watashi to tokyo

Such Saturyday

I plan "the Yamanote walk 2007" in June. This time 10 members will walk around the Yamanote line. I will try a real time update (or something like that).

This is not a Japanese site, but they have a very nice design, art, and products!
"ATYPYK": I love their coasters and ruler gun. The coaster reminds me of this bloody pillow.

Chris Dimino would be the artist. His products are funny and cute: "Cuckoo clock" (Shining!), Gas mask shower (eyes part!)

Joshua Dalsimer: wool suit? I love those types of art. I like this too. Actually this was my PC wall paper for a while. So lovely. I think I have a mask or suit fetish...maybe.

Old tabacco and match label

Ahhh, is this true???? As my personal opinion, I want to buy such stuff as milk, soy sauce and coke by measure. I will buy cute lovely bottles or containers like this.

A former gangster was holding a woman hostage in a house in Nagakute, Aichi Prefecture, late Thursday after shooting his son, daughter and two police officers during a tense standoff with police. (Japan Times). It is big news in Japan and the gangster is still in the house now. On TV, all channels have special programs for this incident...of course except for "TX (TV Tokyo)". Here are the captures...at least it was close.

S-inc is an apparel company. In Harajuku, there are some of their brand's shops. They are not my taste, though it is interesting to visit those shops. Heaven has an interesting web site and it shows Heaven's Goth taste. Gouk use "WA" (Japanese) motif. T-Kunitomo is a romantic mode, Hangry-angry is their company cat character with cute goth taste. In their online shop, you can see S-inc's products. I like these summer sandals.

The Tobacco and Salt museum has the special exhibition "Hand painted Ukiyo-e." Yes, art with tobacco. Actually they have a nice collection of packages of Tobacco, they are so beautiful. On the Internet, this site has a great Japanese Tobacco package collection, look at this or this. Packages had a very beautiful design before ww2. Times have changed. Now we can see a big warning on packages (there is no design anymore) or some Tobacco has a disease photo. A few days ago, we have news : "Smoking among Japanese men continues to fall, drops below 40%." Yes, still 40% are smoking, it is hard to find no-smoking restaurant in this country.

Talking about Tobacco, here is a Japanese match label collection. They are really lovely. Check them all, 6 pages. I don't know why monkeys and bears are used for design a lot.

Something weird

Ahhh, nothing fun to write today. So I picked something weird. Look at this fat rabbit, it's cute? Funny? Weird? But the photo has some fantastic charm.

I didn't know this: Moetan is a series of English language study aids for Otaku. You can hear the samples on this official site. And it will be made into the TV anime in July...For me, it looks weird.

Tokyo Dome is the home ground of the Tokyo Giants. They have a Monday special beer ticket. This is the official site with some retro mood song which we call "Mood Kayo" and here is the movie of that song...funny but weird.

This is "Faux Repair" plate. They say "notes: in the Japanese tradition of drawing attention to a flaw in the glaze by filling it with gold." Hum, it will mean "Kintsugi." We say a href="http://www.anagama.co.uk/5-2_fakes.html" target="_blank">"Kintsugi" is not just repair, but to add some gold makes a new appearance and new worth for ceramics, so I understand their idea. But I can't agree with the price: $550... Art? Design?

I have muscle pain because of Billy's Bootcamp. The DVD is really really popular now and we can't buy the DVD without waiting for three weeks. In the official store, Billy's band costs $15 or so, but in Yahoo Japan auction it costs around $50 now. This is a part of the Japanese TV ad. Hmm, it looks like magic. But getting popular means he has to be a toy of the Internet. I suppose Billy will come to Japan because of this crazy boom. People need exercise, especially desk workers like me. BUT what do you think about this??...weird.

Some fun on the Internet

I love this post very very much. I will say "it's too 無茶苦茶 (Muchakucha da!)." The meaning of muchakucha will be close to foolhardy or reckless. The origin of "無茶苦茶"(Muchakucha) means "no tea, bitter tea." To serve no tea for a guest or to serve bitter tea to a guest, it turned into the meaning foolhardy.

And I like this article. The Japan Judo team has special training "see with the eyes of your heart"...Huh, interesting. I remember Nifty Portal Z had a silly post "life of Tomodachi" (20th century boy).

I really like this Heinz's ad series "Without Heinz"; Egg, Steak, Hotdog and French fries. ( I really like this Heinz ad too.) In Japan, Heinz is not so popular. Some said the bottle is too big for the Japanese. Kagome is the most popular brand and Kagome is well known as a veggie juice brand. Here are their veggie juice TV ads "Hamburger" and "Bento". The message is "take more vegetables."

Talking about paper craft, in Harajuku, the paper craft exhibition is held now. You can see Katsura Rikyu (I really like that place. It has traditional modern taste. Here is a video with subtitles.), Tokyo Station, Nikko Toshogu (it is the grave of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Some said it is a power spot and protected Edo (tokyo) in feng shui.) etc. and also buy the craft there.

