watashi to tokyo

smile

Smile!! it's a miracle of nature with birds.

Sorry, I was pretty busy today and I couldn't write. Anyway, I've just started to look for a translating English to Japanese job (trust me, my translating is much better than my English writing!!) and Japanese proofreading job. Please send an email to me, if you have a job that I qualify for. Mari Kanazawa

SAC cafe

Ha ha ha, this sumo match looks like a super fight. But I can tell real sumo is really great, it doesn't need any special effects. I don't like entertainment fights like Pro-wrestling or recent show-type matches in Japan. Look at this, that giant guy with dummy is an ex-Yokozuna (sumo champion Akebono). Hmm, pitiful.

These are just cooking toys for kids, but they look very nice! 'Home Sweet Doughnut' makes baked doughnuts with cake mix in your kitchen microwave. Non-fried, they can't be called doughnuts, but it's much better about calories. And this is good too: 'I love chips'. You can make chips in the microwave without frying. That's lower-calorie, too. Potatoes, apples, any veggie would be good. Did you know lotus chips are really good, too? Try it.

Mitsuya cider is a clear cider (soda) that I loved when I was a kid. Since I drink non-calorie Coke or Pepsi only, I hardly ever drink it now. I found their web site has some recipes with cider. I knew and wrote that you can cook delicious pork with coke in your rice cooker. Since cider is clear, there are more variations. I like the cider salad dressing idea with lemon juice, salt, pepper, mustard and olive oil. I guess kids would love to eat salad with that. Cider pickles is good too, boiled vegetable pickle in cider, vinegar and soup stock. Try them with some clear cider.

Ah! talking about clear cider, we have KIRIN LEMON too.  Last year, Production IG made their TV ad. Here it is. There was another version in this series that got a TV ad award in Holland; I am still looking for that one. By the way, Cure maid is a maid cafe in Akihabara. They sometimes have event weeks, last one was Evangelion week. They serve Misato curry or such eva-related food. This time, it will be Ghost in the shell stand alone complex; they will serve laughing man hotcakes, Tachikoma Jelly, etc,.and sell SAC items. Now Japan's official SAC site shows a 'TACHIKO MAP', you can see many Tachikoma in real life, click next and new on the snap memo. CUTE!! I love Tachikoma.

Cherry Blossom season

This year Cherry Blossoms started to bloom earlier. In Kansai area, this weekend will be the peak. JR has a nice Kyoto campaign TV ad, Nanzen temple is well known for its great view with Cherry Blossoms. Talking about Kyoto, I found this Shop near my house: 'Karan Koron Kyoto'. They sell Kyoto concept items, one of them is this paste perfume. I love the cherry one. It's a nice souvenir for girls.

In Makuhari, a new rest area opened on Keiyo Road. Daily Portal z reported on 'Makuhari Pasar'. Wow it looks like a food court!!. In Tokyo, the biggest food court would be okawari jp in Tokyo midtown. You can enjoy various kinds of food from all over the world. Actually it would be good for foreign people because you can try many types of Japanese food in small portions. I recommend the place.

I sometimes mentioned Utagawa Kuniyoshi as my favorite Ukiyoe artist. The ones I like the best are the Goldfish series; I like the cat series, too. Today I found this Page: Tanuki series. Tanuki is a Japanese word for a raccoon-dog animal. Maybe you know about Tanuki from the Ghibli animation movie 'Pom Poko'. I wrote about Tanuki in this post; Tanuki is the most popular motif for Shigaraki pottery with a cute face, a bottle of alcohol and his 'big bag'. Kuniyoshi's ukiyoe overdramatizes its size. Look at this, Tanuki use their bag as a carrier, a hunting net, a fishing net, an umbrella....ha ha ha ha ha I like this kind of Edo-people humor.

Sachiko

Wow!! I am happy Japan is the third 'The world's flags given letter grades'.  Their comments are funny. Check it out.

Dog Prays at Japanese Zen Temple. Ha ha ha, cute dog.  He didn't have any training.  The dog learned it naturally by watching him.

The Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development releases 'This year's new recruit type' every year. It means JPC-SED makes up a pattern for new recruits to describe their disposition. Last year, it was 'Day trader type'. Because of an economic upturn, many companies took a bumper crop of college graduates, but graduates hunted jobs on their minor pluses and minuses, and short-term trading ( changing job) is expected. They have their own network via the Internet but they should have discreetness without being swayed by information. In 2006, it was 'Blog type', He looks friendly, polite, obedient. But suddenly he may make statements on the Internet via his blog diary. He may have delicate sensitivity and a community network on the Internet, but he might talk on the blog only. This year's new face type is 'Curling'.  If you stopped brushing, it will speed down or stop soon. You really need to take care always...orz

This is an interesting article. 'Name game: Elizabeth, James top British success poll'. If we had the same poll, what would be the top? But I guess the most unlucky female name would be 'Sachiko 幸子'. I guess people have such a negative image for Sachiko and actually we have such a song Sachiko where is an unhappy girl. But you know the meaning of Sachiko is 'a happy child'. The most well known Japanese female name will be Yoko. The meaning of Yoko depends on which Kanji is used for the name. Ono Yoko 洋子 is a child of ocean, 陽子 is a child of Sun, 葉子 is a child of green. There are more and more different meanings for Yoko. Since even the same sounding names have differences in Japan, I read Japan has a much larger numbers of names than other countries. So it is very hard to have some common image for names (Sachiko is a rare case). Actually I have no idea about a lucky or unlucky guy's name.

How to order in Yoshinoya

Chinese Authorities Place 'Wanted' Posters For Tibetan Rioters On Web Portals. I think it is good timing that China has the Olympics this year. People pay attention to the news more.

Ah great, vegetable and bread! carving.

I ride Odakyu line every day, I ride this cute train often.

Grave of the Fireflies will be made into a real film. This is the official page. Oh well, I will never never see it, almost tears come up to see the top page of the site. I am very weak for such sad stories.

Have you ever been to Yoshinoya? I am not a big fan of the shop, but my friend loves 'Yoshi Gyu' (we say 'Yoshi Gyu' it stand for Yoshinoya Gyudon = beef bowl). He says the shop where he goes to often remembers what he likes. It means, in Yoshinoya, there are only three beef bowls on the menu. 'Nami (regular)', 'Omori (large)' and 'Tokumori (extra large)'. Actually that is just the size menu. But you can request your type beef bowl like 'Tsuyu-daku (more soup)', 'Negi-daku (more onion)', 'Negi-nuki(no onion)', 'Tsume shiro (cold rice)', 'Toro nuki( no fat part of meat)' etc. So there are only three menu items, though there are 72 ways to order in Yoshinoya. I am not sure all Yoshinoya shops accept such orders, though you may try when you go there.

I will go Oden restaurant tonight

Slashdot says some NGO sites had cyber attacks.  Hate that news. Ah I want to go to this 'mode exhibition' at the Metropolitan Museum. I fell in love with this Oyster Dress, it is just a work of art!

Hmm ridiculous...Real Mario and real Homer and this is real kitty real kitty.

I found this strange old Japanese TV ad of athlete's foot remedy. But why do you call it athlete's foot? We say MIZU-MUSHI (water insect). I read that many farmers who worked in the rice field had athlete's foot and they guessed some insects lived in the water and caused the itchinessa, and that is why we call it mizu-mushi.

In Akihabara, a funny English lesson school opened. It's cosplish, where cosplaying foreign people teach English. Here is their official site. The site has many foreign Otaku site links. 'Anime That' is a big download site and Otaku Times is an otaku magazine in London! very useful links.

I will go to 'Nerimaru' which is an 'Oden' and Japanese noodle soba restaurant. Nerimaru was named from neri-mono; neri-mono means kneaded food (we say surimi). For example, in Oden there is fried kneaded tofu 'Ganmo', steamed kneaded fish paste 'Chikuwa' (Kamaboko and Naruto maki are similar food), fish mince 'tsumire' etc etc various knead food. We don't call Japanese soba noodles nerimono though, probably because it's made from soba dough. When we eat Oden at home, we buy an Oden set or each item and cook them in a pot. Convenience stores in Japan keep hot Oden pots and sell Oden in the winter season, so we can buy it cooked there, too. Maybe those oden pots will disappear at the end of this month, and then finally spring has come. By the way, my favorite Oden item is 'egg'; the egg turns brown and tasty by soaking in the broth in the Oden pot. (and it can be cute too!)

lazy day

どうも～休み明けでノラクラ仕事してます。

Yesterday was General holiday (Spring day), tomorrow is weekend. I am being "very" lazy at work today. Such day, I enjoy very easygoing flash program like this and this...Or I checked the web site for aliens. (nice access map to the earth!), you know how I am lazy mood today.

