-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.

*Kawaii socks*
Kutsushitaya

Kutsushitaya is one of the well-known socks brands that belongs to Tabio. (Tabio has also expanded their shops in the U.K and France.) And the stores are located throughout Japan. In Tokyo, this page tells where it is. (just so many…)

Here’s one of their stores in Tokyo when I bought my leg warmer the other day. I know fashionable people always dress like a few months ahead, which means they like to dress like spring in a cold of February. (This post is written during Feb., even though it’s released in March.) But not only because I don’t care that much for fashion, but because I like being comfortable anyhow, I still cannot get rid of leg warmer while it looks like going backwards that I purchase it among most of all the other products’ being designed for spring and summer. ^ ^;

You see, they are deigned for spring and summer. Fashionable people have started mixing up with color or items designed for spring and they have already taken off boots to be replaced with pumps with their bare feet in under such a cold… (Well, this really sounds like I’m an old lady! lol)

Some pictures from their 2011 spring collections catalog.
(1365yen)

(1260yen)

(840yen)

I’d like kutsushita (it means socks in Japanese) a lot if my toenails were not all looking upwards. What I hate most is both of thumb toenails of mine are making holes in socks very soon because they are too steeply upward. It’s a waste if I buy such kawaii colorful socks but ruin them after a short while. Thus I end up with Uniqlo’s plain black ones that come with 4 pairs for 990yen or so. lol

BTW, if you like 3 pairs for 1050yen, go to Mighty Soxer. They are also one of the brands from Tabio but are less expensive than Kutsushitaya!

Whichever, the problem that I often here from western people is that they cannot find their size in Japan. That’s so true. Usually most of their products are designed for 22-24cm for women because that’s the average size of the feet to cover most of Japanese women’s. Did you also have problems finding your size in Japan? What do you think of kawaii socks and etc.?

Gopan is a unique bread maker that Sanyo invented. It enables us to make bread from rice at home. This idea is supported by the young Japanese people who prefer bread to rice. At first it was scheduled to be available in Oct. 2010, but it was postponed to Nov. 2010 because of too much feedback from the people who got curious about this unique machine. Then no matter how hard Sanyo kept manufacturing Gopan, they never reached the number of (potential) orders. Hence they even stopped receiving reservations or orders since Dec. 2010. They finally accept reservations from this April.

NHK’s Cool Japan the other day was showing how Gopan was invented. The development team has been working on the project since 2003. They struggled so much until they finally reached a solution how to grind rice as fine as flour.

It’s a good idea to use rice instead of flour to make bread in Japan, because we can grow rice in our own country without relying to other countries except for special cases. In fact, Japan has enough stock of surplus rice, while at the same time we have to import most of food from other countries. It’s a good idea to eat what we can grow in our own country. That also will support our local agriculture and farmers. But what’s happening here today is that young people don’t like to eat rice very much. They often like bread a lot more than rice. (I say they because I like rice definitely!) It’s said nowadays the consumption of rice in Japan is only half of 1950′s.

Gopan should be quite helpful for those who are allergic to flour, inside and outside Japan. I don’t know if it’s available in some other countries in the near future but it’s kinda cool we can bake bread either from flour or rice. Of course when we use rice, the texture should be a little different from normal bread that is made from flour. But I don’t think the rice bread baked inside Gopan is inferior to flour bread. I wish I could get it at home but I have another problem that my kitchen is too small to place it anywhere….

By the way, the naming Gopan comes from Gohan (meaning rice in Japanese) and Pan (meaning bread in Japanese, which is actually an imported word from Portuguese in our history around the 17th century.) Japanese people like to name something like this.

I really hope to try Gopan by myself. Maybe in the future when Sanyo can produce smaller Gopan enough to fit into my kitchen. :p What do you think about this gadget?

entry #13
Winnie

The first one is my “Nyanko Sensei” It is one of main character of Natsume Yujincho. I was a Big Fan of him.　I hugged him every night to sleep. I got him when i bought the 500 yen Lucky Dip Ticket in Family Mart. He was prize “A”.　I was so happy as it was my first try for this Theme. Whenever the Family mart , Lawson or Seven eleven have my favourite Animation  500 yen lucky dip ticket, i will buy 1 or 2 Ticket to try.

The Second, is Hello Kitty. My girl got her from Sanrio’s Lucky Dip too. It is also her 1st try to this too.

The Third , is my girl’s ear muff. It is black neko. We bought for less than 500 yen from one of the shop at Harajuku last year. We love Neko!!

The Fourth, is Samantha Thavasa’s Mickey white bag. I have never have any expensive bag for myself. Normally my bag is less than 20 dollar when I am in Singapore.

The Fifth, Christmas present from my beloved Apple and Jun Qiang. They handmade gfits bought by Apple and Jun Qiang in Singapore and sent over to us. We love those special gifts very much.

The Sixth is a Ocarina. It is a wind instrument. I bought this at Amori when we visited there.

The Seventh, This is a Anna Sui Bag I bought from Lawson. It comes with the magazine. Many Magazine comes with free bag but this is the most Kawaii bag. It cost 1200yen for the Magazine.

Wow, how kawaii!! I especially liked the ear muff and handmade goods sent by Apple and Jun. How sweet!! Thank you Winnie.

Are there any more entries for My Kawaii Project?