8 Observations From Japan

• The Japanese know how to cook. They know their food, and they know how to do it well. Their cuisine is one of the best in the world, they've got more Michelin stars than the French for crissakes. But why do they persist in making all these weird Kitkat (and here) and Pepsi Cola flavours?
• Everyone (under thirty) has either a Nintendo DS, a Sony PSP or a mobile phone in their hands at all times. They don't talk much.
• Every single baseball player on the home team has a song. If you're in the away section, every player from the away team has a song (the same song). If the home team sings, the away team is quiet, and vice versa.
• The politeness that the Japanese exhibit is hurting my neck (...from all the bowing).
• Japanese guys are shy. They tend to hide themselves in make-believe computer games, or in their work. No wonder Tokyo seems to have a serious women surplus. No wonder also that the Japanese population is declining.
• Pertaining to the previous point, quite a few women do know how to dress to impress. Yet the men don't notice (or can't show it). So now the women turn to cosplay, and dress up as maids or playboy bunnies or lolly popsicles.
• You'd think that after so much time with tourists and such, Tokyo might actually employ some competent English-Japanese translators for their signs. Currently these are way to funny (In restaurant: "Don't Pl(r)ay on the floor"; on escalator: "Don't hang baggage or children over the escalator.").
• J-Pop and Japanese party music is really too funny. It's also very child-like, but then again, the alternative is that we have to listen to Dutch folk music again.