Kappabashi

LOOK AT THIS BIG COOK!





This pretty much made me laugh. No way. But this is quite easy to know what the street is for. And I'm pretty much sure that Lonely Planet may feature this area for a good Tokyo trip tip. This "Kappabashi Street" is a shopping street for food industry people. You can buy almost of everything you need to open up restaurants, bars, or even bakery.





And that is why, you can also buy fake sushi like these ;)




This is made of candle and is pretty much well known to use for the showcase display. This is quite famous among international tourists to buy "fake sushi". But this is also well known among amateur baking lovers for a reasonable shopping street for our baking goodies. There are no fresh food stores, but, you can buy almost of everything you need like pans, pots or cake "things"

I stopped almost of every stores but still made me wanna come back here again. Cool. I couldn't buy anything this time, because there are too many things I wanna get. I should wait to come back here again until me finishing a long shopping list.

I should put this photo

I should put this photo, even though it's wrong angle.
(I don't know how to fix the angle, tho...)

This is the latest bread I baked. Aren't they cute?

Nice to be international

I couldn't sleep last night.

Tough, really. Crawling on my bed for a couple of hours, looking at the window and seeing outside became brighter. When I grabbed my cell phone to check the time, it was 4 a.m. It didn't give me any damage at all since I didn't have much to do today, tho, being unable to sleep is always tough anyway.

I started playing with my cell phone and ended up calling in Indianapolis. Luckily, my friend was awake in other side of the globe. Plus, ---I don't know if that was coincident or not---, she was at the Asian festival. Funny. We talked for five or six minutes but that made me feel so relaxed and I was able to come back to sleep.

Nice to be international.

AMEYA-YOKOCHO

YOKOCHO means "off-street"

But doesn't this street look like the main one? Almost the Times Square in NYC (kidding)



It's in UENO area, and I went to check out the exhibition hosted by the Tokyo University of Art. (I've recently been pretty much a exhibition visitor.)

http://www.bauhaus-dessau.jp/

The exhibition itself was really interesting, but, I loved the raucous Yokocho, too.



I saw one fish store showed the 13,000-yen-price tag (about $130) for the frozen tuna but yelling "It's only 1,000 yen!"

Funny.

TASPO

Japanese vending machines sell quite a lot of things. More than coke. Really.

So, you can buy beer or cigarette at any time no matter how young you are. When some big leaguers came to Japan in 2006 for the exhibition game, they all surprised seeing the beer machine, but said, "Maybe, Japanese kids are well-educated and they don't go buy those things."

Hmmm, we wish we could be that well. Nope, unfortunately.

And so, from now on, adults have to obtain the ID card called TASPO. Smokers have to apply for the age verified card by filling out the info like your DOB or address. This service started in March from several cities and gradually progressed nationwide. Tokyo are may be set in July, the last month of the service period.

http://www.taspo.jp/english/index.html

Japan still has a better smoker-friendly circumstance than the US. And I thought that was, in a way, a good thing, because it's all up to our moral control.

I hope Japanese kids will grow up just as the big leaguers think.

Hello again

Okay folks,

I switched my blog from old one to this one hoping this helps my easy work on blogging. Do please check out this blog every once awhile and drop me some comments or suggestions.

As many of you guys know already, I started my radio job in April and things seem to be good, well, so far, at least. I am not sure how the directors and producers actually think about my work, but, so far, they haven't told me anything yet. Hope I can keep this schedule for at least six months or so.

There's still not enough friends in Tokyo, but luckily, I start getting many invitations to museum or music concerts, so, I've been around many cool places for free. Yay.

One of the latest favorites is Mori Museum in Roppongi.

http://www.mori.art.museum/eng/index.html

The Turner Prize-related exhibition is going on now. That was awesome. But the real cool thing on this museum is it's location. It's on the 52nd floor of the building and the museum ticket gives us the access to the observatory, too.





I guess I was able to take some shots of Tokyo Tower from the observatory, but, there are so many people being around, I gave up waiting. Well, I guess I have many more opportunities to come back to the museum, so, let me take better shots the next time.

How are YOU??