A Monk in Ginza

Looking for alms in the richest shopping district in Tokyo, Japan.

Abe Resigns (Finally!)

A year marked by scandals among his ministers was enough to erode his public support. Written off by fellow politicians and the media, his days were numbered, and finally, today, Abe Shinzo resigned from his post as the Prime Minister of Japan.

Photo credit: Hanai Toru for Reuters

Shinjuku Over the Years

glumbert.com - Tokyo Skyline Time-Lapse

Tokyo Skyline Time-Lapse

Snow Cone & the Seven Dwarfs

A chance meeting with a passing stranger on Omotesando-dori got Bloompy to turn around to follow him and his entourage of seven. Do not miss minute 5:00, when the youngest of the clan struggled to step over a leash. All dachshunds owners had seen their pups experience this at one point or another.



If you cannot see the video on this site, click HERE to view it on YouTube.

Bathing the Bunnies

Two Dachshunds (Ptolemy and Galla) attempted to bathe Two Bunnies (Furball and Cottontail).



If you have trouble watching it in this Blog, click HERE.

In Memory of the Victims of Hiroshima Bombings

We pause to respect the victims of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.

To read an article in relation to today's news, please click HERE or HERE.

Picture Credit: Toru Hanai for the IHT

Not Just Your Dogs Drinking from the Toilet Bowl

The Mainichi Shimbun reported from Higashihiroshima (East Hiroshima) that plumbing blunder at the Hiroshima University Higashihiroshima Campus had resulted in students drinking water that was designated for flushing toilets. They traced the problem to 1993, when the gymnasium's renovation was completed. They attributed the problem to incorrect fitting between pipes for high quality drinking water and low grade toilet flushing water. Recently, 80 students got very ill with symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting. It is a surprise that the outbreak had not occurred much earlier.

Read the full news HERE.

The Grass is Always Greener . . .

Some Americans and Europeans prefer to say their vows in Bali, in Phuket, or in Kyoto, so why not the Japanese bride and groom ditching their shrines and temples in favor of the churches in the West? An article by Doreen Carvajal (read it HERE) in the International Herald Tribune talks about the phenomenon of these fantasy weddings in Paris. Especially now that the whole world has seen the weddings of Cruise-Holmes (in a castle in Italy) and Longoria-Parker (in a chateau in France), some would like to realize the same dream of doing it abroad.

Even here in Tokyo, during one of my strolls in Omotesando back roads and small alleys, I ran across a huge church with disproportional front yard. At first I really thought it was a worship church, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a church solely used for the purpose of wedding ceremonies. These ceremonies came in packages, like any wedding ceremonies, but this one caters to those who want the ultimate western wedding experience.

Not too far from this church, on Omotesando-dori itself, stood L'Anniversaire, a multi-story store that catered exclusively to weddings, with each floor focusing on one aspect of the wedding: jewelries, bridal gowns, make-up, and topped with the ceremonial place.

Photo credit: David Brabyn for the IHT

Gorgeous George

Ocean 13 is coming to Tokyo, and so is its major star, George Clooney, pictured here at a press conference. Watch the trailer HERE.

The Japanese Election Results

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of the current prime minister Abe Shinzo suffered a major setback in the Upper House from Sunday's (yesterday's) election, which took away the majority from their hands and delivered it into the opposition, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Ozawa Ichiro, a coalition of moderates, former socialists and conservatives. In the past, the DPJ (founded in 1996) could not muster the votes to overcome the ever powerful LDP, whose strongholds of power extended beyond big cities and into rural areas. This time around, the disenchanted voters gave their voice to the opposition after a major government bungling of national pension records and a series of scandals and corruptions.

Unlike past prime ministers who had resigned in the face of such loss, Abe defiantly decided to stay the course as prime minister. Japanese law spelled out the Lower House of the Parliament as the one choosing the prime minister. The LDP has the majority in the Lower House, which is considered to be stronger and more influential than the Upper House. Inheriting the parliamentary majorities from his most popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, Abe passed through legislations laws that concerned patriotism in schools and the plan to elevate Japanese military and to revise the pacifist Constitution. The recent loss will surely hold his future plans in check as the majority Upper House will be able to deny him the easy route.

