Japan Products

Bandai has been developing bath products based on popular snacks for a few years now - bath salts in the shape and scents of Lotte gums, GariGari ice cream bars, and so on. But starting October 14th they will be selling a new one worth noting:

Curry flavored bath salts! Bandai claims "Even if you hate bathing now you will like it for sure with this product!"

They come in three levels of spiciness: Mild, Medium or Hot, and each contains chili pepper extract to warm your skin. The hot version is 20 times hotter than the mild one; medium clocks in at 5 times hotter than mild. Mild is enriched with honey and apples. If you prefer no chili at all in your bath, try the Cream Stew variety which is a soothing milk bath. I'm surprised they didn't make that one a lassi flavor.

If curry scented bath water weren't enticement enough, each package comes with a curry-related toy. If you collect all 12 of them, you will be able to cook and serve a tiny curry meal with miniature pots, dishes and utensils. If you are very lucky, you might win a naan shaped sponge!

All this for just 280 yen everywhere silly things are sold. Or you can get in on the fun in bulk by shopping online here: Happinet Online

I am not quite sure why they've done this, but I am amused. The Japan Weather Association's website, tenki.jp, have included some social networking tools in their latest upgrade. You can twitter (hitokoto) about your weather, upload photos, add friends, ask questions.

Unfortunately, you can't do anything useful like set a particular area forecast as your start page or even create bookmarks to the pages you use most frequently. Maybe in the next release.

News is making the rounds about the bunch of Ruby Roman grapes sold at auction for $910. Many stories quote the price, but fail to explain why they fetched that amount.

It's really nothing to do with the quality of the grapes, though I am sure they are wonderful. It is partially to do with the novelty of them - Ruby Roman grapes are a brand new variety that has been under development for the past 14 years. But mainly the selling price of the grapes goes to two factors: promotion and marketing.

The man who purchased the grapes is an upscale hotelier whose property, Kagaya in Ishakawa, charges up to $800 per person per night and is located nearby the grape growers. He paid a lot for the privilege of promoting the local product and wishing the growers luck and success, but in exchange, he made headlines and the evening news (and a few blogs, too)

$910 might be a lot for a bunch of grapes, but it is darn cheap nationwide (and international) advertising.

Vegesh is pronounced "veggie shu"

Meet Vegesh, a collaboration between brewer Asahi and vegetable/juice company Kagome. Yes, you guessed it, this is boozy juice. It is a "Vegetable and Fruit Sparkling Cocktail"

With 21 vegetables and 5 fruits in the juice mix, it tastes surprisingly like...juice. Juice with fizz and a kick, but almost healthy. Definitely better than the too sweet, artificially flavored chu-hi sparkling cocktails that are popular every summer.

The vegetables included are (in order from the label): carrot, spinach, asparagus, red pepper, komatsuna, cress, pumpkin, cabbage, broccoli, another kind of cabbage, beet, red shiso, celery, lettuce, chinese cabbage, kale, parsley, eggplant, onion, daikon radish, and a third sort of cabbage. The fruits are not the apple and grape juice that you might expect, but grapefruit, lemon, pineapple, banana and pear.

Overall it has a tangy-sweet grapefruit and carrot flavor, but there are touches of everything present if you taste carefully.

I bought it as a lark, but Vegesh is a lot better than I expected. I would drink it again. Unfortunately, it is way too easy to swig down like a big glass of juice, instead of the beer-strength cocktail that it is so I will have to be careful!

Some new members of my bead stash

If you want to buy beads in Tokyo, you must go to Asakusabashi. It's one stop east of Akihabara on the Sobu line. Where Akiba is all bright lights and electronics and men, Asakusabashi is low key shops with a decidedly feminine clientèle. There are dozens of shops, each one with a slightly different focus or catering to a different demographic: the older ladies, the kids, the fashionable hobbyists, the skilled bead masters. I encountered them all today.

Here is a shop list and map to guide you and here are highlights at the shops I visited this afternoon:

Choice specialises in stone beads. They have a very good selection at reasonable prices. There were some gemstones there I had never seen as beads before. It's all neatly arranged in row after row of racks by color.

West 5 seems to be the mecca of Toho beads and findings. They had some good sale items outside the shop (lots of shops had cheap beads out front).

Craft Family Hint has a large selection of buttons and ribbon trims as well as beads. I will definitely come back here for the ribbons - everyting from velvet to leather and all sorts of fringes, lace and embroidered ribbons, too.

Beads Shop J4 has a special section of Japanese style beads and parts. They also offer a 12-class lampwork bead course. The store feels a bit like an atelier with workspaces tucked into corners and behind screens. Upstairs they have an enormous amount of acrylic beads on strings.

Accessory Hyotanya focuses on "deco" parts. They have lots of shaped pins and brooches that you can glue rhinestones to. Of course they have rhinestones and glue, too. They also sell some beads.

Parts Club has lots of parts, or as we call them in English, findings. All the shops have them, but Parts Club is nicely organised. And very large. They also have scads of beads and tools.

Kiwa got most of my business today. They had the nickel silver wire I was looking for, the nippers I needed, and a good selection of cords, too. And do I need to say they have a lot of beads? They do. And nice ones but oddly enough, I didn't buy beads there.

In four hours, I hardly scratched the surface of Asakusabashi's bead shops. I didn't even make it to Beads Factory, which is Miyuki Glass Beads's showcase. Fortunately, Asakusabashi is within walking distance of home, or a few stops on the train, so I can go any time.

Must stop posting and start beading now.

Yesterday I went to IKEA to help buy table decorations for the Ball.

Although it's been more than a decade since I last shopped there (and that was in the US, not Japan), IKEA hasn't changed a bit. The strangely named products, the large displays in the meandering showroom leading to the easy impulse purchases of the Marketplace were as familiar as if it were 1991 and Tod & I were shopping for a kitchen table.

As Anna and I wove our way towards vases and dried foliage, I delivered a monologue to her 8 month old son. "Look how happy everyone here is. They are having the best time of their lives; forgetting their cares by buying bright shiny things made by people with worse lives than their own. Someday, you might grow up to be one of these happy people. Isn't that great?"

I made him giggle and I don't know how much Nicholas understood, but the lecture worked for me; I escaped with only a potted plant (for my office) and some cookies (for my lunch).

Japan has a shocking amount of the world's precious and rare metals tied up in electronics, appliances and other consumer goods. Tokyo is an "urban mine."

A study by Komei Harada at the National Institute for Materials Science has uncovered that Japan has more gold than South Africa's reserves - 6,800 tons of gold, 16% of the world's reserves - and it's all in manufactured products that are likely to be discarded sooner or later.

It's not just gold. We have 22% of the world's natural reserves of silver, 8% of the world's copper reserves and a whopping 61% of indium, which is used for LCD displays. We've also got 5.6 million tons of lead, 38 million tons of copper and 1.2 billion tons of steel in small quantities scattered through out every household in the nation.

For example, according to an article in the Nikkei last week, "Each mobile phone handset contains 3-4 grams of copper, 0.1 gram of silver and 0.01 gram of gold, and with Japan now having 100 million cell phones in use..." Small bits here and there add up to a lot of useful materials.

How does one mine the metals after they are consumed? There are recycling programs for electronics here, but I don't know exactly what they extract. There's a 2005 report on the DTI Mission focused on electronics recycling in Japan, but it doesn't give many details.

It seems that there's a market for these metals, so it would be wasteful not to mine them. I want to do some digging and learn more..

I escaped my duties today to shop a few hours for a necklace to go with my gown for the Australia Day Gala Ball (tickets still available, but not for long!). Yuka accompanied me as my guiding star but even with her help, I am a very poor consumer.

After abandoning our first plan, we found a few options at one of the jewelry counters at Takashimaya in Shinjuku. I tried on at least six different necklaces, fell in love with one in purple and green (I *must* buy a green dress for the next event) and had good feelings about several black rhinestone pieces.

Until I turned over the price tags: 32,000 yen. 37,500 yen. 40,000 yen? This is glass. Pot metal. Plastic.

No way am I paying $400 for a piece of jewelry I'll wear only two or three times, no maker how nice it looks.

I must find the $50 -100 jewels. I know they have to be out there, somewhere.

Today I experimented with fusing together plastic bags to form an expanse of fabric. There are plenty of tutorials around on the 'net, (see EtsyLabs or Craftster or this video on YouTube for a start) but you really have to try it yourself to discover what works. I tested out three different kinds of plastic today.

1. プラPE - Polyethylene. Fusing point: 70 - 110°C. Unlike in the US, this doesn't seem to be divided into HD and LD types. It's all marked "PE" even though it is, of course high and low density plastic. Grocery bags are LDPE and should fuse at about 70- 90°C.

   My High-Medium-Low iron's lowest setting must be well above 90°C because the PE started to shrink quickly almost as soon as I touched the iron to the layers of plastic and waxed paper.

   
   Wrinkles in the fused PE indicate too much heat.

   
   Six layers of this heavier smooth LDPE bag worked better but I still wrinkled it .

   
   Another wrinkly PE attempt, but this time oversewn as a test swatch.

2. プラ1 - PET. Fusing point: 80 - 150°C. I played with the stiff PET labels from PET bottles. They shrink down to a small fraction of their size in no time and they do not fuse together. It's cute, but not very useful for making fabrics.

   
   A former 500 ml bottle label

3. プラPP - Polypropylene. Fusing point: 110 - 160°C. This worked much better for me, my hot iron isn't so hot as to totally melt PP. Tod's dry cleaning bags now have a second life as translucent fabric.

   The completed 4-layer fabric is too stiff to use for clothing (unless you were making something really structured) but ideal for bags and things like that.

   
   PP fabric is smooth and easy to work with

   
   I made a PP zippered pouch with machine sewn embellishments
   

Friday night, Tracey & Tod ordered a sashimi plate at dinner. It arrived at the table and as they were admiring the choice cuts of fish, the head of the fish that decorated the plate started to gasp for air.

Ack! Horrors!!

It continued intermittently gasping and lashing its tail as well for at least 15 minutes. I was horrified and too distressed to eat my salad. Tod & Tracey were distressed, too, but it didn't stop them from enjoying the fish, which they declared very fresh and delicious.

This is Pepsi's limited edition summer drink for Japan - Pepsi Ice Cucumber. It went on sale yesterday and seemed so strange that I had to buy a bottle. Tod saw it near his office and bought one, too!

We tasted tested it last night, splitting most of one 500 ml bottle among three glasses with a lot of ice. None of us finished our glasses but I think that was the shock of the sugar more than the drink itself.

Ingredients: liquid grape sugar, flavorings, acidifier, preservative (benzoic acid), caffeine, coloring (blue 1, yellow 4). Neither water nor carbonation makes the list, but Japanese labeling laws are a little different than the US ones; the product type is "carbonated beverage" and that covers the carbonated water bits.

Ice Cucmber very sweet, but probably not any sweeter than other fizzy drinks. Its color is pale mouthwash, as you can see for yourself through the clear bottle in the photo. That color sets the tone for the taste. Its flavor is a combination of light ginger ale and diluted Scope with a slightly fresh aftertaste that is reminiscent of cucumbers the same way cherry flavor reminds you of the real thing if you squint your brow and think really hard.

