watashi to tokyo

Fukui airport is strange?

Hahahah funny, C3KO from Hello wars. By the way, this is the designer of the original kitty......ah...

It's funny but I can't understand it at all. It's in an article of the Independent, "world's funniest airport names revealed". I understand Batman Airport is the weirdest, Mafia Airport is the plain scariest...But why is Fukui the rudest? Fukui means fortune place....ah! Sounds like F4 words? I picked in this post, for Japanese "Scheveningen" sounds funny because it means a nasty guy. Erromango sounds like erotic manga for us.

People do go out on weekend and spend time at home with family, it is called Sugomori (nest phenomenon), I wrote. On the other hand, there are cooking toys or cooking tools like home bakery, ice creamer, takoyaki maker, yakitori maker, moffle maker (waffle with mochi= rice cake). I understand we need to entertain ourselves at home like dining out, but I can't accept this, Shinkansen (bullet train) kaiten sushi system. Mom cooks sushi and rotates it by train at home? No no no no, no thank you.

Weird stuff in Yahoo!JAPAN shopping

This is Air New Zealand's ad "Air New Zealand’s staff has nothing to hide" and this is the behind the scenes video. :-)

Karoshi means "death from overwork." I’m familiar with the term because of this well-known flash game. They released a second one: "Super Karoshi." But like I wrote a few days ago, Japanese people think job stress is not so bad. But I agree with Jeff, Americans and Japanese people consider stress a normal part of life and Japanese people think that working overtime is normal too (though I don't think so, I only worked 8 hours of overtime in last month). But right now, some people want to work overtime but can’t because some companies are prohibiting overtime as a cost curtailment measure!

Do you know the PlayStation game Okami? This is a simple Okami game, this type of game is so addictive for me.

This is a DVD jacket making site, you can make your own version of "Dragon Ball" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

This was an interesting article: "A bouquet toss is insulting to single women" (web translated). The article says that single women feel uncomfortable attending a friend's wedding because of the bouquet toss, because that custom assumes that all single women want to marry and are envious of the bride. But it's not always the case and some women hate participating in the bouquet toss. However, it's really hard to refuse participating since it would ruin the good mood.

I enjoyed seeing this Top 10 Weirdest Amazon Stuff, though some of these items don’t seem so weird to me. So I tried searching on my own to find weird stuff on Yahoo! JAPAN shopping today.
Cherry Curry: Hmm… I don't need this pink colored curry. I wonder if the guy who is a big Japanese curry fan would like to try it.
Miso Ramen candy: I like sweet candy, and I like miso ramen, but I wouldn’t like miso ramen candy.
Supporter for sitting on heels: Of course when we sit that way, our legs would still feel like pins and needles even with that product.
Decoration items for deco den: My co-worker loves to make Deco den during the weekend. She said that it’s very little work but you get a very colorful result.
USB Bento warmer: This is good but I guess it would make you hungry because the lunchbox would emit aromas as it’s warmed.

A guy asked nude in your PC

This guy returned to the US last February. He lived in Japan for 7 years and he has a lot of experience in Japanese culture. He is looking for a job and I hope he can get one. がんばれ Ken!

I wrote that for Japanese people, everything contains god, but that American people might think the same thing. This time, Jesus was in a cheese snack, he appeared in a Kit Kat, pancake, baby scan and even in such a place! :-) cute.

The swine flu has spread to Japan too. I feel that Japanese people tend to overreact to this kind of thing. Actually, on various shopping site's best seller rankings, there are only face masks. This phenomenon reminds me of the SARS outbreak in China a few years ago. Chinese people were full of ideas for protection though.

Look at this site, that is a ukiyoe by my favorite ukiyoe artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi. To make that Ukiyoe with real women, a guy asked people to send him nude photos that they have... and then people actually reacted very well. Ha ha ha crazy.

By the way, when you buy Japanese antiques, you should choose a trustworthy shop. This shop Uragami Sokyu-do looks very good and they have English instructions so you can download nice HOKUSAI ukiyoe blog parts.

Did you read this news? "Team ICO's Project Trico Trailer Leaked" The trailer was pretty good, check it out.

quick morning

I am sorry I was busy today and I can't gather good topics. But I will pick this video of TV show. How to go out quickly in the morning. It's very fun!

Sendai Kamotsu

I read this music video it popular for foreign people. Actually most comments are in Englsih. They are a band "sendai kamotsu"( means Sendai(city name of north area) cargo) they sing comical song in Sendai dialect. This song is about friendship but like some comments said they sing about anus in real, it's a kind of words game.

And Sendai Kamotsu's true identity is visual band Nightmare. 

Japanese is insane

Michael sent me this nice HONDA ad. See? Foreign ads are much better than Japanese ones. Anyways, thank you Michael!

I like this post "Top 5 reason why Japan is certifiably insane" of MANCOUCH.

1) Japanese Game Shows: Some said that they like Takeshi’s Castle. It was an old TV show with Takeshi Kitano. You can watch it on YouTube. I like this "can't laugh” series:

2) The Poop Obsession: Yes, I check Yahoo Shopping and there are over 2,000 poop items. The craziest ones are this hairpin and this funny pointing tool.

3) Tentacle Rape Monsters: I hate this. Yes, we are crazy.

 4) Robots: I am a robot lover! So what? Ah! I found another great news item about ASIMO! ASIMO will move by your IMAGINING! Not moving!!! (web translation). If I found this news on April Fools’ Day, I would’ve thought it was just a joke. But this is true!

