Thanks for those who have gone out and supported Mamma's Cafe. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they now have some new returning customers thanks to my blog. I couldn't be happier because they really do deserve a full house everyday.

Well there are a couple more things I want to bring up about this awesome restaurant. First of all, for health reasons my doctor put me on a trial vegan diet for two weeks. Ayumi-san helped me out and had her husband tweak the daily lunch sets so I could have a meat and dairy-free meal. I thought that was sooo sweet of them. The meals were wonderful and I owe them many thanks for the "special menu" they created for me.

Next I discovered their Cafe Mocha Saturday night. OMG! That is the best mocha I've ever had. It was 1000 times better than Starbucks' mocha. It was smooth and had great cream/foam on the top drizzled with chocolate syrup. She makes it from real cocoa instead of a mix. It was amazing. I just kind of melted into my seat and my husband was totally laughing at me but he was swooning too.

Lastly, Mamma's cafe has a new breakfast menu with everything you can imagine on it on the weekends. I haven't gone there for the breakfast yet because I'm just too lazy in the mornings but I will drag myself out there soon.


hmmm this is funny. The word "blog" wasn't in blogger's spell check. The irony!

Well after the Henry Rollins incident I decided to break down and upgrade my cellphone to this AU 5505 SA. There were plenty of cuter phones out there but here is what I got with this one: 

Global passport - can go pretty much anywhere and place a call
GPS (as seen in the pic) with lots of options
FM Radio
Camera or short movie
Mini SD card (like 16MB I think)
Compass and lots of other small tools

The only thing I don't like so far is that even though the ringers are .qcp files, with this phone for some reason I can't send my own customized ringers to my E-mail account. It receives the attachment but it's labeled as an unknown type! It might be an anti-piracy issue but I had all sorts of ringers on my last phone that couldn't transfer over. I'm not stealing music or anything but I took a "Whoop whoop, PULL UP!" sound from a real black box recording of a commercial airline crash and used it on my last phone. Now my ringer is just beeeeep....BEEEEEP! I feel like I've lost my identity!

But at least I know I will be ready if Henry Rollins ever comes back into town haha.

I thought I would share this with y'all because it's something I think about and see everyday.

My husband just got back from spending a month in the United States and he was shocked at how rude many people are in the States compared to Japan. I immediately understood what he meant. From listening to some of his stories he did run into a couple of genuinely rude folks but as for the rest, things are just done differently back there.

While at the Detroit airport, my H was behind a Japanese guy in line at a snack bar. The Jp fellow was trying to use his credit card to buy something but it was declined. The Jp guy said, "That's strange, because I just used it on the other side of the airport," and the cashier literally raised her voice at this guy and said, "LOOK! It was declined!" Then the manager came out and gave him a hard time as well even though this poor guy only muttered one sentence. Finally they ran it again and it worked fine. My H was shocked and felt sorry for the Jp guy. That would NEVER happen in Japan as store employees are always super polite.

Tips are considered rude in Japan. If you ever come out here never give a tip at a restaurant. Jp people get paid to do their job (their own opinion)- which includes being helpful and nice to the customer. People in the US expect a tip even if their service sucks. Everyone from the lowest-paid Starbucks employee to presidents of large corporations treat you with the utmost respect over here.

Now on the road? As far as driving goes people are just as rude no matter where you are I think ;)

I always thought this was a little strange. Japanese women don't wear shorts in the summer no matter how hot and sticky it gets. In fact they wear their jeans to the beach. Friday morning on my way to work I noticed the temperature was little cooler. It was still hot as hell at 0630, but there was a nice cool breeze. Half way to work I saw this Jp lady walking down the street in jeans and a full-on sweatshirt looking as cool as can be. Keep in mind it was already in the mid 80s. Scenes like that still surprise me although I've been in Japan so long that I've actually become acclimatized to the summers no matter how much I bitch about them. I haven't worn shorts outside of the house, except of course on the way to my lap pool, in 3 years. I'm too self-conscious of my whiteness and (God forbid...I know...)of not fitting into Jp culture. I'm a redhead so I'm especially white and when I go out in town showing a little skin I get occasional snickers and "whitey" comments from Japanese guys passing by, thinking that I can't understand them. I've developed a cute little sneer for moments like that and I love the surprised look on their faces. heh.

Soap box warning:

Okay. Speaking of paleness. I'm also tired of MFERS (U.S. folk) coming up to me and being all like, "DAAAAaaaammm girl! You should get a tan!" My response?, "Uhh...I'm part Irish!?" and leave it at that. In this day and age of skin cancer you'd think people would be a little more sensitive about paleness and whatnot. Even though I'm see-through pale I can tan quite easily, though slowly at first, and I used to rock a kick-ass tan every year...until about 1999 that is when I had to get a mole removed. Was it benign? I have no idea because the GD Naval hospital misplaced my biopsy. The doc had taken the whole thing out so there was nothing left to scrape out. They weren't gonna tell me either. I had to finally call in to get my results although they were supposed to contact me. Too bad too. It took a lot of work and inner creativity to make that thing. It was shaped like a halo with a dark outside ring and a yellowish center. Anyhoo, since I don't know for sure I always assumed it was malignant just to be safe. I stopped tanning and started sporting SPF gazillion in the pool every day. Last week I noticed a new crazy-looking mole close to my left shoulder. Though not as pretty as the one I had taken out it's pretty irregular shaped so I'm gonna get it checked out.

Moral of this story - be nice to those of us who are super pale. We have been pale all our lives and have probably had access to a mirror at one time or another and are fully aware of our ability to blind others at will. Those of us who choose to shy away from the sun probably have a good reason for doing so. That and it's not like Mystic Tan has made its way to Japan yet. :P