Diet Coke & Mentos

Today, I went to Tomoe’s church for the first time. Like the other churches I have attended here in Japan, this one wasn’t very different on the surface. They met at Tomoe’s house in Motomiyamachi, where Tomoe’s father was the pastor. And while most of his sermon went way over my head, I was proud of the fact that I at least could tell what he was talking about most of the time.

Following this, Mie, Tomoe and I drove to Koriyama in Mie’s car. talking about something or another, when the subject of youtube came up. Being a Youtube addict in dire need of a 12-step program, I quickly described a number of the videos I had seen. Tomoe also told of some videos and provided a detailed description of the site to Mie, who had never heard of it. One of the videos I described seeing was what happens when you drop mentos candy into Diet Coke.

When we stopped at a 7-eleven, I instantly made a beeline for the Diet Coke, which isn’t a product I typically buy in Japan. I also bought the last package of Mentos candy, which is something I'm not typically aware of in Japanese stores. Tomoe was laughing so hard just at the thought of me doing this at a 7-11 that I thought she might get a hernia. I put the bottle out in the parking lot and dropped one candy in, as they do in the videos. Unfortunately, it only fizzed up about 20 centimeters. I was kind of disappointed.

So I ran inside and got a second bottle, this time determined to drop 5 candies into the bottle. On coming out of the store though, Tomoe stopped laughing just long enough to point out the fact that I had forgotten to pay! I was risking deportation and all kinds of legal trouble for a stupid human trick! I rushed back inside as fast as I could, while bowing and profusely apologizing to the attendants. I summoned the most polite groveling Japanese I could. Having watched my antics on the sidewalk, the employees were somewhat amused and I think they understood that it was an honest mistake. My two friends will probably never let me live it up though!