Your Japanese word of the week is...

"ariene~"......... the tilde means to drag out the syllable heh..... but really, it's supposed to be "arienai" but often people will change the last two syllables into an "-e~" for emphasis. So "sugoi" might become "suge~". It doesn't mean anything particular, but it's sort of like how people might add "friggin'" to give a word some extra oomph. "Arienai" itself means "impossible/inconceivable". Or you could go as far as to use it as "unbelievable" although, technically speaking, that would be "shinjirarenai".

Anyway, it's pretty unbelievable that this past May 8th was my 300th day here in Japan. To be honest, in some ways it has felt like a long time and it other ways it hasn't. I won't go as far as to say I struggled to adjust when I first got here but I have felt, especially recently having started a "real" job, that I sort of get it now. I can converse with people; I'm at a point where I pick specific train cars to ride because those are the ones closest to the platform exits; I bowed in the karate class last night.

And, as probably everyone else says, there's still a lot I don't know and it makes me wonder how much time a person really needs to feel like they understand a culture. But then again, the "feeling" of understand is really subjective so I suppose it's more rhetoric than anything to ask that.......

Aside from that, something else rather unbelievable happened today.......... and old lady sent me stumbling.........

See, Tokyo is busy and now that I work like all the other "salarymen", I'm on the train like all of them. And I'm standing like all of them. So when the train comes to a stop, I'm tossed around like all of them.

But today, this little old lady, who was barely my shoulder height and must've been closing in on 60 years old, shouldered me (rather gently) as she edged her way to the train door. However, her nudged was timed impeccably with the stopping of the train and that sent me stumbling a few steps sideways.

It's funny that one of the aims of sparring in karate is to time your movements to catch your opponent off-guard, yet even an old lady managed to demonstrate that to me when I least expected.............. ariene~.......... =P

Other stuff that's a big hard to believe??....... I was told that from July onwards, it'll be illegal to ride a bike while holding an umbrella.

And this, the Cocaine Cowboys, a documentary on the cocaine war in Miami during the 1980's. It's particularly good because the majority of it was told from some of the most involved people in the trade, from traffickers to hitmen, who all happen to be rather articulate as well. Definitely worth a watch....... and what goes on is definitely unbelievable.......