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1. You've seen this one before.
It's the Asahi Beer Hall. This ugly specimen replaced the city's
oldest traditional wooden beer hall--the last of its kind still
open for business. Yes, indeed, they replaced it with a big,
black, windowless atrocity topped by what the locals call
"the big turd." Silly, yes. But it ought to be criminal
as well. The turd was supposed to stand straight up and represent
the flame of triumph or inspiration or something dippy like that.
And it's too bad I didn't snap a picture of the Asahi corporate
headquarters, next door. Designed by the same piss-poor French
architect, that building is supposed to look like a glass of beer!
The windows are tinted a shade of yellow that looks more like pee,
and the building is topped by a funny, crinkly glass crown that's
supposed to represent the foamy head!
2. And then Chris-zilla ate the big turd!
3. Later, on the streets of Kyoto,
we spotted Crab-zilla! (Apparently he advertises a local crab
house.)
4. Then we stumbled on Sumo-zilla!
(I'm hoping he wasn't advertising a sumo restaurant...)
5. Chris didn't spot Sumo-zilla in time, and then he
cowered in fear, hoping to avoid a body slam!
Actually, I figure Sumo-zilla was probably advertising an oden
restaurant. Oden is a traditional winter stew, which I tried in
Tokyo with my friend Akira. It's very high calorie, so it's
popular with sumo wrestlers. Commonly, retired sumo athletes will
open up oden restaurants. But I'm just guessing here...
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