Mari - diary

The Unique Restaurants in Tokyo

I wrote unique restaurants in Tokyo in 2004. After a long interval, I will update today.

Absolut Icebar Tokyo
It is the first permanent icebar in Japan. The bar is kept at minus 5degree with crystal clear ice transported from Torne River in Sweden. The bas is operated in 45 minutes time slots and you can use warm jackets and glove by 3500yen. I readd it is very hard to make reservation there. It's very nice place for humid summer in Japan.

Figure Complex
I wrote about this place before. This bar is produced by a famous Toy collecter Teruhisa Kitahara. And you can see great figuar created by Shinichi Yamashita and waitress serve costume inspried by Yamashita's figures. I went to there to write an article for Japanzine before. I can't say it's reasonable and smaller than I supposed. But it's nice for topic.

Taketori Hyaku Monogatari
Taketori Monogatari is 8-9th century Japanese folk tale about a mysterious girl, Princess Kaguya. It is also known as The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Shortly story is... A small beautiful baby girl was found by a bamboo cutter when he cut a shining bamboo. He brought up her as his daughter under the name Kaguyahime, "The Shining Princess." He becomes rich and urges her to marry one of five noble guys, to each of whom she sets a fantastic quest: all either refuses the suit of the emperor. Eventually she explains that she is from the Palace of the Moon, whose messengers are coming to that her back....The restaurant has misterious mood with bamboo. You can enjoy Tofu dish and Charcoal Grilled foods. Hmm this the Moon room is interesting.

Ryugu
This restaurant based on the Japanese folk "Urashima Taro". The story is here. Actuallly I have not gotten the precept of this story still now :-) Wiki said there are some similar folks in the world.　By the way Ryugu is the beautiful palace under the sea where Taro went with the turtle. The restaurant made such mood in their floor.

The Wizard of the Opera House
The theme of this restaurant is 16th century Italy and Opera. They serve Italian and you can enjoy them in this gorgeous mood.　Those three restaurant are produced by Diamond Dining Corporation and they have such interesting theme restaurants more.

Kuro Chochin : The concept of this restaurant is black market bar in Edo generation.　You can ejoy Japanese dish with Shochu.
Koyo Shigure : The theme is Autumn, the restaurant has Japanese mood with a lot of deep red color maple leaves.
Tsubomi : Tsubomi means blossom buds. The restaurant has some small rooms with the shape of buds.
Alice in the wonderland : The Theme is Alice. They have "Glass country room" or "main party room". You can enjoy French Italian dish surrounded by Alice items.
Pricess Heart: You can enjoy French dishs with pretty name like "Jasmin riding on a magic carpet" or "dedicate to beautiful snow white" in pretty, cute place.*

The price of Tobacco will go up

The price of one package of tobacco will go up on July 1st. Some convenience stores have stuck a poster on the door saying "X days to go up" and smokers hoard the carton packs. JT says the sales of tobacco in July will be double compared to last year. In Japan, the most popular tobacco is "Mild Seven". Actually 1/3 of Japanese smokers smoke "Mild Seven." It costs 270-280yen now and it will be 300yen in July. Yes! it's still much cheaper than North America or Europe. You may think Japan is still a smoker's heaven and I agree with it, but little by little, it is changing. Tobacco vending machines stop at 11pm, advertising of tobacco is banned. That is the reason why JT has a long and big (and crazy, funny) "smoker's manner up campaigns". That is the only way of AD for JT. I like this, you can make your own Tobacco poster. Please try.

However, today I found interesting news. Smokers International will have a smoker's only flight between Germany and Japan. The point is there are only first class and business class seats in the plane. "Even though I pay too much, I want to smoke!" Their target is such rich Japanese smokers. Ha funny.

By the way, the new roller coaster in Fujikyu Highland, "Eejyanaika" got the Guinness Record because of its number of rotations "14". Here is the video. Just seeing the video made me sick.