Pepsi Ice Cucumber is not unpleasant and it's definitely different to other fizzy drinks. I'd say that I might even buy it again, but we still have the second bottle.

Perhaps the site of a new abode

A little more than a week ago, we saw an interesting piece of land not too far from where we live - just on the other side of the station, in fact. It's nestled into the corner of an alley in a charmingly run-down historic neighborhood. The lot is about 100 square meters in size, with an 80-year-old house atop it. It may soon be ours, because now we are in the throes of getting a mortgage and a home loan.

When you are buying property in Tokyo, there are a million things to know. Here are a few I've learned along the way:

• Roads legally must be 4 meters wide, but many of Tokyo's streets are narrower. If you buy land on a street narrower than 4 meters, you effectively donate the difference to make up your half of the 2 meters. This is called setback.
• You may only build on a certain percentage of your land. Generally this is 80% or 60% and the amount is determined by the zoning category. This rule is called kenpei ritsu.
• Another building restriction is the maximum square footage your building can be. This is determined by the width of your road and the zoning. On a wide street in a commercial district, you might be able to build 600% of the land's area. In a residential area, it's likely to be 150% - 300% depending on the road but basement rooms are excluded from the square footage total. This rule is called youseki ritsu.
• Zoning rules also include a maximum height for your building - narrow lots and residential areas have lower maximums. If your building is taller than ten meters, you must follow additional guidelines about sunlight and shadows falling on neighboring buildings.
• Some neighborhoods, where wooden building are tightly packed, require special construction precautions for fire (called bouka chiiki). According to the current laws, all buildings must be built 50 cm away from the edges of the lot. Eventually, if everyone follows this rule (and I've seen many cases where they did not), there will be at least a 1 meter gap between all buildings in the city.
• Not all property has ownership rights - some plots in Tokyo are still on an old leasing system. These places are dwindling, but there are still a few on the market. They always look like a good bargain...

Bunkyo-ku zoning map

Gaijin-friendly Lenders

After you wade through the rules and find a property that suits your needs then, unless you are very rich or have been saving for decades, you have to get a loan.

Obtaining a mortgage in Japan is not the easiest prospect if you are a foreigner with neither permanent residency nor a Japanese spouse. If you don't meet those conditions, many banks won't even say hello. Rightly so, as there is a risk that your future visa renewals will go sour and you won't be in Japan to repay your debt. Fortunately for those of us with a desire to settle down in Japan, it's not a completely impossible prospect. There are a few institutions that will loan to non-PR foreigners.

I don't want to jinx our chances (and this purchase is hardly a done deal - we are still negotiating with the property owner) but I do want to share what I've learned about the process so far, just in case you were thinking of buying property in Tokyo. Or if I ever need to go through this again...

For a land purchase where you plan to build your own home (as in our case) you need to take out two separate loans. I don't think it's done that way in the US, but this is normal in Japan as it saves you the cost of repaying the construction loan until the building phase gets underway. But it means two loan applications and I assume two sets of loan fees, stamp tariffs and other closing costs, which are considerable.

Shinsei Bank.

Shinsei is known to be foreigner-friendly and they have English-speaking customer service so that puts them in my good graces. Loans to non-PR foreigners are possible, but there is scads of paperwork. After you turn in your last two years' income and tax statements, the contract for land purchase, foreign registration cards, and the application forms, the bank perform an appraisal on the land before granting the mortgage. They will knock down the loan amount or refuse outright if they find fault with the property.

They also do a "pre-appraisal" on the planned house before the land loan is granted. This is unusual, according to our architect, who is scrambling to get us preliminary plans and a budget for the bank. For non-PR foreigners, Shinsei require a second mortgage on the property until you become a permanent resident, and you must beg a favor from a Japanese friend to accept mail for you in the event you leave Japan (and the friend has to attend the closing to make it an official favor).

Mitsubishi UFJ.

Acting on a clue from Danny Choo's account of purchasing property in Tokyo, I filled in a form on the UFJ website and received a huge application packet in the mail. The forms and instructions are entirely in Japanese - fine-print legal Japanese. Ouch. I will see how things go with Shinsei before I delve in there too deeply. I think there will be lots more paperwork than just this inch-thick application.

Suruga Bank.

They lend to anyone through their "Gaikokujin Home Loan" program. It's very nearly "no questions asked" though they require the transaction to be conducted in Japanese. However, for Suruga's minimal paperwork you pay maximal interest. Their current rate is about 4.5%, or 2 percent more than typical Japanese banks.

New City Mortgage.

I have not thoroughly investigated this option, but they do loan to foreigners without PR status. Interest rates are not he most favorable from what I've been told.

Let's hope all this explanation hasn't ruined our application karma, that the owner will accept our offer, that the bank will approve our loan, and that all of this will be quickly concluded so that we can move on to the fun part - designing the house.

The official reply (click for a larger version)

In the previous post, I forgot one other letter I sent last week - a note to the post office headquarters. I got a reply this morning - a speedy three day turnaround. Hooray for Japan Post!

I had asked them why some post offices required me to fill out customs forms when sending books overseas, and others just stamped them with Printed Matter. I wanted to know which was the correct way.

It seems both are correct. Printed Matter can weigh up to 5kg, except for Canada and Ireland; Small Packet (which requires a customs form) is up to 2kg and valid everywhere except Afghanistan. The letter suggests I use whichever post office interprets this the way I want. So flexibly Japanese!

Our host poured it from a "Hawaii Deep Sea Water" bottle, but it was definitely not water. It was thick, milky and slightly chunky. We were drinking Japanese moonshine, illegally home-brewed sake. It packed a wallop but not from the alcohol as much as from the chili pepper used to prevent spoilage.

Looking forward to having some more of that soon. Maybe I'll make some myself...

Looking for shoes that fit your "big" feet in Tokyo? Over the years I've amassed a collection of shops that carry women's shoes in sizes 25 and above.

Shoes Ten: Long wearing standards and basics. Sizes 25-27. Moderate to high prices. Shinjuku; Shinjuku 7-8-13 (1F).

Washington: Basic, elegant and classic styles in shoes and boots. Sizes 25-26. Average to high prices. Ginza; Ginza 6-9-4 (6F). 03 3572-4985

Queen's Himiko : Fashionable, colorful shoes for casual, party, "recruit" and boots. too. Sizes 24.5-27. Average to high prices. Shinjuku; Keio Mall (B1F), 03 5324-7266

Kotuca: Designer and top brand shoes to buy in-store or online. Sizes 24.5 - 27. Above average prices. Omotesando; 3rd floor Harajuku Belpia (down the street from Fujimamas). 03-3406-8863

Nissen: Mail order shoes in a range of styles. Sizes to 27 and EEEE. Inexpensive. Online or catalog only.

Marui Model: A better selection than their horrid large size clothes. Sizes 24.5 - 26. Average prices. Shinjuku, Ueno, Ikebukuro, etc.

There are other shops, too, which carry selections mixed in with smaller sizes including many of the major department stores (particularly in the designer brands) and the "family" department stores like Ito Yokado. Zara has shoes up to 25.5 sometimes. There are small boutiques and shops tucked away here and there all over town that have larger sizes. If you find one you love, write me and I'll include it on the list.

"You should have some of those," Tod has prompted several times now, pointing to various young women in tailored shorts. I'd call those ladies "well-heeled," but they are all wearing boots and knee socks with their shorts.

Today I saw a woman whose boots were wider than her ass. I kid not. Her heavily fur-lined boots were folded over into cuffs, doubling their bulk around her calves. She was naturally bowlegged, so it didn't mess up her gait too much. With the boots she wore tailored shorts, a wide gold lame belt and a fur jacket with several layers of pearl encrusted t-shirts underneath.

I think this season, my a la mode will have to be pie.

I replaced my slowly failing, five year old keitai with a brand new shiny handset, a D902iS. Wow, has the technology changed. My old phone made calls, sent mail, and accessed i-mode sites. Here's what my new phone lets me do:

• Take photos
• Shoot movies
• Videoconference
• Replace store point cards
• Collect digital flyers and coupons
• Pay for purchases in stores around town
• Browse the Internet
• Send and receive e-mail
• Play music
• Record sounds
• Look up words in built-in dictionaries
• Play games

Oh, yes, it makes phone calls, too.

Every resort town, holiday destination, theme park, and museum in Japan has a gift shop full of souvenirs- the obilgatory omiyage that travelers bring home for their family and coworkers.

Visit any of these shops, or the quaint village streets lined with them and you will see your fair share of Hello Kitty kerchiefs, brightly colored plastic doodads, and keitai straps with the sights printed on them, or if you are touring a place proud of its local history, some handmade textiles, pottery, lacquerware or basketry.

Many omiyage are edible and that's probably best, because how many phone straps does a person need?

Some of these tidbits are local specialties - dried seafood, artisanal sake, or jam made from produce grown in the district - but most are merely one of a half dozen types of popular sweets packaged up in easy to carry boxes and wrapped with appropriately themed paper. Most frequently seen boxed omiyage are chocolates, vanilla creme cookies, and the ever-green favorite, manju, steamed buns filled with sweet bean paste.

This box of manju I received last week takes the cake. These limited edition Geki Manju are the omiyage from the Self Defense Forces. I guess you need to have something to bring home to Mom when you're on leave.

Finally, finally, I've conquered the Lawson Ticket system. The trick is to say way far away from the complicated and confusing web page and to go use one of the "Loppi" machines in the convenience store itself.

Loppi does a lot of stuff - dispenses event tickets, tops up phone cards, even makes out cash loans. All I really cared about today was getting tickets to Earth Celebration and Kinseees.

At the machine, you can enter the L-code if you know it and jump directly to the ticket purchase, or if you don't know the code, you can search for the artist's name or the date of the event. You can pay with a variety of Lawson-based credit cards, or type in your name and phone number and receive a slip that you take to the register and pay. The cashier trades your cash for computer printed tickets and you are done.

I know I'm probably the last person in Japan to have figured this out, but I'm glad I did. It's been one of those niggling "I know I can do this, but argh!" hurdles for a long time.

"First Rank, Big Luck" Love Fortune

I got this from a robotic dragon-puppet fortune vending machine at Yushima Shrine. Tod & I waffled about who would get one - would I buy one for him, would he buy one for me? In the end I got one for myself, but as you'll see it seems to suit him better.

Here's what it says:

Love Song
The sun rises
The heart rejoices
The dawn breaks
You meet your perfect love
Your heart beats loudly

First Rank * Big Luck

Love Fortune
As the morning sun rises, you will have incredible luck. You will be bound by this love. The drumming beat of your heart will confess your love. Every time you see your love, it deepens. Your joyful day will come. Be sure to treat your family well.

Star Sign
Aries is ideal. Gemini or Cancer are also ok. [I'm an Aries; Tod's a Taurus]

Blood Type
A or O are best. B should be avoided. [I'm type A; Tod's type O]

Difference in Age
It's best if there isn't much difference in age.

