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

Real - network Visual Analyzer "Nirvana改".

Cooooooooooool! NICT is the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Japan. They made Real - network Visual Analyzer "Nirvana改". 　It visualize network  and blocks attackingetc,. I guess there are a lot of  this kind of systems but this Nirvana's design looks like Evangelion, i mean apparently it is influenced by Japanese animation. Love it.

This is said blocked by "封" Kanji. Coooool

Kintsugi, reparing can make a new art

I found this nice video to introduce Japanese repair technique Kintsugi.  Kin means gold and Tsugi means connect.  In Japan, broken Japanese pottery are repaired by lacquer dusted and painted by gold, silver, or platinum.  The point of Kintsugi is not only "repairing", it means highlights negative/damage part as design and put a new life and new beauty.  This will be Japanese unique repair way in the world. Here is a good Englsih site to introduce Kintsugi(Studio kotokoto).

For example, a bowl (2:47 part on the second video ) of kintsugi was designed as water fall.  A bowl made by Koetsu Honami (3:00 part) has a big kintsugi part but it is one of important cultural property.

Kintsugi is not only by gold,  Yobitsugi is a way to attach parts of different ceramic.  Makie is a way to add some decoration on gold. Use Silver or Pratinum and paint black makes different mood. It is not popular but some people learn Kintsugi as hobby and we can buy Kintsugi kit at store

Do you know? The Real African Samurai

Do you know there was a REAL African Samurai in Japan? He is Yasuke. A muslim from Mozambique. He served the Japanese most famous Shogun Oda Nobunaga in the 16th century (the Sengoku Jidai). This facebook post picked up Yasuke and tells about his well.

Large Scale historical TV Show NHK Taiga Drama picks 16th century very often / the Sengoku Jidai , coz each Daimyo has unique character, they had a lot of such as tactics and an offensive and defensive strategy, win and reveresal in war etc,. In recent years, Kuroda Kanbei of 2013 was story of the Sengoku Jidai and of course there was Yasuke as servant of Nobunaga. Here is the guy on the show.

Links　
Large scale histrical Cledds Drama
Sazae-san is a economic index for Japanese

Hiroshige Vivid!

I went to “Hiroshige vivid” in Suntry museum that is the exhibition of wood printing of Hiroshige Ando, yesh! one of my favorite artist.

I love so much to see his “One hundred famous views of Edo”. I am always amazed he draw such unique composition in 19th. Without Hiroshige and Hokusai, Japanese won’t build such big manga culture, Ukiyoe (Wood print) was core of Japonism, manga may be called neo-Japonism, they are bound up in each other.

Hiroshige Vivid @ Suntry Mesuem, Tokyo
April 29-> June 12th 10:00-18:00 (Friday 20:00)
adult 1300yen

Azumabashi Konryuzan Enbo
A view from a boat on Sumida river.  A ladies enjoy Spring and cherry blossom on a boat and view of Asakusa Sensoji, Azuma bridge, Mt.Fuji.

Nihonbachi Edobashi
A fish is a skipjack tuna, we call it HATSU GATSUO. So we call tell this is summer season. And that fish is in a carrying pole, there is a fish selling guy in this print and he would delivered it to the customer from fish market.  In Nihonbash there is a big fish market and it moved into Tsukiji after Great Kantō earthquake in 1923.

Ouji Shozoku enoki Oomisoka Kitsunebi
Every New year eve, fox gathered under the big tree near the shrine and change their clothes into official one and visited the shrine. Farmers lived near the shrine predicted their next year’s harvest by amount of lights that fox had. This print tells such aid story. Very unique one, coz Hiroshima’s print are colorful like it is called Hiroshima vivid.

Link
Edo in Tokyo - Part 2

Milk Potato chips and Toast Potato chips

I wrote this post Potato Chips Japan long long time ago. In that post, the pupular flavors were consomme, light salt, nori-salt, butter. Those ranking won't be changed even now in 2016. And also Japanese unique flavors seem no change. There are wasabi, soy sauce, and yuzu pepper in calbee which is the biggest potato chips maker in Japan.

On the other hands, second position maker Koikeya's merchandise strategy is more aggressive :-). Since last year, they push potato chips for breakfast. in 2015 Last they released Banana potato chips and Peach potato chips as morning fruits. They has very sweet smell and reputation on the internet was so so. Despite of that, Koikeya has released another morning potato chips again. Those are toast potato chips and Milk potato chips. I didn't try it yet, but some said those are not bad at all, toast flavor is nothing wrong and milk flavor is taste like thin cookies. Hmm I won't need them though.

Cool soba allergy test patch

This is very cool. Japanese tattoo like soba allergy patch test. Some people has soba allergy. Soba is healthy food but please do allergy check first.

Pizza hut mistake, who made it?

Pizza Hut Japan made this grammar mistake! Who made this? Japanese worker? Yes it is, but originally Google translation.  Why they dont ask Pizza Hut America?