A nice day for Ice Cream, weather index

I sent this page "Finally we got survival suit", and all my guy friends replied "I will buy". But an American friend told me "it's a joke." Really...I thought something was funny at this ball taking a cheap shot at a deer, but I took it seriously. How can you tell it is joke? They wrote on the site? Some Japanese site linked the page, but I think nobody couldn't tell it was a joke. Well I wonder if I should send a mail to my friends "it was joke". But the suit hitted the point of guys, and they really loved that. :-( ahhh.

Unfortunately nothing fun to write today, I am sleepy because of the World Cup. By the way, it is a hot day today. I checked the weather news on Yahoo, they said "We have a Manatsu-bi(Summer Day) Today in Tokyo". It means it's over 30 degree today. I wish I could wash at home, it is a precious dry day in this humid rainy season in Japan. I found Yahoo Japan has many indexes. I know a laundry index, Umbrella index (it will be same as chance-of-rain forecast), starry sky index and ultraviolet index. Then during the summer season, they show Beer Index(how good for drinking beer), Ice cream index(which nice day to eat Ice cream), Swet index, and heat exhaustion index. I checked U.S. Yahoo then I found they seem to have only Pollen Levels and Local Mosquito Levels (this is funny though). Then I checked Google and I found Google does not have thier own weather report. Only I did not know that??

The icon of Beer index is "Asahi Super Dry". My American friends say it is the best beer. Japanese Beer official site release summer version TV ads: Yebisu, Kirin, Suntry.

Cue Cue Cute arrow!

I wrote about Soramimi in 2004. Since all the were broken. I fixed them all with Youtube. Yeah, now we can see many Soramimi on Youtube.　Today I found a Soramimi flash for English Native speakers, the song is the theme of "Obake no Q- taro"(Ghost Qtaro) that is the old animation of Fujio Fujiko.　Q-chan(Qtaro) is a cute Ghost(Obake) who has just a three hairs. (The Olympic Marathon winner Naoko Takahashi has nick name "Q-chan" hmm indeed)

I always write that Gundam is something for Japanese, but at least it is for late thirties and early forties at most. But Fujiko's Doraemon is loved beyond generaions. Actually if Gundam is our pourpose of robot tech, Doraemon's "Dokodemo Door"(everywhere door) is our national dream. Gian is a arrogance and violent boy in Doraemon. (like a Brute in POPYE, or Biff in the Back to the Future), so we say "you are a Gian." when somebody acts selfishly. I wonder when Japanese see this T-shirt or combination of this colors, 63.487% of people will say "it's Gian":-] Like I wrote, American people don't know about Doraemon much, but he is known well other countries.

Since Doraemon is such a big idle here, you may see him everywhere in this country. Pretty one, ugly one, parody one, like you may see fake Micky Mouse (scary...), there are many fake Draemon in the world like in Korea, China, and in the U.S. govermental site. :-)

By the way, this video shocked the netsurfers. Did you see that? They said some flying stuff fell down in Spain too...Hmm what is that?

YouTube, I like you

I think you read the article about "You tube Hacked". It was their joke using a famous term "All Your Video Are Belong To Us" from the game "Zero Wing". Like they said the correct way to say is "CATS has taken over your entire base". I remember I wrote about this before.

Now I heard another "Matsuri" festival happen on YouTube on June 23rd. "We're currently working on the site, We'll be back shortly", and then you can see cute firemen put out fire with these messages. You know what, it is Japanese firemen. Let me show you proof, this is the cover of fire hydrant of Tokyo Met. Like I wrote before, there are various designs of manhole cover. Actually we have more silly cute covers like this and this. I wonder staff of YouTube has interests to Japanese items?! I will be waiting for the next festival. :-) 

Soy sauce art

Ha, this is interesting to see. David got arrested. Then he spent four months in a prison in Japan. Deprived of his usual drawing tools, David improvised materials out of whatever he could scrape together in his tiny cell, including soy sauce and his pee.　I am impressed with his passion for arts. And also it is impressive there are many nudes. Oh yeah four months would be so long for him.  Talking about Jaspanese prison. Paul McCartney was jailed because of drugs when he came to Wings Japan tour. He was called "No.22" and he sang many songs with other prisoners to cheer himself up. John is No.9 and Paul is No.22. Just a trivia. *

Then my small collection
Wool Ferrari
Grass Bentz
Candy Car
Lego Volvo
Knittin bike

