What I love about going to onsen is the massage chair!! It is so expensive to buy and it is too expensive to go to spa every weekend to get professional massage. The picture below is the massage chair that my best friend and I totally adored. The machine was set for 15 minutes and automatically massages entire body. Yeah, my friend and I acted like ojisan/obasan (middle age man and woman) spent quite some time there. Hahaha

Going to onsen/ryokan also comes with great Japanese food! Although our room attendant seems little slow with her work; brought rice and miso soup when tempra and all hot dishes got cold, the food was great. I also enjoyed little ume-wine that was served before the meal (Usually Ume-shu, Plum-Japanese sake is well known, but it was Plum-wine!!) After the meal, we also had a sakura-ice cream/cheery blossom ice cream, which was the highlight of the meal for the night.

This is funny news from Shitamachi (lit. “downtown”), the old part of Tokyo. A bearer was arrested Sunday for riding on a mikoshi (portable shrine) at Asakusa Shrine, despite an organizers’ ban on such behavior, on the last day of the three-day Sanja matsuri festival held in Asakusa, Tokyo.

During the festival’s climax, called the Honja-mikoshi togyo (the passage of sacred palanquins of the head shrine), mikoshi bearers started jumping onto them. Several men in their groups’ happi coats began jumping onto the mikoshi, while other bearers and spectators shouted “They rode on them!” throwing the whole area into uproar. The bearers on the mikoshi continued striking aggressive poses while shouting “banzai” and waving folding fans.

That is really the funny attitude of people in “downtown” Tokyo…
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Taking a break from busy Tokyo life costs a fortune. However, Hakone has always been a popular vacation spot for such busy people, as well as it has been a popular onsen/hot spring spot for family and elderly people. Taking Odakyu-line from Shinjuku, you can get to Hakone by not switching to any other trains.

A week passed my birthday, I took a weekend vacation to Hakone with my best friend. To be exact, I stayed at a traditional Japanese style hotel in Goura (Hakone is a broad area and Goura is one of the places in Hakone). The weather was perfect. I took a train to Hakoneyumoto by Odakyu-line and met a friend there. Driving up the hills of Hakone is rather tough for beginner drivers. The roads are steep and have many rough curves. It is well known for the steep hills that challenges many runners for Hakone-Ekiden; traditional college marathon festivals held every year. Below is a picture of Goura station.

Being in such rich green environment, I totally forgot the busy life that I always have. It made me want to come to Hakone every month to reset. I also have to admit that I was little jealous that my best friend works in Hakone where life is slow and the air is so fresh ( Not to mention the weekends traffic is usually really bad !!.)

Although I had always been not a strong onsen-lover, my best friend and I were in the onsen for over an hour. As the ryokan/Japanese style hotel only has 12 rooms, we had a huge bathroom for ourselves. I used to be really shy going to public naked, but only with my best friend, it was nothing. I even swam! I mean I think the real luxury going to Onsen is to swim in the huge bath tab as much as I want ^^

Slightly annoying billboard at my station. Visa, the credit card company hooks up with a major department store, IOIO (Marui) and this is the best they can do? It is wrong on so many levels. She has Tokyo tower on her panties, and Fuji. And a Hawaii top. Who is it for…

Futsal (5-a-side Football / Soccer) is undergoing another boom in Japan ahead of the launch of the Japan Futsal League this Autumn.
Luxury indoor courts are being constructed, such as this one in Osaki: the “VIP Court”. Last night we payed 2,300Yen each (20USD) for 2.5 hours and there were about 50 of us there (5 teams in a Mini-League Tournament).
The economics of the game suit Tokyo perfectly: lots of people crammed into a small indoor space and paying high fees. Anyway, it was a good laugh and we won, so I can’t complain.

Are you looking for anything to do this weekend? My friend is performing in the ‘The Pirates of Penzance!’ this weekend. Unfortunately I cannot make it as I have some prior plan, but if anyone is bored or simply interested in seeing performing arts, this might to be it!!

