New Docomo Cell Phones

These aren't big flagship products with all the bells and whistles, just stuff from their "special needs" division.

The first is a kid's phone with a pull-tab. When the kid yanks it an alarm goes off, and/or it calls certain numbers automatically.

It also has a GPS tracker, so parents can see where their kids are at all times via satellite from their own phones.


This next phone has "Bone Conduction". Hearing-impaired people can hear it without a hearing aid. It's also useful in an extremely noisy place. You can hear the other person crystal clear- even from a noisy factory while you're wearing earplugs.

The Mob Shooting of the Mayor of Nagasaki: "An Act of Desperation"

Japanese Mobsters have been around so long as to be more or less institutionalized in Japanese society. They extort money from the government through shady public construction deals, extort business owners for "protection" money, and run shady night spots and brothels.

Generally, they are tolerated so long as they don't harm ordinary citizens. As far as the protection money goes, they can even be worth it. I know a nightclub owner that paid them to take care of young punks that stabbed and robbed customers on the outside sidewalk when the police were too chicken to do anything. They're seen as the sharks that keep the riff-raff lower level crooks in check.

But there's a darker side to them. They have ties to Nationalist right-wing organizations that actually have a lot of pull with Japanese politics. When a public official tried to oppose them, he had his house burned down. When the former mayor of Nagasaki said something they didn't like 15 years ago, they tried to kill him. The public image of the right-wingers is passionate activists, but in reality they do what they do to shake down the government, and the mob has a big hand in it. I have a student that used to work for them. He says that when they're off the loudspeakers, they're all business.

Anyway, if you haven't heard, the Mayor of Nagasaki, about a 2-3 hour drive from Fukuoka, was shot by a gangster a few days ago outside a train station. The official story is that this was a personal grudge over money, and that-

Tetsuya Shiroo, the acting head of the Suishin-kai gang, which is affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, was isolated within the organization. The police believe the crime was perpetrated by Shiroo alone. According to the police, Shiroo, 59, had his own driver. However, during police questioning, the driver reportedly said, "I didn't drive him to the [crime] site." Shiroo once served as the head of the Shiroo Family, a Suishin-kai affiliate, but his son-in-law has since succeeded him. He then become acting head of the Suishin-kai, but apparently did not have the necessary power to control the group's administration, the police said. The prefectural police received information that group members did not treat Shiroo seriously.

I've got my doubts that this was really a personal grudge, unrelated to the mob, and nothing more. The suspect had tried to shake the municipal government down for money, but that's standard mob activity, and they hadn't heard from the guy in a couple years. And at any rate he had never even met the mayor prior to doing this.

The gang he was part of is announcing that they will "voluntarily disband", but that's doubtful too. The way things work in Japan is that you officially go along with things like you're supposed to to keep up appearances, but under the surface keep on doings things as planned.

My suspicion is that as a marginalized, basically ousted member of the gang, Shiroo was somehow persuaded to do this, and take the sole heat for it. As the article below states, this act reflects the growing desperation of Japanese mobsters, who are facing increasing resistance from the governmental organizations that they make a living shaking down. I think this was done as a signal that they mean business, and to warn other municipal leaders not to try to stand up to them.

I'll lose a lot of respect for supposedly tough, right wing Prime Minister Abe if he just goes through the motions of an investigation and basically lets it slide. If he smashes these gangs apart he can earn the label of being the tough guy he makes himself out to be. If he lets them get away with it, he's just a puppet.


From the New York Times-

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: April 21, 2007

NAGASAKI, Japan, April 20 — The shooting death this week of this city’s popular mayor has left people puzzling over the shooter’s motive and has set off a national outcry about a less savory aspect of Japanese society: its teeming criminal underworld.

On Friday, passers-by left flowers on the sidewalk where Mayor Kazunaga Ito, who went by the name Itcho Ito in public life, was killed Tuesday evening by a member of an organized crime group. Citizens also lined up to write their condolences at Nagasaki’s City Hall, where employees were wearing black dresses and neckties.

