Archive for July, 2008

Jul
30

The wonderful world of OKASHI

Posted by on Wednesday, 30 July, 2008

I received a piece of Japanese candy (“okashi” or “wagashi” in Japanese) today which had this wonderful English text on the package:

Wagashi

The spirit of OKASHI. It is what gives a peaceful and pleasant mind to the human race. All the time, man seeks romance in the OKASHI. We have been working hard and carefully, and work on. To weave the romance and the fancy into each OKASHI. This, at last, we have made up “The HAKATA SEIYO-WAGASHI.” If you taste the feeling and the spirit of the OKASHI which value tradition and living in the times, there is no pleasure better than it.

If anyone can translate for me what it actually means, I’d be very happy….

Jul
27

I didnt know Tokyo as well as I thought

Posted by on Sunday, 27 July, 2008

tokyo-by-night.jpg
…at least that must be the case, since I only scored 6 out of 10 correct in National Geographic’s Tokyo Quiz.

It started out easy, and my being full of conceit, thought to myself that this is will be a walk in the Ueno Park so to speak; but no… They really threw some difficult questions in there, so do hop over and give it a try and see if you yourself can call yourself an expert on Tokyo, as I thought a mere 5 minutes ago….

Jul
21

Brilliant Japanese coffee commercials

Posted by on Monday, 21 July, 2008

The best commercials on Japanese TV recently are the coffee commercials, in my opinion (that is, if you don’t include the Softbank commercials, of course, since they are in a class by themselves)

Lately, two coffee brands stand out; JT Roots and Georgia. 

Here’s my current favorite JT Roots commercial:

I don’t think I need to explain or translate anything, it speaks for itself. Brilliant, poignant, true, and touching!

Georgia coffee have also made some great commercials lately. Unfortunately I cannot find my favorite Georgia coffee commercial on Youtube, so I have to post my second favorite:

(To summarize in English if you didn’t get it – the guy drinking the coffee gets so into it that he dreams about singing a song dedicated to the coffee, only he’s actually singing out loud and his colleague wakes him up saying “that’s a great song!”)

My favorite is the one where the guy fantasizes about meeting his grandmother. You can find it on the Georgia website here: http://www.georgia.jp/info/cm/heaven/

Jul
18

Lost in Japan on IE7

Posted by on Friday, 18 July, 2008

I just realized, after opening up the front page of this site, that is looks a bit weird in Internet Explorer 7…

The left border is placed far too much to the left; like this:

Website Capture in IE7

I got to be honest, I had completely missed that. I strictly use Firefox on my own PC, and only IE7 at work and don’t usually log on from work. However, I saw it now, and it looks terrible. I did some manual hacks in my source to combat a similar problem in IE6, but I have been completely inactive in HTML/CSS-editing for a year or so now, so I need to do some studying on how to fix it. If anyone has a quick fix, please don’t hesitate to comment here.

Jul
12

Changes

Posted by on Saturday, 12 July, 2008

If there is still anyone reading this (I wouldnt blame you if you didn’t, looking at my past record of, oh, 1 post every 3 months) I would like to update you on some changes which have kept me busy the last few months…

I’ve moved from Ota-ku (大田区):
Nishi-magome in Ota-ku

to Setagaya-ku (世田谷区):
Dog Cafe in Setagaya

If you’re not familiar with Tokyo’s geography, Ota-ku is the ward in Tokyo which is farthest to the South-west, bordering Kanagawa-ken (where Kawasaki and Yokohama are). Setagaya-ku is North of Ota-ku, a bit closer to the city centers of Shibuya and Shinjuku. Setagaya feels like a more urban neighborhood than Ota – it’s more youthful and active with schools and universities.

What are the “hot” spots in Setagaya-ku then? The following three I rank as top 3 as far as shopping&dining is concerned.

Futagotamagawa
Shimokitazawa (in Japanese)
Sangenjaya (in Japanese)