A crossing

This is an ordinary scenery at the crossing in front of Shibuya, one of the biggest shopping districts in Tokyo, on weekend.

This cross is always crowed with many people.

Flowers in front of a new shop or restaurant

When a shop or restaurant is opened, its friends or acquaintances send flowers to it. So when I see them, I can see a new shop or restaurant open. By the way, Phalaenopsis orchids are also presented and are put inside the new restaurant. Orchid is popular as a present in Japan.

La vita 'e dura, vero...

This picture is shot, inspired by Eric, Paris Daily Photo.

A old man are sleeping by a fir tree, ornamented with silver and gold rings for X'mas and some people pass by the man. But, strange to say, he is too neat to be a beggar. Perhaps, he may be a new one.

Bonus: To ben

These are the izakaya, fukuchan in Shibuya, a district in Tokyo.
This restaurant seems to serve a volume of food.

To ben: I took this photo at Sunday afternoon and the restaurant is closed. Sorry for that.

Cutting fish to a small pieces

The fish is tuna, I think. Tuna is too big for a man to cut and he uses a very long knife.

A rickshaw

This is a rickshaw for sightseeing.

Geikos, geisha girls, in Shinbashi, a part of Tokyo, used to get on it, not taxi, to go from Okiya, the waiting house, to a Japanese restaurant. Why do they use a taxi? Partly because its lower ceiling is a little inconvenient for their big and tall wigs.

Roppongi Hills

This is Roppongi Hills, a relatively new sightseeing spot in Tokyo. A good panoramic view is enjoyed.

Steam

Steam drifts up from a chimney. I can hardly see the smoke from a chimney in the middle of Tokyo still now. Katsuo-bushi, dried and smoked bonito fish used for miso soup, is made here.



This is katsuo-bushi.

Fish in season

This is sanma, saury, and is in season now.

Saury is one of most popular foods in autumn here, like mushroom, chestnut and oyster.

We eat grilled them or them as sashimi, raw fish.

Actually, I love this fish and only a grilled sanma, hot boiled rice and miso soup make me happy!!

Paper lanterns

These are paper lanterns dedicated to a shrine. Company's name that dedicate them is printed on.

What women want most

The other day, a friend of mine said to me "for me, women are and will be mysterious!"

I said "What's wrong? Why?"

He said, "because most women adore some brilliant stones, so called jewels, though they are tiny. I cannot understand why they like them so much! They also seem to prefer the colored one to the highly clear one called diamond. They love to wear them on their ears, fingers and necks. And the surprising thing is that stones she wears and wants tend to be getting bigger year by year....."

The picture reminds me of what my friend said.

A souvenir shop

This is a souvenir shop in Tsukiji fishing market. It sells many items related to fish.



Some of them are caps that Japanese letters are laced. The trademark of the market is laced on the far left cap. On the one next to the far left cap, the Japanese character, eel, is laced. And the right-hand one means awabi, ear shell, and the next means tai, porgy.

Good old memory

This is typical sports ground in elementary school in Tokyo.

Baseball and football is popular among boys in Japan. Some of them join in baseball or football club team and practice it after school is over. By the way, I seriously used to play baseball in elementary and handball in junior high school and high school.

The ground is too small to practice both baseball and football simultaneously. So they practice it by turns. The photo shows that boys practice baseball, divided in half in the same ground.

I used to play baseball in elementary school in the same way as this. When I played left field, home-run ball came over my head from another field since the ground was too small.

The photo reminds me of good old memory, playing baseball as much as I like.

PS. I will reply to your comments on weekend. Sorry!!

Senbei: Japanese rice cracker

They sell senbei, Japanese rice cracker. They are usually savory but sometimes sweet and people eat them as afternoon snack.

They are usually cooked by being baked or grilled after they are flavored with shoyu and mirin. Some of them are wrapped with a layer of nori.

Sakura shrimp

These are called Sakura shrimp because of its color. It is a little one and all the body can be eaten.

These are mainly mixed in Okonomi-yaki, Japanese pizza, or fried as tempura with watered flour.

A contrast

This is a downtown in Tokyo and it is surrounded by some canals. The contrast between a old canal and new tall buildings is the typical Tokyo scenery.

A street on weekend

This photo is the outside of a market on Saturday. The streets are lined with many shops and people are buying some fresh fish or vegetable.

Umeboshi

These red foods is called Umeboshi, a fruit of ume, Japanese apricot. They are pickled in salt with red perilla and dried in the sun. Those who taste them for the first time may find them surprisingly sour. They are used in various dished as well as being served with rice. They are often included in boxed lunches as a garnish for rice and as a filling for rice balls, called Onigiri.

Some people put it to Shochu, a traditional distilled spirit, adding hot water. The combination is also nice and I love it.

Some patches of cemetery

These pictures were shooted by a skyscraper in Roppongi, one of biggest entertainment districts in the middle of Tokyo.

Careful looking of the above picture makes you find some graveyards or cemetery, surrounded by modern buildings.

Some patches of graveyards exist in the middle of Tokyo because some small temples are there still now. (Most of them are not allowed to enter for people who don't have their ancestor's grave.)

Seen from drinking glass

This is seen through drinking glass and the glass makes ordinary scenery magical one.

Women in orange

These women just came out of the same restaurant and they may be clarks of the restaurant. The sign board use orange color and orange may be the key color for this restaurant.

Orange is best for autumn. By the way, I like the combination of orange and brown, which looks very elegant for me.

Hot chocolat with brandy

Tokyo is totally autumn. It is not so cold and best season for strolling around.

Yesterday I enjoyed hot chocolat with brandy.

Ummm, happiest moment!!

Have a nice weekend!!

A time table

These are time table and complicated of a subway in Tokyo.

The surprising thing is that the time table in rush hour do exist although 23 trains run only in a hour of eight o'clock.

Most of these trains arrive on a station right on time.

This table is not a pose and this works very well because of the great effort of subway authorities.


But this punctuality sometimes work negatively.

107 people on a train have died of a train accident in April, 2005, around Osaka in Japan.

A train operator move the train at excessive speed to make up for only one or two minutes delay and the train went off the rails unfortunately.

Just only one or two minutes delay has taken 107 lives away...

Rare fish

Very long mouth!!!

Unfortunately, I had never seen it before and don't know this fish.

Strolling in the fish market, I can meet a variety of fishes. The market is just like an aquarium and I love just to go there and look at many kinds of fishes.

Something that is about to disappear soon

This 2000-yen bill was introduced in 2000. Now we use four kinds of bill, 1,000 yen, 2,000 yen, 5,000 yen and 10,000 yen bill.

But this bill have been very unpopular. There are some reasons. Many vending machines cannot accept this bill, and people are not easy to make a mental count with 2000 yen bill.

Anyway, the biggest reason is that people don't need this bill at all. It is not inconvenient for most people to use only 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 bills.

So why was 2,000 yen bill introduced? Because it was introduced just in memory of holding G-8 summit in Okinawa, Japan, in 2000. It is so silly!

Now this bill doesn't go current very much. And it is about to disappear soon.

But if we use more plastic for a big purchase like US, this bill will be more popular.

(I forget to register to "the theme day".)

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