I forgot to mention that I am beginning my homestay tomorrow.  I will have even less internet access than usual, but I will try to post as sporadically as possible.

By the way, this is the founder of my city.  I don’t even know his name but he is so hardcore.  I hear he would just tilt his head into the troops and shish-ka-bob his enemies.

However, it being Japan and all, his image has turned from fierce warrior to, what else, but furry mascot.

That’s all for now.

Also, the other day, we had our first earthquake!  At first, I thought maybe a huge pack of schoolgirls (We had had them visit earlier.) was running on the roof before we understood what happened.  It lasted about 5 seconds, and I made sure during that time to properly hide underneath a table with my helmet.

Now it is time for:

Japan Has the Best Food: SUPER DELUXE EDITION

I have eaten all of these except the Caffe Latte Ritz Bits, which seemed just like too much.  Hold your mouse over the pictures to read their descriptions.

I had Pepsi White yesterday, the new Yogurt Pepsi drink. It didn’t really taste like yogurt, but, like practically every drink here, tasted like a liquid version of some solid food I am used to.  It was pretty good, but I cannot yet place it.  I will drink more to let you know what it turns out to be.  I wonder if this is coming out in America, too?

• Cashier (in Japanese): “Do you want this heated up?”
• Me (in Japanese): “Yes, thank you.”
• Cashier (in English): “No.”  (Crosses arms to form an ‘x’)

Um, I am pretty sure “Yes” does not have a double meaning as “no,” but it seemed like either she didn’t think I understood, or she was outright denying me something she asked to do.  Either way, I am confused.

Japan Has the Best Food

Yes, those Ritz Bits are vanilla, and yes, they are amazing.

Drink of the Day

 So this is Olmeca brand tequila, which I actually have not drank, but I think it is awesome that Legends of the Hidden Temple’s Olmec is on the bottle.  I guess that is about it.

Today is our day off because it is the Fall Equinox.  Any country with the Fall Equinox as a national holiday is okay by me.  They also had last week a day off for “Old People Appreciation Day,” so basically, if you want to never have school, come to Japan.

My current status is my roommate is trying to explain to a Japanese person what a “Your Mom” joke is.  It seems quite hard, and I think he has approached the “accidentally offensive” territory.  I try not to enter these kind of situations and tend to stay in the “Pokemon” territory.

I think I might just dump a bunch of photos here instead of explaining much else.  Eventually I might even have something to say but I hold the belief that a picture is worth 16 bucks.  

Okay well these are just some flowers.  I hope they are pretty.  In addition, this is an actual Japanese pick-up truck.  They are really this size.  Goodbye.

This is the earthquake van.  It contains earthquakes.

This man is demonstrating how to properly experience an earthquake - from the safety of under a table.

We all had to put helmets on and hold on to a table that moved around when activated - then, when it was over, we had to turn off the fake stove and rice cooker that the van also had.

Also recently I ate Bacon chips.  They were pretty good.

Signage

While most of you deducted the previous sign meant “No Passing,” this one is a challenge for the ages.  Underneath our friend 50, we have “No Blue,” which usually I can agree with; I just don’t understand why it is illegal.

Since I still have room by the picture, I should mention that everyone is freaking out about the homework, but this is so much easier than Carleton - we have 3 times as much class time to learn the same amount of information.  I should be safe, then.

Moustache Update:

In the span of a few days, with no provocation from my own, my nickname has become “Mustache.”  There are different forms, such as “Mustachio,” or just “Stachio,” but my plan has triumphed - with each mention of my moustache, it grows more and more powerful.

Two girls here are 20 and engaged.  It is kind of weird.  Anyway, time for more pictures.

Drink of the Day

Sorry, this is sideways and I am too lazy to change it.

Gatorade 3: Triple Charge.  It tastes nothing like Gatorade.  It is basically lemon juice with some carbonation.  Not what I was expecting at all.

4/8 Moustaches.

Engrish!

I will leave you today with more pictures of where I live.

This is the post where I will dump any remaining pictures I have in my desktop folder and talk about anything I can remember.

First of all, this picture is a sewer cover in Osaka.  Self-explanatory, maybe?