The brazenness of the slaying, in front of crowds of commuters at the city’s main train station, shocked this nation, which takes pride in its normally safe streets. It has brought growing calls in national newspapers and among ordinary citizens for Japan’s central government to take tougher steps to crack down on criminal groups.

“We can no longer let organized crime run rampant in Japan,” said Toru Shioyama, 36, who visited the site of Mr. Ito’s killing during his lunch break. “I’m outraged.”

Japan has some of the lowest crime rates in the world, yet it is not uncommon, especially in regional cities like this one, to see dark-suited gangsters openly swaggering down streets. Some gangs even announce their presence by hanging signboards outside their headquarters and carrying business cards.

In all Japan, there were some 84,700 known members of organized criminal groups as of March, according to the National Police Agency. By contrast, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that there are only 1,000 “made” members of the Mafia, America’s best-known organized crime group.

For decades, Japan’s gangsters, known as yakuza, enjoyed a romanticized image here for their role in keeping crime under control. Historians say these groups often kept cozy relations with politicians and the police, and were a widely accepted part of the social fabric. But in recent years, public opinion has begun turning against them, as tougher economic times have driven the underworld to victimize regular Japanese more frequently, organized crime experts say.

According to the police, Mr. Ito, 61, was shot by a member of the Suishinkai, a local branch of the 39,700-member Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest organized crime group. The killer, Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, has confessed to shooting Mr. Ito twice from behind with an American-made revolver, the police said.

Mr. Shiroo’s motives are not clear. At first, many here thought the killing might have been politically motivated. Some speculated that Mr. Ito might have angered Japan’s murky far right with his opposition to nuclear weapons, a common stance in a city that was flattened by an American atomic bomb in World War II. In early 1990, another Nagasaki mayor was shot and wounded by a rightist after saying that the late Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for the war.

However, the police now appear to be investigating money-related disputes. The local news media have focused on a four-year-old clash between Mr. Shiroo and the city of Nagasaki over a car accident. In that dispute, Mr. Shiroo visited City Hall about 30 times from 2003 to 2005 to demand up to 2.7 million yen, or about $23,000, for damages to his car that he claimed were from an accident at a city construction site, city officials said.

Lawyers said such requests for reimbursement were a common form of extortion. However, the small amount of money involved, and the fact that Mr. Shiroo had not raised the matter with city officials for two years, made many wonder if there was not some larger, hidden issue. Adding to the mystery was the fact that Mr. Ito was in the final stretch of campaigning for re-election in Sunday’s mayoral election, which he was widely expected to win.

“We really have no idea what was the reason” for the slaying, said Yoshinobu Hashida, chief of the city’s personnel section, which advises city officials on how to deal with gangster threats. “There’s no clear-cut explanation.”

Another possibility is a dispute over public works projects, which lawyers and other organized crime experts call a common source of revenue for criminal groups. A letter signed by Mr. Shiroo and sent to a Tokyo-based broadcaster just before the shooting reportedly expressed anger at Nagasaki for denying a contract to a construction company with links to him. On Thursday, the broadcaster, TV Asahi, turned over the letter to the Nagasaki police.

It is also unclear why Mr. Shiroo chose the mayor as his target. Mr. Shiroo did not name the mayor during the traffic accident dispute, said city officials, and the TV Asahi letter reportedly mentioned him only briefly. Toshiaki Hayashida, the mayor’s chief secretary, said he believed that Mr. Ito had never met Mr. Shiroo.

Some experts said the killing might have been an act of desperation by gangsters, who have come under increasing pressure as Japanese companies and local governments have stepped up efforts to end dealings with organized crime. In recent years, Nagasaki has passed new regulations requiring companies to report all contact with organized criminal groups, or be barred from bidding on public works contracts.

