sept 7th

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, The Japanese Zone. Submitted for your approval, imagine a place where Coca-Cola made not only Coke and Sprite, but also Coke-Lager and Coke-XXX. Imagine a place where Bacardi sold their usual flavors of rum, but also bottled water and ginger ale. Those that know have heard of Kirin beer, but what about Kirin Iced Tea, and Kirin Melon Cider. Imagine a place where shirtless females are not to be shown in public by law, but acts of incest, sodomy, or violent gang rape are okay as long as their drawn (with the naughty bits blurred out for morality). Imagine a place of people born to be beaurocrats, and you will have found yourself in a place closely resembling the Japanese Zone.

A list of things you might not have known about Japan:

1)Cigarettes are cheap, 230yen a pack, from a vending machine.

2)5 kilo bags of uncooked Rice, amongst many other things, are available from vending machines. There is one not to far from me.

3)Beer is relatively expensive. And it's all fucking pisswater. Though Kirin and Suntory's autumn brews have hit the shelf, and they are cheap (relatively, 240 for a pint can), and effective (6.5% alcohol, the highest in all the land)

4)The Japanese have not grasped the effectiveness that is the medium of television (or radio), and instead broadcast all public announcements (typhoon warnings, missing children, earthquakes) via loudspeakers positioned throughout the city. Our apartment right now is right behind city hall, and right next to the first speakers that click on (they do understand how echos work, so they delay the message across town) so everytime I hear that electric hum I think Godzilla's been sighted off the coast and heading for shore.

5Japanese children have an obession with punching you in the balls and trying to ram their fingers up your ass. It's true. Japanese Adults think it is cute and will not dissuade them from doing it.

random news and 'dotes
Niall (the irish guy I work with) may be the funniest human being on the planet. the kids in his class that I've sat in on must think I'm nuts, because I just laugh the whole time. I've very excited, for he is my partner off to the college type school we teach at down south a bit. Yeah I'm gonna be teaching college classes, wildness. It's a theme park university more or less. a Vet School that's located in a big awesome zoo/theme park about 20 minutes down the road.

I can now drive a manual transmission on the left side of the road down a two way street that's as narrow as a kings sized bed. . I haven't mastered it, but I can get the car movin and I'm not freaked out to see two cars, a motor scooter, three people, and two bicyclists headed dead on for me. Now all I have to do is learn how to ride a bike, and then how to shoot fire balls out of my hands and I'm golden.

Erich, guy who's job I'm taking, told me this about working at EVI:
"If you told me a year ago I would have enjoyed seeing a small child cry, I would have thought you were nuts. How could anyone take pleasure in the suffereing of the young and innocent? Well... time makes fools of us all."

and last, we are moving out of this stink hole to better climate. It's the same area, about a 10 minute walk further in land, right near the station and closer to where I work. Its not really a big difference in location, but the place is much nicer. Jenn's supervisors just have to get their asses in gears. The people I work for found the place for the guy who was supposed to come but didn't, so we could probably have been moved in by now if we went through my work, but the genetics of bureaucracy and all that are at play.