We went to a supermarket together and Carsten bought a maccha (ground japanese green tea) flavored cornflakes by Kellogg's. Limited edition. I ate them with milk and surprised. It wasn't bad at all (not delicious though). It was like drinkig maccha milk. I found it was too sweet but there was surely the scent of tea. There are many sweets with a maccha flavore but this is entering a top 3 ranking. A maccha freak Carsten can assure it. I wanted to say that this reminds me of a rice cracker coating with a sugar of a green-tea taste but when I started to say "this is, you know, taste like..." Carsten said "Like grass!" straightaway. ... Really?!

There has been a big construction work over a long period (was it 3 months?) by side of our building (even on Saturday!). Builders, business people and some specialists with a strange uniform were inspecting the holes yesterday. According to the schedule, construction will be finished by today.

I've just came back from 20x20x20 pecha-kucha night (20 people' talk with 20 images slide show, 20 seconds per a slide ) at SuperDeluxe. There were mainly architects today and very good one. I enjoyed it. The Namaiki' performance was ... ! Made me Dizzy!

I went to the restrant in the downstairs of my friend's flat for lunch. The ex sumo wrestler Wakashouyou who was the elder fellow pupil of Wakanohana and Takanohana, is a cook and the owner of this restaurant Tour de Paon. I had a cold tomato cappellini (thin "angel hair" pasta), my friend had a maguro-no-zuke-don (marinaded tuna' donburi). The all lunch menu was ¥900 with salad + drink. We got the league tables of sumo wrestling for this comming tournament (it has just announced on 25th!). Nice one. It was because of my friend has been a passing acquaintance with the waiter and finally she entered the door! We should go there again to eat proper sumo wrestler' dish Chanko nabe.

I received pair of vintage enamelware bowls from 60/70's by Finel (was a division of Arabia) in Finland. I won them on the auction the other day. All different kinds of stylized mushrooms are very kawaii. There are a few of the typical tiny flakes to the enamel along the rims and a few scratches. But nothing deep. The bowl measures about 5.5" tall and 8.25" round at the top. It's a nice tall shape (apparently, Kaj Franck designed the bowl).

My sister gave me 40 iced coffee bags(?) by Brook's coffee on a very sunny hot day in July. We love coffee but didn't drink much iced coffee during a cold summer in Aug. Since last weekend, finally Tokyo' real summer has come back and I've been enjoying this coffee again. By the advertisement it is emphasizing only its value though, the taste is quite good too. And this nice strange appearance! After seeing such "designs", I always have to think how many meetings they had untill they reached agreement!

We went to the museum of contemporary art tokyo in Kiba to see the exhibition of "Ikko Tanaka: A Restropective". Showing lots of posters from 1949 (final work @ the Kyoto University of Arts) to 2000 (MUJI' poster) and many corporate identities which we automatically recognised. I wanted to see more.

Fernando Alonso won the Hungarian Grand Prix to become the youngest ever winner of a F1 world championship race (22 years and 26 days old)! And he is the first Spanish driver to win a F1. Congratulations! This year' F1 is so exciting!

On 3 Jun 2003, I made umeshu (ume liquor or plum wine) for the first time. In June, the umes for liquor were selling everywhere in Tokyo and I bought two different kinds of ume plums to taste the difference. Nankoubai from Wakayama (1kg=¥1,280) was expensive, but the red cheeks are very cute. I also bought ordinary green ume plums from Kanagawa (1kg=¥880). It's a shame that I missed the green plums which were sold for ¥500 earlier that day! I have to wait for at least a year before I can drink it.

I wanted to get this ceiling pendant designed by Claire Norcross for Habitat very badly. I asked my friend in London to send this to Japan. Thanks! This is made from the 850 black-tipped plastic electrical ties. Isn't it amazing? My sister called this "Fugu" though... Habitat buys young excellent designer's works (might be dirt-cheap) and mass produces art works so I can get the good design product in my hand. Thanks Habitat. I can't buy the original art works which is selling for £475. If I am asked what I miss about London, I might say... Habita maybe?

