watashi to tokyo

Happy Valentain Day

I got a mail asking about Valentine Day from my co-worker again, but this year I said "no thank you". I hate the stupid Japanese Valentine Day custom to give GIRI choco. But of course I love to send any gift to people who I like and love. Don't you think this looks great?!?! If I have time enough, I will go to Mont St Clair at Jiyugaoka or Quil fait bon at Aoyama to get nice cakes, it will be nice to get various type of cake bars at Stick Sweet Factory.

It was fun to cook pound cakes with my mom when I was kid. When we divided the yolk and white, we did it just by hand. But there are Egg Separators as kitchen tools like this or this is cute. I found this duck egg separator separator and also this Hillary Clinton (?) one....orz I can never eat rice with raw egg after using this.

I really agree with this "Japan debates lowering adult age to 18" . I think this country is getting infantile. It won't be a simple issue and lowering the adult age won't solve it, but we need change! By that I mean, I am watching and I am envious the U.S seems to choose "change" now.

Ha ha ha, he is funny. All my foreign friends hate him. Do you know his younger brother Yujiro Ishihara was a very popular actor, he became fat a little later but when he was young,he was very cute.

you are shock!

Wow, he did a pretty good job :-) theme of Fist of the North Star

played this game "1o Gnomes episode" during my lunch time, but I could find only nine. Try it.

This is interesting, the US three network show a similar scene at the same time. As far as we have TV Tokyo, it won't happen in Japan. ha ha ha

I picked Tokyo in high dynamic range photos and long-exposure photos in this post. Today I found a href="http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/photographer-ca.html" target="_blank">this post in wired. Check his site: "cityshrinker". He took Japan photos and every photo looks like a miniature. Cool and cute!!

Mistuoka motor is a small but very well known auto maker. Orochi is a sort of Japanese super car, and the price is over 10,000,000yen. But this year, they will release a little bit cheaper Orochi "Orochi zero". It will cost 8,900,000 yen.

Tommy Lee Jones in Akiba

This movie got good ratings on YouTube, please check it out "JapEn - Japanese Collaboration Video".

Japan Pen Spinning association and Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy make a ball point pen for pen spinning "Pen's Gear" (of course you can write with it). Its barycenter is on the center of the pen.

Some more topics. I laughed to see this photo, "free hand head gear"...ha ha ha ha. And this is an art project "Layer Project" for uniform fetish and sentai mono fetish. And the funniest one is this. I wrote Tommy Lee Jones appears on Japanese canned coffee TV ads "Boss Rainbow" sometimes. In the latest version, he goes to a maid cafe and experiences MOE world, here it is. This guy collects (thank you!) the series of TV ads, unfortunatelly they will be deleted from YouTube sooner or later, don't miss it. :-)

Night Head

Here is TV animation series version of Night Head Genesis with English captions. That manga made into the movie. I mentioned Etushi Toyokawa would play Tomodachi in 20th century boy. He acted Naoto on Night Head.

red means

suUhaa Tokyo is a gym but their unique point is they have a ZEN room. Yoga, Acupuncture -- this gym has a lot on its oriental menu now. I have never tried ZEN, it will be nice to try once.

Anyway I couldn't find good topics to talk about today, so what about a little trivia about Japanese language. Color can be an adjective; black means dirty or suspicious right? And it is the same in Japanese too. How about gray? In Japan, we use gray as meaning confusion or unknown? Is it the same in other countries too?

I think we use red most, red means all, clear, perfect. For example, we say "真っ赤なうそ red lie", "赤恥 red shame", ""赤の他人 red stranger", "赤裸々 red bareness (this means realistic). I heard red is clear and bright, that would be the derivation. We use blue for something immature, maybe it will be the same as greenness in English. "青二才, inmature boy", "青いな, if someone says this to ayoung guy, it means you are so immature". And we say "黄色い声, yellow voice". It means young girls screaming (I hate kids' and girls' yellow voice, it must include ultrasonic sound.) There are several theories about the origin of this expression. It may come from China, where they use yellow for so young. Or during the Heian era, Buddhist scriptures had sound instruction that was written by color, and yellow meant the highest sound, etc. In your language, what colors do you use?

Job

Yeah Good job. Only three guys made the Battle of Normandy scene of Private Ryian. Anyway personally maybe I will quit my job and need new job. Anybody give me a job which I can do at home??? I am good at research job :-)  I will look for new job now!  がんばりまーす！

Murakami arts

MOCA (the museum of comtemporary art LA) has @Murakami, that is an exhibition featuring more than 90 works of Takashi Murakami. This is funny news, a panel of the exhibition was jacked by Eklips AWR/MSK. They did the same to Puffy before too. I like it! Do you know Murakami learned Nihonga "Japanese-style paining", his flat work based on his such knowledge. I found this interesting article "How Japanese style Illustration works", the guy talked about Murakami's flatness and Ukiyoe. Check it out.

