AMERICANA WITH A TOILET SEAT TWIST

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Japan - Americana with a Toilet Seat Twist

Cheaper in Bulk

What better way to spend a grey Saturday than to go to Costco. It's a shame I'm in Japan then, right? Cause there's no Costco here, right? That's where you'd be mistaken.

There's actually 5 or 6 Costcos in the Tokyo area alone, with plenty more throughout the country. So when in Rome...

Before I got there, I had expectations that Costco in Japan was going to be outlandishly different. Full of bright neon lights, crazy shopping cart elevators, ridiculous food varieties, and so on and so forth. I'm not sure how I developed this, but I think because it's in Japan, it had to fit the aura of the location (i.e. Shinjuku, Shibuya, and typical representations of Tokyo).

The short of it: I was very wrong.

Costco here in Kawasaki was 95% like Costco in Portland or Columbus, or anywhere else for that matter. Same giant shelving units, same red, white, and blue color motif, and same bakery, deli, and frozen food sections. But, most importantly, the same sample stands and the same food court. Both of which, however, providing somewhat varied food (i.e. alcohol, fried meats, and a bulgogi bake).

I did my best to check the whole place and see if there were any outstandingly different product offerings. There were some, but honestly, I was astounded at how carbon-copy the place was to back in the U.S. Here are some of the variations that stood out:

A crazy electronic toilet seat. Given the fact that these are on nearly every toilet seat in Japan, this only made sense.

20kg bags of rice. Now that is a shit ton of rice!!!

Lines at the sample stands. Yes, people stood patiently in line to wait for samples. No pushing, shoving, cutting, or being a jerk. Patience and politeness.

Painted stripes for a queue at the food stand. Not only were the lines just painted on the ground, but people actually paid full attention to them. Again, no pushing, shoving, cutting, or being a jerk. Patience and politeness.

Also, Prosecco sampling. Alcohol at the sampling stands? Hell yeah.

A Seafood supreme pizza. It looked absolutely delicious. If only they made this in the States.

After a refreshing jaunt through a familiar haunt, I grabbed a pallet of muffins (I burst out in joy as soon as I saw them in the bakery) and the double bag of granola and headed out. Of course I had to stop by the food court, so I lunched on a jumbo dog. But although most of my expectations were disproven, I was hit with a surprise on the way out.

It wasn't an elevator, but there was a shopping cart-accessible escalator leading to the parking lot. I'll count that as my perceptions being fulfilled, or at least close enough.

Afternoon in Yokohama

Once I wrapped up my Costco adventure, and successfully went back and picked up my membership card after forgetting it at the register, I made my way to Yokohama to explore for the afternoon. As the second biggest city in Japan, I wasn't really sure what I was expecting, but Yokohama turned out to be quite different from the bits of Tokyo I've seen so far.

I left the train station and started walking to the water front, but even in the train station, and especially throughout the streets, it was refreshing how much space there was. I wasn't bogged down by people everywhere, but had plenty of space in my personal bubble. It was quite nice!

I meandered my way along some streets, next to some waterways, and eventually made it down to Minato-Mirai, the main harbor area downtown. It was kinda crazy seeing a decent sized theme park right in the harbor, roller coaster and all. But they also had a giant Ferris wheel which really stuck out in the skyline and made it pop.

After some walking around, I met up with a frisbee friend who lives in Yokohama, and we were going to go into the Oktoberfest for a beer, but ended up grabbing a cheap one and walking around some more. We went into this old brick warehouse that has been turned into a bunch of kitschy (I honestly thought kitschy was only a German word, but recently found out it is English as well, who'd a thunk...) shops. But from there we walked over to the Ferry terminal, where we got a great view of downtown.

The ferry terminal is a three-story jetty that juts off of the harbor, but the top floor is this awesome green space with benches and stuff overlooking downtown. What made it even cooler was the Japanese Self Defense Aircraft Carrier docked on the terminal. So we got to check out a giant warship, and enjoy the dusk falling behind the Yokohama skyline. Quite the way to end the daylight!

Craft Beer and Burritos

I jumped on a train back to Tokyo to go meet up with some friends for dinner. Beforehand, I had to pick up some beer, and was guided to a craft beer importer close to my friends' place, and OH BOY was this a treat!!!