Organized crime has also felt the pinch as Japan has reduced public works spending to rein in runaway budget deficits, say experts like Takashi Ozaki, a lawyer in Tokyo specializing in organized crime cases. Criminal groups have responded by increasingly turning to violence to intimidate local officials, Mr. Ozaki said.

“Incidents like the Nagasaki shooting show how tough it’s getting for these groups,” Mr. Ozaki said.

The National Police Agency said it was contacted 2,391 times last year in connection with violence against local government employees, an increase of 27 percent over the past six years. In Nagasaki, before this week’s shooting, city officials had been the victims of violence 13 times in the past four years, though not all of these involved members of organized criminal groups, said Mr. Hashida, the city personnel official.

In one case, a member of an organized criminal group was arrested after threatening a city official while demanding reimbursement for injuries he claimed he had suffered by stepping in a trap that the city had laid to control the local population of wild boars.

It is rare for a case to be as high profile, and as brutal, as Tuesday’s killing. After Mr. Shiroo’s arrest, the boss of the Suishinkai visited the Nagasaki police headquarters to report that the group was voluntarily disbanding, a possible sign that gangsters were bracing for a crackdown, the police said.

The police said the group had close to 100 members, making it the second-largest organized crime group in Nagasaki Prefecture, of which Nagasaki is the capital. Local police officials said that while they monitored the Suishinkai and other of the prefecture’s 555 known gangsters, they were powerless to arrest members until they actually broke a law.

“We can only act if they do something wrong,” said Yoshihiro Hara, a spokesman for the Nagasaki prefectural police. “We have to observe the rule of law.”

Meanwhile, at Mr. Ito’s former campaign headquarters, activity began picking up again. On Thursday, the campaign announced that Mr. Ito’s son-in-law, Makoto Yokoo, a 40-year-old reporter with no experience in politics, would run Sunday in Mr. Ito’s place.

“Sadly, some types of people resort to violence when they can’t get their way,” said Mr. Hayashida, the mayor’s secretary. “But we cannot let this stop us from pressing on.”

Someone Tried to Steal my Motorbike

Someone gave me an old motorbike back in September. I usually just use my bike in Fukuoka, because everything is so close and I can jump lights and get through traffic faster, but it's nice to have the motorbike for getting out of town on the weekend and going to Costco.

The problem is the theft rate for scooters and motorbikes is very high in Fukuoka. About a week back I found the ignition keyhole on my motorbike drilled out. Apparently this is how thieves disengage the lock on parked bikes. But they must have been having trouble with it, because they couldn't get it unlocked and eventually just left it as it is.

It gets worse though- this bike is 25 years old, and they don't make the kind of keyset it uses anymore, and the repairmen have assured me that it's not possible to fiddle with the wiring to add a new one. So I was left with a choice- either scrap the bike completely, or use it without any lock.

So basically, now I stick my key in until I get to the very bottom of the hole and twist the ignition on. When I park the bike, I lock it up with a standard U-bar bike lock from the tire. Pretty lame, and it's high time to get a new motorbike. But until then I'd rather have this to use than nothing at all.

The ACROS Building

Check out the ACROS building in central Fukuoka, facing the park. When I got here, the vegetation was still raggedy, and it still looked a little half-assed. But as it grows out it looks better and better. The day could come where none of the original building is visible, and it just looks like the side of an enormous hill. More info here.

Homelessness in Japan

Not like homelessness is a good thing at all or anywhere, but if you're going to do it anywhere, Japan's the place. Rather than using cardboard boxes, it's standard to make a home out of a wooden frame, and cover it with tarpet to make it waterproof.

In Fukuoka the homeless abodes take on unreal dimensions though (not that there's more homelessness here, just that the homeless people that are here live relatively well). There's a park I go by that's filled with shelters like this.

This one looks like it might be multi room. It has a window (with drawn curtains), a table for eating outside, a roof over the front door where the laundry is hung, and even has a doghouse!