Abe's recent campaign with trademark soundbytes of making Japan into a "beautiful country" has been mocked by some opposition and even his own fellow LDP politicans. He has been viewed as out of touch with the rest of the country, forgetting about the bread and butter issues, the basic needs of the people. His main theme put the emphasis on revising the pacifist Constitution, but with recent tides against him, he appeared to want to appease the mass by switching it to the economy, which came too little too late. The opposition, meanwhile, had made economy the main issue in the first place, and voters obviously rewarded DPJ's effort and handed them the Upper House.


(Photo credit: Sasaki Ko for the New York Times.)

In Memoriam: Tammy Faye (Bakker) Messner

We take a break from Tokyo to pay tribute to the woman with the most memorable mascara-run in the world, the former wife and partner of once founder PTL (Praise the Lord / People That Love) Church, Jim Bakker. Tammy Faye Messner (she was currently married to Roe Messner) died today, at 65 years of age, weighing only 65 lbs. The colon cancer that she got had spread to the lungs. The progressive disease has made it difficult for her to swallow food, hence the dramatic weight loss.

According to CNN, Tammy Faye Messner has also been known as one of the few evangelical Christians who had the support of the gay community. She was one of the first televangelists to reach out to those with AIDS when it was a little-known and much-feared disease. In return, she told King in July, "When I went -- when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."

The documentary on her life, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" is available for viewing at Hulu.com
http://www.hulu.com/watch/232459/the-eyes-of-tammy-faye

Click HERE for more information on Tammy Faye's life.

Candle Night Summer Solstice 2007

Japan is doing its part in the effort to save energy as Friday night witnessed the Candle Night Summer Solstice 2007. The event was launched in 2003 to foster an understanding of global environment and to encourage participation in the effort to cap the energy spending. The country who is host to the Kyoto Protocol is itself trailing behind its commitment to reduce the greenhouse gas emission.

The Mainichi Shimbun reported that ". . . about 20,000 light-emitting diodes on the outer walks of the Omotesando Hills building in Tokyo's Shibuya-ku were turned off at 8 p.m. on Friday, and replaced with some 500 candles in plastic tubes. Subdued lights from the candles lit up Omotesando street through the windows. . . . This year, the owners of over 60,000 buildings usually lit up at night are expected to participate in the annual event, and organizers are urging households to participate. About 630 related events are expected to be held by Sunday."

Simply Sushi

Jay McInerney from the New York Times has reviewed two recently published books on sushi. You can find the review of the article here. The two books are: Trevor Corson's "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket" and Sasha Issenberg's "The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy."

Recently, the power-that-be in the sushidom of Japan started wanting to police the existence of the internationally-known delicacy. They felt the need to maintain a certain standard of the practice by issuing certificates or stamps of approvals to vendors around the world. They found it disturbing that sushi had been bastardized by the existence of such invention of the California rolls and the spicy this-and-that rolls (yeah, and you may not want to ask real sushi chefs in the most revered sushi bars and restaurants in Tokyo about such rolls either unless you are ready to be met with swords flying from their eyes).

What I did not know was that California roll, for instance, was born out of necessity (and necessity, as you know, is the mother of invention). In the mid-60s, a Los Angeles Japanese restaurant Tokyo Kaikan's sushi chef Mashita Ichiro used avocado as a substitute for fresh fatty tuna belly (toro) because such item was hard (or none) to come by; and thus was born the California roll. In the words of Edie Beale, "I don't know whether you know that; I mean, dya know that?"

Find the article here.

(Original illustration for the New York Times by Nick Dewar)

Run for Your Waistline

That title is meant metaphorically AND literally. If you are going to keep your waistline slim, then run as far away as possible from what is coming to Tokyo: BURGER KING. But, if you are going to start consuming yet another unhealthy fare, then you better run a lot to get rid off the calories. BK's Press Preview took place today (June 6, 2007) at the restaurant, six years after it closed shop. To give it a local flavor, Teriyaki Whopper will be in its menu.

