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Sakura Songs

author Posted by: kirin on date Mar 4th, 2010 | filed Filed under: Uncategorized, what's new?

It’s high time for Sakura (cherry blossoms) songs in Japan~!!!

Let me break down above video with each song from Youtube.
Very new and popular Sakura song!
Sakura no Shiori/AKB48

Sakura Ame/JUJU

Sakurasaku/Kie Kitano

Sakurae/Yuzu

The Sakura songs young people like to listen to.
No.1 Sakurazaka/Masaharu Hukuyama

No.2 Sakura/Ketsumeishi

No.3 Sakura/Kobukuro

No.4 Sakura/Naotaro Moriyama

No.3 Sakura/FunkyMonkeyBabys

Others
Sakura/Ikimonogakari

When cherry blossoms start blooming, it’s likely to be the end of school year and fiscal year in Japan. That means, it’s the time to say good-bye to the classmates or coworkers who may join different school/class/working place from April. In Japan Feb-March to April is the season of sorrowing farewell in exchange for new encounters. (That’s why Sakura songs released during this period are likely hit!) Cherry blossoms are exactly the flowers in this period. They are not just beautiful to us. I think we definitely overlay our sensitive feelings or memories or expectations ( to see new people by the time the blossoms fall) on cherry blossoms. They are that special, and you’ll see there’s no wonder we LOVE Sakura songs! They are very much suitable as love songs!!

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Sample cafe and student nail salon

author Posted by: kirin on date Mar 2nd, 2010 | filed Filed under: something interesting, what's new?

Unique Sample Cafe

LCAFE reopened December 2009 at Shibuya PARCO part1 B1 floor. If you ever have a chance to visit the cafe, never fail to register for the membership from your moble phone in advance. According to what you order to eat or drink at the cafe space, you can get tokens(Lcoins) to be echanged for novelties or small sample products.

For example, 1 Lcoin can be exchanged for either of the Bihada Ichizoku’s foot mask or the hand mask. Even a cat food can be exchanged for 1 Lcoin.
You can get 3 Lcoins per lunch. If you take lunch 10 times at this cafe, you can get 30 Lcoins and that can be exchanged for a watch that is originally priced 15800yen. (USD158)

Unique Student Nail Salon

Students from a nail school need practice, while there are people who are happy with nail decorations at discounted price. That’s what this new type of nail salon is for. That’s where students from the nail school do nails for discounted prices and the customers receive not-bad level of finish or decoration (although not perfect) by paying less.

Having said that, the student nailists at the salon are all those who have passed the exams of the nail school. When a professional nail salon requires 8925yen for the course introduced on TV for example, this student nail salon does 4700yen only. When finished, the student nailist gets advice from the professional. It’s good they can still get compensation from such experimental salon.

***Please ignore the last part of the video that has nothing to do with the salon.

Kirin’s opinion:
I’m quite interested in such new type of stores of new concepts! There are variety of ways of thinking and value that we have, and so the businesses should not stick to the ordinal ways. Collaborations made by more than 2 different industries or services sometimes can result in win-win outcome. XD

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Chubby Kawaii

author Posted by: kirin on date Feb 28th, 2010 | filed Filed under: Tokyo Kawaii TV, fashion

★Chubby Kawaii★
7/NOV/2009 on air

***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.

Plump women should enjoy fashion more!!

The player will show in this paragraph

What are they saying? I can tell you…

Read more »

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I’m back from Osaka! (sequel)

author Posted by: kirin on date Feb 26th, 2010 | filed Filed under: daily life, rambling

Continued from a previous post, I’d like to share more about my short trip to Osaka. :)
Here’s “Mizukake Jizo” filled with moss or alga because it’s watered every time we pray.

Mizukake Jizou4

As we entered the gate…there was a line of people who came to pray.

Mizukake Jizou1

Can you see some green statues? I kinda refrained from taking photos from front of Jizo, as that attitude may look fool against God. It’s only Jizo statue but as a Japanese I somehow feel like showing some respect to it.

Mizukake Jizou2

Nice small alley that connects this small shrine and commercial area filled with drinking places.

Mizukake Jizou3

Speaking of Osaka, it’s also famous for “Owarai geinin” or comedians especially who are good at Manzai style of comedy. Many professional comedians are from Yoshimoto group in Osaka and it’s natural we can find Yoshimoto shop to purchase some popular comedians goods.

Yoshimoto shop

Osaka Takoyaki charm was kinda cute! My friend just said, “That’s because you’re from somewhere else. The locals are already bored.” She never enters Yoshimoto souvenir shop, which is just the same as I never visit Tokyo Tower since my childhood. ^ ^;

Osaka Takoyaki charm

Tsuutenkaku tower is a symbol of Osaka. It’s located in Shinsekai, which is a place for men again. There are many many Kushikatsu bars and Japanese chess or “igo” game or several analog types of game places. All these atmosphere just made me feel as if we were back 30-50? years ago. I’m afraid young women wouldn’t like this place. Most of the people were middle-old aged men and tourists.

