-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

What’s going on in Japan lately? These days it looks like many people are crazy about power spots. What’s so funny about it is that it’s no more than a fad. Many people who like to visit the places called “power spot” lately do visit there because those places are hot and popular now, not because they naturally liked to visit shrines for example.

My friend who likes to visit shrines and temples were just amazed with embarrassment to see way too many people in a small shrine these days, which she found was a place introduced as a power spot later. According to her she felt it so weird that those people didn’t seem to respect those places or the Gods. Some of them spoke loudly, behaved badly, dressed inappropriately for a worshipper.

Reflecting power spots fad, TV programs, books and magazines like to introduce power spots one after another.
According to TBS “Ousama no brunch” some shrines in Tokyo are considered power spots.
(The woman in the show wearing a pink dress and a wig acts like this all the time for this program. So please don’t take it seriously. ^ ^)

Imado shrine
This shrine is famous for god of marriage.

The great thing about this video is that it explains manners of praying at shrines.

1) When we enter the Torii, or the shrine gate, we should avoid center position. we should step from left leg when we take a position of entering at the left side of the gate, and do with right leg at the right side of the gate. Of course we are not supposed to forget to make a bow before entering the gate.

2) Then we should wash off our hands and mouth at Temizuya.
When we do it in the right order, it will be from left hand, then right hand, and mouth (by left hand) by a ladleful of water for each part and wash off the ladle for the next person when we leave.

It’s said that Imado shrine is a birthplace for Manekineko (beckoning cat).
Manekineko that has left hand beckoning means it beckons money, while right hand beckoning means meeting a good partner. I wonder what Manekinekoduck was…^ ^;

It’s not common that the Ema is round shaped.
They put the meaning of good luck (luck is 縁 pronounced as “en”) into the circle shape (circle is 円 and pronounced as “en”).

3) We make the sounds by shaking the big bell to let the God know we came here to pray.
2 bows 2 claps and 1 bow at a praying. Clapping noise can be big enough for the God to notice it.

What makes Imado shrine power spot is these Manekineko. We are encouraged to take a photo and make it a standby screen of cell phone because that can boost our luck in love.

Omikuji at this shrine is 200yen each and is focused on love only.
They hold an “Enmusubi no kai” that single men and women meet up for tea and possibly for new romance.
We can also take Panda bus from Imado shrine to go to Asakusa for free.

Atago shrine
It’s located at the top of Mt. Atago which is the highest place in the 23 wards of Tokyo.
Atago shrine is especially famous for successful career.
86 steps of stairs are steep but they have Matsuri as in the below video every other year.

At the top of the stairs there is a shrine, a pond with many carps (The carp is a symbol of a successful career.) and a Japanese cafe named “T”. It’s said feeding the carps in the pond will encourage economic fortune.

Ekouin is a shrine highly related with sumo.
There is a tiny grave for Nezumikozou and a stone in front of it.
It’s said we can be lucky with money when we grind down the stone a little bit and bring the powder back home and keep it with ourselves.

Kirin’s opinion:
I’m not interested in what we call “power spots” only because it’s so popular now.
But it was nice I learned how to act properly at shrines. I don’t think even most of us, the Japanese don’t know exactly how to enter the shrine gate and which hand is first to be washed off. I knew 2 bows 2 claps and 1 bow at praying, but I never thought of its meaning! But don’t worry nobody will blame you even if you don’t follow our rules exactly. I guess the most important thing is not to fotget respectful attitude at any power spots and stay modest or humble against Gods or nature… What do you think?

★Girl’s power From Department Stores★
12/DEC/2009

***When there are more than 2 x Tokyo Kawaii TV videos in the “home” page of this blog, you can see only latest one’s screen. But that doesn’t mean you cannot watch the previous one(s). To watch previous one(s), just click the title of the post and you’ll see the screen will appear.
***Sometimes it seems an error occurs that video is not corresponding to the title of the post, even though the HTML code is corresponding. To avoid this, click the title of the post before you just click to play the video. Sorry for confusion, I have no idea why this error happens.

Are Japanese department stores dying…?

The player will show in this paragraph

What are they saying? I can tell you…

Japanese singles say that they want to get married but they cannot find a good partner. This is becoming a social problem today, and many of them work harder to meet someone to tie the knot. Work…what? Konkatsu! Activity for marriage!

According to the statistics, one out of 2 singles of the age between 30 and 34 is not married. In fact, many of my friends are serious about Konkatsu. Some take cooking classes, matchmaking parties every weekend, and always ask me to introduce someone to them. I have no idea why they have to struggle so much because they are all nice & kawaii girls to me.

Herbivore men may need to be more active to meet women. Some of them are too shy to talk to women. Anyhow Konkatsu-related businesses are growing in Japan thanks to those people. You know most of Japanese people are very shy and so they need someone to conduct the situation for smooth communication with strangers.

