Typhoon

Today we had a wee bit of a typhoon. It wasn't too bad here in Kanagawa, but I did see rather a lot of broken umbrellas strewn along the streets. Also, some department store buildings took down their flags or set up sandbags to protect displays from blowing loose. 

Most amusing to me was the Marui building in Kawasaki, which had gone from this...

...to this:

City Spotlight: Hakone

Hakone is not a city, but an area. The most common way to come in is to arrive at Hakone-Yumoto station (I usually take the Shonan Shinjuku line from Yokohama station and change trains at Odawara. It takes just over an hour, depending on connections). From Hakone-Yumoto, you can take buses or trains to explore the region.

Yukata girls in Hakone-Yumoto

Hakone has two main highlights: views of Mt Fuji, and hot springs. The hot springs are a popular getaway for Tokyo people. I recommend actually staying overnight at a ryokan that has hot springs. See my post on ryokan.

First, Mt Fuji. Now, I speak from bitter experience here: you cannot see Mt Fuji from Hakone-Yumoto; you will need to travel a good 45 minutes or more to see it. Some of the best views are from Lake Ashi (take a bus to Moto-Hakone/Hakone-machi), or on the ropeway going from Sounzan.

Mt Fuji from the ropeway

The other tip is, Mt Fuji is usually not very visible. If seeing it is important to you, be sure to choose the clearest day possible; the cooler months of the year are better for this. If it's summer, even on a fairly clear day, don't get your hopes too high. You're better off going, hoping just to see some pretty nature and scenery; that way you won't be too disappointed. ^_^ 

The Hakone 'recommended course'

I took the Hakone 'recommended course' on a very clear, sunny winter's day. It was lovely, and I recommend it. This is the only time I've ever been able to take good pictures of Mt Fuji. Be aware that you will spend a lot of time travelling - each leg of the trip takes a while - but the journey itself is the point.

View of Mt Fuji from Lake Ashi.

On this course you will start and finish at Hakone-Yumoto - bus to Hakone-machi, take a boat across Lake Ashi, take a ropeway up the mountain, take a cable car to Gora, and the Hakone Tozan train back to Hakone-Yumoto. Or you can do it in reverse.

Some highlights of this journey are the boat ride across the lake - the scenery is really nice - the views of Mt Fuji, and visiting Owakudani. This is on the ropeway route. It's called 'hell valley' because it's full of sulfurous vents spewing smoke - very cool. You can also eat black eggs boiled in the hot springs, which are supposed to add 7 years to your life. Sadly, when I went, they were sold out.

Owakudani

If you're going to take this course, you should buy a 'Hakone Free Pass', which lets you ride the various trains, cable car, ropeway, boat and bus without having to buy separate tickets for each. Also, it will save you money, especially if you are going to travel for two days, as each leg on its own is quite expensive. Be sure you take the correct form of transport though. For example, there are two companies that run boats across Lake Ashi; only one of them is valid with the Free Pass.

Also from my own experience, I can warn you: if you're coming from Tokyo or Yokohama, it will be a lengthy trip; you should come early and be aware of the timetables. Basically, everything closes Excessively Early. You should plan to have completed your route by 5pm or earlier, as many of the forms of transportation etc stop running at 4:30-ish.

Other highlights

If you have time to try other activities in Hakone, I also recommend the Hakone Open-Air museum (on the Hakone Tozan line, get out at Chokoku no mori). I really loved it. I'll write a separate post about this place. 

I also really enjoyed Yunessun, which is like a hot springs 'theme park'. It has lots of 'specialty' hot spring baths, like green tea or coffee baths. There's a small hot spring waterslide, and many other pools. You can bath in a salt bath that makes you float like the Dead Sea, or let tiny 'doctor fish' nibble the dead skin off your feet. Also, unlike normal hot spring baths, you wear a swimsuit, so men and women can enjoy it together. To get there, take a bus from Hakone-Yumoto and get out at the stop 'Kowakien'.

