watashi to tokyo

The Kanji express this year is CHANGE

I found this cute Chirtmas cracker message site. By the way, I looked for corn type firecracker in English. But I can't find. How do you call this?. I also found this beautiful Japanese cracker, it is a set of four season, cherry blossom, rain drop, Autumn leaf and snow flake. Wow I don't want to use it but without using it I can't see it.

The letter(Kanji) express 2008 was released today, it was FALSE last year and this year it's CHANGE. We have big change in financial situation, Japanese prime minister and America has new President too, so many change we have.

Osu! Shugeibu is a guy's hand craft group that an artist Shoichi Ichizawa of ultratamastarted a few years ago. All guys were beginners in those days. Osu! is a word(salutation) used in Japanese martial arts and so their web site started with macho style design first. (please click UFO kanji part. (it's word joke because Osu also means push in Japanese) In their blog, you can see their unique, ugly cute (kimo kawaii) items. Their item are sold in Tokyo Artist Mansion shop. Face wallet, Fox muffler, Ugly bag etc,. Cute!

Finally Yahoo! JAPAN started Japan auction in English version BETA. In Japanese action, we had a flag to see your item for overseas and blank to write English explanation. I sell and buy a lot in Japan but I will start to sell for overseas when I do it, I will tell it here. What a kind of stuff will be sold well you think? what do you want? What is hard to get in your country? Tell me your idea, please!

Cooking Toy is hot!

It's interesting, but it's so true. "Muslim game characters told to cover up". Rappelz women characters have to be covered up with clothes and some crosses or such Muslim symbols had to change to non-Muslim ones. Here is a sample of before and after. Makers have to make two versions for online games or they need to put full clothes on women always.

Cooking toys for kids make good sales. Big toy makers Tomy and Bandai seem to compete hard.
Tomy toys have doughnuts maker, gumi maker, ice cream maker, soft cream maker and sugar prinit. ｡｡But the best one will be this "choco fountain". Not only kids, but adults will want this, it's nice to have this one for a Christmas party, right? This is also good for moms to make character bento for kids. Actually each rice ball is small and can fit into a small lunch box.

Bandai has choco pen, small sandwich maker and choco decoration maker with stick bread. I want this one crepe maker. Do you know "millcrepe"? It's a crepe layer cake born in Japan. It's hard to make at home cause it's tough to cook so many crepes. I would have many hours of enjoyment with that toy. And this Futomaki cooker will make good souvenirs for foreign friends. Don't you think so?

I guess those toys have sold very well, because Tomy released such toys for adults too. One of them is "Iesoba"(homemade noodle). Some people write about it and they say the toy can work fine. This is another one named rokuro club, you can make ceramic with your kitchen oven. They look pretty good. I want this one too.

A great English Bento site

Ahhhhhh, I want this! I think I will buy thise "Secret Mark Throwing Star Magnets". We say "Shuriken" in Japanese. Of course, since they're deadly weapons, we can't buy or have shuriken in public place. But you can make them easily with origami, this site tells how.

This was an interesting article(web translated). Some Japanese railway companies changed their lights to blue color ones. It's because they got the idea from Glasgow in the UK. Glasgow changed their town lights to blue color for good sight view, but automatically the number of crimes went down too. Komyoji station in Yokohama changed some of their station lights to blue this Feb. In January, they had a few suicides (jumping in front of trains) and usually they had two or three times suicides in a month, however after they changed the lights, they haven't had any yet. Considering that we have had 20% more suicides than last year because of the recession, it's an amazing fact. If you have a short temper, please change your room light to blue. :-)

This site is picked on Japanese blogs a lot today "anna the red's bento factory". She makes chara-ben and writes about how to make them! She is apparently an anime fan, especially a Ghibli fan maybe. This is Nekobus, this is Kaonashi, this is Totoro! very good. But I love this one most "Katamari Damacy". So cute and great and it looks delicious too! This is the best Katamari Damacy bento that I have ever seen on the Internet. Sugoi kawaiina! In Japan, this site would be the most famous charaben site, it's almost art. I miss Katamari Damacy, I hope they will release a new one again soon.

Katamari Damacy post in watashi to tokyo : 1, 2.
Charaben post in watashi to tokyo : 1, 2, 3.

 

Motsunabe

This is the music video of a French band, all pictures are knitting! Great.

NIGO is a designer of the fashion brand "Bathing Ape". He was picked in foreign media sometimes, the famous one is this BBC one, we can see his gorgeous room and huge collections. He started the RAP band "Teriyaki boys" as a DJ and he will have a world tour. I am not sure what kind of rap they will have. My American friends are surprised and laughed that Japanese shops use rap music as BGM. Grandma and little kids are shopping in the store and music says "sex, drug, I love it" (or something like that, you know some rap has such lyrics). It happens in this country always.

