Rolly, the world's oddest toothbrush

Smallest, I mean. The world's smallest toothbrush. It's from Italy. So, not actually Japanese, but I did find it in RanKing RanQueen. It looks like a thorny, alien seed spore and feels like an intensely minty toilet scrubber inside your mouth. The idea is that you roll it around inside your mouth with your tongue, discreetly giving your teeth a scrub. I couldn't actually see myself while I was trying it, but from the reaction of my friends, "comically" would be a better description than "discreetly."
It is more discreet than the guy who used to brush his teeth at the desk next to me. I looked up, startled, the first time I heard what sounded like tooth brushing in the office, and he got embarassed and skulked out, brush still clamped between teeth. Later I heard him complaining to someone else that I'd "looked at him funny" while he was brushing his teeth at his desk. 
So. Maybe Rolly can bridge the cultural differences that divide us. Just watch where you spit it out. Ick.

Happy merry Christmas!

A student tattled to me that an American colleague had wished her "a merry Christmas." She watched my reaction, waiting for the laugh. I asked delicately what she thought was wrong with that.
"Well, don't you need a.... an adjective before "merry Christmas? I mean, "merry Christmas" is the full, or... formal name for "Christmas," right? So shouldn't you say "Happy merry Christmas" or "good merry Christmas?"
She's a good sport and thought it was as funny as I did.
So, good happy merry Christmas to all, wherever you are and whatever day it is right now. Please enjoy this playlist of J-pop Christmas songs compiled by my Twitter friend Tim. There are some classics on there, like Christmas Eve, My Lover is Santa Claus, and the one I dare you to get out of your head, Jin-jin-jingle Bells.
No need to thank me! Let me know if you find a favorite.

Caution! Don't do things while walking

We've got the reader, the emailer, the book reader and the drunk, all creating moving hazards on the train platform. I like the drunk the best. He's either cursing up a bluestreak or singing an incoherent little song. Probably the latter.
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Wow, I just almost walked into a platform pillar while writing this on my phone. I guess you teach what you need to learn or something. Anyway, be careful out there.

Thumbs up, Chinly McSuave

 

December's Tokyo Metro manners poster. Tokyo Reporter explained it (and others) rather fabulously. I'll just leave it at a nod of approval for smooth exits and thumbs-up (thumbs-ups?) to strangers. And, is that an ascot?

New math: liquid menthol cigarettes

Advanced charcoal filter times menthol flavor thread equals SkaMen!

I can't tell if the "flavor thread" in these cigarettes is really liquid or if they deliver "menthol feeling UP" in some other form. All the ads for them have these photos of emo guys with blue and green waves splashing against their heads. If the pictures were in black and white, you'd swear it was meant to be a freeze frame of a fatal head wound in progress.
There's another brand of Japanese cigarette that has a crush capsule of menthol in the tip. A slower--and more refreshing--alternative to cyanide capsules.

Terrorists, 1; Care packages, 0

It's kind of good, in a way, that the Japan Post announced last Friday that tomorrow was the last day they'd ship anything over 453 grams (a pound) to the US. Only in one small, specific way: I've had a package sitting on my desk (and before that, on top of the magazine rack, and before that, under the coffee table) waiting to be mailed. It's been sealed so long that I don't remember exactly what I put in it. I finally took it to the post office today while I still could. The woman, who is my favorite post office worker of all time, weighed my box as usual and didn't mention anything about the new restrictions. When I asked about it, she handed me the Japan Post press release that had been making the rounds online and said it was true that they wouldn't send anything over the weight restriction after tomorrow. She pointed out that the box I sent today was just a few grams over and wouldn't have gone. I asked, in an awkward sentence, if that was by order of the US. She said yes, and emphasized that they didn't know how long it would last. Her tone of voice was not too far off from the one you'd use to say, "Well, Andy's locked himself in his room again and he's never ever coming out. You know." But, until further notice, this is the deal.
So, this stupid new rule is good news for Crystal, who will finally get some nifty Japan goodies.
It's terrible news for everyone else. Because they won't get as many KitKats sent in a single box. And because this security thing feels farcical. Even if it isn't---even if there's some excellent reason why 452 grams of explosives is not a concern, or, for that matter, a few milligrams of anthrax---even if the people making these disruptive decisions do know what they're doing, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like they're running around, again, screaming DO something!! at each other and tossing out useless band-aid suggestions. (Remember the duct tape?)

 

This is Japan Post's tag line. One way to translate it is "Creating a new normal." Let's hope that is isn't what's happening.

They are really, really sorry about the construction

Signs that say "Sorry for the trouble caused by the construction" are pretty common in Japan. They usually include a mix of pre-printed and handwritten info about exactly what is being built and how long it will take, and a cartoon of a construction worker standing with shovel in hand, head bowed, often caps it off.
This construction site in Roppongi took the apology sign to the next level with a cartoon worker doing dogeza, a deep, solemn bow formerly common and now mostly reserved for the most serious of offenses. The text is straightforward (no jokey "pardon our dust!" tone), but I imagine the image is meant to be humorous. Er, right? Sometimes it's hard to tell.
Speaking of apologetic bowing and hard to tell, this oldie but goody is one of the subtly hilarious videos from the series "The Japanese Tradition." Not too long ago, a website with a famous truthy name posted this as if it were a helpful cultural guide. I think the editor should try one of the last few bows in the video for that one. Please enjoy. But don't go doing the ninja bow the next time you're late for work.

Turn off your phone, fancy man

This Tokyo Metro Manners poster has a lot going on. Background: there are signs and announcements on many trains asking that cell phones be turned off near the priority seats, ostensibly to protect people with pacemakers. Don't get me started on that one. Though, if I had a pacemaker and there were any chance, however minimal, that having a few square feet in the city where there was a slightly reduced amount of electromagnetic radiation trying to scramble my heartbeat, I guess I'd want people to turn off their phones there. I suppose. But I've digressed.

