If the title of this story is anything to go by then you'll probably think that what you're about to read is a tale of love, lust, excess, discover and the consumption of cured Albanian foodstuffs at a downtown yakitori bar. Please read on and make your own assumptions.

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#10:You like to live in a shoebox & sleep on the floor.
#09:Spending 10.00 US for a hamburger & fries seems reasonable to you.
#08:Standing in line for an hour and getting on a train to be squeezed like a sardine sounds like fun.
#07:Sumo;gotta love those fat boys.Anyone hungry?
#06:Where else can you eat raw fish & not look strange?
#05:J girls.Need I say more?
#04:You enjoy living in a country where you cannot understand anyone.Hey at least you don't have to talk to anyone.
#03:When you get on the subway no one will sit beside you.Hey lots of elbow room.
#02:Did I mention J girls?
#01:You can get promoted from sales clerk at MacDonalds to sales "jerk" at MacNova.

This was rattling around in my head so I thought I would have some fun with it.
-Shonai Ben

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Believe it or not, fetusovereasy is a real, live human being. He emailed me about the time he began appearing on the Let's Japan message board, and I met him in Tokyo over the October 12th long weekend at the YMCA where he was staying. When the appointed hour arrived, he was nowhere to be found. I was beginning to think that the whole thing was a put on. Maybe Alan Funt was lurking somewhere nearby.

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First of all, I want to thank Shawn and Chris for giving me the space on their site to tell my side of the story. I know that Chris didn't even believe I existed. He wouldn't agree to letting me put a story on the site unless he met me! We met at a bar in Kawasaki and he was like majorly shocked to see me.

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Dear Chris,
Spent the last couple of hours reading the site. Some pretty funny stuff! I was thinking of going to Japan via Geos in the near future but after reading the stories and the message board I'm getting second thoughts. Is there anything good you can say about Geos? If you were given a second chance, would you do Geos again?

Sincerely,
Rudy Blundell.

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Everyone Comes to Festas

One hundred days into my eventual 1095 spent in Odawara and I was climbing the walls. My classroom had a view of the station. The sight of all those people boarding trains bound for locations other than Odawara drove me to depraved depths of jealousy. Somewhere someone was having fun. He or she was having fun in a way that wouldn't come back and bite them on the ass later. He or she was meeting new people, going to new places, doing the whole "life" thing. I lived in Odawara.

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When I quit GEOS and started with my new job at a small eikaiwa, I remember sitting in my apartment and thinking, "This is it?" It was worlds apart from GEOS. I had classes three times a day—one in the morning and two in the evening, leaving me huge amounts of free time. All this for 250,000/month. No renewal campaigns. Zero BS. The town newspaper even did a story on me.

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The rain was falling pretty steadily and even though I had an umbrella, I was still getting wet. Only a few more blocks to the red lanterns and greasy pine pillars. I was looking forward to this. God I hated Fridays. My kids class drove me up the wall. With Chris and Yo gone, I was the only male teacher in the school. I wasn't interested in my coworkers' gossip about the latest trendy dramas or forays to the local gaijin bar. I was going to forget about all that now.

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I read and hear a lot of rants about Japan, usually stating this or that Japanese custom, tradition, habit, or mode of behavior sucks. It's easy to say that such and such sucks, which it usually does here, but I find it more interesting to try to get at the core of the suckiness, try to really understand how something could possibly suck as bad as it does. What I'm attempting here is a unifying theory, that will unite and codify all the usual rants. It will not change anything, but understanding the underlying causes of unpleasant (read obtuse) behavior and the like, may make it more tolerable, and definitely helps one to feel superior.

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