Genichiro Inokuma' oil painting was sold for a super high price on an internet auction. I didn't want it but I was watching it. 1950, Inokuma designed the wrapping paper for MITSUKOSHI the oldest department store in Japan (established in 1673) and they are still using it. Nice one, MITSUKOSHI! I heard that Takashi Yanase who is very well known as an Anpan-man' author also took part of this wrapping paper design, and I asked MITSUKOSHI if it is true and...

I love those german containers WECK which is made of recycling glass. I realised that I have quite a lot after buying bit by bit from online shopping. The strawberry' logo is too sweet but I love it. Everyone who noticed my plum wine in WECK said "nice bottle" instead of "looks tasty"!

Carsten brought the present for me. It was the addition of the almond chocolate by Glico (Maybe the 2 chocolates is the addition not the CD). I thought about buying it but if I buy one sheet... it is likely to continue buying it until I collecte them all. I gave up. Anyway I was listening the nostalgic song (from 1981), looking at a words card and! The glue part of the plastic envelope is completely attached to a record jacket. Oh, not agaaaaain! I can't believe some envelopes of printer papers or letter papers have a sticky part on a flap but on a trunk of an envelope. What are they thinking?!

A cool news from the forest in Nagano made me think of getting a black belt (of what?) again. Yesterday afternoon, 63 years-old man who visited a forest to harvest mushrooms noticed the bear with a length of about 170cm crouched down in position of 5m. The bear rose and rushed toward him. After a grapple, the man threw off bear with judo's Tomoe-nage! Ippon!

It was more than 5 years ago, I was in a recycle stand (wasn't even a shop) at Mizonokuchi in Kawasaki. I bought this lamp for only ¥300 (I didn't beat down the price) and realised much later this lamp was designed by one of the world's most famous Italian designers Vico Magistrerri. We can still buy reproduction of this Eclisse lamp by Artemide and it cost ¥19,800! My yellow lamp is a original (no doubt?) from late 60's. What a lucky find! I'm using it every night.

I realised that this mixing bowl was my first Studio m' as well. While I was taking a photograph with eggs I felt quite a strong earthquake. But a tremor was only level 2. Did I scare because I was holding a egg?

My first Studio m' was a cup called bechamel. I don't drink cafe 'o lait with this but using for yoghult, cereals and soup etc... I want plates for stew next time. (I can't believe that I mention about stew in a summer.) These earthenware' surface isn't very smooth so I prefer to use a wooden spoon not a metal one. Am I too sensitive?

Again! I was easily completely taken in a corporate strategy. In a store, I happened to see Torys whisky which comes with a free glass by Ryohei Yanagihara. When it filled with a cold liquid, uncle torys' face turned into red. I talked to C and decided to get 2 bottoles (at the moment?). I have to find a good recipe to get rid of these whisky (then think about getting more?). I got a tooth-pick container from an old campaign as well. I want his book too!

I asked my friend to bring the Jaffa Cakes from London (They looked a bit tired from a long journey). When I was a kid we had a same sweet in Japan but it seemed slightly different. Our jaffa cake had a cookie base instead of a spong cake and orange jam on the cookie was very thick. The chocolate on top was quite thick but thinner than the jam. And me and my sister absolutely hated it (especially the orange jam)! I wanted to try this cake with my grown up taste buds once again. And... It was kind of nice and disgusting, bit of both, and I liked it! I started to understand why England's World Cup hopes depended on Jaffa Cakes Last year!

We are absorbed in a DVD recently, just like having a summer holiday (we are not!). Finally we watched Red Dragon. I'd been excited from the beginning (shocking!) to the last. The cast is strong and acting were excellent. It was very enjoyable "the hollywood movie" (in a good way!). Maybe not good for people who can't face to blood... I tried this online psychometrics test (in japanese only) and my result is "having great physical strength and yet polite person such as FBI agent Will Graham (played by Edward Norton)" Really?

