Reasons I Hate Japan

There are many things that we like about Japan - but there are also things that are not so great.

1. For some reason they don't serve coffee in the morning. The coffee shops don't open around here until around 9:30am. Some even later! These people make their coffee very strong and delicious, why don't they serve it up bright and early?

2. Reading Kanji is too hard. You can't even guess at what it might be.

3. No ovens in a Japanese style apartment.

4. Humidity is terrible. When people report the weather in San Diego or in Wisconsin it says... "The temperature is 75 degrees but feels like 78 degrees" and you wonder, is that really worth mentioning? Out here the temperature is 80, but today it felt like 102. What the heck? How are the oldest people in the world still living here? WHY are the oldest people in the world still living here?!

5. As you all know, they don't buckle their children up correctly in the car.

6. They sew curtains to put over their passenger and driver's side windows so that the sun doesn't blind them but I guess they don't realize that now their curtain is blinding them. How do they check their blind spot?

7. When you walk into ANY establishment every employee there somehow knows you are there and yell out, "Ashamase." This means "Welcome." As I don't mind that - the part I hate is that I don't know what to say back to them. I usually just smile and do a little awkward bow, but it just makes me feel weird.

8. Bowing at one another in your car. When you let someone into the lane you are in, in America we give a little wave as a thank you. In Japan, they bow (They bow for everything). The thing is is that it takes them a little bit to bow (and they do this a few times) so it takes them extra time to get into your lane. So you end up getting in a bowing match thinking - just get over and let's move on!

9. The grocery store shopping is insane. So far we have been lucky. Nothing too far from what we were looking for in our bags when we got home, but today it took Colton and I about 20 minutes to figure out if what I was looking at was in fact brown sugar (what I needed) or if it was a spice mixture.

10. Ice cream with black beans. Enough said.

That's all I've got for now. I might update as more come to mind, but I think this about sums it up.