watashi to tokyo

mint case

In Japan, Baskin Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery are battling now. Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors Ice Cream says their copy is "We make people happy" since 1977, I can't find that part, but this blog wrote the details about them. And do you know Cold Stone Creamary has the copy "we will make people happy"? Baskin Robbins Japan turned to the courts to request Cold Stone stop the copy because such similar copy will cause the loss of business profits. I guess people's impression for this news would be as a struggle to survive. I have never tried Cold Stone Creamery yet, but I will this summer because I will work at Roppongi Hills, which has the first Cold Stone Creamery shop in Japan.

A nice toy will be released soon by BANDAI. It's "aqua drop". You put a drop of water on the board and play it. Check the movie in the middle of the page.

I like mints. I love to eat them, and also foreign mints are nice for souvenirs of foreign travel. Price is good, size is good, and they have cute packages. But I realized I hardly find "mint cases". I found one here, but another mint case in Google showed "broken ipod shuffle" (good idea though) and "fake Nintendo". In Japan, various types of mint cases are sold in shops like this. Since mint cases are sort of a fashion item, this one cost $80!. I don't need it, I would love to buy mint if I pay $80. My favorite mint is "frente Pinky peach", the worst one would be dark chocolate dipped cinamon. I really like the Altoids package, they had a good promotion with that package before "Tin Million Uses", you can see some here still now. And the strangest mint was "Mirrorno" ( mints got in a line inside!), but I can't find it in the shop anymore.

Cloudy afternoon in Tokyo

Some good topic from around the world:
Most Interesting Bookstores of the World. Great! Unfortunately I have never heard of such nice or academic-mood bookstores in Japan. I loved to go to bookstores before, but now I buy books only from the used bookstore "Book Off" or Amazon.

This is interesting: NEST project in Rotterdam. He made a nest on a building, here is a movie.
I was knocked out by this cute balloon man. Photos 4 to 9 are of the cute yellow balloon man, there's a movie too. Cuuuute. The site has many good public art projects and I found this one: "Growing Gardener". I knew about it and I often saw it from the Yamanote line everyday.

Have you ever tried KAITEN SUSHI (Conveyor belt sushi)? Thinking about price, it's not so bad, but unfortunately the quality of the sushi isn't great, and even though they use fresh fish, the sushi must dry out while its rotating. At some sushi-go-rounds, you can order sushi from a directory, I really recommend such places if you want to try a sushi-go-round place in Japan. I wrote my recommendations before, so check it out too. In Shinagawa, a new type of standing sushi bar, you choose coins and show them to the sushi chef, you can eat fresh sushi without speaking your order, and the price is very very reasonable. It is nice if you can read Japanese, but even if you can't read Japanese, it will be fun, you can enjoy choosing like gambling.

McDonalds Japan started a NINTENDO Spot service at 21 shops in the Tokyo area. There, you can download special McDonalds programs and enjoy their news, free games and samples of other DS games. Starting May 30th, they will give out new techniques wirelessly to your Pikachu of "Pokemon Diamond and Pearl". Talking about NINTENDO, a baby in the nurturing simulation game "HELLO BABY" is too real and is not cute at all. But some said that the scariest baby is in Drakengard. Here is a movie. Ah nightmare...

Subliminal

Brian sent me this funny news: Dog misses planted drugs in Japan, customs embarrassed. I like the comments attached to the news. "Some random traveler received a very special gift.  No doubt Japan will become an even more popular vacation spot from now on ;-)". Exactly.

That is very interesting: Subliminal message in KFC's TV ad. Does it mean "only one dollar"? And is it okay to do that on TV in the US? Subliminal messages are banned by broadcasting rules. The rule was fixed in 1995. When some members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo were arrested after the Tokyo sarin gas attacks, TBS had a special TV documentary about Aum, where they inserted many photos of Shoko Asahara in the show to impress the show upon its audience. It was big news and TBS apologized later. In another case, Asahara's photo was inserted into the anime "City Hunter 3 #11" (his photo had the worst but the strongest impression upon people in those days) and NTV apologized later. Inserting some unrelated cut into regular cuts of shows was used in Japanese animation as a joke since 1980 in "Urusei Yatsura". But after the TBS and NTV incidents, NHK and NACB banned subliminal messages as part of their broadcasting rules.

However, even now we still sometimes find subliminal messages on TV. This is one of JOCX network's ending messages; they aired this one at the end of the broadcasting day at night. JUGLE was their copy in those days. I have no idea why they chose a rotting heart. By the way, you can see the word "AIDS" on the heart. More recently, in the opening theme song of the animation "Area 88", some naked falling people and the words "war" and "attack" were inserted. Since they deleted these pics and photos after they caught this subliminal message, I am not sure if this version has the images or not. If it is not public broadcasting, I guess there is no rule for using subliminal messages. So we could be watching them without knowing it at theaters or in videos. This is a well known one: "Evangelion scene with many subliminal messages." In that scene, you can see many gloomy subliminal messages: "Hirono died" and 2ch dark messages, etc.

