This week is turning into another blog bonanza. There are three days of teachers meetings that I have to sit through all day long despite the fact I don’t understand much and none of it has anything to do with me. So I am going to update a few more times this week at least. Sorry if it gets a little uninteresting. I’ll try to keep the pictures good though even if the content lags. Last night was our Welcome Enkai for all the new people. It was in our local swank hotel again. This time we had Chinese and we could serve ourselves. Why couldn’t we have had that when Lauren was here? Choice makes all the difference when you are expected to eat crap you don’t like. At any rate, it was a much better meal than last time. There was a question period for the new people after everyone had had a considerable amount to drink where we were all encouraged to ask the new people about their love life or what ever we felt was appropriate, microphones in hand. This would never happen in Canada, or if it did, lawsuits would be quick to follow. These events make everyone feel more relaxed around each other in the workplace though and they are never mean spirited.
The Tokyo Pet show was actually held in Chiba. Like a fool, I left my camera at work on Friday. I could have kicked myself! I knew I was going to a pet show too. So I bought a crappy disposable camera. As a result all of my pictures are generally crap. Luckily, the pet show has a web link that allowed me to get a bunch of the same pictures at a much higher quality. Back in Kitchener, I frequently attended the Kitchener kennel club show to see all the crazy dog obsessed people in the KW area primping and priming their child replacements. It was great fun! So when I got a flyer a few weeks ago for the Tokyo show I was very excited indeed. The first thing I noticed was the size of the dogs. They are a lot smaller than back home. To have a large dog in Japan is a sign of affluence. There was one guy though who had four golden retrievers. I couldn’t believe it. The wiener dog and the chihuahua were definitely the pet of choice. I was the only foreigner there so people were staring at me as much as the pets. If there was a dog there who wasn’t wearing an outfit, I don’t know why they bothered coming. It was such a weird little fashion parade. Although it was supposed to be a show for all kinds of pets, the only ones that people brought were dogs. I saw one girl holding a cat on a leash. I remember thinking what incredibly poor judgment she must have had to bring it there.
The main sponsor of the four day show was Honda and they used the show to exhibit their new line of pet friendly vehicles. They had names like MDX, Zest and my personal favorite, Stream. The dogs were invited to jump in and enjoy the dog friendly designs. The fabric was all designed so that dog hair would just wipe off and the body of the car was designed so it was easy for even small dogs to step right in. This truly is a first world nation isn’t it? Where else could they afford to think about how happy your dog is on road trips? If you did actually buy one of these vehicles, you got a little pet agility kit as a gift complete with a hoop to jump through, a teeter totter and pole jumps. As you might have guessed, cars weren’t the only pet accessory available. The show offered your typical array of Japanese pet goods: hair extensions, clothing, tents and sleeping bags, strollers and carriers, hats and of course premium kibble. I can’t imagine why anyone would take a cat camping in a tent. But if you did have the urge to do so, there is a sleeping bag, cot and tent available for all sizes of cats and dogs made by Coleman. You could also get your pet’s fur highlited or dyed at the numerous pet salons on site. Lets face it, you can’t take your pet camping if it looks untidy.
Then there were the event stages. You could have a caricature drawn of your pet or if you were the more creative type, you could go to the origami station and try to make a likeness of your pet through Japanese paper folding. There was also doga or dog yoga. You could learn how to bend and stretch you and your pet to stay limber. There was also a model home designed especially for cat owners. I toured both a cat home and a dog home. They had a lot of good ideas for making use of small Japanese apartments. There were handling enclosures for rabbits, guinea pigs and cats. Yes, the cat area was separate. In true Japanese style, there were also artificial pets. Do you remember the Tamaguchi craze of a few years ago? The fake pets that you could interact with? Well they up graded the idea with seniors in mind. In Canada, we take a dog or cat into a senior’s home or hospital to visit people. Here, they take a fake seal that responds to touch like a real animal. Don’t ask me why they do this. It seems a little cruel to take in fake animals to see people, especially shut-ins. Don’t tell me there aren’t spare dogs and cats hanging around this country that some volunteer could bring in instead. At any rate, these seals are very popular, especially with those lacking in physical human contact, a common problem here in Japan. You will see examples of this in the pillow section at our home centre. There are all kinds of “buddy pillows” you can hug if you sleep alone.
Surprisingly thought there was very little merchandise available for non-dogs. I was hoping to come home with some ultra trendy ferret jogging suits made by Gucci but no such luck. Not even a Burberry scarf to wrap around their little necks. Karen took some great pictures of my girls and I will add them to this post. They look so cute when they are sleeping. But when they’re awake…