Spring Break Catching Up - Various February Pictures

Another post to catch up on last semester - here are a collection of random pictures from February.


One of my favourite shops in Japan is a place called Book-Off - I'm sure I've mentioned this before.  They sell second-hand manga, anime DVDs/Bluray, CDs, video games, trading cards...  You name it, they have it.  Still, I was surprised to find these in the Ikebukuro Sunshine City Book-Off...

Spice Girls?

Backstreet Boys?

And then, this...

One of the stranger experiences I had in the dorm was noticing strange 8-bit music being played late at night.  One night I went out to investigate and found this:

Terrible picture quality, I know

Seems that, in Ikebukuro, there's a company that runs a service whereby a truck will deliver gasoline to your house.  And plays nursery rhyme tunes to attract customers.


Next, here's something that was sold at the local McDonalds for a while.

Was not nearly as good as the name suggested.

One day, Jay too Matt and I to a ramen shop in Akihabara.

This stuff was delicious~~~

Also, self-serve FRESH GARLIC?  YES PLEASE!

Now for some random Engrish!

Mmmmm, cake sand...

Definitely a good way to sell tissues, I think

Then, there was one day when the trains were really, really late - found this sign kinda funny:

30 minutes late...

One last picture - there's a holiday in Japan called Hinamatsuri, which can be translated as Doll Festival, but is also sometimes referred to as Girls' Day.  The centrepiece is this arrangements of dolls:

It's an interesting holiday - typically, rich grandparents will buy a set of dolls when their children have their first daughter.  The dolls are to be up the day of the festival, every year, and must be taken down before the day is over, else the daughter suffer the curse of a late marriage.  Yup, that's Japan.