Random thoughts…

So yeah, there’s not THAT much to look at in Sapporo, and I feel really lousy today, probably from all the traveling and lack of sleep, so I’ve decided to take a day indoor, doing as little as absolutely possible! Unfortunately, there’s no couch at this hostel; if there had been, I’d have occupied it for sure!

Well, since I’m not doing anything in particular, I decided that today should be the day I posted about all the things I find peculiar or plain dumb!

First thing: I don’t know what the unemployment is like in Japan, but I sure as XXX hope it’s damn low! There are sooooo many people dressed in uniform doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING; and I’m not joking.
Like, what the H are these guys doing?

- Let me tell you. There is a hole in the road (road work), and it takes 8 guys standing and looking into that hole to do whatever needs done. However, most of them were, as you see, STANDING AND LOOKING. They didn’t DO anything!
The guys closest to the camera, wearing the fancy yellow vest thingy, makes sure that pedestrians don’t walk into the barrier. What freakishly SICK and BORING job is that?! Oh, let me mention that on the other side of the hole, there was a guy assigned to do the exact same thing.

Also, in Denmark you can feel like a good humanbeing for helping an elderly woman cross the street; in Japan they have people HIRED to do that.
At entrances and exits of parking spaces, they have at least one man standing, guiding the car out safely or keeping pedestrians and cyklists back. They have a nice, red, flashing stick, a helmet, uniform and a reflex vest, and when you pass by, they make you-may-safely-go gestures, waving the stupid stick. If there’s a car coming, they will stand in front of it, stretching out their arms and do the waving at you. I have to record it some day.
At intersections, one guy sometimes has a whistle, and whenever cars (or maybe it’s pedestrians; I’m not sure) are allowed to go, they blow it repeatedly, waving, gesturing. For God’s sake… I could go on. These people are everywhere.

People with the job of standing on the street, calling in customers, must hate it too. “Ikaga desshouka?” is something you’ll hear ooover and over again, meaning “how about…”. I’ve even seen a guy holding a big sign, not even saying anything; just standing.
Another time, I saw a man standing at the road side with a sign around his neck. I have no idea of what the signs said, but think about telling about yourself: “oh yeah, my job is to stand at the road side with a sign around my neck for God knows how many hours”. Jeez…

This is something I found in a vending machine in… I think it was perhaps Hiroshima. Some hot banana drink. “Banana oore”. Didn’t try it.

This is just a FAIL!

I’d like to explain WHY this misspelling. In Japanese, they don’t distinguis between “R” and “L”, and if they’re not very confident in English, they easily make the mistake of mixing the use of the two letters up. In katakana, one of the phonetic Japanese alphabets, they would write “italian” as “イタリアン”, which in roman letters would be “itarian”, because the ラ、リ、ル、レ、ロ (ra, ri, ru, re, ro) is usually written with the roman R. I don’t know if it makes sense to you… in short, they just don’t distinguish between roman R and L, and don’t always know when to use what.

The funniest I’ve seen was a beauty shop with big letters saying “perm eye rashes”… you get it? I bet it should have been “lashes”, meaning they would give your eyelashes a permanent curl. Epic!

I saw this sign for a “relaxation place”, but for some reason, I don’t like how “foot oil” sounds… (although I get what they mean).

So, now I’ve made a very random post… what should I do now?
I’m actually seriously thinking of taking a nap… I could also write some more post cards. Last time I wanted to write some, I realized my pen didn’t work, so in the end I didn’t write any. My aunt is waiting for some stamps…

Well, I think I’ll chill a little with some old game reviews from James, the Angry Video Game Nerd – he’s hilarious, and I could use that right now!

Toodles!