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The other day, I happened to find this cute ad in a train station.

When I googled, I found the Sanrio Character Ranking for 2011.
I didn’t know they had this event every year (it looks like so).

BTW, you can also vote for your favorite character by hitting the white button under each character, or by Japanese cell phones (by reading the code provided) if you are in Japan, or you can simply tweet it. In this page, you can play with game, movie or fortune telling and you can also download kawaii computer wallpaper or calendar for free from the 2nd column of that page.

I clearly can recognize some characters I loved while I was a kid! I see how Sanrio characters made my life cheerful. It was always fun for me to go to a Sanrio store and buy a notebook or a pen that I used at school.

I liked these characters.

1) Tahboh (What is his name in English by the way? Same?)

2) Tuxedo-sam (I remember I had a small soft toy and many small goods of this character!)

3) The RunAbouts (?) That’s how I read its name in Japanese, but I really liked it without even knowing its name! lol I kind of collected goods of this character’s.

4) Goro Pika Don (They represent the Gods that make thunder. “Goro” is a sound of thunder at the beginning, “Pika” is lightning, and “Don” is a sound when the thunder strikes.)

5) Seven Silly Dwarfs (Again, I didn’t know its name, but I liked this character.)

The sad thing I remember was Tahboh was banned, because it was blamed that Tahboh makes fun of physically-challenging people. I remember Tahboh disappeared from Sanrio shop and I couldn’t get it anywhere any longer. I had a Tahboh pen case then. He is such a nice and relaxing character that makes people feel relaxed and slow down. I guess it was because I saw many nice characters that I feel familiar from childhood that I decided to write a post about this. All these characters are so old and not available today.

What Sanrio character do you (did you) like? I see how Hello Kitty is powerful nevertheless it’s also such an old character!

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Quality food and imported food
Seijo Ishii

When we want to buy some imported ingredients in Japan, Seijo Ishii or KALDI are the major stores we can often check out at most of the locations in Tokyo. (COSTCO has only 1 warehouse in Tokyo, and of course outside the central area. Sorry my posts are basically based on the information around Tokyo, so I don’t know much about west Japan or other parts of Japan.)

Seijo Ishii’s online store is here.

KALDI also has its online shop.

When you see how the familiar foods or beverages from your country are priced in Japan, you maybe surprised how expensive they are. ^ ^;
Below picture shows Marco Polo, The Mariage Tea and Seijo Ishii original jam.

Some chips.

I like these cookies from La Mere Poulard…I thought they are from France. ^ ^

Chocolates <3

Teas

Beers

I don’t drink beers often, as I prefer wines. But I do remember those beers from Belgium from my last visit there! But I don’t remember how much it was in Belgium. ^ ^;

Seijo Ishii has its original sweets, breads, coffees, dressings and so on.

Basically Seijo Ishii is a quality food market. But you can still find budget priced items from time to time. You can check out the local flyers online at Town Market. If you are planning to move to Japan, you will know what kind of ingredients from home can be purchased in Japan at a grocery store like Seijo Ishii.

What kind of food do you think you would miss most when you are out of your country?

p.s. I didn’t categorize this post as kawaii shop because it doesn’t really fit into kawaii. ^ ^;

Hope you had a peaceful and happy Christmas holiday.
(In Japan, Christmas is not even a holiday, unfortunately. But lucky enough, it happened to be weekend this year. ^^ )
Since I started this series of Christmas illuminations/decorations posts, I was able to share with you many beautiful pictures that were shared by some readers of Tokyo Kawaii, etc. I really appreciate those who kindly took time to participate in this small project.

Before I closed the project on the 25th Dec. I received one more entry from Cindy.
Let me share Cindy’s picture and some of mine I took from Shinjuku the other day and say this event is over.

Cindy lives in the bay area, California, U.S.A.

This one is the most beautiful and elaborate decoration from all I’ve had seen

Thank you Cindy! How beautiful the house is! She took this picture from inside a car, according to her.

Now my final pictures. It’s Shinjuku Mylord shopping center.

Well, actually it’s outside the shopping center.

The picture was not enough, I also took a short video there.

Also a simple but cute Christmas decorations I found at a hotel lobby.

Which Christmas illuminations/decorations did you like most? Haha, don’t worry this is not a competition or a contest. ^__^ For me it’s hard to pick out the best one because each picture was fascinating…I hope you enjoyed this small project as much as I did!

Tokyo Kawaii, etc. will continue to update new posts during the holiday.
Happy holidays!!