japanese

Giant Robots and Familiar Doughnuts

Factorial , , , , , ,

I haven’t updated in a week. Can you tell I have a job now? 🙂

So, I went back to Odaiba a few days ago. When I went the first time to see a replica of the Statue of Liberty, somehow I missed the fact that a giant Gundam robot was just outside the mall entrance, guarding the food court.

Needless to say, this is among the coolest things I’ve seen in Tokyo so far.

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gundam-pano

Afterward I headed back in to get some dinner: gyoza, Chinese dumplings that are among my favorite food in Japan.  I thought I was ordering “Set #3” and somehow ended up ordering…

three-set-three

…three of set #3. Which is strange because in Japanese there are counter words, and “three of something” would have been mittsu, which I never said. My guess is that the waiter was accustomed to taking orders from gaijin and ready to assume that when I pointed and said san setto onegai shimasu (“combo number three please”) I meant “three of these please.” Oh well. I can think of many worse problems to have than too much gyoza. I ate it all. Next time I’ll try to use my counters properly. Hitotsu setto san onegai shimasu.

I didn’t think I had room for desert until I spotted a familiar sign.

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Hey y’all!!

Factorial , ,

I was in a mall a few days ago and a jewelry store had a bunch of English phrases framed behind the counters. It seems Japan is fond of using English as decoration in much the same way the West uses kanji decoratively.

sweet-as-a-peach

So I approached the saleswoman and said (in what I am discovering is my god-awful Japanese) 「それはアメリカのみなみのいいならわしですよね。」, meaning “Those are southern American idioms.” I pulled out my phone, switched it to camera mode, and asked 「カメラはだいじょうぶですか。」(“Is camera OK?”).

bless-your-heart_a-little-bird-told-me

I asked because I know from previous experience that taking pictures of shops in Japan is kind of a no-no. In this case the saleswoman also seemed reluctant, so to prove my intentions I put on my most southern accent, pointed at a frame and read “Hey ya’ll!” Then another, “Bless yer hart.”

hey-yall

That won her over and she gave me permission to photo just the frames.