dinner tonight was so fresh, it was literally still moving.


Fresh fugu on Vimeo

PS - everyone survived the fugu.

Just in case you are sitting there wondering why people drink sake...

Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan!

OK so we’re still in Switzerland, but all I can think about is our upcoming trip to Japan. I’m so exciting my head is about to explode. I’ve never been to Japan before, but I suspect it will be something like this (turn your speakers on – you’ll want to sing along).

I don’t want to make any cultural faux pas while I’m there, so could someone please explain to me what is going on in the video? It made perfect sense until the cat hung himself. I didn’t see that one coming at all…

Eternal thanks to Jack for this link.