Recently single guys take their handmade lunch boxes to the office, this article(web translated) said. It was pretty usual for single women or married guys to take lunch boxes to the office, but finally single guys started. The reason why they do is for saving money in this bad economy and also taking care of their health by themselves.

Tonight I will go to eat Motsunabe at this shop (maybe). As far as I read in wiki, many are eating offial. I will pick my favorite Japanese foods of offal.
No.1 : chicken liver of Yakitori.
No.2 : chicken Soft bone of Yakitori
No.3 : Gyusuji (beef tendon)
No.4 : pork liver of Yakitori
No.5 : Motsunabe

strange items on the Internet

So cute! "Fishy Scenes of Modern Life"　

We love parody kewpie dolls, but they're always cute. Finally, a line of freaky kewpies appeared, it's PQ. They also have fat Q, old man Q, macho Q, poop Q etc. When you click each Kewpie, you can watch a strange promotional video, which is hot on the Internet because it's so weird. I don't need this stuff.

Did you see this post? "Decorated trains in Japan." Many of those feature animes, I guess they're related to some event or promotion. Usually they're an ad for something like a TV show. I checked the price of train car ads. This site has the data. The most expensive is the Yamanote line. Four decorated cars of an 11-car train for four weeks costs about $280,000. Local lines are cheaper than that, of course.

Since it is getting cold, I am thinking about buying some kind of USB warmer. It would be nice to have this warm cushion and this blanket type is nice too. But my PC doesn't have enough USB ports, so I looked for a nice USB hub. Then I found some funny items.

This is a parody of a well known game: Kurohige kikiippatsu type. It's based on a game called Pop-up Pirate. You can play the game and use it to connect USB cables too. This is cute and would be good as a Christmas present: Christmas cake hub. This human type is cute too: "running man." Its design motif would be an emergency doorway sign. This is another cute human type named "HUB man." But I realized that it wouldn't be cute when all the cables are connected to it. I think that it'd look like S&M torture.

Brian sent me this link; it's an article about toilet paper on Wikipedia. The strange part is the second picture, I guess they were writing about toilet paper and old toilet paper holders in the Nara period, but that picture isn't of a holder, it's of wooden toilet paper. How did Japanese people use it? I don't know. I really have no idea, the Japanese Wiki page doesn't have any info on it.

Sable is a good suvenier

The Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints has a nice English web site, they do a good job for foreign customers. In this month, they started the Ukiyoe Christmas gift for foreign people. They print woodcut prints in original ways and ship to foriegn counrties. If you have a Japanese art lover, it's good gift, I think.

Akihabara (this is free tour site) is electric and otaku culture town, Kappabashi is kitchen town, Shin-Okubo is Korean town in Tokyo and what is Sugamo? Sugamo is called Harajuku (the most popular area for teens, I call it toy-box) for grandma. I found this nice article in pingmag. When I went there, I bought this "Daigaku Imo", it's a fried potato coated with caramel. Here is the recipe, if you want to try it.

Pingmag is a great site, they have interesting posts a lot always. A little bit old, but I found this post "TOP 6 of Tokyo｡ﾇs Coolest Souvenirs". I am not sure they are the coolest souvenirs but it's interesting what's cool for foreign people. By the way, this is a post about popular souvenirs of Japanese for Japanese. All are sweets.

By the way, I like hachiko sable cookies. Sable is a popular souvenir in many areas with their local unique motif. Is that the same with your place? The most well know one is this dove sable, it's a souvenir of Kamakura. Its package and bag is really simple and cute. In Enoshima, they have Enoden sable of their cute mono line Enoden that runs through houses. In some places people can't enter their homes without crossing the railway. Of course, Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Disney Land, Hello Kitty has sable. Japan national diet building has bill sable, Yokoham has Kurofune sable ( Kurofune is Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries), horse race places have horse sable.

And talking about animal sable, this cute one is a cow sable of farm. The animal type is really hot. This one is dog, cat, elephant, fish and panda, I can make zoo with sable. Today I found this sable collection site, sable bu. Tell me if you know some unique sable in your area.

JAL video on youtube

I read this video of CNN was hot on youtube. Interesting parts are comments, some Japanese are proud of not only him, but Japanese, some Japense it's his issue not Japanese one. Don't be proud, said don't say that's unseemly behavior. JAL is in the throes of corporate rehabilitation now, so I agree with to have conclusion to get such small salary as a chief executive. Eating at company cafe or else, it's his choice. I think we don't need to prise him about that. I was a little impressed that he took bus to job thinking of bad traffic and rash in Tokyo.

When I was working at Shiodome are before, I was asked often the way to Tsukiji market by foreign tourits. I did't know why such fish market was so popular for tourist, because basically it's markets for professional, not for regular people. Anyway we have this news today >"Too many foreigners forces ban on tourists to Tsukiji fish market"

It was a small article(web translated) but as a robot fan, I love that news. Tokyo univ develop a assist robot (for old people mainly). He records daily life and when you lost something, he will tell where you left or where you put it like "It's in second drawer of cabinet". He will tell you when you forget to take medicine too, he will suppoer your wheelchair. Great.

