Fatalistic fabric

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My bicycle
It plays outside.
The injury is noted.
The injury is noted!
Bus

This fabric, at craft emporium Yuzawaya in Shibuya, comes in a few similar patterns. Only the blue mentions the "noted injury," once in calm print and once with a little excitement.

What would you make out of this?

Hamburger for dessert

I was up in the air about whether to get the angel food cake with raspberries because it sounded delicious or the dessert hamburger to see what it was like. (I thought of Penelope Trunk's post about how choices are often between happiness and interstingness.) I went for deliciousness and happiness and raspberry cake, but I was fated, again, to interesting. The waiter, by a sympathetic reflex unquashed by his uniform, put his hand on my arm as he apologized that the last piece of cake had just been ordered. (Do you get how unusual this is?) He looked even sorrier when I said Well, then, dessert burger it is.

It wasn't terrible. But The coy questions in the menu about what was in it had disappointingly straightforward answers: hard, hollow pastry shells for buns and a moist chocolate sponge for the burger. A squirt of custard sauce for a convincing mayo. Miki's angel food cake with caramel sauce was great.

The place is called Skew (short for "Sweets kitchen eat well," of course) and is on the third floor of OIOI (pronounced "marui," of course). Window seats look straight onto the Shinkansen trains gliding through Yurakucho Station. It's one of those places that's mostly intended, I think, for women. My guess is that the dessert burger is there for guys who get dragged along with their girlfriends and want to hold onto their masculinity among the cute decor and all-male staff. Or maybe it's just there as blog bait. A nice spot, but I got the burger so you don't have to. Have some cake.

North vs. South vs. English

Nouth Exit and Sorth Bus Stop.

Stick this in your nose

My post at Pulse is about Nose Pit, allergy filters that go straight to the source. Little tiny "masks" that go inside your nostrils.

Like this:

 Read all about it: Japanese allergy prevention goods on Pulse.

Please don't eat the cherry blossoms

I bought this bottle of cherry blossom tea in a moment of vending machine weakness. I was still carrying it, almost full, a few hours later when I met up with Miki. "Is it good?" she asked.

"No," I said. "It tastes like peaches. But bad."

I said that the pink sakura steamer I'd had at Starbucks recently hadn't been too good, either. Bland, and the pink sugar on top had turned out to be sour salt.

I said, feeling guilty and outsiderish, that I don't think I like treats with cherry blossoms in them.

"Oh, nobody does," Miki said. "You only eat them once in a while, like sakura mochi. And when you do, you always remember that they don't taste so good."





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Twiwari: Twitter discounts in Japan

I was looking for a post last night that I'd put up a while back, the one of the naked, despondent bronze sculpture in the lobby of Tokyo Opera City. I used my nifty new sidebar search box to look up every related word I could think of - art, depressing, sad, statue, lobby - and it wouldn't come up in the results.

I learned two lessons. One, that search box seems to bring up entire archive pages instead of specific posts - the post I wanted turned out to be buried at the bottom of one of the pages that came back. Two, obscure post titles are not so good for the searching. I never cared much about that because I was thinking this is more of a stumble-upon thing than a StumbleUpon thing. But since I effectively hid my own content from myself, I am rethinking slightly. Maybe.

Actually I came here to point you toward my new little story on the Japan Times' Pulse blog about Twiwari, Twitter discounts at all kinds of places in Japan. There are boring ones and quirky ones and they're all over the country. Check it out! Maybe even leave a real comment? (Right now, my biggest fan over there has some amazing offers on make money from home.)
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Your gateway to real freedom

Was it right there in the fried rice cracker section all along?

Single white strawberries

 

I saw these strawberries at Sun Fruits in the basement of Mitsukoshi in Ginza. I was taking our visiting American friend Dee for a whirl around the DepaChika, the department store basement food plaza. I thought she'd like to see some of Japan's infamous that-must-be-a-mistake overpriced fruit. It turned out she hadn't heard of the 200-dollar cantaloupes, and so was all the more surprised by them. 

I had never heard of these white strawberries, called Scent of First Love.  Yeah, for 12 bucks a pop, they should have a whimsical name. They should have a whole back story. Like they used to be regular strawberries but then they were bitten by vampire strawberries... Actually, the back story has  something to do with a scientist; the Yamanashi producer is called Miyoshi Agri Tech. Mmm, agritech.

Tokyo Food Life has some nice pictures of the anemic strawberries at a branch of Sun Fruits in Tokyo Midtown and gives a rundown of the likes and dislikes flavor profiles of a dozen intriguingly named berries.

The taste of cherry blossoms in the morning

The approach of spring means cherry blossoms on - and in - everything. Starbucks has a full cherry blossom menu with pink drinks, cookies, and chiffon cake.
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I had this sakura steamed bread this morning. (Yes, for breakfast. Lay off already, wouldja?) it was pretty good. Hardly sweet at all. It had a dense base of dark bean paste (I think), and the icing was more waxy than sugary.
That's a real blossom on top. It was the biggest surprise of the whole little cake.
What do you think it tasted like?

I am a professional blogger

I've started contributing to the Japan Times' trend watch blog, Pulse.  My first story is about vegetables turning up in Japanese drinks and in sweets like doughnuts, chocolate and cream puffs. Exclusive for Japandra readers: what I didn't say there that I will tell you and you alone is that the dark chocolate with carrot-orange filling tastes like vitamins.

The second is a quick overview of how Japanese companies are using Twitter. I was surprised to see how casual the official Twitter accounts of a lot of big companies are. Also surprised that some that had used pretty innovative marketing - like a sushi place that gave 1-yen-per-follower discounts to customers who tweeted about their meals - have no sign of a Twitter link on its home page.

Daniel Morales also just joined Pulse. The plan now is that we'll alternate weeks. He runs the fantastically accessible How to Japanese for anyone who studies Japanese or is interested in how it works.

Please check out Pulse. Maybe even leave a comment?

Yes, I'd love a string bean with lunch

This Lawson bento came with exactly one stringbean sliced up like a victim of the Icetruck Killer.
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Dainty bordering on eating disordered, right? And then, the main course is crab cream croquettes - dense globs of cheesy, creamy... I don't even know what it is. They are like concentrated canned clam chowder before you add the water. Somehow breaded and deep fried with a savory brown sauce poured over to make sure no blood vessel escapes unscathed. A teaspoon of kabocha salad and a pound of white rice round it out.

Lest you feel this is over indulgent, dessert is two sweet beans. An odd sense of balance.

Whatever you do, do it at home

I didn't know it at the time, but these monthly Tokyo Metro manners posters started right when we got to Tokyo. Now, it looks like the final chapter. How many past favorites do you recognize?
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I wish he had worked in the guy diving through the door somehow. And the splattery ramen. Oh! And the drunk salary man! Darn. I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but I think I'm getting a little misty.

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More about the artist, Bunpei Yorifuji, and the manners campaign.

Tokyo Marathon man

Cold, wet start and sunny finish. Jim will tell us all about it soon...