Japan is world renowned for being oddly unique. I mean, when you ask the average 20 somethin guy in America what he knows about Japan, he’ll probably mention used panty vending machines, tentacle rape anime and game shows where the object is to humiliate the contestants in the most bizarre way possible. With this in mind, whenever I go to Japan, I’m always on the lookout for that kind of wacky shit, but to my dismay, all I encounter are staid salary men, surgically clean cities made up from a limited number of grey rectangular shapes and organization that would fill a Teutonic engineer with jealous rage.

So there I was, minding my business in the magazine section of Yodobashi Camera, eyes shifting from one fashion magazine to the next. All of the sudden a giant bacon cheese burger jumped at me from amongst the litany of glossy men dressed in painted on jeans. No really. It was an actual magazine devoted entirely to the divine creation that is the burger. The mag was called “别册Lightning”, it’s a magazine that thoroughly covers different topics every issue like Hawaiian shirts, old tennis shoes, and vans with pop-up roofs. Sandwiched in between its pages were some photos so thick and juicy, if food porn exists, this perfect 10. This mag was so deliciously awesome I decided to scan a few of the pictures to give an idea of how much ass it kicks.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the Japanese are pros when it comes to taking something the West does and doing it even better. I’d get lynched if I said another country did burgers better than the States, but damn, just look at these pictures and tell me with a straight face that the Japanese can’t cook a tasty burger.

The cover. In America if they had a cover like this there’d be lawsuits from people trying to eat the damn thing.

Don’t forget the French fries…

After reading this post I predict you will do one of two things:

A) Run to your nearest grocery store/butcher/farm and get you some beef.
B) Become a vegan.

[update: sept 1 2009] Just stumbled across this beautifully mouth watering website with hilarious vocals.

Eventually if you’re living in China, you’re gonna need to do a visa run. Although Fukuoka is a popular visa run spot for the Korean English teacher crowd, for some reason China expats stay away like a gay dude hiding from a vagina. HK is (or was now that the Olympic visa regime is in full effect) the place most expats hit up when they’re looking for a quick cheap visa. Although HK is interesting, you live in China damn it, so why not try a completely different culture? I know you say because it’s absurdly expensive, but there’s a reason why this run is to Fukuoka and not Tokyo. Depending on when you do it (like now for instance), this visa run might actually be cheaper than going to HK.

Unless you’re traveling on a rocket ship made out of grease lightning, you aren’t going to make it to the consulate before it closes at 11am. This is ok, because it gives you ample time to get sorted with your hostel/hotel and to get oriented with the city. You’ll need 2 nights or 3 days to do this.

Landing at the international terminal of FUK you then can take a free but longer-than-it should be shuttle bus that goes to the main domestic terminal. Sometimes I wonder why they didn’t just make a giant tunnel connecting them with one of those people mover ramps. Better still would be a giant catapult that launched weary travelers into a vat of live chickens. From here you can get on the subway and head straight downtown. Just stay on the same train and get off at Hakata Station, nice and easy. Hakata station is pretty big, because it also has the JR bullet trains on the upper floors, and has dozens of stores and restaurants built into it.

If you’re not looking to waste money you could be spending on delicious Japanese booze, you should stay at one of the two hostels in the general vicinity of Hakata Station. These places are the cheapest in Fukuoka unless you want to resort to a bottle of Suntory Whiskey and a park bench. If you want a more social atmosphere, and a closer walk to the station, you’ll want to stay at the Khaosan Fukuoka Hostel. The people there are friendly, helpful and obsessively clean. There is also lots of those weirdo backpacker people that never seem to shave or cut their hair sneaking around. As weird as they are, get a few beers in em and they’re good times. This website will show you exactly how to get there from Hakata Station. KFH has dorms for 2500 yen, and single private rooms for 3500 yen, but the single rooms are the size of a closet, and have no furniture except a mattress and covers on the ground. Check-in seems to be from 9am-9pm and check out is 11am. There is no curfew, but they lock the door at 9pm, they give you a code for the door on a piece of paper, don’t lose it like I did and spend your night watching drunken salary men stumble home.

Fukuoka Youth Hostel is just a bit further away, and offers much larger rooms, but a more sterile atmosphere. They seem to cater more to Japanese than international backpackers so it’s boring but quieter. Note that the cheapest rooms FYH has are 3500 yen doubles though they’re the same size as a business hotel room. The bathrooms there are shared but bigger and more private than Khaosan. Supposedly there’s no curfew, but I was told they lock the door at 1am so I don’t know how that’s going to work. I didn’t feel like experimenting after forgetting the code at the Khaosan. Also check-in isn’t until 4pm so if you arrive before that, you can leave your bags (for them to put in your room if it’s empty WTF??) So both have trade-offs. Personally I think it would be better to stay at the KFH on the weekends when there are lots of people around, plus you can get in and out at any time. Check below for how to get to the Fukuoka youth hostel.

The cheapest way to get to the consulate is to get on the subway at Hakata and go to Nishijin Station. Check my map down below and follow these instructions: Get out at exit 3 and walk till you get to the big intersection and turn right, keep heading up that road along the creek until you get passed the third bridge. You’ll know you’re there when you see lots of guards around it, possibly the special police, and also a big group of nationalist protestors and their ridiculous vans covered in Japanese flags and loudspeakers spewing off crazy sounding rants. The full walk is about 10-15mins. Also on the way back to Hakata, make sure to get on the right train, some trains switch lines and head to Kaizuka, you don’t want to go there, trust me.

