If you want to buy me something:
As blogged by Trends in Japan, the あめdeわたあめ or ame-de-watame or literally “cotton candy from candy” is an at home cotton candy maker using - your own, personal, choice candy! Feed it a hard candy, any flavour, and it melts it down and spins it into floss.
We needed games to play on our trip so before heading to shibu onsen I hit the store that has everything you need to be cool and impress your friends and found this groovy novelty jenga. “Gum avalanche” it is called and the blocks mimic packs of Lotte brand gum - Black Black, Cool Mint, and Green Gum.
Now that I have you here, I can go off about mundane things. Like my 薬 (kusuri) (medicine) buying experience tonight. On the way home from the trip, this was last Monday, I was sitting on the train, did two stretches and then something in my upper back snapped. The next morning I couldn’t lift myself from bed. Had to steamroll my body over the edge and stand up using the bed to support me. That was a hard day at work. It was getting gradually better over the week and then on Friday morning, I couldn’t get out of bed again. The pain woke me up this morning as well but for most of the day it has been okay…possibly because I have not spent too much time at a computer.
Anyway - oh…sorry…actually I didn’t intend to write six sentences on my pain. I’m going to be horrible when I’m 80. Like, posting form shots of my hunch back so you can feel how crooked I have become on your solids display.
I went to the drug counter and explained my problem and the woman recommended some medicine. I was suspicious though. It was not medicine from behind the counter and the packages surrounding it were labeled with many As and Bs and Cs and Es. Was she trying to sell me vitamins? 1750円 vitamins? Yes.
I told her I wanted something stronger. In my head I was thinking that I wanted knock-me-out medicine that I could take tonight and wake up twelve hours later with a drool stain on my pillow from which I could forecast what they will serve in the cafeteria on Monday. She recommended that I go to the hospital but I wasn’t going to buy that cause I could see shelves of possible relief behind that counter. I told her that I would like to try medicine now and if I still felt pain in a few days, I would go to the hospital. There was some more discussion and hesitancy to go for things behind the counter but then she finally realized I wanted something strong and now and she asked me if my stomach was good. Yes, it is. The hesitancy to sell stronger medicine, even when stocked, is interesting.
I walked out with a pack of Ringl. Just took one of the little turquoise capsules and thinking about how unsatisfying vitamins would be right now. Which is funny because it is not even about effectiveness - it is satisfaction. Like I need a box with warnings and an ingredient list with many words I don’t know. It is unknown territory, mystical, and I feel more satisfied because to make my pain go away, it must take magic.
Today I my Japanese teacher in one of our usual spots - FANCL Garden. FANCL is a cosmetic/beauty company in Japan that has branched out (I think) to some other lifestyle stuff and they have a cafe in Lumine, a department store attached to Yokohama station. The cafe serves Chaya Macrobiotic food - and coffee. It just occurred to me that - is coffee macrobiotic? I guess if you drink it with soy milk and maple powder it is. Yes - everything in the cafe is sweetened with maple powder not sugar because it is better for you………………………………………………?
Anyway, the coffee tastes like acid so today we ordered ice cream or “ice kutte”. Made without dairy products, eggs, or processed sugars (except for the maple powder maybe?). It was actually pretty good. I had the strawberry - very fruity, no fake sweetener tastes, no fake thickener tastes - I would order it again.
What I found interesting was how it was served: on a plate, in its plastic container, with the lid placed on the side, brand name facing up. It reminded me that is it important that I know I am eating Chaya Ice Kutte, recommended by the staff at FANCL Garden according to a sticker placed on the menu.
Guess what I did on Sunday? This is a hint…
I bought a new camera : )
PS. The picture is of my dino friend at work. I picked him up as a souvenir from a udon restaurant near the office. The restaurant was in an old house and there was a basket of little toys to pick from before you leave…kind of like when you go to the dentist.
(This was stewing in my pot but Eric’s comment on a flickr picture pushed this post forward so Eric, this is sort of in response to, discussion related to your comment.)
This is MUJI, a lifestyle chain in Japan. MUJI is short for 無印良品 (Mujirushi Ryōhin) or “no brand quality goods”.