So, here, we have the usual put-upon poster lady sitting in a priority seat with her child. (And what's happened to her usual partner in moroseness, now that she's had the kid? Has he abandoned her? Is that why she looks so glassy and vacant?) Lurking above her is a golden-haired man (foreigner? host?) in a flashy white coat. He whips his phone out and holds it aloft. Is this some kind of a threat? Is he going to throw it? Make an inconsiderate phone call? Zap all the pacemakers in range? No! This prince of a man is simply shutting off his phone. He is surrounded by a sparkly aura of good manners. Mother and child are agape.
I would be, too, if I ever saw this happen. Shutting off phones near the priority seats is the most flagrantly flouted of all the manners.

Crowdsourcing earthquakes

 

What are you doing now? Shaking.

Well, not now now. Yesterday. "What are you doing now?" is Twitter's ice-breaker question. Everybody knows you don't have to answer it literally, and usually people don't. But they do when there's an earthquake. 

I haven't noticed too many recently, then I felt two good long jolts yesterday. One early in the morning, and one after work. I happened to be sitting at home looking at Twitter during the evening one, and apparently, so was everyone else I know. Those screen captures from my phone are just a small segment of all the quake messages. And those are just from the people I follow.

In the ensuing chat about how ha, ha, everyone tweeted the same thing at the same time, I mentioned that I thought I'd read or heard on the radio that the US Geological Survey used Twitter as one way of tracking quake activity. Talk about monitoring -- I got a  message from @USGS about a minute later that said "You heard right," and included a link to this story about how the USGS uses Twitter to track and map earthquake experiences around the world. The agency is doing all kinds of interesting things with social and interactive media. It will be fascinating to see what they can develop with it, and how similar work can be used in disaster and public health scenarios. They mention filtering for "earthquake" in a few other languages. Hope they've got 地震 (jishin) on their list.           

Wish upon a pudding

Cute ad for a convenience store dessert, a "layered dolce" with four kinds of melt-in-your-mouth.
"Here's hoping there's no one cuter than me at the blind-date party," it reads.
Whatever. You're eating a yummy marscapone and chocolate dessert the day before a date party, which says you don't have insane dieting tendencies. And you're wishing on that dessert, which means you're kind of quirky. Quirky and pleasure-loving beat dull and skinny any day. Hit the goukon with confidence, and don't trust anyone who doesn't order dessert.

Lost and found, after a quick lap around Tokyo

 

We were trying to go to Costco. We had a backpack with a cooler pouch inside to bring a few of the groceries home. Jim put his Japanese text book in the bag, too, to maybe study on the ride back. On the Yamanote train, he put the bag up on the rack over the seats and said to remind him to take it on the way out. I said sure. A few minutes later, we got off the train at Shinagawa, went upstairs and through the wickets to our next train, and realized we'd left the bag behind.

The stolid man in the platform office made a few calls to see if someone at another station could pop aboard and look for it. We had retraced our steps and were able to tell him which car, which door and which side we'd left it on. But the train was running seven minutes behind schedule, so they wouldn't be able to do any checking until the train stopped for the night in Ikebukuro. He said it would just loop around and around for the next five hours. He said we could wait until the same train came back through the station, in forty or forty-five minutes. Or, we could wait until the next day then call the number on the card he gave us and see where in the train system, if anywhere, the bag had turned up. With that, he looked down, started shuffling paperwork and was done with us.

We went back on the platform to where we'd gotten off before and watched as lime green train after train pulled up, each stopping at exactly the same spot, each papered with the same combination of iced tea ads in the same frames around the priority seats, all with empty overhead racks. 

It was an outdoor track on a pleasant evening, and the ridiculousness of the situation overshadowed the annoyance of it. Right around the 42-minute mark, almost exactly an hour since we'd abandoned the bag, a train pulled up with the backpack sitting where we left it, untouched.  Jim grabbed it, and we hopped into the train on the other side of the platform and went back home.

I really didn't want to go to Costco, anyway.

Hey, no ditching!

Everyone's saying the same thing about this subway manners poster - it's not the kids who cut in line, it's the old ladies. It's true, if anyone will elbow past you to get on a bus or train, it will be someone who looks like she might blow away in the gust of wind from the oncoming subway, but turns out tone anchored to the platform and to have elbows made of steel. And she's not afraid to use them.

When this happens, I always think, reflexively, "Ah well, go ahead, you'll be dead a long time before me. You've probably been through a lot. Grab a seat." Is that horrible? I get pretty weird looks when I admit this. I don't mean it to be. It's a sympathetic thought.
That said, getting elbowed is still annoying.

Is that an umbrella in your waistband?

Why yes, yes it is.
----
Despite specific reminder announcements on the train, lots of people leave their umbrellas behind. I see one orphan on the floor by the door now, and I took an empty seat next to one hooked over a handrail this morning.

Quite a few guys use this foolproof, if slightly unelegant, method: the belt hook.

I use a variant when I'm carrying too many things, hooking the umbrella onto my bag. I often forget it's there when I do this, though, sending it clattering to the floor as I get off the train. Talk about not elegant. I'm tempted to try to pull off the belt-hook manoeuvre, but even though another youngish guy in a nice suit was doing it on the train tonight as well as our rumpled friend above, it still reeks a little too much of absent-minded old man.

Deer in a bubble

I went to an art opening this weekend at SCAI the Bathhouse. I used to go to quite a few in New York as a press-pass-carrying party crasher. This was the first time in Tokyo. Quite similar - white walls, vehement opinions and clear plastic cups of white wine. The venue was different, though. The gallery is a beautiful old sento, or, you guessed it, bathhouse. The outside is intact and the inside is completely renovated as a gallery, though high original windows are retained.
I liked Kohei Nawa's exhibit. The centerpiece is two deer coated in clear balls. I wonder if Lady GaGa or her bubble dress designer has seen it?
SCAI the Bathhouse is between Nippori and Nezu stations. It has a nice website with lots of pictures and info in English. This show is up until October 30. Check it out.

