high tech toilet, too caring

Quite a few houses and public buildings are equipped with high-tech toilet in Japan. Those that can spray warm water to your backside(to clean it up), blow dry with one push of a button when you finish. You see the functions on the panel.
The seats can be heated warm, and definitely have spoiled Japanese bottoms.
The thing is you cannot turn off the heat in public places, even if it is so hot that it makes you sweat.
The seats are sometimes kept warm while buildings are air conditioned in summer, the whole building is under the control.

pears

I have eaten Japanese pears for nearly a month.
I like them, but it is being out of the season.
Japanese pear is also called ‘sand pear’ in English!
I wonder if it sounds this jucy…
They just look like apples, shape-wise.
I browsed a catalog of co-op store where we usually buy grocery, to find it only has Japanese pears, not western ones.
700 grams costs 400yen, that is around $
I also checked a major online shopping site.
They have (western) pears all right.
The prices vary, 3 kilograms for example, cost 2000yen or more.

Moon viewing night

I came across a sentence saying
‘Even today, many Japanese enjoy the full moon and offer it dumplings and Japanese pampas’, when searching an online dictionary.
Maybe more so, in Korea or China. They use lunar calendar.
Here, I doubt Japanese people still decorate pampas grass on moon viewing night that is September 22(this year).
But, we still care how the moon is seen. I checked twitter and found hundreds of tweets about moon viewing.
More people than I expected seem to have dumplings.
McDonald Japan is offering three kinds of moon viewing burgers, making sunny-side up look like full moon.

taboo on flowers

One of the flowers is a cockscomb.
Is it as a common flower abroad as in Japan?

Anyway, the rest of the flowers are chrysanthemum.
This reminded me of something I heard.
Someone from Europe brought a bouquet of chrysanthemum to their friend in a hospital.
Gosh, Japanese chrysanthemum is only for the dead.
Daisies or any kind, more westernized ones would be ok.

family memorial service

Autumnal Equinox Day is three days ahead of us.
Both vernal equinox day and autumnal equinox day are designated national holidays.
During weeks including equinox days, memorial services for the spirits of ancestors are held at home.
We cleaned the family alter, offered flowers and fruits.

At supermarkets, they set up a corner where you buy flowers for alter or graves.
Priests make a round of home visits to recite a Buddhist sutra at alter. They visit many houses, so usually donot stay more than 15 minutes.

Unique sweets gift (2)

Untie the wrapping, take the lid off.



Three pieces of mochi are buried in kinako. Drop the sugarcane syrup(red capped in the photo) and there you go!

The syrup is so thick that it does not get into the mochi. tastes GOOD.
The crest of takeda shingen clan(four diamonds) is printed on the furoshiki wrapping, and kikyo flower is embossed on the syrup bottle. highly elaborate.
kikyo, balloon flower is in bloom at this time of the year.

Unique sweets gift (1)

A friend from Yamanashi brought kikyo-shingen-mochi (sticker rice cake bell flower marked).
Shingen is a name of local warlord in the 16c.
While there are many kinds of rice cakes(mochi),
this is made of sticker rice powder kneaded with sugar and
coated with kinako(soy bean powder).

It won the Silver Award at VJC-Japan's Attractive Souvenir Contest 2005.

shop site

Each box is individually packaged in furoshiki wrapping style and come with bottled sugarcane syrup .
You eat them with a small wooden spatula called ‘yoji’(attached),
a small fork will do, too.
The whole design struck me as refined.

Villan, the winner

Actress Fukatsu Eri won the best actress award at the Montreal World Film Festival 2010.

In the film 'Villan (Akunin) directed by Lee Sang-il, she played the role of a woman who goes on the run with a murder suspect.

At the awards ceremony she said ' I was gloggy-headed because of jet lag when my name was called out, I didnot know what was happening.'


She has a reputation for her talent. This news is likely to draw even more audience to the theater. Japanese tend to be influenced by authoritative approval.