Christmas in Japan

Christmas in Japan is for lovers. In Canada, people enjoy special time with their families, going to church and such. Here in Osaka, the streets are lined with couples going to movies, shopping for couture, and lined up to eat fried chicken. Yeah, apparently KFC has done such a good job at marketing in Japan that most Japanese people think it’s what North Americans do. Another point for capitalism (although it’s not like it’s difficult, here in Japan).

This holiday season, I decided to go in search of the famed Santa-themed Love Hotel, Hotel Chapel Christmas. Again I enlisted the help of a research partner to join me. First, we did one of my top 10 favorite things to do in Japan: Kaiten Sushi bar hopping (the restaurants where you pick your sushi from a revolving conveyor belt; each plate costs about a dollar). This is basically going a sushi place, eating two or three plates of their best/freshest sushi, then picking up and doing the same at the next three or four sushi restaurants.

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Adventures in Love Hotel Land

In keeping up with the accountability list I posted the other day, I decided to go in search of the “Gang Snowman” Love Hotel. This hotel is kind of underground-famous in Osaka for its Cadillac-converted spa on the roof (the headlights flash and horn honks when the car shakes…) and it’s extreme S&M themed rooms.

First step was to enlist a research assistant (who shall remain anonymous…) and then head to the love hotel district: Tanimachi 9-cho-me.

My research assistant and I came across a few strangely named love hotels, but no “Gang Snowman”…

We found this one for kinky Vegans:

And this one that was a little slightly more appropriately named.

We went and checked out the pictures of the rooms, but there wasn’t anything too exciting, so we kept on.

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Lists

I like lists, and I like being able to cross things off lists. I recently came across a list on my computer that I made last year in Vietnam entitled “100 things to do before I turn 35″, and although I had almost forgotten what was on the list, I got to cross off a few items (get a lebret piercing; eat that disgusting duck embryo thing; eat the beating heart of a snake in Vietnam).

This time, to hold myself accountable to doing things that I say I’m going to do (this is really important for me — my pet peeve is when people talk about doing awesome things and never do them), I decided to share my list of experiences/foods/crazy things I want to try while here in Japan — and to give myself a specific timeline so that I can’t cop out and say “but I’m still in Japan, so I’ve got time…”

Oh, and I’m very open to suggestions if anyone has them (comment below please!)

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For an hour and a half every Wednesday evening, I am a private English tutor.

My student, Tsubasa, is 26. She just came back from a year studying in New York and wanted to continue her English.

Today, we were talking about how it is difficult to pursue a goal that not many other people can appreciate, and again she baffles me with using metaphors in English better than most native speakers.

I would teach her for free, simply to hear the metaphors and similes that she makes up on the spot (However, I do not tell her this. I simply smile and take her money)

“When you try to do something different from everyone else – like maybe start a business or something – it’s kind of like trying to become a professional high jumper – you know, the kind where they use the the pole (pole vault). And a lot of people, they quit while they are still learning how to run and use the pole — before they get good at jumping — they never even get to actually jump high. If you just push a little bit further, you can try to jump – then you do more practice and you can jump higher. Eventually you are jumping so high, you go over the top bar… No quitting while learning how to run.”

It’s a good thought for the day.

Engrish cracks me up… I know it shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t enjoy laughing at other people’s stupidity. Wait, yeah, actually I should. Because it’s damn funny.

Today I saw an Osaka fashion queen girl wearing a shirt that said: Eating Brains Starts Here.

A few other gems I found:

An Advertisement for a club called…

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Japanese people are scared of me. On the subway, no one will sit even remotely close to me. People will rather stand up or move to a different car, than sit next to me. Maybe they’re scared I might ask them a question that will test their ten years of elementary and high school English, when all they can remember is “I have a pencil.”

I also love watching the guys and girls that pass out little coupons for new bars/restaurants/etc. because they’re ruthless and unflinching in trying to give them to everyone that passes. Until they notice me walking toward them, about 15 feet away, at which time they calmly turn their heads the other way and pretend they were doing something else. Sometimes they even whistle a little tune like in the cartoons.

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Since I’m moving to Japan in precisely two weeks, I thought it would be appropriate to look at what I wrote about the wonderful and mysterious land of the rising prices, on my first trip way back in 2002 (reading my old writing, I get annoyed with my too-liberal use of brackets… aw crap.)

-To Japan-

Early morning on April 25th I drove to the airport with my Mom, Dad, and friend Skye, a student from China (originally on exchange to St. Mary’s) who would be participating in the same exchange program as me. After a bad taste of 80`s rock, typical of an unnamed Halifax radio station, the news came on: seems that scientists have discovered evidence to back up the phenomenon of “Spring Fever” — the theory that says males are more aggressive in pursuing females in the Spring season — typically thought of as an old wives tale. They said something to the effect that male hormones actually increase involuntarily in the spring season. “Good,” I thought to myself, as we pulled into the airport parking lot, “not even on the plane yet, and already I’ve got an excuse ready.”

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