Going Against the Grain

~Hi everyone! The Obon vacation is over, and it's Back To The Grind in "that so called educational institution." But don't worry, as I took plenty of pictures over the break and collected a number of interesting stories for you.

Do you remember my post about vending machines from a few months ago? What with the beer, toothpaste, soap, and dozens of brands of coffee and soft drinks, I thought I'd seen the limit to what a machine could possibly dispense. How wrong I was. From right here in Nagaoka, I present...the RICE VENDING MACHINE!

^ This is a panoramic view of the nine machines lined up next to each other. From what I could tell, each machine dispenses a different brand of rice, in different-sized bags ranging from two to ten kilograms (the maximum, which you can see on the white writing on the lower part of the picture). Here's a closeup of one of the machines:

^ As you can see, this one dispenses ten-kilogram bags for a rather steep 4,700 yen (or is it 5,500?). I examined the machine on the right, that seemed to be the "master control unit" for the others, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. The Zen was not strong with me on that day.

^ Near the machines was an unmanned booth of some kind, with this mascot painted on the side. In case you can't tell, he's a grain of rice (apparently uncooked), who seems to have suffered a bizarre mutation causing him to grow legs, arms, and a face. But the strangest part is the fact that he's holding a 100 yen coin, which, if we compare the relative sizes, indicates that this monster grain of rice is about three inches in length. Freaky.

Enough about the rice. On with the Japanglish!

^ I saw this sign in Kashiwazaki, outside of the clothing store that sold unusual t-shirts. Text reads:

At Takaraya Shop. all of our articles for
reliable everyday-wear from matelia to
finished product are carefully designed
and made together with TRAD keeping
you. the cultured person. in mind.

My questions here are, they could correctly spell designed but not material? And what exactly is TRAD?

Oh, by the way, thanks for over 1,000 hits! Sure, a few hundred are from me re-checking the site to be sure each post formatted correctly, but on the other hand, I didn't set up the hit counter until I'd been making the blog for several months. Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and keep your bookmarks handy for future posts! ~Oyasumi.

Yaking Yakuza

~To beat the stifling humidity here in Nagaoka, some friends and I went on a day trip to the beach, in a resort town called Kashiwazaki. It's about 40 minutes from Nagaoka by express train, for the equivalent of a very reasonable $6.00. Braving hordes of poisonous jellyfish, man-eating sharks, electric eels, North Korean kidnappers, and gangsters, I braved the ocean waves in search of a way to lower my body temperature. Okay, so I'm lying about the first four.

^ We weren't the only ones at the beach today: it was crowded with Japanese families. Many people had large plastic animal floats, including dolphins, sharks, tigers, and my personal favorite, the alligator (or is it a crocodile?) that you can see in the above picture.

^ Swimming was not the only thing people were up to. This adventurous young person seems to have taken up windsurfing. Unfortunately for him, this was either his first time or he wasn't very good at it, because he couldn't stay level for more than a few seconds. I snapped this picture during one of his rare upright moments.

^ An interesting sand castle. It's like an evil version of Mr. Potato Head.

^ Some of the more interesting denizens of the beach today was this very obvious group of Japanese gangsters, known as yakuza. They were easily identifiable by their full-body tattoos. Some public buildings in Japan, particularly onsen (hot springs), do not allow customers with obvious tattoos to enter, because they'll think you're a yakuza like these fellows. This is why you can immediately pick them out as yakuza, as anyone else with tattoos like this is willingly ostracizing themselves from society.

Oh--they also have their own unique way of speaking: Yakuza Japanese. The most distinguishing feature of this dialect is the ability to attach insults onto the end of any sentence. Brilliant! I must resist the temptation to speak like this.

I noticed that the other Japanese people on the beach were keeping a healthy distance from these fellows, both in the water and out. However, they were just there to relax, smoke, splash around in the water like children, and throw a frisbee around. They were even making a sandcastle, for crying out loud. I guess even gangsters need a day at the beach.
^ On the way back to the train station I noticed this sign, which reads, "Disaster Relief Area" and "Nuclear Emergency Shelter". At first, I thought this was another North Korea paranoia issue in case of a nuclear strike, but then I realized that this referred to the Kashiwazaki nuclear reactor a few kilometers away.

They get a nuclear shelter, and all we get is a Shearon-Harris evacuation route and a useless siren? I feel soooo much safer...

The next image is not exactly Japanglish, but...

^ I spotted "You Don't Gnome Me!" on a t-shirt at a clothing store. I was going to buy one, but they were all very large. Don't you want a garden gnome just like this in your front yard? His crazed expression and accusing finger would ward away all but the most persistent Jehovah's Witnesses and door-to-door salesmen! ~Oyasumi.