Observances At The Outset

Watch Out For Bikes!
Bicycles here are just as prominent as those little cars. Bikes are everywhere. Here there are parking lots for your bike as many use them to ride to the subway and then continue on to work or school by train. I came upon one such bike lot on one of my walking excursions and the sheer amount of bicycles was staggering. There must have been over a hundred of them in this one section alone. I thought of that scene in The Phantom Menace where the droid army is placed on the battle field as the rows of bikes were endless. Like mosquitoes in the summertime, avoiding bikers has been difficult. Unlike back home where it is frowned upon to bike on the sidewalk here it is the opposite as I have hardly seen anybody biking on the road. There are designated on the sidewalks distinguished by the symbol of a bike as well as a larger area then the one meant for walking in. Although these separate pathways are an excellent idea for such a bike based society nobody adheres to them and everywhere is free reign. You really have to keep your wits about you to avoid being smucked by oncoming bike traffic from all sides. Listening for the bells is one way to avoid being hit but this is not an easy task in the louder areas of the city.

Hello Door! Hello Vending Machine!
Many things here run on Knight Ryder technology. It's not just the cars that talk, kids, but also doors, vending machines, elevators, subways and bank ATMs. There have been a few times where I have been caught off guard by something talk to me that shouldn't have any type of vocabulary. What do you say to a vending machine and what it is saying to me? Do I compliment it on its swift delivery of my hot coffee in a can? I have walked into a few places where the doors have welcomed me to the shop. The first time I thought it was an actual human being standing close by and I offered a hello. Nope, there I was talking to a door. A good joke to tell a door is: "I'd like to go in but it appears as though you are closed!" Well, the door laughed! Elevators will tell you the floor you are on and wish you a good day. I wonder if the elevator would scold you if you pressed all of its buttons at the same time. The subway will gab constantly telling you what stop you are at or coming to next. The magic subway voice in the sky will also give you points of interest in the area of the station. These are very informative trains. I have seen a bank ATM talking to itself. What was it saying? Maybe it had some form of machine schizophrenia and actually thought it was a blender.

While I am on the topic of technology, a lot of the shop doors here are automatic. Where this is usually reserved for grocery stores back home, here doors will swing open for you in video rental stores, subway stations, bookshops and convenience stores. There are so many opportunities to pretend that you're on Star Trek! There are a few techy things I think should be incorporated into our Western culture. For one, when you place your money in a vending or subway ticket machine all the choices you have in regards to the amount of money you have put in are lit up making selection easier. Maps are displayed above the subway doors telling you what line you are on but they also let you know what stop you are heading towards by a little flashing light. Oh, and robots wipe your ass for your in the toilet stalls. Okay, maybe the Japanese haven't progressed that far yet but we can always dream.

Like A Surgeon or Stormshadow in Training
Many people, though mainly women, were white masks covering up their mouths and noses. The masks are always white. There is never a color change. You think the mask makers might want to capitalize on individuality and make multicolored masks, masks with popular cartoon characters and celebrities or, hey, masks that advertise other products. There's a cash cow out there that somebody needs to milk! When I first saw these masked people wondered if there was something I should be worried about? A SARs outbreak? The first time I had seen multiple mask wearers was during the outbreak in Toronto. Was there something in the air I should not be breathing in? Eventually I realized that the mask wearing kind were few and far between and I figured I was fine, and less surgeon looking like, without one. Come to think of it, maybe these people are early stage ninjas, Stormshadows in training, who just haven't not earned the rest of their outfit. I think I am going to sit away from this folk from now on. I'd had to have a little steal star lobbed at me for taking their spot on the subway. Then again, should this happen, maybe the surgeon masked folk could promptly remove it and I will be on my way.

Bring Forth Your Dirty Dishes And We Shall Wash Them
Whereas leaving your dishes on the table in restaurants outside fast food joints is customary back home, here you tend to have to bring your dishes to a counter near the tills. I don't know if this is so everywhere but I have been in three places and I observed locals bringing their dirty dishes up to the counters. Maybe it is the same here in the fast food places, though, and you are to bring your used Big Mac wrappers up to the cash for them to be disposed of. I'm just saying...I'm not going to try it!

