Smash and Grab

A broken maneki neko display at a Shinsaibashi restaurant.

The best things I’ve found on other people’s blogs recently

Above is a photo of the annual display of rice paddy art held in Inakadate village in Aomori prefecture. Pink Tentacle has a selection of photos from this year’s Hokusai-inspired Mount Fuji field, plus some fantastic examples of Inakadate’s previous rice paddy artworks.

As well as reminding me of photos I’d seen of crop circles, these Inakadate photos also brought to mind the photo on the left - a picture of a Hello Kitty tulip display at the Toyooka Flower Show that I saw on BBC News ages ago.

Availability
For people who prefer to drink at home in Japan, beer is available in off-licences (US=liquor stores), station kiosks and some supermarkets, from beer vending machines (now commonly with ID Card readers) until midnight, and at most konbini (convenience stores) 24 hours a day.

There are numerous local brands of beer, which are sold in a bewildering assortment of containers and sizes: 135ml, 250ml, 330ml, 500ml and 1000ml cans; 330ml, 500ml and 633ml bottles; and 1520ml home beer pump kits (complete with gas canister). In fact, I would hazard a guess that Japan has more sizes of beer container than any other country, as well as what must be the smallest container of beer for sale anywhere in the world.

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Space Tarako

To kick off this series here’s a classic TV ad for Kyūpii Tarako Pasta Sauce.

The Product: According to Wikipedia tarako is salted Alaska Pollock roe. I’m not sure, but since the word tara means ‘cod’ in Japanese it may be used to refer to the eggs of a number of different white fish. Whichever fish they come from, tarako are basically red fish-egg sacs that are something akin to the fish version of oviducts (fallopian tubes). Not the most appetising of foods when you think about it! (more…)