Hotel Fine, I Just Can't Get Enough

Well, I added a few more points to my Hotel Fine members card a little bit ago. I'm well on my way to that Nintendo DS!

Thankfully, Hotel Fine had all the amenities I remember. They still had some free snacks and water in the fridge, free Tsubaki shampoo, and free breakfast. Did I forget to mention free alcohol? Because I got a pitcher of beer and some umeshu just for myself, and it was all included in the 9000 yen price. The normal price for this particular room was around 10,500, so it really pays to be a member (membership is free).

The breakfast was actually MUCH better than I remember too.

Even if you are a veteran to love hotels, Hotel Fine is a great place to spend the night. It's reasonably priced, but has spectacular service.  It was, however, a bit different from what I remember.  For one, I actually had to speak to a real live person, face to face, to get the key to my room...how am I supposed to remain anonymous when I have to talk to real people??  The last time I was at Hotel Fine, I walked in, saw which rooms were lit up (signaling that they were available) on the wall and picked one.  The room number is printed onto a receipt and lights guide you to your room which is already unlocked.  This past time, all of that happened, except when I pressed the button for my room, a lady came from around the corner to give me the key....weird.

Thankfully, not everything changed and they kept the vibrator and ridiculously complicated alarm clock next to the bed...I'm not sure where I was going with this.  I guess my point is that Hotel Fine is still a quality hotel, with a lot to offer.  I would rate Hotel Fine among the top things to check out in Osaka; right behind Hep 5 mall, but before Osaka Castle.  

Japanese Food

Japan and I have always had our disagreements when it comes to food.  It is delicious and healthy, but since its hard to fight thousands of years of tradition (did I say hard, I meant impossible), I have let  my vegetarianism slide a little in Japan for the sake of convenience and my sanity. To give you some idea of what I have to deal with, products still advertise, in bold letters, that they cook with lard.

But once you get passed the fact that meat is in everything, you'll see that it is only in small quantities and Japanese food is very vegetable heavy.  If you order curry or even a steak in Japan, the meat is generally just a small portion of your dinner (an issue many American visitors complain about).  Friendly note; a hanburg steak (ハンバーグステーキ) is not a steak, its a hamburger patty.

Speaking of veggie heavy, the vegetables actually taste like vegetables!  Vegetables in Japan are tasty and satisfying.  The first time I ate a tomato in Japan was a life changing experience.  I think this has to do with Japan using less chemicals to grow food (at least the food they have imported uses less chemicals; Japan only grows about 20% of its own food), but veggies are considerably more expensive as a result.  Japanese cooking is all about bringing out the natural flavor of the food, not covering it in sauce or spices, so it really helps that the ingredients taste like they're supposed to.

Unless I'm doing the dishes, I don't have a problem with home cooked Japanese food.  Since a lot of Japanese food has to do with presentation, a TON of dishes are used, but it looks pretty.  Even when you're not eating at a tapas style restaurant, which is also really popular in Japan, meals still tend to have many plates instead of just one large one.

Now for the gross stuff.  Yakiniku places (korean bbq style restaurants where you cook your own meat) often have Horumon on the menu.  Horumon (ホルモン) are cow and pig entrails and the Japanese word is actually derived from the words 'throw away' and 'thing'.  Other garbage parts of the animals include chicken hearts, which are common at Torikizoku.  For some reason, I'm more okay with these animal parts than with katsuobushi, かつお節.  Katsuobushi is dried bonito fish skin flakes that dance around on your food when your food is hot....and they put this stuff on EVERYTHING... 

However, Japan has Caesar Salad Doritos and Ham and Cheese flavored Pretz, so all aforementioned problems are forgiven. 

Japan's creativity for eating disgusting parts of animals is only exceeded by their creativity in combining foods, that are individually delicious, into works of food art.

AV

Since it was recently valentine's day, I'd like to talk about porn.  Besides, it has been way too long since I've expressed my love and hatred of Japanese porn (AV).  This is also the first question I get asked when I talk about living in Japan; "why is their porn so weird?"  To be completely honest, Japanese porn is a freaking mystery that I will likely never understand since it simultaneously has so much yet so little to offer.  Anyone whose stumbled upon this particular genre knows what I'm talking about.  I'm going to try and generalize as best I can but obviously since there is so much porn out there, not all Japanese AV will fit in to my description.

What everyone seems to notice first in Japan is the multitude of porn readily available.  Everything from animals with tentacles, bondage, to ripped panty hose is all too commonplace.  Basically, fetish porn is regular porn.  Despite all this ridiculous stuff, you can't actually SEE any of it.  Its all blurred out.  Japan used to outlaw even showing pubic hair (and the yakuza do produce uncensored stuff, but its harder to find).

I still remember my first trip to Tokyo when my bros killed some time by browsing a video shop...for research.  The first floor had everything you'd expect from a porn shop but as we ascended the floors the videos got more and more disgusting.  I mean 'dry heaving and needing a therapist' disgusting.  Needless to say, I didn't make it to the top floor, I stopped at the bleeding and animal level and decided to call it a day. 

