A Week in Tokyo 19
This week we take a look at speaking ice cream, pointing people, old eroge mags, fire day, wishes on a tree and more.
First up is meetings at Ueno. Tokyo has a load of tall thin buildings.
Why do you see train drivers pointing at things and shouting all the time?
This action is known as Shisa Kanko [指差喚呼[しさかんこ]] and is a method employed by the Japanese to confirm and remember things.The steps are...
1. Use ones eyes to confirm
2. Point with arm stretched
3. Vocally say what you are doing with a "Yoshi!" on the end.
4. Listen to yourself and what you are saying to confirm the action.
You can see a bus driver doing this in the Wikipedia entry.
I do this when I leave the house for the day as I dont want to worry about whether I've locked the door or not.
Do you have any interesting ways to remember whether you've done something?
Also, if anybody has an interesting way of managine short term memory then do share.
I used to visualize a shelf with many different items in my mind. If I wanted to remember for example that I needed to by some milk, I would imagine an item on that shelf associated with some milk somehow.
Pay a clairvoyant 3,000 yen to read your destiny - any takers?
This is known as Uranai [占い[うらない]]. And if you are seeing squares immediately to the left of this text, it means you don't have Japanese fonts installed.
Mirai Inc has been running for a while now and I wa shocked (like this) at how many Japanese businesses still rely on physical paper to do work. A few of my clients cant do *anything* without something being sent to them via post.
Catching up on some Geass in the lounge. The amount of nice girlies in R2 has increased a lot!
I watch my anime through my Mac Mini attached to the plasma. I have comrades who record the shows for me so that I don't need to stay up until the early hours to watch anime - I'm sure you have the same comrades too ^^;
While I could watch on the computer at the desk, I cant relax in the same environment that I work in and usually watch anime in the lounge. Where do you watch your anime?
When you are at a ramen place, you will normally see the manga with gravure models on the cover. I think this is to get the customer to concentrate on the models rather than the taste ^^;
Book Off don't accept eroge mags anymore so they all go out on paper recycle day. I could never get School Mate to run on Parallels...
What do you do with your unwanted mags?
Its already a red hot summer but the colonel wants to kill us by making it hotter with their new spicy product.
BLT with a Mikuru pickle on the side.
Everyone who works at this pachinko parlor gets fired on fire day.
Hello Kitty sells life insurance in Japan.
Cant remember what day it was but children write their wishes on colored tags and hang it on trees.
Plants will scream if you try to pluck them.
If somebody offers you a talking ice-cream then you should politely refuse with your arm stretched out.
Circular garage which does not allow you to get out the car when parked - unless you normally climb through the windscreen.
No matter how clean you keep your place, cockroaches will always find their way into the house. They commonly come out during the summer time which is why the TV is full of anti cockroach products - vintage Robocop roach ad posted earlier to the News Items.
These are little houses with a sticky floor. They come with some bait to entice the roaches.
Once they go in, they stay in until you extract them by hand and bite their heads off.
Cockroaches common in your region too?
Hayashi Om Curry Rice - about 880 yen.
A sign in the park showing you the correct position to fart without causing backache.
The incredibly cute Kemeko cant wait for the anime.
Practice farting without making a noise. How do you handle a situation when you do a noisy fart in front of others?
This question obviously only applies to boys because girls don't fart.
That small stone hut looking object is designed to keep a guard in there all day. Although it could look like a Tardis on the inside.
The origins of the Tardis below. Me have not seen Dr Who for years - how is it these days?
Out n about for walkies near the emperors palace.
Time for some food at a nearby cafe.
How I would love to have a huge lawn to laze around in on a sunny afternoon. Will have to wait until we buy our second house ^^;
The rising temperatures in Tokyo mean that its time to dig out the electric fan.
Digging through some old Star Wars figures. Use my dads shoe boxes to store them ^^;
Was actually digging around for accessories for the Figmas.
Sorting through figure accessories. There are accessories here for 9 different figures - can you name them all?
The winner gets a virtual back pat and a free browser cookie.
Shopping for some grub to eat on a hot Sunday afternoon.
Mmmmm. me loves purin. purupuru purin.
You've probably guessed by now that I like ice cream ^^;
Notice how the contents look huge on the box - the contents turned out to be bite sizes orz.
Heading out to Shinjuku.
My work space changes all the time - its mostly placement of the figures though as I play with them a lot ^^;
Here I'm about to settle down for some coding with some cappuccino n cake on a Saturday afternoon.
Review of Kanu up soon.
Made the glass shelf next to the window higher to accommodate more figures.
And the shelf next to me currently looks like this - more figures on the second, third floor and in storage ^^;;;
Tsutaya is a popular chain store for DVD rentals which are still popular over here. Physical DVD rental still popular in your region?
The invisible man takes a bite of ramen.
Out n about at night in the Meguro area.
How is your Tokyo train knowledge? Can you guess this line?
Tokyo want to hold the Olympics in 2016. Will you be watching the Olympics this year?
If you are feeling down n out with no money to buy a NDS or PSP, you may want to "invest" a few hundred yen at this machine. Stick in 100 yen and lights will flash at high speed in front of each product...
Hit the button at the right time, and if the good lord is on your side, the light will stop in front of the NDS or PSP and you will receive a spanking new game machine.
If the good lords is not on your side, you will receive a slap in the face and a packet of tissues worth 5 yen.
And this weeks "caption that photo" is brought to you by Rize and the Japanese Pedo Bear.
And before I forget, if you miss any of the Week in Tokyo episodes, you can always find past installments in the Week In Tokyo archives or RSS subscribe to the Week in Tokyo feed.