Here’s a sample video that introduces a man who takes a lesson “how to make Omiai (blind date) successful” at a Konkatsu agancy.

Konkatsu lessons

cooking lessons (@5,000yen)
styling fee (10,000yen/month)
party (5,500yen)…Usually men have to pay way more than women.

GREEN single’s bar (Konkatsu bar)

Major Konkatsu-matching agents
Onet
Bridal Net
SunMarie
Nozze
zwei

However, some women pay more attention to the requirements to her partner such as how much he earns yearly and they repeat hopping Konkatsu parties one after another to expect next one should be better. Well…it depends, but I think that marriage is give and take. A man and a woman help each other.

I have a friend about 40 years old who joins one or two of the above agencies. She dated several guys but she was so much disappointed to hear they asked her to stay at home, do things around him to support him so he can concentrate on his work. How outdated these guys are! They should stay with their mom forever~!!

Is Konkatsu sort of activity popular in your country, too?

I wonder when it was last that Japan was said to be a country of nondiscriminatory society. Time has changed and today many Japanese workers suffer from the difference between regular employment and irregular one. In Japan when we do the same job, our salary or social security is different whether we’re hired as regular employee or not. (Yes, this is very unfair!) In fact, many temp-workers have been fired and they turned to be homeless these days.

Japan used to be nicer to the poor and the weak of society but watch this video to see how these people are striving today. They are not lazy. They are doing as much as they can to make their living, but they can not get out of working poor. They are not anything special. Such people can be next door, and this can happen to anyone under such bad economy.

You may have strong image against Japan that it’s a country of Samurai and Harakiri.
Well that’s true if you discuss Japan of hundreds of years ago, but what’s new today?
One of my blog readers used to ask me to write about how Japanese people go dating. But before I write about that, there is something I should mention: something remarkable between men and women today.

Young Japanese men of 20s and 30s today are apparently different from current 40s or 50s were in that age. The uniqueness of Japanese men nowadays is called as “herbivore boy” and has been broadcasted here and there several times, because they are that unique.

As in the title, Japanese men are getting less interested in the things that they used to stick to.
For example, they are no longer interested in:
-hunting for girls,
-working hard not only to support his family but to get promoted to gain good position at his company,
-buying luxurious car or house to show off,
-drinking strong alcohol and staying away from sweets,
-eating well and working out at a gym to build a manly bodyline,
-competitions
and etc.

These are the things men used to think needed to be a man among men.
But young men never care about such things any more. They enjoy what they like, totally free from prejudice, competition, aggressiveness or whatever men used to pay much attention to.

Here’s what herbivore men care for:
-fashion and cosmetics to make them look good
-time they spend with family
-diet to keep a lean body and to save money
-cafe and sweets (These days sweets especially designed for men are available at convenience stores.)
-mild and modest character, just do things as his own pace

“飲む・打つ・買う” (meaning drinking, gambling, flirting with women) is a common way of expressing bad guy in Japan, but herbivore men are way opposite to this. They are no-drinking, no-gambling, and no-sex!

It sounds peaceful when you hear “Herbivore men” but as to the downside of them, it is said that they can accelerate our social problem of low birth rate because they are indifferent to women. To be exact, they are not proactive or aggressive to make an approach to women. They may feel like dating if only they are asked by women. Yes, they are very passive! Moreover, the virtual girls available in the video game such as LovePlus could be better than real ones!! Being indifferent to expensive car or watch damages Japanese economy, too.

On the other hand, however, we can think that herbivore men have settled in that way under decades of Japanese bad economy. Being less offensive might have been the best way to cope with such gloomy economy. Or it could be Japanese women who created herbivore men. Unlike men, Japanese women have become strong. Women enjoy working very hard at the office, drinking well, shopping a lot, and are very aggressive.

TV or book catches trend faster. Otomen or Ojoman introduced herbivore male earlier.

Now I can clearly understand why one of my male colleagues acted like a woman when I was working at the office. He was around mid 30, single. He seemed to spend much time and money for shopping. He liked eating sweets at the office. He liked to talk with girls for sweets, hair care cosmetics, new shops, and etc. He was wondering what to wear to the event while non of other female colleagues didn’t care much about that. He said he wanted to get married someday, but he didn’t seem to be proactive against women. I was not sure if he had a girlfriend then, but he liked to keep doing things at his own pace, which means he didn’t even like his things touched or moved from the right position by his girlfriend when she came to his house. It was over 5 years ago, when I found he was very different from most of other men, but now I feel he was one of the herbivore guys! Herbivore guys are good to have as friends, but I’m not sure if I can fall in love with someone who I don’t sense “male”. (LOL) What do you think? Have you seen herbivore men around you? Or could you be one of them?