I am Surviving a Japanese Game Show

Oh dear, oh my - our computer decided to have a mental breakdown.  Probably couldn't handle any more baby slobber.  Anyway, we couldn't fix it until we got back to Tokyo.  So I wrote a few columns by actually putting pen to paper and will post as if they happened in real time.

If I were staying in America this summer, there are a couple of shows (here and there)that would be programmed into my VCR (or DVR, TiVo, Blue Ray, HDTV, LMNOP - I honestly do not know what most of these are).  My Sweet explained that these games are based on Japanese shows from 15 years ago where TV personalities competed in "extreme challenges" that put their comedic skills to work.

While at Most-Honorable-Mother-in-Law's I noticed that the game shows had shifted from eating to actually learning a thing or two - like why stall doors in public bathrooms fall open inwards when not locked* or why some train tunnels are square and others are rounded.**

So I figured that the days of Japanese contestants doing inane things were over.  Oh no, not by a long shot.  In one show I saw two women hooked up to a wii type of contraption and their characters were cave women carrying a stone wheel while jumping over pterodactyl turds.  On another show comedians had to do pelvic thrusts into a gigantic air machine in order to move a heart shaped balloon up to a female face. 

Watch this if you dare.

All I can do is laugh or sigh.

Joie de Vivre ~ A Hearty Joy of Living!

* They fall inwards to A) keep you from bonking someone on the head as you try to get out, and B) it is easy to see if the stall is in use without the undignified action of peeking under the door.

** Square ones are easier to make, but rounded ones can handle pressure better, so the ones deeper in the earth are rounded.  Oh, and FYI some Tokyo subway level are a mere 12 centimeters from each other.