Ok, the food is just uuuhhh, ahhh, soooo delicious; one of the best meals I’ve ever had in Japan. However, what sets this restaurant apart from millions of others is that back in 2005 US singer Mariah Carey had dinner there with her entourage. Since she arrived with some 40 people about a dozen had to wait in front of the door because the restaurant is rather small. Traveling with stars has its downsides…

A blogger has a wonderful set of pictures of that place. If you can handle Japanese Google maps you might be interested in the restaurant’s location (second floor).

So, since Mikel does not have the Japanese character sets installed on his computer he actually drew all the characters with his mouse. Impressive! Also, he invested a fair amount of time to draw some nice images for the presentation in MS Paint. All this just for me…

Everybody in the audience was stunned. But see for yourself.

• It is rather uncommon for Japanese couples to openly demonstrate affection for each other in public. Teenagers walking hand-in-hand is about all you ever see – if at all. Of course, it’s a cultural “thing” that also manifests itself by not shaking hands for example. Maintaining private space is important.
• On most train/subway rides during rush hour that very private space is obscenely violated. You stand chest to back or back to back with total strangers. The fact that some men abuse this closeness to get their hands on “female body parts that are taboo for strangers” is only the sick culmination of this development (there are designated women-only coaches now).
• I recently visited a Toastmasters meeting in Fukuoka, Japan. One of the members, a young lady who works at Fukuoka’s international university, talked about her upcoming “Global Communication” speech. She complained about foreigners invading her private space when talking to her. Japanese keep a certain distance respecting each others private space even in a face to face conversation. That lady stated that foreigners often stood too close to her during a conversation or that they kept their face too close to hers. I can see that there’s indeed a need to talk about global communication. A very interesting observation; I wish I would still be around to hear her speech.
• Also in Japanese Onsens there isn’t much privacy. While men and women are separated (except for family onsens) everybody is naked in an onsen. After all, one of its main purposes was to clean your body. That was back then when one didn’t have running water and showers in each and every household. So, a few or a few dozen total strangers share the same cubicles to wash themselves and relax in the same couple of pools with hot water – all naked. Where’s the desire for private space here?

The kanji for cheap/convenient

consists of house and woman 女. Meaning: having a woman in the house is cheap and convenient.

Then the women, however, stroke back. The kanji for (ex)change

consists of twice the kanji for husband 夫 and one kanji for day/sun 日. Hence, changing the husband twice a day…

Living in Switzerland I’m not used to seeing a lot of electrical wiring hanging above people’s heads in cities. Most of it is nicely tucked away in underground channels and tubes. Whether they’re isolated is a different question of course. I want to believe so…

Should EMF/EMR indeed harm your body then why is life expectancy in Japan so high? Buildings in their cities span a tense net of wires that seem both chaotically arranged and unstable. Shouldn’t the Japanese all be fried alive with so much bad energy around them? Does the fact that they’re not suggest that EMF/EMR is harmless?

The following picture was taken from right outside my bedroom in Fukuoka, Japan …

Ridding the subway or local express trains in the morning is a wonderful time for philosophical thoughts about this culture – I won’t reveal mine here. Why time for philosophy? Because the wagon is so jam-packed that there is simply no room for anything else but standing there, arms tight to your torso. Then you try to sleep as the Japanese do, stare out the window if you can (might not see a window at all), or let your mind and/or eyes wander.
During the brief stop at the next stop there’s some shuffling among the passengers, but one thing is for certain: there’s always room for one more person, and another one, and yet another, … After all, that’s just how you yourself got washed aboard.

This morning I tried to capture with my small digital camera how it is to arrive in swarms at the terminal station. First this:

Then two minutes later after a train has just arrived:

Some eight months ago I decided that in order to really push forward my somewhat limited Japanese skills I needed to spend a few weeks in Nippon without my wife – she’s Japanese. Besides, giving each other a lot of room unconditionally is in our opinion a key ingredient to a healthy relationship. Nonetheless, as happy as my head felt on departure day as sad my heart was. After all, I’m not “just” married, but happily married to the core.

So, here I am again. Immersing myself in a culture that is so fundamentally different from what we westerns are familiar with.

As always, flying to Japan from Central Europe was a nightmare. Not only does it take painstakingly long, but worse, the jet lag really does kick in. Flights leave Europe in the early afternoon and arrive in Japan roughly 12 hours later with the time difference being eight hours in my case. So, when you get off in Japan in the morning hours your biological clock is a eight hours behind and your tired body aches for some rest. You have an entire day ahead of you, though. Of course, you cannot just crash down on some hotel bed and let the day pass as check-in usually is not before 2 p.m.

This time I arrived in Tokyo Narita just before 8 a.m. with my connecting flight to Fukuoka due to take off at 11:30 a.m. For the first time so far, the usually very efficient but inflexible way the Japanese deal with large masses of people had a negative impact on me. Dozens of foreigners lined up in front of the only two immigration booths that were occupied. Right in front of me was an American who looked an experienced traveler. After 30 minutes and only slow progress in the queue he called upon an official: “Sir, can’t you open some of the booths reserved to local residents for us? This is very sad, you show no respect for visitors. Very sad”. Then he added: “In Korea and even China this was much better”.
If you know the Japanese and their pride only a little you know that the American hit Bull’s Eye with that comment. Don’t ever tell a Japanese that a this or that be better in Korea or China. How can you overlook that Japan is the best country (if not in the world then at least in Asia) ? They usually look down to those communist peasants in China.
Anyway, soon thereafter I was waved to an immigration both that said “Local residents” above the counter. Thank you anonymous American!

While waiting for my connecting flight I fell asleep at an airport for the first time. I set the alarm on my iPod touch, plugged the headphones in, and stretched out over three hard seats in front of the gate. It felt well deserved.

In Fukuoka I was picked up not only by my host family but also by an Asahi Nihongo school official. I was impressed.