watashi to tokyo

Potato chips on rice ball

Monkey waiter at Japanese Izakaya.

Family Mart is one of the big convenience store chains, you may know them as "Famima" in foreign countries. Calbee is one of the Japanese snack companies. Talking about potato chips, it's Calbee in Japan like I wrote. Since yesterday, Family Mart started to sell a collaboration rice ball with Calbee. They are "consomme punch chips rice ball", "pizza potato chips rice ball" and "Korean seaweed paper rice ball".....hmm, strange but it sounds delicious. Potato chips will match rice balls, they are just fried potato. You will be able to try it. ､どうぞ

This is an ad of "Gazeta Mercantil newspaper". They say "understand the real value of money". There are Yen, dollars, and Euros. Manga, anime and the sex industry become new icons for Japan.

This is a joke TV ad of retail company "Grand Guardian Tokyo". It shows a near future robot type apartment. You don't need to walk to the station because your apartment will walk there in the morning. When an earthquake comes, you don't need to worry about anything. Even if a war happens, your apartment will protect you.... OK sounds good.

I had PC problems last night, my PC has to be so slow sometimes. If I have to buy a new one, I think I will buy Mac again. Here is the great news about a Mac user.  So cool!　Talking about PCs, I found an interesting desktop. Here it is. The boxes on the shelf will be this one. If you like Japanese mood rooms, please use those Japanese mood icons (for mac), today I found this trash box (for mac) too.

After you drink

Did you read this article? How China gets its troops to stand to attention - pins in their collars and crosses on their backs'. The Beijing Olympics will come soon.

Wired had an interesting article today. 'Hollywood 'Turning Japanese' With Anime Movies'. I can't wait for info about Spielberg's Ghost in the Shell.

My favorite blog Nifty Portal Z has this post today. She always has great and funny posts about food. Today she made edible 'Baran'. 'Baran' is the plastic green divider (ornament) for Japanese Bento. She tried to make it using pork, squid and fishcake and made a big lunch for herself. Ha ha but the funniest part is the strange English on the lunch box: 'The road of the life will become very hard. But we must overcome it.' I have no idea why they would put such words on a lunch box, is it because the box is too big and too hard to eat up?

I am sorry for not replying to the comments on the posts, Since I am off during the day until I start my new job. I drink a lot every night! (sorry!) and I'm being very lazy. I must be careful about my weight, I know. By the way, after you drink alcohol at a bar, do you go eat something? If you do, what a kind of food do you like to eat? In Japan, the standard after-drinking food is ramen, I guess people love to eat salty carbohydrates that are simple and easy after drinking and ramen fits the bill the best. But today I found this article: 'the best three people love to eat after drinking'. No1 is Ochazuke (rice with soup), No2 is Ramen and No3 is Ice cream (this is popular in Japan, ice cream wrapped in a soft rice cake. I like to eat Ochazuke, it's much lighter than ramen and it is good for the stomach because rice is easy to digest. We cook Ochazuke with green tea and top it with anything we have in the refrigerator. If you want to try it, I recommend using this Nagatanien Ochazuke powder. Look for it in Asian stores, it's pretty good!

insect cartoon

I read that the UK band 'The Get Out Clause' was so poor that they made their music video using the video from a security camera, here is the video.

This is so funny, 'road kill toys'. If I give this rabbit to my friends as their birthday gift, how many people will be happy? At least I won't be happy but I want to give it to somebody.

Did you read about the 'green porno' featuring Isabella Rossellini? You can see the making of video on the official Sundance page. Hmmm I don't know, what should I say... Speaking of insects, we have many cartoons of insects: 'Honeybee Hutch' (I found this page: Bashar?! They changed the name of Hutch to Bashar?! I don't know which country's site this is.), 'Maya the Bee' and my favorite one is 'Microid S'. I didn't know that that cartoon was aired in foreign countries. The original was Osamu Tezuka's manga. For me, the Japanese Tezuka cartoon with the coolest theme song is Triton of the Sea (from wiki). And I am thinking about reading Buddha again during my holidays. I wish Tezuka made a manga about Jesus Christ and Allah too, so that I can understand those more :-).

Shoyu (Soy sauce) restaurant. You can try various types of soy sauce and they serve some foods with a soy sauce base. I especially want to try 'KOGASHI SHOYU fondue'. Kogashi shoyu means burnt soy sauce. If you like Japanese food, let's imagine Mitarashi Dango, Yaki Onigiri and Yakitori, you would know that soy sauce that's a little bit burnt is great. In Japan, burnt soy sauce can be a selling point for soy sauce-based ramen too. I will report further when I try the restaurant.

"Japanorama"

Did you read this post of wired? "NASA Offers $5000 a Month For You to Lie in Bed" It's impossible for me. I can't stay on bed even a one day.

