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...

My sister will turn 20 years old the next week. It means that, for the moment, she's legally a French adult but not a Japanese one. In Japan, you have to wait 20 years-old to be allowed to vote, drink alcohol, enter night-clubs and so on. It's long to wait, but to make it funnier, at the beginning of the year, you are invited to the Seijin-shiki, the Coming-on-age ceremony. For girls, it's the perfect opportunity to wear an amazing kimono - transmitted by the grandmother or... rent for the day - and to make pictures for the album your future husband will show to his parents before they meet you. Just to check if you look good in a traditionnal dress. Well, it's important for the wedding day, isn't it.

As I am already 25 years old - the Chrismas cake : until the 24th it's fresh and everyone wants to eat it, but from the 25th, it's not appealling to anyone anymore... that's a Japanese metaphore - I was not allowed to follow sis inside the Ceremony room, so I just took a few pictures of the beautiful fresh cakes around me.

It is definitely a day for the girls. Young men, all wearing black, were almost unvisible among the clouds of colorful butterflies surrounding them - very loud butterflies anyway, over-excited and screaming at each other about the beauty of the dress or the sophistication of the hairstyle... Even the boys who bravely put on a traditional suit too were too dark to be noticed in the crowd. Then, with their high shoes and even higher hairdressing, it was impossible to avoid watching at all these girls in kimono. With their white fur around their shoulders and their flowers on the head, they definitely looked like unreal creatures coming from another world to bring us colors and nailart.

For leaving the lobby and enter the fresh cakes' ceremony, go to Mogusa !

Will I go to Hell if I eat strawberries in December ?

If the answer is yes, at least I am sure not to feel lonely and to have a lot of Japanese friends to play around with, because strawberry is the fruit of the month in this country.

Everything started at work. I helped my colleague Yasuko-san to do a reporting about the new products you can find this month at the combini stores. I was amazed by the number of strawberry-perfumed stuff that suddenly appeared in the shops. One of them was “a strawberry-flavor crepe with strawberry cream and strawberry sirup, and true pieces of strawberry”. I asked Yasuko about this raise of passion for the strawberry (a national campaign to develop the production area ?...) but my colleague just answered : “Well… because it’s Chrismas !”.

Oh. Of course. Still I do not remember that Gaspar, Melchior or Balthazar ever offered strawberries to the little Christ but anyway. Actually it sounds more like the first opus of Asterix to me, even if I doubt that the Japanese know about it…

Strawberries are red, small, sweet and cute, so they are “Chrismas-spirit”. And the Japanese cultivate them inside greenhouses to be able to provide it in December, which is not logic at all for a European like me who associate the idea of strawberry with May, spring, sun and flowers.

So let’s get back to the point : eating strawberries in December. At least these ones are from the very close prefecture of Shizuoka, which means local production, so it saves energy on transportation, and isn’t it good to support local production ?... But I suppose that a greenhouse is not especially eco-friendly, and it would be better to support local seasonal production… Ok, let’s say that I buy it just once, for the experience of eating strawberries in December, and get a before-taste of Hell.

Wow. Delicious.

現在、東京のコンビニでいろいろなイチゴの味がある商品が見つけられます。イチゴの季節ではないので、私は同僚に説明をお願いし、もらった答えは｢クリスマスですから｣のことでした。本当にびっくりしました。日本にはイチゴはクリスマスのイメージを表現するんですが、私は信じられませんでした。

In Japanese, "fall" is said "aki", written with the symbols of the tree and the fire. And it's true that, in Japan, the trees burn into colors at autumn. There is nothing better than re-discovering the places that you already know, colored with red, yellow and orange balls of fire : here, my old Shinjuku-gyoen and Four Seasons Hotel garden. With this November sweet sun, it was delicious, pure poetr, especially the momiji, the Japanese maple trees, which have leaves in the shape of delicate stars. Let me give you a sample of this urban Nature Art.

「秋」の漢字はとてもきれいだと思います。秋の時日本の木は本当に火の色です。よく知っている所は違う場所の感じがあります。例えば、新宿公園や隣のホテルの庭はすばらしくなりました。そしていい天気だし、かわいい星に見える紅葉の葉はすてきです。本当に自然の美術だと思います。

Shinjuku-gyoen

Four Seasons

Japanese Autumn is sweet, definitely sweeter than Paris' one, but still I needed more sun before begining my internship - three months sat in an office when I will barely see the sun shining...
So, I flought to the sunny Guam (USA), a southern island of the Mariannas' archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean : around 3 hours by plane from Tokyo, the ideal place to rest for the Japanese, and a little change for me because local people here speak Japanese more than English, even to me ! An appendix of Japan, if I can say. It's very clean, very organized, very Japanese-friendly (ramen-ya at every corner). But with a little change that makes all the difference...

First, Guam is EMPTY. The streets are surrounded by the same Ginza-style shops, the same international food restaurants than in Japan, but you have so much space everywhere - ceiling are highs, streets are wide, and you feel so much confortable in this micro-island than on the main-land of Honshu... because people don't live here like sardins in a can...

The hotel pool, empty...

The streets, empty...


The beach, empty...


The bar, empty...


The aquarium, empty...

Then, Guam is bright. The sun, the water, even the grass is shiny as if there where pigments to reflect the light from everywhere, so you absolutely need to wear sunglasses, even the Japanese. How can nature make the things so different, from the dark volcano-ground Japanese beaches and the ultra-white seashores of Guam ?