I found Yuji Moriguchi on pingmag too. His Showa mood, erotic illustrations are interesting. He would be influenced by erotic Ukiyoe ; Shunga too. Moriguchi draw octopus often, octopus used as motif in Shunga. This is Japanese specters by Morigushi, nice! By the way, his "lovely" sliding doors are すごいね。

Death Note one shot & miserable Gundam

Death Note will return this Friday as a one-shot story on Weekly Shonen Jump.  It will be a 44-page short story. I think I will buy the magazine. :-)

Do you know the PS real movie game "0079: War for Earth"? I heard about it before but I have never seen it, Today I found a blog talking about it and they show movie on the YouTube........Sorry, but so bad, especially Char!!.
GUNDAM 0079 The War For Earth
GUNDAM 0079 The War For Earth Part2
GUNDAM 0079 The War For Earth Part3
By the way, that Char has a chin like him. Those types of chins are called "Ketsu ago" in Japanese slang. Ketsu means butt and ago means chin. Hahaha, I think such a chin is sexy, but Japanese guys hardly have it.

Japan Muji has KUSO (imagination ) MUJI where people send product ideas and also vote for good ideas. If the item gets 1000 votes on the site, it will be a product in  MUJI stores. Transparant sticky note had 1000 votes and finally started to sell in the store.. I like this so I voted to this extention code, very cute and match to interior. Now this mirror message magnet board got 280 votes, that's good idea too.*

20th Century Boys

Today's most impressive photos form New York Times. Wow, great. It is really nice to build a hosue by yourself. I hope I can try if I hav enough knowledge and skill.

Japan amazon has a OTAKU store. I wonder if other countries have something like it in their Amazon?

Koi Kulb is either an art project or a real club in Berlin. I am not sure either way, but he uses Japanese carp KOI as an art motif. The site is very cool.

Anime face Japanese love doll, heigh is 140cm, weight is 24kg. You can choose brest size 75cm or 68cm. Their popular costumes are maid or school exercise wear or swim wear...orz sick..

Do you remember? I wrote that my one of favorite manga the 20th century boys will be made into a film and it will be released on summer this year. Toshiaki Karasawa acts as KENJI. Etsushi Toyokawa will be TOMODACHI? (I don't know who is TOMODACHI though, actually I didn't check the new chapter after that strange endding), Takako Tokiwa is YUKIJI(?) hmm. Like I mentioned sometimes, I didn't watch Death Note because I don't want to disappointed ( and I know I will be if I watch it ). So I am not sure I am glad or not to know this news. Their official site has only short TV spot movie and they need extra for the movie. If you are living in Kanto area and have some interests, try??

Japaneseque Modren is the collection project to exemplify the Japanesque Modern concept, existing market products and content that reflect the concept. They were selected by the Japanesque Modern Council. The collection started in 2006 and from J001 to J053 were slected in 2006. They picked traditional Japanese style like this chopsticks or omikuji, new idea products like Cup Noodle or washlet, high tech products like camera orrobots, eco products like Prius or Aquos, and also new type culture like final final fantasy or Nintendo DS. From J054 to J116 were selected last year and they don't have English page yet, here is the result.*

Gyoza

Tow cute animals topicS

Two cute animal topics. Dumbo fell down. I have never seen the bottom of elephant's foot. Ahh cute...his hairy back is cute too. Another one is this cat and dog, the cat want to play with him. Cute too.

For Rio's five-day Carnival, Brazilian model Angela Bismarchi has her 42nd plastic surgery. It's closing in on the Guinness World Record of 47 surgical procedures held by 52-year-old "Cindy Jackson". And this time she will change into Japanese like to celebrate this year: the centennial of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Here is the result. Hmm not so bad, but appearently she is foreigner. I don't think she didn't need to do that...By the way both ladies are beautiful, may there will be scar on her head and back of ear lobe, they had really good job. WHY?

Since yesterday, this news is big."China-made dumplings sicken". were sick and big restaurant chains say they will stop using food made in China. I want to be nervous, but I should be careful to buy food at the supermarket now. As instant dumplings, I like Dumplings by Ajinomoto. But I must tell you my hand made are best :-p. Here is my recipe:

Chop long onions, garlic chives, boiled cabbage, and garlic, and mix them with minced pork. Add soy sauce, salt, pepper and sesame oil, then wrap them with dough. Cook with pan, steam first with a lot of water and after the water is gone, cook with high heat, so that the top of the dough can be soft and the bottom can be crispy. Try it. By the way, Utusnomiya city in Tochigi Pref is well known as Dumpling city, there are many and various type of Dumpiling restaurant.