Fire Awareness Poster

"Don't forget to be aware of fire hazards."
From the Act-Age project.

Crayon Shin-chan Movie Display

Crayon Shin-chan does Indiana Jones in Turkey.

Conan Movie Display Board

Three Conans are three too many.

Smiling Kimono Sign

Sign found in front of a kimono shop. I think this is "Smiling Salesman," which may be incentive to keep looking for another shop.

Just don't

Sign found along the wall of a pachinko parlor.
"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

Lawson and Kankore

Konbini chain Lawson has teamed up with the web browser game Combined Fleet Girls Collection. In the game, girls and older women portray various WW II warships.



Fresh-faced and battle-hardened. "Sugar and cream with your coffee?"

Universal Studios Keychain

I found this large medallion-like keychain souvenir from Universal Studios lying in the middle of the street one night. It fit perfectly on the top of a pipe used as a sidewalk barrier pole.

Jaws bites.

Don Maru

There's a new order-out place called "Don Maru" (rice bowl-maru). They sell lots of cheap take-out sushi, and some rice bowls.



"Koko ni mo" in fish ("here, too").

Danken Toast

Danken is a bakery that recently opened up a coffee shop in Tenmonkan. They feel compelled to use their own breads, and one of their creations is the nut toast. This one was almonds and nut cream, with chocolate. It tasted better than it looks, but with a small coffee, it came to 750 yen ($7 USD).



Like most things in Japan, kind of pricey.

Car Wolf

Artwork from an itasha (expensive car ruined by anime-related decals).



Very tribalistic.

100% Beef Putty

There's a restaurant that opened up recently in Tenmonkan.
I suggest staying away from their Avocado Burger...

Rip Out

There's this old building down in front of the streetcar platform for Minami Kagoshima (South Kagoshima) that used to have offices and apartments in it, and a Family Mart Konbini in the first floor. I'd go there for coffee in the morning on my way to a class in the area. One week, the konbini was gone, the sign in front missing and the shop interior completely cleaned out. I'd been there the week before, and the staff acted cheerful and chipper, no indications that the place was closing. 7 days later, empty. No one I talked to knew why. About one month later, the protective sheeting had gone up, and work had started on tearing the building down.



The city has spent a lot of money renovating the platform entrance and putting in a walkover with street elevator, so maybe the idea is to remove the corner of the block and widen the intersection for turning traffic.



Or maybe they're just going to replace the place with a mansion (upscale apartments), or leave it as a parking lot.



"My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown."

Not just pretty words.

Yamakataya Ad - Lightful C

Ok, well, we have a cosmetics ad from MAC that's not completely ugly or outright bizarre, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense. And I can not figure out what's going on with the perspective of the inner wall of the keyhole. It's like it's angled weird and one part of it is warped inward to get so much of the wall face to be visible to us. Oh well.

"Lightful C - We just have to look good, we don't have to be clear."

Wicky House Poster - Lovely

Another anime-inspired ad poster, this time for the "Lovely Party Anthem" night (Third action). Not sure if this is tied to a TV series, or if it's just the name of a DJ group. It's hard to tell from the twitter page. Regardless, none of the girls look all that happy at being in the poster.

Lost Keychain

I discovered another lost anime-inspired keychain on the ground in Tenmonkan. It's about 2" wide, on hard, flexible rubber. No idea what the characters are from.

Time Bokan Beer Poster, Extra Photo

Back on Jan. 15, I wrote about a pair of posters I'd found at a restaurant that used characters from the old Time Bokan TV anime series. A few weeks later, I discovered that the back side of one of the sandwich boards had an even better illustration using the villains from the same series.

"If you're going to drink, drink with friends. Half off during happy hour (4-7 PM)."

Yamakataya Ad - Rubywood Tokyo

Yes, finally. The Yamakataya cosmetics department poster ad returns to the land of the surreal.



What's the message here?
A: "Beauty is when you sew women's eyelids shut."
B: "Beauty is when your eyelashes look like cactus needles."
C: "Sorry, I bumped the camera when I took the shot."

Noufuku Nonki

I mentioned back a few days ago that Amu Plaza hosted a Noufuku (local farm products) event from Sunday to Tuesday. There really weren't any events on the live stage I cared about on Sunday or Tuesday, but Nonki was going to be playing at 1:30 PM on Monday, and I did want to see that.



Nonki occasionally plays lead guitar for the Bon DX Ska band, but he also has his "Nonki One-Man Ventures" show, where he does covers of Ventures' surf music. He records all of the other tracks (drums, bass, keyboards) himself onto CD, then plays over that on guitar. From a technical stand-point, he's a solid musician. But, on stage he takes on a bit more of a hammy persona that doesn't stand up as well on camera.



Amu Plaza only gave him a 20-minute slot, while there was nothing else going on on-stage until 3 PM. The audience was small (maybe 30 people), but everyone did want him to play longer. I recorded 3 of the songs, and uploaded them to my Facebook page. I already have recordings of the same songs on youtube, and there's not much reason to duplicate them this time. If you want to listen to him, check out youtube or facebook.

After the set, Nonki had to spend time with the event promoter, then just sat around in the mixer tent for a few minutes until the promoter got distracted and wandered away. When Nonki bolted for a cigarette break, I got a chance to talk with him for a little bit, until he made it clear that he had his own priorities.



The 3 PM set was going to be Jimmy-chan. He did a mike check at 1:45 PM, and announced himself to be a doo wop singer, but his rehearsal songs were more 50's style Shanana wannabe. I have seen him performing before with members of a group he's in, and it's not my kind of karaoke.

