It was a glorious sunset over the mountains and we walked the endless rows of fruitstands and tourist giftshops in search of seafood. As we neared the plaza concentrated with seafood stands, a young man approached and invited us over to one of his tables. Other stall owners caught movement out of the corners of their eyes as they performed various tasks – wiping down tables, setting out plates – and also came over to beg our patronage.
“Cheapcheap!”
“You want snapperfish?”
“You want crab?”
“Good seafood! Best!!”
We were the very first customers of the night in the whole plaza, and we were being greeted accordingly; we quickly became the center of a very large and growing crowd.
“We have freshest fish!”
“Lobster good!”
“Seafood stew!”
We were inundated with the pleas of a dozen business-hungry vendors. What a wonderfully empowering, yet embarassing sensation! How to choose among them all? We listened to more pitches:
“You like Tom Yum soup?”
“We have noodles, sir!”
“Japanese beer!”
“Kon-ni-chiwa!”
In a fit of desperation, the solution suddenly came to me:
“OKAY ALL Y’ALL NEED TO LISTEN UP! THE PERSON WHO CAN JUMP THE HIGHEST GETS OUR PATRONAGE!”
Nobody seemed to understand this brilliant concept, so I demonstrated, hands raised in the air, I started jumping up and down. My, how they got into it.
“HIGHER LADDIES, JUMP HIGHER!”
As the crowd got even larger, filling with jumping bodies wearing aprons and chef’s hats, I glanced sideways at my companions. They both looked kind of shellshocked, and I admit, it felt a bit like being trapped in a House of Pain video.
A real asshole, at this point, would have led his companions away and made everybody feel stupid for performing tricks for free. I, however, was hungry, and judged the winner of the jumping contest on the spot. We ended up having a very mediocre seafood dinner at his stand, so I learned something valuable that day: How a high a person can jump is a poor indicator of their cooking skills. I learn new things every single day, I tell you.
For the next trip somewhere similar, I’ll have to think of a new benchmark. Any suggestions?
Author: Justin
Roadkill in Japan
Have you ever thought that your presence in this world wouldn’t be missed much if you suddenly died? You may be right. Whoever ran over the black cat and just left it there in the middle of my parking lot so all cars coming in or going out would run over it again and again, fuck you.
I wrapped it in my carwash towel and placed it in a nearby caged dumpster; luckily today was trash day.
This roadkill thing really gets to me, though. Roadkill is never cleaned up in Japan. When my pal Gatson’s dad came to visit, he observed this is because “it’s no one’s job to clean up roadkill in Japan, so it just stays there.” Pretty smart guy.
I remember a dachshund that got run over at the exit ramp of a highway in Osaka. The ramp had a traffic light that you almost always needed to stop at, so over the period of six months or so, I got to see this dog corpse in varying stages of decomposition. The most revolting stage was the maggot infestation, which happened fairly early on. Toward the end, it looked like a mummy with two big gaping eyeholes in the dessicated skin still stretched over its skull. The funny thing was that I never caught a whiff of it, even when it must have smelled really ripe, cause that’s just how fucking rank certain parts of Osaka get all year round.
Monkey’s Uncle
As in, mean ol’ uncle Pete:
“New” giant ape found in DR Congo
Somewhere, Michael Crichton is raising a glass of wine and thinking, “I told you so.” And I for one give him full props – he even got the country right! It sounds like the primatologist, Shelly Williams, got extremely lucky she didn’t end up like Misulu:
Something struck him lightly in the chest. At first he thought it was an insect but, glancing down at this khaki shirt, he saw a spot of red, and a fleshy bi of red fruit rolled down his shirt to the muddy ground. The damned monkeys were throwing berries. He bent over to pick it up. And then he realized that it was not a piece of fruit at all. It was a human eyeball, crushed and slippery in his fingers, pinkish white with a shred of white optic nerve still attached at the back…
…And he saw Misulu. Misulu lay on his back, in a kind of halo of blood. His skull had been crushed from the sides, the facial bones shattered, the face narrowed and elongated, the mouth open in an obscene yawn, the one remaining eye wide and bulging. The other eye had exploded outward with the force of impact.
Bad, bad monkeys!
Capoeira: Getting Inverted
Yesterday we went to a capoeira meet at the Budokan at Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka. We were invited by Adam’s pal from Kumamoto, Luke. We were supposed to meet other friends there, but they ranked because they are weak/married, etc.
Luke is a fascinating man who was born in South Africa and has travelled around the world studying various forms of martial arts. He has the kind of posture, a way of movement, that says: Hardcore. Basically, he was more focused than most of the instructors that showed up for the meet, and that impressed the hell out of me.
This being my first exposure to capoeira (commonly defined as an Afro-Brazilian dance form that incorporates martial arts moves), I brought along my aging camera and did some damage. Check out the extended entry linked below for the rest of the photos.
Van Helsing: Further Thoughts
Come to think of it, the vampires had nice tits, too. Also, the vampire lord looked just like my friend Osaka Bill, with strandy Robert Smith hair and all. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes hearing other people snore during $20 million scenes.
Turtle Heads
A tribute to the Big Hominid. Don’t strain too hard, man.
Movie Review: Van Helsing
Anna had nice tits.
Hi, Huck!
Huck is coming to Japan next week. I’m going to make everyone practice their greetings in English in big, loud voices so Huck will be happy to meet them!
I am such a good host. I feel like the future of East-West relations lies in my hands… CRUNCH! Ooops! I killeded it mama, I killeded it! Waaaa!
I can’t believe it never occurred to me
As a visitor to Japan, surely, the worst possible (nick)name you could have is “Huck.”
Yet another typhoon
Is it just me, or is God doing his best to wipe us pesky humans off the planet this year? This week’s typhoon (the swirly white butthole above) is called #22 in Japan and my guess is that they ran out of semi-real name sounding names and are just making random shit up now because its official name is “MA-ON.” Come on weathergeeks, that’s not even trying. “MA-ON” sounds like what an oppressed Vietnamese sweat shop worker moans the morning after a full bottle of Mekong whiskey or something.
Speaking of which, I recently received a bottle of Johhny Walker Red as a gift. Some gift, huh? Maybe I’ll dye the label blue and pass it off to some unsuspecting teetotaler as a housewarming gift or something… I won’t even use bad scotch for cooking meat, that’s how highly I rate Johnny, Chivas, Pipers, and the rest of that crap. And for all you Asian Scotch hounds, I must ask one question: If it tastes so fucking wonderful, why do you dilute it with water?
Real men drink Spirytus.