Sign of the Week: Happy Manner

This week's sign features Clifford the Big Red Dog and friends urging us to help keep the subways clean. My Japanese is not all that good yet, but it seems to say "Everybody feeling good, other people feeling good." I think Clifford is thinking something about garbage and encouraging us to do better--not to leave even one piece of litter. Any help in the translation would be appreciated. But anyway, I think it's a great sign, and who can argue with having a "Happy Manner"?

Vehicle of the Week: Subaru R2

For this week's nominee, we visit to the domain of the "keicar" ("small car"), the group of cars so tiny we will probably never see them on the U. S. market. The Subaru R2 is a great example of this class. The R2 made its debut here in Japan in 2004. It replaced Subaru's "Pleo" line, another, much more boxy keicar. According to Wikipedia, the R2's more streamlined body is the influence of Andreas Zapatinas, a Subaru designer who formerly worked for Alfa Romeo.




Keicars are easy to spot, not only for their small size, but because they get special yellow license plates. They are even smaller than the compact Ractis and Cube featured in earlier posts. There is a reason they are so small.

This class of vehicle was introduced to help build the auto industry in reconstruction-era Japan, a time when most people could not afford larger cars. Now, in a much more prosperous time, it is maintained for other reasons. Vehicles meeting official class guidelines are eligible for special tax and insurance discounts. Furthermore, they are exempt from an interesting requirement that applies to all larger cars: in order to register anything bigger than a keicar, you need certified proof that you either own or have contracted for a parking space.

The size requirements for the keicar class (which by the way includes minivan and SUV entries) brings home just how small they are:

length: under 11 feet 1 inch
width: under 4 feet 10 inches
height: under 6 feet 7 inches
engine size: under 660 ccs
engine power: under 64 hp

Would your vehicle qualify?

Saturday in the Park

Last Saturday was beautiful here in Tokyo, so Cindy and I decided to visit Yoyogi Park. It is located on the southern end of the large plot of land that surrounds the Meiji-Jingu shrine (see last week's "Edifice of the Week"), west of the shops at Harajuku, and north of Shibuya's hustle and bustle (see previous post "Meet Me at Hachiko"). We had heard about this park, but had not yet been.

We arrived via Harajuku station, right near the park's entrance. The "cos-play" folk were out. A "cos-player" is someone whose hobby is dressing up as one of the characters from one of the (many) cartoon ("anime") or video games so popular here. The costumes can be quite elaborate. I hear that sometimes a set of cos-players from a given show will get together to do re-enactments of favorite scenes, but the ones we met Saturday seemed content just to be seen together, and to have their pictures taken.

As it turned out, the cos-players were a perfect introduction to our afternoon. A sense of whimsical fun prevailed throughout the park. Jugglers, dancers, and musicians practiced their skills, and it seemed they enjoyed being watched and listened to--and posing for the camera.






Pets were out in force. One fellow had brought a pack of long-haired dachsunds wearing sunglasses. A fashionable young man had his white rabbit on a leash. My favorite was a black Boston Terrier that came with a young family. Racing around in the sunshine, he was having the time of its life.



The Boston Terrier's people were not the only young family at the park. Many couples with small children dotted the open spaces--flying kites (or trying to--there wasn't much wind), playing ball, and just being together.




Not all the couples there had children with them (Cindy and I fell into that category). They seemed content to sit and talk, enjoying the weather and watching all the goings on. Some folks were there by themselves, exercising, reading, or just soaking in the sun.




One group of young adults was having some sort of get-together. They had a number of ad-hoc activity centers set up at different parts of one of the fields, and participants were moving from one to another. The staff at the station below were dressed in homemade costumes, and had participants join in a dance and song. I have no idea who there were or what they were doing, but like everyone else there, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.




When we finally drifted out of the park, heading for our favorite sushi-go-round restaurant in Harajuku, we passed some "J-Pop" hopefuls performing on the sidewalk. In addition to having a cool American name, they were pretty good, and I wish them the best. Maybe this picture will be worth something someday!

Sign of the Week: STB 139

This week's entry is the sign at the entrance of STB 139, a posh night spot in Roppongi. I chose it not only for its interesting description, but also for its nifty projection format.


