A random bunch of pictures from Japan.

So you wanted to see a picture of Em dressed for the prom? Well, how about one of her dressed as a geisha?

She's the blue-eyed one. Upon viewing these pictures, her Japanese teacher said that she could tell right away which one was Em, as no Japanese woman would ever stand with her feet apart like this. (Raised by wolves she was.)

picture by Azuki's dad

The family that Em stayed with took both girls into Kyoto and paid for them to be costumed like geishas. When i saw this picture, i just couldn't believe it was my Em.

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This woman has a table along the walkway where she cuts out your likeness from paper. I thought it was cool. And no, that's not me.

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This picture shows that there are assholes everywhere. Although seeing Kanji characters carved into a tree amused me. It probably says "Yuki-n-Hatsumi 4 ever!"

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This was taken in the bamboo forests. This does not do the place justice because it doesn't capture the beautiful light and the blueish colors of the bamboo.

And again.

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This is a Japanese puppy we saw in a pet store. He costs around $1,600. Isn't he precious?

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Some graffiti from the streets of Kobe. I thought it was kind of eerie and sad and beautiful.

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In Kyoto, the Mister and i wandered away from the main tourist area and ended up walking along a river. Lots of garbage and some pretty birds. This is an egret.


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A close up of some dried mushrooms at a food store.

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Some pickled bits of something sold in bags. Loved the colors. Why did blogger decide to post this picture sideways?

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A man on a bicycle looking in the window at the meat store.

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A machine that automated the making of little sweet cakes. It was fascinating to me. I could have watched it for hours. At the end of the process a final motion stamps a picture on top of the cake.

And they were tasty too.

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At a park in Otsu. As you can see, it was cherry blossom season. Everyone spreads out those blue plastic tarps to sit on. Not a blanket in sight.

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I thought this was interesting. I can't tell if it's a homeless encampment or what. This is up the lake from the park in the above picture. Again, we were wandering far from the tourist area. Note the chickens and the heron fishing in the foreground. The water was full of garbage and turtles and frogs.

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This was just a collection of pictures for which i couldn't/didn't feel like coming up with a theme, but i wanted to show them to you anyway.

Oh Deer

I hope y'all aren't sick of Japan yet, because i still have some stuff to show and tell. On the home front, we survived Senior Prom this past weekend, but it was SO WEIRD seeing my tomboy geek daughter dressed all the hell up and looking incredibly beautiful.

Back to Japan:

The Mister and i visited Nara one day, where deer are considered sacred. They are all over the place. (This led me to wonder how many "incidents of unfortunate contact" occur between the deer and cars.)

Anyway, as i said, the deer are just wandering around in the street.

Every year (we read) the deer are rounded up and their antlers are sawn off. The brochure said that this is to avoid the deer hurting each other. I think this is to avoid the deer hurting people as they are pretty aggressive.

You can buy deer food from street vendors all over the place for 150 yen (about $1.50.) Here are some deer being aggressive. Wonder if her coat tasted good.

We were lucky enough to be there during cherry blossom season. The petals are falling like pink snow in this picture.

Of course there were signs telling us what not to do so as to avoid pissing off the deer. I did not see any deer that looked this angry, so whatever it was, we didn't do it.

Along the sidewalks there are traditional Japanese vendors selling yams baked in these portable wood burning ovens. The proprietress is talking on the traditional Japanese cell phone, somewhat ruining the anachronistic appeal of this scene.

This is the deer that caused me to finally give in to deer pressure and part with 150 yen for some deer wafers. Come on, BABY DEER!!! Tell me you could have resisted.

I believe this deer was posted there to help tourists find the bathrooms.

And hey, look at this! Meno pops her video posting cherry, takes a video of the deer and forgets to turn off the camera so you get to see her purse too. What could be better than that? C'mon, it's only 6 seconds long.

It must be a sign

I am easily amused. So here are some signs i took pictures of in Japan, with my interpretation of them below each one.

(When i first looked at this one, i thought it meant no jumping into puddles. Then i realized that the figure was a dog.) "No skateboarding, no dogs off leash, no fireworks, no eating or drinking. No fun in the park at all. Don't even smile."

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"If you give birth in the park, name the baby Dust, and take it home with you." (The Mister and i speculated that the phrase "Take Dust Home," might have come from the word dust bin. I can't explain why a stork was used as the image.)

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I'll just leave it up to your imaginations what i thought when i saw this sign. In my defense, i was so tired as to be giddy. I laughed so hard i was crying, even though it wasn't that funny. Clearly, i need psychological help.

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"If you ride your bike here, it will piss everyone off and bring shame to your ancestors."

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This from the side of an escalator. That kid sure doesn't look Japanese.

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"If you get your hands caught in this door, you will cry loudly and bring shame upon yourself and your ancestors."

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We didn't eat here. I hear the food tastes like shit.

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"900 meters to the Ghibli Museum." This is for all you Miyazaki fans out there. The museum was great.

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On the trains, this was to indicate to whom you should yield your seat. Although why that second man is carrying a beach ball-shaped speaker is a mystery.
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"If you drop your hat down upon the railroad tracks, do not jump down to retrieve it. Inspector Gadget will fetch your hat for you."

