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.

Allez Cuisine

Well, I might have used cookware officially endorsed by the first Iron Chef of French cuisine, but yea Iron Chef I ain't. I thought this was kind of amusing, so let's take a look at the cooking process for tonight.

First, preparation. Wash the frying pan that has been sitting in the sink since the last time it was used last week, but then get too lazy to dry it, so just put it on the burner and turn the heat on. The water will just evaporate right?
Next, take stock of ingredients. Decide to cook eggs because of short preparation time. You need to have some kind of fat to make sure stuff doesn't burn and stick to the pan right? Add a little bit of olive oil to the pan since there's no other kind of oil or butter or anything. Wait, that pat has been sitting on the burner for a long time. It's probably too hot, better turn it down. Add eggs to the pan, maybe with some salt or pepper.
Hmm, that doesn't look like much food. What else could go with it? Right, rice. It's all set to go in the rice cooker from the last aborted cooking attempt. How long has it been in there... Maybe 5 days? Ooh, yeah, its pretty nasty. Half dried out and half soaked and gunky. Ah well, just put it in the pan. That's how you make fried rice right? Better stir everything around in the pan for a bit too.
Just plain eggs and rice doesn't sound very tasty. Need some flavor. That's what hot sauce is for! But rice is like Asian, and Tabasco isn't... so use the Thai sweet chili sauce. Better put a lot on. Wait, some meat would be good too. The only thing in the fridge is bacon? Ah well, in it goes. Oh shit, those eggs have already been cooked and scrambled for like 5 minutes. Gotta finish this soon or they'll burn in there! Is this bacon cooked already? Probably. Eh, looks done enough. Plate it up.

The end result

Man that was nasty. Greasy and way too sweet, since apparently both the hot sauce and bacon were mostly sugar. That rice really had no business being eaten in any way either. Maybe cooking isn't really the best course of action.