The Chicken and the Egg Question

I am not sure which comes first: the motion or the emotion? Yesterday I found news about the development of robotic facial expressions. Today I found this video in YouTube about the different movements of a robot. No longer having the "dummy-look," this robot gets more human-like every day. There must be an artificial intelligence fair and/or convention somewhere in the city that I have not been aware of, perhaps . . .

An Unfortunate Choice of Word

A humanoid robot developed by Japanese professor Takeno Junichi and a team of researchers is able to form 36 different facial expressions. A particular expression is formed after a word is typed into its software, which possesses a database of 500,000 words. From there, the software "extracts word associations" and makes calculations that results in pinpointing a level of expression from pleasantness to unpleasantness. In the end, the humanoid robot forms the appropriate facial expression.

Interesting progress on research and development of humanoid robot. It is just unfortunate that this being Japan, a country that suffered from the A-Bomb, and in that picture above (taken from the Mainichi Shimbun), the robot is reacting to the word BOMB.

The Lamentable, Irrepressible, and Regrettable Effects of Supersize Me

On May 7, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled "Developing Nation: Japanese Clothiers Update Their Lines," which regrettably had nothing to do with a new, fantastic line from the likes of Yamamoto, Kawakubo, Kenzo, Watanabe, Mori, and Miyake (read the article HERE; but rather, it had all to do with the expanding girth of the female Japanese population.

Japanese used to subsist on a vegetable-and-fish diet, but in recent times this has changed with the advent of the less-than-healthy American import such as: Krispy Kreme (in Shinjuku), Cold Stone Creamery (in Roppongi), and now the inevitable MacDonald's MegaMac that featured not two, not three, but FOUR beef patties in a three-bun sandwich (read the article HERE).

Some tends to want to put the blame on the American side for exporting such unhealthy and irresponsible food like those mentioned above, but there has to be a demand in Japan that those things are actually here. The almost two-hour wait at Krispy Kreme (six months since its opening) and the line at Cold Stone Creamery (more than a year after it opened its counter) is a testament to this. Part of the reasons may be the "American-ness" or the foreign aspect of it combined with the novelty of the item that appealed to the masses in major cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Not wanting to be left in the dust, local food producers competed with their foreign brethren to attract the appetite of the masses; the release of Dekao (Huge King) and Super Cup instant noodles are but two examples of this. According to the Mainichi article, "One product even contains a staggering 1,100 calories, almost half the daily recommended 2,500-calorie intake of the average Japanese male." I noticed this a couple of years ago when I encountered a bigger package of spicy Korean noodles sold here in Japan (and in California): it used to be that these "ramen" or noodles packages were relatively small and would be just enough for one quick meal; but this particular spicy Korean noodle package was almost twice the size of their predecessors. Freshness Burger, a Japanese burger chain, came up with Classic Double-Double Burger; meanwhile, American-import Wendy's answer was the Big Triple.

I suppose one has to wait to see when the line will diminish, but for now, supersizing and girth-expanding diet are here to stay. Guess who is coming back this month to Japan after folding its tent for being expensive in their former foray into the Japanese food market? None other than the originator of the Whoppers: Burger King. The big department stores that used to relegate the "big sizes" to one corner can now safely "expand" their collection.

Japan Won the Title of Miss Universe 2007

Beauty pageants have always created the two sides who constantly debate the merits and flaws of such competition: on the one hand, supporters tout the freedom of expression, the importance of (feminine) role model (and perhaps of good hair, of glowing make-up, and for some, of undetectable plastic surgeries). On the other hand, opponents shout out the objectification of the female gender and the reliance on superficial beauty to advance through life. Significantly, this year's Miss Sweden, Isabel Lestapier Winqvist, made a statement when she withdrew upon learning that many of her fellow Swedes did not feel such competition to be representative of a modern woman.

The debate is not going to die any time soon. If feminism is to guarantee every woman's right to choose and to express herself, then it has to contend with some of the women choosing this path of life, just as feminisim has to contend with women choosing to be stay-at-home-wives/mothers and never to think of having their own career outside of the home. One would think that if the general mass was on the same page as the opponents of beauty pageants, then at least in the United States, the Miss America Pageant, which featured talent competition, would be the more preferable of the two pageants; yet it was Miss USA (owned by the Miss Universe, Inc.) that survived. What does that say about what the audience likes and wants?


