Maid Casino

Japan has long been known for its maid cafes.  I was pretty surprised when China beat Japan to starting an airline with flight attendants dressed as maids and butlers.  Probably a terrible business model anyway (see Hooters Air)

The last time I was in Tokyo I hit up an awesome/creepy place in Akihabara, a Maid Casino.  I probably don't need to explain it any further because it was exactly as it's name implies.  It was a casino and all the staff were dressed as maids.  While the idea is simple enough, it was a pretty good time.

How does it work?  They have different tiers, but you can enter for as cheap as 2000 yen and they give you $200 in chips.  From there you get a complimentary drink and you pick your game.  After every hour or so you have to pay a small fee (in chips) to stay.  If you get bored before going bankrupt, you can show the staff how many chips you have and they will keep track for next time.  You will still have to pay a small fee to enter when you come back, but it is much cheaper than the initial cost.

They also have craps!

I thought it was a really cool idea, and since Japan doesn't gamble much outside of pachinko it was weird to gamble in Japan.  I also learned some Japanese gambling lingo in the process.  At blackjack they call the numbers out in English, and when someone hits and gets a 20 or 21, everyone says ナイスアップ(Nice Up).

I only had 2 complaints, which aren't even really complaints just something to be aware of.  For one, maid themed anything attracts the weirdest of the weird.  This maid casino was PACKED with otaku.

Second, this was most definitely not Vegas, or even Detroit.  When you walked up to a game, everyone assumed you didn't know how to play, and it took a while to get games started (though they did have some nice laminated cards with the game rules on them).  I've been to Vegas and know my way around a craps table, so I found that I knew more about the game than the maid running it.  There was also only one person manning the craps table, instead of the usual 4, so the game was a little slow.   I wasn't betting real money so it wasn't a big deal.  I just found it interesting that Japan has such little experience with the casino atmosphere.

If you happen to be in Tokyo and need to kill a couple hours, and you have already seen the temples/shrines/fish market, I would recommend the Maid Casino in Akihabara.  I can promise you'll be the coolest person there.

夜行バス - Night Bus

While the nightbus can be a great way to catch a cold and some lower back pain, it is also my favorite means of travel in Japan. I just recently went from Osaka to Toyko then from Yamanashi to Osaka with a total cost of less than 一万円 (Convert To Dollars). I strongly recommend the night bus for anyone out there looking to travel around Japan for a host of reasons....which are:

1) It's Cheap - As mentioned above, night bus travel is dirt cheap. There are a LOT of companies out there, and a lot of demand for travel which is a great recipe for competition and cheap fares. I usually take the cheapest buses (about 3000 yen from Osaka to Tokyo one way) but if you value comfort they offer buses with better seats, WIFI, and more space for an extra one to two thousand yen. Sure you could spend 4X that on the shinkansen and get their in 1/4 the time, but wouldn't you rather arrive with an extra ichiman in your pocket to spend on souvenirs booze, or your plane ticket to get to Japan in the first place?

2) They're everywhere! Even in rural ass Japan (Yamanashi) they had a pick up spot along the expressway. The pick-up was basically a rest stop for travelers between two big cities. The rural stops tend to be more expensive, but still a good way to travel, but the buses do show up early so it is best to get there 20 min before your departure. My buddy and I had to sprint through a food court and parking lot because the bus driver was calling to ask where we were...15 minutes before the scheduled departure!

3) Rest Stops - The buses I've been on stop every 2 hours or so. In my half awake fog I don't remember much about the rest stops, but what I do remember is that they sell a lot of regional goods. For example, when traveling to Tokyo from Osaka, the rest stops in between offer the regional Kit Kats from Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, and everywhere in between. It is pretty convenient if you forgot to pick up some omiyage (Japan is a souvenir culture) or if you're like me and just want to try some of the hundreds of Kit Kat flavors (spoiler alert: they're all awesome!)

Rum Raisin (bottom right) actually lists a small alcohol content. It was メッチャ tasty

And the Wasabi (middle left) was less subtle than I remember

4) Touchaku! - Getting to your destination at 6am is pretty awesome. You have the whole day ahead of you so you can go straight to work, breakfast, shower at a manga cafe, wherever. Be sure to pick up a complimentary toothbrush on your way out to cure that morning breath. The down side is most department stores don't open till 10 or 11, so you need to kill some time before you can do some shopping and eat free samples of roll cake and whatnot. I try to get my sight seeing in early before everything gets hot and crowded.

