When Nature Calls...

I answer. Last Saturday morning, an old hiking companion and I went to a park in Izumi. She is my longest lasting native-Japanese friend since arriving at this amazing group of islands. We often explore Japan's mountains and oceans and parks and so on. Well we went to 県民の森 (kenmin no mori) a location we went to on one of our earliest outings over 5 years ago. Unfortunately, spring has not yet sprung here and it was pretty bleak, all brown and yucky with none of the verdant green bursting forth. The only Nature per se was a single solitary butterfly (not even a bird!) That is, unless you count the sight we noticed, en route to the park.

There was a car parked along the side of the road barely a kilometer away from the entrance to the park. Squatting beside the car was a young woman who had just completed her business and was proceeding to hike up her panties. My friend and I expressed our surprise for this was not some backwoods dirt road, but rather a fairly major thoroughfare. I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go!

When I lived in Soma last year (for THREE YEARS, hard to believe), I often saw the city being used as a lavatory for the drunken Salarymen stumbling home. A week would not go by without seeing someone relieve themselves at the side of the street (or while progressively staggering down the street.) More often than not, they would partake of this adventure having just departed the facility from which they filled up on liquid. Must be long lineups to the loo inside, I guess. This was just the first time I'd seen a woman do it (and hopefully she wasn't drunk while driving.)

Now, I'm not prudish in any way, for I have been known to unzip and squirt from time to time. Except, I try to do it in a slightly unobtrusive fashion (like behind a tree or in an alley.) And, of course, we Canadian males have a long tradition of priding ourselves in writing our names in the snow. (Perhaps the ONLY area where men are truly superior to women.) The reason I bring this up is...It must be really difficult to write your name in the snow in KANJI! Imagine the precise control you'd need?!?!