News time! It seems I will have 2 guests coming for the weekend! The first, whom many of you know, is my best friend Sparks! As you know we've been in the same country for 2 weeks now, but we've been on opposite ends. One tall foreigner draws a lot of looks... I can't wait to see the stares at two! The second guest's name is "Saola". Saola is a typhoon scheduled to come tomorrow afternoon. It's predicted that it won't actually make land fall thought. Sounds weird, but it's exciting. I've never been in a hurricane/typhoon before. It's a bummer it's coming on the weekend (and THIS weekend, too) though, because if a typhoon is bad enough I hear they cancel classes. Now if I can get an earthquake before home I go I'll be all set.

Update time! I went shopping this morning after cleaning my apartment up a bit. Nothing like having company to get yer' butt in gear. I noticed two things at the super market that sort of made sense, but still are a little odd. Soy Sauce and Sake have their own aisles. I guess it sort of speaks to their... popularity? usefulness? necessity? I'm not entirely sure of what to make of it. After I dropped my groceries at home and took a walk. I headed in a random direction for a while and found the "Liberal Arts Campus" of Nihon Daigaku. Unlike the building downtown where I have classes, this place is a lot more spread out. Kind of like Wayne State University's campus. What shocked me the most was the sports facilities they have there. Not only do they have an olympic sized pool, they have a FULL SIZE olympic high dive platform. I never knew how tall those platforms were. It gave me a new found respect for olympic divers. I'll have to find out if I can use the pool though, a swim would feel really good on these hot afternoons. After my tour about town I walked home and decided to write.

On to Q&A round 2
Q:How's the internet connection working out? What do you use?
A:My internet connection is sweet. I have an nice speedy ADSL connection all to myself. I lucked out and have a router in my room so I can hook up to the 100mb/s hard line, or use the 802.11g (54mb/s) WiFi connection. Using bittorrent (to keep up on the Simpsons and Family Guy) I can get speeds of 200kb/s per torrent without loss of connectivity, using WiFi.

Q:Am I willing to look for specific things and bring them back for you?

A:I haven't quite decided, but I'll be here another two and a half months, so there's some time for me to think about it.

Q:Do Japanese males/females take and aggressive approach to forming relationships?

A:Not really. Especially in the south, but also here in the north, Japanese people are very indirect. You almost never get a straight "yes or no" answer if you as a question. The same goes for dating. It's like in high school were you play the ask the friend if the person likes you, then have on of your friends ask the other person out. Word for the day- Ambiguity n: Doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation, something of doubtful meaning. (from here). The Japanese treasure ambiguity as a skill.

Q:What's some of the slang you've heard?

A:It's difficult to hear slang when 35% or more of what everyone says goes over you head anyways. (Does this mean I can't curse in Japanese? No, but...)

Q:So how's that get a job with the Yakuza thing working out?

A:Well, see the Yakuza are the Japanese Mafia. As a rule of thumb, I stay away from the Mafia. However, I hear that Yakuza are actually nice people as long as you don't owe them money. Some of the people in my class were going to go looking for Yakuza hangouts, needless to say, I didn't join them.

Q:Have you felt "unsafe" or threatened walking down any streets yet?

A:No. This is for 2 reasons. 1) I have an awesome set of "street smarts" (thank you mom and dad.) So I naturally stay away from most situations where I would feel threatened. 2) I'm 2 meters (6'4") tall, I'm American, I usually look like I know what I'm doing, who's gonna mess with me? Literally I feel 100% less threatened here that in the states. Japan is a really low crime county where even the police aren't allowed to carry guns. Shop keeps keep high priced merchandise out on the streets and no one steals it. Hardly anyone locks their bikes up. Heck, the bums don't even bother you.

Q:Are their any ghettos of poor areas around?

A:No. The price of land in Tokyo is too high. Also, being a socialist nation, I think the monetary spread is a little more even. As mentioned previously Ueno park is covered in little homeless tent cities, but that's the only place I've seen it.

Q:Is law enforcement prevalent? What weapons do they carry?

A:Well, there's a "Koban" or police box (mini police station) on every other corner (helpful if you get really lost.) Around the Imperial Palace, there are more. Around where I live, there are less. As noted above, the police aren't allowed to carry guns (though the ones at the palace did.) Some carry what look like tazers (haven't really asked) and almost all carry those extendable metal batons that look like they'd really smart if the officer got in a good whack.

Q:What's overall feel do you get on their thoughts on America?

A:Well, in a lecture on Wednesday the profession went off on post WWII America's treatment of Japan, but I think it really may be a generational thing. Those who lived during WWII and shortly after have a darker sentiment, while the younger generation is more accepting of western culture. The one thing I have run into (which I ran into in the states too, actually) is the whole "this is Japan, learn Japanese! Ya foreigner!" You can't blame them in the states too, the sentiment is the same, you came here, speak our language. And I did come here to learn Japanese, so...

Q:What's Tokyo TV like? What's the best thing about it?

A:One of the things I was looking forward to was Japanese TV. All Japanese language all the time! Cool right? Well, I neglected to think about the part where EVERYTHING is all Japanese all the time. Japanese TV is still pretty cool though. There are 12 station for broadcast TV (I don't have cable), although channel 7 is the all static 24/7 channel, and channel 11 is a "home shopping network". There's a lot of sumo, horse racing, dramas, and news programs. By far though the most popular (the one on the most) is a program with short, maybe 15 minute, videos. There's a panel of people (who I assume are famous) who watch the video at the same time, and you get a picture-in-picture view of their faces as they watch. The best is when something gross of suprizing happens and the panel members make this "O" face. It's hard to explain, because it has no parallel in the states. Of course, there's anime too. How could I not mention the anime. Channel 12 airs 2 hours of new and old anime starting at 6:00pm weeknights. Channel 3 airs older "syndicated" series at the same time. I understand there's anime that airs at midnight several times a week, but I'm too tires to stay up that late.

Q:Are you worried about what the voice blaring over the public speakers out side is saying? Is it in relation to the typhoon?
A:I'm not to worried. Perhaps if I did know what the voice was saying I'd be more worried, but ignorance is bliss.

Hope everyone has a good Vernal Equinox.

Ja Mata Ne.