Design Delights

Some cute salt and pepper shakers from the 100 Yen store

Yakiniku

A new yakiniku restaurant has opened down on the main road. Yakiniku is where you get a bunch of different cuts of meat and vegetables to grill on a burner at your table. The restaurant is called Ten-Mei, and the kanji mean 'sky' and 'life'. It was quite stylish, and above are the business card, embossed chopsticks wrapper and matchbox we souvenired. 

Olive Mania

We visited Shodoshima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea, southwest of Himeji. The island is supposedly famous for its olives. A few small olive groves are dotted around the coast. Most of the olives are found in the souvenir stores. We found all of those shown below (the last one is olive jelly), along with olive chocolate and olive candy.

Living Things

Everything comes to life in Japan. Soap holders become frogs and seals, pieces of wood become temple icons (in this case, darumas), and even drops of water come to life to tell us about who to call if there is a blockage or a leak. The daruma doll represents the founder of Zen Buddhism who according to legend meditated for so long that his arms and legs fell off, which makes it even harder to hear the sound of one hand clapping. When knocked over the dolls return to the standing position. 

Local Entertainment

Sign outside a pub (pab) in the ski resort town of Hakuba

Be Careful of Falling Rocks

Just in case you wondered where those annoying falling rocks came from... 

Root Beer on Tap

There are a lot of things that could be said about this establishment near the Wajima port area on the north side of Noto Peninsula. The most respectable could be that if your love life has become a bit "routine", then you should check in here. The katakana in the second photo indicates that the Australian rather than American pronunciation is required (rhymes with toot, not flout).