watashi to tokyo

matatabi

This cat really loves the smell of curry rice. He has to melt down to smell it. So cute. I know cats are weak for 'matatabi'. (Actinidia), but I have never seen such a cat that's weak for curry rice.

Zenkoji is a well known temple in Nagano pref. Today, they pulled out of plans to host a ceremony for the Olympic torch relay because of concerns over Tibet. I support their decision; I hope their official web site won't get any cyber attacks.

Shift has a nice street fashion collection: '1000 girls' page. I think Japanese girls are much more fashionable than before. What do you think?

IDEE is one of my favorite interior shops. They opened a new shop in Jiyugaoka in June. I checked their online shop today, IDEE is a rare shop where we can buy productss by Swedish designer Lisa Larson and UK's artist Donna Wilosn's cute stufedf animals. This one can be dark joke 'lung ashtray', you can think of it as an ironic dirty lung and also it's a word play in Japanese. Ash tray is HAI (灰 ash) ZARA(皿 tray) in Japanese. Lung is also HAI (肺) and they have the same pronunciation. The name of the tray is HAI ZARA(肺皿).

three hours

I met my friend in Ebisu and ate Okinawa food then went to standing wine bar. I rode the train around 9 pm and I should have arrived at home about one hour later. BUT it took three hours because my line stopped; somebody had thrown himself in front of the train. After two and half hours later, rescue workers finally helped him and checked the train and the station staff said 'we will start to run the train' but soon again he announced 'now somebody is walking on the railway, we have to wait to check that everything is okay'....orz....Finally I got at home around midnight. So tired.

Customers who bought this item also bought.......

I often read articles that someone commited suicide by hydrogen sulfide in Japan. I couldn't understand why they can get such a poisonous gas, then some said a manual "how to make hydrogen sulfide from some toilet cleaner" was up on the Internet. Sanpore is a very well known toilet cleaner in Japan. Please check the Sanpore page of Amazon Japan and see "Customers who bought this item also bought.......orz. Those books are "suicide manual", "abscondence manual", "145 cases of suicide" ....

Nigo is the famous designer of A Bathing Ape. I am not sure who made this video, maybe BBC? They show Nigo's house. Wow great!!!

Manga zenkan.com is an online shopping site where you can buy entire manga series at once. Now they have released their best sellers from 2007. Here is the ranking of their the best 20.
1.Crows(1-26)
2.Nodame Cantabile(1-20)
3.Hanazakari no kimitachi he(1-23)
4.One-piece(1-49)
5.Dragon Ball(1-42)
6.Hanayori Dango(1-36)
7.Hana no yoshitzugu(1-15)
8.Slam dunk(1-31)
9.JoJo's Bizarre Adventure(1-63)
10.Worst(1-19)
Naruto (1-41) is No.12, Death Note(1-12) is No.13. *

busy day.

I am sorry for the short post. I am still busy job hunting, so no time to write a long post :-(.

These two are the most impressive articles for me today. One is the Real life Garfield. And this video of a guy who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours.

Golgo 13 t-shirt will be released from UNIQLO in June. I want it!!! The old guy model is the writer of Golgo13. Nice!!

Boooooooooooooooooo. When some good manga is to be made into a film, I always say that I hope it will be made in Hollywood. Actually I hoped that Death Note and 20th Century Boy would be made in Hollywood rather than in Japan, because I was really disappointed by Japanese movies in the past like Casshaern or Devil man. BUT at any rate, even in Hollywood, I didn't want anybody to touch Ghost in the Shell. However, Steven Spielberg got the right to make it film. Did you know that? And talking about movies, Tetris was made into movie? Is this teaser true?

Top 50 most non religious nations

This is very interesting research: "Top 50 Most Non-Religious Nations". Sweden is on top, No.2 is Vietnam, No.3 is Denmark, and No.4 is Norway. Apparently, Northern European countries are non-religious nations. Then, Japan is No.5. I don't know how they did this ranking, what kind of research, or what kinds of questions they used. I may agree that the Japanese are not very religious. Many Japanese don't have any religious customs like going to church on Sunday or praying at a certain time of the day. I guess Japan is ranked so high because all textbooks teach "evolution". Here is another ranking: "Did human beings develop from animals?" In this ranking, Japan is No.5 and Northern European countries are above us again. France is No. 4, but it looks like they follow the Geocentric model, not Heliocentrism. Here is a video from Youtube: quiz millionaire.

But I would like to say that the Japanese are very open to many religions and we don't have any strict images, rules, or limits of religion. Christ is "kamisama" (god), Buddha is a some kind of "kamisama" (not really, but we don't care and we don't have such clear distinctions, even in Buddhism), a set of seven different "Kamisama", Sun is "kamisama", forest is "kamisama", snake is "kamisama", etc.

What do you think about Japan?

I got mail from a guy who plans to make a TV show about foreign people who have an interest in Japan. I'm trying to help him.

Could you give me comments about this? I really appreciate your help. What do you think about Japan and which part of Japan interests you the most? Where did you go in Japan or where do you want to go in Japan most? Tell me anything about Japan.

