Excuse me!!!!!

What trip to Japan would be complete without takin’ the piss out of their kooky Engrish translations:



I haven’t had a cigarette since August last year, however… this “smorking” thing sounds incredibly fun. Maybe I should take that up instead. I couldn’t do it on this floor though. I had to go outside to smork.



It goes without saying that if you don’t bring pets around, it’s fairly likely that there’ll be no poop. However, this sign seemingly suggests that it would be perfectly okay for me to “poop” here (as it is affectionately referred to here). Also… is it really a sign to say that you shouldn’t bring pets to this area… or is it simply a sign that politely informs you of a nice fact…?

Chalk it up to one of the things you learned today: “Hey… if there are no pets around… there’s no poop! Pass it on!”

(Note: I realise that this isn't really a bad translation or anything... I just found that sign amusing... it's my new wallpaper... really)



This one is a little confusing, and it relates to connecting my laptop to the hotel's internet. The blue part reads "There is a case that it can't be connected, either,by the hard environment which is usually being used. It isn't easily responsible even if a wrong point occurs in the computer virus and so on" (grammar painstakingly reproduced for that authentic feel). So... people use this hard environment? In a country of tens of millions of people, I'd say that most things in general are "usually being used". This was in my hotel room, and it made my head hurt.

Anyway… further impressions…

The people function almost robotically. Once they step onto the trains, they bury their face into either:

A mobile phone

A Nintendo DS

A Sony PSP

A paper that would require a PhD and two decades of servitude to understand.

However, the trains play this cute little tune before they depart some stations. It struck me as ironic that the trains displayed more playful personality than the people being digested in its cast iron stomach.

Even the garbage trucks play a cute little announcement and tune as they cruise through the streets.

I watched a fire truck slowly meander though the streets of Noda, playing a cute little ditty. I remarked to my room mates that “In Australia, the trucks wail in a manner that’s like ‘Get Outta My Fuckin’ WAAAYY, AAARRRSEHOOOLE!’, whereas the fire trucks in Japan are like a quiet ‘Sumimasen!* Sumimasen!’”

Geez. Even their fire trucks are more polite than the people back here in Australia.

*Excuse me/sorry

PS When you do a post that pokes fun at other peoples' grammar... you need to be really, really, really, really, really careful about your own... as my ten edits of this post enforces...