Golden Week has started!

Golden Week has started. I will be off tomorrow. I am super happy now!

This is a good idea, people support elderly people who live alone. In Kyoto, elderly people hang up a red rose ornament around their entrances in the morning and take it off in the evening, so that neighbour people can know they are okay. When the rose is not there, somebody visits to check them out.

This is a Japanese Anatomical chart. Hmm, gross, but those pictures have some mood.

Since I don't go to KFC, I didn't know KFC Japan had changed their logo. Just a few years ago, many shops used the old logo. But they didn't change this part: The life-size statue of Colonel Harland Sanders stands outside of every one of the more than 1,000 KFC outlets in Japan, and is dressed for the season as Santa Claus, in a jolly red-and-white suit. And in Akiba, he wears maid clothes. Is this okay?

I am eating this chesnut as snack now. We say 'Ama Guri', ama means sweet and guri (kuri) means chestnut. I love this because it has natural sweetness. But my American friend said it has no taste. Japan, China and some Europe countries eat chesnuts as snacks. Americans don't eat them? Amaguri is an old snack but usually it was sold with hard skin. That chesnuts snack could be popular because they sell it without skin. Actually the name of the snack is 'Amaguri Muichaimashita!' It means I removed the skin of chestnuts. And it is one of a natural sweet series. There are Edamame (I pulled out the edamame from the skin!), Corn (I removed the corn kernels from cob!), Sweet potatoes (I cooked potatoes!), etc. We couldn't eat those outside before, because we needed to cook them to eat and they were hard to eat with skins. And also we had an image amaguri was a drunk father's small gift, edamame was a snack for beer, and sweet potatoes were a lonely snack, because they makes farts. But now we can enjoy those anywhere because of the natural sweet series in a small package, small portions, cut into small pieces without skins. Good.

Comments

[coach bags]

I LOVE this! SO cute!*

[Chris Kuan]

Actually I think the smell of roasting chestnuts is better than the taste. But I have Chinese ancestry so I see chestnut snacks also.

[mari]

Chestnuts roasting !! okay thanks, then you think it's sweet?

[Chris Kuan]

English-speaking people will know this song very well - "The Christmas Song" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Song) whose first line is "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."

[Heidi]

Sweet potatos make you fart?? Thanks for the warning, Mari-san! ;) I will remember to avoid sweet potato snacks. Does miso have the same effect? Just a cultural question for ya:

In North America, many folks keep matches in the bathroom. When you make a big stink, you light a match or two and the smell magically disappears - you smell burnt match instead of nasty crap. Do folks in Japan use matches as bathroom air fresheners?

[Magpie Jen]

Actually, roasted chestnuts are a traditional Christmas treat. At Christmas time in New York City, street vendors sell them from their carts. The delicious smell always brings back memories of going in to NYC as a kid with my family to go see the big store's Christmas window displays.

[Juan]

"... sweet potates were lonely snack, because it makes farts"

Pure Genius! You are the best, Mari! :-)

some americans just simply have no taste... or they have masacred their tastebuds with burger-rpizza-bacon hi-sodium extravaganca...
met a couple from boston who said they were craving for a genuine italian pizza (no actually the american italian pizza) instead of 京食 which in their opinion was tasteless too...