Mr. Joop Ave, the former Cultural Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, was an opponent of beauty pageants. During his tenure as the said minister, he forbade the sending of any representative from Indonesia to such pageants; to him, it is an insult to womanhood and a denigration to the female sex. Mr. Ave, known to his close circle as a well-educated and respectable gay man, took the stand in respecting women and in his unwillingness to allow women to be judged only by their facial beauty and by the curves of their bodies. Of course as a young, naïve and closeted gay man, I thought pageants were fabulous, and for sure every gay boys would love to help the gals prepare for the pageants (and indeed, some gay men live for these pageants, straight ones or drag ones).

In college I was finally exposed to someone who was a serial pageant competitor. How and why this person got into the university was beyond me: she cared nothing with regard to acquiring knowledge; instead, she spent her days looking at the mirror and rehearsing her oration. I thought then, hmmm, one should not generalize. Then at one time I saw a forum on television that included as one of the guests Ms. Brooke Lee, the Miss USA who had become Miss Universe in 1997. I have since forgotten both the forum and the discussions involved, but suffice it to say that I balked at hearing what Ms. Lee had to say. I even felt abashed for her, although as far as she was concerned, she might be oblivious to it. Alas, I only know of one Miss Universe alumna who went on to become a mayor of her city (Chacao) and eventually a governor of Nueva Esparta; her name was Irene Sáez Conde, the title holder in 1981.

When I first saw a taped program of the 1979 Miss Universe Pageant in that same year, I was a few months shy of being a teenager. One thing that impressed me most was the multitude of languages spoken during the Parade of Nations, the part in the beginning of the pageant where the candidates introduced themselves. It so intrigued and fascinated me that I told myself I should learn as many languages as I could so that my world would be without borders; and now, although I am not exactly fluent in all the languages I had acquired since then, I have been grateful with the knowledge and the usage of those languages in my travels.

Year after year, pageants after pageants, most contestants' rehearsed stock responses of bringing peace to the world and of educating the mass about HIV easily elicits yawn from my part. It is therefore refreshing to hear what Mori-san wish to do with her time, based on what she had learned from the past: "I learned how to always be happy, be patient and to be positive, and this is what I want to teach to the next generation." With all the unhappiness going on in this earth of mankind, perhaps this is not such a bad idea. Call her young and naïve, but hey, let go off the cynicism and find something that will make you happy, and keep doing the things that tip the scale of your life balance into happiness. In her case, dancing seems to make her happy, and she wishes to open an Inetrnational Dance school in Tokyo, a trade with which her mother had been involved.

Ms. Mori's evening gown design caught my eyes because only a few months ago I spotted this same exact Gucci dress worn by none other than Miss O (Oprah Winfrey) during the Oscars and the Vanity Fair party afterwards.


More of Miss Universe 2007 Photos

Crossing Shibuya

"Travel with Bloompy" takes you crossing one of the busiest intersections in Tokyo and into the nearby Tokyu Department Store's Food Section. Bloompy is experimenting with this format. In the near future Bloompy hopes to produce more of these small vignettes from the different aspects of life in Tokyo. Comments and suggestions are welcome (they are good for laughs . . . just kidding!)

How Can You Not Appreciate This?

Big deal, you say, a secured bicycle parking place; so what? Well, for one, the first four hours are free! The Tokyo city gym at Sendagaya, which last year decided to work together with the private health club Tipness to renovate its gym and pool facilities and to operate jointly, provided this secure-lock bicycle stands for their clients. There is an area to park your motorcycles securely as well. The first two hours are free, and the next two are free as well, but one must get a validation from the reception desk.

Gym and/or pool users who are not members of Tipness may use the facility for two hours using the old method of payment (day card or value card); therefore such users are also alloted the same two hours for free parking. Tipness users can use the gym and pool facility as long as they want, and they get two extra hours of free parking; afterwards, they will have to pay at the rate of ¥100 per 3 hours (less than $1 for 3 hours). I do not see how they will profit from this, and that's why I thought it was a nice gesture nevertheless. While bike thievery is not a common occurence in Tokyo, providing such secure area to park one's transportation will give him and her a peace of mind.