A Uniformed Society
I don't think all school children are forced to wear uniforms but it sure seems that way when a heard of them approaches you. The usually garb for the guys looks to be a blue dress suit with a crest on the breast pocket. The girls get the Sailor Moon outfits guys back home drool over. The tops are white with a blue kerchief around the neck. The skirts are unusually short for such young girls (this did not go unnoticed by the Japanese pornography industry) and black knee high soaks almost always accompany the uniform. I have seen many girls who decide to go the full leg Monty, however. Smaller children get the worst of it as they are generally dressed up in bright colors, usually long coats, and matching hats. I have seen pink and yellow, the yellow making them look like small ducklings. I have to say, I am glad the whole uniform thing was vetoed back when I was in high school. Well, except for the girls. Bring on the Navy suits for the women, I say, and the world would be a better place.

Order Some Food, Play A Game Or Make A Call: These Phones Do It All
I know I wrote about it earlier but now I have witnessed. Cell phones are indeed everywhere. It is a wonder more people are whacked by cars as they walk across the street with their eyes glued to the phones. These phones are multitaskers and far more advanced then the ones I used to sell. They have the usual MP3s and cameras but you can also play pretty advanced games on them which I have seen many do to pass the time on the subway. Some of these have a little phone pen to making gaming easier. I have also seen a person order food with their phones. The phone syncs to the drive through menu and you just tap a number in for what you want to order. Who needs human interaction anyway? Ba!


Drawn In To Anime
Cartoon characters can be found at every turn and, in a way, these little creatures of advertising are like the Pokemon in that cartoon universe. You never know when they are going to show up but when they do they are usually very adorable. I have walked by large cat statues trying to sell me film, scale model giraffes pitching me cars, penguins offering cell phones and an elephant attempting to sucker me into the purchase of a vacuum cleaner. There are entire sections in convenience stores for anime books. I have found myself flipping through these books admiring the artwork. Anime'esq drawings can be found in the subways, posters in shops and in flashing neon on gigantic billboards above. Bright little characters with half oval eyes itching to take your Yen. Still, the artwork is amazing and the comics here put ours to shame. On the tube there seems to be allotted time frames for anime programming as at least three of my channels will be showing different shows at the same time (this can also be said for news, morning shows and game shows although I suppose that is not very dissimilar to TV in Canada). Although you can find cartoons playing on a few stations after school, here I have found them in the morning, afternoon and night. There are no subtitles so I do not know what is being said but I just become enthralled by the art. I did not latch on to the whole anime boom when it hit in the late 90s but here I can not pull myself way. If a cartoon is on I will watch it in it's entirety, usually able to get the gist of what is being said by the exaggerated facial expressions popular to the art form. Cartoons don't take much thinking anyway, which is the appeal of them to kids. I could have had Ninja Turtles on mute, only able to see out of one eye and wrestling my brother in one of our ritualistic bunk bed wars and I would still comprehend that Shredder was trying to find the turtles sewer homestead in an effort to unleash a plague of robotic rat creatures upon it with the help of the Rat King. Really, though, the action here is secondary to the eloquent drawings. You can tell that a lot of work has gone into the art of these shows as you could freeze any given shot and place it on a poster I'd gladly hang in my room. There should be museums that display only this stuff. It is amazing how they interweave very realistic human design and, suddenly, some strange hamburger monster attacks and the screen flashes multiple colors as the heroes try to fend off the beast with elongated cutlery. Fascinating.

The Squat and Push - Not A New Cardiovascular Routine
Public washrooms here fall under two categories: the typical western toilet and the Japanese squat toilet. There has not been a time when there hasn't been a western alternative but I am preparing myself for the day when, like a lady in the woods, I must squat down and do my business. Picture these as futuristic outhouses without the entire top portion. These toilets are literally holes in the ground. Usually found in cramped and tiny stalls I can see how the larger set might have trouble circumnavigating their way downwards. Aim is of the utmost importance here as one false sway could lead you to messy trouble. Also, be cautious of items in your pockets as the little hole will whisk your keys, wallets and cell phones to the Squat Toilet God Komatashi-tsu and he will add them to his collection. I'm taking that idea to the television executives. I claim it. It's mine. Who wouldn't want to produce a cartoon about a little toilet demon sorting through excrement to discover the jewels and gems of the human world? I will call it Komatashimon!

