maanantai 8. helmikuuta 2010

The Tokyo Trilogy - The Ethanol Strikes Back

This, the second part of my famous Tokyo Trilogy will be written over time, as I have no long periods of free time to work on it. Thus the flow of ideas is slightly erratic, but don't worry about it, the story's not that good anyway.

Burger Panic, or "What's wrong with this picture?"


With so many good eats, why eat a burger in Japan? I sure as hell wasn't going to. I spent my first trip trying to avoid the mere sight of the golden arches. But there's no denying the midnight munchies when vacating a bar, and during my later ventures to Japan I did occasionally slip in my choice of diet.

What I found out was surprising. Japan is the only country where there's nothing wrong with the picture. It's the only country where Michael Douglas would've left the fast-food restaurant without going postal.Why? It's because when the burger is plopped in front of me it looks every bit as juicy, fluffy and tall as the advert. This is no burger turned flapjack. And once I hang my fang onto it, it tastes, for lack of a better word, perfect.

 
The terrific Teriyaki burger @ Mos Burger.

It's not an isolated incident either.. encouraged by my findings at the arches, I take on Burger King, Japan's own Mosburger (yeah, name's not as appetizing as the burgers) and the aptly named Freshness Burger. In all cases I find that the Japanese strive for perfection reaches even the kitchens of hamburger joints. I wager that if I were to go to the register with a "faulty" burger to lodge a complaint I would not only receive the humblest apologies of the entire staff, I would also be invited to witness the ritual suicide of the person responsible for my burger.

It's good to be the King

And in Japan, every customer is King. They even have a saying to that effect, look it up! Actually it's "Customer is God", but I'm trying to be modest. Besides, an exact translation would've ruined the headline for this section, as Mel Brooks distinctly said "It's good to be the King"and who wouldn't want to quote him. In fact, he's probably the only old, fat, balding jewish guy I'd like to quote, unless Kevin Smith converts, in which case it's a whole new ballgame.

It may be just my own observation, but I believe the Japanese have realized that even if they're just drawing a salary and do not receive tips, it's the customer's satisfaction and possible repeat business that pays and keeps paying their salary. Anyway, when you combine the Japanese service attitude with their attention to detail and never-ending strife for perfection, you end up with...well, feeling like a retard. Why? Let me present an example from personal experience: When going to the store back home, I usually just casually throw cash on the table, or hand it to the sales clerk directly, no big deal. But I felt like a retard doing it in Japanese department store (Isetan, if memory serves), where there's usually a person whose job it is to greet you at the register and package your goods in a detailed manner, and another whose job it is to ritually accept your offering of cash or credit on a nice platter that's there for this exact purpose. Nevermind the return of change and the "thank-you-come-again" that feels a million years more real then the plastic "Hello, how are you today?" or American sales clerks or the "How dare you disturb my nosepicking" stare of a Finnish customer service professional.

Despite occasionally feeling like a Mongoloid, it's good to be treated like a King. Most Japanese probably take this for granted, so they think nothing of it. But you can choose to ignore the fact that it's just customary and think of yourself as visiting royalty. It's a win-win scenario, you get the royal treatment without having to go through centuries of inbreeding. Gotta love Japan!

Day of the Tentacle Porn

Everybody talks about Tokyo having vending machines full of ladies underwear and other deviant sexual stuff. This filth is supposedly everywhere and available 24/7 for the amusement of local businessmen. There's literally countless newspaper articles and TV news stories in the west about this phenomenon, with tones ranging from slight puzzlement to moral outrage.

So imagine my disappointment when I was unable to find so much as a used tampon in the vending machines. I was so pissed off I walked around until I found one that served beer. That calmed me down. In fact, I think vending machines with beer are so awesome I even attached a picture so you can feel envious.

Once I get over the underwear debacle, I make a fantastic new discovery: Cartoon porn, or Hentai. I walk into any convenience store and there it is, page after page of innocent looking babes being the willing and unwilling repicients of major piston action. There's so much drilling in one magazine it makes oil companies look like pussies. With this discovery I've solved two problems: What to read on the porcelain throne and
what to take back to my Hentai addicted friend on this trip. I feel he didn't see the humor in the roll of Pokemon toilet paper I got him on my previous trip.

However, Hentai doesn't just come with your garden variety hydraulics, there's several sub-genres. Of these the all-time greatest heavyweight champion of the world is tentacle hentai. Since this is a politically correct internet, I won't tell you that it involves demons, aliens and other forms of tentacled, horned and slimy beings using their talents to destroy the virginity of innocent little girls. Awesome!!! What's even more awesome is seeing regular looking businessmen crack open comics like this in the metro and read 'em like nothing's nothing. I could imagine the disapproving stares if I did the same thing at Chuck-E-Cheese or the looks of joy at the local catholic church.

 
Speaking of porn, they even have it on the streets. Look at the tailpipes on her!

