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I've got my visa sorted so that I can actually return to Japan after I leave, I've got my ticket home printed, they've stepped up the gift-wrapping of my building so that they have now covered the windows with plastic in advance of painting it, and men are now moving up and down the scaffolding levels like some giant live-action Donkey Kong.
And you need to go on a diet.
You have to choose one of these current Japanese weight-loss supplements that I was perusing in the-drug-store-where-everyone-shouts-at-you today. You HAVE to. It's the law. Choose one then order it off some dodgy geezer on ebay and take it every day. Three times a day if you have to. DO IT!
Already widely blogged about in this internet, Jesus Body would seem to be the obvious choice. What is not so obvious is which bible-knocking joke to choose about it. "Yeah, Jesus was pretty ripped!" perhaps. Or: "Jesus suffered for our sins, but you don't have to suffer to lose those extra pounds." Or just: "Beats forty days and forty nights in the desert doesn't it?" Oh man, easy jokes. Lazy internet snow-shovelling.
But maybe you're feeling a little more... penitent? A little more... flagellant? Oh c'mon, we all want to whip ourselves with actual whips from time to time (if there isn't anyone around to do it for us). Now you can lash yourself (or MeLash) with Melash diet pills and achieve much the same result. I would imagine.
Finally, Greedy Yeast. This one I'm a little wary of, in that I imagine it releases some kind of rampaging Yeast-Beast into your insides and lets it feed on your excess fat, and unless you remove said beast at the desired weight it'll just keep eating you until you're a person-suit being worn by a sentient yeast creature.
Oh man, too much Silent Hill and too many ghost stories for me I think! Good night boys and ghouls!
I just realised, in the stupor I've been flailing away in recently I never vented about The Banana Diet.
THE GODDAMN BANANA DIET.
Basically it's the latest fad diet that struck Japan in mid-September and resulted in a mass banana shortage that's only just starting to lift. The idea is: eat two bananas with a glass of water for breakfast and eat sensibly for the rest of the day and you can burn off weight without feeling tired or crappy. It's pretty easy and seems to be pretty much common sense but because it was on TV everyone went completely... banan... no I can't say it.
Suddenly, NO bananas. In any shop. And because I only heard about it a few days in I had no idea what was going on at first. Had the shipping roots been disrupted? Were bananas suddenly out of season (Japanese supermarkets are much better at only carrying seasonal fruit and veg than British ones)? And when I found out I started yelling in the middle of a restaurant, because, y'see, I was already on The Banana Diet! Except I didn't call it The Banana Diet, I just called it eating fucking bananas for breakfast. Seriously, this lack of banana-goodness for weeks probably had a hand in the viscious cold I'm just getting over.
You tube has a bunch of videos, mostly from people on the banana diet, or from companies trying to cash in on the diet and bring it to a western audience. This one is insanely annoying but covers the whole thing pretty well:
This one is pretty funny, because it's been edited by a chimp. It claims the diet has worked for "hundreds of people in Japan" which in a country of 127 million is virtually meaningless. Then it turns into some banana-fetish-screensaver. These guys are not going to win the Banana Diet wars that's for sure.
Now, my world is returning to sanity. I can usually buy bananas and eat them for breakfast, so I'm happy. But every now and then I raise my fist and shake it at the heavens. "Curse you, Banana Diet. Curse you..."
