Return of the worst day ever (son of worst day ever)

Woke up the other day with a hell of a head cold, feeling like an entire roll of toilet paper had been stuffed up my nostrils while i dozed, none the wiser. That might have well been the case because for the remainder of this week I've proceeded to use entire rolls of toilet paper to mop up the snot that keeps spewing forth from my head as if it's going out of style. Such is the nature of changing seasons in Japan. By my best estimate, a good 40% of the staff at school seems to have the same cold or something like it.

Well today I just got through the day at work and decided to take a holiday from my Japanese class downtown, which necessitates a 1:30 hour commute which costs about $20 round trip. I'll just relax, I thought, and get some shopping done. Hooo boy.

I headed to Uniqlo after work and dropped a cool 15000 yen (about $165) on some nice new work clothes and jeans. Then I picked up some beer and other basic amenities before meeting Chiharu for dinner. Tonight's going to be a good night, methought.

We went out for yakiniku and then returned to my apartment. Once there, I discovered that my clothes and beer were missing from the back seat. Could they really have disappeared, I thought? I must be suffering from some sort of cold-induced delirium.

No. Somebody in my piddly, boring town did in fact open my unlocked car, while we dined in plain sight through the window of the restaurant, took my nice, new, just-my-size clothes and my beer. I'm going to repeat that. AND my beer. I could maybe get over someone stealing a bunch of M-sized clothes from Japan's equivalent of The Gap. But did you have to take the beer? I bought a $5 can of Belgian weissbeer that I was really looking forward to. Not to mention an overpriced 6-pack of regular ol' Kirin.

The real roscoe to the face was what they didn't steal; the only item left in the car was a 12-pack of toilet paper that I had purchased while waiting for them to finish my pants. Bastards! Well it's a good thing they didn't steal that toilet paper, because I was almost out, and I am still going through it by blowing my nose at an alarming pace.

When we got back to my apartment, we decided we might as well call the cops, which turned into a ridiculous and long, but really hilarious experience. They came to my apartment and proceeded to dust the car for prints! How old school is that!? They had a comically big chalk-duster and everything. Following that, they interviewing me thoroughly about all the details: the location of the bags. The label and art on the bags. What clothes I had bought, the color of the shirts, long sleeves? short sleeves? the cost of the beer, the brand of beer, how many ounces of beer in the cans ("were the regular 350 ml cans or tall boys?"), and so on. Then they came up to my apartment and took both my fingerprints and Chiharu's (to compare against what they uncovered on the car). Then we returned to the scene of the crime, outside the restaurant, where the police snooped around for clues for like 10 minutes. It was all exhausting but very entertaining.

But I dont want to come off like a Negative Nancy on this blog, so without further adieu, I present you with one of the most beautiful places I have ever been; Yakushima. It's a rocky island off the south shore f Kyushu, and home to deers, monkeys, and a ton of cedar trees, some of which are thousands of years old. The oldest of the bunch are honored with individual names, and the oldest of them all is named Jómon Sugi. Standing next to something that has been alive for that long is a pretty humbling experience. My friends and went there a couple weeks ago for a 3-day excursion.













EDIT: oh yeah, I almost forgot the part about how, when I was taking a shower tonight, as I went to dispense some body soap onto my humble loofah, the soap squirted in an outrageous trajectory, right into my eyes, as if god himself had decided to ejaculate on my face. The only thing I could do at that point was laugh.