Election day

Today is an election day in Japan, and thank goodness for that. What this means for me personally is that I may be able to walk down the street without some obnoxious truck blasting political rhetoric from megaphones. They really are a pain in the ass. It may be immature of me, but I always make a point of ostentatiously putting my fingers in my ears and glaring at the offending truck.

If it's not trucks, it's people standing around outside department stores and train stations, again with megaphone, trying to hand out fliers. Congratulations, you have just made everyone hate you instantly.

Unlike Australia, voting is optional here. As far as I can tell, only one person I know will be voting. Everyone else has expressed a resounding lack of interest in or enthusiasm for any political party.

Bon appetit

Google Translate is a boon for translating Japanese pages into English. However, of course, there are limits to what a machine can do.

I translated a page from a hotel. The Japanese read: (...) キャンセル扱いとさせていただきます - 'we will cancel the service'. 'sasete itadakimasu' is a very polite way to say 'we will do (something)'.

As you may know 'itadakimasu', on its own, is also an expression that Japanese people use when they start to eat. Just before eating the first bite, it's common to say 'itadakimasu!', which means something like 'thanks for the food', or 'bon appetit', or 'well, I'm going to start!'

So Google Translate translated this sentence as 'Bon appetit we will be cancelled'. I was amused. ^_^

DVDs

This is a rather random observation, but it suddenly occurred to me: on all the occasions I have rented a DVD in Japan, I have been able to watch the entire movie without any glitches, sudden pauses, or scenes skipping.

Whereas, every time *without exception* in Australia, there would be some kind of glitch; half a scene would skip as the DVD player made a disturbing grinding sound; sometimes DVDS would be wholly unplayable and I would take them back to the store with a complaint.

I don't know the reason for this. A better quality DVD player? (My Japanese one is much cheaper than my Australian one was...) The DVD store uses better technology to 'clean' their DVDs? The store is quick to replace any DVD with the slightest whiff of imperfection? Japanese people are less violent with DVDS and so there are fewer scratches? Who knows?

It is a nice change.

Vile Kit Kats

You can get regular Kit Kats here, but they also have these seasonal monstrosities.

Sakura-flavoured Kit Kats. They are supposed to taste like cherry blossoms, but really just taste like chemicals. Even my friend, who loves offal and natto and chicken cartilage, couldn't eat one. HORRIBLE.

So, if you didn't know, Japan is big on seasonal things. Often, these are obviously linked to the seasons themselves - in spring, everything is cherry blossom-flavoured, and there are cherry blossom decorations everywhere. Sometimes, they are just 'short time only' meal deals and menu items.

I've seen this trend with cream puffs. I am very fond of Beard Papa's cream puffs, which smell marvellous, and which I buy every couple of weeks. Every month or so they seem to have a new specialty; we progressed from strawberry, to cherry, to matcha, mango yoghurt, to some other yoghurt, to melon cream. In my opinion, they should have stuck with strawberry, because none of the others have come close.

Anyway, as for Kit Kats... I stopped trying the new flavours because they are uniformly disastrous. But today I saw one that made me laugh: 'sports drink flavoured Kit Kat'.

Sports drink flavoured?!!!! Does anyone buy sports drinks because they really really love the flavour? To me, that is not at all a selling point!

Japanese Pet Peeve: Recycling

Recycling is a good thing.

That said, please look at this document published by the City of Yokohama. (Scroll part-way down to get to the English section.)

This is how we are expected to dispose of our garbage.

!!!!

Japanese Pet Peeve: Little Dogs Who Think They're People

If you go to any public park, you'll soon realise: Japan is full of ugly dogs.

I don't know if it's because the dog aesthetic is different, so that people think they actually look cute. Or I don't know if it's a case of taking pity on the animals that only a mother could love.

Of course, there is logic in choosing small, rat-like dogs; in a city where space is at a premium, little dogs can be kept in apartments. 

Anyway, a dog is not to be blamed for its looks. What does bother me more is dogs in coats. I heard that coats can diminish a dog's ability to regulate its own body temperature. If there is a good reason for it to wear a coat (it has some rare sickness, or it's prone to running away and you want to be able to easily identify it), okay. But it seems to be more about cute accessorising. The dog clothes I've seen cost more than *my* clothes.

