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It’s high time for Sakura (cherry blossoms) songs in Japan~!!!

Let me break down above video with each song from Youtube.
Very new and popular Sakura song!
Sakura no Shiori/AKB48

Sakura Ame/JUJU

Sakurasaku/Kie Kitano

Sakurae/Yuzu

The Sakura songs young people like to listen to.
No.1 Sakurazaka/Masaharu Hukuyama

No.2 Sakura/Ketsumeishi

No.3 Sakura/Kobukuro

No.4 Sakura/Naotaro Moriyama

No.3 Sakura/FunkyMonkeyBabys

Others
Sakura/Ikimonogakari

When cherry blossoms start blooming, it’s likely to be the end of school year and fiscal year in Japan. That means, it’s the time to say good-bye to the classmates or coworkers who may join different school/class/working place from April. In Japan Feb-March to April is the season of sorrowing farewell in exchange for new encounters. (That’s why Sakura songs released during this period are likely hit!) Cherry blossoms are exactly the flowers in this period. They are not just beautiful to us. I think we definitely overlay our sensitive feelings or memories or expectations ( to see new people by the time the blossoms fall) on cherry blossoms. They are that special, and you’ll see there’s no wonder we LOVE Sakura songs! They are very much suitable as love songs!!

It’s Chinese New Year.
We have imported various elements of Chinese culture to Japan in our long history, but as for Chinese New Year, we don’t have a custom to celebrate it.
However it’s a big chance for the businesses that attract rich Chinese people.
Many Chinese and Taiwanese travel to Japan in this holiday season.

I wonder how it’d be like to shop whatever I want! XD
They bring enough money to shop and play around Tokyo.
They like to stay at a luxurious room @57,000 per night from which Tokyo Tower can be observed close by. They are interested in clothing, cosmetics, electric appliances, and so on.

Their main purpose of visiting Japan is shopping, shopping, and shopping!! Onsen (hot spring), Tokyo Disney Land, skiing, meals follow but shopping is by far the best of all! Especially young people in their 20’s called 80後（baling hou) , who were born after 1980, raised under one-child policy are the most active consumers in China now.

Shiseido at Ginza Mitsukoshi set up their booth and prepare translators and Chinese staff from Shanghai Shiseido. The Chinese customers buy so many that they negotiate if they can have nice freebies instead of haggling to get the price down.

A woman buys 2 x Rolex watches as souvenir! The total cost will be around 800,000 yen (USD8000) Japanese rice cookers are very popular. Unlike Chinese ones, Japanese rice cookers have various settings (eg. soft steamed rice setting for the elder to choose). Each costs over 40,000 yen (USD 400) but Chinese tourists buy 2 or 3 of it at a time including souvenirs.

Speaking of most popular pet in Japan, it’s dog or cat. But rabbit is popular next to them. I knew Neko cafe (cat cafe) but I didn’t know Usagi cafe (rabbit cafe) is available today.

Rabbits goods store
“Usagi-no-shippo”

The rabbit cafe in the video
Usagi to Cafe

People keep rabbits because they are cute, but they don’t make a noise and they don’t smell much.
Rabbits can run so fast that they have to be kept on leash any time when we walk them outside. Clothes for rabbits? Yes, they are very sensitive to the cold. Clothes also prevent rabbits from ticks.

As I’m a dog-oriented person, I don’t know how to communicate well with cat. One of my friends keeps a rabbit, but that seems boring to me because the rabbit barely moves, especially since it has grown up. Keeping a dog is really tiresome. I have to walk her, wash her paws, and dry them every single day to keep her inside house. Rabbit will be easier…I can understand why rabbit is popular especially in the big city area. Many apartments in Japan do not allow the renters to keep pets. But who knows when rabbits don’t make a noise?

If you like cat or rabbit but you cannot keep them at your house, why don’t you spend some time with your favorite one at a cat cafe or a rabbit cafe? Well, that’s the story in Japan. First of all, do you have any kind of animal cafe in your city?

examples of cat cafe
Neko Cafe Club
Nekono Mahou
Nekorobi

The video is from a cat cafe, “Nekorobi”.

Rabbits and cats are so cute, too~!

*Disclaimer: The original content is quoted from MSN Japan.

Have you heard that it’s a distortion of a body that makes us fat!?
Even if you don’t care about fat or overweight, you’re not happy to live with stiff shoulders, backache, or constipation, are you?
First of all, you can learn if your body is distorted or not. If your answer is yes to any one of the followings, then your body (especially pelvic bone) is very possibly distorted.

test 1
-Somehow the skirt you are wearing turns round while you walk.
-Only one side (inside or outside) of the soles of your shoes worn out.
-You have severe menstrual pain.
-You sleep on your stomach, or on your side.
-You’ve been told that your face looks asymmetry.

If you have one or more of Yes to above, your body is distorted!
(Sadly I am!)
Now how about another test?

test 2
Stand in front of a full-length mirror, close your eyes and step there for 10 seconds.
Then open your eyes, trying to keep relaxed, but quickly check if the hight of the followings are located in good balance.

-the eyebrows
-the ears
-the shoulders
-the knees
-and the length of the arms.

So what can you do to the distortion and lose weight (fat) after all?
That’s what Makudake diet (巻くだけダイエット) is for.
Only wrap a band around your sidebone to set the pervic bone right positioned, and wait for 3 minutes! Do this everyday, and one month later you will find you have lost 2-3kg, according to them.

This is Makudake diet and is very hot now in Japan now!
But as long as I check the book review from Amazon.co.jp, it’s just OK…
But if you are interested in, the photo below is from the book.

I remember long time ago, it got popular to band tape around fingers and lose weight. I tried that, but I could not keep that because at work I had to show my fingers in front of our customers. To continue that diet method, the best thing was to do that as long hours as possible. When we spend most of time at work, how could I keep that? Then I stopped it.

BTW, do you remember my post about rubbing fat to move it to the breasts? One of my friends kept doing that and she said to me, it really worked!!

Is there any diet that is very popular in your country? Anything that you recommend or share with us? What do you think of low-carbohydrate diet? I once went successful with it, but since I heard it’s not effective to stop eating enough amount of rice and instead eat meat well, I stopped my diet and got fat again…:(

The other day, I joined Kakizome, or the first calligraphy writing at the beginning of new year, run by a sister of my friend’s who is a professional calligrapher (copyist). In Japan, whether you like it or not, everyone learns it at elementary school and jr. high school as compulsory subject. I remember it was part of the assignments we had to finish during winter vacation. Of course, Kakizome originally is done on the 2nd of January.

Calligraphy, piano, and abacus were 3 major culture lessons that most of kids wanted to have when I was a child. However I was busy learning Koto and I had no chance to learn them at all.

Now I think how wonderful it is to be able to write beautiful calligraphy while most of letters nowadays are written by computer.

This day, we were told to choose whatever words that we want to write.
Some people like to write resolutions or maybe their favorite words that fit into the small calligraphy paper. I didn’t come up with any good words then and so I decided to write the title of my blog wishing that it gets better and better.

I took a video how she wrote it as an example for me to follow.

I struggled from copying the example. It’s not easy as it looks! I was almost forgetting how difficult it was. ^ ^; Some letters look OK but some look…ugly?

I didn’t have time to try another one (3rd paper), but I had such a nice experience for the first time since jr. high school, I guess. I had Koto and calligraphy in the new year this year, which is pretty much “Japanese”.