The most popular onigiri is

I found this cute glue! , we can't see that heart glue part after attaching something though.

MUJI released the results of its international design competition "MUJI award 03". The gold winner is "straw straw", silver prize is trash pack for outdoors. All products have MUJI's policy, natural, simple.

Japanese convenience stores usually have 20-25 kinds of rice ball (onigiri) at shops, but including local or special version, Seven Eleven has 150 kinds of rice ball, Lawson has 140. Rice balls are the most popular foods in convenient stores. Then which taste is the most popular for Japanese? No.1 is cooked salmon (that is a gorgeous one), No.2 is cooked cod roe, No.3 is tuna mayo, No.4 is Mentaiko and No.5 is cooked Kelp. There are some unique types, salt onigiri has nothing inside but only rich salt. I have never eaten it but it looks pretty good. In Okinawa, they have SPAM onigiri, it looks good too. I didn't know about this ramen onigiri. Maybe it tastes like ramen soup and inside will be egg or a pork slice. You can arrange onigiri into other foods. For example, when you add some soy sauce and roast them, they'll be roasted riceballs (yaki onigiri). When you pour hot water or soup, it can be ochaduke. By the way, in the north area, the store staff asks you "Do you want to make onigiri warm?" In the Tokyo area, I have never been asked like that but if you want, you can ask them. Talking about hot rice, we have this product "USB lunch box warmer", while you are working, the warmer makes your lunch hot. It's good for a hot sandwich or pancake lunch right?
 

Japanaese manga

Don't play this at work :-)
Last weekend, this movie was hot in the Internet. Erotic washing machine, I read this machine is set on weekly rental condo.

The last night, did you look up at the sky? Did you see this? Smile in the night sky. Cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

I read this message board: "Recently Bought Manga." I was so surprised that people know their manga so well, even the Japanese have hardly heard of Maka-Maka (it's a lesbian manga). I didn't know how popular Japanese manga was internationally until I read this post today. Also, it's surprising that those mangas are published in foreign countries. I looked for Japanese mangas with foreign subtitles on Amazon Japan. Wow! There's a lot! Then, I made another finding! Have you ever heard of "yaoi"? Wiki says "Yaoi is a popular term for fictional media that focuses on homosexual male relationships, yet is generally created by and for females." I didn't know that until I looked at the Amazon foreign manga site.

On the other hand, I can hardly ever find foreign mangas with Japanese subtitles. Maybe some American comics and some very old Franco-Belgian comics like "Tintin." Finally, I found one on Amazon Japan: "Black Sad." It's a French hard-boiled manga where all the characters are animals. Looks good.
 

Actor Robot and...

Ahhh cute, that parrot makes a move on a cat, apparently he wants to play with him! Kawaiii

This is local machine company TV ads collection. Its theme is "do it by machine", ha ha ha silly.

Have you ever heard about a Japanese hard rock band "Loudness"? Their song was ranked in the top 100 of the U.S. chart, it was the first time to do that for a Japanese rock band. But today the drummer Munetaka Higuchi was dead...I knew Higushi and Takasaki since they played in a cute idol band "Lazy". May his soul rest in peace.

Are you living in Japan or have you ever lived in Japan? What do/did you feel when you are/were called gaijin? This is a messege board discussion about "the word gaijin". I feel many Japanese lack delicacy for foreign culture or foreign people. But they are rough because of their blindness, not from discrimination. In many cases, Japanese would use the world "gaijin" without
any bad meaning. That's my guess.

This is an interesting site "Lang-8". Write in the languages you are studying, so some native speaker corrects your writing. It's very nice to study languages! Fortunately I have a few good friends who give a proofreading, Alice, Brian, Marc. I am very happy person! :-) Hello Kitty x M.A.C. Cosmetics. I can't read French but I gues this will be a Christmas Hello Kitty set of M.A.C. That cat is an importanat export item for Japan. That's just it, no more and no less to me.

Over the last few weeks, we have this news. Takeshi Koizumi,who has confessed to murdering a former vice welfare minister and his wife told his motive was his dead dog. He said "This is revenge for the killing by a healthcare center of a member of my family 34 years ago," the message stated. "Even now, they continue to kill as many as 500,000 innocent pets every year. They need to know that if they continue with this needless butchery then it will come back to them." But the welfare minister doesn't control the healthcare center, it's under local administration. He just misunderstood and he looked suprised to hear it from the police.

Brian sent me this news "Actor robots take Japanese stage ". His name is Wakamaru. You can see his movie in this page. Hmm, I can't think Wakamaru represents an epochal advance in robot image...By the way, this is a crazy one (warning! it's an erotic site) mannequin adult video actor" . This has much impact, right?