We're closed: a word of encouragement for language learners everywhere

I walked into a local restaurant yesterday evening for about the dozenth time. The lights were off in the open kitchen. One guy was at the register counting money. The other was sitting at a table, doing something on a laptop. Chairs were stacked on top of most of the tables around him, and the front door was propped open awkwardly. I needed to talk to them about something, so I paused in the threshold for a moment, nodded, and walked in. They both sort of recognized me and and smiled, but then the money-counting guy frowned and said in Japanese, "Sorry, we're closed." I smiled, "Yes, I see that. But I'd like to talk to you about something." The money counter walked toward me and, looking stressed, said, "Sorry, but we're clooooosed."
I was pretty sure I'd used the right, rather simple, words and sulked internally that my pronunciation was so bad that they hadn't been able to understand me. As I was trying to find another way to say it, the guy at the computer said, "She knows that. She said she wants to talk to you about something." He had a heavy trace of "What're you, thick?" in his voice that was most gratifying.

And then we all chatted for a few minutes. But I'm going to end the conversation there, because that's where my point is for you, language learner. Sometimes people can't understand you because your pronunciation is bad and your word choice is way off. But sometimes, people can't understand you because they just can't. For whatever reason. Maybe they're not paying much attention. Maybe they don't hear so well. Maybe they don't expect that someone who looks like you would be able to speak their language. Those particular people, they probably wouldn't understand you even if you were both native speakers of the same language. (People with a common native language have trouble understanding each other all the time. This bears repeating when you feel like you're hopeless at learning a new language. Notice one day how many times you say "What?") On the other hand, some people will probably get you, more or less, no matter how badly you mangle the words.
 You won't always be lucky enough to have that second guy-who-gets-you sitting right there.  But for every person who gives you a blank, slightly panicked look when you start talking, remember that there's someone else out there who not only would have understood you, but who wouldn't even have known why anyone else would have trouble understanding you. Don't be discouraged. Keep talking, and you'll find those people.

Whirling Dervishes

There was music and entertainment in Sultanahmet Square every night for Ramazan. We stopped to watch some traditional musicians on stage for a few minutes at the small amphitheater. We were picking our way carefully over bulky cobblestones to head back to the hotel when I saw the next act standing to the side of the stage - three men in tall hats and floor-length white skirts. Dervishes! Lots of the restaurants in the area advertised evenings of fixed menus and performances. This seemed so much cooler, since we just stumbled upon it. The audience seemed like locals. There was a low-key street fair vibe, with families moving in and out of the long bench seats, kids getting restless, men talking on phones. The woman in front of me recorded video on her cellphone.
The whirlers were like nothing else. All they did was spin, slowly and then more quickly, raising their hands overhead. What was most fascinating was that even though they were doing the same thing, each had a distinct style. After a few minutes, I felt like I knew their personalities. The guy on the left was an artist. The one in the middle gets into really intense discussions. And on the far right, a hippie poet for sure. Maybe.

Last things first

While I was waiting at the gate for our flight home to board, wallet empty, I found a final five-lira note ($3.30) folded up in my pocket. I traded it with this machine for a bar of pistachio chocolate. (A can of Coke cost even more.)
A delicious last taste of Turkey.

Don't make your fellow passengers disappear

I couldn't make any sense of this and could only think our poor antihero finally got a win by staring at the space-hogging newspaper guy until he disappeared.
----
But now I see he only used his magic hand to squish everyone together. Practice using the Force... at home?

Re-entering Tokyo's atmosphere

So, today was my first day back at work. My smarter half had arranged to take the day off. So he's all relaxed, has his pictures sorted out and thinks it was as cool and pleasant out all day as it was when he first set foot outside at dusk. Ha! I'm handling re-entry kind of like a piece of shuttle debris handles re-entry. But not quite as gracefully. I don't even know what the problem is, besides that my house key is AWOL, a lot of our friends left for good while we were gone and although it is as steamy as a hamam, there are no tan Turkish men standing by for scrubs and massages. I went to the loveliest of shady cafes yesterday, but couldn't get my head around an "appetizer assortment" of 5 olives, a few shavings of prosciutto and a few gumball-size orbs of mozz for 1200 yen. Bread? Extra. And jet lag kept me from falling asleep until four. Lack of sleep is my quickest personal shortcut to misery. Also, an old man elbowed me getting off the bus this morning. I swear he had to actually go out of his way to do it, too, because I wasn't blocking his path. It was like he was swimming up the aisle with a wide stroke, looking for something to jab. Feh.

Anyway, here's a few seconds of anti-commute. Repeat as needed. And like CNN and AP say when they don't feel like editing user footage, this video is raw. That is, the only sound on it is wind distortion. Sorry, video editing is next on my list of things to learn. Maybe mute it and put on some music you like?

And the answer is...

And wouldn't you know, it's nobody's business but the Turks.

(Come on, any other answer would have disappointed, right? Right?)

The trip was great. Turkey was hospitable beyond any expectation. Pics and posts to come. Jim has already put up some photos on Facebook (cough-overachiever-cough). So if you're friends with him, check 'em out. Also, he bought a fancy new camera right before the trip. When I compared what he was getting to what I was, suddenly, it seemed almost pointless to take pictures with my trusty point and shoot with the broken screen. (No, I'm not competitive, why?) But I did end up just kind of making suggestions about what would be good to take photos of with that nice camera instead of shooting my own sometimes. (Doesn't that sound charming?)

Highlights included an eating tour of Istanbul, abandoned buildings full of unexpected inhabitants on a Danube Delta island and a hot-air balloon ride over a surreal dawn landscape in Cappadocia.

Check back soon for these adventures and more!

Keisei Skyliner to Narita, Turkey

We're taking the new Keisei Skyliner to Narita. It's about 10 minutes shorter and 1000 yen less than the Narita express from Shinjuku for us. The transfer was easy. Five minutes was more than enough, even with a do-over needed after I explained to Jim that you put the ticket through first and then tap the Pasmo card - and then did the opposite. There was no line. Ideally, I'd leave probably 10 minutes or so to buy a ticket, just in case there's some dumb foreigner in front of you putting the tickets in wrong. The trains are brand new, with outlets at each seat. The seats are thin, dense foam over silver plastic shells. They look futuristic and chintzy at the same time, like the free digital alarm clock the bank gives you with a new account.
Anyway, we are going to Romania to birdwatch, meet a friend and drive "the best road in the world." And to Turkey to find out once and for all why Constantinople got the works.
I'll report back in about two weeks.

