Snapshots, Misc.

In advance of my long-delayed post on my trip to Kamakura and Enoshima (coming soon!), I realized I had a load of pictures and random things I had been to or done that didn't quite justify a full blog post, but were definitely share-worthy. Since I am lazy, and since writing short captions for funny pictures is easier than fully chronicling a day-long trip, I ended up finishing this first. So, as we say in Japanese, どうぞ! (Doozo!) Here you go!

Don't Worry Be Happy? Yes, you did make my day, dear random store with the number seven on the front. From a street corner somewhere in north central Tokyo.

You know how they say the United States is always behind other countries when it comes to math and science education? Well, sometimes things like this make me wonder... taken on a subway line somewhere; I think the Chuo Line is too smart for this kind of nonsense.

I do not at all envy the guy who had to wave this flag around. Every year Sophia University and Nanzan University get together and have all their sports teams play against each other. Last year they held it at Nanzan, this year it was at Sophia. This was the opening ceremonies, and the flag is Sophia's emblem. Sadly, I did not get to go to any of the actual games, but we did beat them in a majority of categories, so we won!

So some friends and I went to a restaurant called Ninja. I got a crash course on the ninja arts (large thanks to Joe) and this is the result. Keep in mind that this picture was taken with the flash on. And yes, the scroll lying on the table is our menu.

An artifact from a forgotten age, this cube still seemed to radiate some unknown power... we spoke no louder than whispers, transfixed by the undulating design and indecipherable writing... actually I don't feel like pulling another Tokyo Teleport-style hoax here, so I will say straight up this is a magic cube from the floating city of Laputa, found on the roof of the Studio Ghibli Museum.

A few weeks back, our wonderful dormitory manager decided we should all go out and have some fun together, so he set up a trip to a nearby all-you-can-eat buffet, and invited all the students staying in the dorm to come for free. You get raw meat and cook it at your table, but that means you get it exactly the way you like it, so I have no problem with that!

Everybody talks about Yasukuni Shrine, or at least they used to when Prime Minister Koizumi made his annual trips there. The one good thing about Shinzo Abe is that he hasn't done that yet, so it hasn't been in the news lately. The basic story is that Yasukuni 1. enshrines the souls of convicted war criminals and 2. maintains a revisionist history museum painting Japan's WWII behavior as completely blameless (Pearl Harbor was forced by the Americans, the Nanking Massacre never happened, the Japanese Empire was an absolutely necessary development, etc.) Well. Americans have been known to do weird things too.

Some things about this picture I can explain. For instance, the black-and-white penguin is encouraging people to switch to the new Mobile Suica service, where you can use your cell phone as a train pass and credit card, and the text says "1 out of every 10 people gets ¥1000! You COULD WIN!!" But why the penguin is holding a duck head? Completely beyond me.

This requires some Japanese knowledge to appreciate the humor... the main political party in Japan (in fact the only one in power since WWII) is called 自民党 (jimintō). Somebody thought it would be fun to sell candy based on the name, so they now sell ジ・ミント (ji minto), which is how you would say "the mint" in phonetic Japanese. Get it? So maybe it's not such a good joke, but I thought it was funny at least.

Tanabata is this Saturday. That I knew already. I did not, however, know that the city of Koganei would randomly decorate its streets with crazy multicolored jellyfish thingies. Though as they say, "any day you can wake up to crazy multicolored jellyfish floating outside your window is a good day." I'm not sure if they do say that, but they should.

It's what we've all been waiting on for months-- the new elevated platform at Musashi Koganei Station is now open and functional! This picture is from the day before they opened it-- you can see the construction crews sweeping the tracks and the technician installing the vending machines. Very clean and nice and new. They're hardly finished-- they have only elevated the line going one direction (out from Tokyo) so they have to start all over again working on the other side-- but I'm glad they at least finished part of it while we're here.

Until next time!