An interesting but far from fun day off
Yesterday, I decided I would take a long walk on a Japanese beach. From the peak of the jetty, while admiring the somewhat post-apocalyptic view of wind turbines and trash down the beach on this dark and stormy day, I realized my keys were no longer in my pocket. I retraced my steps thrice with no luck. Knowing my neighbor had a spare key for my apartment, I had to wait 6 hours for him to return.

Bugs
My fear of spiders and bugs has much improved over the years since at a young age, the movie Arachnophobia initially traumatized me (and Scotty Bertrand, who had his room fumigated). However, the stairs up to my apartment room is called home by about 25 spiders, all the same species but of varying sizes. Occasionally their webs seem to impinge into head/eye level heights. Although I believe I should try to get over my slightly irrational fear by learning to live with the spiders, as soon as I get some yen, I plan on heading to the home depot-like store to mount an offensive.
I checked an online forum the other day which mentioned some of the nastier creatures in Japan. The mahamushi, a large viper found all over Japan, I often reflect upon as I walk through the narrow brush-filled path to the nearest beach. The scariest creature mentioned was also quite common, the Japanese Red Centipede: it grows up to 10 inches, has a nasty bite, is very difficult to kill, will crawl up your drain, and perhaps worst of all, they travel in pairs, so if you kill one, the next few weeks will be spent in a constant state of paranoia.