Culture shock.

'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home ..

Today's entry is a rather special one in two ways; the first very important reason is that I'm in a Japan, in an internet cafe, sitting in a leather recliner, with a little ramikin full of ice cream, a fairly decent development by anyone's count.

The second reason is that this goddamned keyboard has very few keys with the letters intact, half of them are in the wrong place and I periodically look up to see that the last sentence has conveniently converted itself to Japanese Kanji characters. This paragraph has taken about 15 minutes.

I've only been here a day, yet I've seen a fair amount of stuff, cool and odd and humbling. The latter point was the Hiroshima memorial, which had an impact on a par with the Berlin Holocaust memorial and increased my fear of nuclear war. Sad and scary stuff.

On a lighter note, I can now claim to having been lured to a secluded spot by a friendly Japanese couple, who wanted to show us some rocks imported to Japan from Ben Nevis for reasons unknown, before producing a small book and proclaiming themselves to be Jehovah's Witnesses and seeing if we were unhappy with the God we already have, which was nice. Other points of interest and caution are that the 'leg of pork' served in the Izakaya by Hiroshima station is in fact a pig's foot, complete with nail, fat and grisle.

God, this keyboard is more trouble than its worth.

Another thing worthy of mention is Japanese toilets. Not only is the seat heated (who says wasting energy is an issue anyway?), Japanese loos are the only ones I've seen that resemble the bridge of a spaceship; one begins to feel like Darth Vader or Spock, sitting on a seat surrounded by consoles with options including 'increase pressure' and 'temperature control'.

My favourite option by far however (ohh man, this fucking keyboard!) is the option to play a flushing noise at the touch of a button. What purpose does this serve? Playing the noise even once, let alone repeatedly, before actually flushing would surely suggest to any bystander that might be listening only that you'd done a massive shit that one flush simply couldn't handle? Is this customary in Japan, perhaps? Is it considered polite or good luck to mash the 'flush noise' button before strolling out with an air of self confidence, proud of your shit-tacular toiletary fortitude?

That, or it's simply a tool to piss off anyone desperate for the bog, to make them think you're done when you're actually not. Who knows?

This keyboard is forcing me to wrap this up. This blog weighs in at a record time of 52 minutes to write. Enjoy it you ingrates, I'll regale you with tales of my travels in the East when I find an English computer and a half decent keyboard. Peace and love, and Minna Ki Wo Tsukette.