the tall blond guy goes to japan

Thank You Very Much For Breathing

Grand Central Station

This evening, I thought it might be fun to go exploring- to discover things about this city. After consulting my map, trying to figure out the best direction in which to travel, I decided that randomness would be a good idea because I wouldn't be able to find my way to any specific area anyway. I found a subway station (Otemachi), and got on a train to somewhere (Hongo-sanchome). Buying a ticket was interesting- you could buy a one-trip ticket that you feed into the machine on the way in, and feed it into the machine again on the way out, and the machine would keep the ticket. The better way to do it is to buy a card for Y1000 which gets returned to you until it's all spent. They're pretty and collectable too.

Oh by the way, the way I'm using to convert the money is very simple- I'm just dropping the final two zeroes and adding a little bit. So, Y1000 is about $12 or so. I'm not much of a money person, so if this is totally innacurate, I'd appreciate knowing.

On the doors of the subway, they have these cute little warning graphics:

Cute Subway Cat

I was a bit disapointed with Hongo-sanchome. It was near the University, but I didn't know that at the time... I might go back for that. Aside from some interesting construction, there was really not much there. I did see a McDonalds, and being hungry, I decided to experience an American fast-food place in Japan.

Wow. I've never been thanked that much for buying a hamburger in my entire life. They thanked me for ordering. They thanked me for asking for a Sprite. They thanked me (twice) for paying. They thanked me for accepting my huge pile of change. And for (I think) smiling when they put the food onto my tray. More thankyous when they rearranged the items on the tray in order to allign the food items more decoratively. And (finally) one last round of thankyous when they picked up the tray and handed it to me. I had this silly grin on my face for most of my meal (until I realized that it tastes just as bad as it does at home).

The silly grin returned when I read the placemat in front of me. Well, I didn't exactly read it, since 90% of the content was gibberish to me, but the part that caught my eye was this:

The Kinki Kids!

From what I could gather, they're some kind of pop sensation here, but with a name like that, I rather doubt they will be North America's next "Hanson".