Shirihoudai

Ok, so I was driving back to work from a Costco break - had to take a break because someone was microwaving a tv dinner that had cheese and it stunk up the whole office.   But anyway, I was driving back and noticed one of my favorite cars in back of me - an old school Charger.  Jet black with chrome, and approaching fast behind me. . . . As I was admiring the car, I noticed the driver was a hot chick that kind of looked like mma fighter Gina Carano.  Get to a red light and I’m looking in the rear view to get a better look at this lovely girl and then. . . . <gasp>

image via solarnavigator.net

She proceeds to do the two-handed fingernail zit squeeze on her right cheek!  It’s like a sudden train wreck - you don’t want to look, but you do.  There she goes, right elbow pointing up to the sky, the other hand in front of her mouth.  Not sure if she got it but I can verify she tried to pop that bad boy at least two times at that signal.  It just totally ruined the mood, but will provide me laughs the whole afternoon.

I might be the worst pen spinner whose ever tried, but these guys are incredible!  The link below is for a pen spinning tournament website (in Japanese).  They take pen spinning way beyond human levels.

http://ptj2008.pen-spinning.org/

Went through the Charbucks drive thru with a friend and got to witness the “barista” in action making my latte. 

1.  push the button to magically make espresso.  Where is the art?  The measuring of the fresh coffee beans?  The tamping down of the grinds?  Not at this Starchucks, obviously.

2.  dump the milk in the cup.  Yes, DUMP the milk in.  Not gently stir in the steamed milk.   I don’t even think the milk was steamed, at least I didn’t observe her steaming the milk.  She just left the metal cup full of milk sitting there under the steaming wand and hurriedly dumped in the warm milk (wasn’t even steaming) into my cup.  Some clumpy yogurt mess was seen falling into my white and green cup.

3.  put the lid on while gabbing with her other barista buddies.

4.  hand off cup to dude at the drive thru window to give to me.  What a great experience and do I feel special!

At least the person’s experience in the van in front of us must have been special.  They even tipped the drive thru guy.  Yes, there is a plastic container stuck to the window for tips!  Tips for what??!!  Doing their job?  So I was thinking either they haven’t been watching the news, or they believe the news that their tip money will go to the pseudo-baristas serving up their coffee.  

btw, this Charbucksis located somewhere in Irvine, CA.

1.  put hands together as if praying - haha very signifigant when I think about it

2.  intertwine your middle, ring and pinkie finger so your index finger is pointing straight out.

3.  wait for unsuspecting victim to walk by

4.  find victim and position oneself behind them in a crouching position

5.  when you sense their most moment of relaxation, scream out a “kiyaaaa!” and ram your index fingers into their backside.

6.  obtain Kancho enlightment.

 Ah yes, the kancho.  So much fun for the giver, and not so much for the receiver.  Not sure where its origins began, but I too have had my experience with Japanese schoolkids trying to violate me.  It usually ends with me holding them upside down and threatening to throw them off the 2nd story balcony.

I thought that returning home, I’d be safe from the kancho, and I was. . . up until a recent visit to a Korean supermarket where I found this:

Notice how happy the person giving the kancho (bow in hand) is and the arrows are tipped with hearts signifying love is on the way.  Pink and green (horny) hearts floating above its head.

Also notice the one who has just been kancho’d has a frown on its face and a broken bottom LEAKING CHOCOLATE!  They had to have known the symbolism there.  And what is that symbol behind him?  Looks like a heart with eyelashes?  NO, its a butt in the middle of a target with pain ‘lines’ shooting out of it!

Flip the box over:

So sweet, getting kissed after getting the rectal trauma of a lifetime symbolized by the now BLUE heart floating above her head.   Looks like he is going to cry, right?  Yes, tis the story of the kancho.

Amazon is having a sale on Chocolate items with checkout code CLEARMAR. 

Check out the aStore for tons of chocolate goodies.

Another fashon statement with a message for the environment:

If I only were rich enough to join. . . The gym is called Laughter7 and if you want to meet a mixed martial arts / professional wrestling legend, check it out!

address:

Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 6-3-8 Minamiooi GADENIA Omori 2 F
Keihin Kyuko Electric Railway “Omori Beach” 7 minutes walk from the station.
JR “Omori” 8-minute walk from the north exit station.

Ah, what better way to spend an afternoon than by watching 2 huge behemoths slamming their bodies into eachother?  I’m talking about SUMO baby!  I haven’t watched it in a while since the local asian channel KSCI stopped broadcasting the tournaments on tv, those bastards!  So I don’t really know who is the top dude now. . . probably some Mongolian.  But wait, just as my love of sumo is waning, they bring it to my backyard at the LA Memorial Arena on June7-8!  Tickets can be found here and they aren’t cheap.  But it may be well worth it to see these guys crashing into eachother and demonstrating such athletic moves like this:

image via sumotour.com

Ah yes, I searched and searched and finally found it in Narita airport.  The OPPAI STRESS BALL!  What more realistic stress relief do you need for the workplace without getting in too much trouble?  Its a good thing that I’m already known to bring back weird things from Japan and my actions are almost always tolerated.

 Normal view of stress ball as it sits on my desk:

Happy view as you turn it over.  Notice the fine details. . .:

Stress ball in action take 1:

Stress ball in action take 2:

The only drawback of this stress relieving device is the smell.  No, I did not put it in unmentionable places, it has a very strong rubber odor that stays on your hands even if you just touch it briefly.  I guess its a good way to figure out who has been playing with their desk oppai. . . .

 To find this great device in Narita Airport, in Terminal 1, just follow the row of shops until you get almost to the end of the terminal.  There is a gift shop there and you’ll find it next to the other kids toys.

McDonalds. . .the safe heaven for any traveller.  Where a Big Mac will always be a Big Mac no matter what country you’re in.  Unless you’re in India where they don’t eat cow, then I don’t know what you’ll order there.   In any case, I didn’t include it into my japanese-restaurant-chains post because it is too well known to be a secret.  What you may not realize are the multitudes of menu differences compared to a typical American McD’s.  

The above mentioned Big Mac (biggu makku) is there but no Quarter Pounder - makes sense since they are on the metric system, right?  Another staple is the Teriyaki Mac (teriyaki mack bagaa).  I was addicted to these things until they came out with a seasonal burger called the Kalbi Mac (karubi makku).  Kalbi Mac is a burger with a heaping portion of marinated korean kalbi meat on top - sugoi oishii!  There is the Mega Mac which is way too much McDonalds food for anyone at one sitting, but in a country with the top eating champions, I’m not surprised.

In addition to the Filet-o-Fish (fi-re-o-fisshu), they have the Shrimp Filet!!! Known as the Ebi Filet, I tried the one with sesame sauce and it was good!  Crunchy on the outside and filled with plump shrimps bursting with their shrimpy flavor on the inside.  Couple that with french fries and a drink (iced coffee for me of course) and you got yourself a winning combo.  All around town and on tv, i saw commercials of this hot chick eating the sandwich.  Her name is Yuri Ebihara:

Talk about lucking out with your name.  Ebi = shrimp so of course her nickname became Ebi-chan.  Cute eh?  But the campaign worked. . . doesn’t it make you want to eat one of those? 

Some of the seasonal sandwiches I stay away from are the: Italian Mac, Pizza Mac, Shiokara-Natto Mac. . . just kidding on the last one, but expect to see it soon!