In Halifax and Toronto there are a lot of homeless people that are there because of poverty and bad times, and beg because that's what they've been reduced to. Here, homelessness almost seems like a lifestyle choice. The few I've had contact with seem strange and introverted, maybe a bit hermit-ish and arguably a bit ill mentally. But they never beg, and I've never heard of anyone so much as try to blame them for any crimes. They make livings collecting bottle deposits, and are generally keep to themselves and their own community.

First Week of the New School Year

The school year starts in April along with spring here (which actually makes a lot more sense than September when you think about it), so this week has been a whole new schedule for me.

The common wisdom for teachers with part time jobs is to pack as many classes in one day as possible. Time wasted is seen as money lost. Say you have 2 hours between classes. That's a gap of time you're not getting paid for. So people try to squeeze things as closely together as possible, and rush from job-to-job.

Teaching takes a lot more energy than most jobs though. You're up in front of 30 people and "on" the whole time directing everything. 5 hours is the max most people can handle. Any more than that and you're probably just going through the motions. So the time-stuffer method is a real drag, as well as it pays. You don't get tired physically, but mentally you're completely drained.

The thing is though, I earn enough on the jobs I have now that I don't really need to make any more. Why do I need to earn more than $300 in a single day? So I started to set things up more for lifestyle.

The way it works now, I start bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 9 at the university, and teach until 12. I might be a bit tired, but then I have until 4:30-5:00 before I start at the International school, where I do a couple more hours. That gives me the whole afternoon to relax and do what I want; it's a long enough stretch of time that I'm in no rush and my next job isn't on my mind. I have to go through downtown to get from one place to the other, so I can go to the gym, go shopping, study, hang out at the office or whatever. By the time the international school classes start I'm totally over what little burnout might have started, and I've hit a second wind. Its a great way to pace a teaching schedule.

Girl Hits #1 on UK iTunes with Home-Made Album

Singer songwriter Kate Walsh has gone #1 on iTunes with an album she recorded for a few hundred dollars in her friend's spare bedroom, beating out Elton John and UK pop stars Take That. iTunes made her a featured artist of the day with a free download, and it took off from there.

This is a really interesting trend. Until recently, the Major Labels controlled most of what people heard. They were the only ones with real clout distribution-wise to record stores, and most promotion on radio and TV cost more than any honest independent outfit could afford. So as an artist, either you needed the major-label machine behind you (which comes at the price of them owning the copyrights to all your music), or you toiled away in indie land, playing small clubs, getting play on college radio and generally only being heard by a few people.

But the internet has opened a whole new distribution channel, and leveled the playing field, especially in England. It's amazing how many artists are breaking on the internet in the UK. A while back it was the Arctic Monkeys, which got their start on Myspace and went on to have the biggest-selling debut week in UK history. And the alternative hip-hop act Gnarles Barkley went to number #1 in the UK with their hit "Crazy" before they even had a record in stores thanks to itunes.

I remember back in the 90's Kurt Cobain was talking about his vision where a band could home-record an album and get big without major label help. It took a while and looked impossible for several more years, but things like that are starting to happen. The major label monopoly on music distribution is slowly but surely coming to an end.

Artificial Fire

Check out these flames that a lot of restaurants keep outside their doors. I've seen them for a couple years and never thought twice about them. They burn with a flickering intensity. I always thought it was gas or something. Can you guess what powers them?

In one way it's electricity, but in another way it's nothing. Because as real as it looks passing by, it's not real fire.


Here's a close-up of one. All it is is a few sheaths of tissue-like cloth shaped like flames. There's an electric fan underneath it that blows it up and makes it flicker and move around. As a final touch, a couple orange lights in the bottom of the pot shine onto it. When it reflects off of the cloth it looks alternately red, white and orange, like real fire.


In this still picture, it looks really fake close up. But that's because the "flame" is frozen so that you can see it for what it really is. When the fan is moving it from underneath it looks really convincing.

