Mari - diary

From a holy night in Tokyo

I finished all the cleaning, and I've just finished eating Toshikoshi soba now.

And maybe soon I can hear the bells from nearby Temples. The most holy time in Japan. Ringing the bell at a temple on New Year's Eve is a Buddhist tradition called "Joya no Kane". Bells are rung 108 times because according to Buddhism it is said that man has 108 troublesome desires, and by hearing the bells toll 108 times people can clear such desires. This is a live camera of Koshoji in Hyogo pref. You can hear the bell ring 108 times there. It a cold, clear, silent night with ringing. I like this time very much every year.

I will go to Kawasaki daishi for Hatsumode now. You may check there in this live camera too.

Happy New Year. I wish you have very nice year in 2006.　良いお年をお迎えください

Tomorrow is new year end eve.

Today I bought kagami-mochi and went to my parent's home to share Osechi Ryori. I saw Kadomatsu at the entrance of each supermarket. Finally, now I sense the New Year mood everywhere.

Yahoo Japan entertainment news told about Kohaku Utagassen (annual NHK sponsored year-end men versus women singing contest). This year the costume of Sachiko Kobayashi is made from 800m cloth...orz. Of course I will see Pride and K-1.

By the way, they look very worldwide today. I enjoyed reading them all. One talks about "Rowdy air passenger cast away on remote Atlantic isle" from the UK.

Here is another one, "Boy in pedal car on night ride to Berlin".

And this one is scary. It's mummy's curse?. Here is information of a Mummy named Oetzi.

Hello Ecuador!

Wow I did not know this! This month I said busy, busy, busy many times, he he he. Then these posts were found by a producer of radio city (BBC-EL UNIVERSO) and I got a offer to talk about Japanese New Year on their radio show in Ecuador. This early morning, I got interviewed. It was great experience for me to talk on a radio show on the other side of the world from me, Japanese. I really thank for them to give the chance. Arigato!

By the way today was the last day of job in this year. I cleaned up my desk and afternoon we had a little party at work. From tomorrow I have 7days off! Yeah! I am in a happy mood, I want to share this with you by something fun I found this week

A wierd movie about Japan : It's so ridiculous, but it's okay I am happy mood today. ha ha ha.

White chamber : I really love his escape game.

This is a good job. : Can you spin the pen so fast? I can spin simply, but I don't have any big technique.

Real MazingerZ : Do you know him? I am so moe that.

ADs of Hot Pepper Coupon

Nikkei Marketing Journal released their "TV advertising Grand prix 2005". That ranking was the result of research for people in charge of marketing their job. Here are the results:

No.1 iPod (nano, shuffle, iTunes) : Apple.
Apple made ads that always gave us a good surprise, I wrote this and this post before.

No.2 Iemon-autumn, Iemon-summer (Green tea) : Suntry
This is nice ad, they have clean, calm and relax mood of old Japan. But I have no idea this can be such popular?

No.3 UNO (men's hair spray) please check CM情報, Special Movie : Shiseido.
This ad became a hot topic because they use all comedians as models. These guys are all comedians and some of them are unique looking, but they can be changed and nice because of hair style. Yeah hair style is important.

No.4 Oronamin C (vitamin drink ) : Otsuka Seiyaku. 
Otsuka Seiyaku is well know as Pocari Sweat.

No.5 Switch (ecology system) : Tokyo Electric Power Company
Ahhh I hate this TV ad, I can't understand why this is ranked in! The boy likes his friend's mother very much?? More than like? It's really ridiculous. After number 6, Maquillage (cosmetic) is nice to see cute women. Aiful (consumer banking) ranks in this year again.

Hmm to be honest with you, nothing interesting/funny in these ads at all for me. I like this Hot Pepper ad (Coupon magazine). When you click each movie, you will see serious cinema-like movies. Funny part is the voice-over acting for each part is completely different from the image. For example this one. It looks a mystery movie, but in Japanese the voice actor says "Did you eat spaghetti right?" "No I didn't!!" "You have ketchup on your face." "I ate it! I ate it!" "Did you use my coupon magazine?" "Well I think I used it, coupon magazine hot pepper!" . This looks like a  music drama. In Japanese " ~Izakaya Coupon~." "This part is lead-in yet." "oh sorry.." "Hi now!!"

This is the world funny TV ad ranking. See? Japanese ipod ad ranked as the number 6. Please check it out!

His wig was...

This is a funny news story. On the 13th, there was professional boxing match. Masayuki Oguchi flipped his wig during the fight. He was fighting pretty well, but from round 3 or so his wig began to flap. Of course the crowd started laughing. The fight got more intense and this wig was coming off more and more. Then, finally, his cornerman removed his wig. The crowd shouted "You are much cooler now!" The loss of his wig seemed to clear his thoughts and he got a TKO in  round 7.  Some said since he was always has a clean-shaven head, the laughing point was when he appeared with wig.