Today, our Japanese class spent a good hour practicing our “Japanese skills” with some random middle-aged folks.  I had an interesting conversation with one man in particular, who was practicing his English as well, and he had written this down to present to us.  He are excerpts.

“I retired early, about three years ago.  But, since I retired early, I don’t get benefits, so I don’t really have that much money.  Because of this, I do not eat breakfast.  I am very hungry. [...] My son is a musician and songwriter, and he wants to be famous.  I don’t think he’s very good, though. [...] I play tennis almost every day.  I don’t play Monday or Saturday.  Monday is my holiday.  [Insert huge belly laugh here.] After tennis, I work out and eat lunch.  With beer!”

He was a lively dude.

Drink of the Day!

I know it has been a while since I did these, but the truth is, a few weeks ago I found the perfect drink.  However, it belongs in another post that I have yet to get to.  But, this drink is very old as well.  It is called “Qoo,” and pronounced “Coo.”  It is basically apple juice (there is an “orange” variety too) but it becomes instantly more delicious because of the adorable otter-like creature drinking its own liquid.

6/8

This is the crew I met in Osaka when I went to see Radiohead.  They were from all over - Belgium, Korea, Australia, The Philippines, France, Norway, Japan even.  We all met in a bar and went together, and crazily, the first person I asked if he was going to Radiohead was, in fact, not aware of anyone meeting in that bar.  He just happened to be in the perfect place at the perfect time.  Oh, also there was a guy from Greece who quit his job a year ago and has just been traveling.  I have no idea where he gets the money, but unrelatedly I think I lost a few hundred dollars that night.

This is a store I saw in Hiroshima.  I am kinda speechless.  The concept of the alphabet having its own alphabet confuses me too greatly.  Notice one is clearly dominant with its cursive and upper-caseness.

This is all for Odds + Ends (Volume I) but I will probably be back with exciting pictures and details of this place across the ocean.

Hello!  This is Austin and his Moustache in Japan!  Let me tell you about my trip.

The plane was ride was a ridiculous infinite-hour flight.  We left at about 3:30pm and arrived at almost 6pm Japan-time, but those (13? 14?) hours were impossible to determine on account of my computer battery dying, and the Japanese plane tricks.

Japanese Plane Trick 1: Turn of all the lights and pretend it is nighttime at 8pm.  We were following the sun, so we basically stayed in the afternoon the whole trip, and yet the fed us breakfast nearing the end of our trip.  A 5pm breakfast really throws you off when you land and it is completely dark.

[Editor's Note: Here Austin was going to talk about the second Japanese Plane Trick, but then promptly forgot.  It involved trying to acclimate the Americans to Japanese culture with bonding-oriented in-flight movies, such as Speed Racer, Kung Fu Panda, and What Happens in Vegas, but somewhere along the way, something became misguided.]

Speaking of dark, it gets dark here really early and really thick.  In my city, there are hardly any streetlights, so after sunset, you better know where you are.

My city!  Let me post a picture of its rurality.

It is pretty great because no one here speaks English, which I think I said before, and my host family (which I am not going to get until October) is apparently rice farmers who don’t want me to like, step on their crops or whatever.  Their ceiling might be too short for my heigh on account of their traditional Japanese-style housing, so I am really in for an adventure when I get there.

I’d like to interrupt for some Lounge Music of the Moment: Tale As Old As Time, from Beauty and the Beast.  In this hotel, there is always great instrumental lounge music.  Earlier, they played John Lennon’s Imagine, and it is all familiar things.  It just changed to the Cheers theme song.

Anyway, my city is called Hikone, and it is a small city outside of Kyoto (maybe an hour away by train).  We arrived in the Osaka airport, and drove into a truck stop for some food.  That was our first experience of Vending Machine Madness.  A co-foreigner got a hot dog and fries from a vending machine.

So our building is called JCMU, or Japan Center for Michigan Universities (Shh, Carleton, I snuck in.), and this is what it looks like.  I don’t live in it, since I live in the hotel, but I will be moving into the residence halls this weekend, so maybe I take pictures then.  We are taking two classes, and one of mine is an online class.  I just don’t know the website or anything, yet.  I should find that out.

So, I am chilling here, and I think this is a good restart.  I would leave you guys with some good Engrish, but I haven’t uploaded new camera photos yet.

Peace.