Are there downsides? Of course. You could be stuck sitting next to a salary man that smells like a chimney had sex with a pile of wet garbage, but its all part of the experience!

お酒

Sake is awesome. Often referred to as Japanese 'wine', If you don’t know too much about sake, this article will change what little you know about drinking and cooking with Sake. I found everything about this article to be good news.  For example:

Cheaper sake is better for cooking – great.
Sake doesn’t age well, so get it fresh and drink it quickly – done.
Sake is more like beer than wine, so I guess that means it’s cool to just drink it from the bottle?
Sake and mirin are also good ways of adding the mysterious umami taste to your food – awesome

 My latest sake du jour

Many people point to umami as the reason Japanese food is so filling and delicious. And interestingly, combining salty/sweet/sour with umami creates a tasty sensation greater than the sum of their individual parts. For you Japanophiles, it’s like a half saiyan/half human being more powerful than both species apart – they compliment each other and make your taste buds go super saiyan…or something lame like that.

I'd like to conclude with what I call, the void.  Not to get too sidetracked but in addition to ‘reverse culture shock’, a return back from Japan leaves a hole in your stomach that cannot be filled with American cuisine. If you go to Japan for any extended period of time, going off of Japanese food cold turkey is a rough time. On my visits to America I found myself eating all day, every day and never EVER getting full. This may have combined with the sadness of leaving Japan and the crying myself to sleep, but it is not just me.  My friends who have visited for mere weeks reported the same thing happening to them.  Just one more reason to never leave Japan.

Capsule Apartments and the Internet

Here we go again, look how whacky those crazy Japanese are!  People actually live in 1.5 jou capsule apartments!!!

Where do I begin...


Yes, some nights in Japan made me wonder how screwed up Japan actually is but what you have to realize is that Japanese people are just that; people.  Human people.  Japan is a country that kicks America's ass at everything important, so how 'weird' can they really be??  (The answer is actually Pretty Weird, but not weirder than most.)

Before I continue, let me stress that this is the internet where anything can, and often is, published before validating anything.  We've seen this with LED mouth lights, bagel heads,
Egypt Necrophilia law,  Obama is a 'muslim', and on and on.  Unfortunately as a result of the never ending quest for page views, most 'news' has lost its credibility.

So how about this crazy city of Tokyo (pronounced Tou Kyou - 2 syllables)?  Tokyo, like the internet, is large enough for anything to exist.  Tokyo is quite literally the largest city in the world so it really doesn't surprise me that ANYTHING exists in Tokyo.  If you've ever spent time in Tokyo you'll know that transsexual host clubs are just the tip of the iceberg of Tokyo's weirdness.

All that aside, lets assume these apartments are popular and they are popping up all around Tokyo.  For the single recent college graduate with zero free time and a low salary, this type of living makes a lot of sense.  It is minimalist to the extreme, but I get it.  Would I ever rent one of these apartments?  Of course not.  I need the extra room to take back 3 women from the clubs.  But those young salary men and women have 10 hour days and live on $2K a month.  If all you do is sleep in your apartment, why would you bother paying for the extra space?  The question shouldn't be 'how can people live like that?'  It should be, 'why hasn't anyone else thought of this before?'


I would also like to add that unlike many Americans, most Japanese people are not  fat tubs of goo that require 1000 SF of closet space for their Doritos...so there's that.  Also, the 1.5 jou (Tatami sizes differ but I think this converts to 3ish square meters or about 30 something square feet) is just the sleeping area.  Since there is a communal kitchen/bathroom, you have a lot more space available to you.  So how about it?  Would you be willing to give these apartments the old college try?

日本語能力試験

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test, JLPT for short or the 日本語能力試験 for the opposite of short....long, I guess.

I mentioned a while back that I'm studying for the JLPT, and so far I haven't given up.  I don't  really believe that this test can adequately assess your Japanese ability, but Japan has an unhealthy relationship with exams and sometimes you just need that little piece of paper to say you're smart.  In all seriousness, the whole exam taking process in Japan has gone insane.  Picture the SATs, but every few years starting in elementary school.  From the time you learn how to write you are given entrance exams into all levels of school.  I love Japan, but I'm glad I didn't have to grow up in its school system. Sure I'm legally retarded from going to public school in America, but at least I didn't have to take soul crushing exams that determine my future from 1st grade.

