Bruce Teaching English In China: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

My favorite part came when this Japanese neighborhood was watching a soccer game on tv and all of a sudden there was this pregnant lady who went into labor in the same room as the soccer game
They all got up, sent her to a private room, and waited outside while she was giving birth and the crowd outside shouted, “ATTACK! ATTACK!” as a soccer cheer to try and motivate her

I only hope that someday at a hospital, I too can cheer on my wife by yelling, “ATTACK! ATTACK!” outside of the room she’s in as she gives birth to our child

Then there was this part where they were having a church wedding and they were throwing rice (which I guess was a strange custom back in 1960’s Japan) and the guy asked, “Why are we throwing rice?”

Saw my facebook status and it said that 52 people liked my status where I put up a picture of coach on Japan Airlines and said, “Here’s my home for the next 15 hours of my life to Tokyo and I just want you all to know that if I’m caught by Godzilla I love you all”

Except for the funny looking houses, rice paddies, and half-naked women on the billboards, it would look just like Georgia

Barely because I asked a valid question about if the 24 hour subway pass expires at midnight or if it’s good for 24 hours from first use and everyone laughed at the stupid American

I wasn’t really excited because of the whole packing 2 years of my life thing into 3 bags so I was pressed for space but luckily no one uses the express tunnel from Narika airport to Ueno station

I play the role of dumb lost foreigner to a T
I occupied probably 2 seats of the pregnant mother section of the subway by accident and by the time the train started moving I was too late
Then in Shibuya station I kept on yelling, *Excuse me* but no one hear speaks a lot of English so I had to force my way between two girls to try and get out of an elevator
The problem was that the Shibuya Station Map didn’t have anything that indicated an exit that said, *to street level* but they had a picture of a green stick figure running out of a door everywhere you look

Thank goodness I wasn’t caught in a fire or else I’d be found dead next to the food court which is not exactly how I envision myself dying (I'm seeing more of a series of events like the movie Crank being the way to exit the world)

I looked at every single restaurant in Shibuya station and its environs but no one had just soup or just rice
All the food looked amazing but I just wanted really simple starches for some reason

Hopefully if I'm ever in Tokyo again I'll be in a fish mood because all of the fish dishes looked amazing

There's a place here like 7-11 called "family mart" but it can't be too family oriented if they're there selling porn for about 1/3 of the size of their magazine rack

Someone was handing something out for some manga company and after I realized "oh yeah, I can't read Japanese" I tried to throw it away but there wasn't anyplace to throw it away

After 10 minutes of futile searching, I finally found a trash can in a restroom and even then I could barely fit the junk through a small hole

I just wish there weren't half-naked women on the billboards but other that it was great

I've never seen a walkway where all of a sudden there's traffic, and then the next moment there were over 2000 people walking in an area so small

There sure were a lot of Japanese kids at Shibuya shopping stores so the stereotype that Japanese kids do nothing but study is a lie

And I'm glad they're out there though, because if it wasn't for those kids I probably could have went the entire time in Tokyo without seeing someone smile (who wasn't holding the hand of a boyfriend or girlfriend)
In my walk from my hotel to Shibuya station (15 minute total) I counted 3 people who were smiling

Bruce Teaching English In China