Sorry, I just couldn’t resist including this ad, also from the JAL onboard catalog:

No matter how many pictures they show of using this bin for recycling bottles or raking up leaves, we all know the truth: it’s a mobile urinal.

Browsing through the Japan Airlines Shop onboard catalog, I enjoyed seeing products that wouldn’t be offered by, say, the SkyMall or Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs found in U.S. airline seatpockets.

Here are two examples, both of which assume a preference for sitting close to the floor:

The ad also boasts scientific-looking heat-maps charting pressure on the derrière, proving that sitting on this chair will distribute weight more evenly than sitting directly on the tatami mat.

You’ve gotta love how the desk folds into an end table…

Unfortunately, these products are only available to Japanese residents, so the rest of us are out of luck.

Seen in Narita Airport:

The English text of the sign reads: “If you don’t mind to discard the prohibited items such as knives, scissors and lighters. Please put them into this box.”

I wonder if anyone ever has? I assume that the items already within were planted there in advance. What would motivate someone to drop a forbidden item in the clear box rather than in a nearby garbage bin? (I can see the negative motivation, not to drop things in the box, because other people will see that you didn’t know not to bring those “dangerous” items along.) If the box’s purpose isn’t really to collect items, what is it? Perhaps it serves as an eye-catching early alert (before entering the security line) that allows people to save face by warning them that some items must be disposed of?

Note that the currently posted Streets albums may be viewed at the following links: Tokyo, London, Seoul, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Andalusia.

In my recent correspondence:

“I’m confused… You go all the way to Tokyo and spend your time taking pictures of manhole covers and sewer drains? Am I missing something here?”

 * * *

“I didn’t know you like photography. Cool. What made you decide your particular focus?”

* * *

“What also struck me powerfully was how many of your photos were photos I’ve taken, if less artistically. I’m so fascinated by shapes and textures, and of concrete material goods that lead an abstract existence simultaneously.  Picking up on the geometry of the Seoul palace, walls, and pothole covers are all in my repertoire as well. […]

“A word about the architectural symmetry and how it spoke of the power and authority of the monarch. According to Confucian thought (which lives strikingly in Korea even more than in Japan or China), there is Heaven and there is Earth (including humanity), and it is the responsibility of the ruler to put Earth into order according to the divine principles of Heaven. What better way to represent the monarch’s ability to create order than to create symmetrical space?”

It’s time for me to talk a little about this manhole cover fetish fascination…

Lens focus? Interest focus? Nokia made me decide my particular focus, you might say — the pictures are all taken with my cell phone (not so amazing), because it’s there with me. I do take pictures other than streets (!) but I post the streets, because it is something different from the norm.

I am interested by a couple of aspects of “street design”:

(1) There is a conversation that happens on the ground. Sometimes it’s very loud, as in colored signs and lane markings, communicating between the city or an institution and the public. Sometimes it’s subtle, as in spray painted notations by city workers. I like eavesdropping on that conversation, and I’m interested in the communication and “language” that is used; the assumptions made about who is listening, and what they understand.

(2) Different cities have very different patterns and systems for infrastructure access holes — in some places, everything seems modular (a few standard sizes); in other places, everything looks pretty chaotic. Some cities seem to care a lot about the beauty of even the manhole covers; some really don’t. I think that says something about a culture and about feelings about the city.

(3) There’s design at work even on manhole covers — some are beautiful; others ugly. Some are very useful, and identify what’s in them very specifically; others are generic, or nearly so. That’s a form of industrial design that probably has scope for improvement, and seems interesting — identifying who needs to know? (the public? the maintenance workers? other repair people?) what do they need to know? how best to convey the information? what are the risks of making the information known?

Anyway… you’re getting an earful!

Best,

Sarah

Arutz Sheva reports:

New Zealand’s first kosher restaurant will open by the end of this year, according to the island-country’s Chabad Rabbi Mendy Goldstein. It is being built on the first floor of Chabad offices in the city of Christchurch.

I’m really happy to hear this news. Honestly.

Remembering the reticence of Chabad representatives to use the word “Santa” in my hometown of Santa Monica (known by the Lubavitcher hasidim as “S. Monica”, in company with S. Barbara and many other California towns boasting Chabad branches), is it disrespectful for me to wonder how they are coping with the name of this Chabad branch in New Zealand?

I would like to note that I’ve been the recipient of so much gracious hospitality, food and personal referrals from Chabad representatives in Orlando, Helsinki, Tokyo, Barcelona (where they spell it, endearingly, Jabad), Bangkok and other locations that my gratitude is endless (even if my path in Torah is not the same).

Seen in Tokyo: 

Suddenly, I’m not that thirsty.

Seen in Tokyo (Minato-ku): 

The sign in front of the fire station reminds passersby that fire has potentially nasty undesired effects.

Why the use of the English “or”?

Is this a sign that can be taken in at a glance? Is it assumed that passersby will quickly absorb the message?

Seen in a Tokyo hotel: 

The lobby is fully carpeted. The elevator call button panel has an extra little section between the UP and DOWN buttons: touch the metal plate here to discharge static electricity buildup before pressing the button.

Imagining the events leading to the decision to install the enhanced panel makes me laugh!

Shibuya’s main intersection:

The pedestrian overcrossings form an elegant full four-way crosswalk right over the street. Here’s a stairway detail:

There are stairs with integrated ramps in Jerusalem, too (to help mothers pushing strollers). My friend calls them “suicide ramps”. This is such a long one that it does look suicidal. Yow.

Seen in Tokyo:

A pair of bumper sticker-type ads on the train doors:

+ Touch Sensor = Softbank

+ Motion Sensor = Softbank

That’s interesting to me. Not so much that Softbank is pushing a touch- and motion-sensitive phone (whoever isn’t doing that already will be soon), but that they are pushing the technology inside. Both touch and motion sensing have been around for a long time; now there is a sense [!] that consumers care that those capabilities are inside the box, much as they care about WiFi, a TV tuner, or GPS.

Wow, times have changed. Do I attribute this to the iPhone Effect? You betcha.