Sakura Starbucks

Japan seems to have a very particular interest in seasonal changes and has various ways of celebrating them and marketing agencies seem to be happy to play along. With the blooming of the Ume trees marking the creep of winter into spring, the parade of later blooming cherry trees (sakura) celebrate the new reigning season and its defeat over the cold, rains and snows of winter. Starbucks (スターバックス) Japan is all ready for it with themed sakura-print tumblers and mugs. They also offer Japan - exclusive sakura flavors in cream Frappucino, steamers, steam buns and chiffon cake (pictured here). In general the quality of Starbucks coffee, cakes and eats are surpassingly higher than in its native home - that being said the sakura cake was tasty but not award-winning. The cake is marbled with a cheese flavor to mellow the bold cherry flavor and topped with a mediocre sugar icing and a rather strong but interesting sour-sweet pickled cherry blossom.

Driving That Train . . .

I don't believe that I am alone in thinking that Japan is the home of many technological innovations and that many of its city dwelling populous live in one of the most, if not the most, technologically advanced societies. While in some cases this is true it is not a complete picture of Japan as some of the infrastructure and technologies in regular use are somewhat antiquated. As you can see no over-engineering is present on the trains, no robot drivers or computers here, the trains are kept running on a meticulous schedule by humans holding low-tech laminated timetables.

雛祭り Hina-matsuri

Today is Girls' Day also known as Hina-matsuri (Doll Festival) which is a parents day to celebrate their daughters' happiness, growth, and good health. This festival has its origin in the Heian period where ornamental dolls dressed in the fashion of the ancient court, including the Emperor and Empress, are placed on tiered shelves. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. More currently, a friend informed me, it is believed that if a girl does not put away the dolls quickly after the Hina Festival then she will not get married for a long time. Many products are on the retail selves to help celebrate the festival including colored hina-arare (bite-sized crackers flavored with sugar or soy sauce), hishimochi (a diamond-shaped colored rice cake) and chirashizushi. These are bean cakes from DONQ boulangerie representing the Emperor and Empress filled with sweet read bean jam and sakura white bean jam.

Kamen Rider Cider

Found this lovely just around the corner, drawn by the colorful array of static stickers blanketing the vending machine. Japanese beverage maker Dydo presents Kamen Cider - commonly known as Mask Rider outside of Japan - Kamen Rider refers to the franchise of Japanese live action TV series which generally feature an insect themed motorcycle riding superhero who fights super-villain monsters. This can features the iconic designs of the original 1971 show which followed college student Takeshi Hongo and his quest to defeat Shocker. So grab your Typhoon belt and activate the micro-nuclear engine to collect all 9 variations, no transformation pose necessary.

- Revisited -

Higashinada-ku 東灘区 Streets

In Japan addresses are written using the opposite convention then in the states, starting with the biggest geographical entities down to the more specific ones. For instance my address begins with Hyōgo prefecture (the country's 47 subnational jurisdictions), a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region on Honshū island. Following the prefecture is the municipality (in many cases this is a city) I live in Kobe the capital city of this prefecture. Next comes the location within the municipality - the ward - Higashinada where I currently reside is one of the 9 wards of Kobe. The final elements of the address are the city district, block and house number. If you use google maps in Japan you may notice that many Japanese streets don't have names and that is why they are seldom used in addresses, but if you zoom-in you can see all the block and district numbers. In addition to the address itself all locations have a postal code usually marked "〒". The next series of pictures are peculiarities that caught my eye abound the neighborhood in-between the bouts of heavy rain that we have been experiencing of late.

Neighborhood Streets #1

View inside a neighborhood stream, one of the many tributaries split from the rivers that bisect the city pulled down from the mountains to join the Pacific.

Neighborhood Streets #2

View of a moss covered tree trunk near a reservoir. Moss of various flavors is quite common in my neighborhood as well as higher up into the mountains. I have a fondness for gardening and for plants in general and lately have a renewed regard for mosses to the extent that I have started to collect small specimens, growing them in various small glass jars. They require very little water, prefer very little sun and are transportable making them perfect for very small Japanese apartments. With a little well placed frippery they could become moss diorama or bonsai terraria - a bit of green for your home or desk at work.

Neighborhood Streets #3

Train tracks are a very common site in urban Japan but in many cases they can also prove to be an interesting one. The train infrastructure is dense and vast, with trains being the preferred and most heavily utilized form of transportation.

Neighborhood Streets #4

I leave the story behind this mystery to the readers imagination. The remains of a fire and its sources of ignition found inside a flood basin: a solitary source of warmth perhaps, important documents destroyed by Yakuza, or just a child drawn to the fascination of flame? The heavy rains have now washed all remains away to the murky ocean depths.

