Inside Japan

LAS VEGAS BURGER

2012-02-05T21:23:00.002+09:00

Hey, people in Las Vegas :D This time last year, I introduced Miami Burger, and the Mcdonald's in Japan is offering a few kinds of American hamburger this year too. Basically this blog is about things of Japan, but when I find something foreign I feel urge to introduce it.

I went to Las Vegas years ago, but I didn't have a hamburger there. I was a minor and wasn't even allowed in the casinos, so I made my bro buy some beers and had them in the hotel room to behave like an adult.

Does this look delicious? In my book, the look wasn't very nice, but the taste was so-so. However, I felt strange after too much margarine was on my tongue.

Most Japanese people are pro-America, because their pop culture influences Japan too. This is the ad for the burger as you can see. I know not everything about America is nice, but living in Japan we tend to be informed of mostly good things from the US like Lady Gaga, Hollywood, Manhattan and etc.

Olive no Oka (The Olive Hill)

2012-01-30T21:24:00.003+09:00

I like to go to Tokyo, and some of my recent posts were on the capital. But I remember some of my friends told me that they like to see where I live. The city I live in is about 60km from Tokyo, and it's far less populated and there aren't as many restaurants of course.

I was really into Italian several years ago, but people seem to like something different these days like Kaiten sushi. There are as many as 4 different Kaiten sushi restaurants in my area. But on this day I wanted to try this Italian restaurant named "Olive no Oka". "Oka" means hill.

Like other Italian restaurants, a drink bar (where you can have as many refills as possible) was available. This machine is pouring coffee in the glass.

I was a bit concerned about the future of this restaurant as there weren't enough people. The dishes I ordered were instantly served.

The left is of course pizza, and the right one had much seafood. I don't remember the name for the latter, sorry. The tastes of the two were good compared to other Italian restaurants. But I'd say they were just good.

People say food is very expensive in my city compared to Tokyo. It must be because every restaurant in the capital is competing against each other, but when I have less tasty dishes for more money, I can't help but think people in Tokyo are fortunate.

Brownie and 万豚記 (Wang Tsu Chi)

2012-01-22T21:35:00.001+09:00

I came to Akihabara this weekend too. It had been forecast it was going to rain or snow in Tokyo, but I had found online good restaurants in Akihabara. So we went ahead with what we had planned.

On this day, the temperature was about 4 degrees in the morning, so I was wearing a down jacket. Still, it was very cold and I found it was hard to breathe because the cold wind slapped my face.

Some blogs said this curry shop was the best in this area. It was about a 10 minutes' walk from Akihabara station. But it was 11:30 when I came here, whereas the restaurant opened at 12:00. So we were killing some time at a coffee shop.

This is the rice and curry I ordered "Vietnam Curry". It tasted of coconut milk and the curry was spicy enough. It was very good, but what was surprising was this was served only 5 minutes after we took seats.

And we had Chinese dishes for dinner. This 万豚記 was on the 8th floor of Yodobashi Akiba building.

And again, this Ramen (坦々麺) was served after a few minutes we ordered. The noodles were wide, and the soup soaked in them perfectly. You can have Chinese food everywhere in Japan, but this restaurant serves what you can have on the streets of China according to my friend who have gone to China before.

This is dumplings that are called "焼売 (Shuumai)". Normally this kind of side dish comes before Ramen, but it was served after I told a waitress we had been kept waiting. As I watched the kitchen, the chef was yelling at a female colleague, and she seemed to be about to cry. I felt sorry for her.

Walking about in Tokyo

2012-01-13T22:45:00.006+09:00

Normally I don't want to spend much on train fares, but my friend insisted we go to Tokyo a second time this year, and I accompanied him as I didn't have anything special to do. But acutally the metropolis never stops making me entertained.

Do you remember I went to a shrine in Akihabara whose name is "Kanda Myoujin"? It's where some members of AKB48 who came of age last year showed up on the 9th. The day is called "Coming-of-Age Day", and it's when people celebrate their adulthood.

It was past noon when we prayed at the shrine, and we were feeling hungry. We were thinking of having Ramen for lunch, but as we were walking past this restaurant, its good smell caught our attention. The Japanese reads "Tadon".