Zodiac Year
Rooster is best. Horse or Dog are ok, too. [I'm a Horse; Tod's a Rooster]

Direction
East-South or Eastern people are good. [I'm from the east coast of the US & so is Tod.]

Meeting Place
You should wait for your darling at a quiet coffee shop in your neighborhood. [I bring Tod coffee in bed nearly every morning]

Engagement
You will have the best relations with the people most familiar to you.

Marriage
Your happiness in marriage will depend on your desire to honor the gods.

Study
Your concentration will suffer, but if you can overcome this point, you will do well.

Coca Cola Japan presents...Deeppresso

At long last, I can say something about this product. I saw a preview of it months ago when I was doing a video edit for CCJC. I cracked up in the editing room and kept it in mind for all this time, though I recalled it with only one 'e'.

De-presso? Depressed espresso? Decaf espresso?

No. Deep-presso. Deep flavour. Intense.

Intensely typical, despite the "100% Brazilian, single origin, beans." It's the usual, grossly sweet, milky Japanese canned coffee. The ingredients list: milk, coffee, sugar, flavouring, casein, milk solids, emulsifier. I've sipped half a can and I'm buzzing like a kid on birthday cake and ice cream.

As much as I love Coca Cola Japan and its many excellent products, this is not one that I'll be trying a second time.

Morinaga Time Cookie

These petite yogurt flavored cookies are filled with blackcurrant cream. They are tasty, but I cannot figure out why they are called Time Cookie. The copy on the package doesn't say much. But TIME is a registered trademark...

I've eaten half the packet so far and no effect. Time's not slowing down or speeding up. I haven't seen any flashing clocks or countdowns in my peripheral vision. Well, I can only hope that the TARDIS will appear at the end of the week.

Healthy! Beauty! Dessert!

Apricot Sauce and Vanilla Soymilk Ice Cream with Co-enzyme Q10 and vitamin E. Only in Japan. From the Healthy & Beauty line by Lotte-Snow.

In a surprising but unanimous blind taste test, Meiji Super Cup vanilla ice cream was voted superior to Haagen Dazs vanilla.

Maybe our three person sampling wasn't statistically significant, but we were amazed by how much we disliked the Haagen Dazs and enjoyed the domestic brand. And at quadruple the cost, how can we ever buy Haagen Dazs again?

Japan's post office is very efficient. If you're not home when they deliver a parcel, they leave a slip with several options to get the package to you: stop by the post office in person, return a postcard telling them when and were to bring your box, make a phone call (in Japanese or English), or fill in a form online.

Today I figured out how to navigate the online system in Japanese. Here are instructions in English, so that you can do it, too. [nb: You must be able to type in Japanese with your computer]

URL

Go directly to the Redelivery Request Page or navigate from the Japan Post Home Page to 再配達のお申し込み受付

What

STEP 1: Indicate what kind of parcel it is (as marked on the slip they left), whether is is regular or express mail, and where you want it redelivered. Then click the button marked 次へ進む to go to the next step.

Where

STEP 2: On this screen, you must fill in your name and address where you want the package delivered. If you fill in the postal code and click the button next to it, the address is partially completed for you. Next comes the date the package was first delivered, folloowed by your phone number. Section 2.1 asks for the slip number. Click the button marked 次へ進むto go to the next step.

When

STEP 3: Choose a date and time for redelivery. Click the button marked 次へ進む to go to the next step.

Confirm

STEP 4: Check your work. If there's a mistake, click the button marked 前へ戻る to go back a page at a time and make corrections. If everything is OK, click 登録する. On the final screen, you will see 受付を完了しました (completed) and will be given a confirmation number to use if there are any problems with the redelivery.

Edible parts inside.

See also Vegetable Life? on Flickr

Good news for commuters with laptops. NTT offers wireless access points in stations all around Tokyo. Already there are over a hundred JR and commuter stations online and by mid-2006, they should have over 250 subway stations plugged into the 'Net.

Bad news is that it isn't free. Monthly access is 1575 yen, or you can buy a "time ticket" for 300 yen that's good for 12 hours. Another poor selling point is that the range is limited. For example, at Tokyo station, you can connect on platforms 14 through 19 but not 1-13.

You can find out more (in Japanese) at NTT BP.

Oyasumi Wine

It's not a nightcap. It's a packet of bath salts.

Oyasumi Wine gives your skin three rewards:

1. Bright and glossy skin from wine polyphenols;
2. Healthy skin thanks to co-enzyme Q10;
3. Evening primrose oil to moisturise your skin

Especially on the nights when you're tired, the mellow beauty of red wine in the water gives you an intoxicating feeling of dreamy comfort.

It gives you comfortable sleep on the nights when your heart is tired.

Well, I could use a good tipsy sleep. I think I'll go try it out now.

Price: 158 yen
Manufacturer: Kiyo Jochugiku KK
Sales point: Shop In

Suspense Manju

This is a spin-off product from a popular Nippon Television series, Kasasu, (Tuesday Suspense Theater) that airs scary movies.

There are six cakes in the box. One of them is filled with spicy hot bean jam, instead of the usual sweet bean jam. We tried them with friends last night after Rie, Yumiko, & Yuka hummed the show's theme song.

Who got the spicy one?

Price: 630 yen
Manufacturer: Daitou AYSS
Sales point: RanKing/RanQueen

Neteru Ma-ni

This is far and away the freakiest product yet. Last night at bedtime, Tod & I taped six porous packets of odd-smelling sand-like stuff to my feet and by the morning, they'd turned into hard, goo-oozing lumps.

So what's in them and what are they doing?

The packets contain Triple Power: eucalyptus, tourmaline and agarics mushrooms. Eucalyptus is known as a remedy for a lot of things including coughs and minor scrapes. Though the tourmaline fad in Japan seems to have passed its peak, the stone still brings benefits of negative ions and far infrared rays. The mushrooms provide vitamins and minerals and are thought to prevent cancer and ward off Alzheimers. It also makes the stuff smell like a cross between a fire sale and a Russian restaurant.

According to the instructions, taping these packets to your feet detoxes you while you sleep. The main activity is in the sap from the eucalyptus.

A liberal and rough translation of the vague copy on the package:

As tree sap carries the energy from the roots to the tips of the leaves, so will this sap-infused packet carry the healing energy all through your body via the tsubo (energy points for accupuncture/shiatsu) located in your feet.

What definitely happens is that while you sleep, the eucalyptus extract heats up and melts all over your feet, making them sticky and congealing the rest of the packet. The oils in the eucalyptus also make your feet tingle a little bit. Several hours after taking off the packets, my feet still felt cool and happy, like they'd had a good massage.

Do I feel detoxed? I don't know. I will say that I'm in a better mood and more energetic today than I have been in a few days. But that could just be the amusement of leaving a trail of sticky footprints from the bed to the bath.

Price: 1,050 yen
Manufacturer:　BMK
Sales Point: RanKing/RanQueen

Kan no Suke (Liver Assistant)

Here's another patent medicine with miracle curative powers. Turmeric is well-known in Japan for helping your liver to process alcohol--it's the curcumin that does the trick.

Inside the box are two sachets of granulated powder--one for before drinking and one for after. The powder is turmeric mixed with zedoary and some dried turtle bits. Zedoary is an Indian plant in the ginger family used as a medicinal stimulant.

Turmeric helps you drink more, zedoary fixes up the hangover, and the turtle stuff adds vigor to your body. Or as the company website says: Solve it, Erase it, Straighten it.

I enlisted Tod to test this out last night at Oktoberfest in Hibiya Park, though he downed the first packet with a swig of beer so I'm not sure how effective that one was.

When I asked him this morning, he said his liver felt fine and he didn't seem to have a hangover. Was it the Kan no Suke at work? Hard to tell.

Price: 315 yen
Manufacturer: Hosendo
Sales Point: RanKing/RanQueen

Yaki Katsuo (from the Ciao Cat Snack Series)

This is not the only type of cat food sold in Japan, but it is certainly the most interesting. Encased in this vacuum-packed plastic is a strip of katsuo fish (bonito) imbued with green tea essence to reduce the fishy smell. This one is regular katsuo flavor, but it also comes in scallop, sardine and even dashi (Japanese soup stock).

The packaging tells the rest of the story:

"Direct from Tosashimizu Harbour"

"Gently juicy, with lots of taste appeal. Delicious fresh ingredients to please your cat."

"Cats like salty foods. Your cat will like it even better if you heat it to body temperature before serving."

"The katsuo that come in on the Japan Current from Souda are cooked to fragrant perfection and soft juiciness to please your beloved cat."

"Soften by squeezing gently before opening."

"No artificial colors. Made in Japan."

Price: 88 yen
Manufacturer: Inaba Foods (pet food division)
Sales point: Seifu supermarket

Kome-touban

Most Japanese homes (if not all) store their rice in a big, boxy container that holds five or ten kilograms of rice. It gets used up quickly, but bugs love rice as much as people. So what to do? Put this insect repellent in it.

The 10 cm tall plastic pepper goes into your rice bin and repels weevils and other pests for up to six months. As the pepper samurai on the package insists, "Rice is delicious!" Togarashi Power!

Kome-touban is made from togarashi, cayene chili pepper, in a gel base. A list of points on the back:

• Togarashi extract and fermented alcohol protects the rice from bugs.
• When the product runs low, it's easy tell when to exchange it
• The alcohol in the product keeps your rice appetising and keeps mildew and bacteria at bay.
• You can use it in a rice bag or in your rice box

But it says that if you store eggs in your rice, you might get bugs anyway. (Who puts eggs in their rice??)

It also warns not to eat the contents and if you do, to call the ambulance for aid. The gel is highly flammable. Dangerous stuff...

Price: 398 yen
Manufacturer: ST Chemical Corporation
Sales point: Seifu supermarket

It's Freaky Japanese Products Week at mediatinker. All week long, I'm going to buy some of the strange and wacky things in Japanese shops. I'm looking for fads, trends and short-lived phenomenon that rake in the yen for manufacturers.

Collagen Marshmallows

Collagen is what makes skin elastic and taking supplements is good for aging skin, they say. There are tons of collagen-rich facial treatments, pills and creams on the market but I've never seen collagen marshmallows before today.

For only 122 yen, I purchased a 50 gram packet of lightly grapefruit flavored marshmallows at the local drugstore.

Normal marshmallows contain about 300 mg of collagen (it's processed from cow and pig marrow into the gelatine that makes marshmallows gummy) but these balls of chewy sweetness contain 3000 mg through added collagen peptides. That's quite a bit and the instructions say you should eat half a packet a day.

Price: 122 yen
Manufacturer: Eiwa Confectionary Company
Sales Point: local drugstore

I had the honor of paging through the only printed copy of my friend Elizabeth's new book this week. It's gorgeous, though she worries it is too heavy. I disagree; the book has a good heft.

But better than weight, it has recipes! From fish to desserts, there are fabulous Japanese dishes to cook, a richly illustrated "pantry" section, and lots of tips and kitchen techniques. It really is a marvel. I've eaten with Elizabeth many times and she is a master chef, even when we're just having a casual lunch while computer troubleshooting.

