lioness in japan

From 8 to 10pm on weekends, the lights of Tokyo Tower come alive. You can see different light patterns here and here.

I was having dinner at Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Tower was just doing her thing. It makes the cityscape so vibrant. Yum.

In this sprawling metropolis, you are constantly awed by the towering concrete jungle that dominates the city skyline.

But what’s really sweet about Tokyo is you can sometimes stumble upon a tiny temple or a pretty corner in the middle of it all.

I live in a huge CBD-like area, so it’s quite incongruous to find this itsy-bitsy temple tucked away in the midst of all the tall, grey buildings.

From the temple and up a small slight of stairs, I noticed a gorgeous sakura tree shedding its petals in the light breeze.

Ii naaaaa (So good)…

Found this along Aoyama-dori in Omotesando:

It was too cute so I had to take a picture. You can’t see it in the photo but the balloon bobbed like it was bowing and seemed to be saying,”Sumimasen (excuse me)” especially since its eyes were cast down.

Usually, I see cardboard cut-outs in the shape of a friendly construction worker complete with a moving arm. Bizarre, right? If you don’t look carefully, you might think he’s human…

I always have an inward chuckle whenever I spot these mechanized cut-outs at roadwork sites — I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this elsewhere.

What a treat: I have not one but two Tokyo Nuggets in the space of a week…

On a very crazy windy Friday night last week, the weather was like this:

There was no rain but there were times I had to stop in my tracks to fight against the fierce gusts along Aoyama-dori.

I was on my way to the post office and one of my parcels got blown away by a sudden, angry whip. Some of my boxes scattered onto the road and I quickly plucked them back, but that lone one got away and it was not anywhere I could see.

I was upset and had to write it off as a loss but do you know that an old Japanese guy found it? He rang me the next morning to tell me he had it and would drop it off at the post office for me. I was so relieved and couldn’t thank him enough.

I wouldn’t say this is a terribly unique story as the honesty and civility of the Japanese are their famous traits. They say, you never really lose your wallet in Japan. But this is my first time losing something and getting it back — all in one piece, so I totally basked in it.

Photo: Akumach

With gorgeous sakuras blooming outdoors, this also means it’s hay fever season with lots of pollen hanging around in the air.

When I first arrived in Tokyo, I thought mask-wearing folks were afraid to catch germs, but I found out later that they are trying not to spread their illness to others.

I still think it’s a weird habit to wear a mask when you’ve got flu or sinus problems. I mean, what if you want to cough or sneeze? Wouldn’t the ah contents remain in the mask? Wouldn’t it be too moist for comfortable breathing? Lots of questions in my mind but it’s one of those things that I don’t want to try. I’ve given most things a go, like raw fish testicles and raw chicken, but not this…

Photo: monsieurlesensei

This is probably not such a rare bob of information — we all know precious fruit like square watermelons and honeydews cost the earth in Tokes.

But let’s look at some real evidence on other less sensational fruit from Isetan.

Not only do these strawberries cost a whopping 8,400JPY per tray, they look absolutely unreal and give off a heady fragrance of sweet strawberries.

That’s what you have here: the Porsche of all strawberries. I don’t think my stomach deserves such royal treatment, but I like looking at perfect fruit.

Any other sightings of pricey fruit that knocked your socks off?

Back in the day (like a few months ago) when I was still a snack junkie, I would try the plethora of offerings at the conbini. The colourful packets and flavours beckoned my curiosity and here is a pattern I spotted with less run-of-the-mill ones:

Snacks try to look or taste like a Japanese dish.

Check out the endamame “chips”:

(more…)

Sometimes this amuses me, or it irritates me, but ultimately, I wonder, “Why?”

For those of you who are living here or have lived here, you will know that almost everything in daily life goes the opposite way to what you are used to:

+ You have to turn your key left in the keyhole to lock and turn right to unlock.

+ You are allowed to smoke indoors, not outdoors.

+ University students are not expected to study at all (because they are preparing for a life of office imprisonment).

+ Traffic lights turn blue, not green.**

+ ATMs ask you how much you want to withdraw before requesting your pin number.

+ Photocopying machines are laid out “landscape” and not “portrait”.*

*Personal experience: I photocopied 50 pieces of what I wanted portrait-wise and got half of what I wanted cut off from the pages. I had to re-do the lot. Perfect.

**Many moons ago, I asked a couple of my beginner students what colour traffic lights were, and they both replied, red, yellow, and blue. They did not have poor English. They really meant blue.

Photo: iandoubleyou

Quite a few of my posts are about food, eh? Well, Japan has a lot to offer in this department.

Sure, there are plenty of perfect-looking fruit to choose from, but one of my faves has to be Aomori apples. They are not as big as the Fuji ones and taste extremely fresh and crunchy.

Aomori is way up north of Honshu and is the gateway to Hokkaido. Produce is so much better from up there because there’s less pollution — so I was told when I did a press junket of Hokkaido many moons ago.

I like my apple slices with a bit of peanut butter. The kangaroo thinks it’s weird and only Americans eat this way. But it’s so so so good. Try it.

This is something that always makes me giggle: smiley-faced deep-fried potatoes come with your pizza if you order take-away from Domino’s Pizza. Not fries or wedges, but these silly-looking things.

They are quite fun to chomp on — kinda fluffy in texture. Kawaii, ne.