watashi to tokyo

Welcome to Hatsune Miku

These are photos of Japan in the 1800s. Only 200 years ago!

I caught a cold and I have been home for three days now. Yesterday and today, I went to the clinic, got checked for the flu and got tons of medicine. It cost 5000yen in total. I hope I can go to work tomorrow.

This is fun. Stare at the red dot for 30 seconds, look at a wall, and blink!

This is a news article about a false marriage which may be tied to a serial killer. A 34 year old woman scammed several guys for about 1 million dollars. Six of those guys died in mysterious ways. If she really did kill them, she would be the second most notorious female killer in Japan (the worst is Hiroko Nagata, a Japanese leftist radical). She and her deceased boyfriend had some blogs, so now people are trying to amass a cache of their blog posts on 2ch. Anyways, this incident will surely have an impact on single men and women interested in konkatsu (marriage hunting).

This was a little bit funny: Google’s translation tool uses different ways to translate text, sometimes using a statistical machine translation (I guess). So the system focuses more on the popularity of a translated word rather than its correct meaning. When you translate “miku” from English to Japanese, Google translates it as "Hatsune Miku" (a popular vocaloid character). So when you translate miku restaurant’s website into Japanese, it says "Welcome to Hatsune Miku!"

Seto is a Japanese design group in Kamakura. I found their unique bag. You fill in the dots using colored pens and make your own uniquely designed bag. I like this idea.

46 crocodiles escaped in China. And the government announced, "find them, we don't mind if you eat them!" I don't know how you feel about this, but I like it. It’s their Chinese power.

"Revoltech Expo 2009" is going on now. You can check out Kaiyodo's newly released items.

Ramen burger and weird Kit Kat

This is a part of TV show to intoroduce some local B class groumet. They show ramen burger. And it looks very delicious to me. Ramen dough will be crispy, barbecued pork will be soft and they will match to chicken soup jerry. What do you think?

This is a post that Japan has some seriously weird Kit Kat flavours. Here is wikipedia that tell the detals of Kit Kat flavours and here is Japanese Nestle site.

Until I check those pages, I didn't think we would have such weird kitkat but maybe yes...I found they release "ginger ale Kit Kat". And of course we love green tea "variation" like Maccha tea, Maccha Kyoto special, Uji Maccha tea, Maccha Milk houji tea,, etc,. And of course red beans "variation" too like Azuki, Azuki sand wich(what is that? It is just sandwich of sweet red beans), Oshiruko(sweet red beans and rice cake soup) etc,.

And we can find more unique one in Japanse local special kit kat series. This is Yuzu kosho kit kat(Yuzu citurs and pepper paste). This is Miso kit kat, since we have miso, of course we have soy sauce kit kat too! Actually it is Tokyo special.(I have never eaten before though...) Which one you wanna try? :-)

Did you read this news? Finland tops global prosperity index and is followed by Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Canada is 7, U.S is 9 and Japan is 16! I know...this society is stessful, city area is so crwoded, rash train in the morning is hell, prices is high, the gap between rich and poor widens...Butit's sad to know such low index we have.

things that young people are turned off in Japan

When animals smile

Solid Alliance released these funny earphones. The screw type is called “Franken,” and the Banana one was probably inspired by this:

These are the things that young people are turned off by in Japan. I agree with this list because I am also turned off by these things:

Television: I don't watch much TV either, maybe a total of one hour a month. The quality of dramas and documentaries in Japan is not as good as ones from the US or UK.
Travel: I am not sure about this part, but I heard that young people love to save money because they have never experienced a booming economy in their life. They are more thrifty about money than older generations.
Car: Cars were important for dating before. The HONDA Prelude and the Mazda Familia were so popular that they were called “dating cars.” But now, young urbanities don't ride in or buy cars. Trains are cheap and convenient enough and young people hate to waste money on cars they don’t need.
Drinking: My generation enjoys drinking, but I heard that young people think drinking is bad and uncool.
Newspapers: I don't buy newspapers either, because I can read news on the internet, so why would I pay to read it on paper?
Tobacco: I quit smoking, though nowadays few young people start the habit… because of  ill effects of smoking works fine.
Science courses: I am not sure about this one either, but this might be related to the decline of science-based companies and the unglamorous image surrounding research jobs.
Professional baseball: No more stars like Ichiro or Matsui :-)
Love and Relationships: Because we are a dying nation!
Magazines: I can get more information on the internet!
CD: Download them, of course!
Game centers: Use the internet!
Pachinko: The internet is more fun!
Watch: Just use your iPhone or cell phone to tell time.
Sports: Hmm… people enjoy a variety of hobbies now. Also, indoor activities are really fun.

