Some Thoughts From Japan
In December I took my third trip to Japan. When you visit Japan too many times, people start to get the wrong idea about you. So, just to be clear, I’m not some sweaty creep who’s into anime. I’m some sweaty creep who’s into sushi.
Here are some thoughts I had in Japan.
”I am the largest person here.”
I spent most of my time in Tokyo, and everywhere I went, I was the most humongous human around. It really gave me a new sympathy for Godzilla, who, for all I know, may also be a Jew from the tri-state area. Early in the trip, an elderly woman came up to me and asked with a mix of fear and wonder: “Where are you from?” I could have answered her honestly, but I doubt she would have been satisfied by “White Plains, NY.” So instead, I just ate her.
“The Japanese are serious about their coffee.”
There is some serious coffee culture in Japan. My travel bud Dina and I ordered pour-over coffees from a man in a very small camper van. It took him twenty minutes of focused brewing. When we asked for milk the man looked at us like we’d slandered his good family name. “No milk,” he said. We left with our black coffees. We both agreed the coffee was not very good. I thought about going back and telling him what we thought, just so I could witness a real live “barista seppuku.” Instead, I just ate him.
“In Japan you cannot fail.”
If you have an idea for an unsustainable business model, move to Japan. Our first night there, we went to a tiny karaoke bar called Kitten Blue. But it was no ordinary karaoke bar. The gimmick was, you sing a song, and the two middle-age bar owners back you up on saxophone. Before you ask, is there a big demand for sax-based karaoke in Japan? There is not. We were the only two clients in a bar that couldn’t have held more than eight. Yet according to our new reed-lickin’ friends, the bar had been there for decades.
“I wish they were as open-minded about sex as they are about breakfast.”
It’s no secret that Japan is sexually repressed. In 12 days, we clocked zero same-sex couples. (We did see one man dressed in drag, but he was selling kimonos, so it may have been more of a work uniform situation.) But while you may not be able to express your true desires sexually, you can certainly do it through breakfast. Based on what we saw at the hotel buffets at least, breakfast is truly whatever you want it to be. A bowl of porridge and steamed mackerel? Go nuts. Croissant and a daikon radish with your painstakingly-brewed morning coffee? Oui. Or maybe just a slab of wagyu beef and a muffin. In Japan the world is truly your miso-baked oyster.
In the end I realized that, while I am socially progressive, I am a strict breakfast fundamentalist. I tried eating a fermented plum before 10am but I dunno, it felt like it was against God’s plan.