Come see The Pirates of Penzance! The cast is very diverse in age and truly international representing Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Philippines, Japan, Netherlands, USA, to name a few. It has been a lot of fun building up this grand operatic parody of the Victorian era! They have had some press in Metropolis : http://http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/agenda.asp as well as the weekender and our musical director, Katherine Cash was featured in the Japan Times on May 5th http://http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070505vk.html

Don’t miss a rare occasion in Tokyo theater!

(Unfortunately Sat tickets are already sold out >.

I just had my birthday about a week ago. For my birthday, I got wonderful gifts. It’s always great to have friends and family who think of you. Of many gifts I got, I found that pigs are popular in the relaxation goods in these days. As the picture indicates, I got a few relaxation bath goods. Of four kinds, two of them are characters of pigs. Are pigs becoming popular???

With yummy smelling Brazilian soap and bath-salts from various well-known Onsen (hot spring) of Hokkaido, I got two pigs! One is a pig body sponge and another is a big ashitsubo (foot therapeutic point) massager. My friend who got two of these gifts in the picture told me that when she went looking for gifts for my birthday and other friends, she somehow found herself picking up pig-character goods quite often.

Is this the time to relax with pigs??

Okinawa is a group of islands, a prefecture on its own in south Japan. This week it has been in the news a lot because it was 35 years ago that the US occupation ended, in May 1972 (27 years after the end of WW2).

By chance I found a Okinawan restaurant tonight in Nishi-Waseda, called Okishoku. The two old ladies were adorable and served simple Okinawan dishes, macrobiotic-style. They also had posters and books about Okinawan political issues, and the campaign to keep Article 9 of Japan’s constitution that renounces war.

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Maruti Udyog is the Indian automobile manufacturer which Japanese car maker Suzuki is controlling. I read, at Maruti Udyog, they have a "Kakipi boom." Kakipi is a spicy Japanese rice crackers. The name Kakipi comes from its shape, which looks like the seeds of the Japanese Kaki Persimmon. The "pi" part means "peanuts," because usually crackers and some peanuts are packed in the one package (since crackers are spicy, peanuts can be an oasis!). The article said a Japanese staff member took kakipi as his own snack with alcohol, then the Indian staff liked it so much. After that the Japanese stuff bought a lot of kakipi as souvenirs for the Indian staff.

There are some unique light snacks which are good with beer and other alcohol. We say "Kawaki mono" (dried stuff); Kakipi is one of them and my American friend’s mom likes "Saki ika" (dried spirited Squid), which has a sour, a little spicy and Umami taste. Bean snacks are also popular. I like this kind of salty peanuts coated in rice powders. At an Izakaya you can eat "Ei hire" (fin of ray fish), which is served with mayo and red pepper usually. Very yummy. Kameda Seika is a big snack maker and they have some assorted Kawaki mono snacks. Sometimes I buy that type of stuff for parties. Yo-chan food has various squid snacks, and you can find them at Kiosk at train station. YES! Try it with beer when you travel in Japan. You will sense Japan more. :-) By the way, this wall paper has great sense…."squid boy"…orz

After the Golden Week holidays, May comes along, and suddenly peple in Tokyo start feeling weary. There is a kind of existential dilemma, trying to live in the greatest concrete jungle in the world: consume, or get consumed. So you try to survive. You try to just get by. In May, you get wonderful thunderstorms: then the next day is sunny and lovely (and you would go to the beach if you were anywhere else on Earth). Today we had 23 degrees or so, that’s nice.

So, guys, keep on posting. Let’s tell people in other cities what it is like to live and work in Tokyo. It is special.

When I was in the zen temple, they told me to “cut, cut, cut”. It meant, do not have any attachments. Don’t be caught up by stuff. Cut all that, and see reality. Focus on your breathing. That is zen. I think that kind of experience is always with us, as we wake up, take a shower, eat our rice and miso soup (or muesli or cereals, it doesn’t matter), go to work on a crowded train.

“Cut, cut, cut”. Don’t be caught up in emotions about “how you feel” and how great it is or how terrible it is. Just do it. Go with the flow. Breathe…