Wear it again

I think I'll just post this without comment and see if anyone who's known my family a long time has any observations to share.

Jello shots in a can

More of a bottle, I guess, a screw-top aluminum bottle. Of "decadent mango gelee alcohol for adults." It's meant to be shaken, then slurped.

Trouble Bagel

 

This "ethnical tuna" kind of encapsulates everything that makes going to Bagel and Bagel a dissonant experience. They put some tuna salad with Thai chili sauce on a bagel - that's fine, sort of. But what to call it? The Japanese has it as "ethnic," which is not wrong, just lazy. And then the English? "Hey, let's make the vague adjective a little adjectivier! Some English words have 'al' at the end, let's go with that."  Grr. 

In the same way, Bagel and Bagel itself looks like a familiar experience, but isn't. And that's what makes it tricky. Say I go eat ramen for breakfast. I know I'm having a Japanese experience and I expect it to be unfamiliar. But I see all these bagels, a list of cream cheese options, three sizes of coffee in paper cups - I feel like I'm on familiar ground. The little differences stack up and I realize, again, I'm not in Brooklyn anymore. 

I order the coffee and bagel set, with cream cheese. Oh, you'd like a cream cheese sandwich? Er, okay, sure. Well, that will be 75 yen more. If you want it as a set, you have to get the cream cheese and honey bagel sandwich. Alright then, cream cheese and honey sandwich, hold the honey. 

That's for here, right? Er. It's 8:46 on a week day and I'm getting a bagel for chrissakes, the very thought of a bagel "for here" is confusing to me. 

Also, could I please get milk in my coffee? Cream is over the trash can over there. Yes, but I'd love some real milk, please, not those thimbles of Creap (actual name). Even if I did dig petrochemical (guessing) whitener, I'd rather not fiddle with opening five of them and waiting for the viscous stuff to drain out. And, I don't want to have to deconstruct the careful to-go packaging to get the cup out. Oh, no, this requires a consultation with someone in the back of the kitchen. I feel a bit guilty, being a difficult customer with strange demands. Final verdict: I get the real milk. Yes! Thank you and sorry. 

I do walk out with a sesame bagel with cream cheese and a coffee. Yes, it is wonderful that this can happen in Tokyo. The end result is fantastic, if a little chewy. But I never feel further from home than in a place like this that feels almost, well, New Yorkial.

Keep cool, Bub

 

I've been seeing ads on the train for this Bub Shower cooling lotion. They say something like "leave behind your body that sweats" and have a cartoon that suggests a (watery) soul leaving the body.

My friend Kim tried it and said it left her shivering after a shower. Shivering beats wilting, melting and sweating, which is what we've all been doing lately. I found a lone bottle of the stuff in a drug store, stashed on a shelf next to the fizzy cooling bath tablets made by the same company. (On the way out, I saw there was a whole basket with all three strengths outside the front door.)

When you shake the bottle, per instruction, a heavy ball inside clacks like in a paint marker or quick-dry correction fluid. Residue on the outside of the bottle dries the same way, too.

You put it on in the shower, after washing, and then rinse it off. (You have to wonder what's staying on you.) It spreads on, white and slightly watery, with no noticeable effect. And then, sometime during the rinsing, the cooling starts. These days, stepping out of the shower feels a like stepping into a mild sauna. If you're not slathered in Bub.

If you are, it feels like every skin cell has made its own independent deal with the devil. How can you feel so chilly when even the porcelain of the sink is warm to the touch? Wrapped in a towel, still shivering, you start to think you may be about to pay the price, with an ironic, icy demise, for thinking you can outsmart the weather. And then slowly, the coolness fades and you are left feeling just pleasantly unsweaty, which is the real claim the stuff makes.

Cold patches stayed between my fingers for more than an hour, though--a reminder of what happens when we meddle.

Fish in a drunk, crowded barrel

I ended up on the last train tonight, the 00:25 out of Yurakucho. I was working and only remembered it just in time. I hit save, mailed my document to myself and went looking for the freight elevator to get out. The train was pretty empty when it rolled in. I could have gotten a seat if I'd walked up a few cars. But you know those collections of photos of salarymen sleeping amusingly on trains? I could have set up a whole website of them just from what I saw on the cars that rolled past. One guy was semi-fetal on a seat, feet near the ground and body curled behind a pole. Another was in a full crouch by a door, forehead resting on his knees. Various slumpers in all directions. The man I liked least was standing near me, eyes closed, swaying, briefcase banging my knees at each curve in the tracks.
Mercifully, there was an unusual amount of breathing room for a last train. I still feel constantly stressed out that someone is going to throw up at any moment, though. Always feels like a minor miracle when nobody does.

Tanabata wishing tree

 

Today is Tanabata in Japan, a traditional holiday based on a Chinese folklore tale of separated lovers only allowed to meet on the seventh day of the seventh month. It's celebrated by writing wishes on pieces of paper tying them to a bamboo branch. When I was teaching junior high school in Miyazaki, a lot of the classrooms made these. Seems like a good class activity, especially a good, painless English exercise. I think at the time the wish I wrote was that I'd become able to speak Japanese. The kids seemed to think that was an unbelievably uninteresting wish. I was partly trying to inspire them to want to learn English and I was partly really into studying at that time. 

I've been surprised to see quite a few of the branches around Tokyo. Two cops at Harajuku's huge new police station were dragging two leafy stalks of bamboo into the front door the other day, held sideways because they were much taller than the doorway. I saw this one at my train station the other day, a Tokyo Metro version. They left paper and pencils to write your own wish. I was passing through the station quickly and didn't stop to write anything or see what anyone had written. Good old Wikipedia says it was originally a day to wish for improvement of your skills, especially "better sewing and craftsmanship" for girls and handwriting for boys.
The woman who had the apartment before me in Miyazaki left, among a million other scraps and souvenirs, a big handkerchief that said Tanabata on it and had a colorful picture I can only compare to the seven dwarfs. It looked cheerful, and I tacked it to the spare room door (I had a spare room!). I would have sworn the holiday had something to do with seven spirits, maybe represented in a constellation, but that does not seem to be true. I think I'll wish for a better memory.
Got any wishes for improvement?