Sooooo transparent water


Blue lagoon


Bright beach


Underwater


Underground colors effects


Surface coral art

Finally, it is USA after all, and the Japanese are not at home, even if everything is kind of made for them. I heard many of them doing an effort to speak in English with the local people on the shops for example, even if they really didn't need to do so. In addition, I was welcome everywhere with a "happy Thanksgiving" and I could see a huge pannel saying "We support our troops" at the top of the airport entrance, which is definitely not very in the Japanese spirit. But from the bus, it seems that I was the only one to notice the message... Polite blindness or fear to get involved in any political subject ?
I also felt that I was going to the USA at the check point of the international airport of Guam, where I had to answer to the most intimate questions about my "strange" interest for Japan, and about with who I was travalling and why this choice. But in the absence of US visa, I had no right in front of the final decision of the custom guy and if he decided not to let me enter, I could only take my flight back to Tokyo... So, I answered to everything smiling like a good girl and I let the person in front of me to play with my fate around 7 minutes before allowing me to receive the precious stamp on my passport... Jeezus.

Japan, USA, Guam...


Two girls from Kansai who absolutely wanted to take a picture with me... I am so exotic


Guam : a Chrismas tree and tropical plants

Guam is also a little Marketing Paradise where everything is based on the themes of flowers, fruits and exotism - hawaiian style clothes, hair flowers, perfumed skin-care, coconut soaps, fruity cocktails, scented candles - and as all is moderatly cheap, you can't prevent yourself to fall for all these colors, all these smells ; and you shop... and shop... Guam is a brand itself, in addition with the commodity of the malls which propose the same global stuff you can find all over the world, from Prada to Vuitton, Givenchy and Chanel.

Cocktails...

... Cocktails...


... and Cocktails.


Aquarium-bar

But if you take a bus for a few miles (yes, we are in the USA, remember), then you discover an untouched nature, very impressive : the deep blue of the sea, the strength of the wind, the schock between the high cliff and the sweet beach... You can still imagine the lifestyle of the Chamorros before the Spanish came on the island, despite the routine of tourism and the confort established for the high-demanding Japanese travellers...

I had a very good time at Guam, and I encourage all the Tokyo-addicts to take a break once in this Japanese Paradise...

Tokyo finally became a cold and windy place to live. But strangely, this month has been especially colourful, and magic is in the air. Let me present a sample of this November Fantasy.
現在、東京はとても寒くなったけど、面白くて明るいものが見られました。次の写真はこのすてきな十一月を見せています。

A meeting of Cellos - very fashionable Cellos


Delicious macarons - from my Latvian angels


A Chrismas Bicycle met with A*eyes

November is NOT grey.

Today was the Culture Day in Japan, and to be consistent with the calendar, I went to hear Miss Patricia Petibon, a French soprano, at the Concert Hall near Shinjuku. The place is amazing and visiting it is a show by itself.

And as if Culture was not enough, Nature also entertained us with a sweet sun shining in a perfectly pure and blue sky. It was a beautiful day.

Base-ball : an alien sport for the Europeans. We don't play base-ball. We are bad at base-ball. We get bored watching base-ball.
But everything changes when it's your beloved university playing against its worst enemy - Waseda VS Keio !

For two weeks, the campus has been full of cheerleaders and base-ball-friendly association promoting the game, and it worked : without knowing nothing of the rules nor the special Waseda cheerleading songs, I went to watch the game. For a more serious and alsmost-pro preparation, see the feedback of Mogusa on the subject !

Let's kill the suspense : Keio killed us. But we had the most perfect sky - Konpeki na sora... - and the cheerleading experience is amazing.
A few funny (and unbelievable) customs about the Japanese supporters :
- After encouraging their own team, they always have a word for the opposite team ("Wasedaaaaa, Wasedaaaaa... and also go go go, Keio !")
- ... and the opposite team kindly applause (*_*)
- They can also sing the opposite team's song when they know it. And nobody hits them for that.
- When a ball falls in the public, nobody runs for catching it. People just wait for it to fall and then someone nicely go to pick it up.
- The cheerleaders come personnally to teach you the songs or the gestures if you don't know it. You have to shout and move a lot, but respecting the rules.

Waseda-Keio Baseball - Waseda Cheerleading - October 2009

 

You got it, it's extremely polite and civilized, and at the same time noisy and enthusiastic.
But if I have been convinced by the cheerleading, I am not a fan of base-ball, which is too static and slow compared to soccer or basket-ball or volley-ball. I still prefer our old-continent's favorite sports...

Uniqlo, the fashion brand which doen't know the crisis, is also a nice buzz-maker. Actually, Uniqlock is not a very fresh news, but I havn't heard of it until our advertising courses...

The idea is simple : make people dance in Uniqlo simple clothes. You can watch the auditions and original video on their Youtube chain, uncluding a CM with the four dancers that the French public discovered on "C'est la vie", by Martin Solveig.

Uniqlo: Uniqlock Site 24/7 MODE

Uniqlo: Uniqlock Site HOURLY SPECIAL

 

It is my second stay, but it seems that I love this city more and more every time. Hiroshima, peaceful and sunny city which doesn't even look at the scars of the past...
Welcome again at the Yamamoto family's place, I could enjoy delicious hand-made okonomiyaki, navigate between broken Japanese and local language, and feel the air of the survivor city.
Thanks again to Yukimi, her mother and brother for this great week-end.

先週末大好きな広島に行って、二回目だったけど本当にこの町に感心があるようになったと思います。いつも静かで明るい雰囲気ので、積極的な町の漢字があります。
も一度山本のところでホムステーをしてもらって、とても楽しかったです。うまいお好み焼きを食べて、広島の話し方を分かってみて、あの場所の一般的な力をもらえたと思います。
幸美ちゃん、お母さん、弟さん、春香ちゃん、ありがとうございました！

Hiroshima


Hiroshima Castle


Hiroshima Castle






Wedding ceremony



Shukkeien Gardens




















Almost a village




The University


Yamamoto's neighbourhood


Yummy okonomiyaki


Hiroshima friends