Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan is the blog of Simon Gibson, a New Zealander living in Tokyo, Japan. Focused on New Zealand, Japan, web design and other shiny things.
I have heard of couch surfing, where people stay on various people’s couches as they travel around, but this story that is doing the rounds takes that to the next level. It appears that a homeless Japanese woman, aged 58, lived for a year undetected in the closet of a Japanese guy in Kasuya, Fukuoka.
A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.
Before we left Japan for China, we visited the Boso Peninsula, which is part of Chiba prefecture and forms one side of the entrance to Tokyo Bay. We took the train down from Tokyo through to the Miura Peninsula. Miura Peninsula is the site of the American military base at Yokosuka. From Kurihama on the Miura Peninsula, we took the ferry across the bay (Japanese only site) to the port at Kaneya in Chiba. We visited the Giant Buddha at Nihondera, took the cable car and enjoyed a nice walk around there. We stayed at a little ryokan in Tateyama City. The next day we went around the tip of the peninsula.
It is a nice trip / weekend away from Tokyo. Being vegetarian we didn’t take advantage of the areas bountious seafoods which the peninsula is famous for. We went just after I bought the camera, so some of the photos have a strangely bluish hue to them.
We went to Sendai a few years ago, and these photos were snapped around the city center. Sendai is the largest city in Tohoku, and is sometimes refered to as the capital of Northern Japan. When I was living in Akita, it seemed like a big city, but after living in Tokyo it seems pretty small. For all that it has a great atmosphere, some wonderful shops and restaurants as well as a highly recommended castle.
Sometimes we see products in Japan or other parts of Asia with strange names that are obviously the product of very bad translation attempts, but here we have the Bush Cutter George Jr. which I think is the product more of a cutting (excuse the pun) sense of humour.
Produced by Japanese Agricultural machinery manufacturer Canycom, the Bush Cutter George Jr. is part of a line-up which also includes the wonderfully named Hillary - a wheelbarrow with tank tracks.
I took this photo a while back up in Ibaraki. I wonder what sort of problems they had that led them to put up a sign over the toilet saying “Push do not thrust!???
And to think I used to fence for a club that had “In thrust we trust!” for a motto.
When I first came to Japan I lived in Akita. Everyone there spoke very strange Japanese, but I thought it was normal. And one day someone introduced be to Yoshi Ikuzo who is a “traditional Japanese enka singer” from Aomori (the top-most province of Japan’s main island). His hometown, Kanagi-cho is one of the places Alan Booth visited in his book Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan.
Yoshi’s accent is close to the Akita one, so listening to him was good for my studying.
Here is a video of one of his songs remixed. A classic:
He has quite a sense of humour which makes his music more interesting than most Japanese enka singers, kind of like the Japanese Johnny Cash. I have a Yoshi Ikuzo t-shirt which I was wearing when we arrived in Finland. It says Ikuzo with a big star around it and looks like a heavy metal t-shirt, so this video is very apt. The place we stayed at in Helsinki was over-run by heavy metal fans who were going to a big metal festival. The Ikuzo t-shirt was a great way to make friends…
I don’t know who the artist is (anyone?) but I found this amazing Japanese manga strip whilst browsing over at reddit. Not safe for work, and a little sick / gross at the same time, but if you are offended by such things I don’t really have much time for you. Back to your little hutch.
The thing that I really appreciated about this strip is its’ use of perspective. Never seen nought like that before. Very, very clever….
This is where we are heading tomorrow - the Shimokita Peninsula which is the axe shaped peninsula at the top of Japan’s main island of Honshu. It isn’t winter now, so it wont be too much like that video.　Will spend a couple of days up there, and even visit hell.
