MacDonald's in Japan sometimes has some very weird campaigns. We get "special" burgers here the like of which you'd never hear of back home in the UK - "moon viewing burger"?? "gratin croquette burger"!? Are you serious?

I admit that whenever I go to MacDonald's here I am hopelessly boring and get the same old thing over and over again. I'm never tempted to try the weirdness. This new campaign just struck me as exceedingly odd, though.

The guy pictured here - "Mister James", apparently, because that's the most foreign-sounding thing they could think of - is speaking all in katakana, a syllabary alphabet that is the equivalent of speaking ALL IN CAPS BECAUSE YOU'RE A FOREIGNER. I won't bother translating the entire thing, but the last few sentences include things like, "Japan's the best!" "Japan is too amazing!" "Bravo, Japan!"

Very, very odd.

But to balance that out, there's also a picture of a teddy bear dressed in traditional Korean clothes that my friend Maiko (from my entry about Tokyo bay!) gave to me last night. Isn't it cute!?