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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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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