-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.

★How To Get Snapped On Street★
12/NOV/2008 on air

Being snapped on Tokyo street and how fashion trends are created…

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What are they saying? I can tell you…

Have you checked out FlutterScape before?
I’ve read about it here and there and I finally joined them as a seller the other day!!
I’d quote a post from Tofugu that explains things better than I will do so from scratch. :p

So basically it’s a marketplace where sellers who live in Japan and buyers overseas meet. I wanted to have a chance to sell kawaii stuff from Japan but eBay was not my thing. I opened my account but somehow I didn’t feel like joining them. It’s just too huge and too complicated for a person like me who is not familiar with online auctions. Then what about FlutterScape? To me, it seemed to be less complicated, family atmosphere that sellers and buyers exchange comments so casually each other just like on blogs, and more over it was run by a Japanese guy and their office is in Shibuya where I can easily visit if I needed to do something off-line.

I also once thought of making an opportunity for you to be able to purchase Decotti from me when I made my first Decotti making video but my problem was how buyers can feel comfortable about paying everything in advance when they don’t know me very well. It’s good to have a corporate agent inbetween the sellers and buyers who don’t know each other.

That’s the background I decided to join them as a seller at FlutterScape.
As always, I can be easily confused with new online systems and services, at FlutterScape, even though it’s rather simple, my confusion occurred almost exclusively. I had to keep asking questions to the staff, and meanwhile I made a first sale the other day! I was allowed to drop off the parcel at their office in Shibuya. I needed to go to Shibuya anyhow to buy some cosmetics that day, it was nice I could do both at a time. Moreover, Mr. Kakiyama, the CEO of FlutterScape was so nice he invited me to join his dinner with his colleagues and his loyal customer from the UK who’s visiting Tokyo on vacation. It was fun to see them in person off-line!

I’ll keep uploading cool stuff and kawaii stuff from Japan on my account at FlutterScape, but you can also request specific items from Japan. All the other sellers have very interesting and cool stuff that you can enjoy shopping or even only browsing. BTW, if you want to deal with me directly because you trust me and you like me so much (lol) just contact me. I am available for you at several ways from here, Tokyo.

While ago my husband and I went to onsen that is only 2 hours or so from our place. At that time we didn’t take Pi-chan. It was nice to be with her, but at the same time I found that I was always concerned if she feels good, if she needs to go to No.1 or 2, and I was very tired from the holiday after all. I wanted to go to onsen anyhow before it gets too hot and humid.

At that time when we went to the onsen, the weather was OK compared with the current one. Right now it’s in the middle of rainy season called “Tsuyu” in Japan. The temperature is around 30 degrees Celsius, humidity maybe around 60-70%. Here comes my least favorite season! Tsuyu lasts for a month, and then summer comes that is about 35+C (even at night it’s around 30C) and very humid. We basically cannot live a comfortable life without air-con in summer. It’s hot by the end of September. *depressed* I hate summer more than any other seasons if I have to stay in Japan. It was the last chance for me to visit onsen that time, because I will not be able to enjoy onsen when the weather is so hot, no matter how much I love it.

At east Japan most of Unagi is steamed, which is a big difference between Unagi from west Japan. I sometimes want to eat it made in a west Japan way. They don’t steam it. The difference is ours is too soft compared with theirs. Well actually miso or dashi (soup for Udon for example) is also different between east and west Japan. I somehow long for another Japanese life of mine in Osaka especially since my visit to Osaka last time.

The Unagi unexpectedly stayed in my stomach so long hours that I had hard time having a big dinner at the inn.

Nice historical onsen ryokan “Toukaikan” (founded in 1928) looked so tempting. It somehow reminded me of the movie “千と千尋の神隠し” (Spirited Away) but unfortunately we had no time to have onsen there. We never expected this existed there. We had our plan. We had to go.

It’s so nice to stay at such a very Japanese place but my problem is that I prefer western foods and bed to Japanese foods and futon. I have found so many nice Japanese hotels with very Japanese-like interiors and exteriors but these places often prepare 100% Japanese way. I was not sure if I can eat Japanese foods for both at dinner and breakfast, and I am not sure if I can sleep well on futon. This may sound very strange to you, but I don’t like to sleep on futon and tatami because it’s too hard. It’s actually very hard to find out Japanese taste of interior, exterior, and onsen but combined with western taste of food and bed within my budget. Most of the time I settle at a small inn that offers French cuisine or Japanese-French cuisine and western type of room that has a bed located and the outside onsen is fabulous. (My husband doesn’t care. I am the one who is particular about what to eat, where to go and stay, what to do, and etc. Thus it’s always I that plan for our trip or where to eat out.) While some of my blog readers say their previous life could be Japanese, I have a feeling this is my first life as a Japanese. (lol)

My husband used to come here often for fishing. I cannot fish because I feel so sorry and sad when I have to see the mouth of fish when the hook is to be taken off. Moreover it’s too boring and being short-tempered I cannot stand staying still until the fish comes.

Walking in the park, I need to locate myself in a deep forest. I was dying to have forest bathing. At night, we came back this place to observe bunch of lightning bugs.

Bathing at a private onsen after walking. We can hear birds singing and murmur of a brook while having a nice onsen!

Another private onsen (Rotenburo= outside onsen) where we bathed at night and in the morning before breakfast.

Himono (salted dry fish) as a souvenir. I don’t like to eat grilled fish so much but they were really good! Himono when it’s grilled it tastes better than raw fish being grilled, only if the Himono is made in good quality. My husband said he would buy their Himono if he has a chance to go fishing in Ito again. We can keep them in a freezer with each Himono wrapped separately.

It’ll be in October when I feel like going to onsen again. I have to survive this uncomfortable summer from now on, but from time to time I need to go to Ganbanyoku to have my body warmed from everyday’s cooling by air-con.

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Putting a little deco sticker on clothes is easy and it’s popular in Japan now. Unlike decoden or sweets deco crafting, it doesn’t require high skills. I’d like to share my first deco clothing experience video that I took while I was playing with it the other day.

It just made me worry because the rhinestones on the edge were not sticky very well. I think I was spending a lot more time than 20-30 seconds. (I also cut off some parts of the video to be edited no longer than 10 minutes.) I suspect it was because of the thickness of my pants.

But I’m relieved I’m finished finally with the bling-bling star deco on the back pocket of the pants!

I sometimes question myself if there’s any point that I have to make learning Japanese videos by myself when there are so many free videos and lessons available online. But at a moment I’m doing this as per request or when I think it’s easier than I explain by text. In other words, if you request that you want me to make such and such video about Japanese, I’ll do that for you by first come first served basis.

Today it’s about greetings in Japanese. For those who study intermediate or advanced Japanese, greetings sound too easy. But I’m trying to refer to the cultural background of why we say so. Well actually it can be said to any posts of this blog. For example, those who are not interested in fashion can also enjoy Tokyo Kawaii TV for example because it refers to something more than fashion. (Some of my blog readers try to watch it without reading my English summary in order to practice listening Japanese spoken at a natural speed, and then read my English summary for better understandings.)

Kotodama…Kotodama thoughts from wiki
We think this way. Speaking out “Ittekimasu” means that the kotodama protects that person, because he said itte (going) and kimasu (coming back safe and sound). Thus speaking ill of others or speaking out negative things will be harmful in terms of Kotodama thoughts.

Finally, I’m trying to modify Learn Japanese page. As a native Japanese speaker, what do you think I can offer to you in this blog? Answering questions from time to time is not very proactive. I want my “Learn Japanese” page as active as other pages such as Health and Beauty. But I cannot come up with the good questions myself because I never learned Japanese as a second language or a foreign language. It’s a mother language, I don’t know what you find hard or confused. Do you know what I mean? It’s just like that I am often confused in English especially between “a” or “the” or no article needed. Singular or plural, prepositions such as “on” or “in” and “in” or “at”, possessive pronoun such as “our” or “their” or nothing needed…^ ^; At first I was having hard time understanding be type of verb and other verbs. ^ ^;

Please help me improve my Learn Japanese page. Your comments under the comment section or opinions and suggestions from contact page are highly welcomed. Thank you for your participation.