Why didn't she just pick it up with something and toss it out? Or ask you? Strange people the Nihon-jin.

no more strange or un-strange than any other people. in point of fact, neither of us wanted to get near the thing, we're both squeamish about these kind of things. when I snapped this pic, I couldn't look. so if that makes us "strange", then we're guilty as charged. in any event, with a young son and pets, it seemed more prudent to let the city take care of something that wasn't really "ours" to begin with.

While I don't think it's strange to call a city government office that will handle these sorts of matters, it does suprise me that there even exists in the first place just such a department, with resources to handle just such matters.

But perhaps it's simply because I've become so used to San Francisco, a city with such a pathetically embarassing homeless situation that has helped transform swaths of alleyway into open sewers filled with piss and human excrement, that I find it particularly unfathomable that I'd be able to phone up City Hall and tell them there's a dead mouse at 19th and Irving and expect that it be properly disposed of with the utmost care and expediency.

Ah, San Francisco, I love you so, and yet I don't.

I must say, though, I sure am curious to see this Japan... ;)

Kurt - I wanted to get a better look at the mouse and note (no I'm not "strange" either, just interested in a closer look), but the pic is not set up as a thumbnail... what is the story ?

Brian-
had to laugh out loud about your comment about San Francisco, no I can't imagine I would have ever thought to call someone in a situation like this when I lived in SF. I surely wouldn't relish the reaction I would get from whomever answered the line. "Hey buddy, what do you think this is? The 'I'm too squeamish to dispose of a dead rat myself' department? Get lost." I suppose it would be a matter of priorities, for as you say, there's a lot of stuff to be cleaned up off of those streets. I have to admit when my wife started to thumb through the phone book I was a bit surprised, but then I remembered, this was suburban Japan. I'm not sure if we lived in Tokyo proper whether the city would've have taken care of the rat similarly, though.

George-
unfortunately, that's as big as they get, in current configuration. The phone can take 640x480 pixel pictures, but the moblog isn't set up to receive those, and it would cost about 2 or 3 times as much per post to upload them. I think the creator of MFOP2, Kevin, is working on the ability to resize images, so perhaps in the future it might be a possibility to have a thumb which links to a bigger image, but I'm still not sure I'd do it on account of the additional cost. So unfortunately, what you see is what you get, for now.

I eat smelly rats for breakfast! I love eating raw rats alive! Nummy!