Are you familiar with a kind of beef called "carubi"? It's very soft and has a bit of fat. The price was only 650 yen, and it was enough to make us feel full. We had coffee at a Doutor afterwards.

I really like to introduce the facade of GAMERS. The ads were renewed this time. When I was walking in front of this, a foreign man was being interviewed by a Japanese TV station. I was curious about what kind of question he was given.

I was looking for rare CD's, and we came to Shinjuku. This is the landmark of the area that is called "STUDIO ALTA". You can see the big TV screen, and it's also where people meet up with their friends or lovers.

There is a cafe in Akihabara "AKIHABARA Backstage Pass", and it was built to compete against AKB48. The producer for this cafe is a guy named "Tsunku", and he made the girls' group "Morning Musume" all the rage until years ago, but lately the group was superseded by AKB48, which is based in Akihabara too. Take a look at the video below to see what the cafe is like. It's in English!

JAI◎HIND

2012-01-05T19:52:00.001+09:00

I came to Akihabara yesterday again to see how the shops would look during New Years. If you take advantage of the TX line to come here on a weekend, the round trip costs you only 21 US dollars, but on weekdays you have to pay as much as 24 dollars. But some ticket machines were giving out a little discount from the 1st to 3rd.

I like Indian food, and I'm always on the lookout for a good one while walking about in Akihabara. My friend found this one near a TX exit. As you can see this restaurant is called "JAI HIND".

One of the walls looked quite Indian. The waitress seemed to be Indian too, but she spoke fluent Japanese.

This is curry with boiled egg. The price was about 14 dollars. The taste was as good as Ajanta's.

A photo I took while I was on my way back. You can see the poster of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It was one of the most successful anime of last year.

Would you still associate Japan with radiation or earthquakes? I hope you don't, and don't worry, you won't have any trouble coming from those while you're in Japan.

Akihabara at year-end

2011-12-30T14:58:00.023+09:00

Yesterday I went to Akihabara to do some shopping. And since my friend had a birthday, I had made up my mind to treat him to a nice lunch there. I visited Akihabara at year-end of last year too, but it's because I feel like my year doesn't end without seeing the anime area.

There is a multiple-storied building in Akihabara that is owned by one meat company "Mansei（万世）". I've seen this building many times before, but hadn't known what kind of food they would serve until I checked its website.

This is what I treated my friend to. It looks like an ordinary hamburg steak, but the price was much higher than the ordinary and the steak was really juicy. My friend seemed to be satisfied and that made me happy too.

While I was walking along the street of Akihabara, I saw this cat dancing. The man on her right was screaming that this was the only opportunity where I could take pics freely. Not too sure what this cat is though.

Are you already familiar with who Nana Muzuki（水樹　奈々） is? She is going to sing in the TV show "Red and White Singing Contest" tomorrow. The singers who were chosen by the show are respected as decent and talented ones. Nana is basically a Seiyuu (voice actress), and it is rare for a Seiyuu to be chosen. But she has such an incredible talent as a singer too.

You know, Akihabara is where you can see many anime things whether they're old or new. This robot is called "Gigantor", or 鉄人28号. I know a bit about this anime, but I guess it was broadcast in the '70s or before.

And another thing I saw was these figurines. It's hard to recognize, but Haruhi is wearing the red armor at the left side of the back row. A few years ago, the anime "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" was the most successful anime in Japan.

After doing the shopping and walking around, we had coffee at this "VELOCE". One cup of coffee was about 2 Euros.

And when I was walking in the station on my way back, I saw this Lucky Star poster that was advertising the 9th volume of the manga. It is only in Akihabara that you can see this kind of big anime poster.

I saw several foreign people, but according to online news, the number of foreign tourists is still far below the average of last year. It's warmer in Tokyo than most cities of Europe, so you'd feel comfortable if you come to Akihabara in winter. :)

Bruno (A bakery)

2011-12-25T22:41:00.002+09:00

I wanted to write something about Christmas, but basically Japanese people celebrate it just in a secular way, and it's often merely an opportunity to give presents to your important people. Today I came to the biggest mall in my city to have lunch.

I could have taken pics of nice illuminated trees in the night, but please put up with this Christmas tree that was in the center of the mall.

And the place I had the lunch is called "Bruno". It's a bakery and you can sit and eat the bread you bought in there.

