Snobbery

I just thought this an appropriate name for a clothes 'boutique'.



This bugs me.

Clinic

If your muse isn't inspiring you like it should, send it away to a day spa, and get it back as good as new.

Enjoy

I thought they were alright, really.

Misleading Advertising

Policeman don't have a sense of humour, either.

Memento

Who is the fine actor on this Japanese DVD cover?

This is a great movie by the way.

Harajuku Signs

The irony was that it wasn't on a corner at all.



Such noble sentiments.

Lang-8

You may know that I've been studying Japanese as a way to prevent insanity, however Japanese is not really a good language to do this. I'm now more insane than ever, less social, yet more tech savvy and so I've attached a widget to the sidebar which links to my Lang-8 journal.

What is Lang-8? Well it's a really simple yet amazingly useful idea. When I taught English, one of the truly terrible jobs was correcting student diaries. There seemed an endless stream of them, and most were filled with incredibly mundane entries like "today I didn't do anything, I slept and watched TV, and had something to eat". I mean, sometimes they would write these sorts of things every single day. Do any thoughts at all go on in English student's heads apart from the basic necessities of life? Were they unable to at least tell me how they felt, and I don't mean physically, I was hungry, thirsty, sleepy, I mean their true secret deep thoughts, the ones which they dare not speak of, only hurriedly scribble down in a flurry of passion and guilty emotion? Why couldn't they let me in on their loves, their dreams, even their dirty, dirty secrets? I thought diaries were kept locked up, saturated in juicy details, leaking information to the minds of ingenious siblings bent on exposing who Katie 'really likes'.

Anyway, I digress. Lang-8 is an online diary writing website aimed at language learners. You write a diary in the language that you are learning, and native speakers from that language correct it for you. In return, you correct journals in English. It's basically an honour system, you aren't forced to correct diaries, but as you gain friends and notoriety you kind of feel obliged. So yes, I'm now correcting diaries again, and I'm not getting paid.

It's a great idea, it's free, correction is much faster than writing a post yourself so it's not a big deal to edit a few, and best of all, people write interesting stuff about their lives, their thoughts and cultural differences which they find puzzling. It's addictive to read these short, pithy opinions about this and that. You can leave comments on each journal entry, so often you get correction and discussion, which is marvellous. Also, it allows you to still interact with natives no matter where you live. I know it's not as good as speaking to a language exchange partner, but it's good to have the discipline to keep coming back, writing something and then checking where you went wrong.

So if you're a language learner, try it out. Especially if you speak Japanese, kick my grammatical butt if you feel the need to.

You could also search for my nickname on the site (phauna) and add me as a friend, please. Unless you are my enemy. Don't do that if you are, soon I'll find you, when you least expect it. Expect me. Although you won't know when I find you, just expect that I *will* find you, sometime, when you least suspect it.

A Woman's Mind

Oh those fickle women.



This coffee is innocently brewed and really blended.

Hurrgh!

Nothing like a body shot in the morning to wake you up. I'm going to market a coffee called 'ice water down your back'.



The picture sucks, but so do the names of these buildings.



This obviously describes the employees, who scurry about looking for the right shoe size and scratch their backsides with relish.



i.e. make your dick stand up medicine.

Hokkaido English

We went to Hokkaido for Golden Week. Here's a lazy post, with some Hokkaido.



Blaze dust probably means burnable rubbish.



Hokkaido is famous for potatoes. Also for milk, beer and sea urchin.



This sounds even less exciting than a flea circus.

Wanted

Wanted: drugs and guns.


Practical naming.

Shinagawa Station

I actually think Foodium is a good effort. At least you can guess its meaning.

Yokohama Signs

Reminds me of my students wanting to 'level-up'.



It was indeed. Very yaki. Japanese doughnuts aren't fried, they are just cakes, but round. Also they are really dry. Sorry Japan.



This sign was in Yokohama's waterfront park. I suppose they mean stuff like lemonade stands and dog walking businesses.



I didn't take this recommendation.

Sky Cafe

We went to Yokohama for a bit of a year end break. It's a nice place, but it was so cold. They have the tallest building in Japan, the Landmark tower, there. At the top is a cafe with an unfortunate name, and signage.

Paper

We found this at the Ueno Zoo shop. I can't read it but the pictures make the process quite explicit.

• Elephants eat leaves.
• Elephants sit on enormous toilets and poop.
• Someone unfortunate boils the dung.
• Another unfortunate mixes it in a huge cake mixer.
• All elephants are recycled after providing their offerings.

Random English

I assume this is marketed as a health drink. They shouldn't have added the Coca Cola logo, in my opinion.

The second name. It struck me. I won't say why.

This is an amusement park, although of what kind I'm unsure.

Perfect naming, and check out the motorised chair/bed.

Korean English

We had to get our business visas recently, so we flew to Seoul where we could get them the next day. The same service in Japan takes quite a few weeks. Bek still had to work so Alice and I walked around all day in the freezing cold.


This sounds nice, but also meaningless.

I can appreciate the niche marketing approach to fashion. Just what us skinny guys need.

I have no idea what's in these boxes. It says, 'Soup Performance Feminism Fashion, Sweet Soup so lovely so pretty.' So it's fashionable soup for feminists, right.



Japan also seems to like the idea of riding horses inside in the name of fitness. Imagining ways to exercise which require little to no movement is an unending supply of revenue for quite a lot of companies. The ads for these contraptions are quite good, featuring nubile young women 'riding'.

Akihabara

Akihabara is where the freaks hang out in Tokyo, like this ball balancer. Some freaks look normal and are only freaky on the inside, and others like to show it off. So there is a lot of cosplay and maids and stuff everywhere, but I still am too self conscious to just take a picture of anyone from the front. So this post will be cosplayless.

Electric Town is the main drag of Akihabara. They sell lots of nice things, and have quite specialised shops like this light globe shop. In fact, there was almost a light globe shop alley.

This mispelling in Thai is just appalling. How much trouble would it have been to ask just one Thai person to check it before engraving it in stone. I mean, come on, there are millions of Thais around.

I liked these chairs outside a fetish lingerie shop. They look quite handy.

We couldn't help but think what a fabulous view this hotel furnished with it's inward facing windows.

Functional English

Now that is what I call authentic English.

I'm not sure how effective this technique is for language learning. I can't usually remember anything after watching girls in bikinis.

If you don't think these are real you can find a lot more of them here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSkillfulAbbot

?

A subway information desk. Quite poetic.