Despite being able to spot the occasional bit of motor pornography in Aoyama, the best place to find anything Hentai related in Tokyo is ofcourse Akihabara, the world renowned nerd nirvana.

Akihabara - When you have absolutely no life

Akihabara, or Akiba is a place that must be mentioned from my travels, even at the risk of sounding like a tourist guide (with tentacle porn).

Akiba excites geeks more than high explosives and bulky women in burkhas excite muslims. And with good reason; there's electronics and computer stores everywhere, there's arcades, there's even stores dedicated to retro gaming, and by retro I don't mean Nintendo Gamecube. I'm talking collections so old and deep that Jacques Cousteau would sell his left testicle to film them. There's one that spans several floors, with a retro arcade in the top floor. While I was drooling all over the counter sporting the original version of Donkey Kong handheld game (among others), I had a feeling I had hit a new low of pathetic, but I didn't care.. I was like an old alkie who's too far gone to care that he's lying in a ditch as long as he can get his drink on. I threw away the last remnants of my self-respect and fed some coinage into the retro-arcade machines.

As I stumble out later, I try to spot the name of the place for future reference, but it's in Kanji and I can't even read "beer" in Kanji, which is really pathetic. But I bet the translated name is something like "I can't believe they have this!" or "The most awesome store in Akiba! really! ask anyone!". I was inclined towards the latter until I visited the 7-floored store nearby.. they stocked models. No, not the "Oh yeah, I'm like totally for saving the Brazilian polar bears!" models.. I mean the "Put together a painstaking puzzle while high on the glue fumes" models. The stores I've seen in other parts of the world have nowhere near the collection this place sports. For example: Not only do they have all the things from the Star Wars films, they have them in Build-it-in-an-hour and in Lose-your-job-wife-and-house as well as everything in between.

1st Annual Signs & Slogans World Cup

After receiving my Ph.D in Signology I was elected to judge the first Signs & Slogans World Cup. The entries consist of the finest signs and slogans I have managed to snap a photo of on my journeys in Japan. The preliminary rounds weeded out the weaklings and only the Élite few remained for the finals. Here are the results of the finals in ascending order:

10th place - Doubleprice barbers in Aoyama

With the recession going on, I don't think this business plan is all that well thought out. Still, it's enough to land the sign into the respectable 10th spot on our countdown.


9th place - The Cock


 
Maybe it's my Freudian subconscious, but I find this sign strangely appealing.. not many times can you just walk down a random street and run into The Cock.


8th place - Gaming hall in Shinjuku
If you can make some sense of the slogan over here, then mister you're a better man than I.



7th Place - Wait here
 
Wonder what would be the penalty for stepping out of bounds while the light was still red. It's all well and good for the Japanese, but my feet slip into oceangoing catamarans.. 


6th Place - WTF?



Hey, your guess is as good as mine..


5th Place - No drowning

 
If you're puny enough to drown in a shallow pond with a few weeds growing in it, don't do it here! After this sign was installed, incidents of drowning still stayed at 0. 



4th Place - Finlando Sauna


The sign for the legendary Finlando Sauna, from which this puny blog draws it's name. A perfect rendering of a Finnish man sitting in a sauna (which is always filled with water up to waist height), down to the birch branches we use for self-flagellation.Though it doesn't quite make the Top 3, it deserves an honorable mention out of the sheer amazingnesity of it.


3rd Place - Mind your manners

 
This helpful illustration of the correct technique to dispose of a snotrag in a crowded train deserved more, but had to settle for 3rd place due to heavy competition. Nevertheless, it scored a new World Record of 9.2/10 in the Public Awareness category.


2nd Place - Beware of wet mops

 
Before the installation of this sign, the number of people getting swiped in the face with greasy mops when coming around the corners was reaching epidemic levels. Since, the wet mop fatalities have dropped by 87% and serious injuries by over 70%. Scoring an Impressive 9.3/10 in Health & Safety rockets this bad boy into second place.


And the winner is... 



Where to start? This sign has it all. It has the delicious looking pictures of dog vomit, deep fried turds and gums with teeth attached served in a tangy sauce of pus with a side of nuclear accident egg. There's even an explanation why the food still tastes as bad as the day it was first cooked. And ofcourse the sign tops it all off with the ancient Nigerian greeting: "Please Trust Us!!". In here the cookies probably have cool fortunes like "Hello, my name is Elaine Mkwoko and my husband left me $15 Million USD dollars..."



Coming later.. Part III of the world famous Tokyo Trilogy
With readers from Austin to Oslo and Sydney to Helsinki and anywhere in between, the demand for new this Part II was huge (0 request so far).. I expect the same strong pace to continue in anticipation of Part III, coming perhaps in Q2/2010.

This ultimate badboy of a finale may contain glimpses of Hakone, coupled with ways to pick up hot chicks using a shitty car. It may also contain the long-awaited, and equally long delayed grudgematch between Sushi and Sashimi. Stay tuned...