Bootstrappin’

Although all Japanese people spend years studying English in school, that doesn’t mean they understand it one bit. Sure, they have rather extensive vocabularies (most of the people I’ve met here know the English words for every fruit from peach to pomegranite) — but Japanese people can’t string together a grammatical English sentence to save [...]

Sometimes I get bored when I spend the day on tropical islands in the Pacific…

This was on the deck of a ferry in Okinawa. I guess they had problems with people stripping on the boat? Or something?

I’d had fair warning that Japan was a toasty place in July, but holy crap, I had no idea. Japan can best be described in three words: balls ass hot.

AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I [...]

The amount of unnecessary signage in Japan is a constant source of amusement for me. And in the new Osaka train station, I came across a stunning example.

Pete has been singing “I Think I’m Turning Japanese” by the Vapors ad infinitum, so it should probably be posted here, eh? And maybe it’s true, a little bit. I mean, I don’t even think twice about changing my shoes three times to walk through a house anymore.

Japan has a lot of rules, and there are signs like this posted everywhere. I don’t know what half of these pictures even mean, but I have some guesses (from left to right, top to bottom): 1. No smoking. 2. No black dogs with white ears. 3. No calculating of the air speed velocity of [...]

The Japanese are very thorough people, especially when it comes to signs. That’s why the put SEVEN (count ‘em, SEVEN!) signs warning of “Falling Rocks” within twenty feet of each other on this slope on the way down from Mt. Fuji. This, of course, is just a small selection of the hundreds of warning signs [...]

Before I came to Japan, I had already formulated a pretty strong opinion about Mt. Fuji. Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan, and one of the most famous mountains in the world, climbed by over 200,000 people per year. In fact, I’d say that more people could identify Mt. Fuji by picture alone than [...]