When you get to the stand, bring the front wheel all the way forward until the device locks. Then go to the green pay station, enter your stand number, and put in four digit security code, and voila, it is locked. At collection time, put in the stand number and security code, and the pay station will calculate time usage. When it is free, you can then collect your bike within five minutes; otherwise, you can pay, or enter your validated parking card.

Election time

The Japanese election this year coincides with the first voting of the French presidential election, on April 22, 2007 (today). Last week I would hear mini vans or mini trucks passing by with loudspeakers announcing the candidates and their platforms. Then today, on the last day of campaigning, I ran across a politician with his entourage, campaigning old style: two people with banner flags at the front and at the back, flanking the candidate who walked in the middle. A "spokesperson" carried a megaphone and made announcements. They went in and out of the alleys, back to the main streets, all smiles.


I noticed the absence of candidates plastering the city with their posters and piling in their brochures in people's mailbox like in the United States. Instead, a week ago or more, each neighborhood erected a board, within which it was divided into blocks, with each block containing a number. In the following days, candidates would place their posters in the corresponding "districts;" very typical of Japanese: neat and clean, tidy and orderly. I bet tommorrow all of these boards will be taken down promptly.

Tokyo MidTown

Avoiding the huge crowd since the opening on March 30 of Tokyo MidTown, a new sprawling complex of shops, restaurants, museums, and Tokyo's first Ritz Carlton Hotel, my partner and I finally visited the site on late Friday night, when the shops had just closed. Access to certain floors was still permitted, so we took a quick walk along two floors. First impression: warm and spacious, an antithesis to the cold and cramped Omotesando Hills (although to be fair, the latter had a very limited space to begin with).

We also went up to the 45th floor of the MidTown Tower to the lobby of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. All of the hotel's dining experiences (the Lobby Lounge & Bar, "Forty-Five" restaurant, Hinokizaka, and labels) could be found on this floor, while the lone Ritz Carlton Café and Deli stayed at the ground floor, near the alternative entrance to the hotel and close to the main portal of the shopping complex. Cover charge for the Lounge is currently at ¥2500 per person. High tea is served between 12:00 and 17:00, and offers two main set menus at ¥3900 and ¥8900. All of the dining experiences are non-smoking except for the Bar (just at the Bar, not at the Lounge), which allows it.

Tokyo MidTown is located at Akasaka-9-chome, and is a quick walk from the Roppongi Hills complex, and like the latter, it is also served by the Hibiya, the Oedo, and the Chiyoda lines. Click HERE for Tokyo Metro information.

More on Tokyo MidTown.
More on Ritz Carlton Hotel Tokyo.

Old Romantics

Please watch until the very end to see this romantic couple!

Taspo, Schmaspo

Edy, Suica, iD, Pasmo, and coming soon, ladies and gentlemen, TASPO!

The Tobacco Institute of Japan, an association of tobacco retailers, in its effort to curb underage smoking in Japan, will introduce the Taspo cards, which will bear photo, name, membership number and expiration date. The cards also have an embedded chip that allows customers to pay electronically, much like a Suica and a Pasmo. By the end of 2008, more than 600,000 cigarette vending machines will be installed with an electronic age-verification device. In the near future, buyers will have to flash this card on a vending machine's reader to verify a legal age of 20 and over.

So far, it has been extremely easy for underage smokers (the legal age for smoking is 20 years old) to purchase ¥300 (300-yen) cigarette packs through these vending machines, much like buying a soft drink. A survey taken among high schoolers in 2004 revealed that 42% of the boys and 27% of the girls had either tried smoking or had become regular smokers. The card, as predicted, however, will not completely eliminate underage smoking as those wily smokers would buy them from stores (why the stores do not verify age I do not understand . . . ) or simply get a sympathetic adult to swipe his or her card.

***

Speaking of cigarette and smoking habit, one more district is joining in the ban in public smoking: Shinjuku. Recent visitors to Tokyo and locals may realize that there are now banners in Shinjuku, as well as painted signs on sidewalks in the district that remind people not to smoke in outdoor public spaces. Funny enough, the ban, which could be found in different wards such as Chiyoda and Shinagawa, was not really intended to foster a healthier lifestyle, but rather, to keep the outdoor public spaces free from cigarette butts.

