Really, Eely Weird

The thing about eating eel is that it's best not to think about what it is. It's eel. You have to get over it.

Unagi, prepared on rice like Mrs. Hirao made it for me, tastes sweet and slippery, fishy and chewy. It kind of feels unnatural, like taking a bite of a luscious apple and then chasing it with a swig of tomato soup. And on top of all that, it looks as if something from Alien landed in your dinner box.



Now, I understand that by looking at that, you may not think it looks that weird. But consider how, a week ago in Naritasan, I first saw it in its right-after-it-dies state. The eel slaughterers slice the sea snakes from the back of their neck down their spine, or whatever they have that are like spines, and not through their stomachs. They do this because death by stomach-slicing is known as hara-kiri, a ritual suicide that only samurai are privy to. Although in a few parts of Japan, unagi are prepared that way. Observe:



Appetizing, hai.

While we're on the topic of weird, I'll point out that while I ate my unagi (friends of "Friends" will recall Ross's claim of inner peace), Mrs. Hirao and I watched a series of Japanese game shows that she found completely normal and entertaining and that I found entirely ludicrous and entertaining.

In the first, two men used remote controls to zip race cars around a windy track with three large holes spaced throughout. In the holes were the heads of people who were standing underneath the track. This is not a joke. (It's OK; they wore helmets and protective goggles. The helmets I don't understand at all. The cars just hit their chins, which weren't covered.)

Eventually, the "champion" was brought out to race his car, and he was amazing, at least according to Mrs. Hirao's audible approval. To celebrate the champion's victory, a skinny Japanese man in a very tight speedo jumped out of a curtain and began singing in a high-pitched voice and dancing by extending his limbs as far as he could. While he did this, four men in anachronistic costumes kicked his legs.

Then, apparently moving on to another contest, a shirtless man pulled out his armpit hair one by one.

After that, a man was placed inside a sealed box (a la Win Ben Stein's Money) and instructed to catch a fly with his hand; if he failed, a large balloon with stink-bomb gas would inflate inside the box and explode. He failed.

OK, enough talk about weird. Time for some pictures from Harajuku, Tokyo's youthful, commercialist, pseudo-punk block.







There's no good transition to this next part. As I was leaving my internship at the Associated Press today, I realized I had to go to the bathroom, because the train takes a little over an hour to get back to Inzai. The AP is on the seventh floor of the Kyodo Press building in skyscraper-laden Shiodome, right near Ginza (I'll post a photo of the building later). I walked into the bathroom, and even though I had been inside there a couple of times before, I had never noticed the full-length windows that span the far wall, giving the opportunity to anyone who wants to watch people go to the bathroom from the towers across the street.

I felt confused. This picture says it best: