Saturday, April 04, 2009

Blossoms, Ascetics, and Don't Pee Here

It's cherry blossom time. Yesterday we woke up early and drove to our local Lotus Park to catch some blooms.



There are the two guys standing on some planks. I yelled obscenely loud for them to turn and look my way. They're mumbling something about my sanity.


Here's a closeup of some blooms.





Then we had an early obento lunch.



Some fancy sweetmeats.



Walking around we came across this old man in his electric car. He was swerving quite a bit, ran into those bushes once. We cheered when he made it through those two cement knobby things. Ironically enough as we were driving away from the park and stopped at a red light, we saw him pulled over the side of the road surrounded by people. They were having him write down his name and number on a notepad. There was a bit of lecturing. By the looks of things he had run into someones car or bicycle or something. The light turned green so I couldn't shout my encouragement from the window.





Personally, however, I liked this dude best. He was some sort of ascetic out playing his shamisen.



Here you can see his prayer beads and patched up, incredibly ratty clothes.


J and I tossed some money into his box. Judging from the look he might have wanted paper money instead of coins.


And finally we come to the highlight of the day.
While I love Japan, I catch men peeing outside (on stop signs, on bushes, against fences, into small rivers, on small animals) at least three times a day. Further proof of this nasty habit was found at this small shrine.



The sign reads, "No Peeing". And it's not about animals either as that would be written entirely differently. Eyu.


13 comments:

Unknown said...

I took a pic of the same "don't pee" sign. Next to a shrine just makes it all the more interesting.

Jim Melvin said...

More blog brilliance.

Kappa no He said...

Pam, I love that it's obviously not one of those 'clean up after your pet' signs, which means the animals are more well behaved than the drunken men.

Jim, I just got an e-mail from J. Give her a great big bear hug from me and many, many kisses. I'm printing her e-mail off, looking for a nice frame. P.S. I read collections the same was she does.

Anonymous said...

Everything looks so lovely and fun, esp the Sakura sweets.. you have mad skills in the obento department = )

Kappa no He said...

Girl Japan, I totally needed more green. Ha ha. I go to your blog just to gaze at your yummy dishes. Man!

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

I can't believe you made those bento boxes yourself. That is amazing. I can't even make Korean kimbab - you know the anti sushi. Ok these pics are awesome. Except for the pee pee one. I love that hat on the serious dude.

Terrie - sometime Monday please pop by the Enchanted Inkpot because I've been working on a post on Fantasy in Asia and thought you might have some good insights!

Woman in a Window said...

Huh, ever been to Korea? A whole lot of peeing going on there too. What's up with that?

Kappa no He said...

Ello, I so love the name Enchanted Inkpot. I'm on my way! Our family is on a serious pork and kimchi kick. Every weekend. And Korean flavored seaweed, O. M. G.!

Woman in a Window, luckily my husband doesn't read this post but my mother-in-law used to brag about potty training him outside...on a newspaper. I kid you not.

Pat said...

The cherry blossom trees pic is fabulous! The scene must have been truly wondrous in person.

That poor bush/plant/grassy thing in the no peeing sign pic looks pitiful. Some people have no empathy... :)

Hilary said...

As always, your post is wonderful. I love the photo of the street musician and you sure do make a pretty lunch. :)

Mary Witzl said...

I really found tachi-shoben (any such thing as suwari-shoben, I wonder?) so irritating! You wonder how guys can be so crass. It also irritates me that women can't take part in this. (Not that I'd want to, of course, but it just seems so unfair.)

I'm amazed at those obento bako -- you really made them? I can make my own too, but you wouldn't have to ask me if I'd made them -- you'd know.

laughingwolf said...

happy spring, terrie :)

Kappa no He said...

Pat, I have the sneaking suspicion that some of the older generation still think peeing on things and throwing cigarettes out their car windows is Okay.

Hilary, quite of bit of that was bought. I usually try to be more from-scratch but I didn't find the time this year. *sniff*

Mary, suwari-shoben, ha! I'm trying to implement that in my house. Guys. Aiming. Ug.

Laughing Wolf, you, too! All the flowers are blooming!