I think this bakery has more kinds of bread compared to the others in my city. I don't eat sweet bread for lunch, so this Bruno will be my favorite from this time on.

I had two breads. One was a croissant with boiled prawns, and the other had chicken and mushroom on the surface. Mayonnaise was on top of them. This lunch was good enough for Christmas.

It was really cold like 7 degrees Celsius today, but it usually doesn't snow even on the night of Christmas in the Kanto region.

Ameyoko and then some

2011-12-17T21:34:00.000+09:00

I haven't been to Tokyo in a while, and it was partly because I went on a trip to Taiwan. But living in the small city makes me really bored on weekends, so my friend and me went to Tokyo today.

I bought some CD's in Ochanomizu, but my friend wanted to buy new shoes. So we came to Ameyoko where you can buy rarely seen shoes for less money than online. You can reach the Ameyoko street from Okachimachi station.

This is the signboard of the street "Ameyoko". It's short for "Ameya Yokochou". Though I'm Japanese I don't know its meaning.

In December this street gets really crowded, because people come here to buy foods for New Years Day. This shop was selling "Kazunoko", which is herring roe. We eat it because it's the symbol of prosperity of our descendants. "Kazu" in this case means "a number of...".

You can buy clothes very cheaply as well. As you can see the fleece was sold for 891 yen or about 11 us dollars. Isn't it cheap? The Katakana reads, "London Spor(ts)".

And this is the shoe shop where my friend bought a pair. I think this "ABC-MART" is the most well-known shoe shop in Japan, and it has many outlets in my city as well, but like I said if you want rare shoes, you should visit the ones in Ameyoko.

These are some examples of the shoes on sale.

After the shopping, we wanted to have a break. So we had coffees at this Doutor, which we happened to find in Ameyoko.

It was really cold, but I was sweating from moving around in Tokyo. So I had this iced coffee. We left this shop soon because there were too many smokers.

After visiting Ameyoko, we came back to Akihabara to have dinner. It seems the third season for "Shakugan no Shana (灼眼のシャナ) " is going to be available as DVD's.

I don't mind spending much money for dinner, but you can have a good meal for a little money in Akihabara. This restaurant "Katsuya" sells a Katsudon for only 490 yen, or 6.3 us dollars. You can click this link to see what Katsudon is.

The one I ordered was "Katsu Curry". It's a pork cutlet with curry poured over it. It comes with rice as well. This was only 590 yen. You might not notice how cheap it is, but basically dinner usually costs more than 1,000 yen at Japanese restaurants.

Kawachi (Drugstore)

2011-12-10T17:02:00.012+09:00

Today let me introduce a drugstore called "Kawachi". We used to go to a pharmacy to get medicines and stuff, but this kind of drugstore popped up everywhere in the last decade or so, and we can buy almost any kinds of thing here.

As far as I know, Kawachi is the biggest drugstore in terms of size among others, and as they sell a variety of goods, it is one of the places people visit to buy things. I think there are some other drugstores in my city, but their competition is really fierce like Ramen shops, so they distribute ads very often to show us they sell things more cheaply than the others.

If we like to have a good Ramen, we would go to a Ramen shop like the one I introduced in this post, but not all of us have enough time to dine out and sometimes our budgets are limited. So we buy these instant noodles for lunch or as a snack. As you can see there are so many kinds of instant Ramens, and I don't know which is the best.

These are also instant noodles, but you have to put these noodles in boiled water for minutes. It takes more time than the instant noodles in the second pic, but in my book these taste a bit better.

When you hear the word "sake" or Japanese liquor, you may think of a bottled sake, but there are package type sakes. If you have some bottled sakes, you might find it messy to do away with the bottles, but these packages can be disposed of easily. And the prices are a bit lower. You can buy a 2 litters of sake bottle for about 11 dollars.

These are called CalorieMate. Some people are so busy that they don't have time to visit a restaurant during the lunch break, so they have this cookie-type meal for lunch. A package that costs 158 yen or 1.7 us dollars has four pieces of cookie, and if you have them all, the total calorie you get is about 400kcal.

I think the Japanese people are much thinner than foreign people, but most of us really care about our weight. Some skip a meal to lose some weight, but as you know that is not good for your health. So people have this "diet biscuits" instead of a regular meal.

