Just before I left Japan a friend of mine grabbed me and said:
Alex, now that you have a really cute girlfriend you are not allowed to gain any weight back home! I don't want to see you with a belly like a grandfather when you come back!1
After coming back some of my friends commented on my newfound slimness -- a BMI of 19 apparently is quite nice to have as a guy-- others noticed this too, but preferred to call my great looks scrawny. Anyway I was quite satisfied with my looks, at least for the the first one or two weeks in Austria.
Here Ali here take a cookie.
Eva -- my brother Georg's girlfriend -- is always looking out for me. So sweet, she is even bringing me chocolate covered Lebkuchen2 with some delicious filling -- really tasty!
I eat one, but then remember the warning of my friend and I know I already gained weight in the few weeks I'm back. Better cut back a bit.
Five minutes later Georg stands in my room, grasping my belly and exclaiming:
Ali you've grown fat! I guess now you can eat all the cookies you want, it won't matter anyway.
Sure there now is a tiny bit more of me where before no unnecessary layer was hindering the view of my belly muscle. But honestly who cares I never had any muscle to speak of anyway, so nothing lost and a insulation-layer gained!
Sadly I do care. I start to wonder how much weight I really gained since coming back. There is a scale in our bathroom, but I dare not to mount it. No I have a much better idea. I'll just shoot a photo and forget all about my belly and the associated problems.
5 minutes later I have an acceptable photo and a heap of chocolate covered cookie lying on my bed, but then I notice I can't really put back in the box. Who want's to eat a cookie that was already touched by someone else?
Oh well at least do not to worry about the cookies in the photo -- I assure you they have all been liberated after their participation in the photo shoot. I'd never throw away perfectly fine food.
After living for one year in a japanese student home it seems like any room that can contain more than a bed and a table feels huge to me. With that in the back of my mind the hotel room I have here is still big. I live on the twenty first floor, one entire wall is a huge window and the bathroom wall facing the room is also made of glass. I can very well understand why this hotel has ratings describing it as perfect for lovers. I mean here I could lie on my bed and watch the sunset on my right or a beautiful girl shower to my left -- at the same time -- how cool is this?
The huge flat screen TV, the provided computer and the broadband internet1 connection are a nice bonus. I guess just in case the stunning girl you share the room with is not enough, or you missed the sunset and are getting bored.
One problem for me is, that currently there is no beautiful girl in my room that I could admire while she takes a shower and the beauty of the sunset is slightly dampened by the air pollution, that makes the sun vanish, before it can reach the horizon. Luckily if there is a problem as serve as this there will almost always be a solution near by.
For example yesterday, while enjoying my time on Skype I got a phone call -- at 23:00 local time. I'm not really supposed to get phone calls here in Beijing on my hotel number. Only very few people know which hotel I stay at and I told nobody the room number. Maybe they have a problem with my credit card -- it would not be the first time here in Asia -- so I go and pick up the phone.
Yes
Ah ... Hello English?
Yes how can I help you?
Massagi?
It's the middle of the night and someone calls me to ask if I want a massage? Nice service from the hotel.
Oh wait it's the middle of the night, I get a call on my hotel phone and a girl asks me if I want a massage -- no thanks. I guess it would be kind of hard to explain to the girl I'm skyping with.
Well such is life -- full of suboptimally timed events.
So today I get home from a shopping spree2 at 16:00. Tired from walking around all day and not finding nice cheap shoes in my size I just want to take a relaxing hot shower and rest for an hour or two, but my keycard for the room does not work. I roll my eyes, take the elevator down again, they repair my card, but just in case send someone up with me to check everything is alright.
She rings the doorbell to make sure she will not be intruding, opens the door for me and
Where do you come from?
Austria -- Europe Austria
Want a massage?
As some of you might already know I'm currently traveling around in China. The food is great the air is very polluted and the Internet is ... shall we say not as wide and unlimited as I remember it. Especially the part where Flickr,1 the photo site I use for all my travel shots, resides seems to have fallen of the map (right along with Facebook and YouTube)
Since the webspace on this server is by far not large enough to accommodate my photos and I don't feel like searching for a photo site that is acceptable in China, there will be no new shots of my last days in Japan or from my travels in China until I return home. Also no Facebook updates and I gave up on Twitter when my time was rapidly vanishing in the last few months in Japan.
Look at him isn't he the happiest man in the whole world?
Watching the dusk in Yokohama with a nice girl lying next to you in the grass, there is not much to add to the observation of these two passerbys. After hearing that we just look at each other and laughed in surprise. It was a great day, just as many other days lately.
In this last month my Japanese finally became good enough to understand simple conversations and talk to my friends in Japanese most of the time. Yes Japanese is a hard language to learn and outside of Japan it is most likely not very helpful, but all this is more than compensated by my friends, that repay my every effort trice.
In the last week I had a guy crying at my shoulder and a girl tell me she had sore muscles in her face from laughing so much.
Indeed these were great and happy days, some of the best I've ever had. Sure the nail that sticks out will be hammered in -- or break in the process -- but the more you are embedded in the Japanese wood the more fun it becomes. Maybe after a few years, when you still stick out a little bit, it will become bothersome, but for now I'm very much looking forward to coming back.
Since I'll be leaving soon, but still want to stay in touch with the japanese language and culture I decided it was time to buy some more advanced culture books in Japanese, that I could still understand. No problem Japan has huge second hand bookstores where you can buy any Manga1 you could ever dream of for next to nothing.
So off I went to Akihabara to one of the biggest book off. There you get the chance to indulge yourself in six floors of used books, video games and Anime. After five minutes in the store I noticed my first problem.
How are books ordered in this maze of small pathways and shelves that nearly reach up to the ceiling? Whom do I ask for assistance? One of the customers? The guy who is staring at pictures of some very curvy half naked schoolgirls fleeing from some Monster? The girl that is leafing through a comic that describes the massacre committed by a bunch of high school girls, after they got mistreated?
Maybe the shy girl in the long skirt that is slowly wandering the hallways with a distracted look, a staple well selected books in her hand. Yes the one just picking up the hardcore porn Manga -- well maybe not that one.
I just want to buy 東京大学物語 -- the story of the University of Tokyo.
Maybe the clerk can help. I tower a head higher than most of the people her and still he manages to see right past me. Seems like the only chance left are the guys from my lab. 15 minutes later two of them are standing infront of me -- smiling like a white shark in front of Amity beach.
大将、何かおすすめは？2
For some reason the guys in the lab always know exactly what I'm are looking for, can tell me were to find it, know the best parts, but would never do or by something like this themselves. After a year in a Japanese lab you will notice that the guys in the lab always have a secret personal history and you should never ask about this!
The good thing about this recommendation system is that whatever you get is not your fault. Should the professor come in and see you with a staple of 「ふたりエッチ」 you can always say:
I know nothing
It's none of my business
Only Taisho is wrong
This is the way to save one's own face and at the same time be able to enjoy a variety of special books, while the guys have one more fun story about the crazy Gaijin and get to read some books they would otherwise never dare to touch -- unlike the schoolgirls in these venues.
Oh well the only thing left to say now is:
じゃぁ、甘いよ大将！