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Guri & Gura is a Japanese series of children's books by writer Rieko Nakagawa and Illustrator Yuriko Yamawaki. The Protagonists are two anthropomorphic field mice, and the series began in 1963 with the first volume Guri and Gura. There are two Airbed rooms named from those cute book. Both rooms are in the same apartment in Ostuka. 6 minutes from the Otsuka station and can access to terminal station Ikebukuro in 15 minutes. Reviews are pretty good.
Here is GURI
Here is GURA
Japanese like Curry. I think there are three (or four) types of curry in Japan. One is Japanese curry which is a little bit sticky and a lot of vegetable. Sometimes we call less sticky one "European Curry", but of course Japanese named it and there is not such curry in Europe. Another one is Soup curry(best of Sapporo Japan). I comes from Hokkaido in Japan. Usually it has no flour and big vegetable in it. And also Indian curry restaurant a lot. Usually we don't cook Indian curry at home, eat it in the restaurant with Naan. Foods derived from Japanse curry are Curry Udon(just one cookbook) and Curry bread ( Curry pan) (wiki) . Since curry is called national food and we loooove it, there is a various type of curry bread too.
Usually it is fried one like this.
Since it has a bit high calories, we have baked type too.
On March 6th, 1st Currypan exhibition is held in Futakotamagawa. Many many curry pan!
Orita sensei in Kyoto University has come back again. He changed into Kirby in this year. Here is another artile about himi "Japanese College Students Prank Statue (Even After It’s Gone)"(tofugu). I loooooooooove this kind of playfulness and humor. I think people forget his original face already.
A Italian restaurant Fiore Akasaka opened small bar corner inside the place. The place is called "kanzume Genka bar". it means "Original price of canned foods and drinks". You need to enter charge 2000yen but in the shop you can drink and eat canned food with their cost price, so beer is 200yen, whiskey and soda is 50yen.Also they have rare canned foods like Toughness, Grasshopper, Fugu.
Standing restaurants are a king of trend, we had standing japanese noodle SOBA place from long ago (maybe from Edo). But now we can eat various type of gorgeous cuisine in standing restaurant. Commonly Foods are amazing and price is reasonable because they cut cost by enhancing the turnover rate of customers and serve better quality foods than regular place. I think the key player of this boom is Oreno ( means "mine") restaurant company. They opened "Oreno French", "Oreno Italian", "Oreno Kappou （Japanese）", "Oreno Yakitori"etc,.in Tokyo. Most Oreno restaurant got good reviews from customers and it was hard to reserve before but now it will be not so bad. Oreno French popular menu Omal roast, beef steak with Foie gras are only 1280yen each. Ratatouille is 380yen and it means only $4 or so. Last year, new standing steak chain "Ikinari Steak ( = sudden Steak) got popular and people made a line in each place. They sell steak by 1g = 5yen.
Here is the video of a standing sushi bar.
Loof It's a nice place to stay in Yamanashi. If you can go in a group by car, it will be great trip. Personally I love to g o to Yamanashi, foods and wine are good, visit Mt Fuji and Shosenkyo, drive around Fuji five lakes area in Spring is nice. This site “Japan Concierge” has a lot of article about Loof.
Nissan make intelligent parking chair. But this won't be sales products, this is promotion of their car intelligent parking assist technology.
This is making video.
Nissan installed "Automatic stop function" and "parking assist" already. Then finally "Automatic driving" will come. Nissan announced they will release it by 2020. Here is a TV AD about it and they say they will make it soon. The lady on AD is Charllote Kate Fox, an American actress. She acted on Japanese TV drama "Massan"last year and maybe well known in Japan more than in her country.
Ichinchi means "one day" in Japanese. This is new simple style hotel in Akabane. A 45 year old building, they reinvent it into a micro boutique hotel.
Akabene is north of Tokyo but very close to Ikebukuro and not so bad to go everywhere in Tokyo. New unique places to stay are increasing recently. I will pick up hotel and add to my new category "where to stay" in my blog.
The last year we have the news Tokyo ramen shop got Michelin star. The shop is TSUTA and suprisingly my friend Ken Aoki made their shop logo. Ken is well known in ramen industory in Japan and of course he is very knowledeable about ramen in Japan. Actually he is on this TV program inroducing TSUTA in 2013 before the shop get so big.
When we find nice ramen shop, we use ramen web site. The biggest ramen web site in Japan is Ramen database but they don't have English page. So I asked Ken which one is the best English ramen site and he recommends this one. "Ramen Adventure". It will very useful when you find good shop in Tokyo. Here is the his blog about TSUTA