Hey there, hope all is well from wherever it is you’re reading this! This entry is gonna be all over the place, so hold on tight. First off, I bought groceries at a new supermarket the other day and was able to snag a most tasty new Pringles flavor, Fresh Tomato and Garlic. Maybe they have this flavor for sale in the US now too, I wouldn’t know, but it tastes exactly like you’d expect it to taste — which is to say like a Pizza Hut breadstick dipped in marinara sauce.

That very same day I came across an extremely rare sight in Japan, a Pepsico vending machine. The only flavors that Pepsi markets in Japan are Pepsi(duh) and Mountain Dew. For about $1.25 I brought home this glorious .5L Mountain Dew can and once again the Japanese advertising corps did not disappoint. This can, as you can see, sports the slogan “King of the Street.” Most triumphant!

It’s also the old school logo design, which hasn’t been seen in North America since before 1997. Does that mean this can is over 8 years old? Or just that Japan obviously recognizes the superiority of the original style? The world may never know…

Secondly, I should tell you about the method of egg delivery in Japan. In Japanese supermarkets, the cartons being sealed, you are not allowed to loving fondle your eggs ahead of time to make sure that none of them are broken. However, the cartons themselves are clear plastic, not styrofoam, so a quick glance from all sides reassures you of their poultritic structural stability. Furthermore, sometimes when you open the carton you get an egg with a sticker on it.

Stickers, as you know, and the promise of their reception, make the world go round. This is widely documented in scientific circles as the “Kindergarten Theory.” It states, simply, that “in order to coerce someone into doing anything, anywhere, at anytime, you must offer them a sticker, preferably one that’s scratch-n-sniff… if they refuse, respond with an offer of TWO stickers, one of which is fuzzy, and compliance is assured…”

The other big news today is that I would like to introduce my new roommate here in R429… world, please say hello to Karl Ienai.

He is named in honor of Matthew McGrory who passed away this past August.

You might remember him as the vertically gifted fellow who played Karl the Giant in Tim Burton’s Big Fish.

I have no idea what kind of plant my dear friend Karl is, and I asked him once but he didn’t answer (hence the last name for you Japanese speakers out there…). But he’s a very pleasant roommate and so far we’ve just gotten along swimmingly.

Tonight is a busy night. Satoshi, Ting, and I are headed down to Beppu to go to a sushi-conveyer belt restaurant. We intend to stuff ourselves silly and drink a large amount of beer, I will most definitely be toting my camera. The outing is in preparation for the New Student Welcome Party back at the AP Houses starting at 7 and running until midnight. For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of going to a sushi-conveyer belt restaurant, I highly suggest you keep an eye on the site for my next post so that you may take vicarious delight in one of the single greatest inventions of modern Japan…