Hello from New York! I was a little reluctant to leave Japan so soon, but the weather in NY is absolutely gorgeous, so I’ll take it. (I’ve been up since 3:30 this morning, so I got to see the beautiful morning light hit the buildings outside our window.) I also didn’t bring any knitting on the Japan trip, so I’m looking forward to picking up the needles after two weeks without.

I just finished downloading the last of my photos, and I realized I took more pics of Okinawa than I thought. So this will be the non-hermit crab Okinawa post.

First, something cute (of course!). An ad for Okinawan “snow salt” cookies at the Naha airport on the main island. (They’re really yummy.)

Iriomote-jima, where we stayed for three nights, has more than just beaches and crabs. It’s also known for its dense jungle and waterfalls. It’s not known so much for its goats, but this one was roaming around just looking to get into trouble.

John was careful not to touch him, so that he could avoid a customs nightmare when returning to the states. (It ended up being a nightmare anyway, but that’s another and not very interesting story.)

And here we have some mangrove roots.

Iriomote-jima was covered with dense mangrove forests, and the guide on the boat tour we took discussed the main three types of mangrove trees in detail, on and on, throughout the 25-minute trip. I now feel like I know all there is to know about mangroves, but only in Japanese.

After our boat tour, we took an hour-long hike to see a waterfall (sans tour guide, thankfully). On the way, I spotted this gorgeous bark.

I don’t recall what kind of tree it belongs to, but I loved its pattern.

Also this cool unfurling vine.

Here’s a shot of the waterfall we hiked to, plus a funny crow who was very interested in us.

And lastly, I found this ad at the airport at Ishigaki-jima to be pretty fascinating.

Never mind the fresh water gushing down the pristine waterfalls of a nearby island, give me the water of America! I have a feeling that this particular campaign wouldn’t do so well in its place of supposed origin.

The majority of my remaining pictures from Japan are of cute ads I found, so I’ll be posting those soon too.

One of the things I love about Japan is how personified everything is. It seems that every good or service (including government services) requires its own adorable mascot, and walking down the street you can quickly lose count of the cute faces greeting you on signs every five feet or so.

It was originally my plan to document every cute character I came across for a few days, but that task quickly proved too daunting. In any case, here are a few just from the past day or so in Nagoya.

A “card” character featured in the current promotions for the department store Parco

Also at Parco, this little deer has been my favorite so far.

These are some kind of plant I think? I’m not sure, but they’re cute.

This giraffe wants you to use Nanaco, which is some kind of “card service,” I think.

Of course, Toyota has its own cuddly animals hawking their cars.

And finally, the police get a mascot too!

Our travel plans have changed a bit, so we’re heading off for a few days in Okinawa tomorrow morning. (Yesterday I managed to buy a bathing suit in Japan, if you can believe it.) Probably no internet for real this time. So I’ll be back when I’m back!

Yesterday we went to Sanjusangendo, which is my favorite temple in Kyoto. Its main feature is a massively long hall that houses 1001 intricately carved statues of Kannon (not technically Buddha, but close enough for most non-Buddhists). This is another hugely popular temple, and it’s usually packed with crowds of visiting schoolchildren, but the crowds were amazingly quiet yesterday so it didn’t seem so packed.

Photos are forbidden in the hall, and I’d rather not use any blurry ones posted online by rule-breaking visitors, so I’ll just say that the sight is breathtaking and not to be missed.

And now for a milkshake.

You may have heard that there are vending machines on every street corner in Japan. That’s more or less true, but contrary to popular belief, they do not all contain used girls’ underwear. (I’ve never seen one of these mythical vending machines, though I have spotted one for eggs and one for porn, but these were rare sightings.)

The cool thing about vending machines in Japan is that while most of them carry the same 10 or so drinks from Coca-Cola and Suntory (sodas, coffee drinks, tea and the like), every once in a while you’ll come across a drink you’ve never seen before, and you might never see again. Such was the case with Milk Shake.

Milk Shake is not an authentic milkshake, but it is milky and very sweet. Kind of like watered-down melted ice cream, with a little bit of an artificial aftertaste. I liked it, but we probably shouldn’t have bought two before tasting it, because one was enough for everyone to share, and our ryokan room doesn’t have a fridge in which we could keep the other one warm. Warm watery ice cream drink with a bit of an artificial aftertaste, anyone? No?

Hellooo from Japan!

Today was our first full day here. We had planned to do both Shibuya and Harajuku, but the former proved to be more than enough for us.

We spent a good part of the day in Loft, browsing the latest in stylishly cute housewares and zakka. Then we ogled delicious food at Shibuya station.

Kewpie dolls continue to be all the rage in the cute department. Here they are advertising a new TV show:

I love love love this ad! Each Kewpie is dressed up as a food or animal or other thing of Japan. Wouldn’t it have been fun to make all these outfits? They’re also selling cell phone straps of Kewpies incognito as various foods and animals—I picked up a Kewpie beer and a Kewpie mushroom today. So cute!

Here’s Kewpie dressed up as the horse character Rody.

If you look closely and can read Japanese, you’ll see that this particular crane game has a sign proclaiming it the “second most popular!” What a crowning achievement.

The “Kapibara” character is still going strong too, with a few new varieties added to the mix. Do these guys remind you of someone?

Perhaps a certain toupee-wearing mouse?

Now for edibles. We came across a counter with the most gorgeous, exotic varieties of honey.

Yuzu, lemon, thyme.. those are the ones I can remember, but there were dozens of flavors. I think we could have gotten samples, but we were too busy buying them up to think to ask.

Finally, yummy bright green sweets.

Made of sticky rice, sweet bean paste, and unidentifiable squiggly green thingies.

We’re heading off to a few days in Kyoto tomorrow, where I’m not sure if we’ll have internet access or not. I’ll be back when we do!