Earthquake

 

Aargh. Computer just crashed on my long and thoughtful background about writing about the day of the quake. Just read this for now? Bout to head into Shinjuku and see what's what.

Mt. Fuji is looking a little frizzy

Beautiful sunset yesterday. You can see the snow blowing off of Mt. Fuji, especially if you click on the picture to enlarge it a bit.

When life gives you lemon-scented toilet paper

 

The smell of lemon means one of two things: a refreshing drink or a toxic cleaning product. And there are places where neither of these things should ever go.  

It happens that I wasn't the one who bought this pack, but I've done the same thing. Recently, and in bulk. In this land where celery is sold by the individual rib and one styrofoam tray of ground beef is just about enough to make two meatballs, I managed to pick up an eight-pack of floral-soaked rolls. Toilet paper is just about the only thing that is actually sold more often in big economy packages than in scanty micropacks. I think the wrapper boasted of 360 meters of smelly paper.

I don't know why I hate scented toilet paper so much. Beyond the cloying smell and the idea of blatant chemicals where I don't want them, that is. I guess that's enough reason. But I understand some people do like it. I mean, I don't understand why they like it, but I hear that they do. So whatever your preference, let this be a warning. Take a second at the store to give a closer look to any cute little drawings of flowers or fruit on your toilet paper, and make sure it passes the sniff test.

Hey, I put some marathon music in your bananas

I was walking around Aoyama one sunny day when I stumbled on a Tokyo Marathon pop-up shop. They were selling bright lime green and pink running gear and giving a presentation on how to do your hair and make-up for long runs. (Did you know there's a "golden point" where your ponytail should be?)
The woman running the thing offered me some mineral water and a sports banana. Sports banana? Yes, they're launching a banana at the marathon that's smaller than usual and higher in citric acid (Japan loves citric acid! Why?), making it the perfect banana for sports. (Not like those other bananas, that are a real pain to carry.) Between you and me, it kind of sounds like they found a new way to sell runtier bananas for the same price as bigger ones. But still, kind of interesting from a marketing standpoint. And then she dropped that oh, by the way, they're getting the bananas ready for the marathon by blaring a Japanese pop song throughout the enormous ripening facility for a week. Check out the whole story on Japan Pulse. It's bananas!
This is the song.
It's kind of the Eye of the Tiger of Japanese pop music.

Get out the way

I hate to generalize, but these posters have left me no choice. Maybe if I hadn't been dragging an overstuffed wheelie bag from the airport, up and down the steps of the train system the first time I saw them.

I read pictures slowly. Looking at the left panel, the next panel my brain (or was it my aching back?) drew was of the guy helping the woman with her bag. Wrong! It's the woman getting her stuff out of the way.
You do see a lot more people dragging wheeled bags here than elsewhere - they seem to be the (smart) accessory of choice for people on big shopping sprees or... actually, I don't know what everyone is doing with suitcases all the time. I understand the cosplay kids use them to carry their gear around. This picture seems to be a business traveler, though. (Projecting?)

 Here's another Clueless Cathy bringing the works to a halt with her bag. Jerk!
Japan has an image of being polite to a fault, and New York of being hard and heartless. But I've seen a hell of a lot more people helping each other lug bags and baby carriages up the steps in NY than in Tokyo.
How about that for a poster?

Another piece of my heart-shaped pizza

I should send a valentine to Papa John's PR team. They bought a hashtag on Twitter about their heart-shaped pizza. That sent me to my old post about Japan's much cuter version. Next thing I knew, I was clicking through delivery options on the Dominos website, scheduling a pizza of love for two hours later. By the time it arrived, Tokyo was getting a surprise snowstorm. Jim trudged home from work in it and got home wet and freezing. A hot novelty pizza went over better than any fussy homemade candy could have. I think his exact words were, "This is way better than chocolate!"
Hear that, Hallmark?

I made a movie

This has nothing to do with Japan, but I made a little Xtranormal movie. I'm pretty sure it's just on the cusp of going viral. Click now and you can say you saw it back before it was famous.



Okay, okay, maybe not. But this is only the beginning, I tell you.

Touchscreen gloves!

It was cold in Hokkaido a year ago when we went for the Sapporo Snow Festival. Jim tried to operate his iPhone without taking his gloves off by swiping the touchscreen across the tip of his nose. It didn't work too well. Since then, I've read about crafty hacks like sewing conductive thread into the fingertips of regular gloves, and possibly apocryphal hacks like using convenience store sausages in place of fingers. I've always preferred gloves with no fingertips at all (I cut them off if necessary, which is about as crafty as I get). Before Christmas this year, I was excited to find a big selection of touchscreen gloves at Tokyu Hands. Here's a little post I did on Pulse about some of the touchscreen gloves that are out now.

One kind didn't make it into the story, because I couldn't remember what they were called. I got them for Jim for Christmas. They have arrows on the fingers pointing to the conductive bits. Kind of a low-rent Tron effect. A few weeks later, one of the gloves still works great. The other one... like Jim said, they work a lot better when you don't lose them. Ah, well. Maybe they'll come out with a line of snazzy mitten clips next.

99 bottles of sake on the wall

 

I'm probably the millionth blogger to post this picture and this title, but so be it. It is what it is: 130 varieties of sake in little dispensers, on the wall. This is Ponshukan, a sake shop tucked deep in the back corner of a market in Echigo Yuzawa train station in Niigata. It's not especially well signposted; I never would have known it was there if a friend hadn't told us it was a must-see. For 500 yen, you get five tokens and a little ceramic ochoko or two to drink from. Each token gets you one choko-full of any of the sakes. Four that we tried were smooth and delicious; one tasted kind of fishy. If we'd had a little more time at the train station, I would have tried the sake onsen next door, too. You're not supposed to drink before you bathe, but I guess it's okay to bathe in what you drink. Drink or soak in sake: either one's a nice way to relax before a 90-minute shinkansen ride back to Tokyo.

Help/frighten the locals

Here is your bag. Now I will eat you.

Update. Funny, I saw this poster and immediately thought of a small black and white picture we have of a distant Italian ancestor of mine. Everyone on Twitter thought of Matsuko Deluxe, a Japanese drag performer (who I only really learned about when I was writing about Japanese Twitter bots, and found out hers was one of the most popular.) It's not just the resident aliens who saw the resemblance - my friend Takaaki pointed me to this Japanese story on Rocket News 24 that says everyone thinks it's Matsuko Deluxe. I guess only Bunpei knows for sure. Stay tuned...
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