watashi to tokyo

This one is tannokojo's animation. He? She? did really good.

I like this fast food recommend chart. Which shop I can eat in Japan? Can you guess? We have Dunkin Dounuts, McDonalds, Subway, Domino Pizza, Pizaa Hut, DQ, KFC, Arbys(maybe) Wendys(hard to find though) and Burger King(finally). I personally needd tacco bell.

This is hot news in Japan, World's worst photo-fit helps capture suspected murderer . Because the photo-fit is really bad and funny also that face looks exactry Hanawa-kun of animation "Chibi Maruko-chan".

My voice.com research the most popular biscuit in Japan. The number of respondent is over 13,000 people of 30's, 40's and 50's years old. Here is a ranking.
Country Maam (Fujiya) : soft type with choco chips. For me too sweet.
Ritz (Nabisco) : I can't stop eating this one.
Oreo (Nabisco):Don't worry we don't have green tea oreo.
Arfort (Bourbon) : big chocolate attached biscuit.
Harvest (Tohato) : Very thin buiscuit with a lot of sesamis. I like this very much/
Coconuts Sabre (Nisshin Cisco) : It was made in 1965. long selling buiscuit.
Bisco (Glico) : rich vitamin and ca so that this can be emergency foods.
Moon Light (Morinaga) : it good taste of egg and butter. I like this too but can't eat a lot cause it's sweet.
Choco Chip cookie (Bourbon) : it's just regular chocochip cookie, nothing special
All raisins (Tohato):soft type cookie with a lot of raisons. I didn't know they released apple!

Kazuo Umezu

Sometimes I write about Kazuo Umezu, a well known horror manga and gag manga creator, who was brought to court because his neighbors complained about his trademark "red and white" house disturbed the scenery. He is such a popular guy and a documentary about him has been released: "Gashi (his way of say hello), I am Kazuo Umezu." I guess he is just a nice guy. By the way, I found some photos of the inside of the Umezu house. I like that chandelier. It has an image from the manga Orochi.

I notice that Google real time translation works very well. One advantage is that they use very natural Japanese. It translate hungry into“harapeko,”a very casual way to say it. I typed in “convenience store,” but it translates it into "konbini" (conveni) in Japanese, which is so much more natural for Japanese people. I love it!

I found two nice arts events in NY that I would love to go to: "Waste Not" and "Makeshift Museum Shows Off Mario Oddities."

Toto started their high tech toilet live show. The site is a live camera in a Toto show room in the Shiodome building. They have just started, so the site offers very little content, I will check it again later.

chocolate model cell phone

This video healed me a lot today...  

 

「んだ～バカヤロウ」... It's very hard to translate such bad words in a polite manner. I can say that it means "What? Fu** you!" Anyways, that is the name of a bar in Nagoya where you can release stress. For a fee, you can beat somebody's head in with a beer bottle (not regular bottle, an extra fragile one) or pour water on someone like in Flashdance :-) etc. I don't have any interest in it though. I don't think I could release my stress by doing such things... My stress might be darker and deeper. :-(

NTT Docomo collaborated with jewelry maker Qpod and released this chocolate cell phone. Not just the cell phone, but the earphones, straps, and other accessories are cute too. Of course I don't need it.

If I have to use a strap for my cell phone, I would prefer this "fresh shrimp" one. If you pull a string, the shrimp moves as if it's alive. The same maker released this one too: clam water pistol. Hmm…what silly products.

The Japan Packaging Design Award 2009 event will be held in Dic Color Square. When someone buys something just because the packaging is nice, we call it "pake gai" (I wrote about this before but I can't find the post anymore). When I search for "pake gai" in Google images, I can find the type of packaging that people love. Seiko-tei's cookies are well known as gifts that girls like to buy. I think this one was chosen for some award this year. I like this one, it's a tin that contains Shiseido Parlour cakes. Shiseido Parlour was the first place to sell soda and ice cream in Japan. Since they are the parent company of cosmetic maker Shiseido, their packaging is beautiful and feminine.

new street computing style in Akihabara

There is a new phenomenon in Akihabara... a standing typing style called "Koike Style" (named after Mr. Koike, who was the first to do it). Anyways, why don’t they just use an iPhone?   

