Welcome to SMAP Country

My old friend, Nan the blogless Porkchop,  is flying out to visit me in the Land of the Rising Sun; she lands on Monday afternoon.  I'll be picking her up at Nagoya Airport (Centrair) at approximately 2:50, whereupon I shall bid her welcome using this phrase: "Let's go get naked."  There's nothing better than hopping into a Japanese communal bath with complete strangers and a high school friend you never even had to see naked at gym class after an 18-hour journey.

Our schedule is loosely as follows: Week number 1, allow the Porkchop to wander aimlessly around the streets of Nagoya while I work.  Week number 2, Yokoso Tour a la Cynic: 1 night in Tokyo, 1 night in Kyoto, 1 night in Osaka.  My biggest difficulty will be trying to allow Nan to form her own opinion of the country and its people.  I must admit, the longer I stay here the more disheartened I become with the place.  

After Obama was elected the first educated president in 8 years (Ha!  You thought I was going to say "first black president", didn't you?), I decided to discuss the President Elect with my high-level, adult English students.  They seemed appalled at the notion that some Americans would oppose Mr. Obama's leadership based solely on the color of his skin.  Admirable, you might think; but this is coming from the same group of students who once told me they didn't trust "the Chinese", and continually marvel over the fact that I'm able to use chopsticks and eat sushi.

But just like not every American is a member of the KKK, not every Frenchman is gay, and not every Englishman has bad teeth (really?) ...not all Japanese people are naive bigots who teach their children to hate China and hope North Korea is blown up by America.  

Plus, Japanese food is effing delicious.

Herro!

In the immortal words of Timbaland: "It's been a long time (long time), we shouldn't have left you (left you), without a dope beat to step to".

As always, it takes the Puff to kick my ass back into gear.  I took a year-long hiatus from catty blogging...and for what?  Well, mainly traipsing around Japan and slowly watching the decline of America as an economic superpower from a precariously safe distance.  MCCAIN '08 (all I have to say is thank the online gods for Jon Stewart)!

If anyone's curious, the general public in Japan is supportive of Obama in as much as he's "that black American that is always on the news".  When asked about Presidential candidate, John McCain, the two answers I frequently get are a) "Who's that?" and b) "Is that the guy with the woman Vice President?"  So, generally speaking, the lack of knowledge about the impending election is not much different than in the States, except it's less scary here because they can't actually vote.

So does this post mean Cynic is back?  If I can quote my personal hero, Jesus Christ Sarah Palin, "You betcha."

Smile Update Japan

• I lived through my first typhoon and earthquake in Japan, all in a span of three days. I was so excited about the typhoon, as we don't generally have them in the US. At least I don't think we do. I didn't even know what a typhoon was. Categorically, I guess it's a little weaker than a hurricane. In any case, it turned out to be a thunderstorm. Not even a really bad one. The 6.8 earthquake's epicenter was offshore of the Niigata prefecture in Japan; about 8 hours northwest of Nagoya. Supposedly, my city felt 3.0 tremmors, but Monday (some holiday called "Ocean Day". No Joke. I love this country) was a holiday, and so at 10:15 a.m., when it hit, I was soundly asleep on my futon.
• Sunday afternoon Rich, my boss, Raul, and I went to Hamanako Lake, a brackish body of water at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean (I think?), to catch shrimp. Yeah! Shrimp! I didn't even know you could do that! But it turns out typhoons (it hit the day before) are really windy, and so we had to fight 40 to 50 mph winds to catch the ever ellusive creatures. In fact, we didn't catch any because the water was so choppy. C'est la vie! It was nice to get out of the city and see mountains and the ocean (which had 15 to 20 foot swells). While we were driving on the highway toward Hamanako, yellow caution signs appeared regularly: Deer Crossing. Not so unusual. Then: Monkey Crossing. AWESOME! Monkeys! I imagined them sitting on the guardrails flinging poo at passing cars, but alas...we saw no monkeys.
• Remember the whole toothpaste with poison from China debacle? Well, since then, we have gotton news of Chinese Killer Cough Medice (wiped out hundreds of people from Panama), Chinese Dumplings (called nikuman) made with cardboard and lard instead of meat...yummy, and bottled water erroneously labeled as Evian when in fact it was Chinese tap water. Oh yeah, and baby toys painted with lead-based paint. It's the biggest news in Japan right now, so I thought I'd share it with you. Needless to say, I don't buy things from China anymore. Caught up in hysteria, you say? Whatever, all I know is I don't want to grow a third eye or something.

I Moved, The Blog Moved, We All Move The Move Move

I'm going to attempt to blog regularly. We shall see...

Disgusting Foods I've Eaten Since Coming To Japan

• My boss made me try a fried, dehydrated sardine, flattened to technically fall into the "chip" category. The extra crunchiness comes from the bones that are kept in for added calcium. The bag claims "bone-in for extra health!"


• A Nursery School student of mine recently went to Tokyo with his family and brought me back a bag of candies (he loves me and is now my favorite). The candies are all bite-sized rice crispy treats, only more crunchy and come in three different flavors: caramel, regular and chocolate chip. In a certain light the chocolate chips almost looked green. Because they were. I popped it in my mouth to discover it was, in fact, a seaweed flavored rice crispy treat. You want to know what two flavors don't go together? Salty-fishy-green-anything-that-comes-out-of-the-ocean and puffed rice cereal.


• We went to an izakaya (like a bar, only with more food and smoking businessmen) and allowed our boss to order a sampling of Jap pub grub. Firstly, let me just say it's a cultural faux pas to refuse food, especially when you're not paying for it. So it was with grim understanding that the thing on a stick I had just taken a bite from was chicken. The crunchy, popping in my mouth (they like crunchy, can you tell)? Cartilidge. Yeah. Yummy.


• In a moment of weakness my bodyguard and I went to Outback Steakhouse (yes, the very same) to get drinks one night. We decided to get two appetizers. At the time, the grease tasted fabulous. But burping up Bloomin' Onion at 3 a.m. was never on my agenda and so now, regardless of what continent I'm on, I shall refrain from the lip-coating grease of American chain restaurants.