Mind Your Manners

There are all these signs up written in Japanese and English instructing people how to behave. Sometimes the translations are done poorly, but often times even the Japanese seems to be a riddle. This sign is on a ashtray in a designated smoking area.

Do they want me to stop smoking or start collecting my cigarette butts? Also, I'm pretty sure that turtle I burned and threw in the garbage wasn't capable of crying. In their defense, at no point did I try to inhale the turtle.

Japanese Food Review #39: Ramen Burger

Ramen burgers are rare even in Japan. They are made by forming cooked ramen into patties, grilling them, and putting the stuff you'd normally find in a bowl of ramen in the middle. The middle of this burger consisted of half a hard-boiled egg, a chunk of pork, green onions, benishoga (red ginger), and corn. Then you could select a sauce, just like with ramen. The choices were salt, soy sauce, or tonkotsu. I chose soy sauce.

You eat the burgers with a paper wrapper like s rice burger. It tasted like a cross between a bowl of ramen and yakisoba. It's not a bad deal at 300 yen.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 7  Maybe this rating is a little high. It's not something I would want to eat all the time, but if you see it, you should definitely try it.
Girlbot: 8  She didn't like how soft the noodles were. If they were crispier, she would have given it a higher score. (I liked that the noodles were soft like a bowl of ramen.)
Overall: 7.5

Katchin Candy Festival

Today was かっちん玉祭　(Katchin Ball Festival) at Rokusho Shrine in Nagoya. Katchin ball candy is a lucky candy made only for this festival.

It's just hard candy wrapped around a bamboo stick, but it is said to help you have a safe childbirth, to raise children, and, for safe measure, to ward off evil. I think it can also help your kid get diabetes. The small ones are only 200 yen, but if you want to go really crazy, you can spend 1000 yen on the big ones. The candy is said to look like an umbilical cord, so think about that while you're sucking on it.

Bomi （ボーミ）

Rockebruary just keeps chugging along, doesn't it? Bomi was born in New York to Korean parents. They abandoned her at the age of three and somehow she ended up being raised by a foster mother in Osaka. She moved to Tokyo and is now a model and singer (she hasn't been horribly successful in either area). Her music is not terrible, though it may have been more popular in 1994, and her videos at least attempt to be interesting. If you don't like the music, don't blame her. Although sometimes she gives interviews that seem to indicate she has something to do with the creative process, some dude named wtf (I'm pretty sure it's not Marc Maron, but no conformation yet) writes all her songs, and the lyrics are attributed to Bokachi (could that be her real name?). She said that she talks with WTF about the songs, but her advice seems to be only, "Make it catchy." I'm surprised she's not given a writing credit. It's kind of like how I won game 6 of the 1991 World Series. I was clearly screaming, "Hit a home run, you fat idiot!" Here is her single from nearly two years ago called Mr. & Ms. Boring:

She often has foreigners in her videos. I think that Indian(?) guy appears in a couple videos. If you don't hate her yet, you might want to check out her biggest single, Cuticle Girl. She plays both the title role and a kidnapped high school gym student.

At first I thought the song sucked, but at one point she referred to Cuticle Girl as "the messiah," and I realized this song must be about Steve Harvey. After that I was able to get into it. Finally, here's 薄目のプリンセス　(the princes with half-open eyes). She's waiting to be kissed by her prince, a balding, Indian(?) kick boxer(?), and she keeps getting nosebleeds. I've only seen one five minute interview with her, and she took up most of the time talking about how she gets horrible nosebleeds.

Elderly Simulation

This mannequin was in the window of a store that specializes in selling items for the elderly. I guess younger people don't understand how rough grandma's got it. How would you like it if you had to strip down and wear weighted elbow pads and wrist guards, and then everyone shot bottle rockets at you? (I'm not sure if that last one is part of the simulation). Sure, it'd be a ton of fun for awhile, but just knowing the wrist guards stay on until death must creep you out.

114-Year-Old Still Able to Think

TBS News made a mildly interesting video: (Oh, TBS erased the video. Here's one from FNN.)

