Photographs from a small group of islands
Every year it seems, the media happily mentions the arrival of the season’s first gorgeously un-globe-like members of the gourd family, complete with a picture of several Japanese ladies happily handling a plethora of marvellously proportioned melons.
However, seeing such beauties in the wild as it were is still relatively rare, but they are indeed real,
and really not very round.
For whatever reason, these days it definitely seems de rigueur for dogs in Japan, especially those of a diminutive nature, to not even consider leaving the house unless they are donned in duds of some description.
A fad that thankfully hasn’t been followed by their feline friends. Well, apart from the really cool cats that is.
However, while peaked caps and pullovers might be just about passable at a push, canine cakes,
sorbet,
and even scones,
arguably make a frilly little frock seem far from silly — sensible even.
Sort of.
One of the benefits — apart from beer — of eating at one of Tokyo’s tremendous number of izakaya or the like is sharing a phenomenally varied selection of food, all the way from the good to the gristle.
Or at least it used to be as, with a sizeable number of salary men now worried about losing their job or suffering salary cuts, rumours have become rife about a disturbing new trend involving many people acting in a mercenary manner in regards to the menu. A practice that apparently reached a pinnacle of sorts last week, when an unnamed engineer on a night out with a group of vegetarians, is said to have ordered nothing but animal-based offerings and then had the temerity to tackle the tofu.
And, in fad and indeed food obsessed Tokyo, this disturbing new development has already started to make inroads with this rapidly renamed restaurant.
In the not too distant past, pork-based treats boasting little piggy looks were not only cute, but called for.
Now, however, with pig flu panic a mainstay of the Japanese media, openly promoting the pork in one’s product is probably not exactly prudent.
Either that, or a soupcon of seal and a pinch of penguin are seen as necessary to mask the main ingredient.
Cigarettes in Japan may still be surprisingly cheap compared to many countries, but lighting up in any location is, in Tokyo at least, becoming increasingly tough, with even Japan Railways recently removing its supremely popular smoking spots from over 200 stations. A situation that is certainly a far cry indeed from scenes seen only several years ago, when sucking on a ciggie would only have been tutted at if it was actually on a train.
That said, dens devoted to drinking are for the time being at least still far from ready to tackle the tricky issue of tobacco, and this place in particular will presumably be one of the last to discontinue it even if they do.
After dark, the densely packed drinking dens of Shinjuku’s Golden Gai district may well be be the time-honoured haunt of Tokyo’s artistic types, but by day, it’s a decidedly different story, with the narrow streets only sparsely populated by the odd person washing,
walking through,
and even working.
Whoever they happen to be.