watashi to tokyo

tracing collection

This post is a collection of old Japan maps from around the world. The first one is Belgian and was made in 1595. What a good job! How did they figure out the unique shape of the land in the old days? I can't understand it at all.

These pictures are different but very similar. We call a phenomenon "tracing" in internet slang. This is a tracing collection that I enjoyed during my lunch today.

I love this. I don't know why, but it's close, right?

 

This is hilarious! Booty and onigiri!

 

I know, I know that having bad teeth is looked down upon in foreign countries. However, in Japan, many people think that it’s kind of charming in girls. This site celebrates “vampire toothed” girls. What do you think?

Alice sent me this interesting article: "Girly men of Japan just want to have fun." Sometimes when I read such article about Japan: girly men, guys and 2D love, Japanese boys wearing skirts etc. I think… these are true, but of course it's just some phenomenon, not a real tread.

I didn't know this meme!

That Japanese curry fan wrote another article about Japanese curry on Wired. If you don't have any Japanese curry shops near you, please go to a Japanese or Asian food store. They will carry instant curry like this. They’re not bad. By the way, Andrew linked me to this site: "Americurry," which is a Japanese curry restaurant review site. I guess Japanese curry is getting popular in the US!
 
I wrote before that horror manga creator Kazuo Umezu's house is very colorful and that his neighbors went to court to stop him from building it. The lawsuit was rejected and he is living in that colorfully striped house now. Recently, photographer Mika Ninagawa published the Umezu house photo book: "Umezz House" and the house become a hot spot in Kichijoji. Actually we can even buy Umezu house souvenirs. That house is cute, but I really want these small bags. Very Cute!
 
I don't know when this internet meme originated, but have you ever heard of long cat? Some Japanese person uploaded the photo of a white cat with a long body on the Internet, and it became a popular meme. Now, when you search for the words "long cat," you can get many results. It was made into a T-shirt and even into a mug and necktie. I am totally addicted to the internet, but I never knew about this meme. Strange…

Teaching English In Japan Is Awesome

I have acrophobia, I am especially afraid of spiral staircases. But if there is a window or bar, I am okay. I can look down to the ground and enjoy skyscrapers and tall buildings. I have a friend who is also acrophobic, his condition was worse and he could not enjoy high places like Tokyo Tower at all. However, he got married and bought a nice apartment on the 45^th floor! Finally, he overcome his fear and could sit on his balcony to see the skyscrapers. You can overcome acrophobia like that and there is also this machine, which provides height simulations for overcoming acrophobia.
 
When this tiger swims, he closes his ears and nostrils, so his face looks super scary in the water. Look at this... He is not angry, he is just trying to keep water out of his nostrils and ears... but….
 
This is very funny: "Teaching English In Japan Is Awesome and Sometimes Hilarious." I don't know why the student chose to write about pants, but my friend said that he was often asked about sex, masturbation and the size of a guy's THAT in the classroom. It's a lack of social etiquette on the part of the Japanese. (Poop obsession is different from this, I guess). I like the comment "pants are man's romances, that is so Japanese." Yes, yes, we are so romantic, right?
 
I laughed at this too: "How Japanese View the American Police (Magazine Cover)." Wow that's bad, sorry about that. But at least there are enough fans of American cops that warrant such a magazine to be published. Actually, I found something much worse: "evolution of people." Wow! Japanese evolution is great, I like it.
 
I remember that my Canadian friend's wife is a frog lover and had frog motif stuff all over their home, even in the bathroom. I remembered her when I found this shopping site: "cave," which is a frog items shop. I don't like frogs so much but some of the items are very cute. I like this and this and also this schedule notebook.

the author of Crayon shin chan disappeard

Ha ha ha ha ha ha this is from the real Amazon Germany site. They show an aluminum baseball bat, and below, where it say's "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought...", it shows pepper spray, a ski mask, and leather gloves. And then AFTER those items, there are baseball balls and gloves, which you would expect to accompany a baseball bat. So, are people buying these as a kind of "robbery" set? It's one stop shopping for the robber on the go. It's a little bit amazing.

 The author of Crayon Shin chan disappeared. According to a person concerned,　a family member took in a missing persons report to the police on the 12th. Since he said he would go to the mountains, it might have been an accident, but thinking of the Crayon Shin chan utsu story, there may be another reason.

An American guy made a life size Link of Zelda out of paper! Wow it's a great job, he uploaded some movies of the making of it, check them out

These are the most viewed flickr photos of 2009. Wow beautiful! I have never seen even one of them.

Super small apartment

Another new Japanese robot, he can move so fast!

Wow, it's impossible to understand such feelings "51 plastic surgeries turn British woman into Queen Nefertiti". In Japan, the nose of vocalist "KEIKO" of the Japanese band "Globe" is hot, she was so beautiful before but her nose is strange now. Her husband is the leader of Globe, Tatsuya Komuro. He was a good hit maker, and Michael Jackson actually asked for songs from him (it didn't happen though), but he was arrested and charged with fraud. Globe has periods of ebb and flow clearly.

