In my travels around Japan I came across quite a few memorable
sights most of them impressive and some awe inspiring. But among
them stood out those that sent me into quite unseemly fits of laughter
and it wasn't just Lena's handling of chopsticks. Japanese signs
were so outstanding that I thought they deserved a separate entry.
Unfortunately not all of them I was able to capture but those few
that I did will still give you an idea, the rest I left to other
travelers to marvel at.
First notable sign that I came across was in Yokohama and was an
advertisement in a glass store. They were trying to advertise some
special blue tinted glass that would work well as a wedding gift
and used an old English phrase describing four items that are supposed
to bring luck to a bride "Something old, something new, something
borrowed, something blue." A clever move except in their presentation
the third item mysteriously changed to "something barrow", leaving
me trying to picture a bride at a wedding in a barrow (лягушонка
в коробченке) and chuckling all the way.
Next one shows that Japanese had already started on the reform
of the English language and decided to substitute some letters with
the appropriate sounds.
Funny enough, Lena actually didn't find anything wrong with this
one until I brought it to her attention. Looks a lot like what I
do when I try to write something in Russian in a hurry.
Since our grasp of written Japanese was rather tenuous (not that
our spoken Japanese was any better, mind) some of the signs we came
across had to be interpreted based on the visual aid. We were provided
with a pack of plastic bags in our Kyoto hotel. The purpose of the
bags left me puzzled for a bit until the label accompanying them
made everything quite clear. It's obviously meant for suffocating
children and small animals. Judge for yourself:
This one illustrates what would happen if you were to drink out
of this source - you'll turn into a pacman (and spend the rest of
your live eating little jewels and running away from some squids).
The pond is infested with piranha, swim at your own risk (although
I wasn't able to make out anything more dangerous than some overfed
carp, we didn't try to take a dip).
But out of all the amusing things we encountered my favourite was
the illustrated instructions on how to use a Japanese-style toilet
that I found in the bathroom of the Ryoanji Temple. Some unexpected
benefit to drinking too much green tea :)
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