Sleeping in Japan

Japan does not want you to sleep. Not get to sleep, not stay asleep, and definitely not sleep in.

When I first got to Japan, I could not stay up past 10pm to save my life. I'd doze on the couch before finally standing up and stumbling to bed. I'd wake up at 6am naturally and then go back to sleep and wake up a 1/2 later. Rinse and repeat until 8am. Then I'd wake up and eat breakfast. Well now I go to bed at 12am (like I did at home) and wake up at 6:30am then 7:50, then 8:30 and finally 9:20.

Well going to sleep is pretty easy. Not as easy as when I'm home in my bed, but its the best bed from home. I mean in Twin Falls, it doesn't matter where I sleep, its always uncomfortable. Maybe that's because Twin is where the zombies will attack and I'm naturally uneasy about sleeping there.

So sleeping is pretty easy except for the neighborhood police riding around with ice cream music and some lady talking in Japanese through a megaphone. I think it goes something like, "Lock your doors and windows, we're off duty until tomorrow. Have fun braving the night." But my point is that they do this between 10 and 11. So from now on, I'm going to bed at 11.

Staying asleep is sorta easy. Between the scooters roaring down the street in gear 1 and cars honking (Japan is a driver's death trap, remember?), I could wake up, be a little pissed and fall back asleep. But its after 6am that sucks. Marc and his school buddies assemble on the stone stairs right next to my window. They're there for ~10 minutes before the responsible older kid walks them to school. So I fall back asleep. But then some dogs have to start barking, or some old people decide to have a shouting contest, or (if it isn't a school day) the kids won't shut up down stairs.

So today I wanted to sleep in until 9:30. I woke up 3 times, the last being 8:30, and decided "I have nothing really going on. I'll sleep more." Well the neighborhood police paraded through with their "We're back and slightly hung over, so keep it down or we'll taze you." It was just perfectly planned by nature to make me not sleep for an entire hour. I'd lay down and almost be there when some bird decides to scream next to my window, or some car roars down the road, or somebody talks really loud next to the window.

Well Jonah knows what happens when you wake me up, but when it's a force of nature, all I can do is burn down forests and murder. And that's a lot of work for extra sleep, so I'll let nature be for now. I'll just go to bed earily.

In conclusion, burn up in the heat or open a window and not get any sleep. Hell, even if you do close the window, the walls are made of paper mache. Well sleep tight and thank your American ass you have a huge house, wide roads, and quiet neighborhoods built like corn mazes.