I like this see this site Nikkei Style. I can see various custom house. It is not so unusual to order the house in Japan. I want to one when I got really old and decied to stay one place. I like no129, no120, no106 and no91. I need minimam simple house. I know I need sunshine and shadow, and also small space make me relax. *

This is the collection for a request "give me 切ない(Setsunai) pics". Tell me what is the closest English word for "setsunai". Setsunai means....how can I say .... sweet, sour and fragile and a little bit nostalgic? Japanese use sour like green(not mature) in Einglishi. Remember your first happy kiss, it's your "sweet sore" memory. I realized the school related pics hit me against to my expectations. especially evening school room in sepia setting sun. By the way, do you feel setsunai for them??? I wonder those how those pics look for foreign people and I want to see the same collections in other countries. How do I feel for that? *

what is www?

May Mr. Arthur Clarke's soul rest in peace.
By the way, talking about death, I found this today '30 Strangest Deaths in History.'

Ha! 'www' what is this? Of of course, it is world wide web right? But on the Internet research, 43.1% of people in their 30s and 61.2% of people in their 20s, in general 47% of Japanese internet users replied 'it is a big laugh'. Of course I thought it was world wide web. Okay, I am not in my 20s actually wwww.｡｡Anyway, do only Japanese use the www mark as laughing? We use www as a big laugh and (w as a small cynical laugh.

This is a movie of 'Big Dog' that is a walking robot with four legs. Great? Looks weird? As a robot fetishist, I am very impressed at his hard working. (Especially the scene of walking on ice! It almost made my tears come up.) I read the Pentagon supported this project, and maybe it would be made for military purposes. But since it's so cute, I hope they give it something like 'a head' and I wish they remade it as a pet robot.

Yasumasa Morimura is a Japanese artist. His art work is a self portrait that inserts his own face and body into other's portrait on photos or paintings. Here is the official site and this site has some actress series. Interesting! It's not an issue of fake or unique, he seems to get into each character and something new appears on the work.

UNICLO will release the boys' comic 'Shonen Sunday' and 'Shonen Magazine' T-shirt for their 50th anniversary. We can buy old manga character T-shirts. It'll be interesting for the US or UK or other countries that UNICLO has such collaboration. I hope US UNICLO will make Hanna Barbera T-shirts. I want a The Herculoids one (I loved it). In London, how about collaborating with tube posters? Their ads are great. When I visited London, I got always a lot of postcards of those ads.

I use Vista at home. Actually I hate it, I want to delete programs as quickly as I install them. Why is this so troublesome!! By the way, this is a toilet paper with the Vista function guide. You can study about Vista in the bathroom! After learning, wipe your 'ass' and down the toilet. :-p

Japanese women love guy's pink shirt

I found this toon "the life of Buddha" on YouTube. He said "This movie is produced in celebration of Thai King Bumibol's 80th birthday. It will be shown on all Thai Cinemas on the King's birthday of December 5, 2007. The animation is by Thai Media Co., Media Standard. You can see more about the movie at "the life of Buddha. net". The character looks like a Disney toon, but it is a nice idea that we can know his life by animation. Actually I could know Buddha's life by manga "Buddha" of Osamu Tezuka. I learned about Buddha in history class. though I could understand very well and easier by manga.

Did you see this "A life for sale." A guy who got divorced sells his house, furniture, friends, everything. This is interesting, an internet site had an inquiry survey of working women. The question was "what is your favorite color for a guy's shirt?" Here is the result.
1.White
2.Light Blue
3.Off White
4.Pink
5.Blue
6.Gray
7.Chacole Gray
8.Yellow
9.Light Purple
10.Beige
Yes, Japanese women like to see a guy wearing a pink shirt fashionably. But I know my American friend never ever wore pink, he said it's gay stuff. Actually I found this on Urban Dictionary and also this one on yahoo answer. But I guess in Europe, Italian or French guys will wear pink without a problem. How about other countries??

Nice music video

This is the minimum prison Justizzentrum leoben in Austria. Wow, the room is bigger than a small apartment room in Tokyo.

A Japanese band 'The Back Horn' released two beautiful music videos for their son 'Utsukushi namae' (beautiful name), here is a march version, another one is a lighter version. Check them out.

Google Japan started 'iGoogle artists'. You can pick a Google background from Japanese artist themes. I picked astro boy by Osamu Tezuka today. There are more: A BATHING APE by NIGO, half Panda by Nagi Noda, architect Kengo Kuma, etc. I can't wait for other countries' iGoogle.