I am very out of touch with western pop culture.

Who the hell is Hannah Montana? Do I really want to know?

Love Hotels Make Twice as Much as Anime - Anime News Network

From Anime News Network:

According to research cited in Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History, by Sarah Chaplin (242p. published by Routledge, available from Amazon), 30,000 Japanese love hotels earn more than 4 trillion yen per year in profit, which is twice the profit of the Japanese anime market. Approximately 1% of the Japanese population checks into a love hotel every day, and according to one study, 50% of all Japanese sex occurs in love hotels. Source: The Japan Times

Four TRILLION yen. That's about 34 BILLION dollars. Yikes.

What is culture shock?

Culture shock is the stress and confusion caused by the little differences.

For example:

Today at work I commented to one of my co-workers that in America, when little kids draw the sun in the sky, they usually color it yellow. This actually freaked her out for a few minutes.

(Japanese kids usually color the sun red.)

She was less freaked out by the whole snowman thing, though.

Hobbies

What do you do in your spare time?

As for me, I'm learning to write with a brush. Supposedly, it will help me understand Japanese more easily. That's the hope, anyway.

But so far....