After working or studying hard, you would feel exhausted. And these tiny bottled drinks would let you regain your energy. The yellow ones you're seeing in the center and left are named as they are, "Regain", and it's one of the most popular energy drink brands in Japan.

It's in the winter, and you might easily catch a cold. But these pocket warmers are popular also in Japan. I play tennis in the winter, so I stick one on my back when it's freezing cold.

According to a survey, almost a half of the Japanese people have hay fever. So this store sells special masks that keep you from inhaling pollens and small bottles that let you spray some mist in your nose. The latter is effective at least for a few hours.

As I told you before, I'm a huge fan of canned coffees, but I often have this instant coffee at home, which melts easily in hot water. There are more than a dozen brands, but in Japan ones by "Nestle" are the most popular.

K-ON! movie premiered!

2011-12-03T16:11:00.003+09:00

Hi, it's December 3rd in Japan, and it's the day when the K-ON! movie was released. Like I did for the Haruhi movie, I don't spoil anything for you, but I want to show what I experienced today.

This is the only movie theater where the movie is available in my prefecture. It's called MOVIX. It's different from where I saw the Haruhi movie.

I woke up a bit late today, so I decided to see it at 13:10pm. The movie is based on London, so you can see Big Ben in the picture.

I was killing one hour at a coffee shop "Bad Ass Coffee" before the movie began. Sorry, my watch wasn't indicating the correct date.

There was this Prikura machine in the hall of the theater. You can take a pic of yourself with the background the same as the movie. You can set the pic as your cellphone wallpaper as well.

As I entered the theater, a staffer gave me the lyrics of a song dedicated to Azusa. Can you read the Japanese? It seems like the kind of scribble that high school students leave, doesn't it?

Sadly about a half of the seats was vacant. Even though K-ON! is so popular in Japan, it proved to be hard to attract most fans. But the movie was good with new vibrant songs! Hope you can see it someday! =)

Narita Airport

2011-11-23T13:06:00.001+09:00

Hi, I came back from Taiwan, and since today is a national holiday I felt like updating this blog. The trip to Taiwan was awesome, and I'm feeling strong urge to upload some of the pics I took there. But this blog is about Japan, so this time I'd like to show you the biggest airport in Japan.

The alias for this airport is "New Tokyo International Airport", but this is in Chiba prefecture. From where I live I have to drive about 1 and a half hour to get here. It was Friday when I departed, so there were relatively many people.

You can't find many interesting shops before you pass immigration. There are a drugstore, bookshop, and some restaurants. We had about 2 hours before I got aboard, so my friend and me had coffee at this shop "Croissant".

I woke up very early to catch the flight a little before noon, so I was feeling hungry and ate this apple pie. But soon after the plane took off, I was served food again.

You can see many duty-free shops after immigration, such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, but I think this Japanese shop "Fujiyama" would seem more interesting to foreign people.

These were what the shop was selling. The rectangular boxes includes round-shaped sweet rice cakes. It has a bit of Ankou inside, which is made from brown beans called Azuki.

Lastly a bit about manga. There was a small shop for Otaku in Taipei, and I got this Chinese version of the manga "There is no way my little sister could be that cute". I can only recognize some words like 妹 and 可愛, or sister and cute. When I bought this manga, the shop clerk recognized that I was Japanese, and he said "Arigatougozaimashita" or thank you.

I want to visit Taiwan again because the climate is mild and the people were nice to us.

KO:HI:KAN （珈琲館）

2011-11-17T14:03:00.001+09:00

As I told you before, I'm going to leave Japan for Taiwan tomorrow. So I needed to buy some things for the trip, and I came to a nearby department store. There was this coffee shop that opened one or two years ago, and since I'm a huge fan of coffee, I decided to have lunch here.

When I was in Tokyo, I often dropped by this coffee chain to relax. In Tokyo, you wouldn't have many places to sit on, so you'd end up at a coffee shop.

This was a view I could command from my seat. We can see the left merry-go-round in winter at the same place every year.

These are the sandwiches that I ordered. They had corned beef in between. I was thinking of ordering pasta, but that isn't typical of a coffee shop.

In addition I had this hot dog. I'm relatively tall for a Japanese, so I have to eat more than ordinary people. The iced coffee was a bit too cold for winter.

