Here’s another picture of a sign telling people to clean up after their dogs. As with many of the unusual types of signs you can see in Japan, there are different versions in different places. The chikan sign from the last post has many different depictions of the bad guy - most of them monster-like.

As for this photo, at least the dog has the decency to be embarrassed over the situation. He’s actually blushing. The one on my earlier post looked like he was enjoying the fact that his master had to follow him around with a plastic bag. Of course, the kid didn’t seem too disturbed by it, either.

So, let’s see...

Well, I just got back from the kerosene and rice shop. That’s a loaded cultural sentence right there, isn’t it?

The first thing is, of course, how do these two things fit together? I not really sure, but there’s a shop up the street and that’s all they sell. The rice is in packages from about five to 20 or more kilos and the kerosene is pumped into about five gallon plastic containers that are supplied by the customer.

The shop keeps kind of strange hours that seemed to be governed by when I need kerosene. That’s when they’re closed. I keep two containers in my apartment, just in case. When I run out of one I still have about three or four days to get it refilled before the other one is used up. That usually works, except when I forget or when they see me coming and put the closed sign on the door. Then I’m back to my electric space heater until I work things out.

When I was living here ten years ago, there was a truck that went around the neighborhoods filling containers that were left at the curb. To give you an idea of the difference between Japan and the U.S., the way you’d pay at that time was to just leave the money in a bag tied around the top of the container. You would come home at night and your change and your kerosene would be waiting at the curb for you. I may be cynical, but I don’t think that would be a wise system in my own country.

I’m not sure if the trucks are still being used elsewhere, but they certainly don’t deliver to the fifth floor here. That fifth floor thing is also why I only get one container at a time. I have to take a breather about floor three on my way back from kerosene shopping. Even my Japanese neighbors realize the difficulty of my situation. I ran into some third floorers on my way up and they kind of laughed and said, “Go-kai da ne.” (Fifth floor, right?)

The next thing I find a little strange is just the popularity of kerosene heaters. I imagine they do a good business selling kerosene at that store because everybody uses the heaters, even the smaller shops.

I have two kerosene heaters - one older one that works well and a newer one that will only work when it’s in the right mood. I couldn’t get either one to work at first, but Yoh-san came over and touched a couple buttons and they both started right up. I’m sure he thinks I’m a bit simple with all the things I can’t seem to do right... or at all. You all probably do, too, come to think of it, but you don’t get to judge me until you try it all for yourselves.

Anyway, in addition to the kerosene heaters, I have two electric space heaters that I use occasionally, but they’re too expensive to run all the time. Then there’s one room that has a combination heater-air conditioner built in. Unfortunately, it’s not in the room set up as an office and not in the bedroom, so it’s not much use to me. Oh, a little side note - to the Japanese, this built-in unit is just an air-conditioner, or ‘air-con’ in Japanese-English speak. What I mean is, in the west we refer to only the cooling unit as an air-conditioner, and the heating part is... a heater. To the Japanese, an air-con both heats and cools. An example of language adaptability - they have taken an English word and shortened it and then modified the meaning.

I should be switching to the cooling part of the air-con soon. It’s still cold and wet today, but they’re predicting the cherry blossoms will be in bloom in the next week or so and hot weather can’t be far behind. I don’t know, though. Last year it was the middle of April before the cherry blossoms came out. I seem to remember using a heavy blanket at night all the way to May.

Wow. That means I’ve been back in Japan for an entire year.

Each one goes faster.

We'll see what this one brings.