So now all the smokers are pushed indoors . . . Jeez!!!

You can read the original article at the REUTERS.

Pasmo is Here!!!

Once upon a time, yours truly arrived in Tokyo to find his wallet filled with not only hundreds of stores point cards but also a multitudes of transportation cards: one for Japan Rail (mostly train over the ground), one for Tokyo Metro (underground), and one for the Tokyo Bus. Many a time Bloompy wondered to himself why the three different proprietors had not developed one electronic card that could be read by the three different modes of transportations.

Well, either Bloompy's suggestion and perhaps hundreds of other people's complaints were heard OR the three institutions finally decided to create a pass that could be read by all, but at any rate, PASMO finally made its debut in March 2007.

Suica, the Japan Rail's Integrated Circuit Card (IC-card), had been in circulation for some years, but now it too can be used interchangeably with the Tokyo Metro and the Bus systems. Just as Suica is accepted by vendors within the JR-system, Pasmo can be used to make purchases at any locations that display the Pasmo Logo, as well as at all Suica-accepting shops.

For more information, click HERE.

Panda Sneeze

This is unrelated to anything about Japan or travels, but did I have a lot of fun watching the surprised Mama Panda!

Now You See It, Now You See It Less

Kimonos are not cheap things to acquire in Japan. Even a good summer kimono (yukata) can fetch for a few hundred dollars. A good silk kimono can cost somewhere from a thousand dollars to, say, $15,000, which gets the average Japanese girl (or her parents) thinking about how much she wants to spend on something that she may not wear too often, given that people would have seen the design once worn. It is perhaps the equivalent of wearing a Gucci or a Dolce & Gabbana: once you wear it, people will remember it. How often will you then don the same thing for the next function?

Now enter the Tokyo-based Kyoto Kimono Yuzen Co. (京都きもの友禅) with a seamless solution of the Dress-Furisode: a kimono that converts into a party dress or an evening gown, where the wearer puts the full-length dress first, then an undervest, a jacket, and finally the obi (the sash or the belt). A young lady or perhaps her parents may buy one for her Seejin no hi (Coming of Age Day), and the lady could wear the evening gown for another occasion.

Furisode is formal kimono for single women. Click HERE to learn more about Furisode or kimono in general.

Ready Your Chopstick, Get Set, Grab!!!

Concerned that Japanese youth are forsaking their ancestors culinary culture and table manners, Hisatagakuen, an all-girl high school in south Japan, reportedly employed a chopstick-using ability as one of the entrance requirements. Perspective students were asked to demonstrate their dexterity in using the chopstick to pick up objects such as marbles, beads, and beans from one spot to another, according to the school's principal, Hisata Junko (Japanese names start with the family name/surname and then the given name).

With Western and western-inspired fast food inundating this nation, young people now prefers burgers and fries to traditional Japanese food such as fish, rice, and miso soup; and with the shift in eating habits, the table manners went away too. The school, founded in 1902, also aimed to preserve other cultural activities such as flower arrangement and the traditional tea ceremony.

Coming of Age Day ( 成人の日 : seijin no hi)

The United States of America has their Debutante Balls, Mexico has their Quinceañera, the Indonesians have their Sweet Sixteen/Seventeen, and Japan has their Seejin no Hi or the Coming of Age Day (literally, seijin means "to become a person"; "seijin no hi" therefore means "to-become-a-person's day"). This national holiday celebrates those who turned 20 during the preceding year (during the current school year, which in Japan began in April). According to the Daily Mainichi, this year's number of debutante is the lowest ever in 20 years, prompting concern about the declining birth rate in Japan. Last year, 1.39 Million Japanese reached adulthood.

In Japan this used to be celebrated on January 15 until 1999 when it started being fêted on the second Monday of January. Twenty is the legal age for voting, drinking, and smoking (and I shall see which of these three new rights is celebrated the most by these youth!). In the two times that I had attended the festivities (the first in Asakusa Temple back in 2005) I noticed that the majority of youth who donned their kimonos were mostly the young women. This year I only spotted a few, but was not sure if they were the girls' dates or fellow debutants.

