watashi to tokyo

New meme about the art exhibition

Art exhibition "Jakuchu the 300th anniversary of his birth" is held in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Jakuchu Ito was a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period who is well known powerfull chickens and other birds painting. He is very popular in Japan now. (it was not like before, maybe for the last 10 years). So the exhibition became famous "hard to enter". At the peak, people had to wait for 6 HOURS, yes, much much worse than Tokyo Disney Land.

Then finally new meme was born, it is "Jakuchu waiting line SF" on twitter. It means people tweet, how long the the line to enter the Jakuchu exhibition is in SF style. " How long it has passed, I got a phone call from my wife, she deliver the baby. I wish I could be home before baby go to the elementary school". "The old man who said he would go to Jakuchu exhibition three days go has not come home yet. My coworker said one week has passed after his dad go there too. The strange part is nobody search missing old people. I am not sure what is going on..." like this. I like such silly meme.  I like jakuchu too, but I gave up this time.  Check his art which fascinate people such a lot.

Baby bee, Locusts, Eyes of Tuna, Rare Horse... FOODS!

Oh oh! Four Japanese foods are ranked in the "17 WTF Flavors That Should Not Exist But Actually Do" (9gag).

I don't think tomato and carrot ice cream is weird, you thinks so? And for me, the big issue is other foods and drinks looks JOKE, no? But wasp crackers, Wasabi beer, curry soda are not joke, they are real products for sale. And we have more such foods, maybe you will think should not exit.

Baby Bee : Here are recipe of baby bee and you can see many people cook those at home (warning. there is baby bee photos.)

locusts : We cooked them with soys sauce and sugar. It's taste like shrimp and I can say not bad.

Eyes of Tuna : It has a rich DHC and collagen, not bad all. We can't waste any parts of tuna.

Horse Sashimi : This is a kind of luxury food, so there is no recipe and usually we eat at restaurant. it taste like regular meet, close to soft beef. We call Horse samishi "Sakura"(cherry blossom) coz, fresh meet has pink color like flowers.


Anyway, PEPSI Japan release strange flavor almost every year. For me, the worst three PEPSI is PEPSI cucumber, PEPSI Mont Blanc and PEPSI SHISO (perilla). I am not sure those are joke or serious, mabye they want to make news? I really not sure and I have never drunk any of them.

Cost of foods in restaurant is cheap in Tokyo

People still have impression that the cost of living in Tokyo is pretty high. However because of the long deflation, it is not true anymore. Here is the latest ranking "Cost of Living Index 2016". Appearently Switzerland, North Europe and UK and USA is mush higher than Tokyo. I went to Seattle for 10 days and back to Tokyo two days ago. Then I could feel it by myself with my own experience.

Most of all, the foods cost in the restaurant. This is the chart of the average lunch cost of workers in Japan. Because of the Abenomics?  The cost has a bit up thought, it is still less than $7.  So what a kind of lunch they are eating by less than $7?  We have 500yen coin and 500yen lunch is called "one coin lunch".  Here is the photos when I search with the words "one coin lunch".  Looks great right?

The Government try to emerge from deflation,  but it is not easy. Actually just cheap and nasty things and service disappeared, I feel we have better quality and service than before.  This can be a good sample, "Genka bar" is a Japanese bar. Thier charge system is interesting. You need to pay 1600yen as enter charge, but all menu are sold at cost, a glass of beer is 180yen ($1.7), a glass of Macallan is also 180yen. So even you drink THREE glass of beer and TWO glass of whisky and eat ROAST BEEFf and TACO RICE, the bill is just $30 or so. great right?

Genka bar @ Gotanda map
17:00-23:30

Ganka bar @ Akasaka Mitsuke map
17:00-23:30

Genka bar @ Ginza map
Mon-Sat 18:00-05:00
Sun 17:00-23:00