Masked world

"Japan's family mask."

"For those who can't take time off, Virus Guard."

I think these pictures are meant to be reassuring, but I can't say that's the main effect.

Panda pants

He bought them in Ueno.

Rookie error, on all six scenic trails

There was a New York Times article about Mt. Takao that called it "a mountain of tranquility." This is a little like saying the subways are really spacious and it's easy to get a seat - sure, at 5 am. Mt. Takao is a vast expanse of meditative natural surroundings, say, on a drizzly Wednesday. If you want to go at a time that's sort of mainstream convenient, like a gorgeous holiday weekend, congratulations. You just had the same good idea as 5 million of your closest friends.
We got in line and filed up a paved switchback, stood in a few lines for icecream and gave up without getting any, and then came back down a trail that was more of a trail. It felt like some kind of forced evacuation through the woods. Lots of kids had wooden walking sticks with bells on them to scare off bears. I'm sure any bears in a 20-mile radius were cowering in their caves waiting for the holiday weekend to end. There were also a few misguided trailrunners all geared up in high-performance spandex and camelbacks trying, comically, to weave through the throngs.

We relaxed later at an onsen that was a free shuttle bus ride away from Takaosan-guchi station. We were early and were lucky to get seats instead of standing for the 20-minute ride through traffic. The baths were nice, after a 10-minute line at the front counter. The place subscribes to this odd Japanese notion that adding "pi" or "pia" to the end of a word makes it sound fun, so it was called "Takao no Yu Furo-pi," which sort of roughly translates as "Takao Hot Spring Bath-y!" They rendered it in "English" as "Froppy." The baths were a bargain at 800 yen, and, after the initial wave of senior citizens washed up and went upstairs to pass out in TV recliner chairs, spacious and relaxing - a rare quality for anything worth doing during a holiday weekend.

If you know of anything else that's not maddening to do when the whole country has off at the same time, please leave your suggestions in the comments. Today, I'm going to roll the dice with a trip to Costco. I'm thinking maybe everyone else is crammed onto a mountain somewhere.

Latte foam art imitates life

Perfect latte foam art for the first lazy day of a five-day weekend at heaven-sent Better Days. Could the barista tell how late I'd slept in? Jim, the early riser, got a leaf.


Is this wrong?

Groping is a no-no, or Win a genuine Tokyo subway poster

Today is the end of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's five-day crackdown on subway gropers. The campaign put uniformed officers on platforms and undercover cops on trains to try to reduce the thousands of incidents of surreptitious groping and photographing - "chikan" - on rush hour trains last year. Cops announced one collar (of a repeat offender) on the first day and nothing since that I can find.
The week started with fanfare - shouting high school girls were on TV waving a banner in a busy station, and the English and Japanese editions of the newspapers all covered the first arrest. It ended quietly, with the attendant at the station near my office taking down this poster after rush hour this morning.

It says "Chikan is a crime. It will mess up your life."

Well. Quite the motto.

We wouldn't want a molester's life messed up, now, would we?

Jerks.

I bet you could do better.

I will mail this genuine Tokyo Police Department subway poster to the person anywhere in the world who comes up with the best alternate anti-groping slogan. Leave your suggestion(s) in the comments. A winner will be chosen in a week - make sure you leave a way for me to contact you. You can even re-imagine the art, if you like. Don't feel locked in by the accusatory female cop. Heck, make your own poster and send me a link, if you're feeling ambitious.

You can keep your prize poster, sell it on e-Bay, give it to a friend for the holidays. It was only on the wall for a week, so it's in pretty good shape, although it does have what the station guy called "a torn corner" and what I prefer to think of as "authenticity."

Note: I actually don't find this funny at all. I get so angry when I think about it that you would probably say, "Sheesh, chill out." Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from kicking someone, you know?

Rookie error, hot or iced.

I went into a small coffee shop for a quick cup of tea between appointments. It had a low-slung, faded elegance like Frank's Cocktail Lounge in Fort Greene, Brooklyn - brass and crystal fixtures and worn, ash-colored upholstery with cigarette burn holes poked here and there.

It was empty when I walked in, and I just asked the woman behind the long counter for tea without looking at a menu. The tea cup clinked against the saucer before I even got to a table as she started the order. I realized my mistake as soon as I sat down. The first item on the standing menu, "golden camel coffee," whatever that might be, was seven bucks. Regular coffee, six. Ack. There were two listings for tea. I had chosen milk over lemon - did that mean it was royal milk tea instead of regular, for an additional dollar fifty, dangerously close to ten dollars?

I didn't feel like I could leave. I guess I could have. I would have left behind nothing worse than an annoyed old lady in an apron, an empty tea cup, and a simmering pot of water. But it just didn't feel like it would be the right thing to do. So I folded my jacket and looked at the magazine rack by the door, the covers announcing upcoming summer fashions.

There's no heart-warming ending where the woman said I reminded her of her own beloved granddaughter or commented that Americans actually do have nice manners after all or brought out a free homemade delicacy that made it all worth more than the price tag. I gulped down a decent cup of hot tea with warm milk on the side, put down my 600 yen in the silver tray by the cash register, and left.

The take-home lesson is that shabby little retro cafes are among the most deceptively expensive places in Japan to get your caffeine fix. Maybe worth it if you want to sit and contemplate - they won't kick you out (though they won't give you a free refill, either), but not the place for a quick cup.

Occupational hazard

I never thought much about articles before I went through editorial training, except maybe to be glad that ours are so much easier than than the fussy variations in French.

I hadn't thought about how hard it could be to figure out which to use when or what an impact it has if you get it wrong. And because Japanese doesn't use articles, a native Japanese speaker writing in English has to make a conscious judgement before every noun about which, if any, article to use. Think about how you would explain the difference. Not easy, is it? The people who write the stuff we work on are often brilliant scientists and cutting-edge engineers but rarely advanced speakers of English. A veteran editor suggested a handy rule of thumb: "If you see the word "the," it's wrong."

"Cynic," I scoffed.

Unfortunately, it has too often proved true. Now I question every "the," "a," "an," or blank space where one of these might be AWOL. The gaps are the worst, and they are the reason my head implodes every time I see this ad on the subway.

Pride of Lion. The possibilities are many - A pride of lions? The pride of the lion? Pride of a lion? You could mix and match all the way from Hibiya to Hatchobori (and, sadly, I have) and still not be sure what they were getting at.

Ping pong pearls

Betty and I found these fish outside a yakitori place down a tiny alley (not, I should add, the one that serves goldfish sours). They were in a big pottery bowl with a sheet of glass over the top. The owner of the restaurant, in a tall chef's hat, came out to see why we were hovering near his doorway. He seemed excited that we had stopped to admire the odd fish. He stuck his head into the restaurant next door and reported back that the fat little guys are called ping pong pearls. (The truthbox says they're "ping pong pearlscale goldfish," but I like his better.)
He agreed with Betty that they look uncannily like underwater birds.

Truck stack

Tiered bicycle and small car storage is common. Elf trucks, in my experience, less so.

Breakfast of wieners

Two breakfast options at coffee shop chain Doutour: German dog with mustard, or, for another 40 yen, Lettuce dog.

There is a certain school of thought that says, Hey, Japandra! So what? That's no different than an Egg McMuffin!

Maybe so. That, however, does not make it any more palatable to me. I don't want a McAnything for breakfast. (Or ever, if you must know.)

Double exclamation points indeed.