The most popular umbrella in Japan

I checked the London transport site to look for the information of Lost Property. Thinking of London's weather, the transport's inventory of 7,026 umbrellas sounds fewer than I supposed.  In Japan, JR West released its Lost Property inventory, No1.is umbrella, No.2 is hat or eyeglasses, No.3 is foods, they said. The reason why I checked them because I left my umbrella on the train a few days ago. I went to the lost property center of the Odakyu line. I said I left my umbrella on the train, odakyu staff asked me what a kind of umbrella did I lost. I answered it was just a clear and colorless vinyl one. Then guess what! He said "we won't look for that type of umbrella".

In Japan, this type clear and colorless vinyl umbrella is very popular. It costs around 100yen to 300yen or so, yes very cheap. Because it's cheap, we don't care if we break or loses it, That's one reason why it's No.1 lost property  item in this country. Actually at office, so many people use that umbrella,  it is impossible to tell  which one is mine or yous. So we take  one when it suddenly rains without meaning any harm.　People seem to think as if  the clear vinyl umbrella is freeware. Almost  automatically people collect vinyl umbrella like this.  Ah I do the same.

There are different color type and print type, but still the price is low, so they are good for novelty ad or original ads, such as Tower Record does.  When I went to The Tokyo design festa, some artists sold their paint art umbrella. And I think this is good idea--- they use for drawing constellation in this way.

Of course these umbrella are easy to break. Actually after the typhoon or big rain, we see these miserable umbrella everywhere.  As it is not so fashionable, I have to be puzzled what should I do wtih the stuffs I got. But basically I use vinyl umbrella because it is just reasonable.

Anyway when I heard the Odakyu staff said "we won't look for that type of umbrella", I complained  "Why?" I asked. "even though it is just 100yen, it is mine.  Why are you telling me I should give it up! Can you change your attitude because of the price of the thing?" blah-blah-blah.  I must tell you this to be honest,  I didn't care about losing the umbrella.  Since it was raining hard, they should have gimen me a vinyl one if they  didn't care who own's what.  Don't you think so? :-)

Real Samurai Robot

Look this. The movie has an exaggerating voice-over narration, but the robot itself doesn't look so great. I said to my friend "This robot is not great, he is just walking." Then he replied "You are a pushover, Kiyomori's manner of walking, the way his knee moves is so real. You know all Japanese robot's implementer's interest will be 'who makes the first Gundam.' Ahh I can't wait." Hmm Gundam is a sort of faith in this country. (The robot is named after  Tairano Kiyomori)

By the way, I can't reply to each comment but I read them all always. Thanks. Esther gave comments for my question. "Guess what food they are" in this post.
Here is her guess.
Chikuzendaki - very simple grilled chicken dish (the zen aspect) with maybe a white sauce and a duck egg (daki).
Houto - Don't know what's in it but it will arrive at your table unassembled with an instruction sheet (how to).
Mamakari - Defintely a curry dish with an Italian theme (Mama Curry).
Good job Esther! I really love your idea about mamakari!.

Here is what they are.
Chikuzen-daki : Sauteed and simmered chicken and vegetables.
Hoto : It is Yamanashi pref. Speciality that they are noodles that are prepared as a kind of stew.
Mamakari : It is a sardine-like fish, mama means rice, kari means borrow. Since that fish dish is so delicious, we need to borrow cooked rice from next door, that is the origin of the name.

By the way, even though you can't guess foods by the name, you won't be in big trouble (maybe vegetarian people will?), but warning and traffic signs should appeal to your instinct. Could you guess what they mean?
1.   2.   3.   4.

1. is Tokyo Metro. Yes it is M of Metro. It's easy right?

2. is new driver mark that new Japanese drivers must display on their cars for one year after they get license. Conversely this mark means over 70 years old drivers. Both marks are designed to warn other drivers that the marked driver is not very skilled (either due to inexperience or old age).

3. is "other dangers". Other dangers? How can I be careful for that?

4. is Postal office mark in Japan.   By the way I did not know this, the USPS mark is designed by Teiji Fujii who is Japanese designer who lives in NY. Good trivia!