Washoku, Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen is due in bookstores next month and available for preorder from Tenspeed Press, and at Amazon.

Elizabeth talked with me about the book, along with one of my favorite topics, Japanese pickles, in my recent Hanashi Station show, Japanese Kitchen. (12.1 MB MP3)

Have a listen and order the book (unless you're on my Christmas list, in which case...surprise! You're getting a cookbook this year!). Elizabeth has a US book tour lined up, so check her calendar at Taste of Culture and see if she's going to be in your area soon.

Miyakoya knife

Although it's said that giving a knife as a gift severs a friendship, that didn't stop Jim from presenting me with this one last night. (If I give him a coin as "payment" for the knife, that should hold off the bad luck and we can remain friends.)

I've often admired his collection of beautiful, antique Japanese steel knives and I love to help make dinner in his kitchen just so I get to use them. My knife is new, flat tipped, double bevelled along its 7 inch blade, and ever-so-slightly curved for chopping vegetables. It has a good weight and balance. I'm looking forward to wearing in the handle and gently reshaping the blade to my stroke as I use it.

Thank you, Jim.

The boxes caught my eye at 7-11.

And inside...toys!

More conbini toys. This time not traditional gods, but the modern ones--gadgets. Mobile Figure Collection III is a set of 20 different minature DoCoMo mobile phones with display stands. Some of them fold, some come with the same accessories as the real-life versions.

And I could not resist the Nintendo History Collection. Aside from the cool plasic box, there are 8 different minatures--the Family Computer, the AV Famicom, the Family Basic & Data Recorder. I was hoping for the Family Computer Disk System, but my container held the Namco Soft Set--8 little games in their boxes (some assembly required). I assume they will fit into the computer toys.

Tod related these two little tidbits today. He learned them from his colleague, Yoshioka-san.

Sushi has a special counter word for individual pieces: -kan. Most people just use -ko, but really you should ask for i-kan, ni-kan, san-kan pieces of sushi. The kanji for -kan is the same as suranuku, a verb meaning "to pass through." So why's that?

Well, 180 years ago, when sushi was new, people carried their money (coins will holes in them) threaded onto a cord. A set of fifty coins was called a "kan" and since sushi was about the same size...

Another sushi tale is why sushi always comes in pairs. Again back in the old days, raw fish for sushi was scarce. So the sushi chefs mounded up the rice really high, put a morsel of fish on top and then sliced the whole thing in two. When food became more abundant, they still prepared two pieces.

Home moxibustion is an entertainment and a medicine.

We bought the Sennen-kyu Off 80 moxibustion kit at some random drugstore in our neighborhood. This kit contains 80 tiny incense cigars on sticky holders. "Popular among young people" it said on the box; how could we resist?

Moxibustion uses the same theory as acupuncture and shiatsu--the meridians of the body--but works by burning mugwort (moxa) over them. You locate the right moxibustion points, light the moxa, and stick the holders to yourself. The herb burns down and heats your body with pinpoint precision.

It gets really hot even though the coal doesn't touch your skin and I had to pull one off my back before it was probably done, but after walking all day, I tried the "legs feel weak" points and I felt pretty good afterwards.

Last week's prize goes to filmtunes because everyone needs blog fodder from time to time and for teaching me a new word-lagniappe. (Send me your address and I'll have the magnet in the mail to you right away.)

This week I am giving away a set of three Mitsuya cider glasses to whomever makes me laugh best before noon JST next Wednesday. This contest is not limited to comments, so you're welcome to e-mail me something original (I really despise forwarded jokes) or even make me laugh in person.

For a prize this monumental, I'm expecting some good belly laughs. Bonus points if you make me snort loudly in public or spit coffee on my monitor.

These glasses are the classic, tiny Japanese water/beer glasses; they hold about 150 ml. Tod collected them over the winter when they were given away as a promotion for Mitsuya Cider's 120th anniversary.

Pizza-la is giving away refrigerator magnets featuring Bae Yong Joon, the wildly popular Korean star of "Winter Sonata." He is adored by middle aged women who swoon over the romantic storyline of the show.

I'm willing to part with the magnet I received with last night's pizza.

I'll mail it anywhere in the world to whomever gives me the best reason for wanting it. To play, post your reasons in the comments by noon JST on April 20.

Ready for a a taste test

Suntory Double Shibori, Sakura & Cherry
Poured out a fizzy pale pink. The bouquet is nice. Not too sweet, but has a slightly medicinal aftertaste. Just the thing to cut the salt of senbei at hanami. 0.5% cherry juice; 5% alcohol.

Mercian GyuGyu Shibo Premium, White Peach
Translucent clouds of palest yellow. Fresh peach scent and juicy flavor. Slight carbonation cuts the cloying sweetness. A good starter drink for toddlers. 52% juice, 4% alcohol.

Fauchon Scented Tea Sake, Cassis & Rose
Pinkish brown tea, non-carbonated. Smells like roses. Tastes like tea brewed too strong then sweetened with cassis. Tod says it's "too girly." 0.3% juice, 4% alcohol.

Even after seven years here, there are new things to learn. Yesterday I sent cash in the mail using the post office's registered cash envelope.

A genkin futo is a double envelope made of kraft paper; it costs 20 yen at the postal counter. You slip your cash into the inner envelope, which is attached to the outer envelope so robbers can't exchange it for another one. For additional security, you seal the outer envelope and stamp your hanko (or sign your initials) along the seam of the seal.

The front of the envelope has a carbon form on it. You fill in the recipient's address at the top, your address at the bottom and the middle part is used to note how much money is inside. The postal worker calculates the registration fee, stamps it up, gives you a section of the carbon form and your money is safely on its way.

As I went through the process, I saw three other people using genkin futo. As always, things become evident all around you once you know about them.

This is my new friend, the hot water bottle that Tod gave me for Christmas. It's called yutampo (湯湯婆) in Japanese. The three kanji mean hot water, hot water, and old woman. So fitting.

I love the old-fashioned design rendered in pressed tin. It looks like a cicada exoskeleton or a metal pastry.

Every night, Tod fills it with boiling water, zips it into a terrycloth case and slides it into the bed to warm me up. Although it seems like a sweet and loving gesture, I think he uses it to protect himself from my icy feet.

Icon on a bottle of Spanish wine

What an odd diagram to put on a bottle of wine. We had all sorts of ideas about what it represents, not all of them fit for the dinner table. Then we tasted the wine (spoiled by improper storage) and decided that it indicated "pour directly down drain."

What do you think it means? Is this a standard symbol in Spain or the EU?

Tod spied this in the liquor shop the other day. "It's rosehip liquor," he said as I perused the wines. Sounded interesting so we picked up a bottle along with a bottle of more traditional chilean Pinot.

Macadia is tangy and sweet with a hint of spice. It drinks more like plum wine than a strong liquor. As it turns out, it's not just rosehips. It also contains maca, aka Peruvian ginseng. What an odd combination. I did some poking around and found Suntory's press release:

Suntory is to release healthy liqueur �Macadia� --Wine for �beauty� and �high spirit� with soaked maca and rose hip from Andes --

...Recently, customers� health consciousness has been on rise. In such a trend, Suntory has pursued the development of liqueur that uses healthy ingredients, by utilizing both product development on alcoholic beverage business and research development of healthy product business. Suntory then, has focused on �maca� and �rose hip� that contain vitamin, mineral, and amino acid and newly released healthy liqueur �Macadia� as a drink that can be enjoyed by women. It is particularly targeted to women who are highly interested in beauty and health, enabling them to enjoy alcohol and satisfy their health consciousness at the same time....

On the Japanese site there is a Macadia column with beauty advice from a color analyst, an esthetician, and a nail artist. There are recipes for foods that pair with Macadia (watch for goya chijimi in this week's Recipe Thursday). And of course, the CM Library. There's only one, The Story of Maca and Rosehip. They're cats...

At the southwest corner of the Ginza Nine shopping arcade is a open plaza under a roof. On weekends and holidays there are often long lines of people waiting to get freebies given away by various companies and promotion boards. Over the years, I've snagged mysterious juices, teas, and the occasional sweet.

Today, for the effort of standing in line for about three minutes, I received some literature about Japan's oranges and a trio of mikan stacked in a clear plastic container. A smiling Mikan Girl dressed in a Chanel-style orange suit with a matching hat and a white ribbon pageant banner handed them to all comers--so Mom, Tracey, and her parents got them, too. It wasn't quite as rewarding as mikangari, but the mikan are nearly as tasty.

Japan's currency is probably the most valuable in the region and as a consequence, counterfeiting has gone up in recent years. The National Police Agency reported a 25-times increase in forgeries over the past five years. They expect to recover 30,000 fake bills this year.

So the Bank of Japan launched an anti-counterfeiting measure and released new banknotes on November 1st. I spotted one "in the wild" yesterday.

The 5,000 yen note features a new face, 19th century novelist Ichiyo Higuchi. She was a pioneer feminist writer. I haven't ever read her work, but I guess I ought to.

There are, of course, all sorts of new measures to foil counterfeiters and you can read about them on the Bank of Japan's About Money pages.

And so I don't forget in a few months when most of the old bills are gone, the old 5000 yen notes look like this:

With a nod to the sensibilities of my mothers, we went in search of decaf coffee and sulfite-free wines today.

People drink a lot of coffee here, but decaf is not part of the food culture. There was none to be found at the Santoku supermarket. Doutor does not sell decaf. Starbucks doesn't brew it, either. But we found some at Seijo Ishii, the fancy grocery store at LaQua. Now the Moms will be safe from getting too hyped up.

Jean's request for sulfite-free wine required Tod to do some Japanese study. We now know that the word for organic is yuuki and sulfites are aryuusanen. Sankaboushizai means antioxidant.

First we tried the local liquor shop, Kashiwaya, and talked to Imamura-san. They have organic wine in stock, but it has sulfites. Chuckling at the thought of our mothers visiting togehter, Imamura-san promised to call her wine supplier on Monday and see if she can get some sulfite-free wine.

Seijo Ishii was plus on coffee but a minus on wine. Although the stock boy called over the sake manager, he had no idea. "Wines are made differently in some places. Maybe an Australian wine, or one from New Zealand," he hoped as he read the labels of various bottles. He was speaking ex-rectum, of course. Grapes naturally have sulfites and nearly all wines add more as an anti-oxidizing preservative. Sulfite-free wines are not a regional phenomenon.

Santoku Liquor World has a large selection of French wines that don't impress me, and little else. However, they had a range of Japanese sulfite-free wines, the Wine Story (wain no monogatari) line. We picked up a bottle of white and one of red. But at 500 yen a bottle, I'm not sure I want to drink them.

We'll see how they are when we toast the Moms' arrival tomorrow afternoon.

I bought a soap the other day that smells so good, I keep walking into the bathroom to sniff it.

It bills itself as a lavender soap but the fragrance is really the scent of the middle drawer in my desk when I was 9. Pencil shavings, postage stamp glue, rubber bands, library paste. Neglected homework.