Shinsekai game center

A fake Billiken-san statue. The genuine one is inside Tsuutenkaku tower, according to what I heard. But we didn’t go inside the tower then.

Biriken san at Shinsekai

Again this area looks…what to say…”vulgar” to be honest. The scenery is messed up with too many individual signs but that even looked delightful to a tourist like me. :)

way to Tsuutenkaku

There was no way we didn’t try the most famous Kushikatsu at the most famous Kushikatsu bar “Daruma“!! As you can see, so many celebs have visited this bar and left autographs that are kept all over the wall above menu.

Daruma Kushikatsu bar

Original Kushikatsu for 105yen. I have no idea why they don’t open a branch bar at…such place like Shimbashi in Tokyo. Shimbashi is also a place for mid-old aged men to hang out for drink.

Original Kushikatsu

“Do not soak the Kushikatsu twice into the sauce!” This is repeatedly warned and is a basic rule that we have to follow. That means, we should not soak the Kushikatsu after we had some bites because the sauce container is to be shared with others. Cabbages were free. Kushikatsu was fine, but I found myself not very fond of this type of place. I’d prefer Tapas or Bar. To be honest, I like western foods and wine more than Japanese foods and sake. :p

1 time sauce

I like Osaka and I wonder how it’d be like if I move to live in there. People are funnier and things are cheaper. The city is very small compared with Tokyo, and so everything is so close and convenient. I could visit grandma more often. But I know I’ll miss Tokyo a lot more! The main purpose of this trip was to see my grandma, but in this public place I just share my Osaka tour with my Osaka friend who kindly spent time with me from 10am to 9pm.

I’ve visited Osaka (only my grandma’s house) so many times since my childhood because it’s a hometown to my father. But it was my first time trip to look around the city like this, thanks to my friend from Osaka. She always says that I am as funny as Osaka people. It sounded so interesting when she said that my skin (outside) is the one from Tokyo but my mind (inside) is totally the one from Osaka! Yeah, that’s possible. :D I found compatibility in Osaka, while many Tokyo people don’t like it. (Basically there’s a cultural difference between Tokyo and Osaka, and each people do not like others very much.)

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I’m back from Osaka!

author Posted by: kirin on date Feb 24th, 2010 | filed Filed under: daily life, rambling

I’ve been away to Osaka to see my grandma for a couple of days and I came back last night. My father is originally from Osaka, although no Osaka culture or Osaka dialect were shared with me who was brought up in Tokyo area. It’s always fun to hang around non-familiar places whether it’s inside or outside Japan. Again I find I like travelling!!

1st day -with local friend-

Osaka subway

Osaka subway~. If you’ve ever come to Osaka, you remember this. Compared with Tokyo subway, it’s very small and less complicated with less people. But I always felt that the ceilings, because they are not very high, somewhat gave me the feeling of pressure, nevertheless I am very short. I don’t think there should be much difference between the ones in Tokyo. I have no idea where that feeling came from.

Kani Dohraku

Kanidouraku! One of the most popular Doutonbori photo~.

Kuidaore doll

Kuidaore doll was there, even though the Kuidaore restaurant has been closed for a while.

 Im back from Osaka!

These are all familiar symbols in Dotonbori. Especially the Kuidaore doll character with red and white bordered outfit is still popular even after Kuidaore restaurant was closed some time ago. I understand that. Osaka people would not want the restaurant go. People still love Kuidaore, and that’s why they keep the character left.

 Im back from Osaka!

My friend took me to the Ootako Takoyaki stand that is famous for its big lump of octopus inside Takoyaki.

Ootako 6 pcs for 300 yen

You don’t know Takoyaki? Here it is. A light snack with small pieces of octopus inside the dumplings with sauce and dried bonito flakes over them. I don’t eat Takoyaki usually because I don’t know what else I should eat it with. Only Takoyaki for meal is too little but with rice or noodle, it looks like too much carbohydrate…

Anyhow this day we had another carbohydrate after Takoyaki, that was Ramen at Kinryu. It was not too oily, not too heavy, and was good with some kimchi.

Kinryu Ramen

The atmosphere of the restaurant was…what to say? It was designed for men. What I miss in Osaka is nice cafe or restaurant with good atmosphere. The ramen is only 600 yen with a couple of Chinese-style barbecued pork, free kimchi and steamed rice as much as we want. No wonder men like it!

Interior was a bit odd but fun to explore. :)

Kinryu Ramen inside store

…to be continued to the next post. Stay tuned!

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