For the record, if you put an ugly dog in an overpriced coat, it doesn't become cute. It just becomes ugly and stupid-looking.

Then we come to the subject of dog-walking. Often in Japan, when the owner takes their little darling for a 'walk', the only one getting exercise is the owner.

I can't count the number of times I've seen people walking while carrying their dogs. Okay, so this is understandable in a big crowd, but let me go one step further: I've also, frequently, seen people pushing a child's pram or stroller with a dog inside.  It's not like their child has gotten out so the dog temporarily jumped in; no, it's the dog's pram. 

That's right, the dog is not to exert itself. Why take it with you at all?!

Ryokan

Whether you're living in Japan or coming for a trip, one thing I'd definitely recommend is a stay in a ryokan - traditional Japanese inn. They're often not especially cheap, but they give you a memorable experience. ^_^

I've stayed at ryokan five times now. ^_^ The best one was on Miyajima, where you could just walk out your door and see cute little shops, and nature, and deer, and the ocean. ^_^

So, a ryokan is like a hotel, but they are often smaller and have more personalised service. In some, you take off your shoes before you even enter the ryokan proper; you'll walk around inside the ryokan wearing slippers. But when you enter your room - which has tatami flooring - you should remove all slippers and footwear (socks are okay). Tatami feels nice underfoot. ^_^

Once you reach your room, the landlady will pour you some tea (or you can pour yourself some tea), and you can sit at the table and enjoy it. I like their chairs with floor cushions. 

Your room will come with yukata - a casual 'kimono' which in this situation is more like a bathrobe. You can wear it around the ryokan, and I always change into it right away, because it makes me feel more relaxed and comfortable. You can wear it to bed. Also, yukata are a blessing for taking communal baths, as they're easy to slip on and off.

Many ryokan provide meals, and these are often big feasts which would cost you a fortune anywhere. They come with many little dishes, and various things cooking at different times. Every ryokan dinner I've had included rice, miso soup, pickles and sashimi; I've also had little shabu-shabu (hot pot), dried fish, steak, tempura, broiled fish, croquettes, and countless things I can't even describe.

This is pickles, shabu shabu meat, tofu, sashimi and sashimi sauce.

If you get a Japanese-style breakfast, it will always include miso soup and rice, and usually natto, a raw (or semi-raw) egg, dried seaweed, fish, pickles, tofu, and so on.

You'll sleep on a futon, which will either be in the room when you check in, or will be put out for you after dinner.

Unlike regular hotels, most ryokan charge per person rather than for a room. So if you have four people in a room, it will cost the same per person as if you had two people in a room.

Two things especially you should know about ryokan:

You may have to follow more of a 'schedule' than in a regular hotel. 

You should be aware of Japanese bathing etiquette.

It's common to provide a ryokan with a reasonably accurate check-in time, and then nominate a dinner and breakfast time. Some ryokan have set meal times. (You can stay at many ryokan without meals, but the kind of food you can get at a ryokan is quite special and I recommend it ^_^). Once you have a meal time, you should be there at that time because they will have prepared it all ready to serve.

Breakfast, in particular, I often find rather earlier than is comfortable for me. I usually eat at 10 or 11am, so to get up at 8am for a huge feast can be a bit more than I feel up to.

As for bathing... you may have an ensuite bathroom, or be able to use a private bath room (with a nice big bath ^_^). But, in many ryokan, there is a large communal bath or hot spring bath you can use. This is very nice and relaxing, but you should be aware of Japanese bathing etiquette. ^_^

What you do is: leave your shoes at the entrance, take off all your clothes and put them in a basket. Leave your big towel in that basket too. Take your hand towel and go into the bathing area. Then wash yourself with the shower etc, while sitting down. Use soap. Rinse well. You can also wash your hair. 

