Once I caught wind of the mercenaries being hired to teach me precisely how displeased some of you guys get when I go a month without updating, I decided this had gone on far enough. I really am sorry though; I don’t know who my teachers think they are, making me work hard.  I mean, all my finals added up this semester are still a fraction of a percent as difficult as one of my typical Physics classes, but I still had to do… stuff. 

Let’s see, where to start up again… Whale sharks, AIDS-bearing death fish, or how I made friends with upwards of 40 middle-aged Japanese men while naked…

Let’s go with AIDS-bearing death fish, shall we? So, around the beginning of May I had the chance to go to Spa World, which is a 6 floor building filled with nothing but baths, with different themes for each floor.  However, as in all public Japanese baths, no clothes allowed. Nothing.  There are different floors for men and women, as well as a co-ed floor if you’re really that confident that your body is built like a Greek god.  On one of the floors however, before you’re required to doff clothing, are a whole bunch of different activities you can take part in.  One of them is called Doctor Fish, and the general idea is that you huck your foot in a pool full of tons of these tiny little fish, which promptly feast on all the dead skin on your feet, so that by the time you’re done, your feet have reverted to baby-like softness.  Apparently these fish are illegal in America because they can potentially carry AIDS, but I figured, hey, that sounds like a challenge.  

Oh yeah, on the way into the spa building, we encountered two older gentlemen and their family of guinea pigs. I inquired why they had the guinea pigs with them, and they told me they were taking them for a walk. I don’t know how that was accomplished when the guinea pigs had to be carried from place to place, but what do I know about guinea pigs anyway? So this is me playing with one of them, which, according to the dude, is pregnant with a batch o’ guinea piglets.  

Who know that having fish chomp away at your dead skin is the best way to maintain youthful foot appearance?

     See, the thing they fail to tell you about these Doctor Fish before you jam your foot into their face is that this process is going to tickle. A lot.  See, if you’re a normal human being, you’ll probably just giggle from time to time. But if you’re me, all someone has to do is look at you funny and make tickly-hand gestures while giggling to cause an eruption of disruptive laughter. And that’s exactly what happened. I made quite the scene, attracting stares from all the Japanese people walking by as I cackled with boyish laughter and yelled at the fish to stop.  I don’t know how I survived 10 minutes of it, but afterwards I felt the uncontrollable urge to run up to passersby, shove my foot in their face, and make them admit that my feet were better than theirs.  My companions restrained me, but the urge still lingered for some time.  

     Next, it was time to enter the tubs.  I bid farewell to my female companions and headed alone to the male bath floor.  At first I thought that I could be subtle and quiet, attracting little to no unwanted attention, but as pretty much the only white person there, my pasty flesh attracted eyes like wasps to the top of open pop cans.  You all know what I mean. (I mean, you see a wasp go into your can while you’re playing Frisbee or something, and then when you want a drink, you don’t know if it’s still in there or not, or if you even want to drink it anymore at all…Uchth.) 

Anyway, once I realized I wasn’t going to escape unnoticed, I decided it would simply be best to adopt a confident stride and pretend getting naked with hordes of Japanese guys was a normal activity for me.  There were tons of baths to choose from, ranging from scalding hot to freezing cold, and I sampled my fair share of them.  The best were definitely the traditional hot springs outside; the weather was perfect, with a nice cool breeze soothing your upper half while your lower bits were submerged in the water.  At first no one talked to me, but after a little bit an older gentlemen entered the same hot spring and started talking to me.  Up until that point, besides their stares, I had largely been ignored by everyone.  However, as the conversation with this fellow drew on, I slowly attracted more and more attention as they saw that I was able to speak somewhat intelligible Japanese.  From that point on, more and more people got involved in the conversation, until the bath I was in was so full of people no one could even move.  That made things a little bit uncomfortable, and the mental stress of handling so many conversations in Japanese at that pace started to make my head spin.  I made my polite apologies and decided to seek the solitude of an inside bath, but to no avail.  Wherever I went, I was followed by nude Japanese men, eager to talk to a foreigner.  The best way to picture this is to imagine the opening scene from Austin Powers where he’s naked and being chased by hordes of women, but instead of women, it was a whole bunch of middle aged Japanese guys.  I think you’ve got the idea.

Alright, tune in next time for manta rays, penguins, and whale sharks, oh my! (All complaints regarding the lameness of this last sentence should be directed to my father, as he is responsible for my complete inability to mention three animals in a row without a Wizard of Oz reference.)

Until then, Welcome...

Foppish: "Excessively refined and fastidious in taste and manner; resembling or befitting a fop."

Never thought I'd come to Japan and learn new English from the side of a photo booth.