On comments or mail, both are fine.
Thanks!!

denny's in Japan

cute!! Gizmo Boxing Cat

Ha ha ha, this is funny: "Sexy toilet has naked models!" A beautiful mannequin will watch as you are doing that.

I picked thes flying Penguins for April fool of BBC. Here is the making of that video.

This is a nice collection "Matsuri", you can see the costumes of local festivals in Japan. Click next in the lower right.

Do you know Denny's in Japan are run by 7-Eleven. Of course Denny's in Japan has a compeletely different menu and prices from the U.S.  Today I read this news "UPDATE 3-Profit drops at Japan's Seven & I, sees recovery", aa lot of Denny's will be closed. I don't know about Denny's in the U.S. But I agree. Yes, I guess, they can't match consumer choice now. The price is high, the selection on the menu is not so great. And some places are really getting old, etc. I won't choose Denny's basically.

Chara ben

I can't have any time to write a blog on my lunch time now. But I will be back the regular way soon, sorry for the short post.

Ken has a really interesting post. How many credit cards do you have in Japan. About over 50% of people have three or more, but 17% of people have only one. Actually I have only two,I use credit card on amazon or such online shopping but I still pay in cash mainly at shop.super working robot video video last night. That is That is IRB 340 of ABB..　Today I found this blog "Zamak". Their robot has more texture like skin (and nipple and berrybutton). Cooooool!!

I said I am a robot fetishist. I don't know how many times I wrote about that. I didn't pick it, but I was so happy to see this

Sanrio produced "Sanrio character Bento Grand prix 2008". It means they choose the best Obento having a Sanrio Character motif. We call such designed Bento "Chara Ben". (I picked chara ben sites before like this and this.) These are the winners of Sanrio chara ben 2007, and this is the champion of 2008.

Good by cui daore

Two familiar things will disappear soon. orange train car of Chuo line. All train cars will be changed to a new type silver color with orange lines. I wrote about the reason why Chuo line had so many suicide accidents before. For me, that dark orange color always looked gloomy.

Another one is Cui Daore doll and the restaurant at Dotonbori in Osaka. The restaurant got to be old and, so they will close in July. The doll "Taro" was the symbol of the restaurant, so he will retire also. Osaka people will miss him, he was the symbol of colorful Dotonbori too. too.

Meet me is a Japanese 3d virtual community, and it will open soon. I have never used Second Life and I don't have an interest to do that, so I won't use Meet me, but it will be fun to look around 3D Tokyo one time. They said they made it from car navigation system data. So Tokyo would be very real. The funny part is that they said you can get some passive service "Meet me". It will mean Japanese people are not good at acting positive just like talking, asking, trying something in such a virtual community. When you go to Second Life and someone runs away from you when you say hello, it will be a Japanese person?!

It will be film

This is the best news I found today. 'The Masai warriors' guide to England . Talking about Masai, I am thinking to get these Masai Barefoot technology shoes. They don't look cool and expensive, but I heard they are good for your body position. I have poor posture, in Japanese we say 'NEKOZE', it means cat back.

Ah がんばって! ex MEGADETH guitaristMarty Friedmad has a Japanese blog and he updated the page after one month blank. I am happy to read he enjoys life in Japan.｡｡By the way, there is no _expression in English for がんばって (gambatte) in Japanese. Gambatte is the word to cheer somebody, including the meaning of do your best, don't give up, hang in there. My American friend said he doesn't like to be told 'Gambatte' because he senses some pressure on the word. He wants to relax but gambatte sounds like it doesn't accept failure. I understand what he said and actually the derivation of Gambaru is 'assert oneself', so gambaru includes some pushiness. But I think we use it depending on the situation. Some people said to me gambatte for job hunting. I was happy to read them because they said 'go mari go!!' right? Thank you !

Hmm, interesting art. The illustration is the combination of Japanese traditional arts and high school girls. Here is the gallery page, what do you think?｡｡She used Hanafuda as her motif. Hanafuda is a Japanese card game and it's very addictive. Its rules are very easy and its design is beautiful, it would be nice for souvenirs and of course you can play it online. Ha ha, Nintendo released their Hanafuda with Mario!

Noooooo!! Japanese urban legend 'Kuchisake Onna' has been made into a film. Here is the top page and you will see a trailer (horrible). Of course I won't watch it. I read the legend went to South Korea a few years ago, then Korean people know about Kuchisake Onnna.

Really? The Hachiko story will be made into a film in Hollywood starring Richard Gere....Hmm, it is a good story but can it be a film? When you visit Shibuya (the big screen place in the movie 'lost in translation') the place , you can see a statue of Hachiko in front of the JR Shibuya Station. I was bored in Shibuya, actually my family lived there for a long time before ww2. My grandma saw Hachiko at Shibuya station on the way to her high school every day. She said she gave some snacks to him but she didn't know he would be such a famous dog in the future. Actually her impression of Hachiko was just a dirty lazy dog sleeping every day in the station.