Once you're clean - with no soap or shampoo on you - you can go into the bath itself. Tie your hair back first (if you have long hair that might get in the bath). In short, don't make the bath messy by getting soap or hair in it.

After you're done, wipe yourself a bit with the hand towel, so you don't drip all over the floor of the change room, then go back out and get dressed.

If you are interested in staying in a ryokan, I recommend Japanese Guest Houses as a good starting point. ^_^

Pachinko

Every time I've walked by a pachinko parlour, and have heard the sheer wall of noise, I have thought 'it's like the seventh circle of hell'. They are SO loud, and artificial, you can be walking down a perfectly nice, quiet street and suddenly you're interrupted by a barrage of beeps, rings, whistles, bells, and electronic music. Not to mention vast quantities of cigarette smoke, and countless lines of people sitting, vacant-eyed, pouring money into the machines.

For those of you fortunate enough not to know what pachinko is, it's kind of like gambling in a country where slot machines are illegal. You put in money, which buys you x number of little silver balls. You turn a dial to send your balls into the machine, and the balls fall, depending on how far you've propelled them. If the balls fall down a certain hole (once launched, you can't control them), you get a kind of 'slot machine' effect, where if you win, you are rewarded with more balls.

The reason pachinko is so popular is because, in fact, there are illicit ways to turn your winnings into cash. But it's a kind of back-door method. You can't do it on-site; it's against the law. There'd have to be some kind of motivation to keep so many people in there.

They really are ubiquitious in the Greater Tokyo area. There are so many of them. And they are so unappealing. But there are always loads of people in them... Even my sleepy suburb has several pachinko parlours. The machines often have different themes. There are also parlours with machines like slot machines (although real money doesn't come out), which are just as bright and obnoxious.

Look! Bon Jovi slot machines!!

Anyway, I did try pachinko once. It was mildly diverting; nice to try once, but doesn't offer the thrill of a) winning actual money, or even b) pinball, where there is some element of skill in your success. Also, being in such a smoky, bright and and cacophonous environment for more than twenty seconds is not good for any human. 

Kirin Yokohama Beer Village

Kirin Yokohama Beer Village is a 10-minute walk from Namamugi station (on the Keikyu line), in Yokohama. I recommend this place for its outdoor BBQ area. All-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink for two hours, for about 4000yen. So it's not dirt-cheap, but there's a friendly and convivial atmosphere when you go with a group of friends; beer flows freely. ^_^

Also, you can do a guided tour of the brewery. It's all in Japanese - not terribly interesting - but at the end, you get to sample two free (full-sized!) Kirin beverages of your choice, plus we got some Kirin snacks, and a can of Kirin coffee - just for going on the (free) tour! Nice. ^_^

You know it's summer in Japan when...

You know it's summer in Japan when you go to your local department store and they're selling bugs.

Apparently, collecting large bugs, especially crickets and beetles, used to be a popular summer pastime for children. I suppose it's the same in Australia; I used to do the same thing, only with various ant farms, collecting caterpillars, etc. But with increasing urbanisation, it's become increasingly difficult to find those insects in the wild. So you can buy them instead.

Anyway, my store's toy section had some tanks, selling the impressive-looking rhinoceros beetles (kabuto mushi) for a few hundred yen each. A few days later I went to the same store and the kabuto mushi had been replaced by stag beetles (kuwagata).

I heard you can fight these beetles, but I've never seen it done. ^_^

City Spotlight: Odaiba

Odaiba is an island created from reclaimed land; it's part of Tokyo. Actually, it's my favourite part of Tokyo. The main reason is that it's near the ocean, and it feels quite open - you're not surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers.

There are various attractions in the area, which I won't try to enumerate in full. Rather, I'll just tell you the things I've enjoyed there.

Getting there

Two nice ways to get to Odaiba are by boat or monorail. I think they're better during the daytime, if the weather is nice, but you can get some nice night views too.

To take the boat, go to 'Hinode Pier', in walking distance from Hamamatsucho station. You can take a boat to Ariake (where Tokyo Big Sight, the exhibition centre, is), or to Palette Town, both in Odaiba. It's 400 yen for adults.

