NHK and the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives are hosting the Nippon no Shoku Festival at NHK’s Shibuya broadcasting center on March 17-18 from 10am-4pm. The event offers opportunities to explore Japan’s regional food culture, especially for families with small children. Should be a load of fun if the weather is nice.

A variety of cooking styles and cuisines from all over Japan will be showcased. There will also be a booth that allows guests to experience farming chores, such as polishing rice and milking cows.

Introducing Domo-kun, NHK’s mascot, also used to scare viewers to pay their fees.

Update: I took a couple of photos today of the event and posted on my blog. Yoroshiku!

No your eyes do not deceive you. While walking around Shibuya, looking for a story, I stumbled across this; first at Book 1st, then at every other book store in the area, even spilling over into music shops like HMV. What is it you ask? Actually no, you don’t ask, nor should you. What you see before you is the 10th Anniversary Starbucks magazine, and it’s right there alongside other popular big name magazines. Starbucks couldn’t just stand for creating a subculture of music and coffee, now it hopes its infectious grooves will have customers buying a publication dedicated to Starbucks in Japan.

Inside the cover you will find a multitude of photos featuring the “beautiful people” that enjoy a good cup of Starbucks coffee. What, you don’t drink overpriced Starbucks “sugar explosion cold seasonal special?” Man, you are so uncool. I think it’s time you non-Starbucks drinkers got with the times and followed the Starbucks sensation. Don’t worry. The magazine covers the company’s roots from small Seattle coffee house to multinational institution. Everything you need to know to be a Starbucks expert is inside. With its focus on Japan, this is one that no self respecting Tokyoite can be without. Get out there and get Starbucks!

I’m uncool so don’t listen to my suggestion to look for a good coffee house like Cup Bearer in Sangenjaya/Shimokitazawa. Besides, how can one avoid such ubiquitous marketing? We are powerless against it. Now where did I put my latte? That’s Italian for milk by the way.

In the same collection of magazines however, I did happen upon one that caught my eye. This edition of Rockin’ On Japan features the third and final interview with Ringo Shiina and her involvement with the movie, Sakuran. The issue breaks down each song on Shiina’s new album. For a full review of the new album and more on Ringo Shiina click on the following links:

Heisei Fuzoku
Ringo Shiina

I am eating Sukeroku sushi for lunch now. Sukeroku is a package of roll and Inari sushi. Originally Sukeroku is a title of Kabuki. The story of Sukeroku is the love affair of Mr. Sukeroku and the Oiran "A-ge-ma-ki." We call deep-fried tofu which is a main ingredient of inari "A-ge" and we call roll sushi "maki." That is the why the package is called Sukeroku. It’s a kind of Edokko wit. Sushi is good, but I really love pickled ginger, "gari". I can eat gari as my afternoon snack. (I have never eaten it as a snack though; I mean I like it that much.) Why do we call it "gari"? In the Japanese wiki it is said that when you eat gari, it makes the sound "gari gari," or when you cut ginger it makes the sound "gari gari." Well, I suppose this doesn’t make sense. In your country a pig says "oink," and in this country a pig say "boo boo." By the way, it is very easy to make gari at home. In winter time, it works to warm up your body.

I am eating sushi and I am looking for some good topics to write, but today is a very poor topic day again. So I will pick "the best selling chocolate slab in Japan." I found this ranking on the Nikkei site.
1 Meiji Milk chocolate
2 Lotte Gana milk chocolate
3 Meiji Rich strawberry chocolate
4 Meiji Black chocolate
5 Meiji White chocolate
6 Morinaga Milk chocolate
7 Lotte Gana Black chocolate
8 Meiji High milk chocolate
9 Lotte Crunky chocolate
10 Meiji Chokolate effect cacao 86%

In Japan, Meiji has an overwhelming share of the chocolate market. I wrote I love 99%, actually that my favorite slab is Meiji chocolate too. My No.2 is Kiri no ukifune(a vessel in fog). It has many bubbles inside, so that gives it a very light taste. And No.3 is Chocolife. It has 8 different tastes and each package has only 4 pieces of thin chocolates. So we don’t need to worry about eating too much.

Talking about chocolate slabs, I saw many chocolate bars in the U.S but I don’t remember about slabs. Maybe I saw Hershey’s?? I am not sure. On the other hand, there are not so many chocolate bars in Japan; maybe Snickers and Kit Kat? Ha ha, both are U.S products. I don’t know why, maybe Japanese don’t eat so much chocolate all at once. Slabs are easy to break but bars are not easy to break without biting. What do you think? I wrote about Kit Kat in this entrance exam post. The BBC picked the same topic in this news.