Once inside, take a number immediately by pushing the top button on the machine. While you’re waiting to be called fill out the form. The applications line is on the right and the left line is where you come to pick up and pay for your visa. As of May 2008 you need:

• Full accommodation itinerary printout of hotel bookings with your name on it from the computer OR
• Housing Contract with your name on it that states where you live OR
• Written invitation from a resident that says you’ll be staying with them for the duration of the visa and copies of their ID card, etc.
• Returns air tickets in and out of the country
• Photocopy of your passport and the Japanese visa you have (they have a pay per use photocopy machine in the consulate)
• 1 passport photo
• And you’ll be damned if you forget your passport.

The next day head back to the consulate. Don’t forget your receipt. Pop 7000 yen into the machine at the entrance, you’ll actually need to buy a 6000 and 1000 yen ticket because for some reason they don’t sell 7000 yen tickets. If you’re lucky like me, the machine will have a nervous breakdown while you’re using it and the accountant will come out from a little box proceed to beat the crap out of the machine. Once you get the tickets head to the window on the far left, where you’ll get your visa back. Once you’ve got it, you’re free to get the hell out of Japan, or stay and enjoy some pork ramen.

MAPS

Ok just follow the main street that runs diagonal from Yodobashi camera, its the same street you use to get to Khaosan. You might want to take a bus because it’s about a 20 min walk. Go until you get to the Mobil gas station, turn right, then turn left at the Lawsons which is very close, and you’ll see on the left. Follow the green line on the map. Get on any bus that has the characters 山王丁一 and you’ll get there for about 250 yen. If you get lost the address for the taxis is: 6-7-23 Hakata-eki Minami, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka-shi OR in Japanese: 福岡県福岡市博多区博多駅南6-7-23. Their phone number is: 92-473-4555.

Just follow the green line, this one is really easy, only about 10 min walk. And sorry I have no idea what those little swastikas on the map are for. The consulate is the little grey building at the top! The address: Fukuoka-shi, Chiuo-ku Jigyohama 1-3-3, 福冈市中央区地行浜1-3-3. Phone number: 92-713-1121.

Some notes: The consulate has English visa application forms but that’s about it, everything else is in Chinese and Japanese, and there’s little to no English signage. The people working there also have some limited English, so make sure you’ve got everything in order first, follow the instructions here and you should be ok. If not the Japanese secret police waiting outside will kidnap you and feed you to the robots (there’s a robot museum right by the consulate!)

If you get lost and need to take a taxi, they are expensive starting at Y550 to get into, but the drivers are generally quite helpful, and they all have those GPS TV map gismos. The ride from the hostels to the consulate is about 3500 yen give or take.

You’ll probably end up spending more money than if you had gone to HK, but damn, if you’ve already been there a few times, Fukuoka is a breath of fresh air (both literally and figuratively of course).

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 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 hot dogs don’t fill you up. Hell that one Japanese guy can eat like 50 of em.

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.

Ok, for those who don’t know, in Japan they have these places called hostess bars/clubs. You go to them, you sit down and you drink with girls (the hostesses). Yep that’s it. There might be some really shady places that operate differently but that’s not par for the course. For some reason Qingdao and the neighboring Huangdao have a plethora of these places. I can’t really figure this out, because there just aren’t that many Japanese dudes lacking in balls to go to real bars.

Yes. I have been to one. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a bunch of girls who will escort you to a table usually surrounded by shoulder height walls to give you some kind of false sense of intimacy. You’ll then be given a menu which upon reading you’ll be shocked to see that all the prices are for glasses and not bottles as the numbers would have you believe. Oh yeah and you’re expected to buy the girls drinks too. You’re probably thinking why the hell wouldn’t you just go to a bar and pick up ladies the old fashion way… using a drink spiked with rohypnol?? Well, I suppose if you’re a cranky old Japanese man with lots of dough, and a shriveled wiener, it would be more fun to piss and moan about your boring salaryman job to some Chinese university students pretending to be classy Japanese babes while you try to get hammered on 12 dollar drinks.

So as I was saying before, there’s a whole whack of them in Qingdao, and for some reason beyond the comprehension of man, they intrigue me. There’s gotta be about 20 in my immediate neighborhood that I walk by every day, and I’m completely mesmerized by them and occasionally their contents. For me it’s like driving to work on the highway and seeing some massive signs with random objects like pogo sticks and turkey basters but with obscure subheadings like “Tomorrow is yesterday’s future” and “Magic trombones kill”. One neat thing about them is their exteriors. It makes them look like a secret ninja club. That is, if secret ninja clubs advertised their whereabouts by large booze adverts, gaudy colours and names like “Loves You”. I’ve thought way too much about them and I’ve come to the sociological conclusion that they look the way they do cause Japanese businesses here tend to get pooped on whenever Sino-Japanese relations go down the crapper (both literally and metaphorically). Windows sure make good target practice for all manner of projectiles hence the speakeasy look. It’s ironic that by trying to be low key, they actually stick out like a hot Scandinavian model at a sausage party. Part of the allure is not knowing what’s going on in there, so it’s a little annoying that nothing is what’s going on.

I went for a walk and took a bunch of pictures of them so that you have an idea, these were just the ones near my place in Hong Kong Garden, there’s lots more smattered about the city. The ones in Huangdao that I saw on my brief visit there a while back were on sketchy side streets, and also had much lower key look with peep windows and security cams. According to one of my Japanese friends, Qingdao and Huangdao have some of the most well known hostess bars outside of Japan. I can’t vouch for the veracity of this claim, but judging by the number of them and the fact that I’ve never seen them anywhere else in China to this degree, there must be some kind of funk going on in there.

I’ve asked my friends about them, and they don’t really seem to care or have an opinion on them other than the fact that their customers get robbed blind. I suppose if you use money for toilet paper, they would be worth checking out. Just know that if you don’t speak Japanese or Chinese, it’s not going to be a very conversational time and as such, I would recommend forgoing the destruction of the mystique and instead heading to nightclub, which coincidently I will be elaborating on next…dun dun Duuuuun….