Crazy things about Japan *back on topic*

I`ll have to try that tonight...

Do it all the time in resturants, can`t say I noticed that many negative reactions...

Sometimes there won`t be a room xx4, as I found out as I made my way back to my room after a nice soak in an onsen and tried to open room 206, even though it was the fifth door down...

"Darling where roughly is this games shop?"
`Oh its far away`
"Yes darling but you think here to Shibuya is far away, even though its a 15 minute walk"
`Well its a 10 minute bus journey from there`
"Can you tell me what the main street is and what these boxes are"
`It doesn`t say where the street, just it oposite a bank after a 10 minute bus journey from there`
"Okay..."

You can also find the lazy americans in there too... :smt042

 

I've eaten at Makudon like 3 or 4 times there, never saw anything unusual (except for the fact they have orange drink instead of juice and probably don't spit in your food...)

 

I go to Mc Donnalds once a week without fail :-D In fact I'm going today I'll probably get Tamago bacon Cheese burger with hot pepper source today Tamago is Egg by the way. Mc Donnalds in Japan have a far better image than the west. THe food is clean and made well. Not once have I ordered a burger to find half of it hanging out of the bun.

Yakumo

 

Meh, I don't know how McDonalds stays in business (I know they've been having trouble).

I don't eat a ton of fast food, but I tend to go to:

Wendys (if I want standard fast food)

Arbys (if I wanna pay through the ass [in fast food terms anyway])

Steak and Shake...(for the standard fast food fare...but it tastes a bit better...and you get a waitress)

McDonalds is a last resort...though my friends tend to like to get breakfast there...

 

I'm actually borderline vegatarian myself. Can't stand fast food anymore.

 

I quit eating meat like 8 years ago... I still ate the fries and filet of fish from time to time. One day on my lunch break back when I worked at the bank, I was with two my buddies -- ex-military guys that don't sugar coat anything.

A-san: Let's go to Mac.
B-san: Wait a minute.... I make too much mutha fuckin' money to eat at McDonalds!

He was right... anyone that has a job shouldn't be eating that shit.

About the "freezing" cashiers. It happens, even in the city. I walked up in a Starbucks and ordered a "Double Mocha" in the proper, Japanese pronunciation, and all I got in return was a blank look.

 

actually that is Aussie invention. There's a guy who came up with that idea years ago... Here in Australia we have that split button layout for years... always fun to watch people from overseas, especially from US, baffled by it...

 

Try replacing "England" with "St.Louis" and "Texas" with "Oregon". I feel your pain, if not quite on such an international level.

If that's the worst you've had to deal with at McDonalds, you're a very lucky person, Yakumo!

Hell, I'd push both anyways - there's just some things you don't want to take the chance of not flushing.

 

Here's a weird one. Japanese government gives back a portion of the social security foreigners paid when they leave Japan. It's apparently a max of 3 years, and they then shave 20% off for income tax. It's pretty good though... it works out to be 3 months salary of either your three latest months, or three highest paid months (one in the same for most).

Main stipulations are you have to pay into the system for 6 or more months, and you have to turn in your gaijin card on the way out... can't keep it for a souvenir.

 

gaijin card?

 

Weird things:
The Japanese throw their trash on the street. Then they wonder where all the giant crows are coming from.
There are no waste baskets anywhere. Whatsoever.
When you ask for an ichigo (strawberry) milkshake on McDonalds, they don't have it. They do have sutorooberii shakes, mind you.
Smoking is forbidden throughout Chiyoda-ku (Akihabara). In the rest of Japan, you may smoke anywhere, even in a children's clinic.
Cards aren't accepted in the kombini.
There are kombini everywhere. And next to it, there's another one. In the middle of nowhere, there are three within spitting distance. And they're all open 24 hours a day.
It is possible to buy beer in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.
It is possible to buy cigarettes from vending machines, but not after 23.00, in order to prevent youth from smoking. The question is, it is OK if they smoke before 23.00?

 

I hit up a semi-remote McDonalds when I was over there, suburban Himeji. No strange looks, I definitely agree that the food is better there than at the US locations.

 

They're actually properly disposing of it. There's really no where else to put it is there?

Or any plan to get any.

 

One I forgot. Interest rate is garbage. When I got shitcanned from Bank of America, I left my severance pay in my CitiBank-J account for quite a few months... most of it I'd say for 6 or so. I can't disclose the full amount, but it was about 3/4 of a middle class year's salary. My interest earned in 2004 was 22 cents. Another colleaques was 2 cents.

 

No, not if your politicians are busy installing LED arrays in the streets instead of trashcans. Perhaps they haven't invented that yet?

Here are two other crazy Japanese things:
1. Proper pavements for pedestrians are generally unheard of outside the city centre.
2. Aerial electricity wires everywhere. Not out in the bush, but in the middle of big cities with skyscrapers. I wonder why they don't have aerial plumbing and gas as well.