Sunday, March 04, 2007

A very trivial post

The Japan Times has a travel story about the extremely busy Shinjuku area in Tokyo. (You should read it if you are going to be in Tokyo soon.) Maybe I am easily amused, but the name of this old association struck me as very funny:

Outbreaks of cholera and eventual deterioration of the wooden Tamagawa conduits brought about the Shinjuku-based Yodobashi Purification Plant in 1892. Impressed with the plant's engineering, the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association of London presented Shinjuku with a ponderous commemorative fountain, which today sits just outside the east exit of Shinjuku Station.

I'm also not sure if these are official or unofficial names:

The claustrophobia-inducing underpass toward the west side of Shinjuku Station feeds into a web of yokocho (side alleys) with a postwar patina. The names of some alleys, shomben (urine) and gokiburi (cockroach) might be better lost in translation, but the Lilliputian yakitori and drinking joints are fully packed by 5 p.m. every night.

I think I have a photo of me in one of those.

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