Two crazy ways to wake up

 

This is a new(ish?) green tea blend from Asahi. It's called Morning Blend. Know  what's so morning about it? It's zero caffeine. You know, just what you want in the morning. What?! I hope you've noticed that I don't like to be all "Whoa, Japan's k-k-krazy," but this defies explanation. What's the point?

Okay, I promised two crazy things, but this second is actually totally reasonable in comparison: breakfast ramen. I wrote about this "asa-ramen" for pulse. Tokyo Walker, a magazine that has a bit of a tendency to cry Trend! called it a trend. Actually, they called it a "boom."  I would want to see a line around every ramen shop on every corner to feel comfortable going with "boom," but there do seem to be more ramen shops open at dawn now than a few years ago, so I don't mind saying "an increasing number." (See how boring it is inside my head?)

Please check out the story. It has a photo of a big, greasy bowl of ramen at the top. If you're on the breakfast side of the world and that doesn't sound appetizing, you can come back at lunch time.

I've never had ramen for breakfast, but I would. I got used to savory breakfast (fish, rice, miso soup, pickles, leftover sushi) the first time I was here. No different than a slice of cold pizza for breakfast, really. And we all like that, don't we?

Two videos for you

These have both been making the rounds. Maybe slightly different rounds. I thought it would be fun to have them both in one place.

This one is a 10-minute silent film (with nifty intertitles like "Rice, the bread of the East...") My friend Roy posted it on Twitter.

The second is called Hayaku, and it's a beautiful stop-motion tour by Brad Kremer of some of the same places almost a century later.

Hayaku: A Time Lapse Journey Through Japan from Brad Kremer on Vimeo.

Take this ring and smash it

Writing for Pulse has been fun. But it got so much more fun with this story about divorce ceremonies in Japan that end with a cathartic smashing of rings. I found a short story about the phenomenon in a Japanese magazine and figured it had already been done to death in the English media - it sounds like that kind of story. It's gotten a ton of coverage in the Japanese (and Korean) media, but the only place it had been picked up in English was in an un-bylined story in the Mainichi, in translation from a Japanese story they'd done about it. Not even a photo.

I pieced together a story from a few Japanese reports online and the blog of the guy who runs the ceremonies, Hiroki Terai, but there were some discrepancies that didn't sit right with me. I made a quick call, expecting an endless runaround with some corporate PR department who would demand ID and faxes and the right to check the story before it went out. Instead, I reached a friendly older-sounding woman (imagine, at Friendly Travel), who answered my questions and gave me the cell number for the divorce guy himself. Terai picked up right away, and we chatted for 45 minutes. He was so interesting and sincere about what he's doing: providing a clear, dignified way to mark the end of a marriage and make a positive start to a new phase of life. If the photos make it all look a little goofy, that speaks more to his sense of humor than to a lack of seriousness.
Blogs are under no obligation to get quotes - they're often just an endless circle of links to each other, or to original content in other forms. Not necessarily bad, that's just generally where we fit into the information ecosystem. But since Terai was so accessible, it seemed like a waste not to just go ahead and rock some direct talk. It was so much more fun to write it that way.
I was a little afraid that my friends at Mutant Frog would give it the 2D Love treatment. (I'm not sure if I'm proud or disappointed that they didn't.) We did get some hostile, nutty comments on Pulse, but not the "You're sensationalizing!!1!" kind I was expecting. Something about writing about Japan makes people slap around broad, cliche-soaked brushes. I wouldn't be surprised if the next person who writes about the ring-smashing ceremony throws in some eye-popping sloppy numbers and overgeneralizations. That story will probably be more fun to read. But for now, check out mine.

You got your tomato juice in my lemonade!

The purple potato latte is gone (obviously a spring drink) and has been replaced by a light, summery lemonade - with a little tomato juice blended in. Even in this line's signature gorgeous photography, this looks gross. Even the shininess of the tomato can't distract from the fact that the tomato juice is spreading like spilled blood in the pitcher of lemonade.
But once again, they've pulled it off. Maybe it's just the power of suggestion, but it tastes like no more and no less than what's pictured on the box: limes, lemon, honey, fresh ginger and tomatoes. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad, right? Sweet and refreshing with just a hint of savory. I hear they also have a thick gelee version, which sounds like tomato aspic in a box and which I hope not to try.
Ah, who am I kidding. Watch this space...

Yoga-writing challenge

I don't really write or even talk about yoga that much. I do it once in a while, sort of often, mostly at home. I've been to a few classes in Tokyo. The places I tried introductory offers at were elegant (black mats, wafting aroma oils) and expensive. The going rate, I've found, tends to be more than double what it was in NY when I left. (Still cheaper than what we charge for an hour of English lessons, though, and rarely do I sweat or have to touch sweaty people while I'm teaching English. Hm.)

Anyway, I joined this 21-day yoga-writing challenge because those are two things I've been trying to do more of anyway, and you're supposed to put a badge on your blog and write about how it's going. I'm not so big on huge group participation - and this has become a huge group. But I'm trying to play along nicely.
If you think it's something you might like to try, too, check out Bindu Wiles' site for details (How great a name is that?). Unless something wacky happens, you probably won't hear too much more about it from me here, though hopefully the writing portion of it will result in a little more other blog writing. I'll probably talk about it a bit on Twitter. (Did I mention I like Twitter? Can I tell you some more about Twitter?)
So, anyway, namaste and all that.

Don't forget your umbrella... at home?

 

I saw this exact thing happen right before my eyes yesterday. So maybe the sign is working. 

But I have to say, I feel like the message here is getting a little bit convoluted. The headline urges you to be vigilant and thoughtful in interacting with fellow passengers: spot, tap, return. The tagline asks that you be careful about your own property. Taken together, it all adds up to a less umbrella-littered commute for everyone, but, separately, the two parts of the sign are addressing different people and different behaviors. The message is not consistent.

