The Question

When the world ends, it will not be in a cacophony of fiery explosions, nor will massive numbers of people scream unintelligible... things at the top of their lungs. No. Instead, it will be accompanied by the voice of a cheerful young woman politely explaining that "This is the end of the world. Please don't forget to take all your belongings with you as you exit this plane of existence." Or maybe I've just been in Japan a bit too long.

Not that that has anything to do with anything, really. If you haven't caught on yet, that's kind of the way we do things around here. Welcome. Anyhoo, in stark contrast to the previous post, I actually have some sort of... thoughts, one might even go so far as to call them "plans" for this post. I'll start by bitching about random things, and then move on to some pictures. After which come the explosions, obviously.

Complaint #1) Me. Some people apparently spend their Saturdays relaxing, or possibly even socializing (or so I hear). Me, not so much. No, instead, I go apartment-hunting. Of course, I won't actually be moving for several months yet, and Tokyo/Yokohama does in fact - in stark contrast to for example Stockholm - have loads of empty places just looking to become un-empty. Ok, so I started out thinking "I'll just look at some places in Hiyoshi, that'll be it", but of course, things happened. I had a brainwave. "The next station isn't that far away, I might just as well leg it." I had this brainwave nine more times throughout the day, and my calves will never forgive me for it. For those of you who know your Toyoko-line, I walked Hiyoshi - Motosumiyoshi - Musashikosugi - Shinmaruko - Tamagawa - Den-en-chofu - Jiyugaoka - Toritsu-daigaku - Gakugei-daigaku - Yutenji - Nakameguro. To those of you who don't know your Toyoko-line, that's eleven stations, "cities", if you will. 16 kilometers, in Google Earth-years. 10 miles, and no, I don't know how many calories. Not doing that again anytime soon.

Complaint #2) Me. I only get off the escalator at the floor for classic music at the Tower Records in Shibuya to go the the bathroom. This makes me feel disappointed. I really want to know things about classical music, but I just never seem to reach enough wanting to step over the boundry into actual doing. My threshold energy is thus... great?

Complaint #3) Traffic lights. Bet you thought it was gonna be "me" again, huh? Just keeping you on your toes. Maybe it shouldn't be listed here since my traffic light karma has seemingly improved over the past week or so, but the lights by the station must be the worst invented by mankind. Ever. It's like the God of Traffic Lights ("Jeff", to his friends) just took the day off and played... that there Playing Station the kidz are all talking about? I don't know, whatever. At least I've finally managed to get from the station to my home without having to stop at either of the five lights. Traffic Light Bingo, as we refer to it.

Complaint #4) Me. For actually finding a recent song entertaining. At one point, the singer goes off on a wild tangent and excitedly claims that "I'm a crazy crazy rainbow star". I would imagine so. Do you know any sane rainbow stars? Ok, sure, but do they right music? Well, do they?

Complaint #5) Japanese TV. Usually it's right at the top of my non-complaints-list, but when you wake up on Sunday to a show where celebrities have to guess how much the plastic surgery cost that turned these five men into these five very female-looking males... Maybe it was just pre-Monday-crankiness setting in, I don't know.

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And now, pictures! First of all, there is one of a Porsche. It's a fine car. You may wish to guess where I had to go to take its picture. If so, by all means, indulge yourself. Winner gets a free cupcake.

An old Porsche.

Hint #1: The Porsche was not parked near here. (5 points)

Hint #2: The Porsche was parked near here. (3 points)

Hint #3: The Porsche was parked nere here. As well! (1 point)

Now as if that wasn't enough of a picture overload, here are some others I found taking up space on the ol' HDD. Triple points!

Why do you need the second sign? Do we really want people who can't remember a direction for five meters actually riding the subway?

What's wrong with this picture?

Who would win a pie-eating contest, the Japanese or American NBA?

Nah, I don't have a question about this one, I just thought it was... funky.

Suppose that's about it, really. Wow, first post since I got here that didn't involve Fuji-san in any way. Kinda. Good to see I'm finally getting over that frikkin' mountain. Anyway, be sure to tune in next week as I try to top my previous post about Russian mountains secretly harboring wishes of redistributing wealth. It's got a shocker finish, let me tell you!

The Inconsistency

Well isn't this awkward. It's a little like meeting a friend you haven't met since elementary school, only it's not a friend but a blog and it's not since elementary school (because back then, computers didn't exist) but three weeks. So yeah, I guess it's not really anything like that.