Al Qaeda Isn't Real

From The Power of Nightmares, a 3-part, 3-hour BBC documentary (which you can also view all of online following the link -but watch the 8 minute rundown first!).

Basically, after the embassy bombing in Sudan that Bin Ladin had funded, US courts wanted to charge/convict Bin Ladin, and not just the people that had actually done it. Fair enough.

But to do that legally, you have to show that Bin Ladin is connected to the bombings as part of a structured criminal organization. That's how the US government nailed top dogs in the Mafia. So the US dug up a dubious professional witness (kind of like the guy that testified about all the WMD Iraq had) that claimed for them that Bin Ladin was a member of a complex international terrorist ring which he dubbed Al Qaeda.

Eventually, Bin Ladin began referring to Al Qaeda in tapes...but only after 9/11, and after it became clear that that was what the Americans had labeled him.

So in short- to be sure, there is a Bin Ladin, with a lot of money that he's willing to spend on attacking the US. Radicals come to him with plans for things they want to carry out because he has deep pockets. And he's more than happy to act as a figurehead for Islamic radicals everywhere.

But the whole idea of a single, unified organization, with formal ranks, intelligence networks, intermediaries, and "sleeper cells" waiting on queue to strike is basically an illusion.

The vast majority of terrorists in the world -be they mercenaries for the Taliban, dissidents in Iraq, or extremists setting off bombs in Bali, Spain, or England, have little formal connection to one another aside from shared views regarding Islam. As much as they might support his actions, they often do not report to Bin Ladin or anyone speaking on his behalf, and in most cases wouldn't be able to find or talk to him even if they tried.

So in short, going after terrorism as a single enemy that we can declare war on makes about as much sense as going after murder as a single entity we can declare war on, or drugs. They're all complex problems rooted in deeper issues, carried out by people working in isolation, and prevention and greater understanding of their fundamental roots are the smartest answers.

But Bush and his colleagues are stuck on the idea of an epic struggle of good and evil, a single beatable enemy, and they can't get out of that mentality.

Prior to going into Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld endorsed a ridiculous diagram of "one of many" hidden Al Qaeda bases tunneled into the mountains of Tora Bora, with hydroelectric power, secret entrances for trucks, and hi-tech telecommunications...basically, something out of a James Bond movie. They got there only to find...dirty caves

The Mathematics of Marrigage and Divorce

Just finished writing a paper for school about student rapport in classroom management, and submitted it to an ESL journal here in Japan. There's some research in there that's pretty cool.

Listen to this- a newlywed couple goes into a room and has electrodes hooked up to their bodies to measure heart rate, perspiration, and even how much they squiggle in their chairs while they talk. A videotape records them, and every facial expression they make, every eyebrow that raises, every half smile or mild smirk, is tallied according to a code.

The couple is instructed to talk about any issue they have a connection on at all for an hour. Not even big topics like money or sex, necessarily. What TV show they'll watch that night will do.

And after a few minutes of watching them, psychologists can predict whether or not they'll get divorced...with over 90% accuracy.

Sounds incredible? The underlying theory is that while we tend to think logical issues (He wants to move to Phoenix, I want to stay in San Diego, etc) are the reasons couples break up, What this psychologist John Gottman argues is that what is important in a relationship is the ratio of positive emotions during interactions versus negative emotions, regardless of what is discussed. A healthy couple needs at least 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction. A relationship with more- say, 2 negative interactions out of every 5- is eventually doomed. At the beginning of the relationship, we go through a "honeymoon period" where faults are ignored or seen as cute. But once reality sets in, an even slight overbalance of negative interactions will take it's toll.

You'd think that those negative moments only come out during big fights, and that other times, everything could be great. But in smaller, fleeting, barely noticeable moments, the basic ratio of positive to negative feeling is present in everything you do together. You talk somewhat excitedly about your hobby, she replies sounding a little bored or dismissive. On the video there might be a very brief flash of disappointment on your face, then the conversation continues. No big deal, you might not have even noticed yourself. But if the ratio continues, it spells trouble. The fights you have are really just eruptions of the underlying hard feelings that are gradually mounting every day.

