JapanLive - Little Stories from Japan

What do you eat for breakfast when living in Japan? Is it Muesli/Yoghurt/fruits as I do during weekdays or is it bread, butter and jam as I do on the weekend mornings? Unfortunately, Japanese shops/supermarkets mainly carry strawberry and blue-berry jam. Recently, it seems to have changed, the number of different fruit jams has increased but, unfortunately, the price situation has not improved. 500 Yen for 100g jam is just intolerable, especially, if you consider that half of it is sugar. There is a very easy solution to this problem. DIY. left to right: Papaya, Kaki, Lemon-Pomegrenade, Quince, Grapefruits. Not shown, because already eaten are Apple, Mikan, Kiwi and others. I usually buy some price-reduced fruits. Japanese are very picky about the appearance of fruits which, most times, has nothing to do with quality. So supermarkets need to reduce the price to be able to sell it. How to make? Clean the fruits well and put them into a cooking pot. In the case of lemon...

In Japan, too many animals are thrown away. Sometimes they are in real bad shape when they are found. (example below) When found on June 30th. Look also at the legs. (Click on the picture) Now it looks much better. A beautiful cat.

If you are in monsters and ghosts, you might be interested to help starting a new book on Kickstarter. The Book of the Hakutaku: a Bestiary of Japanese Monsters A fully illustrated encyclopedia of yokai: ghosts, spirits & monsters of traditional Japanese folklore. Over one hundred illustrations!  by Matthew Meyer@ Yokai.com Become a supporter here: LINK to Kickstarter

Do you know where the sword of the Japanese emperors, Kusanagi no Tsurugi , one of the three pieces of the imperial regalia, comes from. Obviously you know it is from Amaterasu , the sun goddess. But where did she get it from? Short answer: it is a gift from her brother Susanoo who found it stuck in the legendary eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇). He killed the serpent after feeding it strong sake. The same method is still used today by some bars - you are lucky, you don't lose your head, just your wallet. Long answer is told e.g. on Yokai.com, the online database of Japanese ghosts and monsters. Read it here . Picture is from Wikipedia LINK You can see the serpent in natura at the Hamada Children’s Museum of Art in Shimane Prefecture. Picture

Earthquake simulation vehicle "mamoru-kun" If you are new to Japan and have never experienced an earthquake, try a simulation in this vehicle. It simulates the earth movements of an earthquake up to level 7 (the highest level of the Japanese scale). However, don't get fooled - a real big one, like the 2011 earthquake, just feels different. From the outside, look at the movements of the inner parts, that can give you an imagination of how much the earth actually moves. Usually, this vehicle is managed by the fire-brigade. If you stay at a hotel in Japan, ask the front to check with the local fire-brigade, if there is a visit possible.

It is most probably special to Japan that you are thanked for peeing. Thank you for using. Please don't forget anything. Sakura Station You are here .

Have you seen these "street signs" in Japanese malls? Stop and bow It is a sign for the employees. It says, "here you enter the customer zone, stop and greet(bow)". Also, when the employee leave, they have to stop here, turn towards the customer area and bow again.

Aeon Mall in Narita is worried about the health of it's clients. So, they introduced a new kind of work-out. They call it MALLWALKING. They lead you around the two stories of the shopping mall. And they made sure that you pass in front of the restaurant area. At the end, the calculation will be most probably like -      50 kcal (walking) +1000 kcal (eating) A better idea: start at Narita Mall for a walk or run. The area behind the mall is beautiful. Here are some routes. ex.1: Google Maps ex.2: Google Maps ex.3: Google Maps  Any of these walk/runs will have a better health result than the mall walking.

I am impressed. Today, I went by bicycle from Narita to the Museum for Japanese History in Sakura cross-country - using navigation by Google Maps (ca. 20km). I used the pedestrian navigation. Not a single mistake. Very exact guiding. Google sent me along roads and pathes which I would never have even thought about being the correct ones, some as small as 1 meters. But it also sent me up and down the hills when there were roads around the hills. Well done, Google. However, a recommendation: use an MTB with broad tyres if you do such cross-country riding. Not all of the roads today were made for road bikes. I came through an area with lots of sacred ponds.

Yahoo Auctions is the Japanese Ebay. The language barrier makes it Japanese-only, if you don't count the few foreigners. There are effectively no competitors in bidding from the rest of the world and the prices are relatively low. Sometimes you can observe really strange behavior in these auctions. Is it the same on Ebay? I don't know. The starting price determines the number of bidders: The fountain pen Pilot Custom 845 is a pen many people want to buy because it is partly coated in urushi ( Japanese lacquer ). At one day, two pens were available at the same time in Yahoo Auctions. One auction with a starting price of 20000 Yen and the other with a starting price of 100 Yen. The 20000 Yen auction attracted two bidders and finally I could buy it for 23000 Yen. The 100 Yen auction attracted about 30 bidders and finally was sold for 24500 Yen. And this happens often. So many times I saw an auction where apparently nobody was interested. When the seller than in one of the next...

The auction catalogues of Kogire-Kai are published on issue.com: LINK The newest is the 98th. A good chance to see a lot of Asian art at one place. A book about Chinese ornaments is re-published digitally at the French National Library and at archive.org: LINK FNL LINK archive Examples of Chinese Ornament selected from Objects  in the  South Kensington Museum and Other Collections Owen Jones  1867