There have been developments. I don't know what your personal image of Japan is, but chances are that it will fall into one of two categories. Most things tend to, really. The first one is the image of a very efficient society, all cogs working together, firing on all cylinders, that sort of thing. This perception is usually predominant among people who have never been here. For some reason, if you've spent any length of time here, you begin to notice things like four people refilling a soda-machine. And no, it doesn't take a fourth of the time it would have taken just the one guy.

The Guys

Nah, I'm joking! Or am I...? Intriguing.

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And now, some crowd-pleasing from the depths of the oh-my-that's-just-wacky-wacky-I-tell-you-archive. Ok, so it's not that wacky, but it is posted on the wall above my stove, and I hear there's a huge interest in things like that, so here you go:

I'm so taking it out for a spin once I finish writing this. Can you take flying stoves out for spins, though?

Also! It will soon be officially springtime in Japan. In Sweden, it's apparently spring when the average temperature has been above 10 degrees (Celsius, what did you think? Seriously?) for seven straight days. Here, it's when the cherry blossoms, uhm, blossom. And this year, the hype may be more intense than ever, possibly thanks to Al Gore. Spot that connection! But yeah, some people are worried because the frikkin' things are blooming before they planned for them to bloom. These people are mainly tour operators who are booked full for the first week of April, when they thought the blooming would reach its peak, and are now faced with calling a lot of disappointed customers to say they're very sorry they couldn't control nature. This time. I would suggest they check this. Man, the Googles, they've got everything! (for those not daring to look, it's a Google Map of where the things are blooming, complete with pictures! Fan. Tas. Tic.)

Did I just spend an entire paragraph talking about not only flowers, but cherry blossoms? I must recover my masculinity, somehow. So! Toilets. For at least three years now, there have been models available where you bring music on an SD-card, plug it in, and beautiful stereo sound erupts from the built-in speakers. And yes, the seat is heated, of course. We're not barbarians, after all. If they could only figure out how to use insulation to keep heat in/out of the houses too, the entire country would probably just implode under the pressure of utter perfection. Oh, and there's a jacket made to help people who have to sleep standing on trains. I'm so getting one.

Closing out the section: I have cereal for breakfast sometimes. And yes, I felt a whole lot of grown up when I got the turbo-fiber ones instead of the turbo-sugar ones. And no, it wasn't an easy choice. But maybe I should take it easy. The package I got, all 450g of it, says it's for "industrial use", like for company kitchens or restaurants. Eating like a factory worker might be bad enough, but eating like an entire factory of workers? Maybe I should look into that diet thing people keep talking about.

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And now, for something completely different! Over the past couple of weeks, there have been changes to my future life - something a lot easier to deal with than changes to past lives, it must be said. Anyway, these changes have then been changed (a sort of meta-change, I would assume?), but the end result is that I've finally found out what part of the company I work for that I'll actually work for once my training is over in July, where I'll work, and where I'll train, too. If you're reading this, chances are you'll already know, so I won't waste any more key-presses on it. Ok, I will. It has to do with furniture.

Incidentally! The other day - at said place of work - I heard someone call my name. This happens now and then. Only this time, it was a person of Thai origin. This doesn't happen very often. Even less often, it's a Thai person I studied together with three years ago, only for her to go back to Thailand, graduate, come back to Japan to work in Osaka, then come to Yokohama and run into me. It was, as they would have said three weeks ago, "kewl".

Thailand? Travel. Multiple segue points: I've been around a bit myself, too. Some Yokohama here, some Shinjuku there, and a freak visit to Yotsuya only to find my reason for going - the Best Ramen in the Known World, Yayaya - closed. And some other places, but I certainly wouldn't want to bore you. So! Spot that holy mountain, and the... holy-hell-that's-a-lot-of-red-bricks/taxis?

A holy mountain, and a girl who's actually taller than it

Red brick warehouses, housing fine exotic goods for centuries. Like avocado burgers

So sue me! Again! I like the lights of Kabuki-chou. And taxis. Surely I am not alone in this?

And in grand tradition, I shall close out the post with a little something about food. I guess I might have mentioned it up there with the cereal, but as you are no doubt already aware, if I were king, my motto would probably be something along with lines of "to hell with consistency". Or possibly something about donuts. By now, you must surely be wondering why I have not died yet. It is a combination of two factors:

Things I have not eaten:

The Fugu. Potentially extremely poisonous blowfish for you and your special lady friend, sir?

Things I have eaten (wihout chewing?):

The Yamachan. Potentially extremely thirst-enducing spicy chicken wings, Nagoya-stylee. Note: Actual chicken wings may not be present in the above picture. Void if removed, no purchase necessary.

To paraphrase a formerly underground British pop act: Beer always tastes better with a man dressed like a chicken printed on my glass. That will be all.