Centipedes? In My Shoes?

It’s more likely than you think.

Japan is reputed to be one of the safest places in the world, and aside from the very occasional purse-snatcher, there is nothing to fear.

Except centipedes and monkeys.

Signs like these are up all over M.‘s dorm. I particularly enjoy the image of a carful of centipedes, even if that’s not actually what they meant.

MONKEY WARNING: Be sure to lock your window.  DO NOT leave food items/scraps on balconies or around house.   DO NOT approach monkeys.  DO NOT make eye contact with them.  Monkeys will aim at your combini bag which you’d better hide from their eyes.

But wait, aren’t monkeys cute and friendly? Apparently not these guys — they’ll knock you over and steal your convenience store snacks without a moment’s remorse. M. says he saw one at the bank the other day (okay, near the bank — he wasn’t working as a teller or anything) and he was huge and grumpy-looking, like an angry old man. M. did try to avoid eye contact, but the monkey gave him a dirty look anyway. Here’s a picture of them hanging out in a hot spring.

Since undoubtedly you will have to handle monkey droppings at some point in your life, I consider this a public service.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 2:30 am and is filed under japan, signs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.