Who makes soap that smells so academic? It's Lush's Ohh La La. Reading through the ingredient list, I see no pencil shavings, but I do find thyme (my favorite herb), rosemary and lots of lavender. Plus the grape juice that makes it run vivid fuschia when wet.

Tod tried on new frames yesterday at Zoff. We used the camera as a mirror because he can't see without his lenses.

Usually our mailbox is stuffed with pizza menus, real estate ads and lists of porn videos, but the other day this appeared--a flyer for a nearby cemetery.

"Come tour Koishikawa Jo-En every weekend from 10 - 4. New plots available! Good views, good sunlight, no surrounding buildings, barrier free!"

A 0.48 sq meter plot with a permanent lease (I think that's what the kanji mean, please correct me if I'm wrong) is 600,000 yen at a minimum. To convert for my American readers, that's about 5 square feet for $5,000. Pricey real estate. Fortunately, they offer a 10-year payment plan.

If you want a monument like the ones shown, add at least a 1.18 million yen (about $11,000) to the price. Tax included.

I picked up a couple of clothing catalogs yesterday to see what everyone will be wearing from this month through January. Here are the trends I noted:

Colors: black, charcoal grey, white (pure white and winter white), camel, chocolate brown, pumpkin orange, emerald green, dusty rose, burgundy, slate blue.

Fabrics: corduroy, wool, leather, chunky knits, fur accents

Patterns: mainly solids and heathery tweeds, but some flowery prints, large checks, houndstooth

Hemlines: just below the knee; mid-calf

Styles: 1960s retro styling; V-neck sweaters over lacy camisoles; frilled shirts & ruched tops over A-line skirts, sleeveless dresses with belt accents, necklines of all sorts. Not so much "skirt over pants" this year--thank goodness.

One oddity of both the catalogs--all the lingerie models are blonde foreigners.

My wallet's become extra thick with various stores' point cards, so I pulled them all out and had a look at what I've collected. Most of them are useless but they offer a voyeur an interesting look into my shopping habits.

Santoku & Queen's Isetan (grocery stores) cards get me a 500 yen coupon after I've purchased 50,000 in groceries). I just redeemed a Santoku coupon yesterday. It will be about 6 weeks before I get another one. At QI, you have to check your total in a little kiosk that prints you a coupon if you have enough points.

Bic Camera gives me 10% of the purchase price in points to be spent as yen on future purchases. I think Tod's card has about 16,000 points. Mine's got 5,000. We shop there too often but it feels good to buy things just in points.

Jingu Skate Rink has a really good deal. Get 5 stamps and earn one free entrance. Ten stamps gets you in for free three times. I have 2 stamps so far. Must skate more!

Oshman's sporting goods store gives you a 1,000 yen discount after you spend 20,000 yen. I bought one bathing suit and I'm already 70% of the way there. It was a double points sale week; I didn't spend 14,000 on a bathing suit.

Shop In gives 500 yen for 10,000 yen in purchases. This is probably the most generous of the programs, but they sell cosmetics and jewelry and stuff like that, so I don't shop there very often...why have I kept this card?

Karako sells "ethnic" housewares at La Qua. I've got 520 points on the card, but no idea what they are good for. I should toss this one.

Club ON is Seibu's member club. I accumulate 1 point for every 1000 yen I spend, but I've no idea what I do with the points. I do a lot of framing at Loft, part of the Seibu group, so I probably have a fair number of points.

Junoesque Bagel Buy 4000 yen's worth of bagels and get three bagels free. They have a kiosk in the station where I transfer on a Friday night coming home late, so we often have bagels for breakfast on Saturday mornings. I'm sure I'll fill this one up in no time at all.

Coffee History is my newest card. It's a coffee bean shop in Ginza with roasted and green beans from all over, but a paltry reward program: after 2.5 kg of coffee purchased, you get a 500 yen discount. Good coffee isn't cheap.

I've never been a big fan of putting drops into my eyes, but I've been overindulging in computers and books for the last couple of days and my eyes were feeling kinda crusty this morning, so I grabbed Tod's bottle of Sante FX Neo.

"Whooooo, refreshing!!" he exclaims every time he drops them in. I should have taken that as a warning. But I tried them anyway.

I didn't read the ingredients before I used them. If I had, I might have stopped myself. The contain neostigmine menthylsulfate (minty!), aminoethylsulfonic acid (aka taurine), potassium L-asparate, tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride (vasoconstrictor) , chlorpheniramine maleate (antihistamine), and e-aminocaproic acid (used to stop bleeding during surgery).

Ouch! Refreshing! Ooooooh! Refreshing!

Sante FX Neo are sold only in Japan, so overseas readers won't be able to try them. But follow along with the instructions to get the idea:

1. Drop a Frisk or an Altoid into your eye.
2. Repeat with the other eye before you chicken out.
3. Blink. Tear up.
4. Jump around a bit trying to get the mints out.
5. Note the mentholated tear tracks burning your skin.
6. Feel refreshed when the pain finally stops.

That's the effect of these eyedrops. Will I use them again? Maybe...

Here's a product you're not likely to find in American grocery stores. These potato chips are yuzu-shichimi flavoured.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to fried potato snacks--salt is sufficient seasoning--but these are pretty good for doctored chips. The yuzu is subtle; the shichimi is barely there. If you want a blast of overpoweringly spicy citrus flavour, these are not the snack for you. But if you are looking for something gently different, then I recommend them.

Yamayoshi also makes the popular WasaBeef (wasabi beef) chips and a host of others. They have a website with dancing bobble-headed cows in their TV commercials and online shopping, but they don't ship outside Japan.

Maybe shopping would be easier if I paid attention to what's in fashion, but I don't, so I always seem to desire something that doesn't exist.

This time my goal is a black straw cloche. A cloche is the close-to-the-head hat, small brimmed style from the 1920s. But apparently it's not a style for 2004. I can find all sorts of floppy sun hats and narrow-brimmed fabric hats with square crowns, and some dreadful caps I remember from the 1970s. One lovely hat I tried on was the right shape--but it was the wrong color (burgundy) and definitely the wrong price (41,000 yen).

So I will have to look again because I don't have the millinery skills to make a straw hat.

These tiny 45g (3 tablespoons) cups of yogurt contain collagen, vitamin C, and lycopene--all good for skin and beauty. The only information the package gives is a little marketing blurb: Making beautiful skin. The 2b website has a lot more detail, including the benefits of lycopene (an antioxidant) and collagen (a protein).

The name, 2b yogourt sp�cialit�, is strange. The French makes is sound luxurious and elegant, of course. But 2b isn't said "deux beh" it's spelled out in katakana as "two bee." There are no B vitamins in this, so what's it mean? The website explains: "to be what I want to be, two benefits, and to be beautiful. Ha!

Lose 399 calories/hour just by wearing these knee highs? Not exactly. You have to spend that hour walking, too. I hope this is an additional use of calories, because an hour's brisk walk should burn off about 400 calories no matter what you're wearing on your legs.

These "high socks" are designed to increase your metabolism and relax your legs. They're engineered with some kind of plant-based "slimming essence" as well. But no vitamins.

Buring calories by wearing socks sounds quite amazing, doesn't it? But, shhh, don't tell anyone...these are old-fashioned support hose marketed to the under-20 set. I guess the marketing works, these are flying off the shelves at Shop In.

They're actually pretty comfy and I've been searching for a pair of beige knee highs for months so I'm happy to have them in my sock drawer. But as I discovered yesterday, they don't stay up as well as they should. I walked for only 20 minutes before the left sock was down around my ankle. I guess that means I only got a 333 calorie benefit.

Four Seeds and Pepsico/Frito Lay team up to bring us Pizza-la Garlic Meat Doritos.

Also available in Italiana (tomato and cheese) and Get's (garlic, pepperoni and bacon) flavors.

A DIY (do it yourself) store, Town DOit, opened near Kourakuen station a week or two ago.

Tools, art supplies, and stationery are the things that I love shopping for. These are places where I can buy creative toys! I will browse for hours as my mind races to think of new projects. What can I do with a half-dozen pink screws and a piece of yellow plastic? What about this flooring? Can I use this plumbing fitting somehow?

So it was a treat to spend 90 minutes perusing the aisles of the Town DOit this evening. From imported power drills to shoji screen repair kits (for the holes kids inevitably make in the paper door screens), the shop carries a little bit of everything. And if they don't have it in stock, there's a shelf or two of catalogs that you can order from.

I'm already awash in plans to renovate my garden and maybe to build a 35mm adapter and a jib arm for my video camera...

Disposable fountain pens make me feel connected to great writers of the past but without the inconvenience of spilling bottles of ink everywhere or feeling guilty for not cleaning my nibs. Sekaido in Shinjuku has a good selection if you're in the market for a new pen.

Mitsubishi Boxy has an unusual name, but it's nothing special as far as writing goes. It's shaped like a slightly thick Bic ballpoint--a long straight line with a cap. It writes well, but without the balanced grace of a fountain pen.

Platinum E-pen is similar in shape to the Boxy, but it has an ever-so-slightly thinner nib and its ink seems a touch more translucent. The ink doesn't wick very much at all and it lays down a consistent line.

Pilot V-pen is slightly stubby, similar to a proper fountain pen. It feels good in the hand and its classic shaped, slightly rounded nib that deposits the ink in a pleasantly uneven line--or maybe that's just my handwriting. I like this one the best of the three.

The V-pen is available in six ink colors: black, blue, red, green, cyan, and pink. I have a black one and nearly bought a pink one tonight. But then I'd have four disposable fountain pens and doesn't that seem excessive?

The city subways are rebranding. Actually, they are privatising. From April 1st, Teito Rapid Transit Authority will become Tokyo Metro.

The new logo is a ribbony M in cyan blue. They call it the Heart M. It's cute but not as distinctive as the pointy red S we all know and love.

It's fun to try to find the things they are doing in advance. You might see some changes in your local station--ticket machines are being refaced in blue, for example. Dark blue uniforms are replacing the grass green jackets on drivers and conductors. And on some rolling stock, you'll see the familiar S logo is now on a sticker covering up a subtle indentation of the new M logo underneath.

I haven't seen any changes to exterior station signs, but I know they are coming...

These are Margaret Josefin Breath Palette, a series of boutique toothpastes.

Toothpaste is something that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about. There are a couple of brands I prefer and I buy what's on sale. Now Breath Palette ups the ante with 31 different flavors:

1. Sweet salt
2. Tropical Pineapple
3. Peppermint
4. Fresh Yogurt
5. First Crop Green Tea
6. Rose
7. Monkey Banana
8. Honey
9. Kiwifruit
10. Cafe au Lait
11. Plum
12. Tsugaru Apple
13. Vanilla
14. Indian Curry
15. Strawberry
16. California Orange
17. Kyoto Green Tea
18. White Peach
19. Kisshu Ume
20. Lavender
21. Darjeeling Tea
22. Cinnamon
23. Budou (grape)
24. Lemon Tea
25. Bitter Chocolate
26. Blueberry
27. Caramel
28. Espresso
29. Grapefruit
30. Pumpkin Pudding
31. Cola

Rose, lavender and honey bring to mind hygiene of ancient cultures; maybe they should be applied with traditional twig-brushes. Fruit flavors seem refreshing enough to use. But cola? India curry? Chocolate? Those are things I brush to get rid of...

