watashi to tokyo

Koyasan cafe will open

This news is interesting. Ambient divices released an umbrella automatically receives weather data from the Internet and lets you know you need to take an umbrella. But it looks heavy and difficult to carry after rain. (I mean I need an arch handle.) For me, easiness to carry (handle, light weight, good length) is much important in umbrella. For those point, this looks good "Katabrella" (kata means shoulder in Japanese). ou attach the flexible tube on your umbrella handle and wind it around your shoulder or back. But it's a little bit uncool looking. I have never seen someone use it. What do you think?

The au design project released some cool design cell phones. Actually INFOBAR(by Naoto Fukasawa) , talby, neon and MEDIA SKIN (by Tokujin Yoshioka) were selected for the MoMA collection. au havs released another new deisgn works "Trilogy". Check this site and look at cypres, vols and kaos. vols designed by Ross McBride and kaos was designed by Bradly Frezer. Kakko iine.

I got a mail about this Eva Doritos.(Thanks Ray!) Japan Frit Lay has release Eva Dritos only in Akihabara. It may be good for Akihabara souvenior. As another food collaboration this might be funny ; "Freshness burger release "SPAM burger" They collaborate with the Homel and release SPAM burger since August 10th. The price is 380yen, you can buy any Freshnessburger until September 10th. I don't need to eat it but I will try this one Koyasan cafe. Nankai Electric Railway runs Koyasan area. Koyasan is the center of Shingon Buddhism that is a sect which was introduced by Kukai in 805.　So Nankai Electric Railway produce Koyasan cafe as a campaign of Koyasan area. It's collaboration project with Koyasan Kongobuji. They will have Original sweets with Koyadofu and several Shojin Ryori menu. Also you can try Shakyo (copy Buddhist scriptures by writing), meditation and listening to lay sermom. The cafe will open in September 11th to 16th (only 7days) near Kodomono Shiro (National CHildrean's Castle) in Aoyama. I am looking forward to it :)*

The election is over

I like this photos. Cute!

Yes LDP had a Bloody Sunday, and now the DPJ is the largest bloc in the Upper House in Japan. We may have a snap election soon and the DPJ might win finally. Many say "NO" to the LDP, but does it mean they say "Yes!" to the DPJ? There is no other choice, it seems like that for me. The Mainichi opened a site about "which party has the closest opinion to you." My ideas were close to a very small party; it was good to know that. The Internet is a good resource for information on the election but in this country Internet campaigns are banned and they still scream the name of candidate from the car or in front of the Station. Such noise pollution should be banned as soon as possible.

During  summer season, I should take care of my stamina. This is a great Okinawa food recipe blog. Okinawa is the hottest prefecture, but they have the longest life in Japan too. Their food fit to you in summer.

Ah thank you for youtube, I liked the Nissin Cup Noodle "hungry?" TV ad series, this blog collected them from Youtube. Good sense. Accidentally I found this lovely ad too "Skittles", wow cute! We can buy M&M here but I have never seen this chocolate. Talking about marble type chocolate, Marble chocolate is the most well known one, but my favorite one is coffee beat it's coffee aroma chocolates.

Good news for injured fetish. This is a picture book of injured girls....weird, but fetish is impossible to understand always. I love some hairy stuff. I don't know why by myself.

the election day

I played this game yesterday, it took a long time to go out from the town ( that is the goal of this game). But it was pretty nice game " Daymare town". 

I saw this Magnetic Fluid art in Yokohama before. They are Japanese artist and this is her official site.　you can check othre movies. check the "Protrude, Flow" it's great.

I will go to the election later. Today is Upper House election day. LDP may fall shorter, Morgan Stanley says it will be Bloody Sunday for the LDP.

Summer is horror season

Cats know his death timing, so I can accept this story "Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths".

Summer is horror story season. Yahoo Japan opened  a special "horror" site. They collect city legend movies, horror movies, horror TV, horror videos (looks scary), haunted house guide etc. I recommend to check those movies. Even though you can't understand Japanese, you will be able to be scared of those videos. He is basically a comedian but he is a well known ghost story teller because he has the ability to sense ghosts (maybe). Yahoo avator added some horror items. I made my own avatar Japanese Ghost version.

