Well freaks and geeks, the crimes have gone on for too long. It's time I brought justice and exposed Japanese food for what it really is! Here, I give you my first evidence from lunch time! I've been eating this kinda stuff for lunch for a year. Look me in the eyes and tell me you can guess what that is ladies and gentlemen!

Thailand: thaimless memories from a place where the only constant is chang

Well loving loves - the freaks and geeks - a rite of passage has come to pass. It feels surreal. Perhaps it is impossible, and perhaps I have entered a new realm of time and space where I am actually free to go places before restricted - a place where the assignments of possible and impossible have been redistributed. That's right, I've now been to Thailand an back folks, sit in surprise and awe. It's gonna suck when the coffee maker doesn't work though.

It's been a long time coming to be sure. I tried to go for a month for a volunteer/adventure trip one summer, but then this plan was disallowed. Then a couple years later tried to study there for 8 months. Again, disallowed. After being smacked down twice, it was not difficult to think I may not just go there ever. BUT. It was not true. I tried to go for 8 days, and apparently, that was OK.

Thus, with a little elbow greese and six years in the making, I have travelled to Thailand folks. And it delivered. NO, folks, this was not a vacation. It was an experience haha. That is for the amount of wonderment, question marks over your head, and minor strife you may at any time experience in this country. Now, had I lived there, or had an extended stay without working, it would have morphed into a vacation to be certain. But the war waged on your body by insects, food, and sun is enough to challenge most anyone's definition of a vacation.

Now, that's not to say a vacation in Thailand isn't possible. Let me explain from the beginning baby.

Thailand

We walked out of the airport into the sweltering heat we hadn't experienced since the summer before. March in Thailand. The first thing we do is wait in front of the doors for a cab. As we're sitting there, I see my friend look up and eyes widen ever so slightly. "Well haven't seen that in a few hundred years."

I wanna go ahead and add this subheading just because it perhaps doesn't fit in other subheadings and it overshadows everything you do in Thailand. It feels good, in spite of a knee jerk reaction of anyone from the West to call it bad. This is that THAILAND LOVES THEIR KING.  This is what my friend was looking at:

If this picture has done nothing but made you lean forward, squint, and lean back feeling defeated, below is a better picture of it.

And oh boy. That's just the beginning. The King of Thailand is a pretty popular guy to make a gross understatement. Thailand loves their king as much as Japan loves Frozen, and pictures of this Monarch are about as common as your Japanese drink machine. Check out how many different situations I was reminded of the king in:

Not sure about this particular pic, but it does seem like even organizations not at all associated with the government purposely and voluntarily pay their respects to the monarch.

In front of an official looking building, but it looked like a rather minor building rather some kind of headquarters or gov't center.

If you happened to be walking down the road and forgot the King was great, then here's a friendly reminder.

This is over a major roadway

Pic was just chilling by the sidewalk

Airport

Shopping. And while this is not necessarily a direct reference to the King of Thailand, it certainly does seem to try and wear the word "king" in order to make its products more attractive. As if being associated with the word king is beneficial in Thailand because of their love for the King.

 For some who are let's say American, this could set off alarm bells and make people immediately feel like the Thai people are oppressed. Nope, not the feeling I got. Also not the impression I have from what I've been told. It is illegal for you to say bad stuff about the King, and if you do, I've heard that sometimes folks will personally go tell police if you've said something off about him. I've read that Thais love their King, and actually the King does a lot of fantastically admirable stuff. I must say, after seeing all those signs, I'm starting to like him pretty good myself. 

Bangkok

This city has gained considerable infamy from movies like the Hangover 2 or the aptly and idiotically named Bangkok Dangerous (it's a Nick Cage movie), and to be fair this city IS more nuts than other cities I've been to, but come on I did love it. It's nice and not just insane like one would be led to think. But okay from what I saw yes it's kinda nuts.

The first thing you notice, or the first thing I noticed, was some difference in infrastructure. I have no clue why, but the telephone poles have more wires than anyone could ever ever ever ever ever ever ever possibly figure out.

Second thing you notice, is a few of the smells. Of course I can't picture smells but I'll just go ahead and let you know that walking down streets I walked down, I went through a range of emotions associated with smells. Some bad some good and mostly a bit unpleasant. But as is goes.

A little post on a giant investigation

Ahhh good evening freaks and geeks. As it goes, time for a little post here and there. I'm writing away on another longer post, but while we all waiting so very apprehensively on this report, I thought I would take you on a journey of the mind. It can be a scary place, so buckle up folks.

Well I was sitting here and I had my little thoughts set on my fine specimen of a Japanese living space. I was thinking about the short furniture, and the really short doorways and started to wonder. Actually, why in the world are the doorways in my apartment SO short?? Sure, Japanese folks are shorter than people in the West, that's a fairly well known fact. But you know I looked it up and, I'm only 4 inches taller than the average here, which is 5'8" for a dude. Think about the States though(or wherever you are from but here I'll use the US as an example), would some dude who is 6'2" be running around hitting his head on things? No, not usually not really. 6'2" is also 4 inches taller than the average so, why in the world are the doorways here in Japan SO short compared to the average height in Japan?

Well at first I thought perhaps there is very little -variation- in the height of Japanese people(A small standard deviation for you scientific types). Perhaps the average height is 5'8" and for some reason most people are never a whole lot taller than that or shorter than it. Well I had settled kinda for that possible explanation but it seemed kinda randommm....hmmm....Ah ha! It was at that point it hit me: my apartment is from the freaking stone age. I actually have no clue how old it is exactly, but one thing definitely describes it right, it's an -old- style Japanese apartment. Some of the books I found in this apartment are so old that the pages have already started to change color and texture. Appliances vary in this apartment from new to completely antiquated or even obsolete. Thus, the doorways in this old apartment give a clue only to how tall people were at the time the apartment was built*.

Well I did a little digging and it turns out that over the years, with the onset of the economic boom that took place in this country, came a diet of variety and plenty, and the amount of protein people ate growing up went way up. So, what do professional speculators tend to think this means? Well it's true, people have been getting taller and taller with every generation in Japan for decades. This article from the New York Times, written in 2001, indicates that Japanese height increased between 2 and 5 inches between the 1960s and 2000. The increase is probably more now.

So what does it mean?? It means we solved our little puzzle*! That is, for today, modern Japan, I'm just a very tall guy. But for old Japan, I'm a giant monster. My small ass doorways in my old ass apartment reveal this fact. This explains why the height of the doorway is very very short, even for people in Japan. Perhaps this is also part of the reason why older people sometimes do triple takes when they see me here.....

Anyways this has been your detective corner. Our journey of the mind is officially over. Sure! I could be wrong, probably am, but oh baby it's about the journey and not the destination! Until next time, peace!


(I'm guessing after the fall of the Neanderthals only because they were big, no other reason to believe otherwise though).

(Deshou? Maybe)