Thursday, June 26, 2008
nihon
Here I am in Japan again. I feel as if I'm just going to type this blog out into empty space, a note on a bulletin board facing the wall, since anyone who might have ever read this Must have given up by now on checking for a new post. shoot, i would have. but then that's me. there are better. kudos to them. :)
I'm just gonna touch on two things: Melon soda and a Hanging pole. I refuse to go into any rants on japanese culture at this point. there are plenty of other blogs for that, and honestly, it's not interesting for me to write about, as I hear about it so often. So i'll hit closer to home.
When I was in tokyo in 1998, my favorite drink was melon soda. There was this guy named Chaz or Chester, prolly Chester, and he and I discovered a fountain soda machine on the ground floor of our Olympic Center Hotel that we were staying at. we just Had to sample the melon soda. needful to say, it blew our minds. pure sugar, and pure green, it has everything that both plants and humans need. in fact, it's parentage most likely has something to do with Slurm from futurama, coupled with time travel and holodeck technology. it's an evil, addictive biproduct of the japanese pension for over-the-top products.
Over the course of that summer, I happily slupped it whenever I could get it. My host family did its best to keep me healthy, but that bubbly toxin found its way into my belly through powerful means of seduction. i couldn't resist and didn't want to. it was never odd to me that the first half of fantastic is fanta.
But when i left japan, i never found it again. apparently, yumminess is not marketable in america. so i moaned for a month and then got over it. but whenever i saw a can of fanta soda after that point, i would always check out the flavors, just in case.
And now, ten years later, I'm back, and that delicious soda still remains. it's in internet bars, food courts, and a lot of convenience stores. i'm in heaven. but i didn't count on one thing. just last year, in training for my marathons and for my general health, i decided to give up sugar for a while. it ended up lasting a couple of months (except for some czech birthday cake, which mostly got smeared on my face) and totally changed the way i ingest words ending in -ose.
When i went to england, everything was too sweet. i thot it was just a british thing. then i went to america. it was the same. and then i came here to japan and got some melon soda at an internet bar. i barely could take a cup of it. i used to down that stuff, and now i can hardly gulp a mini gulp. i pretty much ruined sugar for myself. i damn near ruined japan for myself. if it weren't for salmon sashimi, i think i might just pack up and go home. and one of my fellow teachers almost ruined That for me as well, telling me about his experience in a salmon packing plant in england. i barely got out of that with my grizzly bear-like salmon-eating ferocity intact. a lot of ear plugging and chewbacca imitating helped with that.
but now i'm at a loss as for how to deal with my drinking life here in tokyo. it's dead useful to have a favorite drink to fall back on, and pocari sweat just doesn't do it for me. if not melon soda, then what?
Moving on to the Hanging pole. I got into my apartment here and found that it had everything I needed. Tv, washer, futon, internet, sit-down toilet, small stove area, the works. but when i washed my clothes, i found that there was no hanging line or anything, just some brackets outside the window that a pole or a line could attach to and fit across the outside, from which i could then hang stuff. so i set out to get a pole.
There're these nice stores five minutes walk from me, all scrunched together in one building with a cramped parking lot out front. I walk through the parking lot to get to the front entrance, and in the evenings i'm usually dodging vw beetles, those cube looking cars, and all kinds of expensive rides. there's a posh grocery store in the bottom, as well as a dvd/cd/book store next to it, but up above there's a 100 yen store (dollar store) with everything a poor english teacher in tokyo needs.
so i went up there in search of a rod. i scoured that place. i thought, well, let's look at the hanger section, there's bound to be one there. or maybe in the cleaning section. or maybe with the brooms, or the car thingies, or the tupperware. man, i looked all around that place and was ready to leave. but right next to the cashier was this garden section, and hidden in the corner were some green garden poles. the buying of it was uninteresting, but i got one that looked about the right size and got out of there.
walking around with it was kind of fun. i went down to the grocery store and trolled the aisles in search of food stuffs. the pole was kinda cocked at my side, ready to joust at a moment's notice. but no one took the bait, sadly. and then, when i was packing up my stuff and ready to head out, i almost forgot the thing, as i had put it to the side to work on packing my groceries perfectly in the plastic bags. it was only when i noticed that i didn't have to pull in whatever i was carrying in order to not hit another shopper that i realized i was missing something.
When i got home i went to the window to try it out and almost bit my tongue. i stuck the pole out the window and tried to fit it through the hole and realized that it was baaaarely big enough. it would fit through one hole on the right and then fall out of the other one on the left side of the window. for a moment, i was certain that i'd have to think up some other crazy use for that pole. like long distance cooking or moat depth checking. but then i realized that if i just wedge the thing into these little holes next to the big hole on the window's hanging fixtures, i could just prop it out there without having to thread it through. it actually wedges perfectly, taut enough that it won't fall down with a full load of laundry on it, and yet not so taut that it might hurt the braces. it looks very pretty out the window, too. nice and green. and if you look out through my window screen, it complements the yellow constellation of tape i put over the small holes in the screen to keep the mosquitoes out.
i'm pretty proud of my window pole. and when i walk by the complex and see my undies floating in the breeze, my pride knows no bounds. now if only i could figure out where to put my dishes to dry, i'd be set.
