Bugs...

Not all that long ago I posted a picture of a car that looked like a mini Hummer with a caption joking that everything in Japan is smaller.  People are smaller, therefore clothes are smaller.  Homes, cars, furniture, dogs, they're all smaller here.  Even toothbrushes are smaller here.  I've looked everywhere - no large heads to be found...What's a girl gotta do to find a large head these days?  : )

Well, I spoke too soon.  There is one thing here in Japan that is larger than I'm used to.  And, really, it's quite an unfortunate thing in my opinion.  Bugs.  They are huge here. So huge, so gross.  Many of my students and friends here find my level of fear and disgust at the giant bugs quite humorous.  They are just a fact of life to most people...but to me, they are just so wrong...

Cicadas
These giant bugs fly around singing super loud.   They live in trees and bushes, and seem to dive for your head as you just walk down the street minding your own business.  They don't really, but they are so big that they take up lot of air space, narrowly missing heads.

At first they're not so bad, just creepy looking and loud.  But then I discovered that they shed their exoskeleton as they grow, leaving these creepy little skeletons everywhere.

 One night at a dinner party we met two Japanese women for the first time.  They brought a gift to us of cicada skeletons from their garden (pictured left).  Um, thanks?  A few evenings later on a walk home from work Jaxon saw one of the cicadas climbing out of it's shell.  It looked like an alien...creepy.







Bees
Here are two pics of super large bees.  So big...














The bee on the right is dead.  He was huge - at the least the size of a quarter.  The dead bee was bad enough - the one above was trying to help with the laundry one day.  I could feel his eyes on me as I tried to get a decent picture.  I was scared of him... hence the blurry, quick shot.

Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers are all over the place here.  Many are just your run of the mill hoppers - but there was one in my school the other day - I swear he was bigger than one of those old wooden clothespins.  This guy was enormous...





The one bug that is normal sized here is mosquitos.  They are normal - but everywhere.  I feel like a walking salad bar for the little brats...

Anyway - just a quick update on something that I have found to be living large here in the land of the rising sun.

Comments

  1. Leigh HavelSeptember 15, 2012 at 2:21 AM

    Yeah, don't get stung by those bees. They can kill you even if you aren't allergic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. slowneySeptember 15, 2012 at 10:40 AM

    I know that back in the 80's when I was in Japan children kept large bugs in cages as pets. You could buy them at street stalls and markets. I rather like all the bugs - the bees not so much.

    It was funny looking for toothbrushes not soft. Saw only one medium. Are the little ones in Japan hard, medium or soft?

    ReplyDelete
  3. tawnyaSeptember 16, 2012 at 5:24 PM

    Thanks Leigh...now I'm scared...

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2012 at 12:26 PM

    I haven't seen it, but the documentary film Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo examines the Japanese obsession with and respect for insects. The SIFF web site wrote:

    "In this country, beetles are foreign-looking armored things to be feared, avoided, stepped on, or otherwise destroyed. In Japan, it's just the opposite. Beetles are collected and respected, to the point where a single specimen recently sold for $90,000. Live beetles are even sold in vending machines. First-time filmmaker Jessica Oreck explores Japan's fascination in a way that combines both science and art. Eschewing talking heads for more poetic inspiration, she captures the beetle obsession from the inside out using images, interviews, poetic musings, literary quotations, video games, and a boy who wants to buy a new beetle for his collection. As the movie progresses, we start to see the world from the insect's point of view, and what a beautiful world it is. Traffic cops at night mirror the lightning bugs behind them. Crowds walking down the street with umbrellas are protected from the rain by hard shells of fabric. It's a fascinating bug's-eye view of a fascinating culture."

    -- Greg L.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Surgery

I started my period when I was 11 years old.  I remember going to the nurses office at school that day because my lower back hurt so badly.  It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, but was a feeling I would become quite familiar with.  Imagine there being a bowling ball inside your body, resting on your tail bone.  It causes pressure just sitting there.  That was a good day.  The bad days were when that bowling ball was being ground into my back - from the inside trying to find a way out.  Later, when laboring with Lily, that same feeling was there.  Lily was upside down and her head was resting on my tailbone.  The contractions that drove it deeper into the bone were killers.  So all those years of imagining my inner bowling ball were not that far off! In those first few years of cycling I would often seek out the hardest surface I could find and just lay on it, trying to flatten my back into it.  Our living room floor usually did the trick - a cement floor with a thin layer of
Read more

Back to Seattle

In January we saw our local endocrinologist for the first time.  He was lacking in eloquence and was quick to condemn the process that we had taken to get to him, however, he assured us that he was going to get Lily to a good place.  Since seeing him she has been on a consistent does of thyroid meds in hopes of regulating her body and beginning to feel better.  Unfortunately, she's not feeling better.  Her symptoms are exactly the same.  Dr. W ran two sets of tests.  The first included and ANA test which measures whether or not autoantibodies are present. This is the 2nd time this test has been run and for the second time, it is positive.  By itself this does not diagnose anything, but it indicates that further testing is needed.  You can read more about it here .  In any case, his suggestion is that we go back to Seattle Children's.  We have an appointment for a full rheumatology and endocrinology workup on April 25. The second set of tests should be back tomorrow.  He was t
Read more

$$Tokyo$$

If you google the most expensive cities to live in worldwide you'll find Tokyo somewhere in the top 10.  I looked at a few last night and Tokyo was actually in the top 3 on 5 of the lists.  Now, one list claimed that you'd have to shell out $5,000 to get a 2 bedroom apartment in Tokyo.  I'm sure there are plenty of such apartments, but there are also less expensive ones so you can't believe everything you read. But, it is true.  Living here is very expensive.  We rent an 860 ft2 apartment for approximately $1100 a month.  If we want to rent a parking space that is another $115 a month.  Our utilities, including internet but with no cable, are over $400 a month.  All that for utilities and our apartment does not even have central air or heat!  Groceries, gas, train tickets, they all add up too of course.  Groceries vary in price from store to store and season to season, but it is not uncommon to see 4 apples for $6 or a quart of milk for $3. Here is the baffling part
Read more