Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

General

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You can’t miss it

As the Japanese take a rather relaxed approach to town planning, finding your way to someone’s house, a restaurant, or bar can be a tricky endeavor to say the least. More often than not a map is a necessity, as are numerous telephone calls, as you inevitably find yourself going round and round in circles.

Because of this, using landmarks is essential. Now in this department I’m quite fortunate as I live near a school and a well-known karaoke complex, so people usually have no trouble finding my humble abode. Yet I’m nowhere near as lucky as the people that live in an apartment building I came across yesterday. First off they can say, “My place is above the opticians.”

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Or to make things really easy, they can simply point out that they live below the giant gorilla.

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Freaky Foreigners

At a recent visit to a local kindergarten, I found myself answering the kids’ usual mundane questions. Ok, I know they are young, but there are only so many times you can feign interest in such banal inquiries as, “Do you like apples?” or, “What colour do you like?”

But unexpectedly I was knocked out of my stupor by one student’s rather unusual question. With a look as serious as any 5-year-old can muster, the little boy said, “Why do you have blue eyes?” Now due to the children’s age and the language barrier, I refrained from going into a lengthy discussion about genetics, and instead told my young audience that my mother also has blue eyes. This information produced a few understanding nods from the obviously enthralled crowd, but I gleefully shattered their comfortable little bubble by adding that on the other hand my father and sister have brown eyes.

This revelation produced a lot of puzzled looks around the classroom, and none more so than on the face of the little fella who asked the question in the first place. Giving him a big smile, I asked him if my answer was ok. But I guess it wasn’t, as he looked away in disgust and said to his friend, “What a weird family.”

A damning judgment indeed!

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Trouser trouble

Police in Osaka have launched a manhunt for a knife wielding trouser thief. Now whilst stealing trousers may not seem like the worst crime in the world, it’s a little worrying when they are taken from someone who happened to be wearing them at the time.

Last Tuesday night, an unsuspecting 18-year-old cook was leaving a public toilet when he was confronted by the thief. At knife point the young man was forced to remove his trousers (which also contained a mobile phone and 10,000 yen [50 pounds] in cash), and give them to the armed criminal. After being handed the trousers, the plunderer, who was described as about 30, fled the scene clutching his ill-gotten leg wear.

Unfortunately this left the victim trouserless in a city centre public toilet. Not an ideal situation to say the least. After hiding out in the restroom for a while, the cook eventually mustered up the courage to venture out and rushed to a nearby store where he somehow managed to borrow a pair of trousers. Unfortunately the report didn’t give any details about how he explained his predicament, but one can only imagine how embarrassing the whole situation must have been.

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Some cooks with trousers yesterday

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Finger furor

In a bizarre cut-off-one-of-your-fingers squabble between 2 gangsters, the police were called in, forcing them to invoke the anti-organized crime law.

It turns out that a 27-year-old member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, told a younger member of the gang to cut off one of his fingers for attempting to leave the organization. Making sure there could be no misunderstandings he said, “You can no longer escape. To take responsibility for attempting to quit the gang, cut off one of your fingers.”

How this situation will be remedied remains to be seen, but if things don’t go well for the man involved, heaven knows what the gang will require him to remove after involving the police.

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The young gangster showing off his still intact (yet surprisingly feminine) fingers yesterday.

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Curry Cocktail

At the incredibly tacky, yet surprisingly popular Yokohama Curry Museum, a curry-flavoured cocktail is now available. The drink is called Karetini, and is based on gin. But to live up to its billing it contains curry spices and red pepper.

I have to admit that I’m not a big cocktail fan, but this new concoction sounds particularly unappealing. Plus an official of the museum claims, “it will cause you to perspire” which is not something I generally look for in an alcoholic beverage.

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Lets just hope it’s not one of those cold sweats that usually precede projectile vomiting.