I'm just gonna touch on two things: Melon soda and a Hanging pole. I refuse to go into any rants on japanese culture at this point. there are plenty of other blogs for that, and honestly, it's not interesting for me to write about, as I hear about it so often. So i'll hit closer to home.
When I was in tokyo in 1998, my favorite drink was melon soda. There was this guy named Chaz or Chester, prolly Chester, and he and I discovered a fountain soda machine on the ground floor of our Olympic Center Hotel that we were staying at. we just Had to sample the melon soda. needful to say, it blew our minds. pure sugar, and pure green, it has everything that both plants and humans need. in fact, it's parentage most likely has something to do with Slurm from futurama, coupled with time travel and holodeck technology. it's an evil, addictive biproduct of the japanese pension for over-the-top products.
Over the course of that summer, I happily slupped it whenever I could get it. My host family did its best to keep me healthy, but that bubbly toxin found its way into my belly through powerful means of seduction. i couldn't resist and didn't want to. it was never odd to me that the first half of fantastic is fanta.
But when i left japan, i never found it again. apparently, yumminess is not marketable in america. so i moaned for a month and then got over it. but whenever i saw a can of fanta soda after that point, i would always check out the flavors, just in case.
And now, ten years later, I'm back, and that delicious soda still remains. it's in internet bars, food courts, and a lot of convenience stores. i'm in heaven. but i didn't count on one thing. just last year, in training for my marathons and for my general health, i decided to give up sugar for a while. it ended up lasting a couple of months (except for some czech birthday cake, which mostly got smeared on my face) and totally changed the way i ingest words ending in -ose.
When i went to england, everything was too sweet. i thot it was just a british thing. then i went to america. it was the same. and then i came here to japan and got some melon soda at an internet bar. i barely could take a cup of it. i used to down that stuff, and now i can hardly gulp a mini gulp. i pretty much ruined sugar for myself. i damn near ruined japan for myself. if it weren't for salmon sashimi, i think i might just pack up and go home. and one of my fellow teachers almost ruined That for me as well, telling me about his experience in a salmon packing plant in england. i barely got out of that with my grizzly bear-like salmon-eating ferocity intact. a lot of ear plugging and chewbacca imitating helped with that.
but now i'm at a loss as for how to deal with my drinking life here in tokyo. it's dead useful to have a favorite drink to fall back on, and pocari sweat just doesn't do it for me. if not melon soda, then what?
Moving on to the Hanging pole. I got into my apartment here and found that it had everything I needed. Tv, washer, futon, internet, sit-down toilet, small stove area, the works. but when i washed my clothes, i found that there was no hanging line or anything, just some brackets outside the window that a pole or a line could attach to and fit across the outside, from which i could then hang stuff. so i set out to get a pole.
There're these nice stores five minutes walk from me, all scrunched together in one building with a cramped parking lot out front. I walk through the parking lot to get to the front entrance, and in the evenings i'm usually dodging vw beetles, those cube looking cars, and all kinds of expensive rides. there's a posh grocery store in the bottom, as well as a dvd/cd/book store next to it, but up above there's a 100 yen store (dollar store) with everything a poor english teacher in tokyo needs.
so i went up there in search of a rod. i scoured that place. i thought, well, let's look at the hanger section, there's bound to be one there. or maybe in the cleaning section. or maybe with the brooms, or the car thingies, or the tupperware. man, i looked all around that place and was ready to leave. but right next to the cashier was this garden section, and hidden in the corner were some green garden poles. the buying of it was uninteresting, but i got one that looked about the right size and got out of there.
walking around with it was kind of fun. i went down to the grocery store and trolled the aisles in search of food stuffs. the pole was kinda cocked at my side, ready to joust at a moment's notice. but no one took the bait, sadly. and then, when i was packing up my stuff and ready to head out, i almost forgot the thing, as i had put it to the side to work on packing my groceries perfectly in the plastic bags. it was only when i noticed that i didn't have to pull in whatever i was carrying in order to not hit another shopper that i realized i was missing something.
When i got home i went to the window to try it out and almost bit my tongue. i stuck the pole out the window and tried to fit it through the hole and realized that it was baaaarely big enough. it would fit through one hole on the right and then fall out of the other one on the left side of the window. for a moment, i was certain that i'd have to think up some other crazy use for that pole. like long distance cooking or moat depth checking. but then i realized that if i just wedge the thing into these little holes next to the big hole on the window's hanging fixtures, i could just prop it out there without having to thread it through. it actually wedges perfectly, taut enough that it won't fall down with a full load of laundry on it, and yet not so taut that it might hurt the braces. it looks very pretty out the window, too. nice and green. and if you look out through my window screen, it complements the yellow constellation of tape i put over the small holes in the screen to keep the mosquitoes out.
i'm pretty proud of my window pole. and when i walk by the complex and see my undies floating in the breeze, my pride knows no bounds. now if only i could figure out where to put my dishes to dry, i'd be set.
