Smallness and Japan go well together

Rather than describe a day in Japan, for once I'll just leave some commentary about size. Jerry will get to the daily summary later, perhaps.

While walking around, we've found some areas have nice tunnels that connect into both the subway and nearby buildings (such as department stores) as well as having their own restaurants and magazine shops. It's like a whole new world underground. A world where the signs hang down to my eyes, so I duck... a lot. It was pretty cool, though, being able to get from place to place on a rainy day like today underground. And the restaurants and storefronts down there are pretty nice.

The next place where Japan is short is in the subway. We rode the subway during a Friday rush hour today. Probably a bad idea, because at every stop, people crammed in until the car was really full. Nevertheless, we were there, shoulder-to-shoulder with lots of folks going home or going out. Well, not really shoulder-to-shoulder; in the case of the four-foot-six man behind me, his shoulder kept bumping into my bum, and sometimes I felt an elbow hit my hamstring. And there was a woman near me that I nearly bashed in the head with my elbow. When the train jerked around you could get just a touch too friendly with your neighbors. Sigh. The other fun part of the subway was looking down the length of the train and seeing the tops of so many heads with very little variation in hair (straight black hair being the norm). It would make for a fun photo, but Jerry thought that would be rude. Oh, and in the theory that Tokyo subway trains can hold an infinite number of people, one woman was trying very hard to make the proof by induction: she pushed herself into the door of the train rear-first. :-)

My final complaint about the, um, size issues I've been having here has to do with clothing. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't have expected to be able to buy clothes here at all, but I saw this great shirt by a Japanese designer that I've never seen in the US. I thought, what a great opportunity to get a unique shirt that doesn't exist back home. So, looking at the small one that was on the rack, I asked a nearby friendly clerk (the clerks are so friendly and helpful here!):

Nick (in broken Japanese): [gesture to shirt] Me big.
Her: [gesturing to shirt] "L" (pronounced "ehlu")
Jerry: I think she's saying this is a large
Nick: Oh.
Her (in Japanese): I'm so sorry...

She was nice about it. And now I know, the Japanese are short. Some say I'm just tall, but I don't buy it. It's not me, it's that everyone else is short. :-)

Seriously, though, Jerry's the largest size here.

And now for something completely different.

Plastic

Today was rainy, and it taught us a lesson about wrapping things. It seems the Japanese already have a propensity to wrap things. For example, individually wrapped Q-tips (left), toothpicks, and sugar cubes (actually, the cubes come in pairs, see left).

But, a new abuse of plastic, back on the rainy subject: wrapping anything that might get wet or is already wet. Namely, there were umbrella wrapping stations at every store, so as to avoid dripping all over the store. Most of them came with this cool yet simple machine. It has a hole that you stick the umbrella into, and when you pull it out, it's shrink-wrapped. Fast and easy. Some places even had spring loaded umbrella check racks, where you push in the umbrella and a key pops up. When you put the key back in, the umbrella pops away from the rack.

This umbrella is coated in plastic. There's a trashbag in the background (also plastic) where you can discard the umbrella bag on the way out of the store.

When going shopping, they cover the shopping bag they give you with its own little poncho (with holes for the handles). Note that the contents of the bag are also wrapped up.