Stronger taste is boom now

Ah my boss goes to lower the AC temperature, I will go increase it to 26c soon after. Anyway, I have no idea why Asahi includes the USA into "My Town" local news page. American people may be angry "it looks like the U.S. is the 44th prefecture of Japan!" For me, I wonder if they care about American news the same as our domestic news? At any rate, it's strange. By the way, their deformation of the Japanese map is funny. It will be hard to realize "it's the Japanese map" for foreign people. On that point, their rival news paper the Yomiuri has a strange Japanese map too. Like I wrote before, Japanese seem to like to draw the map using tag or cell. Why?

By the way, do you know Pringles released print chips? In the U.S, you can enjoy Guinness record statistics. But in Japan it is a trivia and party game in which you have to follow the order (we call it "King game"). I have no idea what is the meaning of this difference. I prefer Guinness records to read a silly order like "make a sexy pose" on potato chip.

Talking of potato chips, I read another interesting news item this morning. This year, the food fads in Japan are not only weird food, but also strong taste. I wrote that in Japan "light salt" is the best selling flavor of potato chips,　but this year "Double consomme", "Super spicy" and "burn soy sauce", those stronger taste are popular.  Not only potato chips, other snacks, fried noodles, and I should not forget that chocolate. Many foods are getting hotter, sourer, sweeter, bitter. Especially green tea have stronger taste boom, the biggest green tea maker Itoen released "Koi aji = Strong Taste", then Asahi released the stronger taste in their green tea brand Wakamusha (=Young Samurai).　Then today Suntry said they will release the strong taste for their "Iemon". Well this might be a back action against the healthy and light taste boom.

P.S Suntry Iemon has nice green wall papers. It looks cool for your eyes.

Bus or Airplane which is cheaper?

I went to "Kuro Buta ya" with my friends. The restaurant serves Kagoshima specialities "Kurobuta"= black pork and Shochu.　Usually I can't eat the white fat part of meet, but kurobuta's fat part is not heavy, fatty and doesn't smell bad. That is nice restaurant, it is in Ebisu, Nikotama, and also in Yokohama (restaurant floor in LUMINE).

As a big Shochu fan, I want to visit Kagoshima. Actually I heard Kagoshima is a nice place to "VISIT",   the food is delicious and cheap, most of all, the people are warm. As far as I know,  the cheapest transportation from Tokyo is Seishun 18 Kippu. You can go to Fukuoka or Aomori for 2300yen. But taking only local train sounds like ascetic training to me. So more realistic cheap way would be "the highway bus".

For example, from Tokyo to Osaka the cost is 13,850yen (about 2.5 hours) by JR Tokai Sinkansen.　An Air ticket is at least around 15000yen. But if you use JR Bus to Osaka, it will be 4300yen using Seishun Mega Dream go. If you make reservations earlier, it might be 3,500yen. It will be 9 hours ride. I heard equipments are getting better. Will you try it? Here is the high way bus information site in English.

By the way, the bus is not always the cheapest way to go, especially when you use a return ticket. Please be careful. For example, the cheapest "return" air ticket is Tokyo <-> Kagaoshima is 25,600yen. But if you use bus, you will take JR Kyushu Bus first, it costs 8000yen(return). Then to change to Nishitestu but from Hakata to Tokyo, it costs 27000yen (return). In terms of one way, 12,800yen (1.5 hours ride) is the air price and 17,500 yen (18 hours) is bus travel. 18 hours!  I could be in London by air plane. So when you get a ticket to go somewhere, please check and compare the price and time.  Air is not always expensive, bus is not always cheap.

My friends will buy a new condo

My friends will get married at the end of this year and they plan to buy a new condo in the center of Tokyo. It costs around 40,000,000yen. Total floor space is around 60m^2. It has a nice living room. Their mortgage payback will be equal to monthly rent that they pay now (maybe 100,000 or so). So they choose to buy. Actually, most of my friends do the same. They have their own condo and pay back their loan monthly and from their bonuses. I envy their new condo. Some live in around Odaiba and have great night view. Some live in the 25th floor at Shinagawa and have a wonderful view. The funny part is that Shinagawa condo was much cheaper than market value because there is the bigget butcher and market in front of them. So we call their condo "Dona Dona house" :-) and enjoy drinking parties often. They said they will pay back their 35 year loan earlier, maybe 30 or 25 years. And it is very normal for Japanese to have such long loans.

