When I came to Japan 12 years ago, one of the comforting sights was seeing Burger King in Omiya, Saitama (then a 20 min train ride from my old place). Being able to visit someplace familiar to home made the transition to this country a little bit easier. Then a couple years later, there was a rumor that Burger King was shutting down all their restaurants in Japan. And the shocking truth came about one day when I was going to go to Burger King in Omiya, only to find that it had changed to Lotteria (another fast food restaurant). I thought even if BK were to return, it would never get this spot back (meaning a 1 minute walk from the train station in the Sogo department store). Well, I’m glad I was wrong! Lotteria is gone and BK is back where it used to be as of June 4, 2010. And just as a side note, Krispy Kreme just opened the week before that in Omiya in Lumine. Both on the west exit side of Omiya Station. Happy!
REACTING TO “STATEMENTS” in Japanese.
Description
Reacting the Japanese Way 1 introduces you to 12 commonly used feedback expressions Japanese people use when reacting to statements. They are divided into 3 categories Positive (blue), Neutral (yellow), & Negative (pink) feedback. You can be sure you won’t find this in a text book because this is the real deal; doing it the way native Japanese people do it. Have fun.
How to play
Tap the title screen to get you inside. Then tap on any of the feedback buttons to hear the expression. You can use this for your own personal study by mimicking the expressions and memorizing them, or just press the buttons for fun.
Every year on May 3rd and 5th, there is a “big kite festival” held off the river bank of the Edogawa in Kasukabe City, Saitama Prefecture. There are basically 3 types of kites that are used during the event. The first are sponsor and/or community participant kites that measure about 2m X 1.5m. Second are what they call the “small” kites that are 6m X 4m. This is basically the size of your average room in a house of apartment in Japan (6 tatami mats). And the last is the “big” kite which is 15m X 11m. This is said to be equal to 100 tatami mats and takes just as many or more people to move it. The home page says it weighs about 800 kilograms (1500 lbs.).
I was able to go catch the action of this event on Children’s Day this year (5/5/10). And I was able to see the sponsor kites and small kites lift up into the air. It was quite a sight to see something that big take air. Then it was time for the big event of flying the big kite, but they were missing one of the main factors for flying a kite, “WIND”. The wind was blowing, but not hard enough to get that big kite into the air. They had a pretty big gust come and they tried to launch it, but it ended up just snapping in half. (Bummers!)
After that happened, everyone started leaving, so we did too. Later that night on the news, they showed a semi-successful lift of the big kite. So I guess they fixed the kite and tried again later that afternoon. (I saw a video of the May 3rd attempt which also failed when the wind changed direction having the big kite land on roof of someone’s house.) They say that a successful launch of the big kite is rare and you’re lucky to catch it. Well, it was still very impressive. If you are in Japan on May 3rd or 5th, this may be something to check out. Enjoy the video.
Snow fall hit the Kanto region on April 17th, 2010. Actually, there was snow fall across the country on that day. In the 12 years I’ve been here this is the first time I’ve seen snow in April. And sure has taken spring a long time to come. Now we are in Golden Week and we’ve finally had a couple of consistent days of warm weather. April 17th is not the only freaky weather day. It’s been on going from the new year. People have been trying to get ready for spring by putting away the heaters and winter wear only to have to drag it back out with temperatures dropping too low to wear spring clothing week after week. The pattern was basically one day warm then two to three days cold going cyclical up until last week. The climax was the SNOW on the 17th of last month though. The good thing was that the sakura (cherry blossoms) season lasted longer. It’s usually about 7 days (full bloom), but this year was about 10 -12 days. (Last year it was about 4 days because it got warm a lot earlier). The bad thing is that it has affected the price of produce, taking it sky high. But things are looking better now. Below is a video I shot of the April snow. Enjoy.
Starbucks VIA made its debut in Japan today (April 14, 2010) with two flavors: Columbia & Italian Roast. Perfect timing as Japan’s instant coffee drinkers are on a major rise according to tonight’s news. The news story featured a coffee machine that uses instant coffee to make a fresh cup of Joe. The company limits it’s sales to 150 machines per day and has been selling out within 15 minutes everyday. Another Japanese coffee company says that sales has gone up 30% since introducing it’s instant coffee products. And Howard Schultz (Starbucks CEO) certainly knows that Japan’s instant coffee market is taking off as he showed his enthusiasm while addressing and auditorium full of Starbucks employees in Tokyo.
April 14, 2010 Starbucks Instant Coffee Debut
Japanese news reporters went all out in their research about Starbucks instant coffee. In an interview with Mr. Schultz, he said that customers can now have the exact same coffee that is served at their coffee shops anywhere and anytime by just adding hot water. Well this news channel decided to put this claim to the test. They took both flavors of Starbucks VIA and tested them against the actual coffee that is sold at the Starbucks coffee shops using a flavor testing machine. The machine somehow can gauge 5 different aspects of the flavor of the coffee (which I could really catch the details of). Anyway 3 of the 5 points were perfectly matched with the remaining 2 just slightly different from each other; meaning Howard Schultz’s claim of being able to enjoy Starbucks coffee anywhere, anytime is TRUE!
A machine is a machine and what can it really prove? Right? Well they had the newscasters in the studio trying both the instant and shop brewed coffee, and they couldn’t tell the difference. If you want to put it to the test, Starbucks is having taste testing from today until April 18, 2010. So here is your chance.
This year we had unusually colder weather during the cherry blossom season causing some unusual events to happen. One is that the cherry blossoms came about a week later than usual. The other is that the full bloom of the sakura lasted longer than average. The normal cherry blossom lasts about 2-3 weeks from beginning to end, with the average full bloom lasting for about 7 days. This year the full bloom lasted 10 days. One of the prefectures further south had an all Japan record of 19 days. Below are some links to former posts from last years sakura season.
What started being built in July 2008 has just made history. Tokyo Sky Tree (the new digital antenna), when finished will stand at 634 meters high… but that’s at the end of 2011. Until 10:16a.m. today (March 29th, 2010); Tokyo Tower, 333 meters high, was the tallest standing man-made structure in Japan. A little after 10:00 this morning a 10 meter elevator shaft piece of the new tower was lifted off the ground and put into its place at the 328 meter point at 10:17a.m. bringing Tokyo Sky Tree to the new height of 338 meters making it the tallest man-made structure in Japan. Here’s a picture my wife took of Sky Tree today.
Recently, I’ve come across more funky drinks at the supermarket, the convenience store, and the vending machine. So instead of blabbing on and on. I’ll just show them to you.
Sakura Mist (Cherry Blossom Soda) Perfect for the sakura season that started this week in the Kanto Region.
Chocolate Sparkling (Soda), but it’s clear.
Ultra Cider, made based on the super hero Ultraman.