That all sounded bad.  Don't get me wrong, its porn so it can't be all that bad.  Its the age of the internet, so you can find other freaky, non-blurred porn with a few mouse clicks.  And how can America be so quick to decide what is 'normal' porn?  When I first got to Japan, all of it seemed new to me, and new was good!  Lawson and 7-11 sell it right next to the cup noodles, so its hard to ignore.  The girls tend to be INCREDIBLY cute.  Sometimes too cute. Like, so cute and innocent that they have no confidence and you feel a little guilty watching them be taken advantage of...also, they cry.

Okay, whats wrong with you Japan!  While I'd like to celebrate an abundance of porn, this seriously can't be good for the general public.  The real problem is Japanese people don't get taught sex ed in school, and they most certainly don't talk about sex with their family, so where are they learning this stuff?  A nation of teenagers learning about sex from fetish porn can't possibly be doing any good.  Especially while rape is a genre of porn...but it seems like that's a problem that Japan has yet to figure out. 

What's the Color of Eggplant?

To all you 'mericans out there, Japan is a strange and beautiful place.  Many things that are "normal" in Japan are not normal in America or anywhere else, which is a big reason I love Japan.  It works the other way too.  Truck nuts and fat chicks??  Not normal in Japan. 

This sounded so stupid the first time I heard it, but it also kind of freaked me out.  I had just downed half a bottle of Rum Chata, and I was hiccuping like crazy when a certain Japanese lady asked me, whats the color of an eggplant?...what the hell does that have to do with anything??  ....WOAH, my hiccups stopped!  I've NEVER heard this before, but apparently its one of those Japanese wives' tales (like drinking from the wrong side of the glass, or being scared).  I can't really speak for the validity of this, because I've only tested it once, but it worked for me.  Next time someone has the hiccups, ask them "なすの色は何色？" 

Rikimaru is awesome...but whats the color of that Eggplant over there??

Study Up!

Coming from someone as lazy as myself, this may not sound all that convincing, but to seriously pick up Japanese you need to buckle down. For too long I've been relying on Osmosis to do the work for me.  I've surrounded myself in Japanese music (Otsuka Ai, and Ayaka mostly), Japanese friends (mostly girls), and books that I'd thumb through whenever I felt like it.  There are a few problems with this method of 'studying'.

For one, only hearing women speak is hugely detrimental.  There are things that only women can get away with saying and you don't want to pick up on these (ending your sentences in 'wa' and 'mon' just for starters).  Think of making guy friends as an investment that will pay off later when you have more manly Japanese and the Japanese girls are lining up for your phone number.  Its only fun to be the cute gaijin that speaks a little girly for so long (trust me).  Though girly Japanese may work for nanpa, good luck getting a job in Japan talking like a high school chick. 

Second, I found that when I learned at a leisurely pace, I was forgetting as much as I was learning. Sisyphus is no model for language learning.  The only way to stay ahead is to cram your face
with as much Japanese as possible, and that unfortunately takes commitment.  Since I've been working, I've lost 9 hours of study time per day.  I'm starting to wish I'd majored in Japanese so I'd have this language down by now...why did I have to get a degree in a marketable skill?

Third, much like working out, putting in just a few hours a week will only yield results for so long.  You will plateau unless you are constantly challenging yourself.  Unlike working out, you can't just take language steroids and get fluent in a week.  I've used Rosetta Stone, Japanesepod101, and Pimsleur but they only worked when I was constantly using them and pushing past my comfort zone (which is more difficult than it sounds because Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur don't really teach beyond intermediate Japanese).  

I doubt this will be all that motivating for anyone out there, because I wrote this for myself.  I've set a goal to take the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken and I need to remind myself to study up.  You hear me Jon Evans??  Pass the N1 or N2 and you've got an in for a Japanese job, so don't drop the ball!

Extra Hard Cock Grease

Now I'm sure some of you reading this were probably looking for porn, so I'm sorry to disappoint you.  But this is a real thing.

SEE!

You can find these little gems of ridiculous word play all throughout Japan.  Though everyone "learns" English from grade school, somehow these things slip though the cracks.  You would think that in the global age of the internet someone would do a google search of Cock Grease to see if that was an appropriate name.  It would only take 10 seconds to realize that this product name didn't exactly bring up good imagery to sell hair wax. 

In the above photo, that woman walked in and blocked my shot, but you can sort of read the sign for the water they are advertising.  Its called Clytia, They have a Website.  Anyone else getting thirsty thinking about Clytia??

But of course the winner of broken and busted English will always go to clothing.  I really need to remember to take more pictures of this kind of stuff.  Even though I speak English as a first language, there is no way I'd ever be able to think of putting "All My Exes Got Married" on a shirt.  I love you Japan, but I will never fully understand you.