Safari hat: Check
Ear muffs in June: Check
Everything in my closet, including hot pink pants: Check

She's ready for the wilds of Toyama.

(Sorry for the late posts, folks. Obligations tend to get in the way of updating.)

I think most of these fathers owe their children HUGE APOLOGIES for inspiring this kind of artwork.

Guide to political douchebaggery, rule 3: Standing alone on the busy street corner is all well and good, but why not employ the desperately bored housewives that make up 90% of your constituency to help you?
Pro-tip: Gloves for everyone!

Screw you, father figure, it's just your LOVE that I'm thanking!

Guide to political douchebaggery, rule 2: Hiring a loudspeaker truck is a good start, but to make yourself more "accessible to the people" (ha!), you should make sure to be seen beside the truck on busy street corners.
Pro-tip: People love it when you use a bullhorn to talk at them while they're stuck at the light. If you have no bullhorn, just wave your hand (gloved, of course) and look like you care about the peons as they drive by.

Guide to political douchebaggery, rule 1: Hire one of these loudspeaker trucks to shout bullshit for your campaign.
Pro-tip: People are most susceptible to political announcements at 6am on weekends.

The juxtaposition of the road cone, daisies and douche bag strikes me as somewhat poignant.

I doubt this was inspired by someone who saw that Jim Carrey movie, so I'mma chalk it up to stupidity/ Enlish Fail.

Japanese road blocks. Yeah.

Contradiction?

Toyama, Mountains in the sky.

Ricelets!

Your wall uh...well, it's not very wall-like anymore.

The ghostly Buddha of Takaoka. Once he was shiny copper, like a new penny, but...

Jesus and Buddha be chillin' together on a train.

OMG guys, the Fantastic (09) Twilight "Wizards" were here!
Is this some kind of retarded homage to that stupid sparkly vampire book?

Gorgeous shop shutter art.

Apparently the Tatami (traditional woven rice straw flooring) Makers in Tokyo are more hardcore than your average tatami maker. You can tell by the smarmy look.

This section of road was blocked off at 6am so that old folks could do their 「ラジオ体操」, or "radio calisthenics".

Interesting tidbit (as related to me by a co-worker): Apparently one way the Japanese gub'ment could tell citizens from Korean spies was by asking them to do radio taisou. "Only a true Japanese can do radio taiso." I call shenanigans, but it's kind of funny to think about what an interrogation of that sort might entail.

Come to my shitty little lottery shack/booth and get rich quick!

The Prime Minister, aside from being a manga jockey, is a "Cool Old Dude".

You know, I expect this kind of translation fuckup in backwater city trains that go to nowhere, but on a subway in the second biggest city in Japan? Unfuckingacceptable.

Criminals beware: Kabuki actors live here! They will annoy you if you break the law!

Disposable wheels. Bridges are the best places to get rid of your broken down ride.

Rice fields flooded in preparation for planting.

Spam rice balls. My stomach, she be churning.

Less nipple, please. MUCH less.

Why yes, I'll take my creepy animal statue WITH a penis! Thanks for asking!

Douchebags in neat rows.

Chikkinz!

This, THIS is why throwing away garbage in Takaoka is SUCH a pain in the ass! The categories of crap, from left to right:
Plastic bottles, cans (Yellow Bags)
Bottles (ビン)
Cardboard
Non-Burnable Trash (Pink bags)
Heavy Plastic

There's also electronics, metal, shoes, and eleventy-billion other annoying crap classifications.

One might even consider this a Gaijin Trap as well. Putting out incorrectly sorted garbage invariably leads to tongue-lashings from the garbage nazis (old women who have nothing better to do than watch you put out your garbage and comment upon it).

Irises in a creek, prior to blooming.

What the bloody fucking hell...?!

Bizarritude.

You may take our frills and lace, but you'll never take...

Apparently, this is the equivalent of a "Do Not Enter" sign in Kenroku Park, Kanazawa.
...riiiiiiiiight.

Back-alley spirituality. Oh, the incongruity of it all!
(The sign says 「神に栄光」which means, "Glory in the Lord".)

This bad boy is in Kanazawa, near the art museum.

Buddha in a closet.

Check out the bib on this guy...play the lottery, y'all!

Hard...core?

Balloon-suspended torsos make for a creepy t-shirt display.

It feeds the baby to the bacterium...

A local rice paddy. This is what they look like coming out of winter.
Notice the covered gaijin trap in the front. Sneaky, sneaky.

Advertising for a traditional dance performance

Toyama Times Square

Beware of Perverts!

This is a gaijin trap.
These bad boys line many of the streets in Toyama City, especially in the suburbs.
Sometimes they're covered.
They are a menace to drunk society.

Their breeding can only be stopped with fire.

When rules for throwing your garbage away are too complicated, this is the result.