Oh boy I just came back from having dinner out with the new host dad. We went to one of those sushi places where all the food comes through on a conveyor belt. You know the type; the ones that have like two things of sushi on a small plate moving around and everyone's got a huge pile of plates next to them when they're done eating. Anyway, I never been to one of these places before, even though they have them in the US; I had always heard that they're really expensive, as all US Japanese restaurants are, and that the sushi wasn't even all that good anyway. However, this place was fantastic, and was pretty cheap for Japan. But keep in mind that "cheap for Japan" pretty much means you leave thinking "oh man I didn't have to mortgage my house to pay for this meal. What a deal!"

This is why having Rotarians as host parents is pretty fantastic. Pretty much all of the members of the Rotary club are well-off, and love to show it. As a result, whenever I attend a Rotary function or go to dinner with a Rotarian, they're always all YEAH DUDE MORE FOOD RULES. If, uh, any of that makes any sense.

But that all kind of falls through when it comes to other stuff, for example my cell phone. I should be getting one on Sunday, and it's been a long time coming. At first I thought I could just get one and it would be fine, but I asked my host dad and the Rotary club was all NO DUDE. That was unrad. But then a few weeks later my host dad just says to me out of the blue that I could get one, but I would need to pay for it myself. I guess they must have thought I was demanding them to provide me with a phone or something, which would explain why they wouldn't allow me to get a cell phone in Japan, the land of cell phones.

And the Rotarian's help would be much appreciated with the cell phones here in Japan, because they are absolutely ridiculous. Like batshit insane over-the-moon ridiculous. I was looking at the plan for one of the companies, AU by Kiddi, and their absolute cheapest plan is about $17 bucks a month, and that's only after I get a student discount by lying and saying that I'll use the service for a year. And that fee only means that I can have a phone with connection. All other calls and emails I send with the phone are charged additionally. Rad, right? One of the teachers at the college uses AU and she pays like $60 USD every month and she gets 8 minutes free. I don't know what's more ridiculous about that; the fact that for sixty bucks she doesn't get above ten minutes of talk time, or the fact that they chose such a strange number as eight. They could have gone for five and I would have been like "well hey at least it's a nice, sensible number"

The other option with AU was to get a prepaid phone, but with AU the prepaid phones don't have email, which is huge over here. Email is the texting of Japan, only bigger because it's email. Everyone already uses it, but now you can get it on your phone without having to shell out for a blackberry. Luckily for me, SoftBank's plans are much more generous. It seems like they have a much better idea of what cell phone service should be like, even if they don't know how to come up with a name that makes sense for their line of work. Basically, both their prepay service and price plans both allow email and all that junk, and they have a super-cheap (by Japanese standards) monthly rate that I could actually manage. Also, I think you can pay the monthly bills in convenience stores. I dunno what that's all about, but I guess it makes sense.

But anyway this is all pretty much useless right now seeing as I'm getting it one day after I could really, really use it. I'm gonna be heading up to Fukuoka early tomorrow, and hopefully see some rad rad stores. I got a list of a few places already planned out, but I hope to see some interesting stuff on my own. I can't really research much for stuff seeing as everything is in Japanese and that stuff does not roll with me right now. However, I've been able to find the addresses for the local Supreme, Stussy, and Futura Labs. Should be raaaaaaaaaaad as long as I actually find the places. Japanese addresses are weird. James-O can attest.

Also, I've been warned that Fukuoka is "dangerous", but that was coming from a Japanese person, so that probably means that as soon as we enter the city, we'll be swarmed by a whole pack of cuddly puppies and be given all the ice cream we want. Additionally, rains of candy, streets of gold.

BONUS
Mickey Mouse in city 17
maybe four people who read this thing will get this
everyone else will be all WHAT? WHAT IS A VIDEO GAME DO THEY HAVE VIOLENCE I HEARD TEEVEE SHOWS HATE VIDEO GAMES DOWNFALL OF OUR SOCIETY CORRUPTION OF YOUTH CATCHER IN THE RYE