At 114 years old, Misawo Okawa of Osaka is the oldest woman in world. The previous holder of the title passed away in January. What's the key to living longer than a human should? "Eat delicious food and take life slowly. That's the best." Her favorite food is saba no kizushi (vinegar marinated raw mackerel), so don't eat that if you want to die before your grandchildren do. She was born in 1898 and will be turning 115 on March 5th. That means she was 47 when Japan surrendered. She was also born one year before Hitler, which I think pretty much proves that Hitler is still living the sweet life in Argentina.

Babe-mobile

This is one of those cars where you have to drive around with a fake wedding ring just to keep the tail away. Oh, and it's a hybrid, ladies.

Japanese Food Review #38: Sakura Donuts

Sakura, meaning cherry blossom, is a flavor in Japan, and limited edition sakura flavor products are popular this time of year. The sakura trees won't bloom for over a month in most of Japan, though they've started in Okinawa. I guess they are released now to build up the anticipation for the blooming. Some Japanese people have told me that sakura flavored is based off of pickled sakura leaves, though the products I've tried never taste salty at all. Most Sakura flowers don't smell at all, but I believe there may be one type that does, and that's where the flavor comes from. It's basically a faint, generic, floral smell. If the doughnuts weren't pink, I might have thought they were just original flavor.

There's also a nice commercial for these doughnuts. It seems that if you eat them, flowers will spring forth from you mouth and old ladies will scream in joy.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 3  We actually tried two types: a chewy doughnut and a crispy one. I thought they were both bad.
Girlbot: 5 for the chewy type.
              3 for the crispy type.
Overall: 3.666666666666666666666667

The Olympics

I know a lot of people are angered by the removal of wrestling from the Olympics, but the bigger travesty is that  "homeless cycling" still isn't recognized as a real sport.

Japanese Gum Review #6: Engine

How many times has this happened to you: You're craving a caffeine boost, but you don't want to drink a liquid or swallow any food? You're pretty much screwed, right? Well not in Japan where there are several caffeinated gums to choose from! One such gum is Engine which contains both caffeine and guarana extract. Guarana is a berry grown in the Amazon and contains more caffeine than coffee beans, so it really compliments the caffeine well. The marketing department at Lotte must have realized that not only is the word X-tra quite "hip," but it also saves a ton of time over writing "extra" (three less strokes).

The gum comes in little, unwrapped, yellow pieces, but several sheets of green paper are provided to dispose of the gum. Engine tastes like and energy drink. By that I mean it tastes awful.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 2  I don't like it at all, but I'll give it one extra point, because it does make me feel cool.
Girlbot: N/A  Refused to chew.
Overall: 2

Vagy Hair Design

To all the guys out there thinking about stopping by vagy (pronounced vah-jee) forget about it. They pretty much freaked out when I dropped my pants. (I guess they only do women's hair.)

Giraffe

When I drive around, I've just got to let everyone know that I'm super into Giraffe. Not so much the animal (it is an animal, right?), but more the letters and the order they come in. Whoever came up with that was a genius.

Married Couples and Surnames

When a Japanese person marries a foreigner, he/she has the choice of changing or keeping his/her name. Apparently that's not the case when two Japanese citizens marry. They must have the same surname. Usually the woman takes the man's name, but I have met several couples where the man takes the woman's name (this especially happens when a woman with no bothers marries a man who has a brother). I think it was also more common in arranged marriages (again, if a family had a business and no son, they would make their daughter marry someone to take over the business). Since 1996, there have been surveys taken to gauge the support of changing the law to allow separate surnames in families, and for the first time since 1996, more people supported keeping the law than revising it. You can read about it in English here, or read a more detailed account in Japanese here. It was very close with 36.4% against the change and 35.5% for allowing couples to keep their own surnames. A strong competitor, as seems to be the case in most Japanese polls, was "no opinion" with 28.1%. Also, people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s supported a change while old people (who hate their grandchildren, I assume) were against the change. Just another statistic showing that there are too many elderly people in Japan. 53.3% of women in their 20s supported the change, but they're just the most likely people to get married, so who cares what they think.

