To balance the negative, let me type some positive.

Beautiful kids everyday asking me nothing more than for my voice, listening and sharing everything with me in a 2nd floor room from which, on a clear day you can see Mt. Fuji in the distance.

The way udon made by hand tastes.

A Thai Restaurant in the bowels of "Ginza 5" somewhere beneath Tokyo Station.

The way a cute old Japanese couple fights with one another when teaching a foreigner how to make Udon.

Fireworks in a spring sky after a festival in which a house was burned down.

"Same Shit Different Day."

The train from Saitama to Shinjuku.

The way Sawada-sensei smiles.

7-11 Oden.

The noise of the alarm after someone pushes the "Emergency Button" and your train is stopped on the platform at Kita-Senju for a half an hour.

The French guy that Shi-Chan and I met in Shinjuku and led to the wrong Disk Union.

The way the Saizeriya at Shinjuku's West Exit tastes on an empty stomach.

That time Yuho tried to run up the 4 floor escalator from the bottom of the Roppongi subway stop.

The bit of puke that landed on my leg after that girl decided to lose it all in the train between Shinjuku and Shin-Okubo.

Getting drunk with your boss.

The greasers and their lovely dance in front of Yoyogi-koen.

The Domo-Kun Pelicula at NHK Studios.

Hiroshi.

Bobbi.

Aoki-san.

Walking around in Aoyama.

Kappa-zushi in Harajuku.

Having kids guess your age, and then finding out they think you are 32.

Waiting for Takayuki infront of the Gap at Shinjuku, and then having him arrive only to say, "Ah, well, so I guess we should go home, right?" Every. Time.

Being able to understand Japanese maps.

Kindergarten kids who ask you if you speak "American" and then instruct you to speak it.

AM/PM.

The guy at the bike parking lot who asks me if I'm going to Kabukicho to have sex.

Ikuko, who's English only improves with alcohol.

Telling people I like to hangout in Shinjuku-Nichome. Yeah, it's a notorious gay district. No, I don't hangout there.

My Japanese, which also improves with alcohol.

The playground in the middle of Shinjuku-Nichome.

The who works at Great India in Shinjuku and only speaks two words of English: "Thank" and "You."

TVs in cellphones that you watch on a train after work.

The English ex patriot guy who hands out religious pamphlets in Harajuku and told me he was "Sorry" after I told him I was from America. Jerk.

The Spanish ex patriot guy who hands out Lord Of The Rings themed religious pamphlets, also in Harajuku.

People who start conversations with you at Starbucks after they see you studying Japanese, but then you are so embarrassed that you just fail miserably anyway.

SMAP.

The Japanese national soccer team.

The waitress who used to be a model but now has to bust her ass at a hippie Okonomiyaki tabehoudai restaurant in Harajuku.

Udon.

Drinking the broth.