On the Internet, some sites have great free paper craft. In the Yamaha official site, you can download a great bike collection like this and this. In the Canon official site, they have various kinds of paper craft like Himeji castle and Lucky cat. I will try this pop-up card. This is the blog of free paper craft collections. He collect crafts from the world! Check it out.

Kawakimono for your beer

I want to try Krispy Kreme, but there is still a long line in the shop. My American friend said it's not so special, and it's crazy to line up to buy the doughnuts. Well, I will tell if it's good or so so after I try it. I read, Original Glazed is the most popular one in the shop in Japan. Hmm, it looks so sweet and high in calories. Ah! you know? But we have higher calories in the Japan original doughnut: "An-Doughnuts." Sweet red bean paste (anko) is inside and caster sugar is dusted on it. Very sweet! Then I found today low calorie doughnuts too: they're "Baked Doughnuts." They look nice.

By the way, now I realize, when I went to the U.S. I hardly saw this type of packed bread. In Japan, at the convenient store, at the supermarket, even on a Kiosk of the train station, you can find such packed bread. We call it "Kashi Pan," and it means sweet bread. There is a hung kind of Kashi Pan at the store. This cute blog reports each "Kashi Pan." She make categories such as "An pan type" (anko inside), "Cream pan type" (custard cream inside), "Jam pan type", "Melon pan type" (what is melon pan?), "Doughnuts type," "Cornet type" (Do you have cornet bread??) etc. Looks very yummy!

Maruti Udyog is the Indian automobile manufacturer which Japanese car maker Suzuki is controlling. I read, at Maruti Udyog, they have a "Kakipi boom." Kakipi is a spicy Japanese rice crackers. The name Kakipi comes from its shape, which looks like the seeds of the Japanese Kaki Persimmon. The "pi" part means "peanuts," because usually crackers and some peanuts are packed in the one package (since crackers are spicy, peanuts can be an oasis!). The article said a Japanese staff member took kakipi as his own snack with alcohol, then the Indian staff liked it so much. After that the Japanese stuff bought a lot of kakipi as souvenirs for the Indian staff.

There are some unique light snacks which are good with beer and other alcohol. We say "Kawaki mono" (dried stuff); Kakipi is one of them and my American friend's mom likes "Saki ika" (dried spirited Squid), which has a sour, a little spicy and Umami taste. Bean snacks are also popular. I like this kind of salty peanuts coated in rice powders. At an Izakaya you can eat "Ei hire" (fin of ray fish), which is served with mayo and red pepper usually. Very yummy. Kameda Seika is a big snack maker and they have some assorted Kawaki mono snacks. Sometimes I buy that type of stuff for parties. Yo-chan food has various squid snacks, and you can find them at Kiosk at train station. YES! Try it with beer when you travel in Japan. You will sense Japan more. :-) By the way, this wall paper has great sense...."squid boy"...orz

Collaboration art work

April is the beginning of the business calendar. People have some changes in April. New recruits come, some move to other branches, some are promoted, etc. During April, they were busy in new circumstances. But in May, some have to feel very unmotivated, lost, hopeless. Because everything is getting slower and back to routine, and some find it is very hard to adapt themselves to the new situation. We call it "Gogatsu Byo" (May sickness). This Japan Times article said "So that we set the Golden week on May," but I feel the Golden week makes things worse. It's hard to return to the routine after the "reset" of a long holiday. I may be in May sickness, I can't wait for the summer holiday now.

Trimp released the girdle for guys. Do you want to try it? "Want good shape!" It will be a common hope for guys and women. I started the Billy's boot camp, and I lost 1kg in 4 days. That DVD works fine! At my gym, at my job, everywhere people talk about Billy's bootcamp. It is really a big boom in Japan now.

This is the lithographs art work "Neo-Ruins" by Hisaharu Motoda. Wow, looks very real. In his official site , there are more his works. Check indication series and Revelation series.

Jun Takahashi is the designer of the fashion brand Undercover. I found this on his blog, Undercover collaborated with Hello Kitty. Look at this, even if I am anti-kitty, I can wear that kitty, it's cool. That collaboration is a little surprising and I was amazed to know Sanrio accepted that design.

Talking about T-shirts, Beams is one of my favorite brands and BeamsT is their online T-shirt site. I found this on the site. Beams collaborates with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Then I realized Gainax has the cool blog "the Eva At Work site." Not only T-shirts, there are some interesting projects and art works of Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is "Eva on Japanese traditional art stage Noh," wow, this is great "Eva on Tatoo," "Eva on Japanese screen." Eva on Dish, etc,. Cool. By the way, the Eva T-shirt was designed by Tuyoshi Hirooka. I worked with him before on some projects. I ordered the logo design :-> His work is lovely!.

Talking about Eva, Mitsumasa Yoshizawa is a figure designer and his Ayanami is very cool. Look at this Gallery. They have very animation type faces but are erotic enough. It's interesting.

