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Konichiwa!

Tuesday Mar 16, 2004

Hello from Kagoshima-shi, the capital of the South Eastern most prefecture on the island of Kyushu. Behind me sits a volcano constantly smoking and bringing life to new clouds in the sky. I am a giant here. I am a spectacle. I am Gyjean (a foreigner).

So far the world tour has been strong. After crashing hard my first night here the second day brought cold weather and rain to Kag. This did not deter Sachiko and I. Sporting her umbrella (parapluit in French) and I wearing my new gap raincoat/all purpose coat which cost $78 back in SF (trust me that's a relevant detail), we weaved in and out of the streets and alleys of the city visiting some of its finer indoor attractions. Included in such were Pachinko, Japanese gambling that is the combination between a slot machine and that game on the price is right where you dropped pucks and hoped they bounced the right way. In this game you use minuture pin balls. Each one is worth a certain amount of yen and if they go through a certain part of the machine the slots activate and if they match up properly you win more balls. When you want to cash out you bring trays of the balls you have won to the cashier and they give you tokens that have no fiscal value. You can then exchange these for prizes or go to the shady shack next door where they will turn the coins into Yen for you. Some strange gambling law. I would have been playing this since the moment I arrived but the problem is, the spinning slots are always a video screen and if anyone has been gambling with me they know I do not trust video gambling, so I have yet to engage in a round of Pachinko, although it has been calling to me.

Beyond Pachinko we visited some shops and arcades. The arcades are really funny because almost all of the games are those crane ones where you try to retrieve a prize or this hyper insane photo booths. The way the photo booths work is you put in like 400 yen (around $4). They then take a thousand or so pictures of you while playing crazy sounding cell phone music and talking really fast in Japanese. Then you select one and you have about 100 seconds to do anything you want to do to the photo, not unlike photoshop. Mostly you just draw colorful lines around it and add little anime drawings. Strange, very strange!

In the shops I discovered that every single magazine is pornographic. Even "seventeen" had compromising pictures of cartoon characters. I couldn't find a sports magazine with Japanese baseball, which of course is what I was looking for.

That evening was my big premier. Karaoke! Karaoke in Japan is quite different from what you and I are used to. Instead of embarrasing yourself in front of strangers and having to wait almost an hour to sing your song you are sent to a small private room with your friends. Once you arrive in the room you have catalogs with every song you could ever think of, two mics, and two remote controls. Using the remote control you type in the song number you want and Voila! There it is on your private TV with just you and your friends. Also instead of having to wait in line at the bar, you just pick up the phone, "Kon ban wa, sumimasen, nomimono onegaishimasu." And then the drinks come right to your room. Of course this requires being with people who speak Japanese, which happen to be in abundance in Japan. Go figure. So personal karaoke, all the drinks you can handle, and only embarrassement in front of people you know. Not a bad deal. I must have sang at least 15 songs before our time was up. Highlights included, "Cowboy", "Bed of Roses", "A Whole New World", whereas the lowlights consisted of "Come What May." Even with a few drinks in me my upper range was no where to be found. Luckily the fans were so anamoured with my presence they were forgiving of my lackluster performance and I received 81 encores and a standing ovation for over 3 hours, or something like that :)

More updates to follow. Stay tuned for our Roadtrip to Nagasaki, Jeremy uses his first squatter, Oh my lord there is fish in everything, The Children mock me, Children in helmets, Old men examine my balls, and more....

J'ya ne!