Greetings from Japan! All of the hype you have heard about this country is true. Japan is ridiculously efficient, full of delicious food and hilariously bizarre!

I’d like to start out the New Year by sharing some funny culture shocks. The following is a list of some of the craziest things I have ever encountered (all of which happened within only three days of being in Japan) Enjoy!

1. A Man Trying To Check Into A Flight With A Tiger Head

Look at the expression of the lady talking to the crazy tiger guy :-)

2. Pedobear Pillow For Kids…

If you need a primer on what pedobear is, check out this article. Warning, you can’t unsee pedobear.

3. A Microwavable Pug

10,000 times better than an actual pug… and microwave safe.



4. The Girlfriend of My Dreams

Who needs actual human interaction when you can buy friends like these.



5. An Astronaut Glasses Holder

“Oh thats right, I left them with Neil”



6. USB Eye Warmers

For the many times when your eyes get cold and you happen to have access to a USB charger.



7. Robots That Wears You

In Japan, wearable computers are already a thing.



8. A Pig Lid

What is the last thing to go through a pigs head when it gets hit by a piece of circular rubber? Its ass.



9. An Inside-Out Man Costume

Keep those pesky kids from sleeping after halloween.



10. A Chicken Hat

Chicken, not just for meals anymore.



11. The Creepiest Dancing Bear Imaginable

As if a pedobear pillow wasn’t creepy enough.



12. Zipper Based Earbuds

Now you can get your whole face stuck in your zipper.



13. A Cat Shaped Cat Urn

As a bonus, it is big enough to hold multiple cats!



14. And Last But Not Least, This Thing. Does Any One Have Even A Remote Idea Of What This Is?

Seriously, does any one know what this is supposed to be used for?



P.S. I have been experimenting with Instagram lately. (It is quite addicting! I blame you, Inge :-p) Let me know if you run into any issues with the embedded photos in the post. I think the feature is still experimental. Hat Tip to Jodi Ettenberg for showing me the Instagram embed trick.

Instagram Embed trick:

When you go to the web version of Instagram (so for me, Instagram.com/dannydover), click a photo and then click the 3 dots (ellipsis) next to the bottom of the comments. After you click the dots, it says “embed”, click on that and a popup with the embed code appears. Or, just post the Instagram URL of the image page into WordPress and it is supposed to auto-embed. (Despite the WordPress documentation on this feature, I couldn’t get the second method to work.)