Even just saying that, I realize it's crazy. Of course the cartoon can be about both looking out for the other guy and looking out for yourself at the same time. This is clearly the technical editor in me who's protesting. (She's not really a good time.) Being professionally hypervigilant about grammatical problems is a particularly painful occupational hazard around here. (I imagine it would be pretty rough in the US, too, actually.)

So. Even though this campaign is ringing a little funny for me, I still like it and am grateful to it for making me realize that I may be losing my English marbles.

 

PS Saying that one is "professionally hypervigilant about grammatical problems" all but guarantees a few typos. Wacky KitKat (or York Peppermint Patty, for fellow Japanlanders) to the first person who finds mine in this post.

Latte foam art face transplant

Last weekend, we met up with my old friend James (he has a radio show, Folkwaves, that you should check out). A drizzly day, perfect for a cozy lunch at Better Days. We enjoyed tasty sandwiches, Japan rarities like Ruebens and fresh mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes.
I met James on the JET orientation in Tokyo in 1997. We bonded making fun of how shallow other people were. Which, of course, is quite shallow.*   But we're still friends 13 years later so maybe there's some kind of lesson there.

We all ordered lattes. They were all delicious, but only mine had art. James and Jim just got leaves.

A bit unfair, right?

My inner Robin Hood – not to mention my inner mad scientist – went to work and decided to take the face...off.

Relax. I can assure you I am a fully licensed face transplantologist.

*He sent me a postcard from Hiroshima to Miyazaki with a satellite image of Japan on it that I then used in my middle school classes. It was roughly to scale with a US map that I'd stick to the blackboard at the beginning of my first lesson to each new class to show the relative sizes of Japan and America. I would make the kids guess how much bigger the US is than Japan. After they guessed, I'd say, "Nope! Fifty-two times!" and then tap the postcard of Japan against the map of the US and start counting, "One, two, three.... fifty-one, fifty-two!" Exciting, eh?

Do you know what Japan is doing on the Twitter?

Well, I hope not. Because if you already do, then I've wasted a heck of a lot of time writing this new story for Pulse. Twitter really is kind of exploding in Japan right now, stats-wise and buzz-wise. Every time I meet a new group of Japanese people and ask them what trend I should write about, they say, Tsubuyaki? Which is Japanese for Twitter. (Though the more direct Japanese is tsu-itt-a.)
Companies are starting to realize the potential and are putting together big, interactive, strange, fun campaigns.

Please check it out, maybe leave a comment over there? About something related to Twitter, preferably. But we'll take what we can get.

New Twitter marketing in Japan, on Pulse. (Yes, again. But newer, better, with extra wow.)

Even close friends won't tell you if you have sweat stains

It got chilly again this weekend. Which is kind of great considering how unbearably humid it will be soon. It's already stifling in this train car. This makes the Wacoal ads for sweat-guarding clothes seem like a good idea. Notice how this ad uses diagrams, fear tactics, reassurance and a pretty western lady in Japanese clothes to make the pitch. Not to mention a clever pun for the name of the shirt itself, sugoi.

I rounded up a few of these breezy duds on Pulse. I didn't mention it there, but my resident aviation expert says that Toray, the textile company behind some of the performance fabrics, also makes the carbon fiber wings of Boeing's 787. I think that could make for an interesting ad campaign.

Meet at the lion

The lion in front of the iconic Ginza branch of Mitsukoshi department store is a common meeting point for people catching up in Ginza after work. It's a small space, but there are always a few people standing there checking their watches or killing time on their cell phones.

The bronze statue itself is behind a construction wall for restoration now. This photo could prevent I-don't-see-a-lion missed connections.

Premium Midsize Office

This place is going up near my office, at breakneck speed, of course. Not just regular midsize offices, mind you. Premium. Acme Widgets can open its generic Tokyo offices at last.

Shibazakura, field of phlox

The other night around 10:30 Miki sent a text message asking if we wanted to take a 6 am train to see a field of flowers near Mt. Fuji. I basically never want to take a 6 am train, especially with such short notice. But the fact that she was willing to made me wonder what was so great about this flower carpet thing. I checked out the website, which said that the flowers were at peak blossom as of right this second, and looked again at her message, which said that it was going to be super fantastic and she'd been waiting forever to see it.

A long train ride on a sunny day also seemed like it would be a good balance to the day before, a day that had somehow passed without getting any closer to the outdoors than the balcony. So, a compromise: we'd take a train at a more civilized hour and meet her at the Fuji Highlands.

We ran around Shinjuku station the next morning insisting to everyone in a uniform that there was meant to be a special holidays-only express train to Kawaguchiko at 10:20 and demanding to know what platform it left from. They all said there was no such train, but I wasn't fooled; Miki had said this train ran only a few times a year for this festival and don't be surprised if some of the staff didn't know about it.  And I'd seen it on the website. However, even the special "temporary" track didn't have the train displayed. We finally got on a similar - but not quite as express - express train and wondered where that mysterious Harry Potter train could be.

It was a gorgeous ride on the Chuo line, with wild wisteria hanging in the trees and bright flowers and greens in gardens. At Otsuki, we changed for the Fujisankyukou train, an adorable relic painted with silly Fuji faces, for a slower ride through Yamanashi's farmland. A man next to us sipped sake out of the screwcap of a commemorative blue glass Fujisankyu bottle, sketching the mountain, as it went in and out of view, on the side of the sake bottle's box with a ballpoint pen.

From Kawaguchiko, it was a bus ride to the Shibazakura festival. Miki had gotten stuck in terrible traffic a few hours earlier. By the time we got there, a lot of it was heading toward us. (I'm telling you, going early is rarely rewarded around here.) And so at last, after a 3-hour journey, this field of sunny pink and white flowers swept out before us at the foot of a crisp Mt. Fuji. They smelled sweet. A sign at the gate rated the flowers 50% open, despite what the website had said. There were a lot of people, a lot of them old, but the openness of the space kept it from feeling really crowded. A huge, gnarled chunk of tree turned into a polished taiko drum sent up an echoing background. Japanese fairground food, including meat-wrapped rice balls from Miyazaki, made nice snacks.

