ヤッホー！

Naoko Syohno

"Cat Day solo countdown starting! 222! 1… Cat Day pre-celebration"

Cat Day Japan's Cat Day is celebrated on February 22. This date was established in 1987 by the "Cat Day Executive Committee" and Japan Pet Food Association, a group of cat enthusiasts. The choice of February 22 comes from the phonetic similarity between "2-2-2" and the sound "nyan-nyan-nyan" (the Japanese onomatopoeia for a cat's meow).

庄野ナホコ

Today I spent the afternoon with her doing chores and tech support, and she clearly felt this warranted a significant gift in return (no matter that I enjoyed myself). But she forgot to slip something into my pocket or bag before I left, so instead she rushed outside as I was starting my car, making the old-school "roll down the window" gesture. Once I complied, she was forced to acknowledge she was handing me money, but she also tried to minimize the gesture.

The result was that she said, "Thank you, dear! I just wanted you to be able to... to buy yourself a hamburger," and then handed me a darling little envelope that turned out to contain $100. And all I could think was:

This is the envelope that the $100 came in, for anyone who doesn't know what these look like.

Today, 9 August, is Moomin Day, coinciding with Tove Jansson's birthday. The Moomin stamps (issued in 2021) feature various characters, including the main character Moomin, his dad and mum, and his friends Little Mii and Snufkin.

Japanese can be written either vertically (with columns read from right to left) or horizontally (with rows read from left to right). This sign is meant to be read vertically: ここからは出入りできません [koko kara wa deiri dekimasen], meaning “No entry/exit” (literally, “From here, entry/exit is not possible”).

抱きしめる

Reading: だきしめる

Meaning: to hug

夏至から数えて11日目の7月2日、半夏生（はんげしょう）の日。 毎年この日に、肥土山の伝統行事『虫送り』が行われます。

火手（ほて）と呼ばれる松明に火を灯し、田んぼの畦道を歩いて、虫を海まで送り、豊作を祈願する農村の行事。

中山の虫送りは、2023年7月8日に行われます。 美しい光景をぜひ見に行ってみてください。

I love the choice of this no-frills typeface for these two symmetrical characters. 木本 is usually read Kimoto, but in rare cases it can be Konomoto.

木 means tree, and it’s readき, こ, ボク, or モク. Actually, the こreading is on the rarer side, so this name was exciting for me!

“here i am”

often times walking around tokyo i see a lost item that someone else kindly put to the side or hung up somewhere easy to see so that hopefully it can be found by its owner. a lot of times it’s super adorable so here’s a few i snapped over the past few weeks, i hope maybe i can turn it into a little series.

「私はここにいます。」

more lost items waiting to be found.

have not updated this in a while, but i’ve come across many lost items that are still waiting for its owner to pick them up. i hope they are all reunited with their owners some day.

i update this much more frequently on my insta highlight “忘れ物”! i notice that there are much more lost items in winter since everyone is carrying so many things and bundled up so it’s easy to drop stuff.. i definitely find things multiple times a week haha

here are some more lost items i found over the past couple of months ☺︎ i’m so happy to see how much everyone enjoys this series! i love reading all of the comments on reblogs. and recently my friends have also been sending me photos of things they find haha it’s become my “thing”

since during winter there were many lost gloves (so many i haven’t even posted all of them) i wonder what will be common in spring and summer? maybe handkerchiefs and fans?

haven’t updated this in a while so here are some lost items that i’ve come across in the past year! the little gloves and random toothpaste(?) on the train window are my personal favorites.