At 200 yen per 25 gram tube (about the same price as a 160 gram tube of regular toothpaste) Breath Palette is a luxury. This is a product for gift-giving or as a splurge when out shopping with your girlfriends.

If you want to see more (in Japanese) http://www.margaret-jj.co.jp/catalog.html. To buy some for yourself, visit Sony Plaza, Tokyu Hands, Loft, or Keio department stores. Unfortunately for my international readers, Breath Palette does not seem to be sold outside Japan; so pack your bags and come to visit.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a note from the phone company: "Please pay your past due amount or your keitai service will be terminated on 2/6."

Huh? I checked with Tod, who is in charge of family bill payment, and he said he'd paid them all. The current bill didn't show a past due amount, so I ignored the note.

My keitai was turned off on 2/6.

Of course it turns out there was an unpaid bill buried in Tod's pile of papers. Oops. He paid it at the convenience store on the way to work today and less than 30 minutes later my phone was back on.

I expected a hassle involving a special trip to the NTT office in Shinjuku, a mandatory letter of apology for being a deadbeat, and a fee to turn the service back on followed by a week's delay while they reactivated my account.

But this was as easy as it could be. Thank you, NTT DoCoMo. But next time, could you please put the past due amount on the future bills?

In the gourmand spirit of single malt whisky, varietal wine, and single bean coffee, Lotte launched a product called Single Beans Chocolate.

Of course I had to try them. Who knew chocolate beans tasted so different to one another? But sure enough, they are distinctive. La Flora is sweet and fruity; Sur del Lago is piquant; El Pilar tastes like piney mould.

The chocolates come in small bars for 150 yen each or a "cacao selection" variety pack for 300 yen. It's a bit more expensive than the average chocolate but you can buy it at the conbini, so it's not really too luxe.

Plenty of people got used to the high life in the economic bubbles of real estate and tech. Now we can't afford the extreme luxuries any more, but we still crave them. Lotte is cleverly profiting on the fact that our tastes and our pocketbooks don't quite match.

Or maybe gourmet foods in the convenience store indicate an upswing in the economy in general. I never did understand the Japanese economic slump--it seems like everyone is carrying on as usual with plenty of construction, designers doing good business, new restaurants and shops springing up all over. To say that this is a slump, well, the Bubble must have been heady times, indeed.

I'm very excited that there is a Japanese version of lastminute.com - http://www.lastminute.co.jp/.

Americans may be unfamiliar with this UK-based service, but it lists lots of great deals on travel and entertainment for those of us who find ourselves planning things a day or two before we want to do them.

Today at the combini, I spied this new drink: Nodojiman. I'm mystified by the name. Nodo is throat, but Jiman mean "boasting" so I have a feeling that I'm missing something here...there are musical notes on the label and the character on the label is a uvula, so maybe it's a pun I don't understand.

Anyway, Nodojiman is a slightly fizzy, sweet, quince flavoured drink. It tastes a lot like nodo ame, what we'd call cough drops, but nodo ame literally translates to "throat candy."

I thought that the back of the Nodojiman label was really funny. For your dry throat, your dry heart, your dry life..."

Quince has magical properties to cure sore throats. Called karin in Japanese, it's a key ingredient in all of the Japanese cough drops and has long been used as an herbal remedy. But I don't know if it can cure your dry life.

Although there are plenty of international fast food chains in Japan, many of them are locally controlled. And sometimes that leads to ad copy you'd never see in their home country. Here's an example from a Subway sandwich wrapper.

"Subway the dominant sandwich shop in the US is now available in over 74 countries. Here in Japan, we serve Subway sandwiches as a new style of Native Diet. This simply means that Subway sandwiches are the Natural Ideal style of eating Vegetables. We hope to spread this form of Native Diet to create a healthy living for both humans and the environment."

As seen in Yokohama Chinatown.

This week, we switched dishwashing liquids. Our usual brand was out of stock and Tod picked up an American brand that smelled like flower-scented petrochemicals. I'd forgotten that "fresh plastic" smell that so many American cleaning products have. Just thinking about it makes my nose twitch.

We replaced the "Ivory Ultra" with our regular brand the next day.

This got me thinking about all the chemicals in our life, in general, and the smell of cleaning products in particular. Japanese cleaners and soaps often smell like citrus. Underneath, I'm sure the chemical composition is just as harsh and manufactured, but it certainly smells better.

I went around the house sniffing soaps and potions. As I expected, a lot of them smelled like a fantasia of orange and tangerine - sort of like baby aspirin. I was a little bit surprised to see how many different products I have for such a small household.

Why is it that Japanese society equates clean with citrus and American culture thinks plastics smell clean?

The change of season heralds a change of products at the convenience stores. The Rose Pu Erh tea that Tod enjoyed this summer is gone, and we're casting around for some new drinks to take us through the winter.

Tod came home with some Ucon Cha yesterday. It's turmeric tea. I love Okinawan black sugar and turmeric candy and turmeric is a good tonic for the liver, so can you go wrong with turmeric tea? No, you cannot. It's really tasty. This brand is mild and subtly nut-pepper-ginger-citrus flavored.

Turmeric has been used in Indian cuisine as a flavoring and a food dye for 2500 years. It works great as a dye in modern times, too, it stains the plastic bottle yellow!

Tod also found a tumeric tea with ginnemu, a weedy mimosa that's used in the tropics to feed cattle. The ucon-ginnemu tea has a distinctive flavor. When he opened the bottle, it smelled a little bit like urine. I think I'll stick to the Ucon Cha.

Another tonic tea on the market contains guava. Guava is supposed to be good for your blood sugar levels. I don't understand that at all, but the tea has a minty-anise flavor that I enjoyed.

There are scads more new teas, mostly oolong and sencha variations. I'm sure we'll try them all over the next few weeks.

A dark shop on a busy street. A window display of antique reproductions. On a table outside, a display of manicure kits.

Interior decorations and grooming supplies are an odd combination; I was intrigued. And I have a fondness for manicure kits, even though my ragged nails can't be trimmed or trained into shape. So I stepped inside. And what do you know? More manicure kits. I ended up buying the one pictured above made by 777 Three Seven in Korea.

What an array! It contains: (l-r) toenail clipper, fingernail clipper, nosehair scissors, cuticle clipper, tweezers, cuticle knife, cuticle pusher, v-shaped cuticle trimmer, an earspoon, cuticle scissors and a file.

I am armed and prepared to declare war on my cuticles!

I've noticed an unusual trend in fall fashion--there's a lot of Japanese influence in clothing.

I don't mean kimono are popular. It's more of a fusion. T-shirts have things written on them in Japanese and sumi-e style drawings. Parachute pants and tunic tops have patches of chirimen (a textured silk with vivid floral patterns) sewn onto them.

This is strange. Once every few years an American or European designer will use Japanese influences in his haute couture line, but I've never seen locally produced, casual clothing with such a strong and obvious Japanese twist.

I like it. But I wonder if the slogans on those Japanese t-shirts are as weird as the English ones are?

Tokyo is so big, so bustling and so very full of attractions that every overwhelmed citizen has a dilemma: Where to go when you're feeling bored or stuck in a rut? Luckily for us, there is a popular market for city guides. Every bookstore has a section devoted to them.

They are all in Japanese but you don't have to be completely literate to use them. As long as you take the time to decode the key points, they books are perfectly useful. The more you can read, the better, but it's not strictly necessary.

We picked up Tabearuki Navi Tokyo ("Trying the food at various restaurants Navigation Tokyo") published by Shobunsha. It lists "from old favorites to the new open, 500 delicious restaurants."

In typical fashion for Japanese non-fiction books, there is a huge amount of information squeezed into a small space. In each entry's 7x10 cm slot, a photograph dominates the left half, with a sample menu and prices as the caption. On the right, symbols indicate whether this is a good place for a date or dining alone, whether it's best for families, salarymen or women. There's information on the location and type of restaurant, as well as the average price for lunch and dinner. A short paragraph explains what makes the restaurant worthwhile. Below that, come all the necessary details: phone number, hours, address, how many seats, credit cards details and so on. The final row of symbols encodes whether they restaurant does parties, private rooms, has parking, smoking or take-away.

This is just one of scores of guides. Hanako women's magazine publishes a range of mook (magazine-books) directing trendy office ladies to the hottest eateries and boutiques; OZ magazine gets into the act with its OZ mini guides for Tokyo neighborhoods. Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher, has a bewildering number of monthly magazines focussing on new products for men and women, food, and city travel.

So next time you're bored and looking for something new to amuse yourself, go to the bookstore.

Hello Kitty gets around. Usually you find these location-specific Hello Kitty omiyage only in their featured city, but a Sanrio shop in LaQua carries all of them in one place. No need to travel to get your Hello Kitty geegaw. Left to right: cans of chocolate creams (representing Kobe in a red dress), strawberry creams a the purple can, and two yellow cans of corn cream candies (Hokkiado).

If you're not fond of sweets, why not get some other treats? Up at the top, Kitty-chan's pictured on handkerchiefs in Kyoto and Kobe. On the second shelf, it's a variety of items from Kumamoto and other cities.

This shop has about 200 keychains and keitai straps with Kitty posing in traditional costume or with signature items from famous places: Mt Fuji balanced on her head; dressed like a Okayama bonodori dancer; sitting on a Okuwadani boiled egg.

Boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.

If I thought it was likely that any boys would make passes at me at my age, well, I just ended an era for myself. Today I went to get glasses.

Although they are "just for reading" I know this is a slippery slope. Once Mom was fitted for reading glasses, she never went without again.

To anyone shopping for megane in Tokyo, I can recommend Zoff. They are quick, professional and inexpensive. My new glasses were only 5,000 yen.

And best of all, the cute, 20-something optometrist spoke English. I was slightly worried about the examination in Japanese, so I was very happy when Hikage-san just jumped right in and spoke perfectly fluent English to me. He made the whole experience much easier.

But he didn't make a pass...

When I was a teenager with her first job, I developed a financial coping skill that I will share with you, though I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this. I think of buying, selling, earning, and saving in terms of an object I care about whose price I know.

At age sixteen, I used a $40 wool sweater as a reference. I earned about a sweater a day as a lifeguard during the summer.

As a college student, my reference was pizza. The $4.99 Corleone's large cheese special (with two 32 ounce Cokes) was usually out of my budget, but it made a fine comparison tool.

After we bought a house, my reference became our mortgage payment. The apartment the company rented for us when we first arrived in Japan was eight mortgage payments. Yikes!

My latest reference is a lovely Abssynian kitten for sale at "Dog and Cat Nana." He is priced at 120,000 yen--about a thousand dollars. So now I think of things in terms of kittens. "That job just earned me 1.5 kittens."