Check out this fascinating, if a little heavy book "The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models" by John Gottman. You can view the whole thing free at Google Books!

Mild Confrontation With Naked Man in Sauna

If you're in Japan, you'll probably take this as an understatement when I say that sometimes, Japanese people treat foreigners differently than they would ever treat each other. In my opinion Fukuoka is the most foreigner-friendly place in Japan (or at least, so nonchalant about foreigners that they generally treat us the same as everyone else), but every now and then I have a mild run-in.

This example actually isn't that bad, and if you judge it by western standards of conduct it'll probably come off as petty or just nit-picking minutiae. But it explains some aspects of life in Japan pretty well, so I thought it might make an interesting story.

Generally, in Japan you don't talk to strangers. Everyone keeps a polite psychological distance. If you do talk to someone you don't know for whatever reason, you're friendly and polite about it, or at least very, very, apologetic for intruding on their space. My gym has a sauna, hot bath and lounge that I relax in after a workout. It's basically about as quiet and relaxing as my own home. Turns for things like using the dryer are settled with eye-contactless looks or respectful little nods.

The area has free disposable razors and toothbrushes, and cheap plastic brushes (the teeth are made of thick plastic) and combs. When you finish with the brushes, you put them in a dirty tray and they get sterilized for re-use.

Anyway, I was in the sauna, and while I didn't realize it, I guess I was scratching my leg a bit with the brush. Suddenly, I heard someone go "Hey! Hey!"

I turned around, and this Japanese guy was looking at me. He told me not to scratch my leg with the brush, because that's not what it's for.

I could point out that objectively, applying the brush end to my leg doesn't really dirty it any more or less than pushing it through my hair does, or that either way, it'll be sterilized before anyone else uses it anyway. But while true, both those things miss the point.

To understand how rude that is, you have to understand Japan. No Japanese person would ever say something like that to a Japanese stranger of equal status, even if whatever he was doing genuinely was rude or boorish. Aside from invading my space, he was acting like it was his place to tell me what to do, and mine to listen to him.

I smiled and thanked him for his advice, and went right back to scratching my leg with it. Spiteful I guess, but I wanted to make a point.

He must have felt embarrassed about it, because as I left the sauna he said I'm sorry. I turned to him and said it wasn't his place to tell me what to do any more than it was to tell anyone else. He said, "It's public opinion". I just thanked him for his advice again, this time with more sarcasm, and left the sauna.

Later on, I was in the lounge, where people read, doze, or watch little TVs built into their reclining chairs, with audio that softly comes through the headrests. You're supposed to keep quiet, and talking on a cell phone is prohibited.

I hear some guys yapping away about work. It goes on a few minutes, and it's starting to get irritating. I turn around, and...it's the same guy!

I couldn't resist- I turned around, told them some of us were trying to sleep and asked them if they could please stop talking. They switched to whispers for minute, and then the guy's friend got up and moved to another seat further from him and started reading a newspaper. Probably sounds pretty mild if you're back in North America, but like I said, that's some pretty presumptuous stuff to do to others here.

Not trying to make it out like some kind of tough-guy confrontation, or I like I stared him down...that's not the point. In fact, if there's any moral to it, it's that when I made the same kind of demand, he obliged. So if I see him again I'll pay him the same respect, and refrain from letting my brush touch any part of my body but my hair.

Spring In Fukuoka

Spring is a great season in Japan. The last two pictures are from last year- check out how the cherry blossoms cover the ground.

Best Restaurants in Fukuoka Part 1

Fukuoka has some great restaurants, with food from all over the world. Here are some of my favorites:
CHINESE: Most people that have experienced it will agree that this is one of the best, if not the best, Chinese restaurant in the city. It has won a number of awards. Pretty decent prices considering the quality of the food. But be warned- it's very, very spicy. Run by Chinese immigrants who strike me as lively, but sometimes come off to my Japanese friends as rude. Not that it's a bad atmosphere, they're not unfriendly at all...just a little more direct than most Japanese people would be.