I went out to buy some milk on Sunday morning and saw a dead body near the 4-storey office building next to our apartment. Some Police had half-covered him up with a plastic sheet.

There were Police on top of the building looking down to where he lay, so I presume that it was a suicide. By midday, there was no sign of what had happened and the event will go un-reported. With around 30,000 suicides per year in Japan (according to the W.H.O.), the vast majority male, this is sadly an all-too-common occurrence.
This morning a bunch of flowers and three cans of his favourite alcohol (beer and Chu-hi) were left out in remembrance.

UPDATE:
Just an update on this: the family doesn’t believe it was suicide and persuaded the police to launch an investigation, so there are posters up about it now. Apparently he was seen involved in an argument with a group of people the night before.
I hope they find out what happened.

Since I got back to Japan, I have made quite few interesting friends.
One of my new friends are the crew, `SplitWorks`
So far, not only hanging out with the crew members,
I have also helped translating their rylics into Japanese.
They have an upcoming event at Milk on the 14th of April,
so if you are interested, come and see their performacnes !!!

`SplitWorks` is an emerging underground hip hop crew in Tokyo.
The members are all English teachers during the day, but transform into ever hungry hip hop artists at night. The members are Solace the DJ from England, Kinesis the vocal from U.S., Adam the human beat box from Canada, and Banacuda the keyboard from England.

As entering Japan is extremely limited to any foreigners, they all came to Japan separately as English teachers. Although they have friendly smiles on their faces teaching English to little kids during the day, their faces change dramatically when they make their beats.
Starting as independent crew, they create their beats in a tiny apartment room with handmade equipments. With Japanese Sapporo beer in their hands, there is no limitation in their creation. One after another, more and more ideas come out from each member, creating what Japanese say, `new style of hip hop. `

Coming out as a crew about half year ago, they have performed in small bars, lounges, and clubs. What makes this crew so different is that they are so eager to learn Japanese language and culture more than other foreigners. With their strong ambition and effort, `Split Works` made many Japanese friends and gained their respect that it has made possible to the next big upcoming performance at Milk.. On the April 14th, they have their biggest performance at one of the most popular clubbing spots in Tokyo, at Milk.. They will be performing several songs that are recorded in their upcoming　 album. `Split Works` just made a record deal with Taiwan international　record label and their album is scheduled to be released internationally, including such songs as THE BUTTON and This is where you don’t ….

`SplitWorks` is a crew that has much energy and true hip hop heart in their souls. Although the crew itself is still young, they have so much imagination and will to create their own beat that just capture many hip hop lovers’ hearts instantly.　We cannot keep our eyes off from this rather unique `made in Tokyo` foreign blooded hip hop crew!!!

Check their site on Myspace : http://www.myspace.com/splitworks

Ice cream, I scream, you scream, we all scream for icecream, who doesn’t love ice cream?
Yes, I love ice cream. Honestly, I eat ice cream at least once a week in winter, eat 5 times a week in summer. that’s why I am getting on a way to be “fatty (or chubby) Coco”.

In Japan, Baskin Robbins is know as “31 ice cream”. End of the month (they call it “31’s day”), they get you 30% discount for double scoops. Japanese 31 ice cream serve many different kind of flavors from American ones.

Dainagon Azuki: Sweet beans icecream

Ichigo Milk: Strawberry and milk

Of course you can have traditional flavor such as Rocky Road but I feel it tastes like low fat rocky road. Still love it though.

Following Lhuga’s post on Sakura-flavoured KitKat, last weekend I found WINE KitKat and just had to buy a pack (for research purposes obviously…). It was pretty good, but the taste was more like strawberry than wine.
Before you ask, apparently it’s French wine, but there was no information on which grape or vintage…

flickr

I will miss the fruit. I know some people are creeped out by the over-groomed, obsessive perfectionism of Japanese fruit, but I think the colors and shapes are divine for anyone with a soft spot for aesthetics, and this is only amplified by their incredible taste and smell. It will be a hard landing with “quantity over quality” McFruit back in the USA, and I don’t know if I can ever eat American supermarket produce in good conscience again.

On the other hand, my roommate was telling me about a recent (Japanese) television program documenting some of the aspects (packaging, agriculture) of Japanese life which have a severely detrimental effect on the health and livelihood of people living in certain less affluent countries…I don’t know if fruit was an example but it certainly seems like the relentless pursuit of perfection here can be very myopic to any of its ancillary consequences (of course, i’m guessing many people say the same exact thing about America, and most likely with good reason).