Tigers and Cranes

It rains in Japan. Who’d have thought? When one lives in Southern California, AKA the desert next to the ocean, it’s one item people leave home without, and generally it’s safe to assume that a person isn’t going to get soaked from precipitation. And, if it rains, so what? Just hop in your car and drive away.

Not so in Japan and Korea, where it rains whenever it(clouds, I guess) feels like. In fact, the rainy season in those countries during summer is one long depressing season of constant wetness. What if a convenience store wasn’t around when it begins to rain? (I know, it’s a remote possibility, as there’s a Lawson’s or Seven Eleven or something, it seems, on every corner.)

Well, you can make use of this umbrella vending machine, spotted in Roppongi, and the picture which I stole shamelessly from Flickr.

So you see, in Japan, umbrellas are essential piece of gear. Even I had an umbrella, one of those cheap 500 yen clear plastic ones that you can buy all over Japanese convenience stores. But not used to carrying one around, I’d invariably leave them in the public bathroom, stores, and work, and yakitori places.

It’s easy to do, really. Many urinals have a hook next to it just to hang umbrellas. Like this:

Kind of sad, really, but there was one time when I stopped by at a dry cleaner to drop off some clothes, the nice old lady looked at me as if I was slightly daft.
“Where’s your umbrella?”
“Ah… I don’t have one.” (I didn’t want to tell her that I have a memory of a fruitfly, forgetting and losing my umbrellas everywhere. Plus, I’m sure I didn’t know the Japanese word for “fruitfly”.)

She clicked her tongue, looked at me with pitying eyes, and gave me one from her collection of plastic umbrellas. Funny thing, though. This was one umbrella I never lost.

One other thing I like about umbrellas in Japan… Entrance to many a shops and restaurants you can see this thingie.

You just slide in your wet, dripping umbrella before entering indoors in this device, and presto! Your umbrella has sort of a condom to keep from dripping rainwater onto the floor. No more the need to lick your umbrella dry before you enter that coffeshop, boss. I mean, you all do that, right?

As a bonus, here is a pictures of a “light up” umbrella, with the… uh, rod that glows. Why? for safety, dummy. Plus, your inner Jedi screams “Cool! I must have one!”

Ah, what the hell, here’s another picture of a Japanese umbrella. Remember, at Tigers and Cranes, we love umbrellas!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 12:55 am and is filed under korea, japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.