Hello! from Rick Cogley

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. 📷🏔️🇯🇵

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”. 📷😅🎌

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”. 📷🐄

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. 🚅🇯🇵📷

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. 📷🏗️

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

Colorful laundry bags, not trash. 📷🧺

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. 📷🚨🆘

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

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. 🇯🇵🧑‍🌾✍️🔨

Nov 9 is “dial 119” day in Japan since 1987 (S62, 3 months after I arrived!) after the fire and emergency services number (more here), during nat’l fire prevention week. Be aware booth phones have buttons & check your 🧯

Why no, officer, I couldn’t read the sign. 📷🪧

On Culture Day, Shoney’s (erm, “Bob’s The Home of the Big Boy from California”’s) Big Boy mascot is American culture in Japan. 📷🍔

I could see this bike parking lot from the lot where I parked my scooter, before COVID. 📷🚲

1st Nov 1890 (M23) is “tenji day” (ten is dot, ji is character), marking the day braille in Japan switched from romanized Japanese to a direct kana representation. 🦮🇯🇵

An oddly shaped building in Totsuka Yokohama. I wonder if the top floor interior ceiling is also round. 📷

I observed these workers laying rock fall prevention fencing on a cliff, in Totsuka Yokohama, 2008. A few rapelled and fitted while others brought the fence in. 📷👷‍♂️