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.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
UDON!
UDON is a Japanese noodle made from wheat flour. Usually we eat it with simple soup of dashi and soy sauce. Toppings are similar to Soba’s topping, Tenpura, Aburaage, etc,. But when eat good udon, we prefer simple style without topping, even soup. Here are menus of UDON shops, a lot of variety.
Tenpura UDON: What a kind of Tempura is depends on shop. Usually Shrimp Tempura is most popular. I think.
Kitsune UDON: Kitsune means fox and we say Fox like to eat Aburaage (but of course fox doesn't like it actually.) It relates to Ianri Shrine history. The god of Inari Shrine is originally Dakini in India and servant were jackals. In Inida, they offered fried mouse to them as nutritious food, but when Japanese Buddhism adopt Dakini as Inari'god, Jackal was changed into Fox and since Buddhism doesn't allow to eat meat, Aburaages were offered instead of fried mouse to Inari Shrine and its servant FOX. This is related to why we call sushi with aburaage “Inari zushi” too.
Tanuki UDON: Tanuki means Japanese raccoon. And it means Agedama or Tenkasu when it comes to Japanese noodle. There are various views why call it Tanuki. Traditionally Fox and Tanuki, both are said they are animals cheat human, we have many old story about it. Since there is fox in menu, we should make Tanuki too. That is the one of reason why it is called Tanuki. And we say seeds of fruits “TANE” and also we call the center part of dumplings (meats part) or such type of foods “TANE”. Agedama is a kind of a by‐product when we cook Tenpra and it looks like tempura without center part = “TANE” + “NUKI”(means no or without) —> TANUKI, this is another and there are more.
Curry UDON: There is dashi in curry soup of Udon shop. So it is mixture of dashi and curry, soy sauce. You think weird? But it's very Yummy. One of my favorite food.
Tukimi UDON : Noodle with raw egg and it means moon.
Nabeyaki UDON: Usually this is the winter special in Japan, very hot and a lot of topping on it.
Kagawa prefecture is famous for UDON and inhabitants of Kagawa eat UDON a lot. They eat UDON over twice the amount of Tokyo people eat. Actually the rate of diabetic is the highest in Japan because of their UDON love. The reason why I wrote about UDON today, it was so funny to find this news last week, when we have this big news, "The first observation of gravitational waves explained", of course all Japanese news paper picked it as the biggest news at the day. But only local papers in Kagawa area picked "the average price of UDON is 3.2yen UP" . it was such a big news for them.
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
Sushi guts and Munerin
It's an old article thought, I didn't know we have special guts!. But to be honest with you, I don't think I ate sushi in October. Maybe I ate small nigiri set for lunch once. Even in Japan good sushi is expensive and in my work situation, I eat Chinese, Korean more than Japanese for lunch. One of them is Bairan Yakisoba. Fried noodle covered sauce. This is delicious.
Oh cute, a sciense doctor got "a birthday sushi" of animal cell and plant cell. 上手にできてます good job!
This in interesting article. "10 odd facts about the Yakuza". Actually most Japanese don't know about Yakuza, some are new for me too, don't know it is true or not thought.
Do you know Munenori Kawasaki? We call him "Munrin". He was a major baseball player of Toronto Blue Jays but now he is a free agent. But he is loved by people in Toronto because of his outgoing, charming character.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
KISS buns!
From this weekend, we have some fun events, if you live in Tokyo. Check them out.
October 19th 20th : Tokyo Vegefest. It's vegetalian festival in Yoyogi Park. If you find this Mr.Okuaki's vege suchi, never miss it. He use brown sushi rice and cooked veges. Red one is marinade Japanese wild ginger "Myouga". Usually we eat it as topping spice for soba, sashimi. Nori, thin sliced Kelp "Tororo Konbu", mitsuba are used to tie. Ah I missed them.
October 26th 27th : earth garden autumn fes. They open "the earth garden" in every season Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter in Yoyogi park. There are over 300 eco and organic crafts shops. If you go there, don't forget your own dish and chopsticks. At the stage, they have "No more fuckin'nukes" by Youhei Miyake. (activist, reggae singer who challenged the last selection and sadly missed opportunity.) And night time they have candle events. It will be nice to enjoy Autumn night at such place.
November 2nd, 3rd : Design Festa vol.38 in Tokyo Big site. If it's your original, you can perform, sell your crafts, show your art, costume play, anything is fine. I like and enjoy this event's liberal atmosphere always.
KISS will have gig in this weekend in Chiba Makuhari Messe. Circle K Japan had relesed thier original KISSman (KISS buns) for commemoration. It has black skin and red hot chili sauce of habanero pepper.
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Design it!
This is today's big hit photo."Bat-Eating Cane Toad" すっごいなあ。
9 drunkest countries in the world. I thought Japanese would be ranked in, coz it is very easy to drink anywhere anytime in Japan. Coz the rule for alchole is not strict like North America. You can buy alchole hours in a day. Then we can drink on street, inside train, in front of convenient store, anywhere in such public place. Except for driver, you can drink inside a car. Even if you did like this, your won't be arrested, just be laughed by people and scoled by train staff.
"Kinodai”means wood stand and it is used like this. Good design.
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
hana yakiniku
Go for it, hana yakiniku app.
Japanese camera maker RICOH has released 360 degree camera "THETA" in the US, Germany, England and France only. This is the video how it works. I don't know why they don't sell this in Japan yet.
Mini Hamburger Kit from Sharla in Japan. She has many interesting videos, check them out.
Whoops, that cat appears on Caterpillar face. So I’m Mildly Obsessed With This Hello Kitty Caterpillar…
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
I was looking for giraffe recently
Ah I didn't realized I don't write this blog such long time and also I lose my pro account of TypePad. But it's okay. I am thinking to stop this blog and write on facebook page. But I am not sure yet.
anyway
Amazon Japan sell this giraffe figure and it's reviews are fun to read. I guess nobody bought it.
"I was looking for giraffe recently, and this works fine! I bought one for my family and they love it very much. Hopefully I want a different color one"
Monday, February 27, 2012
Orita sensei is back! This year is Chidegika!
We have news of Orita sensei in Kyoto University every year. He is a famous(poor) statue that is dressed up into strange/ funny charactor in this season every year. Here is his dressing up collection. The University put away the statue coz it had to be damaged a lot. For the past 10 years, we can see a paper Orita sensei only this exam season. Last week, we have this year's Orita sensei. He is "Chidegika"
Chidegika is the official mascot of National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB), revealed on April 27, 2009 to promote transition from analogue television to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Japan. Funny part was the reason why the deer became the mascot was Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of Japanese boys band SMAP. He was a original campaign character of Chidegi project first, but one night, he screamed name of another member (Shingo Katori) at Hinokicho-park behind Tokyo midtown in completely NAKED! He was so drunk. So he had to resign image character of Chidegika and stopped to perform in his band for a while. I am working at Midtown and I knew Tsuyoshi Kusanagi was famous in the building those days. Coz he was living in residential area and he came down to bars in Midtown sometimes and talk to everybody when he drank. he he he