The site show the result of scary Japanese horror movie and video ranking.
No.1 Ring : Some made video sequences cut-up + layed-down to end credits track. こわい This is the U.S Ring official site. これもこわい
No.2 Chakushin Ari (One Missed Call) : Here is the trailer.
No.3 Juon : You make check creepy trailers on youtube. This was remade as the Grudge in the U.S.
No.4 Honogurai Mizu no Sokokara (Dark water) : Here are some clips on youtube.
No.5 Hontouni atta kowai hanashi (real horror story ) : This is TV series aired in 1992. I found some clips.
No.6 Gakko no kaidan : Horror stories happend at the school.
No.7 Kansen : Go to this site and click the left door.
No.8 Shikoku : Chiaki Kuriyama of KILL BILL debut on this movie.
No.9 Inagawa Junji series : Yes the guy who Yahoo Japan picks, his official site are full of horror story.
No10. Kuroiie (Black house) : Here is the trailer.
I saw Ring and Shikoku. But Juon seems the most horrable for me. What do you think?

Do you play game?

Some foreign topics first. I really love this BBS News, "Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter." This one is crazy: "Elastic-kid." This can be good learning: "Statetris."

Konami released a Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer. This movie is telling more about the game. I have never played the game, it seems too complicated or difficult. Maybe soon they will start a TV ad, but it won't be a lovely one like before. (That ad is really one of my favorites!!)

I had given up playing this type of game. I won't spend my time to find treasure or fight the monsters anymore. When I was a student, I had enough time to kill and the game itself had some novelty. Times have changed, technology has developed, so the effects and visuals have got to be great. But the basic concept of the games is the same. For me, it seems to be "killing time" still now. Is the story great? It helps you do something? I don't think so. People who have a lot of things to do won't play games, but people who have time to kill can play games. I wonder if this will be related to the expanding gap between busy and not-busy, rich and poor in the future. Games maｙ be toys for lower classes in this way. Do you think I say too much? I got a DS for my parents, and I got a Wii for exercise. Nintendo looks as if it is trying to break those situations.

Anyway, I think I should worry more about this country than games. Look at this site, "Ani Gao Girls (anime face girls). It's a sort of photographing studio service. You go to a studio and take photos of girls wearing anime face masks. But they can provide this service because they have some customers. Check the movies on this page. Weird and freaky. きもい！　きもすぎる........

To refresh, this is a cool movie of Yokai ningen Bem.

Kewpie doll collections

Foreign topic first. I like this news; "Indian police seeks geeks". Look at this Hammy...cute

Softbank collaborated with PANTON, and they released 20 colors for cellphones. (actually mine is PANTON) Customers would like it, but it makes harder for shops to control their inventory. Toshiba started to release such color variations of audio player "giga beat". The point is their color variation is based on 24 Japanese traditional colors. They have just released the first 5 colors, you can check them in this nice special site. I will pick this site when they finish releasing all colors. I wrote about Japanese colors in this old post. Color names came from nature and food, it's impressive.

Small costumed Kewpie dolls are funny and cute items in Japan. Recently, TV-character collaboration series were released. Oh cute! I like Yokai ningen Bem and Ge ge ge no kitaro series. Did you find them? How many characters you can tell? Such Kewpie dolls are sort of collector's item, this shop sells over 300 kinds of costumed Kewpie. Snow White, Tut Ankh Amon, Natto, Mayo, Beer etc. But is this okay? Police car and Edamame...weird. They don't have but I think Bakatono (what is bakatono?) and Mario are cute.

Sega Joypolice is an indoor amusement park in Odaiba. They opened the U.S TV show 24(twenty hours) attraction. It's a time attack simulation game like the Gundam Crisis. To be honest with you, I have never seen the show. Should I check it?

Also I have never eaten a Megamac. Japan McDonalds has a campaign "how to eat megamac" with some well-known manga artists, they show manga artists's idea and also ask for ideas on the site. I thought I can't eat such high calories food though, we can share it as a party food like this, that's a good idea? Or you can eat it like this as if it's a hamburger dinner with salad and bread. That's funny.

Rainy season is over?

No matter how many times I see this, I am amazed. Did I link this before? . Our brain and eyes are very interesting.this picture, it looks like a diorama? But it is not a diorama, it's the real Tokyo. That is not because of sensory errors, it's from camera lens magic. He said he can take such diorama type photos with CANON TS-E. Here are other photos that look very cute. He took more such experimental photos: here are long-exposure photos. Moving things have disappeared. Here are High Dynamic Range Photos. I wonder if we remember things and places like that photo. (this is the page of HDR in wiki.)

