watashi to tokyo

Doleman

Wow! cute, curly pig. Ahh… it’s not good to talk about pigs right now. :-) We have not found any cases of swine flu in Japan yet. But maybe soon... I need a mask.

Crazy Japanese TV ads for Dole Banana.

He is a member of SMAP, he apologized for Tuyoshi Kusanagi in a TV show. But after apologizing, that ad appeared. Ha ha ha… bad timing.

In Kyoto, they have the "Gozan no Okuribi" festival in August. It's a famous fire festival that uses fire to form a kanji character on the mountainside. By the way, this year, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial is held in Nigata and the Yamamoji project is an art event for the Triennial, similar to the one in Okuribi. 

it's general holiday

It's a general holiday and I am in lazy mode. Here is a music video of SPEED, a Japanese girls’ band. They can sing and dance. I just remembered the 90s now. He he he

quick morning

I am sorry I was busy today and I can't gather good topics. But I will pick this video of TV show. How to go out quickly in the morning. It's very fun!

They started to build a real size Gundam

There are some nice artworks and products on this foreign site. This is tube art, wow! Beautiful! You can see another tube art piece on this site: "casual profanity."

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

This is good idea too: magnet art on fridge. You can make it by yourself with magnets and the Mosaic effect tool. I like the selection at this shop: Generate. But I don't need this "woofer speaker," it reminds me of Big Dog. Don't you think so?
This is the scariest picture… doll IN a wall.

I wrote that Gundam is celebrating their 30th anniversary and a full sized Gundam (15m) will stand in Odaiba in this summer. Yahoo! Japan started to release the making of movie on this site. Starting this week, they will upload a new movie every Thursday. Check it out. To see the movie, you will need Microsoft Silverlight
I read about muscles often, and in Japan, most people want to keep a thin body but have muscle tone too. I think we have such a trend now. Here is a TV ad that highlights "hoso macho” (thin macho) and “gori macho” (big macho). Actually, we have another moe hentai DVD. It's a muscle training DVD staring an anime character... orz I laughed when I read foreign people's reactions here.

A member of smap arrested

It's been hard finding a good or interesting topic to write about this week. Actually, this was the most interesting one for me: "Jesus loves Kit Kat." Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, I like this news too: "Colorado DMV nixes TOFU vanity plate citing obscenity concern."

 This morning, my coworkers bought all the Lipton Tea Pierre Marcolini key chains. They are made pretty well.

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, a member of the most popular guys group "SMAP" from Johnny's (yes! a notorious boy love lord), was arrested because he got drunk and stripped naked in a public park (it's the park behind the building I am working in now). He is in jail now. Ha ha ha, funny. As for SMAP members, Takuya Kimura is the most famous one, he appeared in the movie "I Come with the Rain" with Josh Hartnett and Byung-Hun Lee.

Expedia did a survey on paid holidays: "Aussies take fewer holidays than most." Most, save for Japan and the US ...orz. I had 12 days of paid holidays and I have 6 more. In June, I got another 12 or 13 days. I will take more than 10 days this year!!

I read in this post that poop shaped bath additives have sold well. The Japanese word for poop is “unko” or “unchi,” which sounds similar to the Japanese word for fortune: “un.” So people bathe with poop-shaped bath addictives in order to seek fortune. I know that it’s quite a stretch, we just have a poop obsession. By the way, don't worry, that bath addictive smells like roses. :-)

moe in star wars

George Lucas seems to plan to have an anniversary of Star Wars (I don't know, the 30th or something). He seems to plan a Star Wars book by 100 illustrators in the world. We know this because moe illustrator Aoi Nishimata wrote that she got an offer from Lucas Film to draw an illustration of Star Wars. She said she and another illustrator got the offer from this time. Wow, if that is true, you will see more Star Wars characters sooner or later. Here is the article about it (web translation)

Cup Noodle has changed

Ah...kawaii (cute), so cute. "Cat's Bitter Disappointment After Sneaking Up On Pigeon".

au has released a new phone, iida. The phone part doesn't look new, but I like this adapter charger Midori.

Did I tell you? Many cup noodles fans are so disappointed by the news Nissin will change cup noodles meat into char siu. Since today they started to release new shar siu cup noodles, I am not sure we can still buy that old one at shops. The unidentified meat is called minch cube and it is pork meat. By the way, there is the instant ramen museum in Osaka and there, you can choose topping and soup and make your original cup noodles.

At the nifty Z, one guy who loves that meat and cup noodles, went to the museum and made his dream-come-true before that meat was gone. He chose meat, meat and meat as topping and ate meat cup noodles, and also he made a lunch box with that meat. Ha ha ha, I don't need it, but I want to make my original cup noodles! It'll be fun.

When you visit Japan, unfortunately you can get tired of Japanese food during a long stay. Saizeriya will help you, it's an Italian TYEP japanese restaurant. You can eat pasta, pizza, and other foods of Italian taste at a very cheap price. Pizza is $4, Pasta is $5. I won't say they are Italian, I will say they are Japanese food with an Italian taste, but at least you can enjoy something else but Japanese :-) Since they are a chain shop, you can find it when you need non-Japanese food.