5) American Stars in Japanese Commercials: I wrote about this a long time ago, I guess some links still work.
I enjoyed reading the comments. I like this one: "the japanese dont need a reason for being insane. they're the japanese!" Yes, we are!

April fool

Every site had an April Fools’ topic today. It was fun to watch before, but recently there haven’t been any good pranks.
The hottest topic was Tsuburaya’s (Ultra Man) site. Today, it became Kanegon's blog (cute money eating monster).
This was picked up by many blogs too: the official site of Cyborg 009. Today, 009 changed into Tensai Bakabon's Papa, which is a very popular gag manga/anime. His manga collaborated with COMME des GARCONS and the shoes sold in a French online shop. (I want it!)
And also this: travel agency Travel.JP sells flexible class airline ticket. The seat is a foldable chair and you have to hold the table yourself.
Yahoo JAPAN had this article: "Neon Genesis Evangelion" will be made into a live-action film.....orz Hmm… this type of stuff is really boring.
Google Japan’s prank was better, when you search some words on Google Japan, Google makes a senryu with the words. It is called CADIE technology. :-) This is much more thoughtful, right?
April fools’ pranks should either have a tinge of truth or make me grin like a tiny fool. This one impressed me very much: "2ch has started to use the domain ".orz" And I almost got tricked by this one: the company MemoLi developed the photo retouching tool "occhocochoi" (hasty), which lets you remove your finger from photos.

Get Down meme

YATTA! We love ICHIRO!!! Thank you thank you thank you!

This is beautiful, Mt.Fuji :-) Maybe we can see such a view soon in Spring! (near Aokigahara ha ha.)

Brian sent me this CNET article "Tokyo Shift- Goldeneye game glitch turns into viral meme in Japan". As far as I check on YouTube, the meme seems to have started last year.

At first someone uploaded the bug movie of the Nintendo 64 game "Golden eye 007" to niconico or YouTube. The bug was when you remove half the game casette (we say "han nuki"), charactors turn around in crazy ways. Since the game was released in 1997, the guy used a song "promise" of Komi Hirose at BGM that was released in 1997 too. Here is the one.

Then after that, people made their own get down videos. I like the CNET picks, the horse one called "basic" and the Donald's one are good too. I like these good four.

Colonel's curse

I am thinking of buying a new bicycle. We have never had a bike stolen and we don't need to worry about it except in the most unusual circumstances like a super expensive or rare bike. If I buy a new BMW bike, I will use this "Anti-Theft bike".

Ha ha ha! I like this idea "Ear Switch" (web translated), the way you move your ear will control an iPod. The product has a lot of possibilities, very nice, but this face is funny :-).

This news was funny too. In Japan, KFC displays a Colonel Sanders doll at the shop entrance, his costume is changed to Santa at Christmas, maid in Akiba, kimono during summer festival, etc. 24 years ago, the Hanshin Tigers won the League championship finally, cheerful Osaka people were so happy and went crazy, sang the team song, drank, some jumped into the super dirty Yodo river, etc., etc. Then someone threw the Colonel into the Yodo river. After that, for over 18 years the Tigers couldn't win the League championship, so Osaka people called it the Colonel's curse. Yesterday finally police found his body. The color changed into a Greek statue, but his smile has never changed.

Rare name fetishism

Hillary became a toy for 2ch. They laughed and said that her pose was similar a scene in a music video by the Japanese band Gray.

Maybe I wrote about this before...Google map recommends using a kayak to get to Japan. I checked the Atlanta to Roppongi route today. I can confirm that after reaching Japan, the guide is quite correct. You can get to Roppongi without going astray. Only the kayaking part would be hard.

Japan has few immigrants because of our history of national isolation, so the variety of last names is lower than other countries' though we still have some rare names (we call them "chinmei"). Anyway, this is a funny news item (web-translated): a guy who loves rare names stole nameplates from house entrances and gates. The strange part is that he would lay the nameplates on the floor and sleep on them. Hmm… he has a real rare name fetish.
By the way, here are the most common last names in Japan:
1. Sato: about 1,928,000 people are named Sato-san in this country.
2. Suzuki: 1,707,000
3. Takahashi: 1,416,000
4. Tanaka: 1,336,000
5. Watanabe: 1,135,000
6. Ito: 1,080,000
7. Yamamoto: 1,077,000
8. Nakamura: 1,058,000
9. Kobayashi: 1,019,000
10. Saito: 980,000

Since the population is about 120,000,000, about 8% of Japanese people have one of those last names. My name, Kanazawa, is No. 275. Now I remember! When I stayed at a hotel in the US, the hotel staff smiled at me and said, "What a lot of A's! mAri kAnAzAwA."

 This is a rare name collection list: Mr. Oil, Mr. Candy, Mr. Country, Mr. Station, Mr. Sound, Mr. Vinegar, etc. But the worst thing about rare names is when they're impossible to read. For example, for Mr. I (い), his name is written with only one hiragana―い. But you read the name as "Kana Hajime" (which means "the first hiragana letter"). Because in the past, our hiragana ordering system began with い. Check out the iroha page on Wiki, it's an interesting story.

Talking about funny names, I wrote this post before: a guy traveled to places whose names sounded funny in Japanese. Then I heard that Africans laugh when they hear the name of the Japanese prefecture "Kumamoto" because in some language "kuma" means vagina and "moto" means hot. In Italy, we're not supposed to say the names Isono?Katsuo (the brother in the manga Sazae-san) or Kaga Mariko (an actress). I don't know why they are strange though.