Talking about wigs, here is another famous episode. Tomoaki Ogura is the host of the morning show "Tokudane". He is well known because of his humour and dry witticisms. One day, when he bowed at the beginning of the show, his wig came off . He finished his comments and after the TV ads he wore the wig again. He did not make any mention of the wayward hairpiece.

Oh, and another wig related item. There is a big construction scandal going on in Japan . A Japanese architect faked quake resistance data in order to cut costs. This architect apparently wears a wig. Everybody said he should be a rich man after his indiscretions (he has now lost his license), so why did he not get a better wig or hair replacement method.

By the way, do you know former Japanese prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone? He did not wear a wig, he kept up appearances using his own hair to cover this head. We call hair styles like that bar-code . So, Mr Nakasone's nickname was bar-code. ha ha ha.

P.S They are very cute!

Fukubukuro is a lucky bag

Christmas is over. Since today, (after Christmas) it is the busiest season for shop staff in Japan. They will work until late to clear all the Christmas decorations and change them to New Year's ones and they will work to prepare the sale. We have winter sales in the first week of January. As a hot issue, the first business day of New year, shops sell "FUKUBUKURO". FUKUBUKURO means fortune bag. We don't know what is inside the bag. Shops put something more expensive than the price on the bag. Some stores sell very expensive FUKUBUKURO and they put a car or house! (of course, deed or ownership papers) inside. I heard FUKUBUKURO in Akihabara shops are very valuable. For example this is 10000 yen one, there are 120GB HDD, MP3 reader, Optical Mouse, Flash card reader...what do you think? Here is another FUKUBUKURO on sale in Akihabara. They are not so bad too, don't you think so? At least PC stuff is practical.

But like this Greg's site said, my impressions of FUKUBUKURO is not so good basically. The stores seem to clean up their unpopular and dead stock that way. Especially clothes shops are risky :-) Mitsukoshi department store shows the sample of 10,000 yen bag. It looks good? But it's just an advertisment. They don't promise the same quality for all bags. This woman got 10,000 yen FUKUBUKURO at Helly Hansen shop in outlet mall, then she checked the prices later. All items are worth around 31,400yen. If they fit you and they are your style, actually it is worthy. Me? Even though at my favourite brand shop, I won't get FUKUBUKURO. I have never got good experience for FUKUBUKURO. I don't want to get busy for selling on auction.

Anyway how is going on with Xbox 360 in the North America? It was released in Europe too? In Japan, it was released in December 10. Then I heard they are having hard times in the shop. Both Xbox360 machines and games are in low demand. The most popular game for Xbox 360 is "Ridge Racer 6". But even Ridge Racer 6 made sales of less than 30,000. In research less than 30% people replied "I want Xbox360". Then guess what. Some say marketers will massively put Xbox360 into FUKUBUKURO to check inventory. Wow what will you do, Xbox?

Merry Christmas

This is the live camera to see Tokyo Tower. They have a heart-shaped mark Christmas lightning. Today I went Christmas shopping, there were long queues in every KFC. Some Japanese eat KFC for Christmas. The KFC in Japan sells big Christmas cakes too, because Japanese think that cake is important for Christmas dinner. Many Japanese will believe it would be traditional way. But my American friend said it's so Japanese. Wow is it true? Here is Christmas cake page. This is the typical Christmas cake. I will get and eat one tomorrow. Until the 70's or so, Christmas cake was the words to say something about young ladies. It means "after 25th, it will get to be worthless." But now nobody says like that, nobody thinks that way. ( I hope so :-)

Merry Christmas!

An emergency food in Japan

What food do you think of first when you hear the word "emergency food"? In Japan most people will think of "KAN PAN" = canned bread. (wiki says in English it is called Hardtack.) In Japan it was made in 1941 for Japanese military, then after the ww2 we ate it as emergency food.

Here are the emergency food reports. Of course they picked KAN PAN first. Usually some crystal sugar are included. One can of bread has about 700kcal and can make us pretty full. We can also keep it for 5 years.

Look! I've never known about preservation RITZ. You can keep this RITZ for 5 years, and of course we know it tastes good. This is a dried rice cake, we can eat it by just soaking it with water. The report says it tastes pretty good, but it's so light and can't get full at all. This type of rice we can buy anywhere, but we can keep the emergency type for 5 years, while the regular type is just one year. You can get full from it, and taste of course is good, but you need hot water, which is a problem for emergency food.