To take the Yurikamome monorail, there are various stops; I use the one at Shimbashi station.

Both routes are really lovely and have good views of Tokyo Bay.

Palette Town

This is a kind of entertainment complex. It has a shopping mall (Venus Fort) with quite a funky interior. There are game centres, a car expo centre, and the giant Ferris wheel. I went on the Ferris wheel last night; they are having a Hello Kitty promotion, so the wheel is decorated with little bows, and you can enjoy Kitty herself bothering you with constant cutesy little comments as you ride.

To be honest, I was not that into this place; but if you are fairly new to Tokyo, I think it will be interesting.

Mirai-kan

Mirai-kan is a science and technology museum. It's interesting, if you have a passing interest (or more) in science. I recall that when I went here, the first exhibits we looked at were so technical as to be completely meaningless to me; however the rest of the museum proved interesting and intelligible. Hahaha... I liked seeing the display on the International Space Station.

Oedo Onsen Monogatari

Okay, some people describe it as kitsch, but I still enjoyed it. This is like a hot spring 'theme park', which is decorated with a theme of 'old-style Tokyo'. It's a great place if you want a hot spring that is tourist-friendly and unthreatening - there's some English signage, etc. You can also enjoy some sections with both males and females together, enjoy nice foot baths, and experience little fish nibbling your feet! 

I may dedicate a future post to describing this place.

Giant Gundam

I don't know when this Gundam will be taken down - soon, I believe - but as I mentioned in this post, there's a giant fighting mobile suit in Shiokaze Park at the moment. Shiokaze Park itself is rather nice for enjoying some harbor views.

Fuji TV building

In my opinion, this is better for people who know a lot about Japanese TV and TV stars; for me, the building was mostly interesting for its architecture.

Aqua City/Decks

Here you can see a fake Statue of Liberty. Hahaha... so, what this is, is a big shopping complex, which also has a movie theatre and Sega Joypolis, where I bought my Tails. ^_^ Sega Joypolis is basically a game centre, which also has a few rides and such; it seems a bit overpriced but I was attracted by the branding, being a Sega fan in my youth.

The best thing here is to sit at a restaurant on the deck and look over Tokyo Bay. It's especially beautiful at dusk. There is also a little man-made beach at the base of the building.

You'll hear a lot of people rubbish Odaiba beach, and it's certainly true that nobody dares touch the water - it is Tokyo Bay, after all. But it's atmospheric and quite beautiful. Last night I sat at a little cocktail place and had a Hawaiian cocktail, enjoying the balmy summer night and the lights of the Rainbow Bridge. Very very nice.

Hanabi

I mentioned in this post that there are several things associated with this summer season. Last night I got to enjoy three of them - eating watermelon while wearing a yukata, and watching fireworks.

The fireworks were at Nakagawara, which is basically in the middle of nowhere. (Really, the west of Tokyo.) We sat along the banks of the Tama river, with many many other people, and enjoyed a full hour of fireworks while drinking alcohol (no ban on drinking in public here!) and eating snacks.

Very summer. Very nice. ^_^

Cafe Colorado

Cafe Colorado is a coffee chain; it's not very cheap (520 yen for a cappuccino!) but I quite like their food, and there's nowhere else in my area with good coffee.

My local Cafe Colorado is quite funny; although it's a chain cafe, the staff always act like it's their own personal kitchen, and they're not very used to having guests. That is to say, if you order something, there's a lot of very slow-paced clattering of cups and quite a long wait. Most of the time when I go there, the proprietress is sitting at the counter with one of her customers, yakking away. The average age of the clientele seems to be about 65.

Anyway, these are all reasons for me to like it more, not less. Sometimes one wearies of faceless corporate chains (which is not to say I don't go to Starbucks almost every day, and sometimes twice a day ^_^).

Today I went to Cafe Colorado, and unusually, one half of the cafe was completely empty. I soon realised why: they had a little plastic container with crickets in it; I think it was their own pets which they had stowed into the corner. If you didn't know, crickets do not make a pleasant sound. These ones were very shrill indeed. I moved seats twice to get away from them.