People were setting up huge tripods to wait for the sunset, but the last bus left too early for us to watch Fuji turn pink.

 The Shibazakura Festival runs through May 31. The Fuji Highlands "free ticket" from within Tokyo on JR for 4500 yen covers some of the local transportation around there, but we still needed an extra 400 yen for the bus and park entrance, and an extra 300 to take the express train (rather than the included local) from Otsuki to Kawaguchi-ko. The official name of the ticket is the 河口湖・山中湖セレクトフリーきっぷ or "Kawaguchiko Yamanakako select free kippu."

There are several express buses from Tokyo to the site. The most direct goes from Shinjuku to the festival grounds at 8:40 and 11:40, and it looks like it would be 4300 round trip, though that may not include festival entrance. And you're on a bus for two and a half hours plus god knows how long when you hit traffic.

And that mysterious holiday express train from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko that didn't exist? It was all my mistake. That train arrives at 10:20. It leaves Shinjuku at 8:14. Because the timetable runs from bottom to top. This is totally clear once you know it. Lesson learned - keep an eye on the arrows, even - especially - if they seem to be pointing in an odd direction. Any Chuo train headed for Kofu should get you to Otsuki.

The Hard, The Quality and The Creamy

(Not pictured: the Italian)
A newish line of canned coffee from Itoen.
I hate to say it, but I've mostly lost my taste for vending machine coffee. It is reassuring to know it's there as a last-ditch option. I think there was a time when I really liked it. When I do drink it now, even though at least the last dozen cans have been in Tokyo, it still tastes like cycling to school in Miyazaki, or sneaking downstairs and outside to the machine around the corner from the board of education office where I was shackled to a desk all summer.
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At first. And then, too often, an ammonia taste jumps out and I try to make a mental note of which variety of which brand it is so I don't get it again. But there are too many. I can never remember.

I just tried The Creamy, and it was nice and mild. Sweeter than I like coffee to be, but a tasty drink. Maybe the "the" will make it memorable.

Purple potato latte is my new favorite drink

This is a milk drink made with strained steamed carrots, squash and purple potato. It's sweet and really does have a mild potato flavor.
Look at the amazing color of the dark purple potato. Don't you think you'd remember if you'd ever run across one before? Doesn't it seem like something restaurants would be excited to serve? That's what I thought, anyway. Turns out, they're grown only in Okinawa and it's illegal to export them raw. So they turn up in chips and now drinks, but not much else.

By the way, by "turns out" I mean "someone told me." If you know otherwise, let's hear it.

Free lard chunks

In the meat section, for greasing up your skillet. Do we have that?

Interesting that cubes of fat are free, but plastic bags at this Coop are 5 yen each. Not contradictory or anything, just interesting. I guess people have more motivation to take a pile of extra bags than to take more than they need of this stuff.

Future city Shiodome

From the top down: skyscraper, train, pedestrian bridge, highway, plaza, long escalators to semi-open underground shopping arcade. Red and white lights reflected from glass elevators slide up and down the building. This bubble-built complex is the version of Tokyo people imagine when they're thinking slick and vertical.

Hitched in Japan (Not me, relax, Mom)

Pete and Morgan came to Japan for 14 days with a modest but clear agenda: to see some cherry blossoms, find some great coffee, and get married again. They took in some chilly sakura revelry at Yoyogi Park. They had coffee everywhere - I can't wait til Pete puts his caffeine fiend's map of Tokyo online. And they got married at Minato-ku Ward office. Their goal is to pick up 12 marriage certificates before they have a friends-and-family wedding affair.

They did a little reading up in advance. They got a certificate from the US Embassy in Tokyo that said they were fit to be wed, and they filled out a pile of papers at the ward office not much more or less complicated than what I needed to get my cellphone. Someone there translated what they wrote on the forms into Japanese, including "first-born son" and "second daughter" and the phonetic spellings of their parents' names.

All that remained was to get signatures from two witnesses. Feeling celebratory, they went to a cafe across the street from the government building. They tried to convince a waitress to sign. She might have been game, but she checked with a manager who came over, grunted "Happy wedding" in English, and motioned for them to put the unsigned papers away. They cabbed over to my neighborhood. Over spicy black tantan men, careful not to get any broth on the forms, I signed one half of the witness form. We walked back to my office in the rain, where they traded a foil pack of blueberry gummies for another signature from one of my coworkers. Taxi back to the ward office. I joined them and smoothed over a few queries from the kindly, but possibly contagious, civil servant helping them from behind his flu mask.
(Pete gamely tried to answer a question by explaining the societal concept of adding "Jr." to a name, but it turned out the guy was just asking whether it should be transliterated as "joonier" or "jiyoonier.") The clerk, Mr. Toyoda, was one of those cool old guys I associate more with Miyazaki than Tokyo. When I asked him if they could get a copy of the certificate to keep, he said it had to be for a specific purpose, like for submitting to an embassy or a court. I leveled with him - they just want a copy to keep. "Gotcha,"  he said. "We'll call it... embassy."

We sat and waited for the official document longer than the original paperwork. We were alone in the rows of seats except for a nosy homeless guy. Finally, they paid an extra three bucks and got an A4 certificate, a pretty cool souvenir from their first trip to Japan.

Winter weather, summer hats

On the morning show Mezamashi TV, the model insisted that the only way to wear spring's hot boater hat, or "kankan-bou," is to tilt it a bit, just so. She held the pose a few seconds longer than was comfortable to watch.

Back in the studio, as they do, the regular announcers each showed off one of the hats. With an awkward adjustment and an unconvinced, unsmiling laugh, the non-model modeling the straw hat said, "She said it looks more fun if we tip it like this." She didn't look like she was having much fun. 

I had fun writing about boater hats for Pulse, though. Except I've been plagued with the old ShopRite can-can jingle the entire time. (Does anyone at all know what I'm talking about?)