No other events coming up that I know of.

Pooh Sign

"Tenmonkan Seikotsuin" (Tenmonkan Osteopathy Clinic). Oh, pooh.

Nine Count

Boxing gyms are becoming more common in Kagoshima now. Nine Count opened last year, on Streetcar Street.
"Nine Count. It's never over until 10."

At some point, I should find out what their operating hours are.

Lotteria Kani Burgers

The Lotteria Burger fastfood shop is running a new campaign. This one is for their Kani (crab) patty and cheese burger, and the same thing but with a bun in the shape of a crab.



Not seeing a whole lot of reason to pay the money for this, but there is justification for asking if this place has the crabs... (Note, the little blue circle at the bottom of the banner identifies their spokeswoman as "Kanipan no ojousan" (Crab bread lady)).

Noufuku Marushe Mar. 10, 2019

Amu plaza is hosting some kind of farmer's market from Sunday to Tuesday.



Lots of produce, and apparently it's cheaper than what you can get at the supermarkets.



There's also a live event stage, but the range of entertainments is rather limited. On Sunday, they had the Little Cherries jazz band, a taiko group, balloon animals, and this guy doing a traditional folk dance. I've seen him before at Rokugatsugou, so I didn't bother recording him this time. He's doing some kind of story performance, but I don't know what story it is.



Monday, there's something called "Candy Beats" at 11 AM, Nonki at 1:30 PM, and some doo wop group at 3 PM. I like Nonki - he occasionally plays lead guitar for Bon DX, but this time he's doing his "one-man Venture's" covers show. I hope to watch that tomorrow.

On Tuesday, there's a dance studio group at 11 AM, another traditional folk dance performance similar to the one pictured here, and a "special guest" at an unspecified time - one of the MBC broadcasting announcers, Mutsuhiko Inomata. So, yeah, I'll try to watch Nonki, but that's it. Otherwise, a frustrating weekend, what with all the rain on Saturday and Sunday, no real events, and having to spend most of the time indoors.

Bright Chalk - Christ

Bright used men's clothes went with another Christ-related chalk theme.

Pokemon Vending Machine

Sorry for not posting lately - I had a hard drive crash. I'm back now.



I guess, when you decide to have a vending machine placed outside your shop, you can choose the kind of wrapper to put on it.



The nearby clinic went with Pokemon. Gotta drink them all.

Kagoshima Marathon, 2019

Well, one of the biggest events of the winter is the Kagoshima Marathon, which was held on Sunday. Short answer - I missed it.



I've written about the past 2-3 marathons here, and I wasn't expecting much new this year, but I did at least want to get some photos for the blog, and maybe grab something to eat at one of the food booths. I asked a few of my students if they were going to go watch (one did run in the marathon a few years ago, and was scheduled to provide support along the route in Aira), but they all said that the forecast was for heavy rain on Sunday, and that they'd stay indoors instead. The main announcement spot was in Central Park, and the sign-in tables, and souvenir shops were already up and open on Friday. I stopped by on my way to the school on Saturday afternoon, and it was raining lightly on both days. I just took a few photos then continued to the school. All the tables were closed when I got out at the end of the evening.



I've needed to clean up a synthesizer keyboard that's been gathering dirt and dust in a corner of the apartment, as well as some other stuff I'm thinking of selling off, and my plan was to wait until the weather turned good so I could take the gear outside and keep from rearranging the dust in the apartment. Sunday morning, the sky was looking clear and promising, so the plan was to clean the gear, then go to Central Park to watch the last of the race in the afternoon. Well, there was a fair amount of equipment to clean, and a LOT of cleaning to do, as it turned out. I spent 3 hours at that. Then, as I was getting ready to leave at 2 PM, the printer stopped working. I need to do taxes for both the U.S. and Japan, and I need the printer for printing out forms and things. So, I found myself having to hand carry the printer to a PC repair shop 6 blocks away. I get to the shop, struggle to explain to the tech what the problem is, and he plugs the printer in and has it do a "print copy." The copy prints out more or less well (the colors are a little too faded, but the text is readable). It's an old printer and would cost more to fix than it's worth, so I guess it's time to start looking for a new printer. In any event, I carried the printer back home, plugged it into the PC, and prepared to go back outside again. One note: when I took the printer to the shop, it was drizzling a little. As I was getting ready to take the printer back home, the skies had opened up and the rain was coming down much harder. This pretty much took the question of "should I go to the park" out of my hands. No - the rain would make taking photos nearly impossible, and things would be wrapping up soon, anyway. Sigh.



The bottom line was that I never saw anything of the marathon. Instead, I walked to Amu Plaza to do some food shopping for the week. While I was there, I went up to the 6th floor to check the movie theater for interesting advertising displays. Nearby, I spotted 20-30 school girls all wearing the marathon volunteer jackets. So, either the marathon was cut short, or a lot of the volunteers had left the route when their part of the support was over. I'm not sure, either way.



On Saturday, one of the hosts interviewed a past marathon winner.

As I write this Sunday night, it's still raining outside. Stupid rain.

Pokemon Car

The Ferris wheel on top of Amu Plaza has one car with a Pokemon theme (and Pokemon stuffed toys inside) to promote the goods shop in the main department store.

Yokai Watch Movie Display

"We're going to watch the new movie. Will you? Of course you will, we're forever friends, right?"