Gifts

Giving gifts is a big thing in Japan. Not big expensive gifts, but little things that are usually edible.

This is a sweet custom.

(Although i wonder about giving large gifts to people who then have to pack and fly across the Pacific with them.)

Below is one of the gifts The Mister and i received from the the family with whom Em's friend stayed. For size comparison, the scantily clad model holding this box is 5'5". The box is also about 4" deep. We first opened this on the Shinkansen (bullet train) traveling back to Tokyo the day before we left.

This is what was inside:

The box and its contents are both beautiful. But we weren't quite sure what it was.

Em's friend asked a nice Japanese man who was sitting next to us on the train. He told us that they represented the tiles found on top of traditional Japanese houses.

Still slightly puzzled, i asked "But, is it food?"

He started laughing and said that Yes, it was in fact, food.

It's a cookie! Three of them in fact, nestled together, shrink wrapped, wrapped in bubble wrap and placed lovingly inside the box.

They tasted like fortune cookies.

We also received a box of chocolates, some strawberry filled cookies, and a large Hello Kitty stuffed animal.

Balls! I haz some.*

Maggie sent me some balls!

(About time you might say.)

Here's Brown Cat enjoying the balls. They help with the feeling of loss he still has after losing his own in an inexplicable accident whilst at the vet's office. His mama was too cheap to buy him neuticals, so these will have to do. If it didn't cost $39 bucks, i would immediately get a neuticals keychain, just so i could fondle them.



*For those of you who haven't found this time waster yet, this is lolcat speak. Patches introduced them to me and i curse her daily as i am drawn back to squeal at yet another stupid picture of some adorable animal.

Umbrella etiquette

Back to Japan.

These pictures are all from Tokyo, where it rains quite a bit, not unlike the Northwest. But NO ONE wears a raincoat (the Mister and i stuck out in ours.) They all use umbrellas. These umbrellas are available at pretty much every store along the street, the clear ones for as little as 300 yen (about 3 bucks.)

There is a complicated set of rules for umbrella usage. You should not take your wet umbrella into a building without putting a condom on it first.

There is an umbrella condom machine outside most large buildings. You just jam your umbrella in and yank it back out, fully encased.

Alternately, you can store your umbrella in one of these umbrella racks, where you put it into a slot and lock it in with the little numbered key.

It was also a windy day in Tokyo, as evidenced by this umbrella graveyard. One of many that we encountered that day. One advantage of a raincoat is that it doesn't turn inside out in the wind and become useless.

I have included this picture because ISN'T THIS JUST ABOUT THE CUTEST THING EVER?

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I spent half an hour on the phone with my mother yesterday, who scolded me a little for not calling her sooner after we got back from Japan. She was mollified when i told her that Em and i had turned around and flown to Ohio.

Not once during the half hour did she ask about either the trip to Japan or the one to Ohio.

Unbelievable.

A brief side trip

You will not be able to guess where i am at this moment. Frankly, i am not sure where i am either.

Having not been pwned (Em assures me that this is how it is spelled) enough by flying home from Japan, this morning i got up at o'fuck thirty and flew to Ohio with Em.

So yeah, i am in Ohio, three MORE hours east from Japan.

Em is checking out a college that she feels pretty sure she wants to attend.

We had to drive for about an hour after flying into Columbus. And what did Em and i notice about the drive? There must have been 50 road kills in the 25 miles we drove after getting off the highway, and two thirds of them were raccoons. I am not exaggerating, fifty!

How are there any raccoons left?

Does someone collect all the carcasses and make coats?

What kind of steak was that that i just ate for dinner?

Monkeys

We went to Arashiyama Monkey Jungle. Oh yes we did.

It cost about $5.00 to get in, and there are monkeys. What more could you ask?

We paid our money and we took our chances. You can't take any paper bags or food into Monkey Jungle because the monkeys (who are free to roam) will think it's food and get all up in your face. There are also instructions not to stare at the monkeys as they will interpret this as a sign of aggression.

We walked up a steep hill and after about 10 minutes....Look! Up there! A monkey! In a tree!

I feared that this might be the only monkey we would see, so i took a picture.

Here's a few questions about monkeys to keep you entertained on the long walk up the hill:
And here's the answer to the first question:
Got that?

In a few minutes we came upon many, many monkeys. Here's the Mister getting a shot of a monkey with his really big lens. This shows how close we were able to get to the monkeys.
This little guy was doing some sightseeing of his own:

Awwww, just awww:
While we were there, a man came out and gave a talk about the monkeys. I didn't understand a word he said, but it looks like the monkeys were very interested.
On the path on the way down, we encountered a different sort of primate playing:

Potty Talk

I am home. All went very well, thanks to the compulsive planning of the Mister. We had a wonderful time.

However, i am feeling about as bright as a 15 watt light bulb, as my body doesn't know what the hell is going on, time-wise. Plus i managed to catch a little cold the day before we left.

So today we are going to talk about Japanese toilets.

This is the B534S model. The first time i sat down upon it i screamed because the toilet seat was hot and i was not expecting that.


