Going to Japan? Confuzzled?

Can't read Japanese?

Well, I can help. Some. A little. Not much at all actually.

Chances are the person you need help from speaks enough english or had some training as a professional mime to assist you in your needs. Consult someone else other than me.

For this, just enjoy the ride.

Chances are that this is 90% lies anyway.

So, I'd be sitting around on trains in Japan, bored to death. You know, you get stuck in a puzzle in Zelda and you're just hosed. Really. There's no guide books or internet on a train that are going to get you past those puzzles if you get stuck. You can ask a kid, but that's likely going to get you tossed in jail for child endangerment or something.

So I turned to reading stuff. What does it all mean?

I picked up a lot of loose brochures and shit while in Japan and I brought a few back with me to show and explain. Some of it's pretty obvious what it is, some not so much.

So, sitting on trains, you gotta have a ticket to get on there. How do you know the right ticket? Well, if you speak/read some Japanese, you're solid right there. Otherwise, it's symbol recognition and a shit load of trust in the JR employee who hands you your tickets.


WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS SAY?!!!


Oh, okay.

So, what you're seeing here is that your departures are on the left, arrivals on the right.
Below that is your date, Month and Day, and time of departure. In parenthesis, you have your arrival time.

In Japan, the trains are so on time, you can set your watch to their departures. Never ever assume you have an extra minute or two to get there. If you do, your train has already left your ass behind. So, under that you see that there's a thingie that I marked as Tsubasa.
That's the train name. Tsubasa 108 is the train I was on. There's a set schedule for all the trains and the 108 runs at this same time every day with out fail. If you're on the 108, you know when your train leaves and arrives without fail.

To the right of that, you have your Car, row, and seat designation.
At the bottom of the ticket, there's markings for where and when the ticket was purchased.

Here's a second leg of my journey that day.


See, here's where that trust rolls in.

I was traveling from Yamagata to Kyoto in one day. There's no direct train from A to B. I had to change over in Tokyo, which if you've never ridden on trains before, you've got to time it just right. They have a train that leaves for Kyoto 5 minutes after the Tokyo one arrives, but you'll never ever make it. I got there about 30 seconds after that train left. So I waited.


You know, no one's ever explained to me why Kyoto doesn't have the exact same kanji as Tokyo, but reversed...

I dug a bit deeper into my backpack and discovered that I had brought back a fast food menu from a joint called "Tonkatsuya" Which is literally "Fried Pork Shop" That's their specialty.



This fucker is big, and has some neat details on it, so I'm linking a larger version here.

I don't have a whole terrible lot to add to this part. It's just neat and fried pork is tasty.

Seriously, if anyone wants to try a delicious dish, get some pork chops, fry them up with panko bread crumbs, and go find your ass a bottle of tonkatsu sauce at a japanese grocery store. It's delicious.

Next up was a do over from my last trip.

On my last night in Kyoto/Japan, we went to a place we went to back in 2005 called Gyu-Kaku. They let you grill your own meat on an open grill in the middle of your table. It's lots of fun, and you get to pretend you're your own BBQ chef.

I took a few pictures of the menu because their english menu had some choice Engrish on it.


Blurry, but the message is clear


Wait, I gotta pay to do that in public here? Eh, it's only $2. Alright


Oh snap! Hormones? Tight! Hook me up with some HGH, 2 testosterones, and a bucket of stem cells

Bored in Kyoto? Try a 45 minute course of Sexy Cabaret? It's the Scandal's Dream!




Fenris modeling some delicious octopus flavored breadsticks. Because when hunger strikes, rubbery fishy tasting tentacles are the only flavor you seek

If you're an expat in Japan, you're likely going to want some of your food from home when you're bored of shark fin salads and salmon roe soup.

Luckily, there's stores that specialize in hooking you up with the shit you crave. For a price.


$3.00 a can


$7.00, That's $.58 cents per taco shell


$6.85 for a bag of mediocre chocolate

And in closing, this is my favorite "random moment" picture from my vacation. You get a lot of milage out of obviously fake shit that you randomly find in a department store. Looking back, if I'd known that I would never see this again, I would've bought it right then and there.