Pokemon Cake

Here is a Pokemon cake. It is a strawberry flavored sponge cake. There are other kinds of Pokemon cakes, too. Each package comes with one Pokemon sticker. I think they are called Pocket Monsters outside of Japan.



Once we bought a package of Pokemon rolls that had this album in it. The package of rolls was, of course, more expensive than usual. This album is not full yet. Big Sister and Little Brother haven't filled it up yet. Imagine each sticker represents a cake that has been eaten! If you received a sticker for everything you ate, which food item would be the most represented? In other words, what do you eat the most of?

Toys "R" Us Fuchu, Japan

I thought you might like to see the sign and the entrance to this store. It is a familiar sight in North America. There aren't very many of them here in Japan. They are few and far between.



This one is in the basement of a shopping complex. You can go by elevator or escalator. Here is the view from the escalator. They have a lot of American toys (made in China) but most are Japanese.



Here is their Halloween display. It is rather small compared to the ones in the States, but it is much bigger than it was last year. Halloween is growing in popularity here.

River Water

Two people were handing out these cloth bags at a shopping area. A man handed one to me. There were pamphlets and a sample of paper towels in the bag. The pamphlets warned not to pour cooking oil down the drain. We should cool any excess oil and pour it into the garbage. Oil should be wiped off dishes before they are rinsed or washed. The pink pamphlet included oil-free recipes. The other pamphlets explained that oil is reaching the river water. It is harmful.

Choosing Good Days

On some calendars sold here, there are kanji or Chinese characters written after the date. Some people look at them to decide when to plan events. The kanji tells which day is the luckiest and which is not suitable for an event. The kanji for each day changes from year to year. Above is an example of two dates on this year's calendar for November.

The kanji after the 27th is butsumetsu. No celebrations should be planned for that day. The kanji after the 28th is taian, the best day to plan an event. Those days are usually chosen for weddings and store openings, etc. Tomobiki which means "friends will follow" is never chosen for funerals or memorials. Our wedding was on a tomobiki. That was okay.

There are other kanji, used for the dates, but Baba doesn't know what the belief is behind them. The ones I mentioned are the ones she pays attention to. She selected a day for the memorials based on this. Some people may not pay attention to this at all. Not all calendars have these written next to the dates.

In the Morning Shadow of Our House

In the summer there were potatoes planted in this field behind our house. The farmer planted onions recently. They will have lots of sunshine later in the day. Can you see how he planted them? There is a ridge of dirt on one side. Any idea why he would do that?

Death Anniversaries

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. I am posting it today for the memorial of Great-grandmother and Great-grandfather. He loved flowers. He passed away 13 years ago. I knew him, but never met his wife. She passed away 27 years ago.

We left the house early today to go to their memorial. We went to the Buddhist pastor's house. It also serves as a doujou (both "o"s are long) or meeting place. Baba kept using that word today when talking about going to the pastor's house. Groups or families go there to pray or hold memorials. I didn't take pictures there. It wasn't because they wouldn't let me. I didn't ask. Maybe I will go back someday to take pictures and ask questions.

During the memorial, we sat on the floor on our shins. Everyone chanted. It took a long time! It was really painful for everyone to sit like that. Some of the older aunts sat on very low chairs. After the chanting, tea and cakes and cookies were served.

When it was time to go, Little Brother jumped up, headed for the door, and said, "Quick, Mom, before someone takes your shoes by mistake!" He almost knocked down a few old aunties.

As you might remember from a summer post, my shoes were taken by mistake while we were touring a thatched-roof house. I told him not to worry. Everyone there was family.

We all went to a restaurant. That is the custom after a funeral or memorial. We have a meal in honor of the deceased. At the restaurant, there was a clerk to take our shoes from us. She clipped a number on one of our shoes and then gave us a plastic disc with the same number on it. There was a sign that apologized. The sign said there were many incidents of people taking the wrong shoes by mistake. It also said that shoes have a memory, so please be careful to take your own shoes.

By the way, we didn't go to the cemetery, but we threw salt on one another when we got home. That is a custom. The salt makes spirits go away if they follow you home from the cemetery or memorial.

For some reason, this picture was printed twice so I will leave it. I think this is a Painted Lady.

Along Tama River

On our way to the doujou, we passed along the Tama River. There were several bridges like this along the way.


Here is a bridge for the train line. Click to enlarge and you will see a game of baseball. There was one game after another along the river. There were adult and kids' teams.


I took this picture of these apartment buildings in the morning. In reality, they aren't leaning like the Tower of Pisa. We were turning the corner as I took the picture.


This was taken in the afternoon on our way home. Those are the same apartment buildings. I took the picture through Big Sister's window so I got some of the sun shield in the top of the picture.

People play sports and have picnics down on the fields by the river. They boat, jet ski, fish and wind sail on the river. They jog and cycle up on the paved path on the embankments. There was also a field of cosmos flowers. I saw some people walking on a path through the flowers.


We think these are power stations. Click on the picture to see the birds on the wires in the background. Too bad I didn't have the zoom lens on the camera.

