カイロプラクティック

this is beginning to happen more and more frequently: i look at a sign in japan (so long as it's written in katakana - the japanese characters used for transcription of english words) and i can make out what it says fairly quickly.

i am to the point where nine times out of ten (okay, maybe eight) i can look at the word and decipher it. but today, as i was walking back to shinjuku from shibuya, i rounded a corner, saw:

カイロプラクティック

and immediately thought of my friend tim booth. tim's been having some stiff neck trouble lately, not to mention some issues with a torn rotator cuff. it was the neck pain that made me think of him when i saw the sign.

it says, literally, ka-i-ro-pu-ra-coo-te-i-coo. chiropractic. it's not a word i've ever seen in japanese before, and it was a sudden, unexpected joy today – not to see the word and decipher it, but to see it and think immediately of telling my friend tim there is a chiropractor near our hotel.

it's the simple things.