Me? no way, I can't have a "35 year loan" for a house. I feel as if I have to devote my life to pay back the loan. I can't do that. So I will keep on living in my current apartment. 2 years has passed since I moved in here, I have to have my contract renewed with my real estate agent. It will be 120,000yen and it means I have to pay almost double in this month. Well At any rate, housing cost is expensive in Tokyo.

By the way, in Toyama prefecture where has the best housing conditions in Japan, I can rent this size apartment with the same rent I pay now. Wow!! big balcony I will be able to have! Talking about a new condo to buy, I can't find any which cost 40,000,000yen in Toyama. This is a new one, at least they have 75m^2 space, and it costs around 23,000,000yen, yes almost half. Actually, in Toyama you can buy a Japanese castle with 40,000,000yen. Life will be different compared to where we live, but it would be the same in other countries though. right?

Loco Moco? Moco Moco?

Do you know Loco Moco? It's Hawaiian food. They say Loco means local, Moco means mix in Hawaiian language. A standard style is hamburger and sunny side up egg on rice. As far as Japanese are concerned, it's Hamburger Donburi (Hamburg bowl).

Even though there are Loco Moco restaurants already in Japan, I don't know if how many poeple can tell what is Loco Moco now. Actually I have known "what it is" just recently. And he did not know it too. I found a funny post my at favorite site nifty portal Z. He also knew just a little about Loco Moco. 1.it  is food, 2. it's a Hawaiian Specialty, 3. Something on the rice, 4. Maybe Sunny-side up egg on top too. That's all. Then he tried to cook his imaginary Loco Moco.

He imagined, 1.something on top of the rice will be beef steak. And it might be cubed steak (because Loco Moco sounds like Sai Koro (dice) in Japanese). 2. Maybe pineapple will be included. 3. Macadamian Nuts will be included. Then he cooked his imaginary Loco Moco, it's cubed steak, roasted pineapple, sunny-side up egg with chopped Macadamian Nuts bowl. He said it was delicious. Hmm actually his supposing was close, not so bad. After that he tried real Loco Moco. Which did he like? He said both "Donburi" (rice bowl) are delicious. he loves his original Loco Moco too.

Hmm it is an interesting trial. How about you? Will you try to cook Japanese food in this way? I will give you some words. Please cook these food by using your imagination from it's sound.
Chikuzendaki
Houto
Mamakari

related link
My past post about nifty portal Z :
Ha! Horror manga make-up
Goldfish know her mood.
Sake no tsumami
A colorful house Natto restraunt
Let's enjoy Yami-nabe?
Sake no tsumami

process of painting

was working for a music site on the cell phone internet, but now I have joined a new joint project. It's an ordering system at a restaurant. You may order food and drink on a a table top touch panel. Have you ever seen such a machine anywhere? I am not sure it is common in other countries. In Japan, big Izakaya chains adopted the system to cut payroll costs, and get content or advertising income. My company and another big company will start the joint venture on July 1st. It is always fun to start something new. So I don't care that I have to work late or on the weekend too. Please excuse me. Today we had a lecture class about the new business at work so I didn't have enough time to write my blog.

So I will link to some "art making videos." You can see the process they use to paint something. It's very interesting how they draw and paint. Enjoy it! Mona Lisa
Cake
Hirosuke (the actress of Naoko)
Amazing Spray Paint Artist
Making of Frodo

Salaryman Taiso

Recently nothing fun or good to talk in Japanese sites.. actually today I have to start this, "Star Wars Opening maker." . Check this out.

I wrote about the crazy English lesson and exercise Zuiikin Taiso. Then I found another silly movie "Salaryman Taiso" (businessman exercise).　First of all,I will tell you this is JOKE Japanese self-deprecating humor.

