Hello, all you amazing and beautiful readers. Thanks for clicking on this strangely titled piece. Are you ready for another rambling adventure in the world of ulog? Ulogs, those great re-branded blogs created by the one and only 
Hmm... in romaji—the Japanese alphabet that uses Latin letters—u is pronounced oo—as in that sound the kid makes in class when he sooo knows the answer and is desperate to answer before anyone else and he is holding his hand up trying to get the teachers attention oo oo oo oo pick me pick me ooooooooo I know it!!!
Every time I see ulog without thinking I am automatically sub-vocalizing it as oolog, even tho I know that is incorrect. But I digress (already).
So wonderful readers, I decided I would share a harrowing tale of adventure I had the other night. Well, not really all that harrowing (b/c it happens often enough I'm used to it) nor much of an adventure, but it was an interesting night.
It started when I looked at the clock and noticed it was 23:30—that is, nearly midnight. Now as anyone with young kids knows, they tend to get up early. Mine get up even earlier than most, around 5am. My wife and I do the traditional Japanese sleep set-up, which is to let the kids sleep in the futon with us, so when my kids wake up, I wake up. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't be much different if they had their own room. I remember when I was a kid, waking up early and then immediately running into mom & dad's room to jump in their bed and wake them up.
Anyway, knowing that I had to be up in about five hours, the sensible thing would have been to go to sleep. Unfortunately I am rarely sensible, at least when it comes to sleep. I tend instead to fight sleep and reason and stay up entirely too late until I have to force myself to finally go to bed.
Such was the case the other night.
So it's thirty minutes till midnight and instead of going to bed, I decided I needed a beer. Check the fridge. Empty. Luckily, there is a konbini nearby.
Konbini konbini konbini. Pronunced Kohn-bee-nee. A magical place filled with magical things.
(Actually it is just the Japanese word for "convenience store".)
They exist on just about every block and have a little of everything inside, including beer, or cheap low-malt Budweiser-esque kinda-beer, which is what I often spring for when drinking by myself. It's not great, but it's also not bad (and much better than the American equivalent offerings) and hard to beat the price, which is around ¥100.
So beer in hand, I headed back home. In Japan you can drink outdoors and many people often do. That may not be shocking in the rest of the world, but it is a big no-no in the US, where the police aren't fans of the activity.
Mmmm... beer. Near-beer. All is right in the world. I walked back home slowly, sipping my drink and enjoying the night air. While it is still quite hot during the days, night is finally cooling off a bit. Hints of the coming winter.
I finished my beer and arrived back home a few minutes later. Lo and behold, I had a welcome party—two big cockroaches.
Now one thing about Japan: they have big cockroaches. The six-legged terrors are everywhere too. Houses, restaurants, banks, outside crawling down the streets, outside the train station waiting to greet the passengers, etc. I've been told various reasons, but bottom line is you see them all over. Even the cleanest houses get them and mine is no exception.
Cockroaches. In my home. I stared at them and they stared at me. A tumbleweed rolled between us. Hmm... I need to clean tomorrow, I thought. I could swear somewhere a harmonica started playing.
Cockroach Battle!!
One thing you should know is I don't like killing things. Call me a peace and love hippie, chalk it up to my Buddhist training, or just call me a softie. Whatever. Bottom line though is I would rather not kill living things. I teach my kids this and I live by it myself.
As such, I usually try to catch the cockroaches and then take them on a trip a few blocks over to the local park where I throw them in a forest area there.
With most bugs they are fairly easy to catch. Not roaches. They buggers are terrified of humans (with good reason, I suppose) and so they run off and try to hide as soon as you get near them, resulting in a lot of chasing. Imagine me holding a small plastic cup, chasing after the cockroaches.
Like Han, screaming and chasing the stormtroopers. Minus the screaming. Kids and wife asleep in the other room, after all. Cockroach Battle!!
It is always tempting to just smash them when they don't cooperate with me. But I persisted and about 10 minutes or so later I had a cup full of two roaches. Sorry, I didn't think to take a photo. But I'm sure this will happen again before long so I will take a photo then. A short walk to the park and I was rid of them.
So ends my tale. The entire thing was a little like this, but without my death at the end:
Having conquered the roaches and restored peace to my home, I went to bed. It was about 1am by that time and I was tired. Sleep quickly took me and kept me in her blissful embrace ...until my kids started jumping on me four hours later.
Special thanks to 
| David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More? |