The JLPT is just another wack exam that is a good idea for any gaijin who wish to work in Japan.  Why am I taking this exam since I think it blows?  Having a tangible goal is a great motivator for me to buckle down and study the language, especially the parts of the language I hate (I'm talking about you, Kanji).  The amount of kanji/vocab/grammar needed to pass each level of the JLPT is clearly defined, so to pass this exam you basically just need to go through the lists of required kanji/vocab/grammar and commit them to memory.  This website lays it out quite nicely.  Is that all language is?  Memorizing selected vocabulary and being able to regurgitate it?  No, of course not.  You don't even have to speak Japanese during the test, so this is obviously not a perfect method for testing language fluency. 

The one thing I do like about the JLPT is how it classifies the levels of Japanese and it requires a high level of Japanese to pass the N1.  5 is SUPER easy and 1 is insanely hard.  There are a lot of Japanese books out there, and they all have their different take on what beginning through advanced is, but the JLPT has a pretty good layout.  In contrast, the Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone have a pretty low bar for 'advanced'.  I thought about listing some good study books, but you can just as easily google JLPT N2 grammar and kanji and find which sites work best for you.  

Those that took the exam in December should be getting results soon.  Good luck to everyone that took the JLPT.  I can't wait till I get my own piece of paper that tells me what I already know - that I can できる the 日本語！

ホスト in Japan

For an inside scoop into the more seedy and REAL Japan, I strongly suggest you check out this book and blog.  It is written by an extremely good friend (and nampa mentor) of mine.  If you've ever seen The Great Happiness Space and wondered how true it is, wonder no more!

While hosting can be a great way to destroy your liver and throw up blood, it is also a pretty great way to score chicks and practice your Japanese.  I'm not trying to give a sales pitch for the profession, because it pretty much sells itself.  Also, I'm just saying that you shouldn't be so quick to diss these effeminate men (?) when you see them stalking their 90lb prey in downtown Osaka. 

In all seriousness though, it is a pretty good gig, especially if you're a foreigner.  Its pretty hard to get a legit job in Japan, even if you do speak Japanese.  Many host clubs have Yakuza connections so hiring a gaijin isn't really a problem for those folks. 

What are you still doing on my blog?  Give the link above a shot and get inside the head of a tall, blonde, gaijin with a golden shamrock up his ass.  This dude has some stories.

久々！

I'm back!  It's crazy how quickly life can become a blur of work, sleep, repeat.  Things have calmed down and my priorities have become  clear so I will be writing about how awesome Japan is again.

First things first - the dollar to yen is back on the rise!  Maybe in the next year you can finally trade a Benjamin for a full ichi-man.

Secondly I'd like to reiterate something.  White people suck, and so do generalizations.  Hypocrite you say? Absolutely.  Wrong?  Probably.  When I say white people I don't mean all whiteys, I mean jerk face Americans.

One thing I can't stress enough is that when you're visiting a foreign country, especially one as homogeneous (read 'afraid of immigrants') as japan, you are working against deeply engrained stereotypes.  Many Japanese don't have personal experience with foreigners, so they HAVE
to rely on stereotypes.  Whenever I pass little elementary school children in Wakayama and they stare at me for 20 minutes, it is because I'm probably the first and sexiest white person they have seen
in person.

Whether you know it or not you have a huge responsibility to not be a douche when you're representing the first gaijin for the Japanese people you come across.

Those rape prone naval folk down in Okinawa are doing a huge disservice (and generally being total dicks) to me and any other foreigner in Japan.  I have met a few Americans that say they're
Canadians in Japan because why not?  Canadians come across as less aggressive and more worldly aware, and tend to smell better than their neighbors across the pond.

I am brutally aware of the negative stereotypes that surround Americans in Japan but I think I'm doing my part to combat them.  I offer my seat to old or attractive women on the bus and train.  I use
Japanese and make as many Japanese friends as possible.  Despite America being known as a cocky, christian, obese nation, I am none of those things and I think it helps fight the stereotypes when Japanese people know that. 

Best of luck in your own crusade to prove your place of origin isn't full of jackasses!