They sell products for life: clothing, furniture, stationary, bicycles, food, and so on, that are “not branded”. Minimalist design and color palette; dark blue, white, creams, brown, black with possible hints of burgundy but I think only on the labels.
MUJI started in Japan but has expanded to other corners of the world. I don’t know the store counts in other countries, but in Japan they are everywhere - 285 stores. I have two within a 15 minute walk from my home. All of them have the same look, feel, and repetitive jingle (which is weirdly abrasive amongst the simplicity of everything else).
MUJI sells “non-branded” products but it has become a brand, it is a brand. Their clothes may have no logos but often you see someone in the train and they screen MUJI kid. Did they plan that from the beginning? (That MUJI would be the no-brand brand.)
In his comment, Eric brought up the book “Pattern Recognition”, where the main character is allergic to logos and brands. Eric - does she really shop at MUJI? I read that book a while ago but I can’t remember whether or not they mentioned MUJI.
The best is MUJI food. because prior to MUJI I didn’t think of food as too branded. Of course it is in a huuuuuge way…but…I don’t feel that aware of brands while grocery shopping. (k I wrote that and then I thought about all of the ways I am totally influenced by the brand of food items but…) …MUJI made me think strongly about food fashion.
I would love to meet an only MUJI person.
On a slightly related note to some current research thoughts, in December I received my first batch of 100 mooCards. My intentions were to use them as business cards. Given that I will not be at NTT forever, and not be at UBC forever (god I hope), I made them a generic Meghan card with my email address and a link to this site.
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting and was presented with my first opportunity to hand out my cool new cards but I totally couldn’t. Possibly because the meeting was fairly formal (I wore my new brown dress pants…I bought brown dress pants in Japan because…they fit…but they look the same as my highschool chemistry teacher’s) but this ran through my head: “which one do I give???!!! are there any vulgar pictures on them I can’t remember??? this might take too much time…I have to select!”.
MooCards are too personal for business-card-ing. Each one shows a little piece of what I have seen. The variety too. Different pictures have different meanings to me and choosing them can’t be random. The best thing for me to do would be to let the receiver choose but I don’t think that fits the business card exchange model. Perhaps I need an automatic MooCard dispenser. A small camera could detect the crispness of the receiver’s suit(clothing) and dispense a properly themed card.
(BTW the girl in the photo, her name is Kristin according to the jpg filename. Just in case you were wondering.)
I only noticed this a month ago and I jog by it every…day that I jog. Does the fact that I was blind to a large rice vending machine station sandwiched between apartment buildings mean that I am become desensitized to all the novelty around me? Hmm…
At least the idea is still novel so me and another Canadian intern decided that some night rice purchasing was in order. We walked to the rice station last night and being such rice connaisseurs, decided on bin #6. Money inserted, we press button #6 and a woman starts to tell us to push another button. She tells us over and over again and we don’t quite know which button she is talking about so we press #6 again and again.
Finally the recording stops and another starts. We can open a drawer to get out rice. “Please open the drawer…please open the drawer….please open the drawer…” They want to make sure that the whole neighborhood knows that we are buying rice.
Drawer opened, we find our rice, in a grocery bag, with receipt and a sample package of katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes…if you have had okonomiyaki you are likely familiar with this). Very sweet indeed. I would have taken more time to savour the moment but the recording was going off on how we should take our rice and get outta there. Ok probably not so rudely considering all the polite kudasai(s) and onegai shimasu(s) of Japanese requests that we heard.
I bought three life improving technologies this weekend. Okay not all are technologies in the modern sense of the word but they are new things I will use in my life practices. Ha ha…life practices.
1) a new pillow: I have been waking up every second day with the most horrible knot in my neck/shoulder area. This knot also wakes me up during the night and last week I was sooo tired from it and of it. I blamed the cheap lumpy pillow I bought when I first came here. Was thinking the solution would be a 4000円 pillow that remembers the shape of your head but instead I chose a 500円 thin seat cushion. It is perfect! The last few nights I have had good deep sleeps and some very interesting dreams.
2) hair straightener: goodbye humidity hair woes, hello sunshine. I think I walk with better posture because of the inflated sense of self esteem.