Economics via Kittens

1 kitten = 1000 vending machine drinks
1 kitten = 136 Zoupi
1 kitten = 120 rides on the LaQua rollercoaster
1 kitten = 50 CDs
1 kitten = 42 Zousan
1 kitten = 30 dinners at Ampresso
1 kitten = 10 pairs of jeans
1 kitten = 10 kg of Japanese beef
2.5 kittens = 1 month's rent
5.2 kittens = 1 G5 + cinema display
7.3 kittens = 1 1996 VW Beetle 1600i
350 kittens = 2LDK apartment at Lions Square
6,662,369,081 kittens = 1 US national debt

Money seems so much cuter and accessible now.

My Japanese sandals. (inset: inter-toe blister)

No other footwear is appropriate with yukata and kimono. Unfortunately, geta hurt. The price of fashion, I suppose.

A friend in the US offered to send us some of our favorite Middle Eastern food if we'd go shopping for him. He wanted Sony's tiny laptop, the U101, which isn't sold outside Japan.

Well, as of Saturday, it isn't sold in Japan either.

Tod went to Bic Camera on Saturday afternoon, after he'd received the full shopping list of accessories (why buy a computer if you don't get a case, DVD drive and more memory!), but Bic Camera salespeople told him that Sony isn't making the U101 anymore and it's not available for sale.

On Sunday, checked kakaku.com, a website that shows prices all over Japan, then scoured Akihabara. No U101 at Yamagiwa (where he had seen it before), not at Llaox nor at any of a half dozen other stores. Finally he found one, the last one in all of Tokyo it seems, at a store so obscure that their shopping bags sport the name of a florist.

Tod definitely earned his finder's fee.

Summer clothes are not so bright and beautiful this year. Look around you on any train and you'll see mostly dark brown, navy blue, and black punctuated with tan and white. I've noticed a fair amount of a subdued blue-green, as well.

Two years ago, everyone was dressed in orange and fucshia. What happened? Is this a "sophisticated" summer season? Is the bad economy dulling fashion? Did the fabric factory have an excess of black dye in stock?

Maybe everyone is waiting until tsuyu is over before wearing their bright summer clothes.

I hate mosquitos that attack me at night when I'm defenseless.Swatting at them isn't very effective when I'm sleeping. Tod burns campfire-scented mosquito coils on the veranda while he works outside, but the smoke from them doesn't reach the bedroom.

So I decided to get some mosquito poison for the bedroom. I selected Earth No Mat, liquid DDT in an electric warmer.

DDT was synthesised in Germany in 1874 and hit its peak in the US in 1959 when 80 millions pounds of DDT were deployed. DDT was banned in the US in 1972 because it contaminates groundwater and soil and accumulates in wildlife (and presumably humans as well).

But DDT's used pretty much everywhere else as a general purpose insecticide, so why not jump on the bandwagon? Earth No Mat claims 500,000,000 units sold (World's Number 1!). Yes, I'm sure Rachel Carson is turning over in her grave. But she isn't plagued with Japanese mosquitos.

I don't know if I'll continue using the poison, though I have a 60 day supply. It seems unsporting to gas mosquitos and I am little bit worried about the effect of breathing in DDT, even in small quantities. I guess if I poison the mosquitos, the bedroom will also be free of jumping spiders, which makes me sad.

So I'll have to choose--avoid possible long term health and environmental effects or enjoy blissful mosquito-free sleep? Hmmmm....

(Thanks to all the comments, I'm not so worried about the poison. It's not The DDT, but a synthetic DDT.)

Since getting a sewing machine, I've been paying a lot more attention to what people are wearing. This summer's hot trend in shirts weems to be something they are calling "cut and sewn." As if most clothes aren't...?

"Cut and sewn" are knit tops made of lightweight t-shirt fabric. They're gathered along some of the seamed edges--I guess that's why they have to be cut and sewn, rather than merely flat expanses of fabric.

I observed a "cut and sewn" on the train yesterday that was really over the top.

Done up in a pale grey heather t-shirt knit that was so thin it was nearly see-through, it had 3/4 length raglan sleeves (the kind on zoupi's t-shirt), gathered at the crest of the shoulder. But that's not all. It also had a V neckline and an empire waist gathered front and back along the seams. And it was finished with a sporty pastel rainbow ribbing at the cuffs and tunic length hem.

The woman was wearing it with a salmon-pink wool suit skirt and strappy high heels. Repeat after me: fashion victim.

"Do you have any spare floppies I could borrow?" Tod asked me 30 minutes ago.

"Uh. No. My computers don't even have floppy drives. Maybe there's an old one in the drawer?" I suggested.

"Already looked."

"Ah. Well, probably the conbini then."

So we walked over to the local 7-11. It's really amazing what you'll find there. Towards the end of the first aisle, between the ball point pens and the cell phone chargers, is the blank media section. MiniDiscs in single, 3- or 5- packs. CD-R and CD-RW. Video tapes of all sorts--VHS (three brands), Hi-8 and miniDV.

And, yes, floppy disks. A three pack of Maxell for 270 yen. Whew.

Last summer's trendy drink was tea. There were at least a dozen new brands of cold tea in the convenience stores. Boutique teas--Chinese specialties, green teas, oolong tea--all unsweetened and refreshing on a summer day. This one, Rin, is a Chinese green tea scented with jasmine and herbs.

It's Tod's very favorite tea, ever. He loves it so much that he drinks two 2-liter bottles a week to keep him going through his long nights at work. The local liquor shop, Kashiwaya, faithfully stocked Rin for him all winter even though it's a summertime drink.

When they ran out of Rin last week, the clerks at Kashiwaya were very sympathetic, but there's nothing they can do; they can't get it anymore.

Asahi has stopped production and seems to be selling off their stock--their Rin webpage shows a dearth of container sizes. Tea is no longer the fashionable (and profitable) thirst quencher.

So my quest, and yours if you should choose, is to find the remaining 2-liter bottles of Rin. There must be some out there, gathering dust in the back corners of mom-and-pop liquor shops. If you see any, would you please let me know where they are?

I really hate patterns. From the time in 8th grade when I was sewing letter-shaped pillows in Home Ec, I found all those tissue paper notches annoying. And the super-detailed instructions might be good for some people or when you're learning a new construction technique, but... Align reverse side to front side at notch, pin. Turn 1/2 inch. Sew to notch, reinforcing seam with double row of stitches. Yuck!

Here in Japan, none of the patterns are in my size, so I'm spared this trauma. I have experience drafting patterns, though it's been a long time and my skills are rusty. What I need is inspiration. What do current fashions look like?

Enter the fashion book. I've fallen in love with these and already own three of them.

Each book has a front section with photos of the designs on models. Then each item has a one or two page spread that shows you how to place the pieces on the fabric, a numbered list of instructions, and details for any special construction points.

There are assumptions about your ability to sew. You must know how to cut a pattern, sew a seam, turn a hem, etc. These books are not really for true beginners, though they are not difficult things to sew if you have the basics under your belt. The instructions are sparse but there are illustrated sections to cover some techniques and I've learned a clever ironing tip from the "Men's Shirts" book.

The books also have pullout patterns--a single sheet with all of the pieces printed on top of one another. You are suppose to trace them out. Of course, they are not drafted for my shape, so I will have to redo them to fit my waist-hip ratio and my wide shoulders.

This page shows the skirt I made last week. It doesn't even have a pattern, just measurements for the various rectangles. The instructions include some detail on putting together the pocket, but other than that, it's 7 easy steps:

1. Sew side seams
2. Make the slit
3. Assemble pockets, attach
4. Create a tri-fold casing hem
5. Sew the waisband casing
6. Insert the waistband elsastic
7. Insert the cord at the hem

It was so easy, I made two. Summer wardrode is sorted. Have I mentioned that I now know the kanji for "fusible interfacing" in Japanese?

Meet Selphie Tilmitt of Final Fantasy VIII. Schoolgirl with a weapon, or just another omocha from the convenience store? Attitude with a splash of "Engrish," I say.

Does Bandai need an English copy editor?

It's Nepia's Japan no Kaori toilet paper. Just what is Japan's fragrance? According to the package it's No. 1 SAKURA fragrance.

I'm not fond of scented toilet paper. I mean really, who are you trying to fool? The smell of your tp's not going to make toilet odors more pleasant. But Japan no Kaori has an interesting fragrance. It's a floral, but not sweet. It's almost citrus. Very similar to cherry blossoms, just as advertised.

It's also pink, another strike against it. I'm generally a plain white toilet roll girl, myself.

So why did I buy it? Three reasons. 1) I am fascinated by the idea of marketing toilet paper as "Japan's frangrance." Such agreeable cultural connotations for a such a mundane commodity. 2) I hoped it might inspire me to finish the lyrics for the other toilet paper song. 3) I wanted to share this oddity and ask you what you think America's fragrance might be. New car? Plastics? Shopping mall?

I couldn't resist these pantyhose when I saw them in the store. They are enriched with amino acid and vitamin C. We dressed up to go out to dinner tonight and I slipped them on.

Do I feel any genkier? No, though the drinks I had with dinner went right to my head. Maybe vitamin C and amino acid is an alcohol catalyst.

I wondered if these health-impregnated pantyhose would give me a rash, but my legs seem to be unblemished.

The package shows that you can wash them and the vitamins stay in becasue they are "pro vitamins." Amateurs always come out in the wash.

There are several ranges of pantyhose like these--some are fortified with specific vitamins, others claim to give you relaxation or superpowers or the ability to get through a difficult work day. All of them are aimed at female office workers. I wonder if we'll soon see an equivalent product for men? Maybe vitamin Y-fronts.

Here's me working with my new sewing machine!

It's a Janome 2860, last year's model in Janome's range of basic mechanical machines. Janome also makes computerized sewing machines with RS-232 and USB ports, touch screen displays and super-complicated interfaces that can embroier you a Winnie the Pooh at the touch of a button, but I don't need that. I love my 2860; it's everything I need to sew a huge range of stuff and it was on sale. :-)

It has a very clever needle threader, an overlock stitch that I've already fallen in love with, and a blind hemming foot that works well. (The last one I had was a nightmare.) Something that new to me is a free arm for sewing cuffs and such with out having to turn them inside out. What a blessing.

Now I just need to decide what to sew first.

I have a distinct fondness for slippers with weird sayings on them so when I saw this pair at the "My Chamy" convenience store down the street, I had to have them.

Please don't think I'm the Imelda of slippers, really my collection is pretty small and they all are all replacements for old, worn out slippers. So far I've had:

Planet Well-known
The Tree-lined Avenue
Every cloud has a silver lining

Wonder what I'll find next season?

November must be a time to launch strange products. Here are two products that hit the market on Friday.

Corrective eyewear for pets. Menicon introduced contact lenses for dogs & cats. What I want to know is how do you get the cat to sit still while you put them in?

A cigarette called Peace Acoustic. The Peace brand debuted in 1920 to celebrate the end of WWI. The latest addition to the family has 20 mg less tar than the original and a vanilla aftertaste. But why is it called Acoustic? Maybe it makes an interesting noise when you draw on it.

These are digital camera print kiosks. For 50 yen a print, you get your images printed directly from your camera's storage media--Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick, PC Card, even floppy.

These are at a big electronics store, but our local Family Mart convenience store has one, too. Ah, technology.

