Just wanted to drop you a quick greeting by saying thank you for stopping by ShoyuJapan.com and hope you have Merry Christmas! PS. As an after thought, I’ve been wanting to mention this in regards to Christmas in Japan…I thought it was quite amazing to see that many parents here hold a strong tradition of having [...]
Archives for 2009
I probably mentioned this before, but one of Japan’s unique Christmas traditions includes the purchase of a “Christmas Cake”. I believe the popular cake of choice is short cake decorated with Christmas related items. On TV I’ve seen other types of Christmas Cakes that run up to ¥20,000 ($200+) and higher. Well this year I [...]
If you happen to be sightseeing in Tokyo, one popular shopping area is found on the man-made island known as “Odaiba”. It is also the home of FUJI TV one of the main television networks (the TV station building is a sight in itself). And this is where you can see this funky, warped escalator. [...]
No, this is not a swine flu vending machine or vaccine vending machine. BUT I just wanted to apologize for the big gap from my last post. I was getting attacked left and right. I started out with a cold and a pretty bad cough to the point of losing my voice. I went to [...]
What can you get for 1000yen ($10) at McDonald’s? Well for the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that almost every McDonald’s parking lot has been jam packed with at least 5 to 10 cars (plus) lined up on the street waiting to get in during lunch time. I first noticed this when I had to [...]
OMEDETOU (CONGRATULATIONS), “Godzilla” Hideki Matsui!!! Hats off to Matsui in attaining the highest award possible as a player in Major League Baseball, MVP of the World Series. He becomes the first Japanese born baseball player to receive this award. Catch the whole story on the Yankees home page. Matsui MVP story video (click here) Matsui’s MVP interview [...]
Well, Burger King Japan has decided to extend their “7 layer Whopper” for just a bit longer. So if you missed it they extended it till (I believe) this Friday (11/6). You can check out the home page link two posts down from this one.
Here’s just another look at Halloween in Japan. This one is at a shopping mall where they had a costume corner for people to wear and take pictures in front of their balloon-made monster house.
(I’m not sure if this same thing is happening around the world, but…) Burger King, Japan and Microsoft have partnered together in promoting the new “Windows 7″ operating system by creating the “7 Layer Whopper”. For one week only (October 22 to 28) this 7 patty hamburger is being offered daily to the first 30 [...]
Can you imagine playing the drums by touching your friends? Can you imagine tapping your friend’s hand and hearing a snare drum? Then flicking another friend on the forehead and hearing a bass drum? And finally slapping another friend in the face (softly, of course) and hearing a symbol crashing? Well, last night on TV [...]
Check out this vending machine. It sells SOY candy bars called, “SoyJoy”. The flavors include orange chocolate, raisins & almonds, prune, mango & coconut, strawberry, and banana. They sell for about a buck (¥100). The best thing about them is that they make you “HAPPY” because they are “healthy”. “What a JOY!” (OK, I’ll stop [...]
Could it be possible to study Japanese using grapes? It’s highly unlikely, but I saw a television program that claimed that you can find the kanji (chinese character) for “mountain” in the seeds of grapes. Not just any grapes… in Japan’s “Kyoho grapes” or giant grapes (although I never tried it on other grapes). Of [...]
The electronic company Sharp came out with its new Solar Cell Phone this summer. If you forget your charger cable, you can just put it in the sun to get it charged. The three major cell phone companies (Softbank, Docomo, and AU) all have solar products made by Sharp. The phones are also waterproof. Below [...]
By now, you have probably heard of Japan’s “Golden Week” in Japan which is basically a series of five holidays that are observed during the crossover of April and May in spring. Well here in autumn, in September to be exact, there is another series of holidays back to back, that has been recently referred [...]
Ichiro Suzuki has done it again. Another 200 hit season, nine consecutive seasons in the majors, and the first in the history of the baseball to do it. This 2009 season has been full of amazing feats for the Japanese baseball star. Not only his 200 hit season, but also getting his 2000th hit in [...]
I thought this was interesting, so I wanted to show it to you. I recently received this watermelon flavored gelatin dessert, which is very similar to “Jello”. I’ve never seen this flavor before. It was sweet as expected and yes, it tasted like watermelon. It was good. Also the wrapping was also very creative. It [...]
Summer is over, but I had to show this to you… Kentucky Fried Chicken is all over Japan and has become a common part of Japan’s fast food network of restaurants for years. It is the same as spotting a McDonald’s in a foreign country (just not as many). So what’s the big deal about KFC [...]
Are you familiar with the Bob’s Big Boy family restaurant in America (USA)? The restaurant is famous for its hamburgers and “big boy” mascot! Back in Hawaii, there is a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant right off the highway near my parent’s house. I’ve been driving by that restaurant for over 20 years (and of course [...]
Fuji Television Station, located in Odaiba, Tokyo is celebrating their 50th anniversary. And this summer as part of the celebration they have their summer vacation event called the “United States of Odaiba” running from July 18th to August 31st. Fuji Television Basically, the Odaiba area has been broken into four event areas or states. In each [...]
The sneak preview for Hayao Miyazaki’s new movie, “PONYO” played in Los Angeles, California in July and is scheduled to open on August 14th in 800 theaters in the U.S. (In Japan, PONYO made its debut last year and has recently hit the stores with its DVDs.) Ponyo Trailer (click here) Disney link (click here) Miyazaki is known [...]
Here is a video I took from the train platform of a train party. You can see some people dancing in one of the cars. It is possible to rent trains like this for special events. They arrange these trains to fit into the regular train schedules. WARNING: If you watch the whole video, it might [...]
At the rate that Stitch products are produced in this country, I could probably run a blog just on this topic. Anyway, I just wanted cover three recent products that I found to be quite interesting. All three follow a basic summer theme. The other day I popped into the Disney Store for just a few [...]
One of the top three biggest festivals in Japan includes Aomori Prefecture’s Nebuta Festival held in August. The festival is famous for its massive lantern floats. The festival events lasts for seven days with these huge man-powered floats making their rounds on the streets at night almost scraping buildings as they move along. It takes [...]
In the past few years, Inakadate Village in Aomori Prefecture has been getting a lot of publicity during the summer. Why? It is because of their unique way of planting rice. They use three or four different kinds of rice plants, basically different colors, to create a MASSIVE picture display on several rice paddies. It [...]
Here is the video. Check out the story in the post before this one
