SPecIaL EdiTIonn

WHY is Japan so weird?

In this very special Special Edition, I am going to tell you why I think Japan is the weirdest country on earth.

FIRST: ( I don't even know where to start..) When we got out of the airplane 2 days ago, I had discovered the weird invention called "ThE ToiLeT". The toilets in Japan look a lot like normal toilets, BUT THEY ARE NOT! Definitely not... And here's why: 1. The seats are pre-heated. 2. There are so many buttons! 3. All of them have a function called "BiDeT" which basically sprays a jet of water to your butt hole, and you have the option to make the spray go harder or softer. 4. The toilet needs a to be plugged into a wall outlet. 5. The toilets on at the airport could even play music if you wanted to, and you could adjust the volume. 6. many many buttons from which I do not know the functions. 7. PLOT TWIST: besides the amount of buttons, the flushing activates with a.... wait for it... SENSOR :)

SECOND: This morning during breakfast, I was looking for cutlery and I found the following: chopsticks, a fork, a spoon, another fork (slightly different), and something they call a "kNiFe". This is not a normal knife, I don't even think they even understand the concept of a knife here... We use knifes to cut. Our knifes have a handle, a blunt side and a sharp side. The knifes in Japan do not have a... wait for it... SHARP SIDE. How in the world does a knife not have a sharp side?!

THIRD: When we travelled form Otsuki to Kawaguchiko we had to use something they call a "trAiN". And guess what? This was a weird train. Very, very weird, yet very very very amusing. The train we were in had a name: Thomas the train. Sounds familiar? YES. It was litterally designed to look like Thomas the train. It was completely made into a rainbow on the outside and from the inside you could see the sky on the roof and some forest on the sides and of course, you saw Thomas and his little train friends :) I'll add the pictures.

FOURTH: Sometimes we eat, sometimes we eat in Japanese. There's a BIG difference. Today in the store, I bought a big piece of sushi shaped like a triangle. This was packed in plastic (like everything is packed in plastic! Even the chips in a can of Pringles are packed in plastic... but that's not the point right now.) I tore apart the plastic, like I'm used to. BUT the sheet of seaweed was covered in an extra piece of plastic which seperated it from the rice and the fish. I had to built my own sushi in the bus. It went quite all right, however it was a bit mis-shaped and half the rice fell on the ground but it was still very delicious. 

FIFTH: The houses Japanese people live in. As you know, my dad and I are sleeping in a traditional Japanese room at the moment, and everything is weird. I don't even know where to start, seriously. First thing: the things called "ChAirS". chairs as we we know have chair legs, a backrest and two armrests. Well in our house are two different types of chairs and neither of them are actual chairs. The first type does not have armrests (which is kind of normal too) BUT it doesn't have.. wait for it... CHAIRLEGS. What is a chair without chairlegs?! The second type, thank god, does have chairlegs (I was seriously worried that they had not invented those yet) and it has a backrest BUT it has... wait for it... ONLY ONE armrest. WHY japan WHY?

FIVE POINT 2: THEY PUT THEIR MATRASSES ON THE GROUND!

FIVE POINT 3: There's this thing called "tHe BAtHrOoM". It consists out of a bath and a shower. FIRST you should shower, while seated on a small stool before you enter the bathtub. This is because the bathwater can not get dirty because the bath is only used for relaxation. HOWEVER, how am I supposed to relax in a bathtub that is 1 meter by 50 cm. I can not strech my legs, I can not put them next to me, I can not put them anywehere. AND the tub is super sqaured, you don't have a nice backrest and it is not comfortable whatsoever. 

FIVE POINT 4: You can not wear your shoes inside the house, because then the floor would get dirty. You have to wear special slippers inside the house (this was not new for me but wait for it) BUT you have to change your slippers AGAIN to use the toilet AND when you want to take a shower-bath. It's like every room has their own special slippers... WEIRD

FIVE POINT 5: This thing called "MirrORs". Even some places of the mirror have their own heating-system so that it doesn't get fogged up. GENIUS right? Well, no. Because the mirrors are SO LOW! Like, I understand that Japanese people are small, but I'm even they can't see their face in the mirror... 

POINT 6 ( last point for today): Every household has their own basic things: a house, a husband and wife (or husband and husband or wife and wife) and maybe some kids and a dog, but I have this feeling that every household in Japan also own this thing called "a CaR". And not just some car, no, every house has AT LEAST one car that is more like a carton box on wheels. They are very squared and very ugly and apparantly very popular, but oh so ugly!

BONUS POINT; Japan also has these people called "JApAneeeSE PeoPLe" and they are quite the people. They are very... wait for it... weird. And I mean weird as in, very very very weird. They all talk so fast and are so polite and they form lines, like, everywhere! In almost every street here is a local restaurant, which is very small and can only serve, like, 4 people at a time. When the restaurant is full, THEY FORM A LINE outside the restaurant and wait for a place to open. While standing on an escalator, THEY FORM A LINE. When you go up, the line is on the left side, when you go down, the line is on the right. AND WHY: so that people that are in a hurry can walk past all the lazy people. WHICH I think is kind of genius. When you stand on the platform at a trainstation, there are markings on the ground with the exact location of where the door of the train will be. And guess what, all the people form a... wait for it... LINE. And they don't force themselves to the front of the line, no, they just wait. THEY ARE SO PATIENT. OH and I almost forgot, they are so polite! They bow to you, and every person with you, so everytime we enter someting or leave something or make eyecontact with someone, they bow! Twice! Once for my dad and once for me. And I kind of feel bad for them for having to bow twice. ALSO they say "arigato"(thank you) for everything! Even when THEY give YOU something, they say thanks! 

What a great culture :)