Archive for Toys
July 27, 2007 at 7:22 pm · Filed under Experiences, Japan, Toys
Off the boat and to the combini to buy fireworks. We bought Hello Kitty and an Anpanman sets full of sparklers and squealers and mice hanabi that spin in circles on the ground. Crap those things are packaged! You need 10 minutes of unpacking before you can set anything on fire.
But they do include the coolest thing - special effect glasses. Actually in Japanese they are “不思議メガネ” (fushigi megane) - mysterious or wonderous glasses. Put them on and アンパンマンの頭がいっぱいあるよ！(You can see a lot of anpanman’s head). Actually in our case it was Uncle Jam’s face that we could see when viewing bright light sources. These glasses are the coolest. Watch someone with a lit sparkle and it looks as though they are holding a magic wand spewing forth cascades of anpanman heads. Don’t worry - I will bring some back to Canada because they are that cool.
A very special kind of hanabi for the Japanese is “線香花火” (senkou hanabi). You light these small, thin hanabi from a candle included with the fireworks set. They are held pointing downwards and if you are lucky you will get a small, beautiful, humble display of fireworks. They are different from sparklers - not so quick and high energy. The flickers of light almost seem to be dripping from the end. They are very special for people in Japan, said to represent the emotion of summer. Some friends told me that they are a good finale to hanabi parties at the end of summer - being small but beautiful they are symbolic of that end of summer happy-melancholy feeling. Oh and Wikipedia tells me that they say you can get the best fireworks if you hold it at a 45 degree angle downwards.
We ended with senkouhanabi and cleaned up but I don’t think I am done with hanabi for the summer. I see a few more bright nights ahead of me.
June 12, 2007 at 10:23 am · Filed under Toys
Remember these?
Can I even say remember? They might have stopped selling the ones that are obviously cigarettes by the time I ventured into the candy market. I had floured gum and chocolate wrapped in paper - you could get about two and a half puffs of flour smoke out of one with the first few blows.
It goes one step further with these cigarette toys. I loved the surprised parent.
I talked to the salesgirl about these and she said that they are popular.
November 15, 2006 at 4:29 pm · Filed under Spend spend spend!, Sweet Finds, Toys
(BTW the girl in the photo, her name is Kristin according to the jpg filename. Just in case you were wondering.)
May 6, 2006 at 6:03 pm · Filed under Spend spend spend!, Toys
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.)
April 10, 2006 at 4:10 pm · Filed under Spend spend spend!, Sweet Finds, Toys
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!
April 9, 2006 at 4:46 pm · Filed under Spend spend spend!, Toys
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!
November 30, 2005 at 8:35 pm · Filed under Sweet Finds, Toys
October 21, 2005 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Things Found Online, Toys
Hehe this is way too addictive. I can’t stop reading through this site linked to by BoingBoing (I feel guilty not given credit to those who found it even though my blog is riddled with credit to BoingBoing and PopGadget) that has listed and commented on the top 100 toys of the 70s and 80s. An excerpt:
The Americans sure knew how to name toys. We, to be honest, didn’t. So, while this boxing automaton chestnut went under one of the best names for any game, or indeed any thing, ever, in the States, the rather rarer British version was renamed… Raving Bonkers Fighting Robots. Quite. This Un-American activity came courtesy, appropriately enough, of Marx Toys Ltd., who, aside from seemingly employing the cast of Whack-o! in their marketing division, did actually do a neat enough job of making the toy over here. Within a sturdy boxing ring, two square-jawed robots (named, in the English version, Biffer Bonker and Basher Bonker, but let’s not dwell on it) rounded on each other by means of an initially hard-to-master combination of two under-ring levers, and laid into their opponents with button-fired punching action. A successful knockout was signalled by the losing robot’s head flying up on a spring and, allegedly in some editions, a bit of crude, “sampled” surrender dialogue. Presumably the British version went “By Jingo, sir! You’ve bally well got me in the seven-and-nines and no mistake! Care for a bun?”
So it’s done by some english dudes so there are some unfamiliar toys but their witty british humour makes it all the better. What I am reminescing on now: Perfection, Guess Who, and what has not yet been mentioned, He-Man.
October 13, 2005 at 11:16 am · Filed under Reflection, Technology & Effects, Toys
Today I took my ipod out for its first walk. I forgot how much music just makes me want to wander. How it shapes the way I perceive my surroundings outdoors. Suddenly fall, golden leaves, cordoroy and old men in grocery shopping all seem so deep and musical. Is this me controlling my environment or my music controlling me?
Wonderful though. Now I won’t have this thing anymore where I can’t leave my apartment because I need to listen to that one last song.
Every time someone got on the bus this morning I noticed whether or not they were wearing their earbuds/phones. I was acutely aware of this because today I was in their world, or not so much their world but I was within the same space floating in my own personal bubble. Part of me felt guilty. I felt guilty because I was thinking about all the articles warning of detachment between people in public places due to all these personal technologies creating boundaries between the people. Guilty because I try to develop ways to bridge those boundaries yet here I am making them?
Hmm…maybe I need a transmitter / receiver for my ipod. Could I open up my music to the few around me. Let them connect to my bubble and perhaps it could be broken or we join personal spaces.
June 18, 2005 at 6:55 am · Filed under Toys
This is wonderful where can I get one?
Ritual : Wet Lamp : Scott J. Franklin