Passersby in the daytime might wonder what "STB" stands for in the restaurant's name. But at night, this sign tells us it's an acronym for "Soundful, Tasteful, herBful. Of course, the only one of these that is a actual word in English is used here out of context--they don't want to say it's a tasteful restaurant, but that its food is tasty.

You may feel it is a stretch to make the "B" stand for "Herbful." Maybe, you imagine, they could have come up with a better word--perhaps even one that starts with "B." But if you visit Tokyo, you will find the word "herb" (and variations of it, however novel) is used quite a bit in the names and descriptions of trendy restaurants. It is a very chic word here, and I'm sure they wanted to use it. So, since neither the "S" nor the "T" occur anywhere in herb (or herbful) they had to go with the "B."

Vehicle of the Week: Rolls Royce Silver Cloud

For this feature, I usually select vehicles unique to Tokyo, or at least Japan, if I can. But look what I found parked just down the block the other night.


This is a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III. The first Silver Cloud came to market in, I think, the late 50s or early 60s. The III version, with the four headlamps, didn't come along until the late 60s. Like all versions of the Silver Cloud, only a couple of thousand IIIs were ever built, so I was happy to get a chance to admire it and take a picture.

Edifice of the Week: Meiji-jingu Shrine

For this week's featured building, we visit a Shinto shrine built to house the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken. In an earlier post, we explored the wooded park that contains the shrine (see "An Oasis of Nature").

Emperor Meiji helped bring Japan into the modern world. When power transferred from the shogunate to him in the 1800s, Japan was isolated and behind technologically. When he died in 1912, the nation had become an important international power. The shrine was completed in 1920. Destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt soon afterward.

The tori (gate) that marks the symbolic entrance to the shrine is enormous. The people in the picture provide a good reference. Weathered wooden columns support the crosspieces. Passing underneath, it is hard not to feel a sense of awe.

Approaching the shrine compound, you find a covered fountain. This you use to ritually purify yourself before entering. On a wooden grate above the water are ladles. You dip one into the water, and use the contents to rinse your hands. Then another cupful to rinse your mouth. Now you're ready to enter.

I passed through another gateway, through a wooden screen. Next came the wall surrounding the shrine courtyard. I passed through a massive doorway on the east side of the enclosure. You don't have to do this; there is a wide open passageway to allow crowds through, but I wanted to see the door up close.

The large passageway I mentioned runs underneath rooftop supported by an elaborately decorated framework. These are made of wood. No nails are used; the structure is held up by the interlocking beams. The southern entrance (below) has an identical arrangement.

Once within the compound, visitors head across the courtyard to the main shrine building, and ascend the steps.

The stairs lead to covered place that looks into (but does not access) the courtyard within the main shrine. Here, worshippers line up to take a turn praying and giving an offering. One by one, they stand before an offering box, toss in a coin, and say a prayer (in silence). They conclude by clapping their hands once, and then make way for the next person.

The offering boxes are interesting. Wooden bars run across the top, forming a grate. Coins tossed on them may bounce, but eventually slide between, down into the box.

When I visited, I heard a loud drumming coming from the place of worship long before I approached it. I got to witness a repeat performance on it from close at hand. As you can imagine, the this drum can generate quite a bit of sound.

To one side of the courtyard, there is a large prayer rack. You can purchase a wooden tablet, write your prayer on it, and they will hang it on the rack for you. The rack is open to the breeze, so it can blow through the prayers. You can find prayers written in many languages here.

As I left the shrine, I met an older couple who had just arrived, and were finishing their washing. I turned to watch them enter the shrine together. I thought about my wife and me attending our own temple together. There is something compelling about the act of worship; I felt a kinship with other couple that ran across boundaries of faith and culture.

Sign of the Week: Flat White Coffee

Some Tokyo signs that feature English are noteworthy for their seeming random selection of words. Others stand out as inadvertently humorous, thanks to a tortured translation. But some are real puzzles. They seem as though someone put a lot of thought into them, but they don't make logical sense--at least not to me.

Now, none of us are coffee drinkers, so maybe it's not fair for me to feature this advertisement as Sign of the Week. But from what I understand, java afficionados in search of the perfect cup are looking for neither whiteness nor flatness. So for me, this ad fits perfectly into the category of enigmatic signs I encounter in Tokyo--on a regular basis.