Coffee/social grace taste

I took the Starbucks Via taste test challenge today. I sipped from the two paper shot cups and knew which was the instant coffee. I named the right one with confidence. Which means, of course, that I was totally wrong.

The nod from the woman in the green apron was something between disappointed and annoyed. We both turned to the woman of a certain age behind me, who was tickled to try the coffee she'd seen on TV that morning. She was a Japanese steel magnolia (steel tsubaki?), powdered, coiffed, brooched and charming. "Let me try," she said. She sipped, and went blank for a moment, like everyone on TV does when tasting anything.

"Why, I don't taste any difference at all. They're just exactly the same!" Ah. That, of course (of course!) was the right answer. "It pleases me so much that you feel that way!" the aproned one beamed. Some lame need to not appear ungrateful or blunt made me try again. "Yeah, I mean, they're both really good, right?" I said.

We each got a coupon (buy three Vias, get one free), even if mine was handed over reluctantly. I put it in my wallet.

If I try Via again, next time I'll try adding a little sugar.

Dangerous product placement

In the basement of Ginza's Hanamasa, the wholesale grocery store, they have a syrup section. The honey on the right, in an industrial squeeze bottle, is just the start. There's lemon honey, sundae toppings, corn syrup, maple syrup and kuromitsu, a dark molasses, all delicious treats.
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On the left is another squeeze bottle of amber gel. That one goes on charcoal to help it burn. Less delicious. Choose with caution.

Caramel dose

Each flavor of these caramels is more delicious than the last. The first one I noticed was black tea, then plain, then dark chocolate and now matcha. The only one that was underwhelming was plain.
They come in odd little pressed packets, sealed like ice pops or maple seed pods. It takes focus to unpeel them without making a sticky mess. The bag suggests chilling them. This would surely make it easier to scrape
the slick of goo out from between the sandwiching wrappers. I intend to try this, but the bag is always empty by the time I get to it.

C. C. Lemon. Yeah!

What's interesting about this family of aliens from planet lemon is that they're standing in front of the Tokyo Sky Tree. That's the latticed column in the middle of the background. When it's done, it will be the tallest structure in Japan, twice as big as the next tallest. But right now, it's only (exactly) half built. Directly above the top of the frame of this picture, there are just cranes and bare beams.
Also, there's the whole family of aliens from planet lemon thing.

Twitter life

I know that writing this makes me one of those starry-eyed late-adopter people. (What is it they say about new converts?) If you're all "I don't see the point of Twitter and I don't care to," that's totally fine. Move along. You will find this post very annoying. Guaranteed.

Most of this weekend was a direct result of Twitter.* There was a big cherry blossom party on Saturday for a group of people who all met on Twitter. It was hosted by a couple, Kerry and Mimy, who are both active users. Before we headed there, I met up with my friend Kim. I met her first on Twitter and then for the first time in real life when I spotted her sitting behind me at an event and recognized her from her avatar and from a Twitpic she had posted.

At the party, warmed by the heat of two non-stop charcoal grills, I was talking to Satoka. I knew from her posts that she spends time in Shibuya and asked if she had any suggestions for where to take some visiting friends that night. She said there was a modern Japanese bar and restaurant with microbrews that would be perfect, except that it had no sign and would be hard to find. All the better! She called the owner of the place, Cacoi, and asked if he'd be open that night. He said yes, and she asked him to keep an eye out for a group of foreigners. She told me to mention her using her Twitter handle - that's how they knew each other.

During a mass stroll through the tony neighborhood's sakura-lined river, I talked to my friend Joseph, a Brit who's involved with TEDxTokyo. I told him about my friend-I-haven't-met-yet Andrew, another Brit in Singapore who does online presentation training videos using TED Talks as a base. Joseph was one of the few people there that Jim already knew. Jim stays away from the Twitter pipe, but can't avoid getting some second-hand smoke. I pointed to Mark when we got there. "That's the guy who got stuck in traffic on the three-day weekend," I said. Jim went right over and struck up a conversation. "Sandra showed me the pictures you put up that day," Jim said to Mark. "Man, I've been there."

We said our goodbyes to the Twitter party, including Niki's whole family, up from Osaka for the event, and Theresa, who had come from Shizuoka. On the train, I checked in with Emma, my friend-I've-never-met in LA who recommended I read Pattern Recognition. I am loving the book. (I pester author William Gibson, occasionally, too, on Twitter.)

The visiting friends were waiting at Hachiko's bronze paws, just as we'd arranged on Twitter the night before. I know this will make my mother nervous, but the head of the group was a man from Romania named, as far as I knew up until a few days ago, Bluegod. (His avatar is a cartoon of a blue dog. This confuses my little brain every time.) Marius and his friends were completely lovely, as I expected from his posts. Six of us had drinks (craft beers for them, black tea ume shu for me) and seasonal takenoko and mountain vegetable tempura. They hurried to catch the last train, leaving behind a present of a book that looks great.

On Sunday, some old-fashioned offline touristing with real-life non-Twitter friends Pete and Morgan. Non-Twitter on pain of penalty; Pete has been given ultimatums about starting an account.  I parked them in a cafe (a gem, discovered simply because it's on the way home) to check out a small art exhibition. In my new constant trendquest, I asked the guy next to me if I could take a picture of his glasses. He said sure and asked how I knew about the show. Twitter.  Him too. We exchanged handles, which means I should be able to get a hold of him easily if I need follow-up info about his specs.

When I started doing reporting for Kyodo News in 1999, it was about a fifty-fifty deal whether companies would have the information we needed online or not. When I left the Tokyo Shimbun in 2008, our English language reporting was almost all done online. I imagine finding some of the feature story subjects I hunted down would be easier or the people found would be a wider pool with the added power Twitter's loose connections.


*Not Friday. Friday I went to see Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs play at Billboard Live at Tokyo Midtwon. It was great. Jim got tickets through work, and we went with a friend who is adamantly not into the world of Twits. I didn't tweet about it. Oh! Except I did find Matthew Sweet on Twitter afterwards. He pimps his handmade ceramics (!) there. I sent him a message. He hasn't replied yet.


Image credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrotcreative/ / CC BY 2.0