I want to try other kinds of coffee in Taiwan to see the difference. I'm a bit concerned about the weather of Taipei as it was forecast it would be sunny with occasional showers.

A Taiwanese restaurant (台湾小龍包）

2011-11-11T07:07:00.005+09:00

Some of my friends know this, but I'm going to travel to Taiwan next week. So I've been curious about what kind of food I would be able to have there. And when I was online I found this Taiwanese restaurant in a mall nearby, and gave it a try the other day.

Can you read the first two Kanji? It's written as 台湾, which means Taiwan. There are many Chinese restaurants in my city, but this is the only Taiwanese one. I'd like to show what 小龍包 is at the end.

You might think there weren't many customers, but as I waited for several minutes, the seats started to be occupied gradually.

There were several lunch sets available. This one I ordered had rice and boiled pork which would have been seasoned with soy sauce and mirin. Mirin tastes a bit sweet, but the sweet pork went well with the soft rice.

And this is the 小龍包. The Kanji "包" means "to wrap", and as you can see they wrap something inside. The something is again boiled ground pork. It also had a bit of hot soup, and my tongue got burned a bit. Nevertheless I want to try many of this in Taiwan as this is one of the specialties of the country.

Japan is close to Taiwan, and it takes only 3 hours from Tokyo by air. You might want to visit Japan and Taiwan on one trip.

Yabusame （流鏑馬） in Kasama

2011-11-04T06:18:00.006+09:00

Yesterday was a national holiday "Culture Day", and it is a day when cultural events are held nationwide. I like this day as it is usually warm and it's when we can see beautiful yellow leaves on trees. So it's the best timing to take part in an even that is related to something cultural. I had seen an article in a local newspaper that "Yabusame" was going to be held in Kasama, so I went there yesterday.

We could see many events taking place in Kasama, and many of them concentrated in areas near this shrine. The name of this shrine was "Kasama Inari Jinja". "Jinja" means "shrine".

And one of those events was a contest for how much you could make your chrysanthemum pretty. You can see the flowers in various colors lining up the street. This is the main street of the shrine.

It was around noon, so we had lunch here. This restaurant was very crowded, and that made us think the taste must be very good.

I ordered this Inari soba. "Inari" means this fried bean curd, and another meaning is a god that safeguards your harvest. There is often a statue of fox in the premises of an Inari shirine.

Of course there were many stalls too that can be usually seen in an event like this. She was selling brown sugar steamed bread.

As I said before I came here for the purpose of seeing "Yabusame", but as it was going to be held at around 2:30, there was one hour left. So we decided to kill some time by having coffee here.

Kasama is known as where they produce good porcelain. You can see the iced coffee in the porcelain. The tastes of it and the apple pie were really good. It wasn't like "killing" time at all.

Now, it was the time for the show to begin. The purpose of this time's "Yabusame" was to thank God for this year's harvest. As I waited on the street, horses and jockeys came one after another and I found myself getting excited.

What do you think of these traditional Japanese outfits? Do they seem really different from the ones of your country?

I shot a video of the Yabusame to let you see what it is like. Enjoy!

A day in Shinjuku

2011-10-31T06:10:00.005+09:00

Last Saturday I wen to Shinjuku to see a movie that was shown only there in the Kanto region. It was rare for me to go to Shinjuku, as it is an area for ordinary people (I mean people who aren't Otaku). Shinjuku is where young people hang out, and there are a lot of department stores as well that older people like to visit.

When I arrived here it was already 12:15. The temperature was mildly warm so you can see people wearing not much clothes.

As it was noon, we were feeling hungry. We had decided we would have lunch at a Ramen shop called "Yottekoya", simply because it was near the movie theater.

And this was what I had. The taste was based on soy sauce, and it had a few slices of pork as well. I think this was very good and reasonably priced (about 650 yen), but my friend said it was just okay. The dumplings were half the price on this day.

And this is the movie theater, "Shinjuku Musashino Kan". "Kan" or 館 usually means a building that is not too huge. We saw the right movie whose name was "密告者" or the stool pigeon. I hadn't known the meaning of the English name.

I had waited for only 20 minutes before the movie started at 13:00. This movie was based on Hongkong, and since I visited it 2 years ago, the scenery was really familiar and I enjoyed it. And the movie itself was more than satisfying. It was thrilling and each character had own inner struggle, which gave depth to the movie.