Stopping for Lunch in the City

Here is the parking lot in the Maruzen building across from Tokyo Station. If more parking spaces are needed, an attendant pushes a button to raise the platform that these cars are parked on.


After we parked, we got a card here. Shops would validate the parking for us if we spent a certain amount of money. We had to spend 6000 yen here to get free parking. That was expensive! Can you figure how much that is in your currency? Where would you look to find the exchange rate?


Here is a close-up of the parking machine. If our card was not validated by a store, then we would pay money here.


This is the inside of the elevator. There were control panels beside the inside of the doors. There were also panels on the walls. They were low for people in wheelchairs.


We were on B3. That means we parked on the third basement floor. We were two floors below the basement. We had to go to B1 and switch to another elevator.



These floor decorations were in the lobby of the building. There were many of them. I'm not sure if they were actually manhole covers.



This plastic food was outside the restaurant. We ate tonkatsu, fried pork cutlet here. The green stuff is finely shredded cabbage. Sometimes, restaurants exhibit real food outside on a table.


We saw this sculpture on our way out of the city. It was outside an office building. There was a Japanese flag, too. The building's address is on the pillar. Click to enlarge. It's in Japanese, though.



This was outside an insurance building in an area called Shinjuku. Look familiar?

On the City Street

When we went into the city the other day, we parked the car on the street. Here are some of the things I saw while I waited for Papa. He ran an arrand. Above is a sign on the street. It asks us not to feed the pigeons. It goes on to warn us about the dangers of pigeons; salmonella, mites, allergies, etc.

(The crowd in the background is waiting to cross the street.)


I turned around and saw this sign on the sidewalk. It was near the pigeon sign. This sign asks us not to walk and smoke. It is against the law. I had seen commercials on TV advising us not to smoke on the street. I had never seen signs like these.

On the way home from our little train station yesterday, I saw a big sign like this one had recently been painted on our sidewalk. There was a stream of people going down the narrow sidewalk, so I couldn't stop to take a picture.


This is the parking meter. For 300 yen, we could park for 30 minutes. We didn't stay that long.


This is one of the manhole covers for this area. The design is a sakura or cherry blossom.

School Days: Reaping Japanese Greens

A month ago, Little Brother's class went to a field near his school to plant daikon, Japanese radishes. He told me they had put several seeds in one hole. I was confused at the time.(See post for Sept. 13th, School Days: Sowing and Reaping). Yesterday, he brought these greens home. His class had gone back to the field to pull them.

So, instead of letting the turnips get big, they planted them close together and pulled them when the greens or tops were still tender. I had never thought about that.

Parking Carousel, Etc in the City

This is a parking carousel. It was slowly moving round and round. When we passed by the construction "curtain", I saw the attendant operating it. We turned a corner. It was too fast for me to take a picture of him. Too bad!


A street garden in front of a shop. The shop was a combination tobacco and hardware shop. The owners probably live upstairs so this is their only chance to garden. It faces west. That's the afternoon sun.



I've included this picture to show the reflection of the sun. See the reflection on the left? The sun is actually behind this building. It's amazing how the sun makes its way through the city.


I didn't have the zoom lens on the camera, so it is difficult to see. Click to enlarge. On the right is a fire station. The truck is gone. Next door on the left, is a store you may see in the United States. FedEx is probably all over the world.


Here is another shop you may see in the United States.


Amid all the glass and concrete, there are old Japanese things as well. This is a temple.


This is a small shrine, a place to pray.


This is the main gate for Tokyo University, one of the oldest and best universities in Japan.


I took this picture because of the futon hanging out the window on this busy urban street.

Yoshinoya is a chain of restaurants that serve "beef bowl", cooked beef on rice. I guess you could call it a Japanese fast food. I'll try to get pictures from inside sometime.

See the old man on the bicycle? He's got a lot of newspapers in his back basket, so I think he's delivering them. He has some in the front basket, too. At first, I thought he was riding along and reading at the same time. I had a taxi driver once in Malaysia who drove as he read his novel. That was scary!

Scenes of the City

We went across town to a doctor's appointment. Here's what we saw from the car:



Heading toward Shinjuku, Tokyo.


Traffic jam. Can you see the big bowling pin? Click to enlarge the picture. The pointed building in the middle is the NTT, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Building. I posted a picture of it last spring.


Two new overpasses are being built. See the big flatbed truck? It seems trucks have gotten bigger over the years.


A view of a city street from an overpass. Note all the trees. They are really big ones, too.



Another view from an overpass of a city street. Are there any trees? There's a sign with something written in English. Click to enlarge.


A garbage truck about to go into a tunnel.


Another tunnel. Note the greenery and the staircase along the left side.



Here's a billboard for a canned coffee called "Boss". The man is a famous American actor. Do you know who he is?

On Our Way Out of the City

We have a Tokyo address, but I consider these parts "the city". It is definitely more urban than our area. I took these pictures as we made our way back home. I'll post other pictures of our stops along the way.


This is the top of Tokyo Tower.


The National Theater.


A building in Yotsuya, Tokyo.


Hibiya Park. If you want to see or sit on grass, you have to go to a park. Lawns are not common here.