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To phone in the subway…

A Tokyo subway company has recently issued a new poster on good manners to follow on trains under its “Please do it at home” series. This time, it’s against people who make phone calls on the trains.

Subway-phone

I must admit I find it quite annoying to have to listen to someone else’s phone call. On the other hand, people usually talk while on a train. The fact is that one often doesn’t realize one’s voice being loud when talking on the phone.

Another thing which I find quite annoying is that many people don’t switch their mobiles off when near the priority seats. Some even use them when sitting there. Subway is thus not always the place where people behave the best.

Street and museum of football (soccer)

Recently, as I was walking down the avenue linking Hongô 3-chôme to Ueno, I noticed a board indicating a “Japan football museum”. I decide to go in that direction to see.

Football street

The street I was in was actually called “Football street”, sakkâ-doori サッカー通り.

Japan Football Museum

After a few minutes walk, I finally found the football museum, but it was closed. I’ll try to visit it another day. Here’s the museum’s website : http://www.11plus.jp/e/

Recruiting fortune teller…

The other day, in the bus taking me to Asakusa to attend the Sanja-matsuri, I see this want ad on the window.

Fortune teller in bus

It says “Recruiting fortune tellers. Hourly wage from 1,500 to 2,500 Yen. Desired skills : tarot, spiritualism (…). Clients are all women.” The ad itself is funny, but the fact it is stuck on a bus’s window is quite unusual, I think.

Make-up in the subway…

Recently, posters recalling good manners as the one below are being shown in Tokyo’s subway.

subway manner

Here, we have a very frequent case. Japanese women, usually young, who put their make-up in the subway. Personally, I don’t mind much this, but it seems quite dangerous to put on mascara or get one’s eyelashes straight in the subway, especially as the train might brake suddenly.

Sand with my sushi ?

Not far away from Tokyo Midtown, in Roppongi, there’s an old shop that was turned into a shelter for vending machines selling drinks. There it is.

sand for lunch

What is puzzling here is what is written in English. “Sand Sushi Salad Rice“. The majority of speakers of English who don’t understand Japanese will probably think that it was a place where people were selling sushi, salad, rice and… sand !?

Of course, Japanese people don’t eat sand with their sushi or their salads. Neither is there a sandman who brings sand to make children falling asleep. In fact, this “sand” is a contraction of “sandwich”, sandoitchi サンドイッチ in Japanese. It happens often that long words are abbreviated in Japanese. “sando サンド” is therefore often used for sandwich.

I however wonder how many foreigners who don’t know about the subtlety of Japanese language have looked at this shop with perplexity.