Tatsuya Ichihashi was finally arrested today. His cosmetic surgery “after” photo was pretty shocking to us, and all Japanese people kept a lookout for him.

This is another Japanese curry fan's post, she wrote down her recipe too. She cooks curry udon, but penne or macaroni or Chinese noodles are good too. If you make the curry sauce a little bit thick (using less water), it would be good with bread too; you can make a hot sandwich. Curry is really good for chilly winter nights, try it.

 

Lipton Tea started a new sweets collection. This is the 7^th series and this time, they collaborated with DAMEL. When you buy a bottle of Lipton tea, you can get one of those dessert keychains. Since they are exquisitely designed, the Lipton sweets collection is a very popular series and there are a lot of collectors.
The 1st series was Pierre Herme.
The 2nd was Westin Tokyo teatime.
The 3rd was the sweets collection.
The 4th was Pierre Marcolini.
The 5th was the sweets collection II.
The 6th was Delray.
They can be good free souvenirs :-).

This is a funny site: "create the facial _expression on a real face." The upper right one is "eyes turning round," which means "to marvel at something" in Japanese. Eyes turn into dots has almost the same meaning. Can you catch the meaning of each phrase from the face? How about this? We say "the face below the nose sinks down," which sort of means "be soft on women" or "thinking of something ecchi!"

Axolotl bowl

Ferrari will open a theme park in Dubai in 2010 and this is the design of the park. I, along with many other Japanese people, think of the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion when I look at that design. Apparently it's the seventh Angel, Israfel, right?   

 

   

I love monjya yaki. I know, it looks like quot;puke" (sorry), but it tastes very good. It's a little bit sticky, so we use a small flat paddle to serve it. I heard that a monjya yaki izakaya opened in Shimokitazawa, which is my favorite town. I will check it out soon.

We sometimes have animal booms in Japan. In the past, we’ve had had a chihuahua boom, a red panda boom, and then a frill-necked lizard boom because of this TV ad:

Axolotl were also very popular in the 1980s. Because of their funny faces, they became popular as a kimo-kawaii character. Since we have an international trade regulation, there are axolotol that are bred within Japan. In the 1980s, one axolotl cost about 15,000 yen or so, but now the price is only 1/10 of what it used to be. So a breeding factory started to market them for edible consumption. This is an axolotl donburi. They say it tastes like chicken. Hmm, I am not sure I would want to try it.

 

This is a funny (or serious) list of Google suggestions. When you search the word "husband" in Japanese at Google Japan, Google suggests the popular search terms "husband, hope he dies," "husband, hate," "husband violent with words," "husband, fired," "husband, die, pension," and other negative phrases. On the other hand, when you search for the word "wife," the first suggestion is "wife, birthday gift" and the next is "wife, birthday gift ranking." Husbands are looking for gifts for their wives! Hmm… what a sad reality for Japan.

things that young people are turned off in Japan

When animals smile

Solid Alliance released these funny earphones. The screw type is called “Franken,” and the Banana one was probably inspired by this:

These are the things that young people are turned off by in Japan. I agree with this list because I am also turned off by these things:

Television: I don't watch much TV either, maybe a total of one hour a month. The quality of dramas and documentaries in Japan is not as good as ones from the US or UK.
Travel: I am not sure about this part, but I heard that young people love to save money because they have never experienced a booming economy in their life. They are more thrifty about money than older generations.
Car: Cars were important for dating before. The HONDA Prelude and the Mazda Familia were so popular that they were called “dating cars.” But now, young urbanities don't ride in or buy cars. Trains are cheap and convenient enough and young people hate to waste money on cars they don’t need.
Drinking: My generation enjoys drinking, but I heard that young people think drinking is bad and uncool.
Newspapers: I don't buy newspapers either, because I can read news on the internet, so why would I pay to read it on paper?
Tobacco: I quit smoking, though nowadays few young people start the habit… because of  ill effects of smoking works fine.
Science courses: I am not sure about this one either, but this might be related to the decline of science-based companies and the unglamorous image surrounding research jobs.
Professional baseball: No more stars like Ichiro or Matsui :-)
Love and Relationships: Because we are a dying nation!
Magazines: I can get more information on the internet!
CD: Download them, of course!
Game centers: Use the internet!
Pachinko: The internet is more fun!
Watch: Just use your iPhone or cell phone to tell time.
Sports: Hmm… people enjoy a variety of hobbies now. Also, indoor activities are really fun.

