Atsuta Horaiken is a famous eel shop in Nagoya since 1873. Two hour wait, and 3100 yen for lunch in 2011! The servers looked bored, but were chatting, pretty in their pajama-like purple kimono uniforms. 📷🇯🇵

    Unagi shop servers wearing purple kimono chatting while waiting for something to do.

    Can I get your PIN? At a 370 yr old wagashi sweets shop in Nagoya called Ryokuchiya Korekiyo, 2011. This person was kindly explaining and answering my many questions. 📷🇯🇵🍡

    Clerk in salmon pink uniform at Japanese sweets shop handing me a credit card scanner.

    Some snaps from a morning jog in Tennozu Isle Shinagawa Tokyo, 2016. It’s a whole feeling to wander among these buildings when there’s nobody around. 📷🏢

    Approach to Tennozu Isle subway stop in the morning.

    Building front with escalator tops.

    Building plaza complex showing bridges between buildings.

    The old are replaced … 📷🚕

    Older model sedan type taxi from Kokusai Motorcars in Tokyo.

    Japan Post’s 巡回郵便 “junkai yuubin” service truck (Shinjuku 2010), picking up and delivering near organizations with large mail volume. Usually it’s a SuperCub! 📷🇯🇵📮

    Small red Japan Post mail truck from the side.

    Small red Japan Post mail truck from the rear.

    Red Honda SuperCub mail delivery bike.

    Goroawase is flexible. Today 11/29 is いい肉 “good meat” day, but also ワンワン服 “doggy clothes” day according to Global Pets of Yokohama. 🇯🇵

    A Shiba dog wearing a blue and white raincoat catching snow on his tongue.

    Evening walk with Fuji. 📷🗻🇯🇵

    Evening view of Mt Fuji from a hill in the neighborhood in the fall.

    Mokichi Foods Garden in Chigasaki serves great food and has a lovely interior with luxe lighting. 📷🍷

    A restaurant interior, impressive with a large designer pendant lamp, wood floors and books along the far wall.

    Lo! The “dent of authenticity” along the top of a real, genuine Milk carton! No “milk drink” for these Cogleys, no sir. 📷🥛

    Top of milk carton showing divot in paper, which is there to help visually impaired people know it’s milk.

    Maru the Shiba of Awaji Island turns 3 today; happy birthday little buddy! He still doesn’t like his birthday hat & bib, but he loved the special meal K made! 🎉🐕3️⃣

    Dog waiting on person handing him a special birthday meal on a yellow plate.

    Dog licking his chops after having eaten some of his birthday meal.

    Today 11/24 is the anniversary of the first opera performed in Japan, Faust, in 1894 (M27). 🎭🇯🇵

    Our visit to Shirakawago a couple years ago was lovely. We missed the snow by a week. 📷🏔️🇯🇵

    A-frame building with thatched roof in Japan.

    Thatched roof houses across a field in an area of Japan that gets snow.

    Thanking you for your labors since Labor Thanksgiving Day 勤労感謝の日 was established in Japan in 1948, cats everywhere say “now feed me”. 📷😅🎌

    Cat with a grey, brown and black coat crouches on leaves in a park in Japan. You can see playground equipment in the background.

    K pointed out that this is “milk” not milk. I was tricked by the kana ミルク and the English. But it clearly says 乳飲料 “milk drink”. 📷🐄

    Milk drink is not actual milk. A liter of milk drink in a paper container with green letters on a white background, next to a banana for no real reason.

    Japan’s Tetsudo Denka Kyokai marks Nov 19 as railway electrification day. In ‘56, the Tokaido was electrified & Tokyo-Osaka took 7.5 hr by “Tsubame”, then 3 hr by “Hikari” Shinkansen in ‘64. 🚅🇯🇵📷

    The Shinkansen “Nozomi 700” model painted white with a blue stripe, stopped at the station.

    Today 11/18 is Doboku no Hi or Public Works day here in Japan, after how the kanji for “do boku” 土木 are built. 土 from 10 and 1, and 木 from 10 and 8. 📷🏗️

    Public works workers cutting a tree in a local park, using a small purple crane and ladders to reach.

    Nihonbashi “Nara Mahoroba-kan” mascot, taken on Rollei 35S film camera. 📷🦌

    Fiberglass mascot outside Nara Antenna shop in Nihonbashi.

    Hiked Hakone’s Mt Kintoki today with the wife and D1. Perfect weather for it and the view of Fuji was spectacular, but I’m spent. 🇯🇵🗻

    View of Mt Fuji from Mt Kintoki.

    Colorful laundry bags, not trash. 📷🧺

    Colorful polyester laundry bags piled up on the side of a building in Totsuka Yokohama.

    PMark Security Incident - JIPDEC announces investigation results into Privacy Mark breach

    Japan’s “Privacy Mark” system had a serious security breach in Aug 2023, and its operator JIPDEC (Japan Information Technology and Social Promotion Association) announced the results of an investigation into the matter. 🕵🏻‍♂️ When companies implement P-Mark, there are a number of requirements to be met, similar to what organizations go through when trying for an ISO certification. Reviewers for JIPDEC are responsible for auditing the certification applications, and one such reviewer had saved review documents on an unsecured personal NAS.

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    Nov 15 is 7-5-3 or “shichi-go-san” day, a traditional rite-of-passage holiday in Japan, to pray for your children’s health and good fortune. Usually people can’t take the day off to go to the shrine if it falls on a weekday, and would schedule the Shrine blessings on the weekend. 🇯🇵🎎🎏

    When you can find one, Japan pay phones may have buttons (or instructions like this one) for police (110) and fire (119) service, that connect you without needing payment. 📷🚨🆘

    Japan pay phone showing instructions to just dial 110 or 119 for police and fire service, for free.

    Local Daily Yamazaki for bread or drinks. By the way Nov is apparently “Double Soft Won-double Month”. 📷🍞🍞

    Orange and red shop exterior with several vending machines.

    Today Nov 13 is “Urushi” Lacquer Day. Legend has it that Imperial Prince Koretaka, first son of Emperor Montoku in the Heian Period, prayed at Horinji temple in Arashiyama Kyoto for improved lacquerware production methods. Since then, this has been a day of thanks to lacquer craftsmen. 🇯🇵🍱

    Nov 10 is 技能の日 “ginou no hi”, a day Japan celebrates the development of vocational skills such as landscaping, carpentry or PC repair. See JAVADA’s excellent, detailed English pamphlet PDF regarding this subject. 🇯🇵🧑‍🌾✍️🔨

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