Junk Style

I've really been getting into junk style lately, you know, stuff like stools, lamps and dressers. I guess some people call it furniture, but junk style has less syllables and just sounds cooler.

Ninjari Bang Bang CM

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's latest song Ninjari Bang Bang (Ninjari Ban Ban in Japanese) is used in a commercial for the cellular phone company AU. In fact, the debut of this song was at the concert shown in the video (so the concert was actually a commercial shoot). Kyary's dress has ninja stars on it, and at times the music sounds like an 8-bit ninja video game. The single will be released in March. AU has made commercials like this before. The idea is that their smart phones are so good that you can control anything you want. Then they show the phones doing a bunch of things they can't do. I've been shaking my phone as hard as I can since seeing this commercial, and though I haven't noticed many changes, I did see my neighbor's lights turn off once. I've had a pretty exciting couple of days. The slogan in the commercial is 驚きを、常識に。 This basically means, "Of course you're surprised." Not surprised by what the phone can actually do, though.

Japanese Food Review #37: Black Thunder

Just to be clear, this a review of the Japanese candy bar Black Thunder and not a review of the classic movie, the Indian theme park, or any number of fine, pornographic films. Black Thunder is a short yet wide candy bar (if you know what I mean) and a steal at 32 yen. It consists of a chocolate cookie (somewhere between an oreo and a twix cookie) and rice puffs covered in chocolate. Below Black Thunder it reads, "Black Thunder God," and below that it says, "Currently a bit hit with young women." I think loading up on Black Thunders is one of the best ways to meet hot chicks. I also think it's quite a poetic slogan. They recognize that the women who are young at this time will soon grow old, die, and be forgotten forever. And who can predict what the next generation of young women will say about Black Thunder? Will it continue to be popular or go the way of the root beer barrel? These thoughts help you have a good cry while you enjoy the sweetness of the bar.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5  Not a great treat, but nothing to complain about, and it's cheap.
Girlbot: 4  She says she originally tried it because several young women were raving about it (I'm telling you guys, this candy bar is a sure thing), but it wasn't as good as she thought it would be.
Overall: 4.5

Old Globe

This is an old globe you can see in Gifu Castle. It didn't say how old it is, but it's interesting how inaccurate it is. They didn't even know what Japan looked like.

Japanese Gum Review #5: No Time

No Time gum (which appears to be one word in Japan) markets itself as teeth brushing gum. It's for those of us who can't find the 45 seconds to brush and will get dentures in our 40s. It's just sugar free gum and doesn't contain any extra teeth cleaning ingredients. It's not a bad name, but if it were called "Lazy Bastard," I'd probably buy it all the time.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 3  It's a standard mint gum, and the flavor is almost completely gone after two minutes of chewing.
Girlbot: 5  She says it reminds her of being a kid. Apparently it was one of her favorite gums in elementary school because it's not too minty and is sweet. She can't recall whether or not she used it to clean her teeth.
Overall: 4

Pure Nail & Ondine

 Let's be honest fellas, a lot of us would be way more into scuba diving if we weren't always so worried about what others were saying about our nails. This store almost makes too much sense. The ondine is just an added bonus.

Photography

I hope this guy zoomed in a ton. Otherwise the picture is just going to suck.

Stretch Mark Prevention Cream

I'm guessing that only in Japan is Hello Kitty used to market products to pregnant women.

Dance My Generation

Golden Bomber, of Memekushite fame, are back at it again. (By the way, check of the English version of Memekushite.) This time they're lampooning the 80s. They're doing a pretty solid dance once again while holding the equivalent of thousands of dollars in their hands. The early 80s before the economic bubble burst was a golden age in Japan. What a sad time in history to have a golden age. The song is a love song, and again the girl doesn't like or care about him at all. At one point he sings, "Can't you see me? Dance my generation. Even though I'm so perfect? Dance my generation." Kind of a solid joke.

