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| Wine bottles in furoshiki in Ikebukuro |
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| Eyes are everywhere, mind your behaviour |
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| Outside a dentist nearby. |
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| Since the earthquake, there are are lot more elevation signs going up. A key lesson of the tsunami was that elevation, not distance from the coast was more important for determining survival. |
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| A sign outside a Chinese restaurant where Hiro always when when he was "kaze gimi" (getting a cold) the couple had been running it for more than 50 years and due to illness were unable to continue. There aren't many young people wanting to run this kind of shop; Tokyo is losing its character as a place of niche food and becoming a mecca for chain restaurants. |
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| Nagara-aluki (doing this as you walk, specifically mobile phone) warning signs. |
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| A restaurant promising that you'll be full from eating there... It might work in South America... |
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| Found keys |
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| Crows to scare the crows from a swallows nest inside the garage. |
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| Cow and calf |
4 comments:
Next time somebody asks me why I love Tokyo so much, I'm going to show them this collection of photographs.
"Tokyo is losing its character as a place of niche food and becoming a mecca for chain restaurants." Yes. Damn.
PS: That manpuku sign is my favourite!
The manpuku looks like a good session of yaki-niku tabehoudai :)
Blogger, damnit, is not working with Picasa, damnit, so I can't really upload photos at the moment. I can but there is no order how the photos are appearing... hence a totally random collection.
It's utterly glorious weather that was enough to shake me out of being hikikomori today :)
Great photographs. Such an eclectic mix of signs. I am always lamenting the lack of small, independent restaurants when I go back to Canada. I do love the great small eating establishments in Japan, very sad if the franchises are taking over Tokyo too :( So many great places have closed down in Niigata and turning into cheap big-company run , family restaurants and hairdressers...which actually are mostly independent but always trick me into thinking they are cute cafés by their exteriors. Always a tad disappointing as I only make use of such an establishment once a year @-@.
The demise of the small shop isn't getting the attention it deserves... It's ironic that as Japan promotes itself for international tourism as being eclectic and niche, it's becoming increasingly homogenized. Aeon.... I was so disappointed to realise last year that Yamaya, which I thought was a Tohoku origin chain, is actually Aeon....
That said though despite the homogenization there are rays of hope like the craft beer making boom...:)
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