Earthquake!

Small earthquakes are quite common here; I've experienced quite a few. But this morning I was woken just after 5am by the strongest quake I've felt. The windows were rattling; I sat up and moved into the middle of the room, in case stuff started falling on the ground. I wasn't scared, but I thought 'this one could be serious'. The ground was trembling strongly and the building was swaying.

Apparently it was a magnitude 6.5 quake. Not much damage occurred; the quake was stronger in Shizuoka and Aichi, a little west of here.

We also felt quite a significant quake on Sunday, apparently 6.9. That one didn't feel so strong to me, possibly because it didn't wake me out of a sleep! Or perhaps I was further from the epicentre. 

I find small earthquakes rather exciting, but that doesn't mean I want a strong one! The earthquake is all over the news today.

Top Three Views

The famous 'top 3 scenic places' in Japan are supposedly Miyajima, in Hiroshima, Matsushima, in Miyagi, and Amanohashidate in Kyoto. Of these, I have only been to Miyajima, and it was lovely, but I wouldn't say the best.

Of course, the brilliance of a view depends on a lot of things; time of year, the sun's position in the sky, whether it's cloudy or clear, etc. I have been fortunate to see many very beautiful sights. But here are my personal top three.

3. Omuroyama. This is a not-very-famous mountain near the Jogasaki coast on Izu peninsula. I went during Golden Week. The mountain has a ropeway to the top, and the whole mountain was covered in grass. There were wildflowers everywhere; the sky was blue; and from the top we could see far in every direction. We faintly saw Mt Fuji from one side, and the top of the mountain was a great, grassy basin.

2. Sunflower field in Yamanashi prefecture. This was near the 'Heidi's village' miniature theme park. Thousands of sunflowers, against a backdrop of mountains half-shadowed in mist, with rays of sunlight playing over them.

1. Yuzawa Gala ski resort. This ski resort is in Niigata prefecture. We took a gondola to the ski run, and sat in a cafe and had a cappuccino. This is the view we saw:

This is a high-brow blog

Sorry, this is not one of my more genteel posts. Rather, this post is about poo.

In Japan, there is a stylized, even cute way of drawing turds. If you don't believe me, just put 'Japan poo' in Google Images and look.

I knew about this from long ago - a Japanese friend in high school drew them occasionally when doodling pictures - and didn't think much of it.

This week I was in my local department store and I saw poo-shaped cookies.

Yes, they were little cookies shaped like cute little smiling poos. It wasn't even a joke of 'eww, look how gross it is to eat something that looks like a poo'. It was just a cute design choice.

Seeing them, I remembered a conversation between two 40-something friends at an izakaya:

Y: Did you use to draw poo?

S: Yes, of course. I think every boy does so. 

H: Yes, they always had to have steam coming from them.

S: That's right. They look better with steam.

Welcome to Japan.

Sounds of the morning

On a clear morning, the neighbourhood comes alive to two sounds.

The first is the garbage trucks. Like Australian ice cream trucks, these play a merry tune as they drive through the neighbourhoods. Come buy some garbage! Delicious garbage! The hard garbage trucks play pre-recorded announcements over loudspeakers, telling everyone what they can pick up.

The second, the sound of futons being beaten. Housewives all over will air their household's futons by putting them on the balcony. If you are a good Japanese housewife, you will have clips to securely attach the futon to the balustrade. A good Japanese housewife will also have a special futon beater, for the purpose of getting the dust and grime out of the futon.

As for me, I'm usually out there whacking my futon with a beat-up copy of 'Japanese for Busy People II'.

Yokohama port opening

Today I did get the chance to see the giant robot spider in Minato Mirai. (That link will take you to Kirai Net, a very interesting blog about Japan. I wasn't able to take any pictures of it, so you can see the spider there.) And I didn't have to pay the 2400 yen admission fee, either; I just watched it from the World Porters bridge.