Here are some interesting pictures (warning: some are pornographic or grotesque) that you may use for handouts or information. I like these: names of beards, face list of real yakuza, military meals. The meal pictured in the upper left corner is served by the Japanese self defense forces, the next meal is from the US, then Holland and Canada. The gorgeous meal in the upper right corner is Australian. This picture compares the height of robots. I didn't know that Gundam is such a small robot. Can you find it?

Nice videos

Nice videos. Kyoto cruise and Tokyo cruise.

superalloy Apollo 11

Do you think this is real? "Geo-engineering Moscow Mayor Promises No Snow This Winter." We don't need snow! So let's have it fall in Alaska, he he he. If this can come true, the world will fight over rainclouds versus sunshine.

BANDAI will release this "Super Alloy Apollo 11 with Saturn V." Its total length is 76 cm. It’s constructed the same as the real Apollo 11; divided into 9 parts so you can reenact all stages of the Apollo as it traveled from the earth to the moon. Cooooooooool! I want it but it costs around $500! What do you think?

When I started my blog 5 years ago, there were not many good blogs about Japan, but now we can find really interesting ones like Pink Tentacle, Tokyomango, tokyololas. I found a new one today: "Michael Mckinlay.com" It's really fun to read! I like this silly Japanese shirt post, it's very true. Actually, one of my American friends collects silly English T-shirts. But I will say that foreign Japanese tattoos are the same. I can't understand why this guy would want the word "tomato" on his neck. By the way, when I found such great blogs about Japan, I realized that "introducing Japan" is no longer my role and it would be fun to change my blog into something new. I don't know yet what would be good though.

This is the new book "Otacool worldwide otaku rooms." If I search for the words "Otaku room" in Japanese, we can find some Japanese otaku rooms. It would be torturous for me to have to sleep in such a room.

Sachiko Kobayashi is a Japanese enka singer and she is well known for her super big electric dress on the Kohaku Utagassen (here is a photo of last year's dress). By the way, she came from Nigata and a 7.4m tall doll of her serves as part of a tourism campaign for Nigata. Since Nigara is famous for its "Koshi Hikari" rice, she is depicted on one knee, holding a rice paddle. Ha… how silly.

This country doesn't lead people to become happy

Great pop-up Lego Kinkakuji! I think he is a creater of this Yamato.

This is today's Googole Japan logo. Today's is in commemoration of Ranpo Edogawa's birthday, he is a pioneer of Japanese mystery novel. Nice mood logo!  By the way,  Ranpo Edogawa is his pen name, which is a Japanese version of "Edgar Allen Poe" (if you read his name backwards, western style: Edogawa Ranpo)  

I laughed a lot to read this ariticle. "A Saudi woman is seeking a divorce after discovering her husband had nicknamed her 'Guantanamo' on his mobile phone.". I remember my female friend had been nicknamed "Boris Yeltsin" but she never knew she had such nickname.

Do you have an image of Japanese people as being rich? Today I read some pretty shocking news. The rate of poverty in Japan went up to 15.7% in 2006. This group is people who live on less than half the average annual salary. And that 15.7% is the 4th worst in 30 countries of OECD. Since the Japanese average annual salary is 4,400,000yen ($44000). 15.7% of Japanese are living on less than 2,200,000yen ($22000). 180,000yen per month....hmm it may possible if they are single even in Tokyo but it will be a tough life. By the way, the point is not the money actually, we said "all-Japanese-have-a-middle-class mentality" before but now the gap between rich and poor is widening. This country doesn't lead people to become happy.

The houses in the world that you can buy 5 hundred thousand dollars

This is good.