I found a strange unique house called "Doraemon House" or "Convenient House". Briefly, it is much like a dormitory or apartment where you share the kitchen and bathroom. But do you know Doraemon slept in the closet of Nobita's room? Like that, Doraemon House's unique point is the room is super small like a closet. Look at this, the last two are room pictures. I wonder it will be smaller than American houses' closets actually. You can live even in the center of Roppongi for 40,000 yen if you don't care you can't stretch out your body. On the other hand, here is a collection of photos of shelters in the world. They won't be used (I hope) but they looks much wider and more comfortable.

funny news

This is funny news this year. A 22 year old guy hit a policeman with a small bike and hurt him. He tried to run away and was disorderly for a while. But when he finally got handcuffed, he pretended to faint.

The policemen knew he was just pretending but they carried him to a hospital. There he was given a catheter and urine analysis, but he still didn't move any. Since the hospital judged his condition was no problem, the police carried him to the police station and let him sit on a chair in an interview room. But he finally opened his eyes when his mother came into the next room and said "yes, this is my son" through the small window. He didn't move even when he got a catheter on his THAT! I hope he can apply such endurance power to something else.

Ganguro Make up

She is so funny! Gangoro make up.

Nissin is the maker of Cup Noodle. They have a strange on-the-job training exercise for their mid-level executives. It's a kind of mini survival training. They have to stay on an uninhabited island for three days and two nights with just some Nissin Chicken ramen, water, some flour and a piece of vinyl sheeting. The survival training is meant to develop their toughness, but it's too short, I really don't know what the purpose of that would be .

How serious our Poop Obsession is

I wrote before that Japanese people have a poop obsession. We love anthropomorphizing poop into a kind of character mascot. Actually, in the Kansai area (where people always love to laugh), there was a poop animation called "Unko-san" (“Miss Poop,” unko means poop in Japanese). I have never seen it and I wouldn’t see it, but I read an article that said Korean people are mad about this cartoon. In the cartoon, there are some characters: dad, mom, an American character named Benson who can run very fast, an English character named Big Ben and a Korean character named Kim Ben who has a bad temper and loves to eat Kimchi (ben also means poop in Japanese). The characterization is meant to be funny, but Korean people don't like it and are protesting to stop airing the animation.

I wrote before on how "we dream about manga meat!" Like the wiki page says, originally a manga meat meant mammoth meat. Recently, Japanese snack maker Tohato released a mammoth meat snack. It's a fried snack that comes in BBQ sauce flavor or Siberian salt flavor. Personally, I wouldn’t eat them, but this is a great example of how much we love manga meat.

Also in snack news, I was hooked on this news: Nestle Japan will release a vegetable juice Kit Kat on August24th. Hmm… I prefer to enjoy vegetable juice and chocolate on their own, not together.

He thought he can't live anymore.

Ohhhhhhh cute! A baby elephant fell through the manhole of a drainage ditch.
Strange news: The mother of a 29 year old Gundam model fan disliked her son’s childish hobby so much that she put all his models into a garbage bag to throw away. The guy came home and found that there were no models in his room and went into a panic. He then doused the room with heating oil and lit a fire. His mother noticed and bawled at him until he recovered his senses and escaped from the room. But the fire consumed the entire house, including all his Gundam items and the models in the garbage bag. He said "When I found that there were no Gundam models in my room, I thought I couldn't live anymore, I needed to die." Stupid, but I understand his "love" for his hobby and that mother shouldn't have touched his beloved items.

By the way, I tried to link this article to a web translated one, however the translation was so bad and didn’t make any sense at all. Look at this: "It is abandoned by Gundam mother?" In Japan, Gundam models are called "Gun Pla" (since we call plastic models “plamodel”). "Gump lama near" should be translated as "Gun Pla mania." "Cancer pula" should be “Gun pla” because “gun” means cancer in Japanese. The "in a year in a year" part should mean "adult enough." Hmm… crazy translation. orz...

This blog is hot right now. The guy has been saving money since he was 15 years old, and when he became 32, his savings was nearly half a million dollars and he bought a house. Then he decided to quit his job and live off his savings for rest of his life. Do people envy him? No, most comments are very cold, most people thinks it's not enough to live without working. I personally envy him; early retirement is my plan too, he can live off his savings if he uses only $25,000 per year, even if he gets married, or has kids... Hmm it might be tough I guess.

put a patch on your back by yourself

Salonpas is a cold patch for pain/stiff shoulder. As you know, it is hard to apply to one’s own back. So Salonpas started a "you can put it on by yourself" ad campaign. Strange stuff... On their site, they show ideas for applying patches to your back by yourself using water bottles or sponges. orz… strange.

It is really hot today, this is a good post about strategies for combating summer exhaustion or "natsubate." It’s in English, nice post, nice blog! For me, cold beer is the best! So I was so sad to see this photo, over 5,000 bottles of beer were broken by an earthquake.

I enjoyed reading this post: "foreign misconceptions of Japan" (web translation). I have to agree that foreign people often mix up Japanese, Korean, and Chinese people. I understand that it’s hard for non-Asians to tell the difference. I have never met anyone who adds sugar to miso soup, have you ever seen that?
Here are some typical stereotypes of Japanese people, can you think of some too?
#We always wear kimono (I guess this is an old image, most people don't think this)
#We can see Mt. Fuji from anywhere in Japan
#Every Japanese tourist has a camera on his neck, wear suits with a protruding tooth and follow a guide in a group
#We eat everything with chopsticks
#Everyone has mastered either karate or judo
#Narita airport smells like soy sauce
These are very cool "Hokusai jeans." (Here is the original, this is one of "Fugaku 36 kei") Cool!