So, right now they are having the 150th anniversary of the Yokohama Port Opening. This is a several-month-long expo being held in Yokohama, especially around the Minato Mirai area. If you live in Yokohama you could not fail to be aware of this. It seems a lot of advertising has gone into it. Their official website is here.

The spider was pretty cool - it did a kind of elegant dance, extending and setting down its legs - but frankly, the port opening celebrations seemed rather underwhelming to me. I think they were too ambitious in expecting lots of people to pay to see them; they should have tried making all the attractions free and tried to recoup their money some other way.

After such a huge amount of publicity and seeing posters, newspaper articles, fliers, decorated trains, etc, I did expect a certain amount of... well, *something*. But I guess to be fair, it was a Monday and no scheduled big events were on at the time. This event is running for a long time, so I accept that it can't be all fireworks and balloons every day.

I did poke around the 'international food hall' (which seemed like any food court with cheap food ordered from one of those ticket vending machines) and the 'Open Country, Open Port' display, which seemed to be a bunch of merchandise from local department stores. 

Amusingly, there were all these posters with tons of information about how the port opening introduced internationalisation to Japan, and the various foreign influences, and so on. That's really the whole point of this anniversary event. But there was not even a *sentence* of info in English, or any other language but Japanese.

(Now that I think about it, even in the 'international food court', the food dish titles were *only in katakana*! No Roman characters, so if you can't read Japanese characters, you can't order your food. Welcome to internationalisation!)

Okay, I'm dissing the event a bit too much for someone who didn't actually go into any of the paid displays. From what I've read, nothing in them was in English, so I wouldn't bother. But from the outside it seemed the thrust of the festival was to a) sell Tanemaru goods and b) put up Tanemaru 'port opening festival' posters and flags over every square inch of Yokohama.

In the interests of absolute veracity, I suppose I should confess that I myself bought a Tanemaru hair-tie... hahaha...

(Note: I wrote this over a month ago. However, the displays and buildings are still there and will continue until September 27.)

Peace and tranquility in Sakuragicho

As is my habit, I went down to the harbour today. Unfortunately, nobody had told me it was 'Celebrate Antisocial Behaviour Day'. I've never been shouted at so much in one day.

There were high school students collecting money (which apparently required them to shout through a megaphone), some group of massage therapists (also, bizarrely, using megaphones), a gauntlet of environmental activists, two religious types reading loudly from books, and of course, the usual political party trucks spewing platitudes from loudspeakers.

I sat on Kishamichi bridge and watched fish jumping in the water, and there was an environmentalist shouting "konnichiwa! konnichiwa! konnichiwa! konnichiwa!" on loop a few metres away. I went toward World Porters and there were Yokohama Port Opening Expo staff shouting at us where we could buy tickets.

I went to Bubby's (and they are still fuckin fresh and delicious). Previously it's always been too windy to sit outside, but today the weather was perfect. The first time I've been able to sit in the fresh air. So I happily settled down with my cappuccino and pie.

Then a van pulled up across the square and four high school students stood on its roof. Out came the megaphone. My heart sank. They bellowed speeches for a full 35 minutes. I sat there with my fingers in my ears, glaring at them, wishing the police would rush in and haul them off. 

I knew that wouldn't happen, as 'disturbing the peace' doesn't seem to be an offense here. So I amended my fantasy and longed for someone to throw something large and heavy at them, and maybe knock them off the truck. 

Well, okay, maybe that was a bit harsh. I didn't want them to come to real physical harm (and really, whichever adults encouraged them to be so obnoxious in a public place should be the ones punished). I wished for a huge rainstorm to come up - perhaps one small but powerful raincloud directly over their heads - and wash them out.

Unfortunately none of my amiable wishes came true. I suppose I should have capitulated and done the logical thing, and gone back inside. But there are so few cafes or restaurants around here where one can sit outside! Why should they force me back into the sterile air-conditioning?! So I stubbornly sat there and muttered insults to myself.

Now I'm home again, sitting in my own room, and my neighbour is doing some kind of home DIY involving loud drilling.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better.