What on earth this little old lady was carrying in her bag will forever remain a mystery, but considering its obvious weight and substantial size, my guess is it was another little old lady.
A little old lady with a ludicrously large bag
Odd
Japanese fertility festival costumes and conversations
Japanese fertility festivals aren’t necessarily for the faint of heart, but what they definitely are is fun; good-natured bawdiness that remarkably never seems to slip into sleaziness.
What these events also do is effortlessly mix the traditional, with the not so traditional, such as the standard happi coat and a rather less conventional penis costume. A contrast that is clear to see, although what kind of conversations it conjures up is pure — and possibly puerile — conjecture.
A (foreign?) head on a stick
It’s not all that unusual for farmers to fashion scarecrows from mannequin heads and a few old clothes — a look that can be both surprisingly convincing as well as suitably scary.
Others, however, are either not so creative or simply can’t be bothered, and instead just make do by shoving a head on a stick.
Pikachu, using a phone, on a train, in Tokyo
Due to the city’s size, and the sheer number of tracks that cross it, Tokyo’s trains carry all walks of life — from the regular salaryman, to the odd Hollywood pirate. And yet that said, this was definitely the first time I’ve ever seen someone who popped out dressed as Pikachu.
A truly disturbing Buddhist statue in Tokyo
With their constantly staring eyes, Japanese scarecrows make for an unsettling sight; one that probably has a much bigger impact on people passing by, rather than any pests they are supposed to be protecting the crops from.
The truly unpleasant gaze of a student statue revealing what appears to be a life-like face, however, in many ways makes the likes of those above seem positively pleasant looking.
And yet it’s arguable that neither of them have anything on this: a Buddhist figure that is always watching — no matter which angle you warily try to look at it from.
A cross-dressing, Mrs. Santa, Merry Christmas
Numerous shops in Tokyo sell Mrs. Santa outfits. Cheeky little numbers that, if the images on the boxes are anything to go by, would add substantially more sauce to Christmas than merely some brandy.
But, like many things in life, the reality can be very different. So different, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine any amount of festive goodwill being enough to forgive this fella.
Merry Christmas!