3) Mario Kart DS: I was playing the downloaded Mario Kart with some people at lunch (using wifi) but I think it limits the levels we use and I cannot choose my character. Could only be this ghost guy who, although cute and wee, is very very slow. So I bought the game and now the cruising is much better although I am still not as good as all the other people : P Someday!!
This weekend was also bargain weekend (across Japan maybe?) so I attempted some shopping. Man…it was insane but actually, it was not even the customers that made it insane. It was the employees. I swear each store had three times more (salesgirls) than a Canadian store of similar size. Three times more young girls yelling prices and folding clothes so you can’t actually get in to look at them. When I did find some shirts to try on, I was told that you can only try on pants. It was too busy to have everyone trying on shirts. I was quite disappointed but did take a small risk with two tops and luckily they turned out alright. Now I think I’ve had enough mall for a while.
I was really bummed out when I woke up on Wednesday. Reasons why I won’t get into too much cause that’s just depressing but part of it was anxiety over a. holy crap this is life and how did I manage to get here? and b. it’s a holiday weekend and oh no how do I fully take advantage of it so that I can say, YES I appreciate this scary life and I am NOT going to waste it away. I was getting to the stage where hours were being wasted by my worrying about wasting hours and days. Somehow I managed to get showered and leave my apartment. I walked to the city centre thinking that maybe I just needed a good book to read and I remembered there being some English books at a store in More’s City (a department store next to the Yokosuka-Chuo station). Before the bookstore, I did the routine games & electronics store browse and guess what…
!!!
On Tuesday the same place was sold out but on this day I struck gold!! It took me five minutes to buy the DS Lite and that felt a little weird. Usually with electronics purchases over $100, you get bombarded with warranties and point systems and store credit cards. This was quick and easy. In five minutes I went from bummed to glowing. They didn’t have the main application I wanted in stock, so my plan for the day was set – I would go to Yokohama in search of this game. It’s not actually a game…it is a Japanese-English translation tool / electronic dictionary with kanji input by stylus and man does it ever rock!! The tetris game I bought on the side is also pretty good but not as good as old tetris. They made some changes that I`m not that into.
I love my DS lite to bits. It even already has a name, I was prompted to give it one as soon as I turned it on (I think…the prompt was in Japanese). The first thing that came to me was “PopTart!” and that stuck.
This purchase made me so happy and to make the day better, some friends invited me along to play tennis. So…I am not really that good at tennis. Actually, I am pretty horrible and this was only my third time on the court but they were so great!! They spent so much time giving me pointers and very useful ones too! Not just the “keep your eye on the ball” that is supposed to magically make me a pro. I don`t know if I made any progress during the practice but that would be through no fault of theirs. It was a very fun time!
On to Thursday…? (Or Tuesday if you are reading this the other way.)
I have a fridge! Finally I was able to buy perishables :) Found the sweetest brand of milk. Yeah, so it is like, 4% milk, but the logo is so awesome…I had to buy it.
It`s Monday and I have the most painful knot in my neck/left shoulder area. I want to post more today but it will be in small bits as I am kind of uncomfortable. For now…enjoy the milk.
For those of you who don`t travel to my flickr account often, I will repost this picture:
Do you remember Barbapapa?!! So, maybe some of you don`t because Barbapapa is a series (or family) of characters in children`s books originally from France (I think). I read the books in a French immersion elementary school. Maybe 6 or 7 years ago (god that seems long ago) I was at my friend Julian`s place and saw that he had a Barbapapa book. I freaked and he, seeing my excitement, gave the book to me. It was from his childhood so I didn`t think that Barbapapa was around anymore…but in Japan it is! I don`t know about everywhere…but I found the above in the LIVIN grocery store. Now I have a Barbapapa keychain - yay!
On Saturday I got my mobile! It is an orange : ) Casio with a 2.1 megapixel camera and I can store music on it but I don`t know how much. There are many features for me to figure out and luckily, it is a bilingual phone but still, many messages and instructions are in Japanese. Exciting!
The screen displays these little penguin animations by default. They throw fish in the air and other fun things. I love it! The displays can also twist around and I can close my phone with the screen on the outside. I thought that feature would be really handy but actually I have not used it much yet.
I also bought a rice cooker.
More on things in a bit!
