Oh right I also live in Alabama. America's Most Beautiful Hell.

parts you miss about japam, and advice you'd give to a new traveler

First thought best thought - Convenience Stores.

Legit, the times I wish I could roll up to a store and just buy a couple of salmon onigiri for lunch

I know it's a very basic answer but Japan can be very affordable for eating if you stay away from the super-touristy places.

And eating at 7-11, Lawson, or Family Mart is affordable and good.

can never go wrong with a salmon onigiri and a famichiki

imagine trusting gas station food, ah

Other things I miss -- School lunch, Japanese long exfoliating wash cloths, FUNCTIONAL PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION (trains)

The number of times I am sitting in traffic in America irrationally angry that I cannot be in a train

Incalculable.

Bathhouses. Technically I could hit up a Korean bathhouse in Atlanta but then I'd have to Drive to Atlanta which is stressful enough that I'd probably get back home as stressed as when I left.

But I've never felt full-body relaxation as much as I have being totally naked in a Japanese bathhouse going from the ice cold to the lukewarm to the hot bubbling to the outdoor hot flat rock, etc, etc

If you're visiting Japan you should get a Japan Rail Pass and go basically anywhere in the country.

Go to a bathhouse if you can. It helps if you have a friend to go with you the first time, I found.

i am doing the shimanami kaido in octoby

oh I mean lol I miss universal healthcare

lolololol

whitticus: Oh dang, that ends in Aomori yeah?

Never had a chance to get up to Aomori.

OH.

I'm a fool

It goes to Shikoku.

I never got to Shikoku either.

imabari to onomichi yeah

Onomichi.

Cycling in Japan is very safe. Motorists are Very Considerate.

i will take the ORANGE FERRY from osaka

then rent a bike

Unlike in the United States where you have the feeling that both cyclists and drivers are trying to murder each other.

I only had my Mamachari / Mom Bike when I lived in Japan.

So that wasn't for long distances but I used to go after dark down the highway to the grocery store. Never had a problem.

who are YOUR top five cute anime boys!!

also which was your favorite pie to make

CUTE boys shit uh

you may define cute however you wish

Ryouga (Ranma 1/2)
Bojji (Ranking of Kings)
Josuke Higashikata (JJBA 4)
Shikamaru (Naruto)
Laios (Dungeon Meshi)

I cannot possibly begin to explain to you why these count as cute.

I got put on custard stirring Duty a lot in the pie shop. I stirred more custards than I know what to do with.

and I grew to loathe coconut cream pie. I never liked it to begin with and it just made me hate it more.

so I'm going to go with the exact opposite pie which was disgusting to make because we had to cook eggs with so much sugar in them that I'm basically making hot sugar egg slurry

no, i understand. these are cute lads.

French silk.

ffff nice

a terrible pie to make, but a beautiful glorious pie to eat because when you get down to it it's just chocolate, sugar, butter, and eggs.

oh and heavy cream.

from goop to glory

once you got past the cooking eggs with sugar stage it became a wonderful pie because then you're just adding chocolate to cool it down and then then you're adding vanilla and room temperature butter and then later on you fold in some whipped cream

Josuke is super cute i agree

How did you get into 18th century literature? Also what would you recommend as an introductory read?

I had a friend in undergrad who took a team-taught class that was on the 18th-century novel. The class was so popular that they ran it AGAIN and I enrolled.

She said that the books were so... overwrought... that they were fascinating.

And she was RIGHT and I came to find my doom.

Because what I found were novels where... they weren't good most of the time... but they were just... trying.

Often poorly.

To tell a story.

That had So Much Excessive Emotion.

Amazing

I love that genuinely, because that just shows they were trying but like Havent Figured It Out

I still remember most of the novels we read in that class: Pamela, Joseph Andrews, Modern Chivalry, The Coquette, Memoirs of Emma Courtney, The Power of Sympathy, Edgar Huntley.

And one more that escapes me.

YES THAT'S IT.

By the time you get to the 1790s novels are starting to feel more like Novels.

And so you hit Jane Austen in the 1800-1810s and it's "that's a novel"

I really don't know what to recommend as an introductory read because I've read so many more and they're all... hitting something different, I guess.

But, like, for Excessive Emotion.... I loved Charlotte Temple (which I read in my American Lit survey).

I counted the number of times the heroine fainted and it was like... something close to 15 times.

It's a novel about a young girl who is preyed upon by an older man, taken to New York, and abandoned while pregnant.

But it's all turned up to 11.

I mean I think that everyone should read Clarissa but it's 1500 pages long and to understand why the novel is the way it is you really need to read Pamela (600 pages) and the backlash to Pamela (Shamela / Anti-Pamela)

So really nobody should do that.

Read Charlotte Temple instead. Then maybe read Ormond. Then maybe read The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Which was the 8th novel that I couldn't remember up above but remember now.