Weekends

It's been a long time since I've done a traditional weekend summary type post describing adventures in Japan. Mostly because they don't happen as much as I'd like. But maybe if I try and condense all the fun stuff that happened in the last month or so into one post it will be interesting enough to bother writing about.
A couple weekends ago while shopping for a copy of Parappa the Rapper I managed to inadvertently spoil a tactical espionage mission taking place in the store above Super Potato. However I was immediately CQCed and put down for the count. When I finally awoke, me and Jay decided to head over to Shinjuku where a chocolate show was supposedly taking place. In Shinjuku station we spotted quite possibly the tooliest human being ever. I'm not sure if you can fully comprehend the awful majesty of this hairstyle with only cameraphone pictures to go off of. Regardless, immediately upon seeing the king of all rat tails in person, a chase began to preserve an image for posterity. The fucker didn't make it easy either! I was like 80% jogging to keep him in range as he power walked his way to wherever he was going. Unfortunately westerners of this level of toolishness are not at all uncommon in Japan.

Back home in Chibaragi (apparently people in Tokyo use this word to describe the neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Ibaraki, and Tochigi, as they all blend together into one nothing place), I've mostly been spending the weekends going to Mito, drinking, passing out at Dan's, waking up and bumming around, usually in arcades, then relaxing with some ps2 back in Takahagi or sometimes Oarai. Lessee... memorable stuff... I went to the Drunken Duck, the most infamous gaijin bar in town, for the first time, and was pretty underwhelmed of course. But then the next time I went I managed to inadvertently break up an entire gokon as all 5 females in the matchmaking party at the table next to us surrounded me and started hitting on me. Kinda creepy actually, but also good for the ego.
Other stuff... in McDonald's in Japan, they had a special sandwich called the "Mega Mac" also advertised as "Beef Heaven." It's a Big Mac with double the meat. Ridiculously greasy. As I am American, everyone wants to know if I have tried it, and if its the size of normal hamburgers in America. In this picture Jon is not looking particularly pleased at the All American bounty set out in front of him. I didn't think it was that bad, but certainly not good, and certainly not something I would have eaten if not for the cachet associated with it.

Yeah those two stories just call to mind the whole experience of living in the countryside and being as stereotypically foreign as you can be. I think when most Japanese people hear the word "gaijin" they think: tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, big, hairy, meat eating monster. And uhh... yeah I'm kind of all of those things.

This has its advantages and disadvantages, which I will hopefully write about at a later date.