We discussed a lot about the movie at this cafe "Segafredo Zanetti". This was just a few minutes away from the theater.

This was a cafe latte, but the coffee was so strong that it blended nicely with the milk. This was about 370 yen. You can visit the site of this coffee shop by clicking this. It's in English.

Kourakuen （幸楽苑）

2011-10-24T00:48:00.002+09:00

I've introduced lots of Ramen shops so far, but today let me show you the Ramen shop where a bowl of Ramen is the cheapest in Japan. The Japanese economy seemed to be recovering last year, but as you know many economies in developed countries have been sluggish, and the trend here is that people started to choose something very cheap again.

This shop belongs to a franchise chain "Kourakuen", which was established in 1954. As you can see on the illuminated board above, the cheapest Ramen you can have here is 290 yen, which is about 3.7 us dollars. You can see this Kourakuen's in local areas too.

It was Friday night, but sadly I saw just a few customers besides us. I would have had a Ramen more happily with the shop filled with people.

And this is the 290 yen Ramen. The taste was soy sauce, but the thing is an adult wouldn't feel full after having only this.

So I ordered stir-fried rice as well. I think many of you would be familiar with Chinese food, and that they would have tried this before. This was priced about 2.4 dollars.

I don't know when we'll start to see economic recovery again, but as Japan's economy stays depressed, the cheapest are the most likely to survive.

Kaisen Misaki Kou　(A sushi restaurant)

2011-10-18T21:57:00.002+09:00

I think I haven't introduced a new sushi restaurant in a while. It's not because I didn't have sushi often, but because I haven't seen a newly opened one in my neighborhood. I go to Tokyo often, and it's where you can have good sushi too, but I tend to have good Ramen there as each Ramen shop is independent and unique.

I went to a shopping mall last weekend, and there was this "Kaisen Misaki Kou". The meaning of "Kaisen" is seafood, and "Kou" is harbor, and "Misaki" means an area's name. I think this was the first time for me to try this.

Have you ever heard you're not supposed to pick up those sushi because you can have fresher sushi by ordering? I think it holds true for almost every Kaiten sushi restaurant, but those sushi in the picture were fresh enough.

The nearside sushi is roe. The black round box includes green tea powder, and the Japanese reads, "Two spoonfuls are enough (for one cup of green tea)."

I saw this sushi for the first time. Usually scallop is served raw, but this was roasted with "mirin", which is translated as "sweet cooking rice wine". It tastes sweet and smells of alcohol.

Houjou　（北条）

2011-10-12T06:59:00.003+09:00

There is an area in my city that is called "Houjou", and it is where we can still see old streets that seem to be about 30 years ago. Many towns near Tokyo underwent redevelopment, but this area has stayed intact even now.

I could see several old streets, along which old shops lined up, but basically what you can enjoy seeing here are mostly shrines and temples.

And this was one of the temples that was a few steps away from the street. I don't understand the Kanji on the board, but it seems this temple is based on Zen, which Steve Jobs also practiced to stabilize his mind.

I could see sculptures on the upper gate. I suppose the Dragons' origin should be China, but it's important here in Japan too.

While I was walking about I found this cafe. Can you see that cute post?

The interior seemed to be based on the Showa period, which was from 1926 to 1989.

These radio and typewriter must have been made in the Showa period too. They seemed really cool, and would be much more so if they work even now.

I ordered an iced coffee. We call it "Ice Coffee" in Japanese, but when the taste is old-fashioned we call it "Reikou", or 冷珈. The taste of this coffee was that of the latter.

Would you want to see Japanese things that are old, or new? You can see the both of them in the areas around Tokyo.

Akihabara and Ikebukuro

2011-10-03T05:28:00.004+09:00

Now more than 6 months have passed since the earthquake. When I turn on TV, they still broadcast things related to the earthquake, such as economic downturn, people evacuated from Fukushima. But if you are in the areas near Tokyo, you'd see people who seem to have forgotten about what happened on March 11th. And this weekend I saw again lots of foreign people in Akihabara.

Do you know a girls' group "AKB48"? Another group "Morning Musume" would be more familiar to foreign people who like Japan, but whenever I see TV, the former group shows up in so many programs. And it opened this new cafe in Akiahabara. It is next to the Gundam Cafe I introduced before.