This is really great job! You can read Japanese without any knowledge because font pronunciation is IN katakana font! "johnson banks:phonetikana"

You can see "how high the cost of living in Japan is". The houses in the world that you can buy 5 hundred thousand dollars. First one Thailand, then Bali, Chicago, Costa Rica, Brazil, Spain and the last match box is Japan. Of course location will be center of Tokyo though...it will float in the pool of other countries's house. But in Toyama prefecture, you can buy this size house for $200,000. Even in Tokyo, you can find this size of house in the far west Tokyo area (2 hours from the center of Tokyo) for less than $500,000.

Rikishi seal

I picked up "weird sumo wrestler face seals" a few month ago. It a mystery someone put seal of two faces of sumo wrestlers everywhere in center of Tokyo. Actually I saw it a lot around my job at Roppongi. Now the mystery became famous as "Rikishi seal". This Japanese blog "Ginza-spy" has the details of Rikishi seal.

What?: The rikishi seal has some type, with frame or without frame. with some beige color or just white.

When? :It was said early 2008 it started.

Where? : Most seals are in Chuo, Taito, Koto wards and they tend to be close to the station. So we can guess IT will move by train.

Why?:On the Internet, people guess the purpose of this seal. And there were 7 widely-accepted theories.
1. Artist appeal their art.
2. It's major prank like BNE or counter plot to BNE.
3. Cult or some religion.
4. Yakuza's territory demonstration
5. Curse?

Who? : Who do this? On the Internet, An artist or an artist group called "QP" was said "they may be IT". This is the poster of QP's art event, I will agree it has the same "touch". But when we search about QP, we found another artist "Almond". This is almond's art. The top log art has Rikishi seal mood and this is almond's page of an art magazine! Hmm almond might be IT too. Actually in the Ginza area, there are some writing " アーモンド" (almond) near Rikishi seal, it is called "BOMB" that artists write their name near their arts on the streets.

But we can't say only almond do it cause QP and almond seem to have connection, there are their name on the same art magazine "Dumb Magazine" and like I wrote there are some variation in Rikishi seal. By the way, those kind of stuff is fun because it has mystery. we can leave it without finding IT.

Tanaka-San Will Not Do Calisthenics

Super cute little bear! He is very cowardly.

This video was originally from a Korean zoo. Japanese reaction for this is it is cute because they try to give him some friends but he is scared of all of them. But later he plays with them, so he is OK. But some people on the comments section for this video said it was animal cruelty, and actually the original filmers from the zoo had to apologize for that reason. What do you think?

"Mystery Google" seems hot today! but I was hooked to this news more "This man". It's a little bit scary. I remind of Rikishi seal from that, since we knew more about Sumo seal, I will write later.

This is Hello Kitty collaboration "Anatomy ”toys. Hmm I didn't know that cat had guts with face mark.

I got a mail from Alice about funny Japanese site this morning. I couldn't open it but I guess she meant this page. You think it's funny but for Japanese it's serious issue to make space in our small house!

This is interesting topic. Australian director made a documentary film about a Japanese guy "Tanaka-San Will Not Do Calisthenics". Tan aka san fired his company OKI denki because he refused to have Calisthenics. (it called radio taiso cause it was aired by radio only first, here is the video) . After he fired the company he was singing protest song in front of Oki denki for over 28 years. This may sound heavy film but I read some review and they say it's funny because cheerful Tanaka san's character. He have private guitar class now but he teaches the how to fight to small boy who is attacked by a bully without teaching guitar or before general shareholders meeting, he and his friends simulate how to fight to Oki Denki people if they try to bear down them for their protest. Here is Tanaka san's web site in English. As far as I read this page, it's sad to devote his life to anger though.

Anyway, such "corporate fascism" is officially legally-prohibited now, but I am not sure it doesn't happen even in small company anymore.

sapporo beer great TV ads

Wow! Memories! I love this series of TV ads. Those guys are staying in a ryokan (a Japanese style hotel) and are wearing ryokan yukata and slippers. They had serious table tennis match. Here are the other ads from the series:

Kingyo Sukui version

Karaoke version

BBQ version

Snow fight

revenge version