Would you rather bathe in public or spend 2 hours looking at mummified human bodies and organs? How about both!

Since coming back to Japan, there has been a lot of naked body action going on. And not in the typically good kind of way. Friday night, the whole family decided to head down to a local bath house for some refreshing soaking and sauna-ing. Just so you know, there are separate sections for men and women, meaning for the first time in a year, I was surrounded by naked men sitting around in hot water. Fear not: even more than the facial in Korea, this is a very normal activity for men around here (way, way, way, way, way more so in fact - the facial was just in general a pretty gay thing to do, not that there is anything wrong with that). I also got a massage while there, which felt quite good. And, no, it wasn't the type of massage with a happy ending.

Today, I went out with Yukari and her friend Keiko. I haven't seen Kei-chan for 2 years, and ever since last year, I've had the vague feeling she doesn't exactly yearn to hang out with me, but she seemed to enjoy herself today (I think). She isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she has one of the prettiest smiles on record. Anway, we didn't know what to do after meeting up in Ueno, so after she mentioned this exhibit showing preserved human body parts, we decided that had "Saturday afternoon fun!" written all over it and went to take a look. At first, it was the most gut-wrenching 1,500 yen I've ever spent. Cross-sections of human heads, human torsos, internal organs, preserved limbs, faces, entire bodies, even fetuses and infant children. And all real. Of course, at around 1 hour, you get pretty used to it. And since I was incapable of reading 90% of the Japanese medical jargon written on the display cards, it got pretty boring pretty quickly. But hey, there's nothing like a bunch of shrivelled-up cadavers to make a guy feel good about himself (if you know what I mean).

It also poured rain for hours today, but that didn't stop Yukari's husband Tetsuya from driving his GIGANTIC Suburban through Tokyo at high speeds. An American SUV with the steering wheel on the American side. In Tokyo. Te-chin is by far the best driver I've ever seen. He also parks better than any other human; especially since Japanese people seem to prefer pulling into parking spaces in reverse.