Quirky Japan Blog

I was browsing in a bookstore last week and came across this book called Henna Madori (Strange Floor Plans). All of them are from real apartments. This is a six-room apartment, but the rooms are only three tatami mats each (one tatami mat is just under two meters x one meter), and you have to go [...]

This statue of the Manneken Piss on the platform of JR Hamamatsu Station has been dressed up in a fire fighter’s uniform for the Spring Fire Prevention Campain. This sign in the Yanaka District of Tokyo says “No thieves permitted beyond this point.” This banner is advertising a graveyard. It struck me as odd to have the [...]

This is from a 2-channel discussion I chanced upon. The thread’s title was “English words you hate.” 1. Encyclopedia I don’t have a reason, but it just sucks. 2. I agree 4. Virus It’s not an English word, though. 5. Experience I can’t pronounce it. 7. Yield It sucks. 9. adjourn awkward 10 I don’t like “christmas” 12. gender “Sex” is good enough! 13. Korea, Korean 14. vocabularly. I always [...]

Susuki, or pampas grass is a well-known symbol of fall in Japan, but I took these susuki photos in Nara around New Years.

In the past, tourists in Japan faced the difficult choice of getting herded around on a package tour or wandering around without a guide having no idea what they’re looking at half the time. Personally, I’ve always preferred to travel on my own, but when I ended up going somewhere without a Japanese friend, I [...]

If Nokogiri-yama was in Kyoto, it would almost certainly be an A-list tourist attraction. It has a huge daibutsu (great Buddha statue) that is twice as big as the more famous versions in Kamakura and Nara, and also an incredible image of the Kannon Bosatsu carved into the side of a cliff. There are also [...]

Butt Hair Station – Photo By Monami, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. A few weeks ago I did a post featuring strange photos I’d found around the Internet. While I was researching the reason for a sign that said “Butt Hairs: 48 yen each or 5 for 198 yen” I found a Wikipedia entry [...]

If you ever have a chance to get out to a small, local festival near where you live, you’ll probably find that they can be surprisingly entertaining. This kid’s dancing festival is held in Higashi-Omiya, a tiny station north of Tokyo every August. They have kids from the local dance schools perform, and I find [...]

I’m a bit of a samugariya (someone who hates the cold), so I found myself shivering just watching these guys pouring ice-cold water over themselves. It’s part of the annual Daikoku Matsuri at the famous Kanda Myojin Shrine in downtown Tokyo, and is an ancient purification rite. Originally, it was for people who had just [...]

On  New Year’s day, my in-laws went to visit some local shrines near their house, and I went along to take photos. I found the tiny rural temples really interesting – it’s a huge change from the crowds in the big-city shrines. More photos after the jump.