Places where I recommend to visit in Tokyo

This is cute! How to cook Totoro cream puff.

Today I made a short list of the places I recommend to visit in Tokyo. Since they are to my liking, I can't promise they are fun to visit for you :-p

Harajuku : If you want to see freaky Young and pop culture, Harajuku is good. There are cheap clothes, fashion item shops and since Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine are close to Harajuku, you can enjoy everything at once. Please go there on the weekend, you may see some event or flea market in Yoyogi park. Since there are a lot of foreigners around that area, you can ask anything when you want to know. Here is my old post about Takeshita Street and Meiji Street too, I hope the links still work now.

Yokohama Minato Mirai area : Yokohama is not in Tokyo, but you can go there in minutes by train from the center of Tokyo. Since those areas are new, everything is organized well but the point is they know and make much of their charm point as old port. There is a big shopping mall, a famous Okonomiyaki place Botejyu in Landmark tower and Tonkotsu ramen Ippudo in Queen square. Red brick place is a nice shopping mall. The big ferris wheel is beautiful at night. I recommend to go there in the evening time, it is beautiful to see bright colors of the sunset of Yokohama Osanbashi. But I don't recommend to go up Landmark tower, I prefer Tokyo Sky view of Roppongi Hills.

La-Qua : It's an onsen place in Tokyo Dome city. I prefer this place more than Oden Onsen Monogatari.

Daiso Mega shop in Mahida : There are a lot of 100yen shops in Japan, but this Daiso Mega Shop is in a class by itself. Unfortunately it's in an inconvenient place (40 minutes from Shinjuku). But you can find a lot of things for 100yen there. If you have enough time in Tokyo, maybe it's a good idea to go.

Tokyo National Museum : I love this place, I go there sometimes when they have special events like Asura. Another good point is their museum shop is great. I can buy my favorite Ukiyoe Utagawa Kuniyoshi items there.

Asakusa : It's good to visit such a tourist place, you can enjoy old Japanese mood there. Since kitchen town Kappabashi is near there, try it. You can find kitchen tools and many food wax samples too.

Antique market : Usually antique markets are held in shrines and they open and close very early. But this Odeo antique market opens at 9 and closes at 4pm. It will be fun for foreign people to see Japanese antiques. Here is information about other antique markets. Most of them open every two weeks, check the date you can visit.

Flea market : Every weekend, a flea market opens somewhere in Tokyo, I recommend the Jingu Gaien one because it's in the center of Tokyo and also it's a big one. Here is another information page.

Depachika: A food floor of department stores. It is a nice place to learn the Japanese food situation. You can pick some foods there, that's a good point of Depachika too! I like Isetan.

Shimokitazawa : One of my favorite towns. You can enjoy foods, shopping. Since there are a lot of used clothes shops, it's nice if you like Japanese brands like comme de garcons or hysteric glamour.

The Top 10 Depressing Movies

Today I couldn't find anything fun. I enjoyed this article from the UK magazine Empire: "The Top 10 Depressing Movies." Oh, number 6 is "Grave of the Fireflies."That is a movie I have never seen and I will run away if somebody who’s seen it talks about it, but I've know the story 100%. I don't want to be sad when watching a movie. But Japanese like sad stories sometimes. Do you remember when I wrote about it in this post: "A Dog of Flanders"?

Do you know any other sad movies? ?I read The Green Mile by Steven King and when I finished reading, I decided I wouldn’t watch the movie version if it was ever made into one. Actually, it was later made into a film starring Tom Hunks, but I wouldn’t even watch the trailer. :-)

Virtual dating

I read tech 48 is hot on the Internet. It's a technology so that you can have a date with a real girl in a mutual world. People will start to hang around inside anime skins in virtual worlds sooner or later in this country. Strange...but so our culture attracts foreign weirdoes.

Anime eye making movie, ha ha ha. I prefer horror manga make-up though.

Another new cooking toy has released by Tomy. It's Taiyaki maker. It might be good for a souvenir because you can cook with pancake mix and custard or peanut butter, choco cream, etc.

Was it last year? A mexican guy who sings like Hyde of L'Arc en Ciel became hot in YouTube Japan. Here it that video. Today I read he made a band named "Kakkoii" (cool in Japanese) and debuted as as rock band.....orz. Okay.

Asura in Buddhism is the name of the lowest rank of the deities or demigods. The sculpture of Ashura is a national treasure, one of the most treasured sculptures made during the beginning to mid-7th century to come to Tokyo from Nara. We can see it in Tokyo National museum. In the exhibition, the museum sell Kaiyogo's Ashura figure and over 8000 figures were sold in a week, wow! Maybe the figure is made well, so that not only Kaiyodo collectors but also old poeple who don't know about what is Kaiyodo would buy. I want one! In Tokyo museum shop, I have another one I want to buy. They have Fujin Ra!ijin [email protected] brick of medicom toy! Fujin Raijin is my favorite art in Japan. The [email protected] bricks looks funny and strange but I want one!