Tomorrow is election day in Japan. To that end the candidates have been out in full force since we arrived in Japan a couple weeks ago. The campaigns are somewhat different than in the U.S. Candidates run around town in cars, vans, and buses with loudspeakers saying their name, party, and/or a message over and over again. Sometimes they’ll stop and give a speech from the top as the above photo shows. I took this picture in front of the Takadanobaba Station.

For those of you that can’t read Japanese, the political party sponsoring this van is none other than the Communist Party (共産党 or Kyosanto). There is no majority party in Japan. The communists get about 7 or 8% of the vote.

The two largest parties are 自由民主党 or 自民党 for short (frequently called the LDP in English). This party is most like the Republican Party in the states. 民主党 (Minshuto or DPJ in English) is the one most like the Democratic Party in the U.S. Neither party gets more than 40%.

Ads on the road are more controlled than in the states (thank goodness!) and can only be posted on boards set aside specifically for them. The above is an example.

The guys on the lower corners will likely get the most votes since they belong to the LDP and DPJ so they don’t provide much of a message–just a name, picture, and party for the most part. The guy in the upper right corner is the communist. To try and garner the younger votes, I suppose, he lists his age on the poster as 33.

The guy in the middle on the top has a long message to make. If you can read Japanese you can click on the above photo to get a bigger picture to read from. But the funnest one of all is the guy on the bottom in the middle. I’m guessing he is in a party of one. And what a party it is. The name of his political party is the Smile Party (スマイル党). He shows you just how happy he is with four pictures of himself smiling. Were I eligible to vote, I’d vote for him if I was certain he didn’t really have a chance of winning.

Here is another shot of the communists filling the air with noise pollution at incredible decibel levels.

Posted on August 29th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: people. Comments: 1

This past Saturday I spent about 3 hours on trains going to and from one of the places where I am teaching (Atsugi Naval Air Base). There were many more people dressed up in summer yukata than normal. It dawned on me that, it being a Saturday, summer festivals could be happening. As I exited my train station I took a look at the nearby display board of public events. On the one I was looking at there was a notice for a 祭り (matsuri or festival) at 諏訪神社 for that day and the following day.

I told the family when I got home that they probably shouldn’t eat much at home. They were still unprepared for their first summer festival, however, as they didn’t come hungry.

Festivals aren’t just about food though. There are lots of games too. The game above allows you to catch (and sometimes keep) goldfish.

The above sign says that you can catch and keep up to 5 fish for 300 yen. If you want to just catch them for fun (and not keep any) then the price drops to 200 yen (about $2).

If goldfish aren’t your thing then perhaps you’d like to fish for toys instead?

The last photo is supposed to be one of the traditional, Japanese summer dress. The yukata look authentic, but I don’t believe Crocs were very styling in the Edo Period.

Posted on August 28th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, japan pictures, matsuri, people. Comments Off on 諏訪神社 祭り Suwa Jinja Matsuri (Festival) – Part 1

This is the view each day as my kids walk home down Waseda Doori toward our apartment halfway between Takadanobaba Station (高田馬場駅 – just behind me when I took this picture) and Waseda University.

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buildings, japan pictures, night photography, people, signs, takadanobaba. Comments: 2

When a foreigner first visits Japan they will undoubtedly be surprised by the differences. Some of these anomalies may even seem more than a bit wacky. After a while the wackiness becomes commonplace and the shock factor wears off. Soon it would seem strange for things not to be so consistenantly out of the ordinary.

With that intro, I’ll present to you one of the countless crazy shops we have encountered. This one, called “Howl’s Cafe & Shop: Life Style with Dog,” is a mere stone’s throw from our apartment in Nishi-Waseda (which is in Shinjuku-Ku which is in Tokyo). These kinds of places (and associated Engrish) will be passé for those living in Japan but still may be of interest to those abroad.

As we were heading home the other night this Japanese girl and her dog were enjoying their ice coffee in this doggie cafe. She jumped at the chance of a photo op and beckoned my children to join her, passing her dog off to my son. Her dog immediately started to lick my son’s face (I have a picture of that too that I may post someday).

It is good to be considered a cute dog in this land of cuteness.

Posted on August 21st, 2009 under Japan. Tags: engrish, nishi-waseda, people, pets, Tokyo, wacky. Comments: 7

The day that I had been anticipating for well over a year (returning to live in Japan for a year) finally arrived. It seemed as though it was always just a dream and something would prevent it from ever actually occurring, but somehow this day did come about. Needless to say, I didn’t need an alarm clock. I was up well before dawn due to excitement. After a shower, some more cleaning of my already clean, empty house, and other time passing activities the sun finally rose.

The above picture is of that last sunrise (for a year anyway) over Ashland, Oregon.

It was a beautiful morning in both Ashland and Medford, where our first plane was to depart from. The clouds were in fine form.

The above photo is from the “new” Medford airport which is a major upgrade over the old one. The former airport terminal is completely gone now. We had breakfast in the only restaurant past the security check point in the place, and this was the view. The old airport didn’t have any place to eat once you got past security which was not a good thing. I found that out on 9/11/01 when I was boarding a plane on that fateful morning. Needless to say, that plane wasn’t permitted to fly and many of us were stranded in the old airport.

My kids were as excited as I was. They’ve grown a lot since last year.

The fourth picture down on the preceding blog entry link reminded me of something about my daughter’s stuffed animal flight companion. She packed her “stuffy” in her backpack on this trip too. Her raccoon stuffed animal had a hard time making it through security. Security required her to take it out of the bag and then sent it through the x-ray machine again as if it was loaded with drugs or a weapon or something. We all had a good laugh over the treatment this piece of fluff received.

The scene from the air was no less stunning. I had a window seat on this flight. No such luck on the flight from SFO to NRT (Narita). The river you see is the Rogue River and the bluff is Table Rock. I’ll show you more photographs from the air tomorrow.

Posted on August 15th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: ashland oregon, clouds, Oregon, people, skywatch. Comments Off on Departure (part 1)