June 12 on 12

It’s the rainy season here, and we could get as much as 8 inches of rain in June alone. Typhoon dependent of course! Mostly it’s been overcast and drizzly, but yesterday I did get stuck in a downpour while on my bike. Which leads into my first set of photos: umbrella management. There is truly a love of umbrellas here. No one wears a rain coat, they choose to carry an umbrella instead. People can even bike one-handed with an umbrella which is a lot harder than it looks. I’ve tried a few times and it’s downright dangerous because you can’t really see where you’re going, and the wind catches the umbrella, sometimes even turning it inside-out. Because people are always carrying umbrellas around, there are lots of these locking umbrella racks. You put your umbrella in and take out the key so no one can steal your $5 umbrella. (Japanese people will, however, leave their expensive cell phone on an empty table to save a space in a busy restaurant, but they don’t dare leave their umbrella unlocked!)

You’ve heard me go on about the endless shoe and slipper changes here. This photo was taken at Himeji castle where tourists must take off their shoes and either wear slippers or go stocking-footed to visit the castle. You can see the system in place. Slippers all lined up to people to grab a pair. Staff passing out plastic bags for people to carry their shoes in (they do reuse these bags).

I’ve been meaning to include a photo of a sock store. Yup, this store just sells socks. Obviously when changing shoes is a big part of your day, you want your socks to be stylish. Curiously though, there is no great need to match your socks with your outfit.

Thought this was funny. For those times when you simply can’t communicate, just use an etch-a-sketch! (zoom in to read the English instructions for another chuckle)

This month’s ikebana arrangement. The tall flowers are arranged in a fan shape. I was happy because it was a different arrangement from our usual 100-70-50 arrangement.

This is a common sight on the streets once it gets dark. Fortune tellers set up a table and a lantern and read people’s palms.

Ohtsu Junior High School has a kendo club. Kendo is a Japanese martial art, very strange to watch. The costumes look like something out of a Star Wars set (or maybe a Star Wars set looks like something out of a kendo club). Kendo-ers (not sure what we’d call people who practice Kendo) do this weird skipping thing, and then stomp one bare foot onto the ground and screech when striking their opponent. When I first heard the Kendo club practicing, I thought they were killing birds!


These next couple of photos are Angie and Ash’s (having them here reminded me what’s interesting and weird!)

I may have blogged about these yellow lines before. If you zoom in you can see a raised marking on them. They're for blind people to use with their canes so they can walk safely down the sidewalk. The pattern changes when there is a turn to make, or at points to cross streets. The entire country is covered with these yellow lines, making me wonder if the government expects a sizeable chunk of the population to turn blind in the near future.

Even during Tokyo's rush hour, you can see the inherent orderliness in everything here. In this photo, people are lined up in two lines for the next train. When the train arrives, each line will go up to the train against the door, leaving the middle free for people to exit the train.

I should have included this one in a winter 12 on 12 because this is a classically Japanese winter thing. It's called a kotatsu. It's basically a low table (notice the lack of legs on the chairs) with a small heater built into it, and a quilt under the table top. It's quite cozy for your legs, but not so cozy for your upper half.