Dieting

Today we visited the Diet.  For you ignorant Americans, that is the Japanese congress.  As you can see, they have way more people in the House of Representatives than we do, but they're also a lot smaller - so the total body weight of the Japanese and American HOR are equal.  

The crazy balcony is for the Emperor.  No joke.  Unfortunately, the Emperor has never showed up for a session, so the balcony has never been used.

 The rest of the diet building was really cool and fancy.  They are hooked up!  Oh, as we were entering the building, we had to go through the metal detector.  Of course, many of us had bags or purses.  The way to do it is to place your bag on a table, go through the metal detector, and pick up your bag on the other side.  The bag never gets screened or even casually looked in.  Very nice, Japanese security man.

The food day I have been waiting for!

I knew it would happen eventually, but I didn't know it would be so soon and soooooo good! I have been slightly embarassed by how little Japanese food I've had, not having eaten anything new, and not having met a food buddy. Now, it's a whole new world.

The day started off at a curry house (finally!) that was even better than "curry house" and cheap. For $7, I got all this food. I'm definitely getting used to the no tipping thing. It not only makes things cheaper, but doesn't let anyone skip out on part of the bill.




After school happy hour was next, and a yakitori shop was where I tried my first piece of new food. #2 Hormone is not a typo . Some kind of meat is actually called hormone. I'm not sure whether it's pig, cow, bird, or other. I'm not sure whether it's skin, liver, rectum, or other. All I know is that it was chewy. After about 25 minutes of chewing, I decided to swallow it whole. I tried to look up what this strange hormone meat is, but the google hits don't seem relevant. Below the menu is the actual hormone. We also had yakitori and veggie kebab and beer.

If you thought I was brave to try hormone, wait 'til you see this next one. Jess, please don't read this. Take a look at the bottom of the menu. It's a type of sashimi that I've never had.
You saw it right....horse! I ate raw horse meat! It was surprisingly delicious. Or, at least better than I was expecting.





This restaurant was pretty darn good. I had the best sake of my life, and all of us ate more than we could handle. Across the table from me is Josh - my new eating buddy. He is ready to try fugu... I don't think I am. Next to him is Drew who will also be eating Japanese food with me all the time. Next to me is Eitan... who suggested pizza.

This doesn't fit, but...

This is the dance that Kesso and I did at Sumaiya's wedding!


VIDEOS! RAD!

POKEMON!!!!!

Today we went to the biggest Pokemon Store in the world!

I got to connect with my monkey side.

Pokemon video or Japanese porn? Is there a difference?

Delicious.

P.S.

A Mystery
So, today happened to be the FIRST sunny day since I've been here. When I get back to my room after lunch, I look out my window and see THIS! Besides being a sunny day (why would people have umbrellas out?) right outside of my window is completely closed off! There are three brick walls and my window! Who sent me these gifts?

***ALERT***
This is the third post of the day. Make sure you read the first two.
***ALERT***

No Way(Ue) to Ueno

I lied. There is a way. It takes 6 trains. Just when I thought there was way no way (intended) this place could be worth it, we arrived. My first thought after leaving the station was, "wow, I AM in Tokyo!" We spent the afternoon walking around the stores and in the park.

(3D Disney puzzles)

Equal Opportunity

Today I want to talk about the concept of equal opportunity. This applies both to what I have been learning in school and what I have been doing. Article 14 of the Japanese constitution states that all people are equal under the law. This is almost exactly the same as the US constitution’s 14th amendment. 14 – 14. A coincidence? My teacher doesn’t seem to think so. The Japanese like to copy everything else from Americans, why not the constitution? However, the Japanese concept of equal isn’t quite equal to the US’s. For example, there is a Japanese statute that says the punishment for killing a family member is greater than it is for killing a stranger. Clearly this promotes family love. This law was found unconstitutional under the 14th amendment – I mean article. Last week there was another decision based on equal opportunity. Illegitimate children of Japanese fathers and foreign mothers were not allowed Japanese nationality unless the father recognized paternity before birth or married the mother. So, there were tons of Japanese kids running around with only Philippino nationality. “Change in society” was noted as a reason for this violating the constitution. This was only the 8th time in the current constitution’s history that a law was determined unconstitutional. (8 is a lot compared with the old constitution by which everything the Emperor did was automatically constitutional).

As far as my practicing equal opportunity: just because I’m in Japan, doesn’t mean I have to eat Japanese food. I said I was going to put my foot down and demand some Japanese curry! I got curry all right; I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. Food eaten in Japan so far: German, Italian, Indian. But…it was pretty fantastic! The nan was bigger than my head and the aloo gobi and pumpkin chicken curry were as Japanese as Indian food gets.