Here are some interesting pictures (warning: some are pornographic or grotesque) that you may use for handouts or information. I like these: names of beards, face list of real yakuza, military meals. The meal pictured in the upper left corner is served by the Japanese self defense forces, the next meal is from the US, then Holland and Canada. The gorgeous meal in the upper right corner is Australian. This picture compares the height of robots. I didn't know that Gundam is such a small robot. Can you find it?

Nice videos

Nice videos. Kyoto cruise and Tokyo cruise.

superalloy Apollo 11

Do you think this is real? "Geo-engineering Moscow Mayor Promises No Snow This Winter." We don't need snow! So let's have it fall in Alaska, he he he. If this can come true, the world will fight over rainclouds versus sunshine.

BANDAI will release this "Super Alloy Apollo 11 with Saturn V." Its total length is 76 cm. It’s constructed the same as the real Apollo 11; divided into 9 parts so you can reenact all stages of the Apollo as it traveled from the earth to the moon. Cooooooooool! I want it but it costs around $500! What do you think?

When I started my blog 5 years ago, there were not many good blogs about Japan, but now we can find really interesting ones like Pink Tentacle, Tokyomango, tokyololas. I found a new one today: "Michael Mckinlay.com" It's really fun to read! I like this silly Japanese shirt post, it's very true. Actually, one of my American friends collects silly English T-shirts. But I will say that foreign Japanese tattoos are the same. I can't understand why this guy would want the word "tomato" on his neck. By the way, when I found such great blogs about Japan, I realized that "introducing Japan" is no longer my role and it would be fun to change my blog into something new. I don't know yet what would be good though.

This is the new book "Otacool worldwide otaku rooms." If I search for the words "Otaku room" in Japanese, we can find some Japanese otaku rooms. It would be torturous for me to have to sleep in such a room.

Sachiko Kobayashi is a Japanese enka singer and she is well known for her super big electric dress on the Kohaku Utagassen (here is a photo of last year's dress). By the way, she came from Nigata and a 7.4m tall doll of her serves as part of a tourism campaign for Nigata. Since Nigara is famous for its "Koshi Hikari" rice, she is depicted on one knee, holding a rice paddle. Ha… how silly.

This country doesn't lead people to become happy

Great pop-up Lego Kinkakuji! I think he is a creater of this Yamato.

This is today's Googole Japan logo. Today's is in commemoration of Ranpo Edogawa's birthday, he is a pioneer of Japanese mystery novel. Nice mood logo!  By the way,  Ranpo Edogawa is his pen name, which is a Japanese version of "Edgar Allen Poe" (if you read his name backwards, western style: Edogawa Ranpo)  

I laughed a lot to read this ariticle. "A Saudi woman is seeking a divorce after discovering her husband had nicknamed her 'Guantanamo' on his mobile phone.". I remember my female friend had been nicknamed "Boris Yeltsin" but she never knew she had such nickname.

Do you have an image of Japanese people as being rich? Today I read some pretty shocking news. The rate of poverty in Japan went up to 15.7% in 2006. This group is people who live on less than half the average annual salary. And that 15.7% is the 4th worst in 30 countries of OECD. Since the Japanese average annual salary is 4,400,000yen ($44000). 15.7% of Japanese are living on less than 2,200,000yen ($22000). 180,000yen per month....hmm it may possible if they are single even in Tokyo but it will be a tough life. By the way, the point is not the money actually, we said "all-Japanese-have-a-middle-class mentality" before but now the gap between rich and poor is widening. This country doesn't lead people to become happy.

The houses in the world that you can buy 5 hundred thousand dollars

This is good.

This is really great job! You can read Japanese without any knowledge because font pronunciation is IN katakana font! "johnson banks:phonetikana"

You can see "how high the cost of living in Japan is". The houses in the world that you can buy 5 hundred thousand dollars. First one Thailand, then Bali, Chicago, Costa Rica, Brazil, Spain and the last match box is Japan. Of course location will be center of Tokyo though...it will float in the pool of other countries's house. But in Toyama prefecture, you can buy this size house for $200,000. Even in Tokyo, you can find this size of house in the far west Tokyo area (2 hours from the center of Tokyo) for less than $500,000.