-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.

First of all, what is masking tape? Masking tapes are usually used at a place like construction site, especially to cover certain area from dirt, stain or damage. This masking tape production company Kamoi used to be just an ordinary masking tape factory as that produced single colored plain masking tapes only to be used at construction sites.

However, one day, 3 women who like something kawaii asked the company if they could have a study trip to their factory. Then the president of Kamoi kind of unwillingly accepted their visit. These 3 women were fascinated with how the masking tapes are made, and they mentioned that they would love to use colorful kawaii masking tapes if the company can create such things. These women noticed that masking tapes can be so useful for paper decorations because they’re not too sticky like all the other kind of tapes. The president of Kamoi did not listen to this opinion for a while, but finally he accepted it and bang! It went a big hit among young women! I think he was so lucky!

Why I know this? My husband happened to record the secret story of the creation of mt magic tapes some time ago on TV, by accident. I’ve seen these tapes here and there these days, so I watched it intriguingly. :p

It’s convincing how some women can be obsessive with these tapes. With cute stickers, letter pads, papers, colorful pens, and these masking tapes, I could get fully into making kawaii letters to my friends or anything to decorate inside my own room…well, if only I have enough time to indulge myself with. ^ ^;;

This one was interesting. Comparing its English translation and what’s written there in Japanese shows the difference of culture. If I translate the Japanese literally into English, “This must be delicious.” (in Japanese “Okuchi ni aimasu ka douka おくちにあいますかどうか”) will be “I wonder if you like it or not.”

Another one, “Lovely one for you.” (in Japanese “Tsumaranai mono desuga つまらないものですが”) will be “It’s a boring thing though.”

You may wonder who would choose something boring as a gift. If the person thinks it’s boring, why does he give it? He should choose something nice. Haha! That’s our culture. This person expresses modesty by saying this. It’s normal in our society, and saying “Tsumaranai mono” (=boring stuff) does not mean anything as it sounds! On the contrary, the gift usually is very nice. There are many expressions to show modesty, but personally I really wonder if such is understandable outside Japan. I think it’s our own culture. What do you think? :S

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Japanese curry is of course one of the most popular comfort foods in Japan. You will see so many kind of similar curry roux sold at supermarkets here in Japan.
It’s easy to cook. You don’t have to prepare expensive ingredients or unfamiliar spices that you may be less likely to use at other times. Below picture shows one of the Japanese curry roux samples. Some are hot, some are mild or very mild.

ingredients for 4-5 people
meat (whatever kind you like) 200-300g
onion (1)
potato (1)
carrot (half)
curry roux (for 4-5 dishes)
water (600cc)
cooking oil

Cut the meat and vegetables into bite-size.

Heat the cooking oil in a pan and stir-fry the meat and vegetables well.
(If your time allows, saute thinly sliced onion until golden for about 30 minutes. Then your curry will taste even better, but be careful not to burn the onion.)

Just like this! ^ ^

Add the water and remove the scum when it boils. Then cover the pan with its lid, turn the heat over medium to low heat, and keep simmering for about 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat once…

Cut the curry roux into a block, put them into the pan and let them melt in the soup. Once again, simmer it over low heat for about 5 minutes.
It’s time to add some hidden ingredients. For this dish, following ingredients were added.
ketchup(1tbs), Worcestershire sauce(1tbs), and sugar(1tsp).
But it’s all up to you. I sometimes try to add cheese or yoghurt or milk, grated apple or honey, tomato source or Worcestershire sauce, or dark chocolate. It’s really up to your preferences and creativity! Please enjoy your version of Japanese curry!

Ta-da!

Place the curry over the rice. (In this case, you need to prepare steamed rice separately.)
Or you may want to eat it with bread or anything you prefer.

Normally we like to add meat, onion, carrot and potato, but in fact you can try with other vegetables or you can also use beans instead of meat. Also, it may sound interesting but curry usually tastes better next day. You can compare the taste on the day right after you fix it and the one sit over night. You’ll see what I’m talking about.

In case you want to make a lot of curry at a time and preserve it in a freezer, don’t use potato. If you do, smash it before freeze, because potato will taste terrible once it’s frozen. I’d recommend that you should not just microwave but heat on a stove again when you eat it again after defrosted.

Hope you enjoy Japanese curry!!

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First of all, I have to confess that it was my very first nail experience. I’ve never had my nails done by someone else. The reason is simple. I thought that I had to grow my nails or adhere some artificial long nails on my natural nails, which I don’t like. Secondly, when nails grow in 3 weeks and I must pay nearly 10,000yen, it’s just too much for me. Thirdly, I simply don’t have time to do that.

But when my good friend needs some models and it’s offered at a discounted price from their original price, I cannot ignore her. I wanted to help her whatever! Moreover, I just learned I don’t have to grow my nails or add extra length on my nails if I choose Calgel nails. The good news about Calgel nails is that it’s not going to damage my natural nails. Finally I can see my friend and chat with her while I have my nails done by her. This sounds good.

This is the nail booth within the total beauty salon. It’s an AVEDA total beauty salon with spa, nail, hair, headspa, eyelash, and make-up services. I like such inclusive service and the atmosphere of the salon is really nice!

***This is the foot booth where foot care, pedicure and foot gel services are done.

This time I had hand care and Calgel for my fingernails, so it was done in this place.

Here’s my BEFORE picture.

Lena suggests very nicely from a professional’s point of view. Whatever she suggests always make sense to me, but she never pushes you her opinions. I really like the way she is. Oh! You know how we became friends? She was a reader of TKE! We met 2 times when she visited Japan before, but who knew then that she was moving to Tokyo later? ^_^

She shortened and shaped my fingernails, did cuticle care, buffed the surface of my nails with a very gentle sponge buffer, then after carefully wiping the nails with antiseptic and a special preparatory liquid, she started to apply the clear gel base.

If you don’t like to apply any colors on your nails, you can just ask for this transparent one (clear gel). She told me some men also like to do this. But I liked to apply something kawaii, of course! ***Nail design samples in the below picture are photoshopped (blurred) to protect the copyright of their design. Thank you for your understanding.***

These days I somehow like blue color. So I asked her to make a blue color between two different blue colors I saw from the sample. The good thing about this nail salon is that they can create nail colors that are not found from the sample colors. Some nail salons do not offer that service, according to Lena. It looked so fun to create a new color from some different color powder.

Finally my desired color was painted.

I was asked to cure my nails under UV light every time she applied, so that the gel hardened. You must be familiar with such if you have experienced Calgel before. But everything was the first experience to me, I was delighted and excited at each step, which must have seemed like a child to Lena! Haha!!

Now colors were applied. I chose a different color for only forefingers.

Then she applied glittering dots and stones, but unfortunately I couldn’t take photos then because other hand was always under the light. ^ ^;;
Look, how she did it!

I totally loved these nails she made for me! Now I think I know why people get so crazy about nails. Every time I look at my own nails, I feel so great! I never thought nails can bring me such joyful moment. I’d love to frequent if only I can afford it so often. Everything was so perfect and I had such a comfortable and relaxing 2.5 hours at the nail salon.

So who is next? Please ask her for the price and all the details you want to know. She speaks English, Hungarian, and Japanese.

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