I’ve always been fascinated by ruined buildings and abandoned places. When I was 14 I went to the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy, and was blown away. It’s hard to explain why- but it’s something about the life of the place, and the lives of the people who were there, being suddenly cut short. Whether they were killed, driven out, or just moved on, the things they leave behind tell the story of their life at that moment, a snapshot captured and crystallized like a fossil. Haikyo in Japan are not the same as Pompeii- they’re buildings abandoned in …
Hiratsuka Beach Skimboarders
Skimboarding is a lesser-known cousin to surfing, though quite different in the approach. Where surfers go from the sea to the beach under the sea’s power, skimmers go from the beach to the sea under their own power- which is to say, basically they run at the sea carrying a short board, drop it in the shallows, and jump on. Perhaps then it’s more like skate-boarding than surfing.
Vegetable Chu-Hi Cocktails
Japan-based companies Asahi (the brewer) and Kagome (the fruit and veg juicer) have teamed up to present us with a new and unique product: a range of fruit and vegetable sake cocktails. No longer will you have to choose between getting drunk cheaply or drinking a healthy vegetable juice mix, you can now do both at the same time. It sounds like a strange concept, and it is- the marketing ploy behind it must take its inspiration from the recent upswing in the number and variety of vegetable juice drinks available on convenience store shelves- but I have to wonder, …
Ruins of the Queen Chateau Soapland
Japan’s Queen Chateau Soapland is at once a grand but squalid folly; a ruin rising 5 fairy-tale stories into the sky, cornered with towers and capped with bright red tile, representing an era gone mad with indulgence, audacity, and hopefulness. Flanked by bamboo forests. A soapland is a kind of Japanese water-brothel, wherein customers (men, basically) go to a bedroom equipped with a bath and shower, possibly also bed, and engage in various sexual activities. Soaplands seem to exist in Japan in a curiously open fashion, flaunting the law with their obvious but veiled allusions to the services available inside. …
Sparkling Boysenberry and Choco Wafers
Japan loves Kit Kats, and exotic flavored drinks, and happily enough so do you and me, so let’s get down to some serious snack deconstruction: I’ve blogged Kit Kats before, as well as snack/drink combo Pepsi Blue Hawaii + Brazilian Pudding Pocky and others. This time we have a faux Kit Kat (Choco Wafers) and a Boysenberry Sparkling Soda combo:
Please do it at the beach
Recently this ad has been cropping up in train stations all round Tokyo: I’m glad as it’s about time- the number of people I’ve seen hemi-sliced like bacon rashers by those executioner-style train doors is more than I care to think about. Shlump! His upper body rolls around messily inside the carriage. Everybody politely ignores it, as they do if a drunk person has a food escape or a homeless person comes on and emanates. So, it’s certainly about time. Of course they could just de-sharpen and de-fang the train doors so people weren’t forever getting hemi-sliced, but then what …
Kugenuma Beach Hole-Diggers
I’m something of a life-long addict when it comes to digging holes at the beach. I’ve been digging holes since I was a kid alongside my Dad, fending off the sea, arming sea-shell soldiers along a sand-fort battlement, willing the walls to hold and the moat to stay fast. These days however I forsake the battlements and soldiers and just go for the biggest, widest, and deepest kid-swallowing hole I can dig:
Big Bob the Kanjiman
Big Bob is a Kanjiman- probably the friendliest Kanjiman out there. He has long shoelaces which he loves to tie, a sleek black bodysuit which he occasionally dyes, and is awfully prone to losing his keys. Yes, he is a lovable fellow. And look at that smile! Click for more to meet Kanjiman Bob!
Coppertone Bikini Girls
Coppertone have gone nuts recently in Shibuya station, plastering at least the Yamanote line north-bound platform with pictures of bikini-clad women (and little girls) with a dog biting their butts. When I first saw this I did a double-take, turned the other way, saw a similar ad where a little girl was getting her butt bit, and started to wonder if the whole thing wasn’t just a bit too weird for its own good. Odd.
Dinning Bar
I found the DINNING BAR in ultra-hip Shimo-Kitazawa a few weeks ago, and ever since have been scouring the net for what it could possibly be. My first thought was that it MUST be connected with the word ‘din’ as in “Lordy Mike’s making a din on that Double Bass!” or “Where’s that Godawful din coming from, is he on the Double Bass again?” But I wasn’t sure if the noun ‘din’ could be made into a verbal noun (AKA- gerund) so I went to the font of all knowledge, my old friends Merriam-Webster: