Because it is compulsory for every blog about Japan to comment on how weird it all is.
Haiku contest
A fellow competitor on this rally has suggested a haiku contest. Haikus are poems with 5,7, and 5 syllables but they also have more subtle rules about moments of observation. This one from Nigel Woof sets a high barrier to entry:
Barbarians land
Old swords into a new realm
Let the engines start.
Vending machine of the day
In 1988 I was seconded to my company’s Japanese office, and spent 4 months living in Roppongi (the Tokyo equivalent of Covent Garden). One of the things that amazed me was how many vending machines there were – and a substantial proportion of Japan’s GDP still goes through vending machines. However time moves on and the rest of the world is catching up. In Bangkok we saw a toy vending machine and in the 24 hour flower market, one that sells bouquets, although it wasn’t obvious when you would need to use it.
The silken gauntlet has been thrown down. Watch this space for updates.
Mysterious icons
The Japanese have accepted the fact that nobody can read their language, possibly not even their own people. Many signs in tourist areas are in four alphabets – Japanese and English and also Chinese and Korean. But a picture is sometimes – although not always – worth a thousand words.
This one says: if you open up your hard-shell suitcase you can slide it in under the bed futon platform and access all the stuff you have stored in it without needing to unpack anything onto the shelves we haven’t provided.
And when you have to put up a “how to flush this toilet” explanation you might think your society has become a bit over-complicated…
As far as road signs go, the Thais have again set a high starting point:
As you say quite a high bar