Day-fillers

Big Daikon

This is a big daikon (white raddish) - also the name of the infamous website among foreign teachers in Japan. Check out the size of this thing! It's nearly the width of my table and I was just able to squeeze it into my fridge. I really shouldn't buy things just because they make me laugh but I did turn it into a tasty soup.

Beginning of Winter

I took this photo on my way to school in early December, just when the wind was starting to chill to the bone.

From Mika

Recently I made a new friend. Mika is a mother of two who lives around my area and catches the same bus as me in the morning. Originally from Saitama, she now lives with her husband and two sons and is an office worker at a nearby university. She's very sweet and her english is quite good. We'd always see each other in the mornings waiting in line for the bus.

First it was polite greetings, "Ohaiyogozaimasu." Then soon it became talk about the weather, "Totemo samui desune." And now she's always a cheery face that brightens up my mornings and we talk about everything (as much as our mix of English and Japanese allows) under the sun.

One day before the Christmas holidays I gave her a small pack of chocolate chip shortbread cookies from my local foreign food store and said "Merry Christmas." After the holidays on our first day back at work, we both chatted about our holidays and she gave me a cute gift bag. It was a beautiful pink and white lacy Laura Ashley handtowel.

Condom vending machine

Last year Cheryl discovered this vending machine near our local 7-eleven. It had branded Michiko London and Benetton condoms. Though we agreed that the ones on the far right looked more like an ad for STDs.

Me: "Happy family life? Err, shouldn't it be something like Stop family life, seeing that that's what condoms are suppose to do?"

Cheryl: "Good point, that's what I thought too. However as Claire suggested, perhaps it is trying to keep a happy family life and not start a new family."

Rightly so.

Oh and remember the porn vending machine I posted up before? Well I guess they're cleaning up the streets around here because it's gone and has been replaced with a normal drink machine.

Coin Locker

Cheryl also gave me the heads up about this one too. Here are the instructions posted up on the coin lockers in the Kansai International Airport. Take note of number 2, under Prohibited Items.

I can imagine it now. An axe murderer with a dead body in a bag about to stash it into the locker before flying off to freedom somewhere takes note of the sign and ponders, "Hmm, I wouldn't want to break the law now, would I? I better just dump it in a bin." And like the good hearted person they are, they do just that.