No Dryers In Japan
Finding a dryer in Japan is like trying to find any talent in Paris Hilton. They are virtually non-existent. My training dorm comes with a washing machine and that is all. The norm here, no matter what the season, is to hang your laundry out to dry out of a window or over a balcony railing. During my walks I have looked up and found a colorful array of clothing and futon mats drying in the sun, a quilt of color.

More Fun With Japanese Television: Commercials
I know I have mentioned the commercials already but they are worthy of repeating. Like the anime I cannot pull away but for a totally different reasons. These things are bat shit insane! The 30 second spots have got to have over a thousand edits. Graphics beam out and assault your eyes but before you can focus on them the scene cuts and then cuts again to a singing cat with dancing Japanese women and then that cuts to a can of what was that as the scene cuts again to a close up of a guys face and then cuts to that cat again and cuts to some pink text with a yellow glow and that cuts to the Japanese girls looking sad with tennis rackets and that cuts to the can and a happy voices says something and the close up guy smiles and the cat smiles and the tennis playing girls smile and then the can smiles and that's all folks. I think they were trying to sell me tuna. As previously mentioned, most of the commercials are extremely sexualized and today I saw an ad for a lemon drink that could be deemed soft-core pornography. The actors in the commercials here are overly peppy, like they are force fed seven pots of coffee before being whirled in front of the cameras. One ad had a woman dancing around in quick motions, facial expressions overly emphasized her elation. She sang and smiled wide. Yes, she was just that happy over her can of corn. The spot worked though because I feel I need that can of corn to achieve utter and complete happiness. You want to get people interested in recycling? Dress up five Japanese women in revealing outfits dancing around piles of waste all bouncy and giggling, sending zaps of lighting out of their fingertips to disintegrate aluminum in plastics screaming "REUSE" and hugging each other. I want to save the planet! I don't know what those penguins are doing with that camel but it sure looks interesting. I've caught a couple of American celebs in some ads down here much like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Brad Pitt fell in a fountain to tell me the merits of SoftBank and Tommy Lee Jones is the Boss of, ummm, vending machines? I've seen his face plastered on a few of them here, all of them labeled Boss. In this spot he sat next to a Japanese woman who ate strawberries. Camera Diaz, who followed me around the subway station yesterday, stands with her cell phone. I couldn't escape her train ads and now she's on the tube! I actually am hunting for these weird commercials. Should a show come on I will change the channel and surf around until I can find more strange ads. I'm sure they are not meant to induce fits of laughter but, man, this is some of the funniest stuff I have seen since BioDome!

Even More Fun With Japanese Television: Game Shows
And finally we come to the third thing on Japanese television I can't look away from. The Game Shows here have no direction to me, no point or rhyme or reason. Find yourself the set of the Price Is Right, Family Feud and America's Funniest Home Videos and toss them together any ol' way you please. Okay, find a bunch of people, dress them up in colorful customs and have them all drop acid. Toss in some cartoon graphics, glitter effects for every hand motion, wild calypso music and a laser light extravaganza and you have yourself a Japanese Game Show. There seems to be no money involved here, no prizes at all. From what I gather, the winner is the person who can embarrass themselves the most running from one wacky situation to the next. I've seen a group of guys dress up as stunning women, a woman squeeze the thinnest of hoops over her body to hooting laughter from the crowd and a guy trying to squeeze himself into a two foot box. Oh and singing. Lots of singing. Bob Barker would have quite a decade ago if he was to endure such a spectacle daily. The strangest show we have back home is called deals with a contestant having to answer various trivia questions, most quite simple, with a barrage of distractions in front of them to try to trip them up. These could be a dozen nude elderly women or somebody clipping clothespins to their skin. As weird as that one is, folks, nothing is as odd as the shit they got down here.