"Shippo."

Every day brings with it more hilarity.

#3 - Late Valentine's ... Fish?

Yes, you read that right. I received a Valentine's gift about three weeks late, and it was ... a fish! Dad - can you tell me what this is... a trout, maybe? Leave a comment on my blog if you can identify it. :)



Anyway, what an awesome concept. It's got crunchy chocolate balls inside, some of which are colored sort of disturbingly like fish eggs.

No idea how I can possibly come up with anything equally as unique for White Day...

#2 - Anonymous smiles on the train.

So I was taking the loop line home tonight... I think it was the second-to-last train. Lots of people, and everybody was so sleepy. A couple stations down from Umeda, this one dude down the row from me totally zonked out and dropped his ticket on the floor.

There was a group of three ladies sitting across from him - two young ladies probably in their mid-twenties and one elderly woman. They were looking back and forth among themselves, and finally the old woman got up, picked up the ticket, woke the dude up, and gave it back to him.

He apologized profusely, of course, and then they all sat in silence for another couple stations. Then, when it was his turn to get off, he bowed to them, mumbled another apology, and staggered out the door off-balance. The guy must have been SO sleepy.

Anyway, I watched this whole exchange transpire and thought it was kind of heartwarming. Then one of the ladies happened to look over in my direction, and I gave them a big grin because I thought it was great that they had helped the guy. The two younger women started giggling amongst themselves and the older woman was just beaming... she seemed so excited! Maybe it was my white boy charm, or maybe it was the fact that everyone else on the train was zombied out and she thought it was cool that someone had noticed, but from there until my stop we just kept exchanging silly smiles. :)

#1 - "Shippo"

Not 15 minutes later, I stepped into the elevator of my building, next to another elderly woman. I'd guess she was in her 70's, although I'm not very good with ages. Anyway, she had a little dog with her with the UGLIEST haircut ever and little hair accessories and things dangling off its head. I wasn't quite sure how to react... I mean, dogs aren't allowed here, and it was awfully ugly...

So, with my best tatemae smile, I commented on how cute the dog was.
"Kawaii desu ne!"

The old woman smiled at me, paused for a moment, and then, still smiling, held up the dog's tail.
"Shippo."

That means "tail."

Um... ok... not quite sure how to respond to that. Was she trying to show me something? Was it an unusually long tail for that species? Was she trying to teach me the Japanese word for tail (without even exchanging greetings or anything)? I had no idea what she was trying to communicate to me.

"Shippo desu ne..." ("Yep, that sure is a tail alright.")

Another pause...

"Erai ossan desu ne. Shigoto?"

That's a little tricky to translate in one swoop. "Erai" describes when somebody does something honorable or praiseworthy. "Ossan" sort of means "middle-aged man"... but the image that goes with it in my mind is like a sort of greasy middle-aged businessman with a faraway look in his eyes and graying hair who slurs his Osaka-ben and drinks a lot of shochu at the tachinomi bar in the train station with his sarari-man buddies so he can squeeze out that last five minutes away from his family before he has to catch his train home. I don't think I'm an "ossan" yet, although there are certainly some who would disagree. :P

Anyway, the last word, "shigoto," means work, and she was asking me if I was coming home from work.

I was actually coming home from a concert, and I was wearing a blazer over a garish t-shirt with blue jeans and my big silver bling-bling G-Clef necklace on. I don't know what kind of a job she thought I was coming home from. :P

So I said no, I was coming home from singing. And then she nodded, saying

"Ah, karaoke! Wakarimashita!" ("Oh, karaoke! I see!") and got out on her floor.

Weird weird weird. Haha, I love these little exchanges.