I wasn't trying to live up to the cliché by having a cat in the photo with me. I'm fairly allergic to cats. It's actually a very well-fed stray in my neighborhood who decided to beg for food from me and the photographer by rubbing itself all over us!

The next day we went to Kyoto with our friends and family. I'm still not sure what this taxi company thinks its name means…

Our hotel in Kyoto. We were kinda wondering how bad the place was going to be based on its name, but it turned out to be fairly serviceable. It has an excellent breakfast bar (awesome pastries!) which is included in your room rate.

Kinkakuji — bling bling that puts the phattest crib to shame! It was originally a shogun's retirement home, but later converted into a temple.

Obligatory food p0rn: soba and tempura set. My family loved it. Kyoto has great soba and tofu and pickled veggies, but nothing else from what I understand.

Oyako-don a.k.a. Mother and Child Over Rice. It contains chicken and eggs, hence the name.

Shabu shabu!

After years of talking about it on my blog, I've decided to post some pictures of the place. (I went there today to gorge myself…! :mrgreen: )

The place is up on a big mountain in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and it has its own altar. It also has a nice shrine and several stone statues of Buddha, although I have no idea why the small ones wear red hats and bibs.

When I first saw it, I thought maybe it was a baby Buddha and needed some extra…er…help to keep clean or something. Occasionally you see one yen or five yen coin offerings around the mini-Buddhas, but this time I didn't see any. Must be the recession.

This is a water outlet near the Shrine of Vending Machines. It has a huge Buddha surrounded by baby Buddhas wearing red bibs. Again, I'm not sure why the big one isn't wearing a red bib except that maybe it's because he's their father and thus needs to look dignified…? There are three spotlights around him as well, so that he can be lit at night. I've never been up at the Mountain Bandit Shack past four PM, so I have no idea if people worship him or pray to him or anything like that. I'm sure people do pray for good luck at the shrine though (the real one, not the one of Vending Machines).

Now, this is just a thing of awesomeness: the Shrine of Vending Machines. It's a little hard to see, but it's there in the background under the roof. Ever seen one anywhere else? No? Me either. It's near the parking lot, with seven separate vending machines that sell everything from Coke to cold chocolate to hot chocolate to ice cream. One thing it doesn't have is a beer vending machine. Not that the Mountain Bandit Shack doesn't have one of those, too — it does — but it's far from the Buddhas and the shrines. Maybe to show some respect?

Not that you have to go that far. Respect or no, the place has a beer vending machine. How can any hot spot in Japan be complete without one? Beer vending machines are everywhere you want them to be, except maybe at some somber war memorial or something.

And here's me looking around for a table. Guests get to sit wherever they want, so it's important to find a good spot — not too sunny but not too chilly. I look serious in the picture because it's a serious business. And the picture on the right is me wondering, “Is that ours?” every time a waitress walked by with food.

This is our waitress, doing double-duty at the gift stand. (Check out her uniform. Everyone there wears that funky head thing and a black shirt & pants.)

Finally, we get fed! Just look at all the food! My favorite steamed fried rice with veggies and meat and so on, my favorite saucy chicken on a stick and my favorite gyoza! Everything at the Mountain Bandit Shack is extra delicious.

Nom nom nom.

Oh…and we had a visitor. I think he was hoping for some scraps, but alas, there was nothing left for him.

Gomen ne, neko-chan!

…you can't just assume you can get by with English.

I just went down to 7-11 (which BTW is one of my favorite places to shop in Japan) to get a night snack just now. There was a woman who kept asking the 7-11 night clerk how to use a public phone outside.

First of all, it's not his job since it's not a 7-11 phone. The unit is owned by NTT, which is the Japan equivalent of ATT. If she dials zero, an NTT operator will assist her. In Japanese.

Which brings me to my second point:

The Japanese speak Japanese. Japanese is Japan's standard language by law, and most Japanese people don't need to learn English after they leave college. How many of us can still speak the Spanish, French, etc. that we studied in school fluently?

Besides, if the store clerk spoke English well, he wouldn't be working the night shift at 7-11.

I helped the lady out, but please, when you come to Japan, bring a Japanese phrase book. It's going to make your time in the country so much better.

Dear DPJ,

I'm sure you're thrilled you finally managed to take the majority in the Diet. I'm sure you're happy Aso resigned. I'm sure you're ecstatic you put your man in charge of the country.

Congratulations.

But seriously, must you hire twenty sound cars to blast how great you are at 9:00 a.m.? One car after another it was propaganda after propaganda loud enough to terrify my hamsters. Please, winners ought to be more gracious.

Sincerely,

Nadia

I'm not sure what's up with books set in Japan these days. Or maybe I've been extremely unlucky. It's painfully obvious that the authors have never been to Japan, do not understand the culture and/or done all their research by watching anime (or perhaps reading manga).

The most recent one I bought made me livid. Even before I finished the first chapter, I came up with seven things wrong with the characters and setup. If it hadn't been an ebook, I would've returned it and demanded a refund.

Living in Japan does not make your character Japanese. Sipping green tea while eating sashimi does not make your character Japanese. Wearing kimono does not make your character Japanese. And for pity's sake, speaking broken Japanese in romanji does not make your character Japanese.

Got it?

Seriously…I'm never wasting my money again on a book set in Japan written by anime fangirls/boys.

status: I'm reading Fire in Fiction. It's actually better than I expected, much more readable than Writing the Breakout Novel.

Yesterday Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (which BTW is neither liberal nor democratic) finally lost its grip on Japanese politics. Mind you, it's taken…something like fifty years, but who's counting?

Of course not everyone's happy about it. There have been sightings of angry drunken old Japanese men screaming, “Change in bad! Any country will tell you that!”

Gad, I love this country.

P.S. I'm loving the post-election silence. No more annoying sound cars, just the dulcet tones of construction drills at 9:00 in the morning.