Two things:

First: My school had a mini-culture day yesterday. This involved them bringing in a former boxer as an inspirational speaker — a nice man who spoke very fast, liked gambling, and ended every sentence in “ne.” Poor bastard got assaulted by every special ed kid in the school when he opened the floor to questions. They just kept asking in rapid succession. He was really confused.

After that, they separated everyone out into random groups for learning aspects of traditional Japanese culture. They of course put me with K-chan, the “special” kid who’s always trying to steal my watch, in learning Sadou (tea ceremony). It was us two, one other random guy, and a ton of women. The guy students laughed at me as they went by. It was overall pretty fun, but HOLY HELL does it hurt sitting in the seiza (traditional Japanese sitting position). They took pity on me after a half hour or so and let me recline a little bit. I almost fell over when I finally stood up, because there was no blood in my legs.
Afterwards, I found out that the boys who were laughing at me were stuck doing flower arrangement. Ha ha!

Second: So I took a trip into Tokyo today and went with my friend Ananda to Odaiba, a man-made island that is kind of like San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf on crack. For starters, there’s a smaller-scale Statue of Liberty there for no reason. Behind it is an imitation Golden Gate Bridge for no reason. Afterwards, we went into Sega Joyopolis, a massive arcade that afforded some very bizarre entertainments. I took the opportunity to shoot some video on my phone, most of which didn’t come out great, but you get my witty and incisive commentary. Check it out:

There was also an attraction called “the room of living dolls,” but the video was crap. It was creepy as hell. We didn’t go in.