Monday, July 22

Again it's 6:30 a.m. I don't remember what time we went to sleep last night but it must have been 11 or so -- always early because we get up so early. This time, though, Tai-chan is sleeping a bit longer.

Yesterday we didn't do too much -- Mellow Café seemed to be closed in the morning so we went somewhere else.

I'm becoming massively irritated (as usual) by the Japanese attitude -- their "squirreliness," for lack of a better word.

Even though perfect Japanese comes out of my mouth (Tai-chan confirms this) they pretend not to understand what I'm saying and stare at me like frozen sheep. For example, in the other coffee shop, first I asked if they had wireless Internet. They could have said "No, we don't -- sorry," but instead I get this hand-wringing explanation, only half of which I understand, and then they call over the manager. who has even less idea of what to do than they do, and then it is established that there is an Internet business JUST ACROSS THE STREET from them, as if that can possibly help me, and I show them my laptop and they hem and haw and point and jabber, and in the end, of course, I just tell them "Forget it!" and they wander back to their duties.

Then, I make the mistake of asking for a café-au-lait and they say they don't have those. They don't have cappuccinos either, although their very name is "Tanaka Specialty Coffees" or something like that.

Finally, they suggest a coffee "with a lot of milk in it," and I accept, fed up to the teeth.

And it's a good coffee, except it's served in a bowl. Yes, a bowl with no handle.

And on my way out, I ask the cashier "Uh, just for future reference, what do you call that?" pointing to the coffee I just finished. After a blank stare for a moment, she says "Oh, that's a café-au-lait."

Now can you understand why I secretly despise the Japanese? They're a nation of squashed-down sheep, each person only one part of a grand tribe -- individually they can't function -- they need the rest of the tribe to be able to exist. Like ants.

I will NOT get into what happened when I went across the street to Softbank, the Internet service provider. Just suffice it to say that it took one hour, a phone call to someone who spoke English (I didn't need him -- he said exactly the same things as they did, except in English) and many, many questions such as "Okay, so HOW MUCH DO I PAY ALTOGETHER FOR INTERNET SERVICE FOR TWO YEARS?" (I'm trying to get Internet for my ex-wife and it has to be as painless as possible for her or she won't do it) and I finally get the answer that they could have given me in the first five minutes, only they're so sheeplike and pretend to misunderstand me constantly (again, I checked with Tai-chan -- I was speaking perfectly good Japanese) and I just ended up completely frustrated and wanting to smash the guy sitting across from me in the face.

Anyway -- today is Monday. Dunno what we'll do . . . I bought a cool helicopter (a quad rotor, as a matter of interest) and he's been trying it out. We went to Nara park yesterday to try it outside but its battery died after half a minute so we gave up. But I can't wait for Tai-chan to wake up!

No doubt we're going to have a blast again today -- it's so much fun being with him. We joke around and have so many laughs it's incredible. I just get the feeling no one here ever pays much attention to him or realizes what a huge sense of humor he has and what a joy he is to be around.

Oh well.

Updates and more videos soon!