This time lesson is the basics of business "formal bow in salutation". The basic bow is 30 angle. For VIP, more plite way. The second part is "bow to boss", bow should be different according to the rank of boss. 30 angle for Kakarisho(subsection chief ), 60 angle for Kacho(section chief ), 90 angle for Bucho(division chief ). Jyomu (managing director), Senmu (executive managing director ), let's rolling for Shacho (chief executive)...orz

5 second rule is common!

Ha! Japan lost the game.
Let me whine, Japan soccer team is so dub (dumb?).  I did not save the post I wrote yesterday, I have been busy, every night I have to work so late.  I also caught a cold because of the crazy cold AC at work (my company has no idea for coolbiz!), NIKKEI is falling (tumbling might be a better word) down and down, humid rainy season (monsoon) has come etc etc, things that make me feel gloomy.

To boost me up, I thought I should go to the theater to watch the movie "Death Note" (1. 2), but my worst fears seemed to come true.  This is well-balanced criticism for the movie Death Note. Unfortunately it is in Japanese, please check it with  So-net. Shortly, the director has no talent, he said.

In such a day, I couldn't find any good topics about Tokyo, Japan as well. So I linked some things I was amazed with.
First thing I was amazed with: I can see blue sky and green grasses. I really want to see other pictures like this. Please make more!!
Second thing I was amazed with: I am amazed not for The "5-Second Rule" Rules applies, but for 5 rule is not only Japanese. (crazy video...orz)

The best Air Food Ranking

Here is the blog collection of "airline food." It is very fun to read. This is a business class meal of JAL. Hmm, much better than yesterday's dinner. This is Malaysia Airlines' business class meal. Wow! very ethnic mood. This is the light meal of British Airways. Since the poster said it was just 1-hour flight time, this would be considered nice food. I hope someone makes a blog for economy class only, he he he. The travel magazine "AB Road" releases the best airline food every year. This is last year's ranking.

No.1 Singapore Airline. 66.9 points
No.2 Virgine Atrantic. 58.8 points
No.3KLM. 50.9 points
No.4Air France. 49.1 points
No.5Air Newzealand. 46.9 points
No.6Air China. 40.9 points
No.7Alitalia. 40.6 points
No.8Malaysia Airlines. 39.7 points
No.9Asiana Air. 38.5 points
No.10Cathay Pacific Airways. 38.2 points

Another travel magazine "Chikyu no arukikata = How to walk the earth" chose Singapore Airlines as No.1 and Virgin Atlantic as No.2 too. Actually I heard Singapore Airlines has an Air Food Committee consisting of 9 world famous chefs. One of them is Mr. Mutara of Kikunoi in Kyoto. Hmm, I have never tried both lines yet, I should!!

By the way, this is the Soccer Ball image of each country of the World Cup. Ha ha ha, now the image for Japan is manga?? Not Fujiyama or Geisha anymore? Tonight Japan has game. I will be stuck on TV :-)

How frustrating!

It's rainy Sunday, I wanted to go to the MOT but I had to go to work!! How frustrating! So this is the most fitting post to me. "Hi there! give me frustrating photos". All pictures are so funny and I feel much better now. If I pick one, I love this.　 Anyway I made wall papers. At least some "art" on the weekend he he he :-)　

English and Excercise together

I am very busy because of my job. I will be even busier because of the World Cup. Actually it is 10pm now. And I am watching England vs Paraguay while doing my paperwork on my DELL. I hope I could finish the job tonight, so that I can go to the "MOT" Museum of comtemporary Art Tokyo. I wrote that I wanted to see Ron Mueck. I found it is at the MOT as the collection of the fundation Cartier.

By the way I found a Japanese super sillu English lesson show "Zuiikin English". You can learn English and Excercise together. Look at this movie. Today's lesson is "when you have trouble" and "at office". Take anything what you want...okay. I will remember that phrase.*

A new craze "Spoo"

This is "Spoo." A character that appears on the NHK children's show "Okasan to Ishho (= together with Mom)" which is a very honorable, historic TV show. Actually Spu and other characters are idols for children.