A completely inconspicuous place, tucked in the basement under a McDonalds, this place was overflowing with beer, wine, and liquor from around the world. Naturally, I went for the beer. I perused the coolers and then BOOM my eyes found a treasure. In a tiny craft beer market in a basement in Ikebukuro in Japan, I found the best Organic Amber Ale and Organic IPA I know of from the one and only Fish Tale Ales from the one and only Olympia, WA. Holy shit was I pumped!!! Two days before I found the pint glass at a small taproom, and then to find the actual beer bottled and ready for me to enjoy on the other side of the world. Hot damn!!!

That was the highlight, but they had a shitton of beers from all around the world. With my two delicious Fish Tales, I grabbed a McChouffe (Zack, Dawn, and Katherine, nothing but good memories), and a few local Japanese craft beers that stood out to me.

Loaded and ready to quench my thirst, I went to my friends' place. Hot damn they've got a cool place. The best part, a 5th story roof-top patio overlooking Tokyo. Fo realz?!?! The view was spectacular, with a clear night and most of the city bright and alight with the night's activities. I can only hope I can find something as cool as that when I get to Portland.

Mouth-watering burritos were devoured, immature jokes were made, delicious beer was drank, and an overall great night was the perfect end to a great Saturday.

For some reason, I decided to torture myself with a really early start on Sunday morning to watch the UM - MSU game with a UM fan. I didn't want to get out of bed initially, but finally made it to my buddy's place just after halftime and watched the rest of the game with him. I felt a little bit bad for him with the crazy ending, but it's always good to see X&ch@g#n lose!!!

Then he was gracious enough to let me stay and watch the Buckeye game vs. Penn State. Damn we looked cool in those black uniforms. That and with JT Barrett FINALLY getting some quality playing time (and 4 TDs to boot), the Buckeyes pulled out the victory. Hot damn! GO BUCKS!!!

We then headed to frisbee practice, worked on some zone defense, and had a beautiful day for some flatball. The sky was clear, it was a little hot but quite sunny, and the sunset was pristine.

On the way home, I decided to stop off at the grocery store to get some food. This was also my first trip to a grocery store with the purpose of stocking up. But I needed milk to go with my granola and got some other stuff to go with it.

As was also a surprise for myself, this was the first time that I bought and drank milk here in Japan. For being so crazy about the stuff, I'm surprised I went two months without drinking it. It might be a record and was part of a great capper to a great weekend in Tokyo.

Frisbee Field deFiciency

I have a lot of weaknesses on the field. Physical fitness is obviously one, but the ability to talk well in a zone was and has been pretty blatant for me. Because we were practicing zone D, this came up a bit. Something I wish I was better at, but not sure how to improve that.

I'm decent at recognizing what is going on in my mind, but for some reason I don't have that transfer between mind to mouth to spit out what I see and communicate with the other players on the field. I usually just end up spitting out random words here and there that seem sensible in my mind, but are probably extremely confusing to everyone else out there with me.

This Ain't CBYX Anymore...

On the way to practice walking with my buddy Kracker we got to talking about cultural differences, his experience here in Japan, and my time here so far. Listening to myself during that conversation got me a bit mad at myself and my time so far here in Japan. But reflecting back, I need to keep it all in perspective, because my experience here in Japan has been very different and incomparable to my time in the CBYX program in Germany.

As I've had to repeat to anyone who's asked, "How is your Japanese?", I haven't really learned much. I've got the absolute basics, Hello, Goodbye, Thank You, Sorry, and that's really all that I use and know. Other than that, I'm the typical foreigner that can't speak the language. And honestly, it really frustrates me that that's the case.

In Germany, learning the language, it helped me feel like I was actually contributing to something and bettering myself in the process. Right now, I feel like an ignorant schmuck not adapting to my surroundings but staying the same for the short three months I'm here.

But then it ends up going back to that, I'm only here for three months, and three months is not enough time to become conversational with Japanese. It's a tough language. Granted, I may be a little hard on myself for expecting/wishing I could have some level of proficiency in such a short time frame, but it's quite clear the difference it makes in knowing the language in a foreign country and not...

What the Fuck Do I Actually Do?

What do I actually do with my life? Honestly, I've been stumped by that question and it's making me look back on what the hell I do with myself.

I was asked that question twice in two days, and I stumbled each time trying to come up with an answer. In trying to answer, I tried to think of what I do on weeknights after work (I think that was the main context of the question), and I couldn't come up with a defined answer on the spot.

