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tea room at Ikegamibaien (池上梅園)
During the winter in Japan trees are frequently covered in straw rope or wires formed to make a teepee of sorts which supposedly protects the tree’s branches from accumulating large amounts of snow and breaking. The devices are called yukitsuri (雪吊 or snow hangers), and you can read more about them here.
Tattooed Swedes enjoying the sun at the Getaway Rock Festival
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is set in Sweden. If you visit Sweden you’ll see a lot more than dragon tattoos though. I doubt anyone tracks these things, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweden has the highest per capita amount of tattoos. The largest tattoo conventions tend to happen in Sweden, in part, because of this.
The guy in the middle, adding a sunburn to his tattooed body, has a Japanese Oni on his back. Japan probably has the lowest per capita amount of tattoos in the world so it’s a bit ironic that Japanese things (like the kanji on the right guy’s left leg) are a frequent piece of tattoo art.
Kawagoe (川越市) in Saitama Ken (埼玉県) is known as “Little Edo” (小江戸). The Kawagoe surroundings can transport you back in time. This couple, I’m not sure if they were really newlyweds or if they were merely having photos taken as an engaged couple or something, put on traditional threads and posed for their photographer. They didn’t seem to mind when others joined in on the photography orgy. I wasn’t nearly as bold so I took this picture from afar.
Perhaps my favorite part of this picture is the smiling older lady in the reflection on the window.
Seeing people kiss in Tokyo, or anywhere in Japan, is a rather rare occurrence. Head over to Ueno in Tokyo, though, and you’ll be able to see not just any kiss but this rather famous one.
Several versions of Rodin’s sculpture can be found in the world. I’ve also seen “The Kiss” in Paris and a marble version in Copenhagen. The bronze version, pictured above, is more common.
タベルナ
You know how some things don’t translate? For instance, Gerber (baby food) supposedly means vomiting in French. Or the first time Coca Cola translated its name into Chinese it meant “bite the wax tadpole.” Well, the sign above is one I frequently saw while heading to the Takadanobaba Train Station in Tokyo. It says, “taberuna” which means “Don’t Eat!” in Japanese.
(A verb followed by na in Japanese means “don’t do the verb” in a rather abrupt way of speaking. Taberu means to eat. You wouldn’t want to use this grammar on a guest unless they were about to eat something poisonous.)
I was therefore surprised to discover that this business is none other than a restaurant!
Taverna Italian food restaurant in Takadanobaba
The name comes not from the Japanese of “don’t eat” but from the Italian Taverna which is pronounced as “don’t eat” in Japanese. Too funny and too ironic. Personally, I would have chosen a different name if I was going to open an Italian restaurant in Japan.
We ate there once. It was just OK. I won’t say don’t eat there, because the sign already does.