The End of the Dreaded Short-Sleeved Dress Shirt

I’ve never been much for formal dress. I had a suit, and wore it on the appropriate occasions: weddings, funerals, job interviews. And given the kinds of weddings, funerals, and interviews I’ve been to, I rarely wore it at any of them. But my working life in Japan has changed all that. My office is very formal, the dress code being along the lines of “there is no dress code but all the men wear suits.”

Now I own more than one suit. Many dress shirts. Neckties, even. And I’ve had to learn to tie said ties. Who could have imagined it?

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An Average Sunday, Plus Powerful & Sexy Women

In which I briefly mention American white trash during a tangent about a fashionable hat, but mostly talk about a day spent shopping, visiting friends, cooking, and packing.

Today we spent some time with Lia’s friend Yoko. We did a little shopping, ordered a couple of inkans—Japanese name stamps—and had lunch with Yoko’s parents. Later, I cooked up a storm, and we had a fabulous supper.

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Comme Ça Xmas

Today we revisit the photos I took at the Comme Ça Store in Riverwalk Kitakyushu a few days before Christmas 2003. I was rendered completely speechless at the time, but I’ve since recovered. Even so, before reading further you may want to put down any food and drink you might be consuming.

I’m not making any promises, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, either.

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Comme Ça Winter 2005

Judging from the number of photos I’ve taken of them, I must have some kind of obsession with the mannequins at the Comme Ça Store. Today I have photos from the Canal City mall location in Fukuoka.

And before I forget, happy Canada Day! The rest of this post has nothing to do with Canada’s birthday, but you’re welcome to read on anyway.

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Comme Ça Dogs

In yesterday’s post, Pat asked if that really was a dog among the window display mannequins. The question made me realize that I’ve come to see pet mannequins as a normal part of the shopping experience. They just blend in with everything else and seem so unremarkable that I can’t even remember if there are such things back home. Are there?

In any case, for today’s post I made a slightly clearer crop of yesterday’s photo, starring the dog. And then I dug through my photo archives for some more samples.

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Comme Ça, Baby

You can skip this preamble if you want, and go directly to the next paragraph. I had a really long day, filled with correspondence and bureaucracy, mostly having to do with our preparations to play continent leapfrog—unrelated to incontinent leapfrog, something that I do not want to see—starting in July. So today’s post is much shorter than I had hoped. I’ll probably end up splitting what could be one long post into a series of shorter ones.

I’ve written briefly the Comme Ça Store before. It’s a chain of stores that primarily sell clothing. You can read more about them in the I do not think it means… post, which was one my first descriptions of strange English usage in Japan. The Comme Ça description in that writeup is too brief but it’ll have to do. You may have to scroll down or do a text search to get to the Comme Ça part.

But enough about the past. Today you get a brief description—and two photos—of a small corner of the baby wear section of the Comme Ça Store.

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Shrine Guardians 4: Epilogue

This is the final installment of my series about Japanese shrine-guarding lion dogs, where obscure references are explained, and mysterious poetic wisdom is shared.

I’ll be starting with some clarification of stuff in the Shrine Guardians Legend, so please make sure you’ve read the story before proceeding. Otherwise most of this post will make little sense. The notes herein should clarify a few mysteries without creating more. Part 1 and Part 2 of this series are also recommended, though not necessary. If you haven’t read the story and don’t intend to, feel free to skip to the photos at the bottom of the page.

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