Rabbits....

This is so funny "making movie of TV ad with rabbits". Rabbits don't care about cameras, they do their own business anywhere anytime.

Brian sent me this "some new photos from the Dragonball live action film they're making". Ha! I can sense Justin Catwin doesn't understand Dragon Ball. Sounds like he wishes he could act in Star Wars. Anyway we will see what happens.

Look at this article from the UK "Mysterious object seen flying over Southampton". Of course we know it's the 5th Angel Ramiel. Hmm, how can we survive without Eva?

This is so thin! I will let the thin building collection guy know about this one. I realized I didn't (strange building, funny room and Thomason) recently. I will soon.

You can make miracle

Ohhhhh Cooooooool "The Skeleton Bar" in Gruyere, Switzerland. It has a Goth and also cosmic mood. Bones are so elegant...Totally cool.

Nagi Noda's new artwork for the New Marunouchi Building 1 year anniversary. Lovely.

I knew sub-culturist Jun Miura loves Buddha statues. He released some books and JR west asked him to introduce Nara on their web page. Then I read Buddha statues are getting a boom for people too. Look at this site "Buddha Love", it looks like an anime goods store or something but it's an online shop of Buddha statues. Each costs 20000 yen or so... Hmmm, young people love and buy them?? Like people wear crosses as fashion, you put Buddha statues as interior decorating in your room.

I love this post "Our imminent wonder affairs" . I picked some. Although they call them miracles, each affair has some reason. I did them all and I could make it. You will make it too. Try it.
A hanger trick:
1. Put a wire hanger against your temple.
2. Your neck will automatically move.

A slight stimulation makes your body flexible:
1. Bend yourself forward and try to put both palms on the floor.
2. Check how flexible your body is.
3. Poke your wrist with a toothpick 10 - 20 times.
4. Bend yourself again; you can stretch much further than before.

Invisible ropes on wrists:
1. Let a person stand (or sit) with his eyes closed in a relaxed manner.
2. Cross his wrists so the right hand is on top and tap both wrists two times.
3. Cross his wrists so the left hand is on top and tap his wrists two times again.
4. You pretend to tie a rope on each of the person's wrists.
5. You pretend to pull up on those ropes.
6. His arms will rise automatically.

Four forefingers can raise a person:
1. Let the person sit down on the floor or in a chair.
2. Have four people grasp the person's hands with their forefingers.
3. Have two people put their forefingers under the person's arm and the other two people put their fingers under the person's knees. Try to raise the person. (of course you can't)
4. Have the four people hold their palms above the person's head without touching each other.
5. Lift the person again and you will be able to raise him this time.
You can see the trick performed in this video. Friends did it as part of someone's wedding ceremony.

Toyota won't use powerpoint.

Flying fish clocks 45 second record

I think this is a good idea, multifunctional mouse pad. I need more USB ports actually.

Wired has an article about Hiroyuki Nishimura, he started 2ch. The title is good: "Meet Hiroyuki Nishimura, the Bad Boy of the Japanese Internet"

Do you know "Toyota Production System"? We say "Toyota shiki". Toyota is well known for streamlining operations. The goals of the TPS are to design out overburden (muri) and inconsistency (mura), and eliminate waste (muda). I heard the number of steps that staff walk between the two points in the factory was designed. By the way, Toyota is said to have started "no Powerpoint". This is an article about it (translation and original). Because of appreciating yen, higher raw materials and slackness in the U.S market, profit is down, they had negative earnings news this May and they started to reduce costs now. Then we have this news. The article said Toyota won't use presentations with Powerpoint in order to save paper, printer ink and time by too much interpretation. Ha ha ha, it's so funny, a few years ago, the Takahashi method became a topic, and a book about the method has sold well. The Takahashi method was a presentation way with BIG letters in Powerpoint. Here is a sample on the Takahashi method official site. Look at this: Title -> "let me introduce" -> "my name is" -> "Takahashi"... like that. In that way, that presentation had 243 pages. I am not kidding. It is true, actually I had seen such a presentation at work from someone. Talking about myself, I made over 30-page presentations before. I thought I could tell it in two pages and I hated such a long one but my boss said it was necessary for NTT docomo. I appreciate Toyota's way and I hate Powerpoint too. Anyway, I checked the MS Powerpoint page and the Japanese template was updated.

 

Princecc Tenko

Recently I like to listen to Tei Towa, his light and happy mood sound is good for sunny day afternoons when I read books or cook. Check this "Technova", "Milky Way". This one is cute! "Let Me Know" with a great animation video. Tei collaborated with CHARA, who is the wife of actor Tadanobu Asano and has a wonderful voice.

This is a very interesting post "Extinction Timeline: what will disappear from our lives before 2050". I did stop writing letters, sooner or later I may stop sending new year cards. I will agree to "Retirement", "Keys", "newspaper". But I can't agree with "Mending things", because I wonder if I started to hook into something very old and analogue these days. Actually I will mend an old table with varnish later today. Do you know mending (and cleaning) has healing power, I can be calm and relax while I am doing very much. Also I hope we won't lose "Mottainai idea". I love to take care of everything.

