Tax sucks

My ward tax took effect this month on my monthly salary and I got a nice surprise in my latest paycheck. I had no clue that the tax re-adjusted itself every June and was shocked to find out how much the government is now dipping their hands into my monthly amount. Man.. it was a lot. I mean.. it is as much as a second rent. This new local ward tax amount will stay in effect until the same time next year. I was told even if I were lose my job, I would still have to pay the tax every month. I will now seek a new religion and pray everyday that I do not lose my job. My economic status in Japan just turned from "Trailer park" to "Almost homeless". I gotta act quick and claim me a nice bridge to live under. Wow.. this sucks big ones.

Didn't work...

Even though I drank drinks that supposedly contained as much Vitamin C as 1000 lemons, I could not avoid getting sick. Its been pretty crappy for me the past couple of days. I will head over to the doctors later today. I have a couple weeks of taking antibiotics to look forward to.... yay....

Rain and the humidity

We are currently in the middle of the rainy season. It hasn't been raining everyday, but when it does rain, it pours. The past couple of times I went home from the office, I'd forgotten my umbrella, so I had to "loan" one out. As luck would have it, everyone in the office is as forgetful as I am so when I go the community umbrella bin, I'm stuck with the hot pink umbrella or the ones that have small holes in them. However its not the hot pink umbrellas that drive me crazy with the rainy season, but the humidity it brings with it. I am seriously struggling with this now. On the news this morning it said it will be over 32 Degrees Celsius in Tokyo. This is the first time I think I've seen the temperatures go in the 30's this summer. Like last year, I'm doing my best to hold off using the air conditioners as long as possible. One of the reasons is because I hate seeing my energy bill triple and the other is because for the past couple of years, I've been susceptible to catching colds when I use them. Yesterday at the office, they cranked up the AC to full arctic breeze and now I find myself with an itchy throat and trying hard not to start coughing. I don't get sick easily, but when I do, its bad and takes a long time for me to recover. I am now overloading myself with Vitamin C and even taking some cold medicine. Hopefully that will do the trick or else I'll be screwed for the next couple of weeks.

Meiji style Italian??

So I went out to eat last night at a family restaurant, Bashamichi. Family restaurant is a category of restaurants in Japan, like Denny's and Skylark just to name a few that target cheap eaters and of course families. Anyways, I'm not a big fan of family restaurants because the past couple times I've went, especially the most recent the quality was poor and my "hamburg" tasted like arm pits. But anyways, I digress. So yesterday I got quite hungry and the closest restaurant in sight for me at the time was the Meiji fashioned restaurant, Bashamichi. Upon walking inside, you immediately notice the old style, or what is perceived to me an old style theme where the decor looks like a colonial style Japan.. (does that even make any sense?) and waitresses all dressed in Meiji style clothing.



Its like you gone back into time in Japan right? Well, you would expect the menu to reflect the atmosphere, but nope, their menu was pure Italian. Even in the picture (if you click on it as I can't get the picture to expand) you can see that the old style Japanese couple is being served spaghetti. I actually didn't see one Japanese style dish in there. I found the this to be amusing.. actually very amusing. I kept picturing how Italians would be (if there were any Italians at all) in Japan during the Meiji period. It gave me random chuckles throughout the meal. Anyways, I was quite surprised that the food was really good for a family restaurant. The pizza I got was actually near Salvatore quality. (Italian chain in Japan that is known for their pizzas) A final note about the pizza though, remember how I mentioned the curry pizza below? Well.. sure enough, they had their own curry pizza on their menu. I guess it is more popular than I thought. I didn't eat it, but it did look a bit more appetizing than the one in my earlier entry.

Coming movies

I don't usually go to the theater to watch movies in Japan. Mainly because tickets are like 18 bucks and a movie loses its appeal to me knowing that its been out in the U.S. for weeks.. sometimes months earlier. Having said that these past couple of weeks I actually went to see two movies. Before then I think the last movie I saw was Detroit Metal City (A Japanese movie) which played sometime during the fall of last year. Anyways, I ended up watching Angels and Demons and Star Trek. I've always been a fan of the Divinci Code but never got around to reading Angels and Demons. The movie for me was pretty good. Some parts were a bit over the top and at times the movie tried to be too unpredictable that it was predictable. However, it had its good moments and I was satisfied escaping reality for a couple of hours watching the film. I decided to watch Star Trek after hearing all the positive buzz as one of the best movies of the year, etc. I'm not a big Star Trek fan, but I knew there were going to be references in the movie that only made sense to the people who watched the series. Luckily, the people I went with did know the series and they ended up explaining it to me after the movie was done. I don't think I'll ever watch the series, but it did make me appreciate the film a bit more. Overall, I liked the film, however I think I was so over hyped about the film that I didn't get the wow factor when I walked out of the theater. Both movies I saw were at the Warner Brothers Theater. This was actually the first time I've been to this theater franchise. Their main selling point, besides having Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck try to sell you popcorn, is the fact that their theaters are equipped with air purifiers. It was funny, but somehow very Japanese to see the infomercials before the movie that included customer testimonials about how they were once afraid of the air quality but are now reassured that they can enter the theater without getting sick. They even made a cartoon depicting how the air purifiers accomplished changing the form of the bad particles so it would be human friendly. It was cute... wow.. now I know I've been in Japan too long...

Manned up

Yesterday as I was going to the office, I noticed that there was a huge line at the station platform. I looked at the train departure schedule and noticed that none of the earlier scheduled trains arrived. The station announcer then came on the loud speaker and said that trains are being delayed due to an "accident" involving a person. I had the choice to either go back home and avoid the commuting headache or just "man up" and take the train when it arrived. I decided to do the latter and boy.. was I in store for a treat. The train finally came after almost a half an hour and not many people came out but the huge lines that formed at my station included yours truly all came in. At this point, it was bad but not that bad. I mean I still had space to move my elbow up and down. Then the next stop came. Again.. not many people came out, but like my station, huge lines formed waiting for the trains to go to Shinjuku and everyone came in the train car not caring if there was space for them or not. I got crushed. I mean, I was honestly standing on one leg and one arm holding on for dear life on one of the handles. I decided to man up and boy .. did I man up.. against 5 other people. It didn't help that there was a dude with permed hair standing right underneath my arm and his thick curly hair kept tickling my only support to avoid being controlled by the crowd. I felt like I was in a mosh pit filled with middle aged business men and women but with no music. This was really bad. So bad that the train had to stop for a while as a woman fainted because it was so packed, I overheard it was because she didn't have enough oxygen. Tokyo life... sometimes it is good.. sometimes it gets so bad that it takes your breath away.