What's up with the small backpacks?

2013-01-15

Remember in the mid to late 90s when small backpacks were all the rage for women? Well, now they are all the rage for men in Japan apparently.

Honestly I don't know how popular they are but shopping around Tokyo in 2012 every men's store seemed to have tons of them. The crazy thing to me is they seemed too small to be all that useful. I suppose you could put a Nexus 7, Kindle or iPad Mini inside but you can't carry much else. What do they put in them? Point and Shoot camera? A single novel? I'm sure some Japanese men's magazine would spell this all out for me but I didn't have time to check.

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Men's Coin Purses? Yes Please!

2013-01-09

I have no idea why but for some reason there are no men's coin purses in the USA or at least on San Francisco. Go to Macy's or Nordstrom's or Bloomingdale's and you won't find a single one. This is despite the fact that they carry many of the same brands of clothing and accessories (Paul Smith, Burberry, etc..)

At some point, partly due to the humidity in Japan, I got tired of having a pocket full of lose change that I had to rummage through to find coins so I picked up a coin purse. I'm not going back.

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Where's the Shoes?

2013-01-06

Where are the shoes? I should have taken more pictures but when I visit Japan my consumerism is on full impulse power and I'm especially jealous of all the cool shoes available to Japanese men.

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Gyuudon in America: A little bit of heaven

2010-09-01

If it's not clear from the title I LOVE GYUUDON. Gyuudon (牛丼), where "gyuu" rhymes with "zoo" and "don" rhymes with "zone", is a beef bowl. Specifically beef over rice. The most famous brand is Yoshinoya which is originally from Japan but found all over the world.

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The Myth of the Lack of Japanese Creativity

2010-06-05

There's this meme that's been going on since at least the 80s that the Japanese are not very creative. I'll be honest, I used to believe this myself. For example as an outsider, it seemed like all the anime characters have big eyes and blue hair and there are so many characters that look like clones of characters from other anime. The 3 to 5 "sailor girl" super hero troupes, Sailormoon being the most famous but there are plenty of clones. The multiple Mecha characters from Gundam to Mazinger-Z or Patlabor. I'm sure there are other examples of things that seem copied from other cultures as well.

The truth is the Japanese are massively creative. Whether they are more or less creative than other cultures I have no data but there is no valid reason I know of for the myth that the Japanese are not that creative.

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My Tea Addiction

2007-06-26

Around 1994 I weighed 210lbs (95kg). I used to eat pretty poorly. A typical meal might have been some kind of sandwich like a burger or main course plus say fries or other sides and possibly before then an appetizer shared with whoever I was eating dinner with. I might have a soda as my drink or sometimes if I was at the right place an ice cream sunday or malt.

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Bio Ojiyan Cafe

2007-06-17

I've been meaning to post this for a while but the last couple of months before I left Japan the Bio Ojiyan Cafe became one of my favorite cafes.

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Tokyo Trains

2006-10-04

If you are coming to Tokyo or if you are newly living in Tokyo here's a few tips for dealing with the trains and subway in here.

One of the biggest issues is there are about 10 different train companies in Tokyo. Off the top of my head, JR (Japan Rail), Eidan, Toei, Keio, Odakyu, Keikyu, Seibu, Tokyu, are all different train companies.

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Music for Learning Japanese

2006-07-03

I was sent a link to a song to learn hiragana and katakana this morning. The sender didn't put a name but the song's website says it's by Danny, Janet and Alyssa. Strangly there appears to be no link to the actual song on that site.

As far as I know the Japanese don't have a Japanese alphabet song like we have the A B C song in the states. It's possible they do and I've just never heard it.

This is my favorite one. It's by Pizzicato Five. If you want the whole thing it's the last track on Ca Et La Du Japon.

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Plush Poop

2006-05-06

I don't know why but the Japanese have a facination with poop. The latest manifestation of that phenomenon is this stuffed anima...stuffed poop I found at Don Quijote, the K−Mart of Japan.

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