Here are a couple of the wierd (and ouch!) headlines to hit the Japanese press lately. One involves a box-cutter blade from a supermarket meal, and the second, an eye being poked by an umbrella. The latter has happened to me, and I can assure you it was a painful and ugly scene which resulted in me walking the streets of Amsterdam with a sore blackeye for days.
In the blade story, a 58-year-old man bit into a rusty box-cutter blade hidden in a packaged meal he bought from a supermarket after mistaking it for a piece of dried seaweed, police said.
He told the police he had found a box-cutter blade in a boiled rice and tea dish he bought. The blade was rusty, and the man accidentally put it into his mouth after mistaking it for a piece of dried seaweed, but he was not injured, police said.
Investigators said the man bought a six-package bag of the rice and tea dish at a local supermarket in Tosu. The blade was about 2 centimeters long and 1 centimeter wide. There was reportedly an incision in the package in which the blade had been hidden.
The umbrella story, on the other hand involves a dissatisfied customer who stabbed a Tokyo department store employee in the eye with an umbrella after trying out oxygen breathing equipment meant to revitalise the body.
The woman, thought to be in her late 20s, complained to the 55-year-old assistant that the oxygen product had made her feel unwell, Kyodo news agency said.
She then stabbed the employee in the eye, seriously injuring her, and ran away, Kyodo said.
The victim is being treated in hospital and police are searching for the woman.