Here are the controls along the side:
The picture is pretty dark, but you can still see all the buttons. I love the little graphic of the butt. And yes, i tried all the buttons. Butt (heh) i still don't know what the "Stand By" button does. The toilet pictured above is from our hotel room. This one:
is in a public place. Thus the button with the musical note, which turns on and off a fake flushing noise. There is also a volume control for the flushing noise, in case you need more camouflage.

I KNOW! Brilliant! I apologize for the terrible photo, but i was worried about the other bathroom users calling the police because i was flashing photos and giggling.

Here your intrepid reporter from the east is standing over a "traditional" Japanese toilet:

It is flush (heh) with the ground and you crouch over it and hope for the best. That's why it's wet all around the toilet, because most women's best isn't very accurate.
Note that there is no toilet paper. I was prepared for this and so i carried a little pack of tissues in my purse.

In addition, many public toilets have no soap, no hot water and no way to dry your hands. Most women carry little tiny towels around with them for this purpose. (I used my jeans.)

Here is a sign directing you to the toilet:

Note that the only way to tell the difference between the male and the female is that the man has a V neck, and the female has a crew neck (at least i think that's right.) Em ended up using the men's room at least twice.
I will have more to tell you when i am more alert, and now that we have the toilets out of the way, we can move on to monkeys, deer, trains and umbrellas.

It's good to be home.

Anxiety and Meme from ETK

I have mentioned before that i am an anxious pre-traveler. I am running around like a chicken sans head getting ready to leave for Japan tomorrow morning and worrying about what i may have forgotten.

What if Grey Cat disappears like he did for 24 hours earlier in the week and i can't find his fuzzy ass to take to the cat boarder? I'm not letting him out tonight.

I went to the money place yesterday and got 430,000 yen. Sounds like a boat load of money doesn't it? It's about $4,300. Which is a boat load of money. All they had was 1000 yen notes, so i literally have a pile of money about 4 inches high. How will i fit that into my wallet?

I haven't had a period since January (TMI, i know.) But what if i get one in Japan. Should i take supplies or buy them there?

And so on.

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I was tagged by ETK over at I'm Just Sayin'.

She thought maybe i was too cool for memes. Baby, i am too cool for everything.

Here are the "rules";

List one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name.
At the end of your blog post, tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (I am not too cool for memes, but i am waaaaaay too cool to tag anyone.)

As it happens, my middle name is really long. Sigh.


E - is for the Elephant that i will feel like in Japan.


L - is for Lugubrious. I am often ridiculously sad. For no reason. It's absurd. I want to slap myself just to give me something to be sad about. (Wow, i just heard my mother there.)


I - Irritating and Inert.


Z - Zounds! This will have to be for Zoo. In the 5th grade, my best friend and i made an elaborate plan to run away from home and live in the bird house at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC. We plagiarized this brilliant idea from the brilliant book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. We saved up almost twenty dollars towards this goal, and then got bored and spent it all on candy and comic books.


A - Couldn't be anything other than Anxious right now.


B - Ha ha, what else could B be but BITCH? As in Bitch is the new black.


E - is for Edamame, which i love. I especially like the sensory experience of eating them. Popping those little beans out of the pod, licking the salt off my lips, tossing the shell into the discard bowl. Mmmmmm.


T - is for Turtle. I hope to take a trip to the Galapagos with my friend Kim next year and see some turtles. Plus some Blue Footed Boobies.


H - is for Hairy, but i plan to take care of this little problem post haste.

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I'm off tomorrow morning for almost two weeks. I am not taking my laptop (gasp) but the Mister will be taking his. Mayhap he will let me use it to check in with y'all.

Hacked Off

Way back when, like 6 years ago, when Em was into it, i had an account on Neopets.

I had a little virtual pet Aisha named Alavans. I liked to feed Alavans and buy books for her to read so she would be smart. I would feel badly when Alavans got hungry even though i knew it was only some bits and bytes fer cryin' out loud. Such is the power of guilt motherhood.

One day i was doing something or other on Neopets when i was asked to sign in in the middle of the activity. It asked me to sign in twice, which i did.

Then all the neocash in my neoaccount disappeared. I had been hacked! My husband and child both helpfully pointed out that i shouldn't have done that. I was so annoyed that i put Alavans up for adoption and closed my account.

Yesterday i tried to leave a comment for Gordo. I was signed into Google as me, but after i clicked to submit the comment, it wanted me to sign into my Google account again.

Sorry Gordo, the memory of Alavans haunts me still.

Customs

I've never seen anyone do this before.

We had a house guest last week. That was fine and dandy, but look how she scraped butter off the top of the stick every time she used it.

I hack pieces off the end of the stick when i get butter. I was secretly amazed while watching her, but i didn't say anything.

Of course i went and snuck pictures of it so i could show y'all.

I wonder if this is just a different way to use butter, one that i have been ignorant of all these years.

It's amazing how many different ways there are to do things, things i had never thought of there being more than one way to do.

She also took her bath towels and spread them all over the floor of the guest room to dry, rather than hanging them back up on the rack to dry.

How are you odd in ways i hadn't suspected?