Shoko Haida is one of the performers on the show, and one day she drew a composite sketch of Spoo along to theme song of the show. The sketch was this. Considering the type of TV show (TV show for children on our National TV channel running with our tax), she drew it seriously, it would not be a joke. However that "cool" sketch struck the right cord with 2channelers. The new festival has come.

So many Spoo threads were built in the 2channel. The child's idol Spoo had become the toy of adults. There are many asci arts. Some made Spoo movies like saitama city under attack by Spoo, Spoo comet, Attack of Spoo, Spoo code, Hare Hare Yukai Spoo version (I will talk about Haruhi later). Yes, so many Spoo movies like this and this. Someone made a Spoo figure and sold it on a Yahoo acution.　Guess what! The contract price was 7 million dollars. (of course it would be joke)

Then the issue went world wide. Someone uploaded the culprit TV scene to Youtube. NHK protested to Youtube about copyright and Youtube deleted it and showed this messege instead. However someone uploaded it again and Youtube deleted it, then someone uploaded it again and Youtube deleted it again. It's a squirrel cage. I don't know if you will see the movie or message but if you want, please try THIS or search for Spoo or Spu or スプー. You may watch the famous adult toy Spoo.

The casual way to talk in Japanese

Did you check this already? There is nothing fun to talk in Japan today. If I force myself to pick, maybe this "real Panda suit". Hmm I won't say excellent, but maybe we can't tell real or not when we look at it from a distance.

Since I have not lived in foreign countries. My English would be very "Japanese English" and maybe very simple. Some said "Your English is cute" but of course I don't know how my English sounds to native people. I wish I could write more natural, casual English, cool words or slang too :-)

But I wonder it won't be so easy. Because as long as I see Japanese, Japanese is cluttered. Especially things are going worse because of the Internet. I personally it would be okay if I can use normal or casual according to time and circumstances. So I will write some short in casual Japanese and translate it literally. For example, this is not so difficult to suppose, I think

すごい眠い。あんまり眠くてさっき仕事中に落ちちゃったもんね。こんな時にかぎってとなりの席の人が寒いギャグを飛ばすのでマジ切れそう。ところで、今週のポータルｚのこのネタ来てない？

Ah I am sleepy...I dropped down (fall asleep) sometimes at work today. In such time, a person next to me lets fly (throw off) a chilly gag (not funny), I will be going to be cut(be out of patience with). By the way, don't you think this post of nifty portal z comes (cool)? One day he found his hand become "scissors hands" ha ha ha.

These words are not correct way to use, but we talk like that very usually. It makes sense to you?

Shikoku pilgrimage

06/06/06. It's the Omen day. But I am very susceptible to horror, splatter and violent movies. Actually I have never watched Omen and don't know much about it. Of course Omen is a popular movie in Japan too. My friend said she will go to the theater this weekend, but I wonder if without the knowledge of Christianity, the scariness of the story would be reduced.

I wrote about Japanese horror movies before in this and this post. Those were all modern-age stories and you can enjoy them without any knowledge of Japan. Shikoku is a little bit traditional. Shikoku is written "四国" (four countries) in Japanese, but the movie title is written "死国."　Both have the same pronunciation, but the movie title "死国" means death country. It's a kind of word game.

Do you know about Shikoku Henro? It is a pilgrimage route in the Shikoku area. The 1,400-kilometer ohenro tour of 88 temples in Shikoku is thought to be walking in the footsteps of an eighth-century Buddhist monk called Kobo Daishi, or Kukai. The standard motives for Shikoku Henro are to pray for long life or for remembrance of ancestors. But not only that, many people do it to find himself/herself, forget sorrow, escape some confused life. So I suppose joy, sorrow, pain--various feelings would sink deeply into the route. Traditionally people wear this kind of costume, but now people wear more casual clothes. I heard some use driving or bus tours too, however I don't think it will have as much meaning as people will find and accomplish after walking long, deep forested mountains and its beautiful seacoast on sunny days and rainy days.

The movie Shikoku is a story related to Shikoku Henro. The story was there is a legend that if you walk 88 temple in the counter direction, the dead person will be back. A mother wants her dead daughter to come back and walks the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage backwards.... Very wet, gloomy moods are very Japanese, and I think this is the debut movie of Chiaki Kuriyama "Kill Bill."　Unfortunately the story is so-so, but if you have time, try it?

