I’m packing now. It feels sad. It feels so final. I’m really going to miss it here.

Likes

1. Photography – Photography is so common here that folks like myself, hauling around a huge SLR, don’t even get a second look. Part of that is Japanese culture but part of it is a general acceptance of photography and its geekdom. Or at least toleration. Another part of it is the low crime rate.
2. Women’s fashions – Women wear nice clothes. Be they short skirts and short shorts to the heel to whatever fashion it happens to be. Most, and that is nearly everyone, females dress nicely. Very put together. Always some kind of “look”. And often the fashions are very revealing. Fishnets are seen in the wild.
3. Enthusiasm – Nothing wrong with enthusiasm here. Folks get excited for uncool things and that’s fine. Get all riled up and try hard for some festival? Sure. You like trains? You can tell every one about it.
4. Festivals – Japanese people love festivals. There is always some excuse for it. Summer. Cherry blossoms. Fireworks. Snow. Whatever. There is probably a festival for it. These festivals always have food stalls with overpriced food and often people in costumes (or at least dressed for the occasion).
5. Food – Sushi, sashimi, ramen (tonkotsu, shio, miso, shoyu), “hamburg”, udon, shabu-shabu
6. Travel – Travel is easy in Japan. Really easy even without a car. But not without high cost, usually.
7. Schoolgirls
8. Tissue – People give out free tissue on the street all the time.
9. Women – Japanese women are very attractive.
10. Health care – Dental and medical.
11. Sales tax – Sales tax is included by default with the displayed sales price. Much more meaningful and useful than trying to do the math in my head in the States.
12. Riding a bike for transportation – fast if you aren’t going far. Can park anywhere. cheap to maintain.
13. Mobile email – My cell phone has real internet email. Not texting.
14. Brick and mortar stores – Internet shopping exists in Japan. But because there are specialty stores, real ones, that don’t just exist in one city, I’m not sure enthusiast only shop at Internet stores here. I think real stores have value and so far they co-exist in Japan. Is that because folks here don’t like Internet shopping as much as they do ‘real shopping’? Japanese people sure do love shopping. I don’t know. But as there are ways other than credit card to pay for stuff here (and not crap like Paypal either), Internet shopping is in many ways easier. Shipping is faster too since it is a small country but not necessarily cheaper. I also like stores like 100 Yen stores. Daiso for example. They sell quality goods and such a wide variety. Dollar stores in America pale. And photo print stores like Kitamura are very useful and reasonably easy to find even in smaller cities. Sure, the prices aren’t as low as Walmart but they kind of do offer some kind of expertise or at the least, specialization.

Dislikes

1. Men’s fashions – Bunch of sissy ass looking bitches.
2. Rudeness – Out on the street, without accountability, Japanese folks are nearly as rude as Chinese folks. Sure no one spits on the street but people sure do pee a lot. And “excuse me” is rare. In a situation with accountability, the story changes. Some of the most polite people in the world then. This change in behavior due to the situation irks me.
3. Make-up – Japanese women love their make up. So much of it. Every single day.
4. Business – It is a wonder how businesses survive in Japan at all. Employees as slaves. Optimize the inefficiency.
5. Travel prices – Air, sea, land, auto, train, expressways any and every method is expensive
6. Sexy – Japanese women are attractive but often in a clinical way. There isn’t the kind of “hotness” you might find with latinas. Much more doll-like.
7. Riding a bike for transportation – no storage, passengers, weather protection.
8. Japanese cyclist – They suck at riding a bike and they all ride on the sidewalk and there are hordes of them.

I think I felt my first earthquake. It took me a while but I think it was indeed an earthquake. I was awaken, and that rarely, rarely happens, and felt some shaking. It wasn’t a lot of shaking so I went back to sleep. The next day, I checked http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/ where there is information on Japanese quakes and maps and such.

The time is about right and it would have been about a 2 here in Okayama so I think I felt it.

It is ironic that I missed a quake that should have been felt in Chicago, where quakes don’t happen and that it took this long for me to feel one here in Japan.