FOOD.

My Melatonin's all gone, and it takes me a good long time to go to sleep. Since Melatonin, although just an herbal sleep aid, is for some reason illegal in Japan, I have to entertain myself for many hours before I fall asleep naturally. I purchased some very legal sleep aid in some pharmacy from an English-speaking pharmacist in Shibuya, but I can't read the box. Even though it's mild enough for even Japan, who won't allow Nyquil on the shelves, to sell it to me for $7 for 10 capsules, I'm still nervous to take any considering the potential resulting hallucinations due to my anxiety disorder....which in turn spurred my sleeping disorder. I cannot fucking win. So instead of taking whatever's in my box with the little moon on it, I've been spending my nights writing music and photoshopping my friends' heads onto pop culture icons. I ran out of lyrics, and I ran out of heads, so I thought I'd share a few of the many things that perplex me and piss me off about the Japanese culture.

"Well, the wind is blowing. Where am I going?"

If there's one thing that is a massive fixture in my life, it is food. Cabbage, pizza, raw octopus, I don't give a shit. Throw it at me, I will probably eat it. Scratch that, I will eat it. My life essentially revolves around it. Often I will be back home in Olympia, with my band: "What are we doing later?" "Uh....playing a show, Alex." "Yeah, no, I know, but like, where are we eating?" My plans in Tokyo are generally based off of the places I'd like to eat and the areas they're in. "Ooh, this place has delicious okonomiyaki! And since the restaurant's near the park, I guess we can go there, or whatever." My love for food can be matched by nothing else. If my best friend were tied to train tracks with the mass of metal hurtling toward her on one side of me, and there was a steaming pile of fresh turkey meat and cranberry sauce on the other side, I would actually have to pause and think about my next action. Yeah, I would save my friend...but I would wonder about the turkey for years afterward. 

I am a fucking food junkie--even if it's not theoretically edible, I will probably still try to eat it. Many times a day I will be served a dish with an unidentifiable gelatinous or rubbery or crispy side dish, to which I ask, "What is this?" and shove it in my mouth without awaiting an answer. Cubes of jelly, shreds of seaweed, and raw egg have become regular additions to my daily meals. Even the so-called American food is really off.

Denny's, for example. It is not open 24 hours--it is not even open late. And, much to my sinking heart's chagrin, there are no pancakes. You can get some interesting seafood salads and samplers, however, and the standard side dish here is the same as in any other restaurant in the country--rice. "Here is your burger, your home fries, your egg, and your rice. Thank you for your order!" It was odd at first, going to a restaurant, ordering a hot dog, and getting a plate of rice beside it. "What the fuck is this?" I thought. "What am I supposed to do, dip my fucking hot dog in it?" At first, I was annoyed...predictably. But soon, I learned to get creative with it...dribble the sauce from my burger onto the rice, mush up my fries with my chopsticks and smush it into the puffy white grains to make something starchy and unforgettably delicious. Chop up bits of my steak and shove them into the rice, happening upon a chunk of meat every now and again while eating it. Rice went from being annoying to becoming a staple, and now I need it daily in order to feel normal. If we go to McDonald's and I get a burger and fries, I find myself staring blankly into my Quarter Pounder bag wishing there was a cardboard container full of rice. 

Which brings me to another fucking bizarre anomaly--burgers. If you go to an America-based fast food joint--Wendy's, McDonald's, whatever--you'll get exactly what you get in America: A thin patty between two often soggy buns with a dollop of ketchup and mustard, a slice of American cheese, and a small slice of pickle poorly centered on one side of the sandwich. In a casual dining joint however, such as Denny's, Gusto, or First Kitchen--those last two are pretty much Denny's--you would expect to get this. What you will actually get, is this. A skillet plate with a few pieces of potato, often a slab of another type of meat, a fried egg, and a round hamburger patty which is slathered in some kind of "demiglaze" sauce that's most likely half-ketchup, half-soy sauce. Silly, who needs buns? You can get those carbs in your side of rice.

This brings me to something I was not expecting from Japan--their love of eggs. There is an egg, though perhaps cleverly hidden, in everything you order. Do you want fried pork tonkatsu? Here, have a fried egg. Do you want spaghetti? Here you go, have another egg. Sukiyaki---honestly, do you even have to ask? When my former friend Yohei and I were discussing Mexican restaurants, I was so excited to break free from the bizarre monotony of eggs and rice with all of my food. He linked me to the website, and I couldn't wait to see a sample of the western goodness I would be able to experience the next day. I opened the page. "Jesus christ, am I glad there won't be any e--," I scrolled down to view this.

Another bizarre staple of Japanese food I really wasn't expecting, is mayonnaise. Like the egg, there will be mayonnaise in everything you order. If you can't see it, it is probably hiding somewhere inside your egg. This was painful for a mayonnaise hater like myself at first--give me ketchup, mustard, miracle whip even, but for the love of god, don't give me mayonnaise. But I had to suck it up and deal with it, because it's on pretty much everything. Mayonnaise on your tempura, mayonnaise on your cheese steak, mayonnaise on your okonomiyaki, mayonnaise on your mayonnaise on your motherfucking mayonnaise.

But after my mayonnaise rage is said and done, there's nothing my fellow Tokyo scout Diana and I love more than grabbing a laté from Starbucks in Shibuya and sitting outside on the patio and watching all the people cross the crosswalk. Short, midgety people, tall, blonde foreigners, girls in puffy lolita dresses and men with slicked back hair and snakeskin boots. All of them gather together at the crosswalk in hordes, waiting for their light to turn green. Shibuya is fucking full of people, if I haven't stressed that already, so it's a judgmental asshole's paradise, watching at least thirty people gather on either side of the street before the light turns green. But no matter what, there's always some apathetic bastard that crosses the street before everybody else. There will be no cars coming, so the one person thinks, "Well, fuck it," and just crosses the street. The rest of the people on either side look on nervously as the single person crosses the street alone and ends up on the other sidewalk, completely unharmed. None of them ever follow suit; they just wait patiently until the light turns green so they can cross legally and go on their happy way.

After endless hours of people watching, it's come to my understanding that there is one specific, gender neutral outfit that every single Japanese citizen has in their closet. It's some variation on this outfit: a white t-shirt, an oversized black vest, and pants. There are several options when wearing the customary garb of this country; you can either wear high water jeans with the cuffs rolled up and strappy sandals, or skinny jeans and tennis shoes. Most outfit-wearers choose to add a stupid looking hat--these straw hats are particularly in this season...it's beyond me why. You will no doubt see either a man or a woman wearing what I have come to call simply "The Outfit" at the crosswalk at each waiting period before the light turns green.

Japan, the land of originality. You have failed me.