Latte Animal Art

This is actually a photo taken last November from a charming little coffee house on the road down from Kiyomizudera in Kyōto. Latte art (drawing and or decorations made in the foamed milk) has become more common in boutique style coffee shops throughout Japan. These were crated as the foamed milk was added to the espresso - the cup is tilted around to form the general shape and then detail was added with a thin metal stick like instrument. Coffee is often offered as a set that includes a cake or sweet at a discounted price which is what you see here and the true beauty is they tasted as delightful as they looked.

Gachapon ガチャポン

Gachapon is a Japanese onomatopoeia: 'gacha' is the sound of the crank on a vending machine turning and 'pon' is the sound of the capsule enclosed toy dropping into the receptacle at its base. The term describes the machines and the toy which are numerous in most shopping areas and seemingly popular with people of all ages. The picture is of my newly acquired Japanese mobile phone and its The Nightmare Before Christmas gachapon embellishment. Most everyone in Japan has at least one mobile phone with internet access, a camera, games, TV, etc., what most in the states would call a smart phone, and all of those phones have a decretive or functional strap of one kind or another to personalize it. With the growing popularity of the iPhone 3Gs in Japan and its lack of built-in strap connection the growing alternative to personalization seems to be japanese exclusive cases. I guess much bigger gachapon machines are in order. . .

Sannomiya 三宮

Sannomiya is the current city center of Kobe and is much more densely packed with tall office buildings and retail centers than where I currently live in Higashinada. Sannomiya is also a hub of many transportation systems in Kobe, but compared to central Tōkyō is much smaller and in my opinion the people and friendlier and warmer. Kobe is known for its bread and cakes as well as for its shoes and is the home of many large high-end retailers from throughout the world. This is a view of a section of Sannomiya as seen from the 20th story of a building adjacent to the main train station.

Picture Perfect Produce

Japanese produce, specifically organic produce, available in the “farmers market” section of local grocery stores often provide a photograph of the farmers on their packaged produce complete with contact information. This practice is also common on locally produced packaged breads that provide a headshot of the proud baker. How does this effect the quality of the food and the consumers buying experience? If you had your picture and contact information on the products you sold, would it change the quality of your product or how you do business? Personally, I chose to purchase these satsuma (mikan) over another similar bag because I felt a connection, albeit minor, to the people who grew them.

Underpass

This is a site from one of my well trodden paths and it is nothing more than a protective guard against human and aviary infestation under the train overpass on a footpath alongside a mountain fed stream. All the same I am intrigued by the contrast in color and texture and find the site quite intriguing.

Jinja 神社

Amishiki Temman Jinja Shrine 網敷天満神社白 is one of the larger local shrines. Shines of various sizes are extremely common in Kobe having, by my calculation, an average of one every two-three blocks. However, they are still currently outnumbered by convenience stores. . .

Don't Fear the Chocolate. . . Beer

Royce and Sapporo teamed up to produce a seasonal chocolate brew which I stubbled across at a local foreign food store - of all places. Royce is a chocolate company located in Sapporo Japan (Sapporo is no longer the home of the beer as the name suggests but they do have a brewery in Hokkaido) and while this is not my first chocolate beer it was distinctive and quite tasty. The chocolate doesn't make it sweet but instead adds a deeper richness to the taste with a slightly bitter finish. The malt and chocolate seem to be deeply entwined to suggest that it was more then just an additive. The smell of rich chocolate fills your nose as the can is opened and matches the thick dark chocolate like color of the beer. Chocolate Brewery is all win, but one serving is likely enough to satisfy both the beer & chocolate enthusiast.

Tōkyō One Last Time . . .

Final shot from this trip to Tōkyō an interesting building in Marunoichi I particularly like the Japanese flag waving in the foreground.

Döner kebab : Akihabara 秋葉原

No big city is complete without a Döner kebab stand and Tōkyō is no exception. Located on a crowded central corner of Akihabara these fellows offered up some delicious and authentic Turkish eats take-away style. It proved to be a popular stop with the younger crowd that flock to the neon bathed streets of Akihabara and its many electric and animation hobby shops.

Japanese Plum (Ume) Blossoms

Another shot of the Ume blossoms this time from in front of the Tōkyō National Diet Library building. The library is similar in purpose and scope to the U.S. Library of Congress having very strict borrowing, copying and visiting rules. Happened to be one of the rainy days, actually they were all rainy really, so I was able to capture this droplet prior to its last fall to Earth.

Tōkyō Tower 東京タワー

Tōkyō Tower is a communications and observation tower located in Shiba Park and at 1,091 ft it is the tallest artificial structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations. I just could not help myself I know this was a total tourist spot but I felt that a trip to Tōkyō was just not complete without it. I missed the tower lights, which is what i was hoping for, by just a few minutes but I had to leave to meet with friends and arriving late in Japan is extremely bad form.