So I think Akihabara is the place for both idol and anime fans, and I saw this "Hobby Tengoku" opened recently near the station. It sells things like plastic models, figurines, and besides that you can see events for Otaku here as well. This shop is going to be open for three years from now, so it's kinda "limited" things that Otaku people like. Click this to see its site.

There is a Pachinko parlor "Island", which features anime characters. And this was its ad that said "We cheer up Japan in Akihabara". Why cheer up? It's because Japan is struggling to recover from the earthquake. Pachinko is like slot machines, on which you can get or lose money.

People think Japan is now full of girls' groups like AKB48, SDN48, NMB48, the Morning Musume and etc...and this Momoiro Clover. Honestly there are too many and people wouldn't recognize which girl is from which group. Only I can recognize this as their costumes are based on our ranger series. This is a banner of their upcoming cds.

My friend and me decided to have dinner in Tokyo, and the taste of the pizza restaurant Shakey's in Ikebukuro was something we couldn't forget. It was about 5pm and it was really crowded like this.

You know, Halloween is around the corner. This is the entrance of the Shakey's.

I had to drive after coming back to my hometown, so I had this non-alcoholic beer "Free". And the fried things you can see were chips and shrimps.

I think you don't have to worry at all about earthquakes and radiation in Tokyo. Like the foreign people I saw on this day, you'd enjoy walking about in our capital.

Lunch at Denny's

2011-09-24T21:14:00.000+09:00

Those living in the northern hemisphere would think it's now fall. A very strong typhoon landed Japan last week, and it was very humid because of the rain, but now it's gone and we're feeling much drier and cooler than in early September.

I want to introduce a new restaurant every time I make a new post, but you can have different meals at the same restaurant if you visit it in a different season. I introduced the restaurant called COCO'S before, and my city has many of it, but my favorite has been always Denny's.

People say I have less for lunch than ordinary guys. This was a sandwich that had vegetables including avocado. The sauce you can see beyond was mayonnaise that had cod roe. Its taste was a bit too strong, so I had the sandwich as it was.

And the name of this dessert was "Rolled Mocchiri Purple Sweet Potatoe". It was basically sweet potato wrapped in thin sheets that were made of rice cake. The meaning of the "Mocchiri" is "soft and elastic". It is like a variant of Mochi, which means rice cake.

The Japanese Denny's is one of a few family restaurants where you can have very good desserts. It's autumn after all, so why not try some fruits that you can have only now?

Walk in Akihabara -17-

2011-09-18T05:52:00.002+09:00

I've been a bit busy this month, and I haven't visited Akihabara in a while. But I got done an important thing last week, and managed to come to this Otaku area yesterday.

I had a favorite anime that was broadcast this time last year, and the name of the anime was "Ika Musume". "Ika" means squid, and "Musume" is like chick. And it's going to have the second season that starts to be broadcast on Sep 26.　This is a banner of the anime that I saw on the facade of GAMERS.

And I had Ramen for lunch as usual. This shop's name was "Hito Hana", which literally means "One flower".

The one I ordered was based on soy sauce. The taste was so-so. I wished it didn't have many bean sprouts since it diluted the taste of the broth.

I'm an Otaku after all. This K-Books sells manga, light novels and Doujinshi for guys. There were really lewd ones too, but that's not an element I want in manga.

So I bought this Nagato-themed Doujinshi. It was fun to read and funny at the same time. Some stories were based on the second season of Haruhi, and you wouldn't enjoy them unless you know the second season. The price was only 210 yen.

And when I was walking along Chuo Street, I saw this truck where you can experience mock earthquakes. The level of the earthquake intensified from Scale 3 to 7 as I watched. You will be forced to be on your knees when a Scale 7 earthquake hits. You can see the man is putting his head under the table as the room on the truck jolted.

There is a Tower Records in Yodobashi Akiba, and it was selling imported cds very cheaply because of the soaring yen. I belatedly bought the latest Limp Bizkit cd. They're going to perform in a rock festival "Loud Park" on Oct 15th. I wish I could go.