I recommend the spicy pork in red chili sauce, and the sweet pork with pineapples. The chicken balls are great, though they're nearly always out of them. You can also get some excellent Tantanmen ramen for about 550 yen. Good lunch choice. The restaurant is closed between 2pm and 5pm, which can be a bit of a pain.

It's called (deep breath) Chonguodamin Houguochen. Did you catch that? Me neither, it's Chinese. Your best bet is to memorize the symbols in the sign as pictured below.

Directions: This restaurant is very close to the Fujisaki Subway station, not super-far from Momochi beach. (Fujisaki station is toward Meinohama. On the subway map, look west, or to the left. It cost 250 yen from Tenjin). Leave through exit 3 of Fujisaki station (or just find exit 3, and start from there if need be). Once you come out of it, you'll find yourself at a T-Junction. Cross the road and turn left. Just 5-10 meters up the road you'll come to a small, inconspicuous alley on your right. Look down it, and you'll see the sign below sticking out from the side of the restaurant. That's it.




AMERICAN: Check out Sea Diner, close to Hirao station. Modeled after an American diner, it serves enormous hamburgers and pizzas (most of their stock seems to come from Costco). The atmosphere is strikingly authentic. They pipe in a radio station from New Jersey that plays good old middle-of-the-road pop/rock. There's a stack of National Enquirers and People Magazines to read, just a little bit out of date, like they would be back home.

Some people complain that it's expensive, but keep in mind that the portions are enormous. A pizza runs about 1000 yen (10 bucks), and that'll feed two easily. You can even split the burgers in two. Between that and the fries you'll still get a decent meal. Bottom line, 2 items will run 2 people 20 dollars (2000 yen), or 1000 yen each, and you'll leave stuffed.

(Watch out though- one time they complained when a girl I was with didn't order anything because I got a pizza big enough for two. You can get away with it if your order something to drink...but points off for that).

I especially recommend the Mexican pizza, with ground beef and Jalapeno peppers. Make sure you get them to give you a knife and fork for it, because the cheese is really stringy.

Directions: Hirao station is on the Nishitetsu Omuta line, a relatively small private train line that starts in Tenjin. Hirao is the second train stop after Tenjin, and it costs 150 yen to get there. Leave Hiroa station through the exit to your left, and turn right. Up ahead is an intersection. When you get to it, turn LEFT and cross the road (don't go forward!) Keep walking. First you'll see a Softbank shop on your left, then a kid's clothing store. About 15 meters past the intersection you'll see Sea Diner, pictured above.

more coming...

Even More People Urinating Outside my Place

So earlier I wrote about how cab drivers and delivery men keep taking leaks on the vacant lot across the road from my house, in broad daylight and without shame. Now here's a kid doing it with Grandpa watching. Grandma is in the car waiting. We're not in the country here or out on some highway in the middle of no-where- this is near the downtown area of a city of 1.5 million people.

Don't think I stake out my dining room window looking for this stuff! This is what I catch while I'm eating breakfast. What really freaks me out is how much more it must happen when I'm not around.


This isn't normal behavior in most places...then it occurred to me, maybe what's stopping people from doing it in most situations is just respect for other people's property. But if it's just a vacant lot than it's perfectly okay. Shame of being seen peeing in plain view of other people is no problem.

Japan is pretty slack on stuff like nudity. At my gym and at public baths I go to, girls my own age just waltz into the room and through all the naked men to deliver towels or whatever, no-one even pays attention.

One capsule hotel I stayed at had a security monitor at the front desk, in plain view of people waiting at the reception counter, The camera was fixed on the locker room, and you could see naked customers walking around shaving or putting on deodorant. No big deal at all.