Hot. Not. Hilarious.

For your entertainment, or perhaps to cure your boredom, we collaborated to create a Hot, Not, and Hilarious list from some of our recent experiences in Japan. Enjoy!

Hot

1. Stare-offs on the train

2. Making nabe and eating it after...yum!

3. Getting free twelve course dinners from rich private students (and eating abalone, a shellfish delicacy that costs about $100 a plate!)

4. Festivals dedicated entirely to “otakus” (Japanese nerds or anime lovers)

5. Mama charis or charinkos

6. Ume blossoms and picnicking in the park

7. UniQlo and never-ending sales

8. Saying sayonara to not-so-nice students

Yes, these students may look really cute, but I assure you, they were my most challenging class. One student can, unfortunately, transform the whole dynamic of the class.
Believe it or not, the baby was my best student and actually listened the best even though she couldn’t even speak.

Not

1. Missing your train by a split second

2. How intolerable the Japanese are to precipitation. Even if it’s a light drizzle, they have their umbrellas up in a split second.

3. Being laughed at for biking in the rain even though you can handle it

4. Being called “kawaii”

5. Working until age 80. Yes, one of my students takes English lessons for fun and is still working at this crazy age. Why, why, why?!

6. Japanese mullets

7. Suffocating from the smoke in bars, restaurants, and pretty much every public place.

8. Holes in the ground that they call toilets.

Hilarious

1. Old Japanese ladies who bow to you and smile because you’re white

2. The look on my male students’ faces when I tell them my dad is an amazing cook. Haha...it’s PRICELESS!

3. Engrish (name for Japanese English) apparel

4. Parents who dress their eight-year-old child in a hoodie with a marijuana leaf on it and the phrase “Good Life Be High.”

5. Drunken salarymen

6. Drunken salarymen singing karaoke

7. Drunken salarymen singing karaoke and not knowing why you’re laughing at them because they’re too plastered.

8. The man purse

9. Married students telling you about their “secret friends” and trying to justify their actions.

10. Male students who rock out to Fergie’s song “Big Girls Don’t Cry” while keeping a straight face and just don’t see anything funny about it.

11. The Japanese name for a “hoodie” or hooded sweatshirt is “parker.” HAHAHA!

Today was a national holiday to celebrate the beginning of spring. Ironically, it was one of the rainiest and coldest days we’ve had in awhile and we were worried we wouldn’t be able to go to the otaku festival in Den-Den Town. The rain stopped just in time and we biked over to Nipponbashi area where we met Marcus and another friend to watch a hilarious parade. At this festival, many otakus dress up in costumes or dress as their favourite anime characters and everyone just embraces their inner nerd. It was pretty fun! Here are some pictures from today’s festivities! Check out the sign one of the maids is carrying...it's hilarious.

P.S. Yes, that is Cloud, Sephiroth and Reno from FFVII!