The Japanese Cuisine Conspiracy

Dogs are the best people

Emma and I are partial to a daily early morning constitutional, such as the philosopher Kant liked to take through the streets of Konigsberg back in the day. On Wednesday morning, we hadn't even travelled 100 metres from our front door when we're greeted with the following sight. One of the locals was standing in the middle of the road while her dog was, you know, going about its business. "It had to see a man about a dog," as the saying goes. Anyway, there she was with a handful of tissue, about to do her civic duty, we thought, by scooping up the evidence when the dog was finished. Well, she scooped it up, and put it in the bag, and that, we thought, was that.

But no. That wasn't that.

After depositing the droppings in the plastic bag she carried with her (what do they do with that stuff when they get it home, I wonder?), she then took a wad of tissue in one hand, lifted Fido's tail with the other, and proceeded to wipe its bum. I shit you not. I mean, this is a country in which you're not allowed to use your phone on the buses and trains. You can't hold a conversation in public above a barely audible whisper. If you have a touch of the flu or the common cold, they don't want you using a tissue. But taking that same tissue and using it to clean the stinking, fetid detritus from a dog's anus--that's OK.

I mean, what was this woman worried about? Hasn't millions of years of evolution taken care of this anal hygiene problem? Or was she worried that, in the absence of grassy lawns such as we have in Australia, Fido was going to wipe his bum on the tatami mat?

Club Pure Feb 2007

Club Pure . . . yes, well, the less said, the better. There's a Charlie Brown cartoon where he wakes up one day and all his friends are telling him what a great time he had the night before--he even got to dance with the red-haired chick he has a thing for--only he can't for the life of him remember it. That about describes my second visit to Club Pure (sans the red-haired chick, of course). Apparently we went to Club Pure, and somehow made our way from there to karaoke. And while I'm buggered if I recall the events of that evening, we have photographic evidence (most of which we'll eventually get around to Facebooking) that suggests they did indeed transpire. Weird, huh? Anyway, I'll let the slideshow below tell the story.

(Click image for slideshow)

Note to self: while the cocktails at Club Pure are watered down to the potency of weak cordial, the vodka shots aren't.

(P.S. Don't get the wrong idea: we had a fantastic time with our friends as always, and Wendy and Aimee were kind enough to put on a great nabe the following day. Emma was a little worse for wear--though it was nothing to do with the nabe, I hasten to add.)