nude highway driving

On Monday night I went out for Korean barbecue with some expats and two Japanese dudes. We ordered all sorts of meat (more tongue!) and veggies and sat around two grills, cooking our dinner. Instead of free bread we each got a little saucer that contained a slice of raw salmon and potato salad. Amazingly, these two things go together very well. For only about $20 apiece we filled our tummies with damn good food and beer and enjoyed hours of conversation. And it’s the conversation that blows me away — the eight people in our group were talking in four different languages at the same time. English, Japanese, French and Spanish. I love moments like that. (NOTE: We started our night with happy hour at TGI Friday’s. It cracks me up that this is a gathering spot for international merrymaking, but they do cut all drink prices in half for a couple hours. If you’re feeling under the weather, like I was, I recommend the Ultimate Lights of Havana, cause it has lots of juice in it.)

Work has given me a cell phone to use while I’m here. When it rings, Mickey Mouse screams at me in Japanese. I’m sure he’s saying something adorable and sweet, but to a gaijin he sounds really pissed off, like he’s getting a colonoscopy with no drugs. The phone has a camera and I can link photos to phone numbers so that when someone calls the embarrassing-ass shot I took of them pops up on the front screen. It also can act as an FM radio.

The fabulous dancing Japanese sailors! (This is a real commercial to get people to join the Maritime Self-Defense Force. It will be broadcast on the giant billboard screens in Shibuya. Nobody, and I mean nobody swivels their hips like a Japanese sailor.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably write at length about it again … heated toilet seats. I’m stealing the damn thing and taking it back to the States. Mornings aren’t so dreary when your ass is warm.