Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Edward Scissorhands School of Nail Art

You know you want these! You’ll merely have to hold up one hand to get out of dishwashing and other odious chores. In a boggling bow to sheer impracticality, the contestants in a recent Japanese nail/hair/makeup contest really took fingernails to a new level. Not only are they of ancient Chinese mandarin-like proportions, they must weigh a ton!

Bride of Scissorhands

Here's where all the hedge clippings get put to good use

Expecting these to break out in song at any moment

From the February 2012 pages of NailMax, another outrageous Japanese fingernail magazine.

Can I Please Have The Red-Hot Pincers Instead?

I have no idea what these dried insect skins are supposed to cure, but whatever it is, I hope I never get it! I saw these in the window of a traditional pharmacy, along with equally unsavory dried worms, fungus and what I hope were roots, but could easily have been something with a far higher squick score.

Here in Japan, people rely on a combination of Western and Chinese medicine for treating what ails them – even I swear by kampo when I have a cold. But ewww, now that I think of it, what IS the secret ingredient in that effective, yet foul-tasting concoction?!

Pizza 2.0

Today I’m taking a rare break from my usual chronicling of Japanese pizza weirdness to bring you an innovation by J-Dominos that can only be described as swoonworthy: the mille-feuille cheesy crust! That oozy goodness you see above is some sort of mystery cheese, sandwiched between a rather flaky and un-bread-like crust. In a country where cheese used to be an optional topping(!), this is a major breakthrough! It’s not for the purist, and doesn’t get big points for being great the next day, cold, for breakfast, but when it’s delivered hot to the door on a rainy night: yessssss!

No Monks Allowed

I was somewhat surprised to see this sign prohibiting itinerant monks from asking for alms near Koganji temple, but apparently fraud is on the rise. Individuals posing as traditional Buddhist traveling monks have been taking up stations nearby the famous healing temple, holding out their begging bowls and dispensing faux blessings with abandon. The temple wants supplicants to know that they have no connection to the healing bodhisattva, Togenuki Jizo.

“Bring Out Yer Dead!”

Like the carts that went around plague-stricken Europe in the dark ages, this truck was parked in front of Takadanobaba station today, carting away all the blown-out, abandoned umbrellas left behind after last week’s rainstorm.

Why so many? you may ask. Notice that almost all of them are the telltale clear ¥500 variety bought by hapless individuals who forgot to check the weather report and got caught far from home without a bumbershoot. These umbrellas are worth every yen you pay for them, which is to say that they fall apart after only a few uses. But how to get rid of a broken umbrella? The garbage police are so strict, they certainly won’t cart away a defunct umbrella if you put it out at the curb on non-burnable garbage day, because it’s longer than 30 cm. So the most common solution is to stick the broken one in the wet umbrella rack outside a convenience store, go in and buy a new one, and “forget” to take the old one home with you.

Enemies Of The People

At first I thought this was a somewhat feeble effort at public poetry by the Minato City municipal government, but it turns out there really is a crow menace in Arisugawa Park. I used to think the mayor of Tokyo was kind of crazy because of his public hatred of foreigners, post-menopausal women and crows, but now I’m kind of with him on the birds. They actually do come down on you like a bat out of hell and attempt to take a divot out of your head if you stroll unsuspectingly beneath their nests!

And the crows are diabolically smart. Local governments have been foiled many times in their crow eradication schemes, most notably in Kagoshima when a campaign to destroy their nests to prevent any more from being hatched failed dismally. The crows merely built decoy nests for the government workers to demolish, and moved their REAL nests elsewhere.

But the dive bombing is a minor problem compared to garbage pilfering. These days, we have to diligently stash our garbage under weighted nets like these on collection day…

…or it ends up looking like this:

My Corner Emailbox

The other day I walked to the mailbox on the corner to drop in some letters I hoped would eventually make their way to San Francisco the old-fashioned way. Stopping to read the labels to make sure I wasn’t shoving my overseas envelopes into the JAPANESE MAIL ONLY slot, I encountered…WTF?

Was this ordinary-looking postbox secretly kitted out with USB ports? I inspected it. Nope. Perhaps it was a radical wifi-enabled postal service hotspot? Hmm, no again. I showed this photo to a Japanese friend, figuring it was just an Engrish mistranslation, but she laughed out loud. Apparently not.

For now, it remains in the Unsolved Japanese Cultural Mysteries Hall of Fame.

Nose Mint

 

Q: What do foreign countries smell like?

A: They all smell like…MINT!

You never know what unpleasant odors you’ll encounter when traveling abroad, so it’s best to be prepared with this handy travel aid from Tokyu Hands. Stick a little Nose Mint in your nostrils and you won’t have to spend precious vacation time worrying about just what unseen yet insistent nastiness might be nearby…

Ketchup Gun

I needed this. Well, okay, to be honest, I almost never eat hamburgers here in Japan, but when I do, I’ll be ready to give that all-beef patty a righteous shot of the good red stuff! Or…something more sinister. As the back so helpfully informs me, “It’s not only containing ketchup inside for sure!”

Anime Eyes

If you’re going to be a visual kei star, you’ve got to get The Look. Hair bleached, waxed, teased and sprayed? Check! Matching band promo Hello Kitty X Peace Now t-shirts? Check! But most important, did you remember to put in your circle contacts and make up your eyes so you look like a live action anime character? Triple check to Golden Bomber for all of the above!

But what if you don’t have an army of stylists swarming your dressing room? Kera magazine comes through again with step by step directions for getting that perfect big-eyed look! All you need is killer eyeliner, bruise-colored eyeshadow, some wicked fake eyelashes, and a pair of contacts that covers up your real eye color along with a lot of the white part. Look and learn at the feet of the masters!

The tricky part comes after you put in your circle contacts and shadow up your eyes. You’ve got to draw a perfect swoosh with the eyeliner, then glue on your fake eyelashes BELOW the actual bottom edge of your eye. See how the corner is now further out and lower? Then you have to blacken that little triangle of skin to give the impression that your eyes are now a completely different shape. If you’re Golden Bomber, now you’re ready for the Nippon Budokan!