Big Bugs, Big Bugs, What ya gonna do? What ya gonna do when they come for you?

Only three weeks left in Japan now, it’s kind of hard to believe. I went for a walk today along the Ai river and just soaked in the experience. I was thinking that it won’t be long until I don’t have this opportunity anymore.

I was actually debating whether or not to blog about this past weekend, but thought I might as well. We went to the SCMAGLEV and Railway Park in Nagoya. We just did a half day trip to see this museum since it had such great reviews on tripadvisor. Unfortunately, neither of us found the museum that great. I think that’s because it was a bunch of trains and we’ve been on so many different trains in Japan that it wasn’t that special. We got to learn a bit about the history of train development in Japan, but not all the information was in English. Anyways, it was interesting to learn about the Shinkansen. They opened the Shinkansen (bullet train) for the Olympics in 1964. At that time, the train could go 200 km/h. Now- about 50 years later it goes 270 km/h. I was surprised that they hadn’t developed anything faster, but at the same time how fast do you need a train to go? The main reason we went to the museum was to learn more about the MAGLEV train. This train is propelled and levitates with magnets- pretty cool eh? They actually had a real one on display. From my understanding, they send an electric current through the magnets and by the SNSNSNS attraction scheme the train is pulled forward and levitates. It can go 500 km/h because there’s no friction caused by the tracks. The conductor also isn’t on the train, the trains are operated from a station. Personally, I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel with riding on a train without a conductor. They’ve been doing test runs with the MAGLEV and are hoping to build one for public use soon in Japan. I guess they already have one running in Shanghai.

This is how they used to operate trains.

The MAGLEV

This is Dr. Yellow- the Shinkansen that makes sure the Shinkansen tracks are on track. 

You used to be able to eat at a restaurant on trains.

Adam tried a conductor simulator.
Driving a train is harder than it looks.
Especially when the instructions are in Japanese.

Yes, that's right. I'm standing next to the oldest bus in Japan. No biggie. :)

This is from Sunday, we were wearing the masks to protect us from the dust and pollution.

On Monday night, we went over to a friend’s house for dinner. During dinner, we got to talking about bugs in Japan. Our friend was born and raised in California, but has now been living in Japan for seven years. He was talking about his first adventures in Japan and all the bugs he would get in his room. Now, his Japanese girlfriend has helped him purchase more bug poison and deterrent products. He showed us some of his and we told him what we’ve been using. If you go into a drug store, they have quite the selection of different products for everything from mosquitoes to giant centipedes.

The centipedes is what I want to talk about. There’s a certain type of centipede here that can grow long like a snake. He said he’s seen some that are a foot long. They can go through small cracks since they don’t seem to have a firm exoskeleton. The lack of this skeleton makes them harder to kill. Previously, we had met another American who said that he heard you can only kill them by boiling them or with fire. He had a lot in his house so he would trap them and then take them far away since these centipedes are smart and can apparently find their way back to your house. However, our Californian friend said that a woman told him that she managed to kill one by smashing it repeatedly with the heel of her shoe. Needless to say that these centipedes have quite the reputation. Basically every foreigner we’ve met here has a story or two to share about them. Oh and I almost forgot, if they bite you, you have to go to the hospital.

Therefore, I would feel quite satisfied with my stay in Japan if I don’t have the luxury of seeing one. Or if I must see one, I hope that it’s outside. I don’t mind giant bugs as much when they aren’t in my house. I have put poison outside our door to try and kill them before they enter.

The morning after having dinner, I went out to get groceries. I came in carrying my baskets of groceries. I put them down and saw a four inch centipede with 1 cm long legs. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at it. I was evaluating the situation. I had found smaller ones like this one before in the house, but never one this big. I didn’t know if it was already dead, but it wasn’t moving. My options ran through my head: ignore the problem- go upstairs and hope it doesn’t follow you, take a shoe and smash it, or step on it with the shoes I’m wearing. It’s never a good practice to stare at giant bugs, it just ends up freaking you out more. In the end, I summoned my courage and stepped on it. I felt and heard its little skeleton crackle. I removed my foot. It was twitching. I stepped on it again. I’m pretty sure none of its guts were left in its body at this point. I removed my shoes and went upstairs to put away the groceries. Now, I knew as much as I would like to leave that dead centipede there, I couldn’t. I had to go downstairs to do the laundry. So once again, I girded my loins (I just think that’s a funny expression), took four pieces of paper towel (I didn’t want to feel any of it when I picked it up), and went down to face my fears. I cleaned it up, wiped the guts off the floor and disposed of the paper towels.

That evening, we were having our Christianity discussion group and I was telling them about my centipede experience. The one man there said the longest centipede he’s ever seen in Japan was about six inches. Which makes me think that mine was pretty long. In any case, this wasn’t the type of centipede that’s poisonous as far as I know. I’m pretty sure that since I stared at it for so long, its image shall be engrained in my memory for some time. I’m super paranoid now too and I’m always checking for them. So, that’s one thing I’m looking forward to about Canada- no giant bugs.

Note: Google pictures of these centipedes at your own risk.