Happy Family Life

A condom machine on the street on the way to my house with some great Engrish. Happy family life indeed.

Ginza Cocktail

After my recent experiment with Calpis Sour I decided to try another drink out the next day called Ginza Cocktail. For it’s size it was a bit expensive at around $2.50, but much to my surprise it was delicious and the can even looks cool enough to be a conversation starter at a party. There were two flavors available, grape and peach, and I went with the peach.

One thing that set it apart from other fruit flavored drinks was that I got the sense that it was closer to tasting like real fruit than anything else I’ve had. Of course I couldn’t really read the specifics on the ingredients, but I think it’s safe to assume that there was actually peach in it. Although it’s certainly not going to become my new drink of choice, I would probably buy it again eventually.

Public Profanity

Awhile ago I heard several uncensored DMX songs, the likes of which would make your average gangsta embarrassed if heard in good company, blaring in a rather expensive suit store. Needless to say no one noticed a bit…only in Japan.

The Long Walk Home

On my way back home from a date in Tokyo last Sunday night I fell asleep on the train and awoke to find that no more trains were running anywhere. When I found this out I was pretty pissed off, but since I was only one station away from where I live and I had Monday off the feeling quickly went away and I decided to make an adventure out of it. Luckily I had walked from my apartment to this station before just for fun earlier this year so I knew it wouldn’t be too bad. After nobody answered the door at the police station (this happens quite a bit) I went to a convenience store and got a Xerox copy of a local map, talked to some cabbies to be sure I had the right directions, threw on the iPod and set out on my way. At this point it was about 12:30am or so and I was thankful for two things: 1. That I learned a decent amount of Japanese before coming to Japan and 2. That it’s totally safe here to walk around late at night by yourself with an iPod and some cash.

After walking for quite awhile I came to a big intersection that I remembered from my last walk there, but since the way I came before took about 2 hours I stopped in another convenience store to ask for directions. The cashier who helped me was just getting off work at 1am and wanted to hang out for awhile so with the help of my trusty cell phone dictionary we ended up talking in front of the store for about an hour after he told me to take a much quicker road. Although he was a bit of a weird guy, (he did work the night shift in convenience store in the middle of nowhere after all) we had a pretty good time talking about life in Japan and the rest of the usual when, where, and why questions you get asked as a foreigner here. Eventually it was time to get going so I set out once again and after about 10 minutes the roads started to look familiar and I was back on my home turf.

My Slippers

I found these slippers at the shoe store near my apartment this past Summer and now use them as my work shoes because you have to arbitrarily switch shoes to enter certain places. While they weren’t particularly comfortable at first and a bit pricey at $15, they did say “Balls” on the side with a pot leaf on the heel so I of course had no other choice but to buy them. For the record, they’ve since been broken in and quite comfortable.

Car vs. Cucumber

The epitome of Tokyo drifting.

Fanta Commercials

New proper posts coming soon. Things have been busy around these parts lately.

Here is a grip of old Fanta commercials. Enjoy.

Dog Piss

Welcome to the first post of the newest segment on Yokohama Brad: Only In Japan

While walking to the train station recently a woman very deliberately stood in the way of my line of sight so that I wouldn’t be offended by the sight of her dog peeing…only in Japan.

Bar Enter Kids

Never too young to start…

Japanese Lingo – “KY”

There are plenty of resources online where you can learn “regular” Japanese, so here I decided to let you know about words and phrases that I learned not from any textbook, but during conversations with native Japanese speakers.

“KY” is one of the very first “slang” words that I learned not too long after coming to Japan. It’s used as a derogatory term for someone who either never has anything of substance to talk about or drastically interrupts the flow of a previously interesting conversation. One thing it isn’t however is a secret. Usually it will be said by someone straight to the person’s face as soon as they say something stupid, and it almost always ends up with everyone else in the conversation agreeing. However, it’s not of course a terribly offensive or irritating thing to be called when you’re with friends. Since I haven’t heard too many adults say this word, I’d assume that it’s more reserved for the teen to 20-something set.

The acronym itself stands for “Kuki Yomenai (空気よめない).” The characters roughly mean “sky” and “spirt,” with the idea behind the meaning being that the person is so dumb that they can’t read the current situtation or conversation. As an English speaker I of course took a minute to make the distinction between this and the famous lubricant of the same name but that went away fairly quickly.