I picked this video to show nigo's house before, but I didn't know that it came from this UK TV "Japanorama". Did you know that UK TV show? They show many weird Japanese sub culture.

I remember well I ate cheese fondu at swissland, it was delicious but super expensive! I did oil fondu at my firend's party and every fried food is delicious of course. Then I will try this chocolate fondu next time. Put a choco into micor oven and dip some snack! I guess Doritos will be nice.

I will go to complete physical examination next week, I must have it once a year and my company pay it for me. I will have it before I quit my job. Since this year, they will check metabolism of our body. One of baseline is waistline. Guy has more than 85cm (34inchi), woman has more than 90cm(36inchi) of waistline has to be said "metabolic symdrom". By the way, complete physical examination is called "human dock" in Japan. Are we ship??? But I think it's charming name.

busy to quit my job

My golden week was over now. I will start my blog again. Sorry for short post today. I was busy for paper work to quit my job.

Here is the ranking of "top Ten Crazy Asian Pizza Crusts". Hmm I can't agree, whole shrimp cheese bite is worse than rice crust???

1. Whole Shrimp Cheese Bite (Pizza Hut; Japan, South Korea)
2. Shrimp and Mayo Roll Crust (Pizza Hut, Japan)
3. German King: Sausage, Bacon and Cheese Crust (Pizza Hut, Japan)
4. Triple Cheese Pizza (Domino's, South Korea)
5. Mizza: Rice Crust (Pizza Hut; Taiwan, South Korea)
6. Abalone Sauce Cheesy Lava Stuffed Crust Pizza (Pizza Hut, Hong Kong)
7. Shrimp Nude; Cream Cheese Mousse-Filled Crust (Mr. Pizza, Korea)
8. Rich Gold; Sweet Potato Mousse-Filled Crust (Pizza Hut, South Korea)
9. Sausage Crust, Mochi Crust, and Cheddar Sauce Crust (Strawberry Cones, Japan)
10. Grand Prix: Cookie Crust Pizza Topped with Shrimp and Potato (Mr. Pizza, South Korea)

Mos Burger open shop in Thailand. Hopefully Thai people enjoy that. I like Mos very much especially Mos Rice Burger.

funny topic from the Internet

I can't find any good Japanes topic today...
Ohh cute!! 10 of the Strangest Looking Dogs! I love this. Is this dust?

This is bad news. I like Ellegarden, they are rock! but they will stop the band in September. I will miss them.

I picked this Air Mac parody Super envelop DELL verson ads before. I found this Sony Vaio one. That is my laptop actually, it's very thin and it works fine without AC for over 7 hours. And also I saw this one, is this parody or IBM's official ad?

There will be many companies that have name "OGC". I don't know this is foreign company or Japanese company, anyway some found the loge is pervert when make it vertical. This one is also .....　Ha ha ha

Kamen Rider

Look at this 'Collector Spotlight: Yexel's Toy Museum'. Hmm, is he a son of a rich family or something? He has everything from Micky to Tomorrow's joe, everything! This and this is the web site of Kotobukiya he mentioned.

I didn't know that the TV series of Kamen Rider 'Kamen Rider Dragon Knight' has started in the U.S. Here is the trailer. It will be remade from Japanese 'Kamen Rider Ryuki'. Kamen Rider is a very long series that had started in 1971. You can see all Kamen Riders in this video on Youtube. It is such a long series, though the most famous one would be the first Rider. The main actor was Hiroshi Fujioka, but since the first series got to be such a big boom in this country, I must say he had to be typecast for Kamen Rider as a 'tough friend of justice'. And it was getting to be a 'Tough, straight sports guy having a muscle brain'. Here is a long TV ad of Sega Saturn where he appeared. And recently he is on ads of beer. Ha ha ha, see? You know such an image. I picked Kamen Rider in this post before 'Trauma and Shockers'. Now kids are becoming adult enough to sense the sorrow of enemy shockers.

I found this site today. He took photos of bridges over Kanda River that is the dirtiest river in Tokyo. Over middle age Japanese have a certain type of image for Kanda River. 'Young, Poor, Sorrow'. Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary had much effect on Japanese folk singers before, in the early days Japanse folk songs had the character of protest songs but they became more pop and more popular music later. One of the categories of Japanese songs is 'Yojohan folk'. Yojohan means four and half tatami room and Yojohan folk means a song about life, love, dreams and collapse of poor young people who live in such small rooms. Kandagawa (Kanda river) is a representative example of Yojohan folk sung by Kaguya hime. It's a song about a couple who are living in a three Tatami room around Kanda river, meaning they might be students of Waseda Univ. Here is the video from Youtube. 'Don't you remember? We went to the public bath together covering our necks with red towels instead of mufflers'...orz. It's not my taste, though I guess the bridge site looks nice when you know such background.