(I caught sight of a couple of kimono-clad middle aged women who were too coquettish for local standard, prompting me to believe that they must have missed their own Coming of Age day a few decades ago; or perhaps they are now celebrating the Coming of Old Age day. Rejoice!)

There were a few three-generation groups of women: a set that included the grandmother, the mother, and the debutante. You can almost trace the genetic line on most of them. The elder ones were beaming with pride as spectators snapped pictures of their progeny (not to discount a number of fathers who proudly escorted their daughters to the shrine). As soon as I load the pictures to my Flickr account, I will create a link here.

Tarako Hell

During the holiday season last month, my partner and I were in Tokyu Hands, hearing in the distance a faint sound of a children song that turned out to be a Siren Song from Hell. Why, you ask? Well, watch the video, and see if you can get the darned song and dance out of your mind for good!!! If you succeed, let me know how you do it...

Apparently, "tarako" is Japanese for cod roe. These videos are commercials, hawking tomato-based cod roe sauce. There is indeed Japanese pasta dish that is served with such sauce. I happen to like the dish, dang it! The video above was the one we saw at Tokyu Hands, sold as DVD for kids, and as you can see, it is a sing-along video complete with the lyrics down at the bottom of the screen (if you can read Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana, by all means, sing along!)

Here are the lyrics for the original Tarako music video (thanks to JapanNewbie.com):

たったら　たったら　たらたら　たらこ [x2]

tattara tattara taratara tarako [x2]

おなかが鳴ると　やって来る
なかまを連れて　やって来る

onaka ga naru to yattekuru [when your stomach growls, it (tarako) comes]
nakama wo tsurete yattekuru [it comes bringing its friends]

たらこ　かぶって　顔出して
スイッチョ　スイッチョ　出かけます

tarako kabutte kaodashite [It wears the tarako hood and sticks its face out]
suiccyo suiccyo dekakemasu [suiccyo steps out for the day]

ふと気づけば　窓の外
ふと気づくと　家の中

futo kidukeba mado no soto [suddenly you notice, it’s just outside your window]
futo kidukuto ie no naka [suddenly you notice, it’s in your house]

たらこ　たらこ　たっぷり　たらこ
たらこ　たらこ　たっぷり

tarako tarako tappuri tarako [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]
tarako tarako tappuri [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]

たらこが　やって来る
たらこ　たらこ　つぶつぶ　たらこ

tarako ga yattekuru [tarako is coming]
tarako tarako tsubutsubu tarako [tarako tarako lumpy-lumpy tarako]

たらこ　たらこ　つぶつぶ
たらこが　やって来る

tarako tarako tsubutsubu [tarako tarako lumpy-lumpy]
tarako ga yattekuru [tarako is coming!]

たらこ　たっぷり　たっぷり　たらこ
たらこ　たっぷり　たっぷり　たらこ

tarako tappuri tappuri tarako [x2] [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]

パスタゆでると　やって来る
きれいに並んで　やって来る

pasuta yuderu to yattekuru [when you boil pasta, it (tarako) comes]
kirei ni narande yattekuru [it comes all neatly lined up]

いつも　ニコニコ　素敵な笑顔
チャカボコ　チャカラカ　チャーミング

itsumo nikoniko sutekina egao [always ginning with a nice smile]
cyakaboko cyakaboka charming [cyakaboko cyakaboka charming]

ふと気づけば　肩の上
ふと気づくと　皿の中

futo kidukeba katano ue [suddenly you notice, it’s (tarako is) on your shoulder]
futo kidukubo sara no naka [suddenly you notice, it’s in your plate]

たらこ　たらこ　たっぷり　たらこ
たらこ　たらこ　たっぷり

tarako tarako tappuri tarako [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]
tarako tarako tappuri [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]

たらこが　やって来る
たらこ　たらこ　つぶつぶ　たらこ

tarako ga yattekuru [tarako is coming!]
tarako tarako tsubutsubu tarako [tarako tarako lumpy-lumpy tarako]

たらこ　たらこ　つぶつぶ
たらこが　やって来る

tarako tarako tsubutsubu [tarako tarako lumpy-lumpy]
tarako ga yattekuru [tarako is coming!]