A new eco project

Recently Japan has had many energy saving projects. We have Uchimizu project, coolbiz project, (Koizumi san looks like a guru of cult religion. , mottainai project, and candle night project.

Now the conceiver of the coolbiz project, the Minister of the Environment Yuriko Koike makes a new suggestion "Furoshiki project". It's another small project "Let's use Furoshiki".Furoshiki is a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth. The new project suggest we use Furoshiki, then cut back on using plastic or paper shopping bag. Now we can see Furoshiki as highly recommend item in the shop. Printemps Ginza is one of the popular shop for young girls. Their employee had a Furoshiki day appealing to the Furoshiki Project. It's not so bad right?

Furoshiki is just a square cloth. You may think it would be inconvenient but when you get used to it, it is more convenient than you suppose :-) Here is a site that show various ways of wrapping with Furoshiki. Although it is Japanese web, you can see "how to" from the illustrations. For example, here is how to wrap two bottles, how to wrap triangle item, how to wrap a ball. When you wrap some gift, Furoshiki can make it gorgeous like this, this, this. And Furoshiki can be basket, backpack. There are many cute Furoshiki you can try one. I want to try such design. Since it is just square clothe, any cloth is okay. How about trying your scarf?

related link
Uchimizu project
Coolbiz project

Give me real ice cream

It is getting humid and hot everyday in Tokyo, maybe in next week rainy season will come soon. Today I ate one of this new released Japanese type ice cream Wagokoro. I picked "Kuromitsu" black sugar syrup one. It was delicious. On their TV ad, you can listen Kyoto dialect. Of course Wagokoro has green tea and Azuki version too, like I wrote before we really love those two flavors.

I heard this year's ice cream trend is "healthy" like low calories type and soy milk type. Although every year we have new release ice cream products, and we have a lot of kinds of green tea and red beans ice cream. Comparing to the North America, we have poor ice cream selection. Most of all, we don't have ice cream shop like Baskin & Robbins or Cold Stone creamery. Why? hmm we love ice cream but I don't eat so much. The Japan Ice Cream Association said the American people eat ice cream 6 times as much as Japanese do, and sales volume is 1.5 times. Thinking of the difference of population is about three times, American people eat double the amount of ice cream with half price.

I don't know why. Despite of such poor selection, there are many weird flavor ice cream in this country. Since we have a weird food fads this year, things seem to be getting worse. The Daily Mainichi wrote about it. Here are some samples.

Sea foods ice creams
Abalone, Octopus Ice Cream , Fish Ice Cream, Crab Ice Cream

vegetable ice creams
Garlic Mint Ice Cream, Spinach Ice Cream, Wasabi Ice Cream, Sweet Potato Ice Cream

dish ice creams
Indian Curry Ice Cream, Indian Curry Ice Cream , Miso Ramen Ice Cream , Cheese Risotto Ice Cream

Meat Ice cream
Raw Horseflesh Ice Cream, Chicken Wing Ice Cream , Pit Viper Ice Cream , Ox Tongue Ice Cream

Umm crazy...orz. Which one is the worse one for you? Salad Ice Cream lacks punch, but it seems very tasteless for me. I think I can eat alcohol type like Stout Ice Cream, Potato Liquor Ice Cream, Red Wine Ice Cream. And I want to try this, Cherry Blossom Ice Cream. By the way, I don't need such ice creams, I want real nice ice cream.

related link
The best selling ice cream is...

What for?

*+`('&$%&WSRS)(=)%"!"?+*>L .....orz.
I am so busy today, I have no time to up my post. But I want to up this one, the Real Japanese guy dall Ken Ijyuin . Althought he is not so tall (100cm), his stormy good looks is charming enough, right?. But I found copy "nice an** hole, and big peni**, now we will attach gunky lotaion mini bottle"....ah hhhhh for that???...Ken... *

Related links : Erotic Ukiyoe Arts "Shunga", well I reccomend for (-18)
Shuga1 erotic Ukiyoe
Shunga2
Shuga3
Shunga4
Milk beam