Nagasaki Champion

Tonight a coworker (actually a division manager) took me and the guys out to dinner.  We went to a little hole-in-the-wall place called Ringer Hut that serves a dish called champon, for which Nagasaki is colloquially famous.  But every time I hear about champon or see it written in English, I think "Nagasaki Champion," which I consider myself to be, so I feel like there are a lot of restaurants out there heralding my arrival.

On my way home from work, there is a billboard that I always see and always want to take a picture of and tell all of my friends that all billboards in Japan are like this one.  And if you believe that, then I should also tell you that underneath the silhouette of a samurai, it says simply "Watch out for ninjas."  Because really Japan has twice the population everyone thinks, it's just that the other half are ninjas.

Actually the billboard is for (as it says in English down the left side) Karno Japan.  I have no idea what sort of company that is but I can only assume the employees are called Karnies.  Which of course makes me want to eat cotton candy and buy tickets to ride rides but lose most of my tickets while I'm playing one of those game where you can't knock the milk bottles over because they're actually made of lead and the ball you're throwing is made of foam rubber but if you could somehow manage to knock them over you'd probably shut down the carnival for good because the giant stuffed bear they have for a prize costs more than all the carnival rides put together.  Which, by the way, is a great idea for a new carnival ride.

That's about all that happened today.  I was going to walk around town this evening trying to get some more good photos, but it was dark and rainy by the time I got home from work and then I got invited to the champon dinner, so I don't have anything but this billboard.  But trust me, all billboards in Japan are silhouettes of samurai.