You'll Never Believe What Happened!

So yesterday, since we weren't meeting up with our friends until 7, we decided to go down to Shinagawa because Cinnamon was in a running mood. She thought it would be a good day to try to race the shinkansen! We got down there pretty early so there wouldn't be too big a crowd, and she jumped down onto the train tracks when the next train pulled up. Naturally, I jumped down there too, to try to talk her out of it, because seriously, those trains go 180mph! There's no way she could outrun one of those!

Unfortunately, the train conductor saw us and pushed the "Emergency Ninja" button that all shinkansen trains in Japan are equipped with. And suddenly, a ninja appeared out of nowhere (because ninjas can do that - they're ninjas) and we engaged in combat. Too bad for us we had left our shurikens and our nunchaku at home that day. It was a pretty unfair fight, and the ninja captured us and handed us over to the station police.

Apparently, the police don't look too kindly on foreigners who jump onto the train tracks, so they booked us into the jail. While we were there, we had tea with a very nice man in the cell next to us who looked like Buddha. He gave us his business card so we can keep in touch with him. After a few hours, a guard came by and told us we had two options. Either we could pay a hefty bail or we could take our chances in a one on one sumo match with the emperor.

Naturally, since we aren't the millionaire foreigners the old guy at the palace assumed we were, we decided it would be best to fight. We played "rock paper scissors" to see who would get to be the lucky sumo wrestler, and Cinnamon won, so I was the unlucky loser and they took me to an arena to prepare for my impending fight. It was quite an ordeal there. First they made me bathe, so I wouldn't bring any dirt into the arena, then I had to change into a loincloth (because it's tradition, after all), and some guy who I guess was supposed to be my coach came and yelled at me for about half an hour. I didn't catch much of what he said, but I'm pretty sure he called me foreign scum and told me not to disgrace the emperor.

Then I was brought out to the arena and lo and behold, Cinnamon and Mr. Buddha were in the audience! Everybody was booing me, but I had a lot of fighting spirit after that yelling session earlier. The emperor was a surprisingly tiny guy, so I figured I could beat him pretty easily, especially since after eating all that fast food since I've been here, I've really bulked up (I'm a good 250lbs now).

The match was over surprisingly quickly, with me easily overtaking Emperor Scrawny McWimpPants. Afterward, he came over and congratulated me on a job well done. He said he was so impressed with my fighting style that he would allow both me and Cinnamon to go free. I thanked him for his generosity and once I had changed back into my street clothes, we were set free.

Later, we met up with the girls and had delicious meat for dinner.

Today, we called up Mr. Buddha and he said that he would be working in Shibuya in the evening, giving out free hugs near the Hachiko Exit of the station, so we should drop by. So we did. It turns out that he's actually a pretty important guy in the San-X corporation and he offered the both of us jobs at the Hello Kitty factory in Yokohama. Naturally, we both jumped on the chance to work for such a wonderful company. Needless to say, we won't be coming back to America or Barnes & Noble. Sorry, guys. You're just no match for a cute, white cat with no mouth.

Catch you all on the flipside.