Fun!

Fun. A word if read in English can bring memories of happiness and laughter. In Japan "Fun" brings other images. Images of stink, frustration and maybe even disgust. Fun (pronounced Foo-n) refers to feces. Yup...

I have had a lot of *FUN* experiences in my life. Japan has added two more to the list...

Previous to coming here three birds have had the pleasure of making me a target. Two had perfect bulls-eyes on on the top of my head. The other made aim for my leg as I was sitting on a bike.

Now a fourth addition to the bird category, as I was walking home from a convenience store here (or I should say THE convenience store, as there is only one here) a bird suffessfully dressed my hand in its *FUN* leaving me to briefly wonder "it is starting to rain" followed by "I hope it rains so I can get this *FUN* off of my hand."

NEXT I had the pleasure of a new adding a new species to the list, a frog. I approached a vending machine on the street one night and it was covered in all sorts of creatures. Urasa is very dark at night so the brightly lit vending machines are kind of the night-clubs of bug life in Urasa. There are giant mosquitos banging their head into the machines like drunken frat boy college students, graceful moths fluttering their wings and dancing together like a group of girls out for the night and then there are big lazy frogs that just sit in one place, too drunk to move but looking for the right moment to shoot their tongue out to get a piece of the mosquitos. So, I went to the machine and I pressed my button, Pocari Sweat...the gatorade of Japan, next to the button a little frog did a scurry-jump away from my hand. I bent over to retrieve my drink from where it sat, in the trough-with-a-flap section of the machine. At this exact moment, Hilary reached for the frog while exlaiming "Awwwww! Cuuuuuuuute!" With her hand approaching, the frog did what it was born to do... hop. It leapt from the machine into the darkness of the night and landed directly on the top of my head. Whether it was landing on my hair or Hilary's approaching hand that scared it, we may never know, but it let out a trail of frog *FUN* on my head. I like to think that it was so drunk that it just didn't really know what was going on. This will become a story it can tell it's other froggy friends. "OH MAN! The other night this enormous hand came out of nowhere so I jumped and landed on this dudes head! HAH! So scary, I funned all over him." Either way, I washed my hair twice that night and my list of *FUN* experiences got longer.

-Mike