Penetration of the Hardcore American Skin

Here I am, enjoying what will certainly be an amazing weekend in Tokyo, when I finally realized that it's hit me.

Yep, it's finally happened. Slowly, but surely the Japanese mentality has seeped into my subconscious and ruptured my previous "balanced" reasoning. Take for example the previously thought of absurd custom of waiting at a red light without a car or bus in sight. All of a sudden I realize that something major has happened when a JAPANESE person crosses the street and leaves me on the curb at a red light. Still numbed by the experience, I ponder what else I've succumbed to.

Then the gym experience resurfaced. I don't know why, but for some reason, another foreigner and I crossed paths while I was heading out the gym the other day. And you want to know what happened? Rather than the expected, "hey, what's up?," without a single utterance we both bowed our heads and continued on in our destination. It wasn't until I replayed the moment that I realized how bizarre that interaction was.

Thus, I say, I've only been here for seven months now, but by the likes of this by the time I leave here after two years I will have turned into a proper Japanese. ;)