Princess Tenko is a well known female magician, she is super rich, she never grows old (this is 10 years ago, this is now, she said she is 23 years old forever, but I guess she is 48 years old now), Kim Jong-il likes her very much and she was invited to NK by him, she was said to be engaged with a king of somewhere in the world and he has a big oil well, and also I read she had been engaged with Jean-Claude van Damme before. I read she is well known in foreign countries more than Japan. Actually I found this strange: TENKO dolls that I have never seen in Japan. By the way, the general image for her is "fushigi (wonder) chan", it means she is spooky mysterious, she has wired wonderful charm. You could sense it in her colorful blog. On her blog, I found this post; she visited the Sanrio Head office and she met the President of Sanrio and a designer of the original Kitty (yes, that strawberry lady). ....hmmm scary...

Ha ha ha, Silly topic. I wrote about KOHAKU UTA GASSEN a long time ago. It's is an annual music show on New Year's Eve produced by NHK, and in the show two singers wear gigantic shiny dresses like a building and it escalates every year. By the way, in English what do you call the biggest and strongest monster you have to beat in the last stage of games? We say "ラスボス", it stands for "last boss". IT media has an article that when you search "ラスボス" Sachiko Kobayashi appears on top. Hmm funny, but is it such a big topic?

Hero wears red scarf always

I laughed at this video. He visited his sister's house but his sister's cat hated him so much. It was his first contact and he loves cats so he couldn't know why the cat was angry so much. Look at that video, I have never seen a pet cat angry like that.

I laughed so much too at this video. A monkey laughs at a dog's something. "ha ha ha ha so small"? がんばれ　こいぬ

That's how it has always been: a Japanese hero wears a red scarf. Akakage, Kamen Rider, Speed Racer, everybody wears a red scarf on his neck. This post on Nifty Portal Z shows everything seems to be a hero with a red scarf. Silly post, but I love it. Did you know Super Mario was named from a real American guy? Here is an article and the original Mario's face. Hmm, looks like Mario exactly. Here is another funny photo, armed Kitty. ha ha ha

I picked Chara Ben (character bento) sometimes, I found a great one today. Look at this post, every lunch box is great but I love the last one. Do you know what it is? It's a scene of "The Castle of Cagliostro" with real pasta. That's great.

I am back from weekend trip

Sexy Topless Subaru ad in Japanese style...orz

Last weekend I went to 'Izu Kogen' which is a seaside resort area in easy visiting distance of Tokyo. I stayed in this hotel, then enjoyed a hot spring. And the next day, I walked a nature-study hiking course for four hours. After the hiking, I enjoyed fresh HIMONO in Ito station. It's a pretty good short trip. Here is a nice post about an Izu Kogen Trip in English, check it out.
Found some cute pets and animal posts.

'Top 11 Most Expensive Animals': I didn't know the Japanese monkey is such an expensive one. I prefer the chimp!
'What your pets are really doing when they're home alone...': The puppy on a note PC knocked me out...Why did he think it was a good spot?
These are cute photos of anteaters...I have never seen any animal that can fit clothes so far. I am not sure but are they actresses??
This is funny 'Ningen': a bizarre Japanese cryptid . I read the Dugong was thought to be a mermaid in Japan. (Only Japan? I don't know.) We have a good image for the Dugong, so that it appeared on some kids' manga, Pokemon and One Piece.

Grumpy Oji-san from Arizona is hot on the net in Japan. He talked about Haruhi or such Japanese cartoons and animation and uploaded the video on YouTube. Some Japanese were impressed at his comments and uploaded his video on Nico Nico Doug with a lot of comments, and some blog news picked it as hot news.

 

goo is Japanese search engine

In Japan, Yahoo Japan is the number 1 search engine and Google is next. But I heard that "goo" show the best result for searching in Japanese and Google wants their technology. That video is an old goo's ad. It means the goo are looking for the best result for you.

Takashi Murakami's My Lonesome Cowboy was sold at $15.2 millionin Sotheby. Crazy, of course I am glad we have such world wide famous articst from Japan, but I can't think that ecchi figuare is worth such big money, you think? Let's see how much Hiropon will cost.

I picked some foods foreign city/country name before but I have never heard this one "Culcutta rice". There are various views on what is "Culcutta rice". At least it's a rice with curry sauce with fried egg and fried fish like this.　I can't see well, since the food sounds good to me, I will try when I find it.

Do you know Citrulline? It's an α-amino acid in water melon that was found in 1930 in Japan. I did't know that because in Japan, that animo was not allowed to use for food, but finally last year it was legally sanctioned by Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry. Now we can se Citrulline foods, drinks, and supplyment in the market. Asahi has released citrulline water and Lotte has released Cirtulline Gum. I am pretty healthy and but only cholesterol is slightly high sometimes. I will try that gum.