Tempura Kidz Honor Gods

One can fully expect that the ancestors who founded this shrine must be looking down and smiling after seeing how the modern day Japanese are using their facilities. I'm guessing they did pretty much the same ritual (maybe their shoes were slightly different).

Japanese Food Review #36: Chicken Ramen Potato Chips

I think we've all had the experience of slurping up some ramen noodles, chewing on them, and thinking, "Wait, why are these not crunchy and potato flavored." Well those are thoughts of the past thanks to Koikuya's Chicken Ramen Chips. They're quite thick and crunchy, and why shouldn't they be? They're kettle cooked after all! The chicken ramen flavor is faint, but there. If the label had said they were just normal salted chips, I might not have picked up on the flavor.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 6  I wouldn't kick them out of bed if you know what I mean.
Girlbot: 4  She liked them, but is punishing them because they're not as good as she was expecting.
Overall: 5

Oozy Bar

These idiots spelled Lick surf OOZY bar wrong.

Dear Label

I would say Dear Label is pretty much the Tommy Hilfiger of the bento box world (I mean because it's so stylish and not because there are rumors that they don't want minorities to use it).

Squirrel Village

Squirrel Village is located in Gifu City on top of a mountain next to the castle. I was thinking of paying the 200 yen to enter hoping there would be a whole world built. Maybe there would be a squirrel-sized saloon or dance studio. And would the squirrels really be wearing bow ties? I realized I could peak around the corner and saw this:

I'm pretty sure my back yard in America could become a huge Japanese tourist spot.

Setsubun

While Americans spent their Sunday watching the Super Bowl, the Japanese, never to be outdone in the excitement department, threw soybeans and stuff. February 3rd is Setsubun in Japan. It marks the traditional end of winter. In my mind, it is the Japanese equivalent of Groundhog's Day. The main event of the day is called mame-maki where people throw lucky soybeans at imaginary demons in their house and scream at them to get out (sometimes a family member wears a demon mask and is chased outside). Also, a lot of the bigger temples have celebrities throw bags of soybeans to people. The video above shows the bean throwing at Narita-san Shinsho-ji, a temple in Chiba. Yokozuna Hakuho and fellow sumo wrestler Baruto tossed beans. A couple of very popular actresses, Haruka Ayase and Ayame Gouriki, are also shown.

Pachi Tora

Looks like marketers have finally found out what we've all already known for years: Rabid cats just make you want to play pachinko.

A: Dear lord your hair and make look fabulous today!

B: Well yeah, I just went to PASSIoN Ass, so, you know.

A: Wait, PASSIoN Ass?

B: You know, the place right below Bottoms Up!

A: I think you're talking about Ass Lab.

B: Yeah, it's one of those cool places that has two names for no reason.

A: Well at least both of the names accurately describe the shop.

B: I know. Hey, if you could be any animal, what would you be?

A: A kangaroo...so I could "hop" to it!

B: Ha ha! Oh my God! Was that a play on words?!

A: What?

Yura Yura Teikoku

My favorite Japanese band is finally getting played on national television, though it's only on a fifteen second commercial and they broke up about three years ago. The ad is for Kirin chu-hi. Chu-hi is flavored alcohol. I think of it as a girls drink, but it's not looked at that way in Japan (also, Zima still exists here). This particular ad is for the grapefruit flavor.

Sony just posted a video for this song two weeks ago. I guess they're hoping to make some money off the commercial. Here's the full version if you're interested. It's called 空洞です　(kudo desu), which they translated as, "Hallow Me."

AKB 48's Minami Minegishi Spends Night with Man

AKB 48, the most popular band in Japan, apparently has a rule that you can't have a boyfriend, but Minami Minegishi, one of the most popular members, was caught leaving a man's house in the morning. She's 20 by the way. The band has demoted her to the lowest level. In response, she shaved her head and apologized on youtube. If you didn't know what had happened, you'd think the apology was for taking a crazy new drug and murdering her friends and family while under the influence. I've always said that The Beatles would have been a much better band if they had simply demoted John Lennon for sleeping with Yoko.