What I know: I play Frisbee usually once a week. That gets me out and about and active in a fun environment. Usually I also go out to eat once or twice a week, grabbing dinner with friends from work either near work or near home. Weekends are usually traveling or exploring, both in and out of Tokyo. Those aren't too suspect, but the weekdays are.

What I don't know: why do I waste so much of the rest of my time?

Rather than doing something productive, such as exploring new parts of town or getting some great night photography practice in, the nights that I don't have anything planned, I usually just spend at home. And what do I do with my time there? Waste it on the internets. Not usually anything productive, beneficial, or useful, but just blowing it on something to pass the time. I remember my parents always being worried we spend too much time in front of the TV. Well, it may not be a cable show, but the internet has myriad more useless and pointless time wasters.

Granted, sometimes I do something useful, like read up on World news, US news, Green Bay Packers news, Wind Energy news, Ohio State Buckeyes news, or watch something current (i.e. LastWeekTonight hell yeah), but I also do a lot of the news stuff at work. Otherwise, my time has boiled down to Facebook, Reddit, ESPN, and a couple other select resources to entertain myself.

One reason I do it is because it is nice to do something mindless after trying to focus at work all day. But another reason I do it is because I'm too lazy and procrastinative to get things done that need to be done, such as emailing people, organizing pictures, re-learning Spanish (I've been wanting to do this for a while), or a whole slew of other things I need to get done.

Regardless of what excuses or reasons I have, I need to not be so lazy and do stuff when I have the chance. Maybe I need to physically write it out for a to-do list. Maybe I just need to focus and not be so lazy about it. Maybe I need to go to a library or coffee shop to get a change of environment. Either way, I gotta learn to get shit done and use my time wisely. It's my time, my life, and I shouldn't be wasting it.

The Injury Bug is Nipping At Me

Something that really plays into this whole time-wasting thing is physical fitness. Other than Frisbee, walking during the day, and any explorations I do on the weekends, I really don't do much in terms of staying in shape. And with all this time to spare and put to better use, it's quite the shame.

Unfortunately it's starting to show. In the last few weeks with Frisbee I have been a bit wary and careful because of a couple of old and new injuries popping up. My Junior year of college, I did something to my IT Bands, and it appears that that is coming back (Solution: strengthen the glutes, quads, and hamstrings). For new stuff, my achilles have been tight and sore for the last few weeks, which I think has been caused by my new cleats. They have a mid-ankle height, but on the back of the shoe there's a ton of material that bunches up on the ankle joint when it's flexed. So that's no fun. And lastly, the inside of my knees have been acting up. I'm not sure where this stems from, but I've got a bad feeling it's connected with my IT bands. I don't like that thought...

Overall solution: I need to put some of that time that I waste on the internet to good use in getting a bit more active. Going for a run every now and then, but for sure doing at least some body weight exercises such as squats, leg lifts, and much more, to get my legs, joints, and core back to some kind of decent level of physical fitness. Let's do this.

Next Up

The plan was originally to fly down to Nagasaki on Friday after work and then fly back up to Tokyo Monday morning before work. I was flopping with the idea because of the chance to do some stuff here in town this weekend, but then decided to pull the trigger and buy tickets. However, when I went to buy the tickets, the price shot up $50 and I'm not able to change my financially-smart tendencies and drop $315 for a spur of the moment plane flight, plus the extra costs associated with the trip.

I'd really love to get down to Nagasaki, so I'm not ruling it out completely. We could have a game-time decision on our hands, but if I don't go down there, I'll probably head up to Nikko for a long day of hiking and exploring on Saturday. The colors are supposed to be in full-swing up there, so it'd definitely be quite a treat to go explore there!

But I also might take my tent and do some rogue camping. I brought the damn things, so I feel like I need to use it at some point in time. That, and I've heard Nikko is something that you should do in more than just one day, especially if you're trying to hit up the temples and shrines along with the national park right next to town.

Addendum

In the spirit of getting shit done, after I wrote the above post at work, I went out and worked on some night photography in Asakusa. My camera is still being a little twerp and not working right, but despite all odds I got a few good shots. This is the kinda thing I need to do to utilize my time wisely and productively. Do cool stuff, explore cool places, and practice a hobby that I enjoy. Boom.

Here's a few shots I got from the adventuring!

Original Publish Date: October 20th, 2015