たらこ　たっぷり　たっぷり　たらこ
たらこ　たっぷり　たっぷり　たらこ

tarako tappuri tappuri tarako [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]
tarako tappuri tappuri tarako [tarako tarako plenty of tarako]

***

Here is another video, and that sachet of tomato-based cod roe sauce was exactly what I had sometime last year, except I did not look as scary as that girl eating it.

R.I.P.: Ando Momofuku (1910-2007)

Inventor of the instant noodles died at 96. Ration condition after World War II inspired the man to develop the first instant-noodle ever. Starting with Chicken Ramen in 1958, he followed in 1971 with the ubiquitous Cup Noodle, found in supermarket shelves as well as Cathay Pacific galleys.

Read the original article HERE.

New Year in Full Force

Tokyo awoke from her New Year's Holiday. While Christmas in this predominantly Shinto/Buddhist nation is not a big deal, New Year is. Christmas 2006, which fell on a Monday, was not a holiday, but from December 29 until January 4, most offices and businesses closed down. People fled the city or stayed at home to relax.

While major department stores already opened on January 2 with gradually longer hours, only today (Friday, January 5) did most of Tokyoites return to work in full force, and the effect could not be felt more than in one of her busiest spots: Shibuya. Just witness the major intersection with hundreds of people crossing tonight: in the past few days, this spot was almost like a ghost town.

Like major European cities, January in Tokyo means Major Sale Month. Businesses want to dump their inventory by slashing the price up to 70%, but with this city being one of the most expensive places in the world, a sale price here means just a regular price elsewhere...

On the first day of reopening, many stores features "Fuku-Bukuro," which is basically a "Mystery Grab Bag:" you pay for the said price and take a risk in getting a bag with mystery contents. This is a real bargain because the actual price of the content s is much higher than what is charged to the customers, but the risk is there: you can end up with either "treasure" or "trash," which sounds very much like a commercial "trick or treat." The Nike Fuku-Bukuro at Takashimaya, for example, included a jogging suit, a sports bag, and a pair of shoes. I am not entirely sure what happens if one does get what he wants but in the wrong size. These bags sell like hot-cakes, according to one staff member; within less than two hours, they were out of Fuku-Bukuros.

Spread the Fat

The company may be closing many locations in the U.S., but Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has decided that Asia is where the action is, especially in places that worship anything "new and Western," like Tokyo and Hong Kong. Kriskpy Kreme blamed the downturn in their fortune to the No-Carb Obsession of the Americans; perhaps they will have better luck here in Asia, whose people seem to have higher metabolism and to know moderation (although these days in China the children of the nouveaux riches seem to have expanding girth).

I was passing through the Shinjuku Southern Terrace back in December 8 of last year when I realized that there was a new addition to this commercial stretch that had already included a Starbucks and a seafood restaurant. It was the Krispy Kreme shop, and the sign said, "7 Days" until the opening, on December 15. Inside of the store, staff were working full time, doing a dry run, if you will. The machine was humming and doughnuts were being produced, and instructions were given to the underlings. At night time, with so thousands of practice doughnuts in abundance, they did not know what to do except to give them away to passersby.

Since its opening on December 15 until this article was written, the store never ran out of doughnuts and the new customers who loved them. Not only were faithfuls, new converts, and the curious patiently queued and filled the raised terrace area in front of the shop, but the line also continued at another side of the building (at the beginning of the bridge that connected the area to the Takashimaya department store), prompting the company to hire security staff to direct traffic from that line to the terrace.

I still remember in the mid-90s, when Krispy Kreme hit California. Not only was the line inside snaked all the way outside, but the drive-through queue caused traffic jam in the parking area of a mall complex in East Bay. I had my first taste of KKD in the mid-80s, when I was schooled in the South (Louisiana and Tennessee). I remember that when I went to one of the shops in Nashville, it was just like a diner, complete with at least two of the city's finest (police) perched at the counter. The shop was located in a rather deserted area, and from outside, the scene could pass for a stepsister of Edward Hopper's famous popular painting "Nighthawks." Who would have guessed that one day, I would run across Krispy Kreme at one of the hot spots of one of the most exciting metropolis in the world.