Random City Things That Made Me Laugh Way Too Hard

Ass chicken?

Even after many years living abroad, most days I still walk down the street with awe that get to live in such cool paces. Take Paris: this city is basically a living museum with better pastries. I’m constantly wowed by its beauty, history, and general vibe. But also? Sometimes walking around a foreign city is just really fucking funny. Majestic architecture is great and all, but so is watching a cyclist yell French obscenities at a tatted up truck driver for beeping at her (happened this morning). Or seeing a dog walker wrangling 20 leashed dogs in hats and sweaters and somehow not falling flat on his face (weekly in Tokyo). Or gawking at adults walking down the street licking ice cream cones (daily near my old office in Covent Garden. Was I in London or Disney?)

In no particular order, here’s a random collection of things I’ve snapped photos of while wandering through different cities—each one made me laugh out loud, for reasons that may or may not make sense to anyone else.

Japanese baby strollers

A lot Japanese nursery schools try to take the kids outside in the morning before it’s too hot. How do they manage it with only 2 teachers and a dozen kids? Baby cargo strollers:

The absolute cutest thing to see around town.

A not-so-day-spa

We spent a month in Singapore before moving to Japan, and I’d pass this spa near our hotel every day on the way to get laksa or chicken & rice:

It took me a couple of days to work out why this spa would dry their towels directly in front of the entrance during the day. Wouldn’t it detract from walk-in customers? Then it hit me. It wasn’t that kind of spa.

The greatest restaurant name

No comments. 10/10.

Street toilets

You hear a lot of complaints about the dog poo problem on Paris streets. But no one tells you about the sidewalk toilets:

Paris, the most beautiful city in the world, the capital of art and fashion

Nowhere else in the world have I run across so many toilets on the street. And I’m not talking the useful kind.

Massive dogs in oversized strollers

Oh wait no, that was me. I was the pregnant lady waddling around Tokyo with the dog stroller. But I don’t mind being the butt of the joke. Consider it my way of giving back to the humor of any given city. Some things are just objectively funny.

Funny Signs

We live almost directly above a kebab restaurant, and they have a big menu board out front that is a source of daily joy:

“Assiette” means “plate” in French, and this place has decided to abbreviate it to “ass”. Ok, fair. But but but. Why write chicken in English? The next dishes are written all in French. Maybe the first one really is questionably sourced chicken? It is the cheapest, after all.

This next sign was a favorite in Tokyo:

When you’re learning a new language, a trick that feels wrong but actually works is to try to say the words in a way that mimics an exaggerated version of the local accent. So in Japanese, if someone didn’t understand you saying “koala”, you really might be better understood saying “koara”. But it just feels wrong to write it that way.

And finally, this always made my inner 12 year old laugh:

It’s a French shop in Tokyo, and every time I passed it I would giggle for how it sounds in English.

As I sat down to write this, I decided to try to figure out what it could refer to in French. Sure, it could just be meaningless, the sort of onomatopoeia that both French and Japanese cultures are obsessed with. But I think there’s more to it than that.

First I tried translating it directly. I knew from having a toddler that “doudou” is what French kids call their lovey/stuffy/favorite stuffed animal. And “pou” isn’t a standard French word, but it is the French Creole for “pour” (“for” in French).

After a few different searches, I found a jazz song called “Tou sa sé pou doudou” by Alain Jean-Marie, a French jazz pianist who was born in Guadeloupe. When you translate the full song name from creole, “Tou sa sé pou doudou” means “It’s all for darling”.

So maybe the shop means “for darling”—a name that actually makes sense for a shop that sells the cutesy women’s styles favored by a lot of women in Japan. Consider me educated.

I’ll leave it here, because how do you go back to silly pictures after that little language & history lesson? I didn’t expect my morning to end up learning about French creole while listening to old French jazz, but I’m into it. Here’s the link if you’d also like to listen to “Tou sa sé pou doudou”by Alain Jean-Marie.