Look at

I think the rainy season has finished in Tokyo today. Finally I can see clear blue sky but it's too hot outside. This morning, the train was a little bit less crowded than usual because summer holidays have started in school until the end of August. How about me? Here is the list of average summer holidays for workers. Australia 1.5month, Spain 1month, Sweden 25-32days, France 5weeks, Poland 46days, Germany 33days, Italy 32days, Norway 25days. Are these paid days-off or not paid? My summer vacation is paid, but guess what, it's only 5day. Actually, the average of Japan is 5 days!!! Booooooooooooooooooooooo. How long can you take it?

Last December I went to Universal Studios in CA, but it was not a great place for me (or I am too old to enjoy it or I am difficult to entertain). I have never been to Universal Studios Japan, they have some different attractions from the U.S. On the net, this became a topic: "The Real One Piece Show." Most comments complain, but I think they did a good job, at least on the poster. Talking about modifying, this one is interesting: modified Peanuts guys. I thought someone Japanese drew them, but it seems to be an American guy.

Wii and Gundam

I really envy her: "Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet." As an Internet topic, I suppose you have read this, "A subway map of web trends 2.0." The map was modified from Tokyo Metro map because the company "iA" which produced the map is located in Tokyo. By the way, "strange map" is a really interesting site. Look at this one; it is very helpful to understand the U.S for me.

I got a Wii! I have sore muscles in my shoulder because of tennis. It was fun, though I need a new game soon. Then this seems fun: "Mobile Suit Gundam MS Front 0079." At the Nintendo Wii site, I can check the movie of the game here and here. That guy who plays the game is Toru Furuya, the voice actor of Amro in the first Gundam.

I found another Gundam topic, Fujikyu High Land is an amusement park near Mt.Fuji. They have a new attraction named "Gundam Crisis". It is a sort of simulation game. You control a small pad VQ divider and boost the Gundam in the time limit. This attraction became a topic for their real-size Gundam. They released a Blog tool, and you can see it in this blog. Click the target, and a big Gumdam will show up on the site. If you like it, here is the code of the blogpart.

Talking about video games, I wonder if tricks of the game would be the same completely in the Japanese version and English version. This is the video of a trick of Dragon Quest 6. He tried to use Prohibition names several times, and finally made God angry, so that he couldn't change his name without paying 5000 gold. Do you have this?

This is a good post: "McDonald's Strange Menu Around the World." Wow, in Germany Mac serves Beer!! In Chile they use avocado sauce! Amazing. Yes, maybe the Japanese love seafood sandwiches.

Sunday night

Today was a pretty hot sunny day. I thought the rainy season was over but now we have rain.  It is good though to have a cool night breeze.

This is the great site of cutting paper. Her name is Japanese.

Some sites picked this prisoner's MJ thriller, they danced some on Japanese music too. I don7t know the music title thought.

This is funny collections of ads, intentional or unintentional

Ennnichi

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Pillowig. LOVE!

Sako Kojima is a Japanese artist, and this is her official site. Her hamster Performance is very cute. You can see the movie here. This is the best costume play (no! art) I have ever seen.

The original meaning of "Ennichi" is the related day. Like wiki says, Japanese people generally think that visiting a temple or a shrine on these holy days related to Kami and/or Buddha will bring greater fortunes than on regular days. Since people came more on these days, street stalls opened inside the grounds and outside of the Shrine like a carnival. Then Ennichi came to mean a type of small carnival now.  Here are nice photos of Ennichi. This is the food part of Ennichi.

Have you ever played Nintendo game Ennichi no Tatsujin? (Festival master)　It is a collection of small games which we usually play at Ennichi. You can see the movie here. In real Ennichi, those are like this.
Kingyo Sukui: Use the paper pad to catch goldfish from a tank.
Shateki: Use air gun to get prizes.
Yo Yo Tsuri: Use a paper string and hook onto balls in a bucket of water.

As typical Ennichi foods are Yakisoba (fried noodle), Takoyaki, Ringo Ame (candy apple), Chocolate Banana, Yakitori (grilled chicken), "American Dog" etc,. We have Ennichi more in the summer time. Actually we may say it is one summer feature. I remember I was so happy to wear a Yukata eat junk food, and be awake till late night on Ennichi days when I was a kid. These are good photos of Ennichi.