Kibachibou

2011-09-10T18:33:00.002+09:00

In Japan it's autumn now and we've started to feel cool in the morning and evening. But it gets as hot as 30 degrees Celsius around noon. However, as it's not humid at all, we can do without air conditioners all day. Btw, my friend informed me that there was a really good Soba restaurant in a nearby city, so we had lunch there.

This restaurant's name was "Kibachibou". Though I can understand the "Kibachi" and "bou" separately, the combination made no sense to me. "Kibachi" is a wooden bowl, and "bou" is a monk or a little boy.

But I guess the "bou" in this case meant a monk, as there was this Buddha picture on the wall.

I explained what Soba was before, but it's basically noodles made from Soba powder, which can be taken from berries of the plant called "Soba". You can look at a pic of the Soba berries by clicking this.

The Soba noodles were really good, but what I really enjoyed was this "Tempura" which had fried shrimps. You're supposed to have this after dipping it in the green salt on the left. The reason for the green color was because it was a mixture of salt and green tea.

K-On Doujinshi

2011-09-04T22:04:00.004+09:00

I went to Akihabara again to buy K-On Doujinshi. I wanted to go to this year's first Comiket in the middle of August to buy new Doujinshi, but it takes about 3 hours from where I live. So I bought the Doujinshi in Akihabara where I looked for some electronic devices as well.

I know there are some people who are interested in Japan but not in anime-related topics. But in my opinion young foreign people tend to associate Japan with anime. And as I happen to like anime too, I want to introduce anime topics from time to time.

These cost as little as less than 2 US dollars for each. There are many Doujinshi for other kinds of anime, but I think the K-On Doujinshi tend to be in better quality than the others.

And the backs of the Doujinshi. Please put up with these pictures as I'm not allowed to reveal the contents. Btw, do you know a Seiyuu group called "SPHERE" where two of the K-On voice actresses are the members? The Seiyuu for Mugi and Yui are in the SPHERE, and the group did voice for the American movie "Suckerpunch". I'm planning to see the movie a second time in the Japanese dub.

Onomichi Ramen

2011-08-27T21:29:00.001+09:00

I've introduced Ramen shops in Akihabara, and it was because I often went to the area. But you know, when you keep going to the same area for more than one year, you wouldn't easily find really good restaurants that you haven't tried yet.

So I came to Suidoubashi, which is two stations away from Akihabara. This is the platform and the right ad is about the electronic money "Suica" that you can use on your smartphone. We call smartphones "Sumaho".

This is the Suidoubashi area. The economics faculty of Nihon University is in this area. It is one of the well-known universities in Japan.

And this is the Ramen shop where I had lunch today. Its name was "Onomichi Ramen". Onomichi is a port town in Hiroshima that is facing the Seto Inland Sea.

These were the covers of the magazines that introduced this Ramen shop. It is very rare that one Ramen shop was featured in so many magazines.

The name of this Ramen was "Tamashii no Ramen". It would be translated like "The Ramen with a soul". The broth was based on soy sauce, and it also tasted a bit like fish oil. It came with a bowl of rice. We call this kind of rice "Han-rice", or half-rice. As you can see the amount of the rice was small compared to the Ramen.

It was the best Ramen I had this year. The former pro boxer "Hatakeyama" also visited this Ramen shop, which is also a rarity.

BAGEL&BAGEL

2011-08-20T11:59:00.001+09:00

Let me introduce a bagel shop today. There aren't many bagel shops in my neighborhood, and this is the only one in a nearby city. In my opinion, its elastic dough lets you feel the unique texture, and I kinda like it. But people seem to prefer bread over bagel.

This bagel shop is in the corner of an outlet mall. The mall was advertising that almost all of the shops were giving much discount. For instance, an Adidas shop was handing out a 40% discount ticket to customers.

So I was thinking this bagel shop would be crowded, but as you can see the seats were scarcely occupied.

But the scarce people had nothing to with the tastes. This set I ordered was "Yankees Burger", and it came with tomato soup, salad, and coffee. As it had a patty sandwiched, it tasted much like a hamburger and was really good. The white cube is cheese cake.

I don't remember if this bagel had a distinctive name, but it had cheese and salmon sandwiched. I believe sets like the Yankees Burger alone wouldn't make you feel full.

Here's a link to the official website of BAGEL&BAGEL. Even though you don't understand Japanese, some words on the site are subbed in English.