And this is battle food from the Japan self-defense force page. There are some different kinds of menus, but rice and something is the basic combination. This one is, red beans rice, fried salmon, potato salad, and Miso soup. They don't write calories, and can keep it for 1.5 years, though you need to cook it with hot water. So they are battle foods, and maybe not the emergency food.

The report tries American MRE and THE ARKIII too. He says he loves MRE, and the deserts are especially good. About ARK3, he explains that the taste is a failure fruit and cookies taste. Do you agree?

By the way, since I have never experimented with a big disaster or emergency situation. When I ate KAN PAN, I mean I had to eat it because of its expiration date. It was a kind of sweet for me. Today I found this sitethis site, they sell KAN PAN with rescue team figures by KAIYODOKAIYODO. Rescue119! I find this really funny.

Japanese Santa is cheeseparing?!

Today is TOJI = the winter solstice. In Japan bathing with yuzu on the winter solstice is a popular custom. At home, at hot springs we enjoy "yuzu yu" (Yuzu bathing) with fruit floating in the hot water of the bath (sometimes enclosed in a clothes bag). If you can get Yuzu, please try it. Yuzu is known for its strong fresh aroma, and its oil make our skin smooth, it should relax you well.

Anyway I laughed to read this news of AXA. The title is "More than 10 million Britons (22%) are stressed and worried about the cost ofChristmas and New Year according to research from "AXA". But look at their Global Gift Generosity Guide. The average price for Christmas gift of American is $1345. The budget of British people is $1056. And look! Japanese will buy only $160. I am so surprised! ODOROITA! Am I surprised at what? Why so expensive? How many gifts will you buy? How much do you pay for one gift??

I will talk about my case. I used to spend Christmas day with my parents until maybe 18 years or so. We exchanged Christmas gift every year. I remember they gave me LEGO, Long Boots, those kind of things. I gave "massage ticket" or "cleaning ticket" when I was a little girl. After high school, I have usually spent Christmas with my friends, and sometimes in foreign country and my brother did the same. So automatically we stopped home party. Although we don't have it, I got Christmas gift for my parents, it is very easy to find something for my mom, but always it is very hard to find it for my dad. This year, I plan to give some "free travel gifts" to them.

Here is the ranking of women's desire and men's desire in Yahoo in Japan. Yes, they are all more expensive than the result of AXA report. Maybe single people exchange their stuff with their girlfriends and boyfriends. I looked at another research "what gift will you buy for Christmas?". Women choose sweaters, globes, home-made cakes and dinner, games and toys, and love. Guys take cakes, dining out, toys (for children), clothes, and Jewelry. Japanese think that cakes, dinners and love are a kind of Christmas gifts. Maybe this might sound strange for others? The title of Yahoo news about AXA reports is "Japanese Santa is such cheeseparing?!" Ha ha ha, but I think Japan celebrated it after their own style without knowing traditions and religious meaning. That is the big reason of that difference. On New Year day, Japanese family spend time together and parents/adults will give Otoshidama (cash) to children, it is our traditional custom. Guess what! An average price of Otoshidama that one child got was over 24000 yen. It's more than Christmas gift of AXA report. I suppose for many Japanese, Christmas is a pass point to the New Year Day.

December is busy month!

We call December "Shiwasu". It means even Buddhist monks runaround in this busy month.

Me? Yes I am very busy too!
I have to clean up my house on theweekend, still I did not finishthe living room and kitchen, and allthe windows. Do you know thatnewspaper can clean window glass very well? Clean the window with a wet rag and wipe with newspaper after that. But I don't know ifyour news paper can work as same, at least Japanese newspaper do.

And I had to help my parents to make their new year cards. If you play Katamari Damacy, you would see them on the Kotatsu. Next year is the dog year inthe zodiac. This page tells you "how to write Nengajo" in English. By the way I must tell you, it is nice to exchange cards at least once yearso I can know my friends, relatives, teacher of my elementary school andeveryone are doing well. However I must tell you it wasa heavy job to make cards. Actually I made 120 cards for my parents witha card program and their stupid old printer. It takes 6 hours!! Cards programs are getting very smart, printers are getting better and smaller. We can order the cards from shops on the Internet. But still it isa bighassle. So I am thinking if I will write or not this year. Times change, I may stop real cards and send them by yahoo greeting, right?

Then I have to goto some Bonenkai this week and next week afterwork at night. I have to start to cook Osechi Ryori. Here isan English recipe, if you try it. (I would buy and share with my mom though). And I will have Christmas dinner with my friendson weekends. x-) busy! But I like December, while I ambusy doing year end stuff, Ican remember this year and hope for agood next year.

Anyway, I enjoyed this site very much: "Shock & Awe (Banned Cover Art)." Among the covers shown, I have one. When I found the butcher cover CD of the Beatles, I got it immediately.