Soda

I ordered a combo meal from McDonald's with no ice for the drink. The drink felt light so I opened it up and discovered that the already small cup had only been filled up halfway. There must've been some kind of cultural miscommunication. In North America, "no ice" means either "I want a less watered-down taste" or "I want more soda" or both. Fast food employees oblige by still filling the soda up near the top of the cup despite the lack of ice. Here in Nippon, "koori irimasen" means "I want to see how much I'm getting screwed over by ordering a drink." Yes, it's still a rip-off if you buy soda at McDonald's no matter what the country is, but you feel a lot more ripped off here.

Futotta

I stood patiently in the food line at a buffet when a chubby female kid cut in front of me and started grabbing food. Hey kid, the ocean called. They're running out of shrimp! The jerk store also called. They're running out of you!

Smelly

I ate dinner at a sushi bar tonight. The place was full and while I was eating, the couple next to me finished and left. Two old men took the open seats and I immediately got a strong whiff of body odor. I couldn't continue my meal and had to leave. I sthink(sp) there may be a problem with the deodorant in Nippon.

Gomi

I bought supplies at Costco a few weeks back and stopped by the food courts to get a hotto dokku. The Costco hot dog has been one of the foods I've been craving since coming here. It's a little more expensive than back home, but it still comes with the refillable soda. The refillable soda isn't such a great value considering that you can't take the soda out of Costco. There's nothing to prevent you from doing that except that once you finish the soda, you'd have to carry it around forever because of the lack of trash cans in this barren wasteland. The time-honored American tradition of refilling your soda and taking it on the go has been spoiled by the anti-soda government here. I did buy some 12 packs of soda and had them shipped back to my residence. Costco was the first time I ever saw a 12 pack of soda in this country. Maybe it'll be the only place that I'll ever see it.

Squat

I visited a temple this afternoon in the sprinkling weather. I had to take a dump while walking around and managed to find the restrooms in the temple area. It was a generally clean bathroom with no stench and it had four squat toilets. The Asian-style squats were expected given that the temple is extremely old. What shocked me was that these were not old squats. They had hand sensors rather than handles for flushing the toilet. Now why would they update the squat toilets with sensors when they could have just replaced them with Western-style toilets? Who was the Mr. Spock behind that decision?

Banking 3

I went to the ATM around 8am today and it said that I would be charged a fee for using the ATM after hours. I accepted the charge because if I didn't withdraw money right then, the bank could be down for another three days. The shareholders for this company must be billionaires from charging all these fees. I think they must've closed all their banks for three days so that they could upgrade the computer software to charge more fees than before.

Banking 2

My bank and all of its ATMs have been closed for the past three days. This is one of the major banks in the country. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I can't get cash in a cash-based society.

Yamanote walk

A few days ago, somebody told me that one of his hobbies is walking. I told him that I once walked with a friend from Tokyo station to Shibuya station and asked him what his longest walk was. He said that one time in college, he and a bunch of friends walked the whole Yamanote line all night long, starting and ending at Tokyo station. It took them about 10 hours to complete. What in god's holy name are you blathering about? I asked him if they were drinking, but he said they were all sober. When I got home, I looked up walking the Yamanote line and apparently it's some kind of urban challenge that some people do.

Banking

One night last week, I went to use one of my bank's ATMs. I got a warning before withdrawing that I would be charged a fee for withdrawing outside of normal hours. I refused and decided to get money the next morning. I withdrew money last weekend too and I saw on my passbook that I got charged 105 for the transaction. I can't read the language, but I'm pretty sure that's a weekend transaction fee because I'd never taken out money on a weekend before and never got that fee before. What kind of hillbilly banking system do they have here? These fees reminded me of the Washington Mutual and Southwest Airlines commercials that advertise no extra fees unlike their competitors.