Personally, I like to work with my images before I print them--touching them up in Photoshop usually improves them. I print mine on photo paper with my ink jet printer. Not archival quality, but who archives birthday snapshots? Someday they're going to be found in a box full of photos and somebody's going to wonder " Who are these people? Maybe Great-Aunt Kristen still remembers."

Pop superstars SMAP's latest album cover art has been turned into a promotional soda with a discount price--just 105 yen instead of 120.

What's the flavor of SMAP? Its a cola/orange baby aspirin/gum fantasia. I haven't had a cola drink in years and the contents of the can took me by surprise. I've become accustomed to white cans with blue writing bearing grapefruit flavored sports drinks!

It's quite tasty and refreshing but I won't finish it because as MJR knows from a notorious flight from Portland to Pittsburgh, "Coke makes Kristen cranky" and I have too much to do to be cranky today.

I'm going to tell you a secret. Those saccharine little collectible plates you've been giving your mom every year on Mother's Day? They may not be worth much.

Last night at Hakunincho Yataimura, a food court featuring really decent Asian cuisine in Okubo, we asked for extra dishes. What did they bring? A dozen "Cherished Moments Last Forever, Mother's Day 1981" plates. Two of us turned them over to see where they came from and laughed aloud to read "Made in Japan exclusively for Avon."

After dinner, I checked on the 'Net to see what I could dig up on Avon plates. They sell for $10 to $20 on the collectibles market and apparently for next to nothing out of some "ChEAp DIshEz" box on the street in Kappabashi.

I've never been sure whether to believe the idea that Japanese are excessively fond of brand names. None of the Japanese women I know display flashy, expensive belongings that are outside their means. If they have them, they don't flaunt them. Since showing off is the main purpose of brand name goods, I think they don't have them.

On the other hand, there was a two-hour long line to get into the "super brand discount fair." Once inside, shoppers made a beeline for the booth that was selling expensive handbags. Here they are, crammed in ranks against a counter, looking at wallets under glass and the bags on display behind the counter. Even in discount stores, items as lowly as house slippers have "brand names" emblazoned on them--Lewis Vittal, Polo Pony, and other copycats.

I don't like perpetuating myths, but maybe brand name fever is truth.

Hamster's Lunch. "Seed shape rice cracker and hamster figures will provide you a enjoyable tea time."

The box also explains that there are 12 different figures and each comes with a Hamster Facts card. The rice crackers are shaped like sunflower seeds and are made of 100% mochi rice, in case you should mistakenly think they are actual sunflower seeds.

My figurine is Roborovski's Hamster. I bet he's annoyed that I ended up with it. What a silly snack.

I think we're in for a tropical summer. First, Mango Colon. Now the candy shelves are crammed with tropical fruit flavored goodies:

• Pineapple KitKat is pretty tasty. The pineapple flavor is strong and a little plastic, but not bad. I like KitKat and this is a nice change.
• Mango Cream Pocky is excellent. Pocky is a classic--thin breadsticks dipped in chocolate. The mango cream coating has little flecks of dried mango in it that add a real fruit flavor and the slightest edge of mango bitterness.
• Syun-ka Mango Pudding wafer chocolate is nothing to write home about. The outer chocolate coating is thin and waxy, the wafer is like styrofoam and the mango flavor is extremely subtle.
• Colorful Stick (not pictured here because I tore into it before I photgraphed) is similar to Pocky, but not as good. It's a mix of tropical fruits and the sticks are coated with multi-colored sugar crystals in white chocolate. Beware pretty candy--it rarely lives up to its promise.

You know Latte, Sony's cute white Aibo pet. Meet LonLon--Latte dressed as a panda to promote Suntory's oolong tea.

Suntory's gone all out with its LonLon campaign website devoted to silly Flash games, clips from the TV commercials, a contest to win a keitai strap and some very kawaii LonLon wallpaper.

Taste testing two new sweets may not be the healthiest way to begin a new day, but it is entertaining.

This "sugar milk" flavored Petit Toast (118 yen for a 40 g cup) has the identity of a breakfast food but I'm not fooled. The toast nuggets are about an inch square and lightly coated with a sugar glaze on one side. They are pretty bland, which is a disappointment made more bitter by how cute and inviting the package is. Petit Toast also comes in "consomme" flavor, which I suspect would easily subsitute for a salad crouton.

The joys of Collon are not to be missed. I have a secret fondness for (vanilla) Cream Collon that dates back to my first trip to Japan. How can you lose with a creamy center, the texture of fluffy bakery icing, nestled inside a roll of
crispy wafer? Mango Citrus Collon (98 yen for a 60 g box) should be a winner but the flavor is too sharply acidic and lingers on the tongue with a tingling aftertaste. But I might be biased--I don't think mango goes well with the coffee I'm using to cleanse my palate.

It's new product season.

In the late spring, all of the summer products start appearing on the shelves of conbini around town. Many of these new items are simply variations on a theme, taking a twist to accomodate whatever lifestyle fad is current. Last year it was blueberries and cranberries--drinks, chocolates, yogurt, ice cream, pastries. This year, it's too soon to tell what the theme is.

We must try the new things while we can--most of them will be one-hit retail wonders. Just like the sadly missed Jet, a gin-flavoured tonic soda from summer of 1996.

These are two new sports drinks. WELL is full of vitamins and good stuff but no so full of flavor. It tastes like watered-down grapefruit without the bite.

Its claims of "heart and body maintenance" really don't hold any weight when I see the "non-calorie, non-fat" notes at the bottom of the bottle. Combine that with the polka-dotted label and we can tell this is marketed to women despite the man wearing the leotard and bathrobe in the ads on the product website.

Concept-san (Mr. Concept) gets right in your face with its experimental nature, doesn't it? It's a notch up on flavor, a fantasia of grapefruit and sweet peach nectar that's not awful as it sounds. The label design is a carefully planned "we couldn't be bothered to make this pretty, because it's just a concept" look that probably cost Asahi a huge amount of money.

In addition to the usual panoply of vitamins and minerals, Concept-san includes citrate, malate and succinate which are meaningless without more detail but sound very important.

After trying them both, the verdict. WELL: will not buy again. Concept-san: might buy if feeling whimsically pseudo-scientific.

Coming soon: new summer candies.

On the Narita Express, 60 seconds from the airport station, Tod's cell phone rings. It's Susan Tani calling to give us the billing information for Sunday's move. "Can you pay promptly?" she asks.

We want to pay, but we're on our way out of Japan for two weeks. What can we do?

On the way from the train to Departures, Tod spies a Citibank ATM. We can transfer the payment from our account to the Tani's.

Tod's a wiz at furikome (electronic bank transfers) and his fingers blaze through the touch screens, inputting bank and branch, account number, name and memo. He's finished and we're on our way in 60 seconds.

If only the rest of the trip were so quick!

Nutrition guidelines vary from country to country. Japan recommends that you eat 30 different foods a day. It doesn't matter what--they figure if you get 30 different things into you, you're probably eating well.

What a challenge! Yesterday I managed 20 different things. I would have fared worse if I had not selected the mix sandwich for lunch. I improved my score with five different small half sandwiches: tuna, egg salad, ham, potato salad and tomato.

I don't know the exact guidelines, so I'm not sure about some points. How much counts? If there's a teaspoon of shredded carrot on top of my salad, is that one of thirty? What about condiments and sauces?

Regardless, these guidelines are an encouragement to eat a traditional Japanese diet, which is full of small dishes of foods made with many ingredients! I'll never get to 30 eating pasta and bread.

When ordering a dish with shellfish in Japan, be prepapred to see the shells and to participate in the removal of meat from animal.

Last night at dinner in an Italian restaurant, we ordered a crab and tomato pasta. The presentation was lovely--liguine piled on a plate and topped with a half a crab shell. The bright orange of the shell and the red of the tomato sauce were really pretty. When I reached in to dish some onto Tod's plate, I hit something hard and crunchy. A leg. There were threee legs and a claw nestled in there. Tod got them. I ate my pasta unadorned.

Our second course was scampi impanata. The portion was two 8 inch long shrimp, split open and breaded with garlic crumbs. The shrimp still had their eyes, antennaes, and all of their legs which were decorative splayed.

I really don't like knowing who I'm having for dinner.

Yesterday on the train, five business men stepped on at Yoga station. As they settled into their seats the oldest one, who carried the nicest briefcase and was probably the "satchou" or section chief, handed his companions a thick wad of coupons.

On top of the pile was a beer coupon.

Beer coupons are nifty. They aren't discount coupons, they're gift coupons that you redeem for a liter or a six pack (or some other denomination). Given as incentives, prizes or gifts, I watch people using them in our local 7-11 all the time.

There are other sorts of gift coupons, too. I have one for a liter of Kikkoman soy sauce!

Consumers in Japan don't use checks to pay for things. In fact, checks don't exists; banks don't offer checking accounts.

Retail purchases are made by cash or credit card. The concept of a debit card is beginning to catch on now.

For bills and other transactions, payment is made either via a bank transfer or a postal account. For a bank transfer you go to your favorite ATM or branch office armed with the other party's banking information. You specify how much to transfer from your account into theirs, and voila! Bills paid.

At the post office, you can pay with cash that gets deposited into the seller's postal account (the Japanese post office is also a bank). This works well if you are a short term resident who doesn't have a bank account or if you want to make a somewhat anonymous payment.

In many respects, Japan is far ahead of the US. Of course Japan gets all its own, best technology first. New game machines, computer models, audio innvations, are released months ahead of the US market.

But Japan's ahead in other ways, too. It is the only country I know where you can buy and consume alcohol on the street. Vending machines sell beer in sizes ranging from petite 250 ml cans to whopping huge two liter, aluminum jugs that sport handles for pouring. Some vending machines offer sake, whiskey & even wine (albeit rather awful wine).

And in Japan, should you find yourself blotto from overconsumption of liquor, which for the Japanese can mean just a couple of beers since there's a genetic intolerance for alcohol here, friends will make sure you head safely in the direction of home. If you've been on a lonely binge, a friendly policeman will help you off the curb and into a cab home. He doesn't write a citation, deliver a homily on temperance, or behave angrily. He just scoops and delivers.

"To serve and protect" takes on a whole new meaning here...

The Mom-cycle. Practical transportation or inhuman child torture?

Tokyo is a city full of bikes. People operate them with varying levels of skill, but most cyclists are either daredevils whizzing between people and cars, or roadhogs taking over as much sidewalk as possible. Always a hazard to pedestrians, bicycles are sometimes a hazard to their riders in a more subtle way.

The Mom-cycle is a bike outfitted with a shopping-cart style seat over the back wheel. For larger families, the front basket is replaced with a seat, too. Mom pedals; white-knuckled kids grip the seat while she mounts up and swerves around the street. She can't see the terror in the eyes of the child behind her.

I give Mom-cycles a wide berth. Daredevil Moms zip through traffic; but most Moms are less steady. I've never seen one fall over, but judging from the fear in kids' eyes, I suspect they occasionally do.

Honestly, I think this must cause some serious mental stress to everyone involved. It certainly makes me tense!