Photographs from a small group of islands
Whilst Japan is still relatively safe compared to many countries, crime levels are slowly rising. A situation that the media has been more than happy to exaggerate, gladly forfeiting balanced coverage for short-term commercial gain. The often sensationalist reports whipping up unnecessary fear and anxiety, especially amongst the elderly.
Resulting in some pensioners taking decidedly drastic defence measures.
Below is fairly innocuous looking statue. Perhaps even rather touching, with its apparent theme of unity and bonding.
Yet on closure inspection, it features a somewhat unsettling groinal grimace.
Given that approximately 96.37% of Japanese television programmes have a food-based theme, it should come as no surprise to anyone that certain individuals have started the practice of designating days to individual dishes. And to get the ball rolling, October 30th will now forever be linked with ‘tamago-kake gohan’ — a splendidly simple rice and egg dish. Its uncomplicated nature encompassed in these four easily manageable steps:
1. Make some rice and put it in a bowl.
2. Pour over a raw egg and a dash of soy sauce.
3. Mix together. Vigorously if so inclined.
4. Eat.
The surprisingly well supported tamago-kake symposium was held in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, where participants passionately discussed the merits of the gooey egg and rice combination. Plus as hard as it is to believe, proceedings were spiced up even further with an award ceremony; a member of the group being honoured for managing to eat tamago-kake gohan for 30 straight days. And before any passerby got the chance to yell ‘cholesterol’ or ‘salmonella’, the prize winner enthusiastically explained that whilst he began tiring of the taste after only 10 days, by adding a nutritious (yet undisclosed) tonic to the soy sauce, he was able to infuse the dish with a bit of variety and soldier on for the remainder of his challenge.
Warming to his topic, the egg enthusiast continued to wow the crowd by confessing that on the last day he added beer to the concoction — making it into a celebration of sorts. Finally rounding off the spellbinding story by proclaiming, “The tastiness of tamago-kake gohan is universal.â€
A statement that could probably be deemed as something of an exaggeration.
There are numerous words that could be added to ‘very’ in order to describe the young lady pictured on the magazine below.
‘Holiday’ however is arguably not the first one that springs to mind.
Somewhere in the region of 100 watches were stolen from a jewellery store in the city of Tokushima over the weekend. The hefty haul estimated at around 36 million yen (175,000 pound).
Now whilst such an incident is hardly uncommon, when the location of the shop is taken into consideration, it is probably enough to warrant at least a gentle raising of the eyebrows.
Using a stolen car to smash through the store’s metal shutters, one can confidently assume that the robbers made a fair bit of noise. A racket that would have been especially noticeable at 5 o’clock in the morning. Yet rather surprisingly, not loud enough to disturb the carefree coppers stationed nearby. Yes, just 100 metres from the scene of the crime is a police box, but the on-duty officers went on the record as saying they didn’t hear a thing.
Not a dicky bird.