Blue sky and growing trees

Clear springs

The first flowers on the trees

Cherry blossoms in the cups

Eatable love messages

Urban flowers


Pure shores


Green beer


First-class omu-raisu : the taste of spring on my tongue

The year of the Tiger started last week, and Yokohama's Chinatown was the best place to celebrate it.
Dragons on the street, pork on the plates, pandas everywhere; the city can't let you forget that a long time ago, Yokohama was the only Japanese city connected to the world - which mostly meant, to China.
Tigerly Happy New Year everybody !

Remember : at Christmas, strawberries were everywhere thanks to the magic of the Japanese greenhouses. I had been told that this unexpected strawberry-craziness in the middle of winter was "obviously" due to the fact these red, sweet and cute fruits were perfectly matching Christmas' spirit. Well, guess what, it also works for Valentine. So I am going to be tempted by strawberries until at least mid-February - after that I guess that the right season for buying it will start quickly...

A sample of what I see everywhere around me everyday - it's a torture :

As you see, there is a "double image benefit" between strawberries and Valentine...

It's really not appealling to me, but you can also buy "white strawberries". If you had seen the price you would understand why I did not try it. But anyway the normal red ones seem really more tasty.

For a lower budge, let me introduce the top of the top of the combini store : the strawberry sandwich ! Yes, they can !

Our familiar koala has been strawberrized too. For a complete explaination about the meaning of the koala, see Mogusa's blog.

And I can't present all the ice-creams, chocolates, cookies which have fallen for the strawberry-queen...

A third episode of Ichigo Ichie in April, maybe ? With strawberries cultivated under the sun ?...

幸美のために

幸美ちゃん、

先週東京来てくれて、本当にありがとう。幸美ちゃんに会うときいつも楽しくて、私はまだ日本語が下手ですが、一緒に深いコミュニケーションができる感じがあります。さらに最近幸美ちゃんもよくフランス語を勉強しますので、私たちの間にある絆はだんだん強くなっています。
将来にフランスでも日本のどこでもよく楽しいホムステーをしましょう！

ノエミより

It's not original, but the first images I had from Japan have been transmitted to me through animation dramas when I was a little girl. Of course, with the French voices and the translation of the main part of the Japanese names into irrelevant American-style names, I had no idea that these stories were taking place in a far-away country called Japan. But I was fascinated by this world where the kids were wearing school uniforms, where old men had very weird wooden shoes, where small towns had so many stairs... where little girls had magical powers...
With Kimagure Orange Road, one of my favourite anime was Magical Angel Creamy. I can not call myself a fan of the cartoon anymore, but I still cherish the memory of it...

For-you-just-for-you, the opening song of Creamy - in French, it's even better...

- Creamy, adorable Creamy - générique

このアニメを覚えていますか。子供の時一番スキナアニメでした。アニメを見ると初めて日本の生活が見られて、どんな国か全然分からなかったけど、とても楽しかったです。今でもこの時代の思い出は強くて忘れられません。

Tokyo is a kind of labyrinth - Alice's style, "everyone is crazy here !".
At Ikebukuro, Sunshine City (second floor), there is a place called Namco Nanja Town you can go for 300yen - 2100 yen if you want to "play". Yes, it's a human-size game based on the graphic world made in Namco, which is a video game company ; their mascot, a cat (Alice, again !) is everywhere to remind it you.
The place is unexpectedly huge, and it was almost empty when I visited it last Friday evening. I entered around 8:30 and stayed until it closes, at 10pm !

After enjoying the place for itself - there is a haunted house part, and another dedicated to skincare and massage (?!... maybe to relax after the scary part ?...) - I had the best fresh-made gyoza ever at the Gyoza Stadium ; sea-food gyoza, cheese gyoza, veggie gyoza... all the gyoza you can dream of are cooked for you in these funny little shops...

As if delicious gyoza were not enough to make me happy, the upper floor of Nanja Town is occupied by an amazing - without kidding - "ice-cream library" where you can find all the ice-cream flavors you can imagine, and even some that you had not imagined, like... octopus ice-cream... snake ice-cream (with real pieces of snake inside, yeah)...
I was not so adventurous and had a beautiful cookies-and-cream ice-cream at the normal shop.

And finally, I could enjoy my impressive  ice-cream in a fake little Italy, absolutely empty, which is sometimes a pleasure in a city like Tokyo...

I don't know if the Japanese are the only ones to build such "Food theme parks" but it's not something that we do in Europe and this place, even so calm and full of tasty dishes, had something crazy I can't really explain - judge by yourself if you pass by Ikebukuro Sunshine City...

The so delicious "Salon du Chocolat" came from Paris to invade Tokyo and especially the 6th floor of Isetan Shinjuku. The theme was the Opera and many "chocolate artists" were here for the occasion, mainly from France but not only : Italy, the Netherlands, Japan were also choco-representated.
In this pre-Valentine tornado of cacao-based products everywhere, it's not enough to say that the Salon was a success - it was damned crowded as you can guess, and in addition, chocolate seems to have some strange powers on Japanese people, who turn unexpectedly excited when they are in contact with too much sugar... but it's true that the Salon looks like Charlie's chocolate factory and anyone would be crazy in front of so much chocolate.

パリのサロン・づ・ショコラが東京に来ました。今日まで新宿の伊勢丹デパートで見られました。フランスのチョコレートメーカが多かったけど、フランスだけではなくて、色々な国から来たブランドもありました。今年のトピックは「オペラ」です。
すぐにヴァレンタインになりますもで、このイヴェントは成功しました。皆は本当にわくわく、多分日本人はチョコレートの多さになれてこなかったと思います。しかし私もフランス人でも、このサロンはすごいと思いました。

T-shirts at Harajuku

Lanterns at Waseda

Hand-made food at Hoshien Dorms

Windows at Ebisu

Pink stuff at Isetan Girl

Black suits at my team's Shinnenkai

Advertisements at Ikebukuro

４5００円以下の新しいルーク

Pink winter ! It's almost a Uniqlo total look but all the items are from different shops.

Sweater, skirt : items from the previous Uniqlo collections, in sales

Shoes : "Uniqlo shoes" that you don't find in the shops but in a shoes boutique in front of JR Harajuku station, in sales

T-shirt : Nakano Gallery is the kingdom of tops ! But good luck to find a skirt or a pants there...

Tights : 100yen shop I love you.

TOTAL : 4105yen...

During my jogging on the riverside of Kandagawa, I am used to meet many old Japanese men and women walking with their dog - and, as the Japanese are not always exception, most of the time the pet looks like the owner.
This time, when I saw them from far, I thought : wow, this dog walks strangely.
For sure. I was a HUGE turtle.
The kind of turtle that you can see usually in the zoo, not walking on a the street in Tokyo. And, for the comic touch, he/she was wearing kid shoes on the back feet. Except for this detail, the owner was absolutely turtlish too. He told me that his strange animal was fourteen years old and needed to go to have a walk every week. So, yu know what you have to do to see a turtle for free : see you next Sunday, 11 am, on the side of the Kanda river...

ジョギングの時道で大きい亀が見られました！びっくりしましたけど、ペットでした。実は亀とオーナは少し似ていました。