I’ve been in Japan for less than twelve hours and already roving packs of Japanese people have laughed at and photographed my ass.
It really isn’t as malicious as it sounds. For some reason, I decided to stay overnight in the airport in lieu of actually paying for overnight accommodations. So I camped out (kinda sorta) on some of the cushiony benches and plopped down for some shut eye at KIX. Little did I know, the airport has some kind of sleep-deterrent pinging noise that goes off every ten seconds, and has been for the past five hours. Whatever part of my youthful, adventurous spirit thought this campout was a good idea is dead now.
Anyhow, I sat down for some sleep anyway, and about 5 minutes later I heard some ecstatic giggles and what I assume is the Japanese equivalent of “OMG OMG OMG” coming my way. So I naturally did what any self respecting man would do: curled up into a tighter ball and feigned sleep. The kids who came up must have been around my age, and I’d assume they work in the airport, judging as it was 3 in the a.m. I kept hearing the word “cheese,” but Japanified so it sounded like “chizu.” Now chizu (地図) is actually the Japanese word for map, but that doesn’t make any goddamned sense as to why they’d be giggling over my head chanting “map map map” so I’m going to assume that chizu is also slang for taking a picture, stolen from westerners “saying cheese” when getting their photo taken. (Why the fuck do we do that, anyway?) Either that or they really like gouda or something.
They didn’t linger, and I waited until their footsteps had passed to sit upright and cry a little. So yeah, I’ve made a partial ass of myself already, go me. Though in all honesty I’d probably do the same thing to foreigners staying the night in an American airport if I worked at one.
On a side note, this is the nicest airport I’ve ever set foot in. It knocks the cock off of anything I’ve seen in America, though the main airport I use is Fort Lauderdale International, not exactly setting the bar high. You could make a better one with paper mache.
I’ll soon actually be at the school, more updates when I see fit. YOU CAN’T RUSH MEDIOCRITY, PEOPLE.
Zantetsuken! 