By now, every human being considering a trip to the PRC knows that the government has thrown the visa situation on lockdown, and as of mid-April acquiring a visa is a massive pain in the ass. I had a few options on doing a run, Seoul, HK, and Fukuoka. I was just in Seoul, I heard HK was becoming very difficult, so I figured Fukuoka would be worth a shot.

The first few days I was running around like a decapitated chicken trying frantically to get my visa situation sorted. The last two days I was chillin out, maxin, relaxin all cool and shootin some b-ball outside of the school.

Japan’s main industry is awesomeness. There are so many good things about that little banana shaped island I could make a whole damn blog about it. Instead here are some things that are not just awesome, they’re also completely whack.

I love biking, and despite being one of the wealthiest nations on earth, a large percentage of Japanese still use bikes to get around. So what’s the problem with that you ask? Well, they all do it at the same time, ON THE SIDEWALK. They have this tendency to wiz by you, their handle bars just barely impaling you like a piece of street meat. If I lived there, I would be maimed in short order because I have a tendency to walk crooked at night. It’s the effect of the moon.

The girls. It’s a giant parade of hotness. A nuclear arms race of where the weaponry is Gucci and fake tans. In an average day in Qingdao, I probably see about 2 or 3 really good looking girls. In Fukuoka I couldn’t open my eyes without being blinded by the hot. Problem with them is, that’s all they are. Hot. Nothing more. No substance. They’re like a really fancy hotdog, with all the trimmings, maybe even some chili. But just an inflatable hotdog. Not something you would want to snack on if you had the munchies.

Everything is clean. So clean, I would abide by the five second rule outside on a street corner. It’s that clean. You’ve seen the robotic toilets that do the dirty work for you. The anti-bacterial napkins that are given before each meal. The no shoe rules for going inside many buildings. Yeah it’s all well and good to be clean, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. I mean the hostel I was staying at, SHUT DOWN every day from 11am-3pm so that the staff could scrub every crook and cranny in the place. And it wasn’t just one or two people, no, it was like 6 or 7 people, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, everywhere. I mean no one wore shoes inside, so how could this place become THAT dirty after less than 24 hours?

Rules rule. Japanese society has gotta be one of the most organized and orderly on this planet. Their manners are amazing, people are always polite and no one seems to get mad. But damn, do they love following the rules even when said rules were obviously written by some half-retarded monkey. The last day I was there, I had to change hostels because the one I was in was full. So I went to go check in to the new one at 11:30 am. It was a ghost town. Absolutely no one around. The guy at the front desk duly informed me that check wasn’t until 4pm sharp, but he could take my bags and put them in my room for me because no one was there! Pedants are as common as crab cakes.

Finally. The Nissan Skyline GTR. The best Japanese car ever made, and by extension one of the best cars to come off an assembly line. Too bad the piggies get to drive them too.

Filed under: dragons