Choice selects from today's meanderings

Hard to argue with this:

 

Huge billboard. Soooo cute! The Japanese understand cute better than anyone.

Interesting idea to market something by advertising its by-product.

I guess that's why the call it The Blue

Blue LED lights have been placed at the end of each railway station on the 8-million passengers per day Yamanote line to curb the rising number of suicides in Tokyo. It's expected more than 35,000 people will kill themselves in Japan this year.

The light is supposed to have a calming effect. To make you forget why you wanted to jump and feel better about your life. It's supposed to make you think of the sky and the beach. Needless to say, the light is freaking scary, something straight out of a Japanese horror movie. I stood under it for a few seconds and felt an overwhelming sense of dread.

Here's what it looks like when a train is coming through-

Feel happy and relaxed now? I can't help wonder if it all ties in with the Japanese understanding of what happiness is. Here's a print I saw on a kid's T-shirt in a store today:

If it's trivial not to be happy, why are those blue lights needed in the first place?

Tower records

I miss Tower Records. They're still going strong in Japan and I've visited a few times already. Going to Tower and listening to CDs on display was always the way I found most new music. Today I found Paloma Faith, another wonderful British pop/soul/jazz singer that puts the US young singers to shame. Love this track:

Bunka no hi

 

November 3 is a national public holiday in Japan. According to wikipedia it's "for the purpose of promoting culture, the arts, and academic endeavour." I asked the front desk people what this actually means and they have no idea. They said they're just grateful to have a holiday. I pointed out that they're all at work. Crickets. Statistically, it's the clearest weather day in Japan. It has only rained on November the third three times in the last 45 years. Amazingly, it rained yesterday and will tomorrow, but today is 100% clear. Could the combined brain power of the Japanese people affect the weather? 

Don't RIM us, we're Japanese

Interesting chat with English-speaking Apple worker today. I've seen a few iPhones around but not one RIM Blackberry. Assumed they hadn't come here yet. They have and failed. The guy speculated that the reason for failing was that you need two hands to use a blackberry and all the Japanese cell-phones (and to some extent the iPhone) can be used with one hand, which frees the other hand to hold on to a train handle. Anything requiring using two hands fails in a train culture. Kind of interesting example of understanding the market. Okay, I'll minimize the geek gadget posts.  

Grom-it

Only a few of you will know why this is interesting: Grom has just opened a store in Tokyo! I will try it out, but still have issues with waiting in line for more than four days for something, especially gelato. I know, it's more than gelato, it's grom, but what happens if someone in line tries to strike up a conversation while we're waiting?

Gallery-ef

Situated in Asakusa, not too far from the Shrine, this is one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen. It is owned and run by an older woman and her 10,000 year old mother or grandmother. In addition to being a great cafe, it's a fascinating little art gallery. I had home-made "ome rice", just like my Japanese grandma used to make (if I had one) and was treated to a complimentary home-made zucchini cake. Really something special. To learn more, check out Gallery-ef.