Soramimi with Martin Friedman

This is the Soramimi. The ex Megadeth member Martin Friedman joined the show.　"Tony Danza cuts in line sound" sounds", it is hard to put panty to elephant" in Japanese. "Between the hammer and the anvil" sounds "Yankee lost his way."　So funny, if you can understand Japanese. If not, it won't be. I wonder if I did write this before: you can sing the Japanese National song "Kimigayo" in English as "Kiss me girl."　This is Soramimi too!

Liar Game

I found new Tokyo souvenirs. I wrote about weird museums, one of them was Meguro Parasitological Museum. The Asahi news said their original T-Shirts in the museum shop have good sales.　Especially the tapeworm is good because the worm pattern rises and looks very real! I like the one at bottom right.

Ah, the Sushi Police aren't working yet? This is an article from the Chicago Sun Times: "Fish fraud: The menus said snapper, but it wasn't!" Talking about Chicago, the Japanese novel "Baccano" is the story about the U.S in prohibition era. And it will be made into TV animation.

Another manga topic. I read the article: "Death Note" has boomed among children in China. The Note is about 750 yen (wow, expensive!), but about half of the students in one classroom have it and write their classmate's name when they don't like something. The Chinese media took this topic, so it might be another source of Japanese culture or manga bashing, they say. It would be quite shocking to read my classmate wrote the details of my death on his "Death Note." I understand they issued this boom.

My friend recommended the manga "Liar Game." I checked Wikipedia, but they have only Japanese. The manga was made into a TV drama last April. Some English blogs wrote about the drama, so you may check the story there (like here, here, here). It's a kind of psychological game similar to Death Note, so it's interesting. However my impression was it's nothing new. Actually I feel as if I read Isaac Asimov's Tales of the Black Widowers or such traditional mysteries. I think it will be published in English soon, check it out.

Yahoo acution

Yahoo shut down their auction site in Canada and the U.S. This article says Yahoo bows to eBay. In Japan, Yahoo auction reigns supreme and eBay closed in the Japan market.

Regarding eBay, I read articles sometimes that "Jesus appears!" items are sold. Sometimes we have such an auction topic in the news. Recently I read about $300,000 of Platinum Gundam models being sold. I wrote about a silly battle about Nintendo DS, when we had the Spoo craze (we can't see Spoo videos anymore on Youtube, weep weep), a handmade Spoo figure was sold at auction.

"Yahoo auc watch" is a blog about Yahoo auctions. The site picks weird, funny, interesting items selling on the yahoo auction.

I knew this one. It was funny so that I sent the auction link to my friend. The woman sold her black jacket, and the auction title was "you can be erokawaii like Kumi Koda, it will nice in disco," something like that. Of course, the gap between her style and the title was funny, but it was fun to read their exchanges over (web translated) on Q&A. "Q. What's going on in the third pic? Ghost or something?" "A. I am dancing," "Q. The price is including the cute girl in the pic?" "A. Selling bodies is illegal." "Q. What is good to eat with cucumber?" "A. it will be miso," etc...useless, crazy exchanges were continued till the last day. The price got to be $ 99 million or so. Maybe the auction would be invalid in the end.

Someone sold 258 center cores of toilet paper, and some bought it at 99 yen. Q&A was funny too. "Q. How do you want winning bidder to use those cores?" "A. I hope the new owner follows my footsteps and collects more and more." "Q. Do you have any suggestion for uses of those cores?" "A. These are good for Umaibo case". etc...ha ha ha crazy.

She is a famous auction seller because of useless long explanations. In this case, she talked about her diet, fight with younger co-workers, her finance problem, etc. to sell that swim wear.

Mushroom on the shower;room floor (ahh, I don't want to touch it), Golden mermaid suit (what a taste), Day bag (no idea..why he was naked?), PC desk (dirty desk...then three pictures were almost the same. The cake looks delicious though)... There are so many crazy happenings on Yahoo Japan auction. We love it.

Japanese Curry in NY

My friend bought Billy's boot camp. I read he is well know as the Tae-bo guy in the U.S. Since last year, his boot camp DVD has been sold in TV shopping and it's a very hot topic among the people. Actually my American friend didn't know him, but most of my Japanese friends know him. I am thinking to start basic training. The exercise seems so hard though.

Rinpaeshidan is an art group, their 1 week of art work is draw on drawing project. The video on YouTube has a lot of access. Here is their site. It is very fun to see.

As a Japanese Curry chain shop, Coco Ichian is well known in Japan. (Their June special is Sukiyaki Curry?!) You can find Coco Ichi anywhere in Tokyo and eat Japanese thick curry. Ishikawa is the prefecture where NY Yankees Matsui came from. And in Ishikawa, there is the local curry chain "Go Go Curry" (oh oh...great design) which is well known for its big size curry. The owner of Go Go Curry is a big fan of Matsui, and actually does shop stuff while wearing a Yankees cap (Go Go means 55 in Japanese). Then finally he opened a shop in NY on May 5th. Until 5:55 in the evening they will have a discount Go Go time and when Matsui hits a Home Run they will make another discount. The shop is near Times Square, check it out.