I borrowed a DVD The Other Final yesterday. It was greaaaaat. I knew about Kessels Kramer (their funny site has lots of different versions!) before this film so I was quite sure that It would be a cool film. But I didn't know a game of football move me so much. This feeling is more than watching Project X!

I went to THE cake shop Matterhorn in Gakugei daigaku. While they were wrapping the cake + cookies for me, I saw the sign on a cake display saying "Please take them free" and there were some skins of cream puffs (without cream inside)! Weird! Getting some crusts of sliced bread from a bakery, tofu lees from a tofu shop and lard from a butcher are very familier things to do though... and I asked for a bag (6 puffs in it). Is it just my imagination that a woman sneered at me?!

I've noticed some familier images on a TV this afternoon and it took a few seconds to realise what that was. It was 24! It will be on a rental shop in Japan from this October. I've already got DVD but nice to introduce to my japanese friends. Everyone must see it!

This air plant is "A plant needs the easiest care in the world (just a bathing once a week, bit of food sometimes?)." I bought this half year ago and never paid much attension (sometime forgot to water for a month!) but it has a new baby! Wow!

I've been dreaming about this Bamix. I finally bought it last month. I chose a blue handle Bamix which is produced by Tupperware. It has double logos (Bamix and Tupperware) on it and nicer than the original one in gray. (the older version from Tupperware had a yellow handle which was even nicer!) I got a new Bamix on an internet auction and payed so much less than the original price. Yesterday, we made improvised smoothie just mixing of some frozen melon + pineapple, yogult and fresh juice. It's great for hot summer.

All of the works by Ryota Kuwakubo were absolutely lovely. Carsten and friend enjoyed to play this game too much...

We went to see Crispin and his work @ the digital art festival 2003 in ariake. There were many people for Maywa Denki' performance (including us). And it was nice to see our old friend who works @ the panasonic center.

Having relevance to yesterday' MEGURO story, here is a sea urchin by Toshyuki MEGURO. It's a ORIGAMI! Wanna see more?

It has been more than 2 weeks since I went to the gym last time. There is old Meguro City Office on the way to the gym and I found out that the demolition work has started finally. Noooo! I've been thinking about taking a commemorative photo on a nice sunny day since this January. But it's too late now...

I still have lots of old currency coins from Germany, France, the Netherlands etc... Maybe I can sell on a auction? My german husband wants to keep some German marks. If the Japanese yen coins and notes were no longer legal tender in Japan and new "Asia" bills and coins had been introduced... I deffinetely keep all Japanese coins + notes (without any changing)! The first color coins appeared in Japan last year. The original sales price was ¥6,000 and it leaped up to ¥20,000 at the moment.

When I was a kid, there were one/two going-to-school days while the long summer holiday. At my elementary and junior high schools in Fukuoka, 6 Aug when the atomic bomb was dropped to Hiroshima was the one of going-to-school days. We could listen to people who actually experienced in the atomic bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and made me filled with the sad fearful feeling. I wonder if kids have the opportunity to talk about the world war II these days?

It's getting very hot and I thought about making barley tea. The scent of wheat all over the room and I remembered a child's time and got very nostalgic. My mum made lots of tea for us in a summer time. We had to wait tea in a kettle get cool down and put in a fridge... Apparently barley tea is the oldest tea in Japan. Aristocrats were drinking barley tea from the Heian period (794-1192) before green tea descends. It seems effective against Natsu bate (weariness from the summer heat).

I'm gonna look after 3 plants for my friend because she will go to Hawaii for 3 weeks. And today which is the DAY 1, the bud opened already. I was impressed... and got motivated to take care of it professionally. According to the Internet, the hibiscus is weak in the summer of Japan (shouldn't be more than 30°C). The hibiscus means "New love" and "delicate beauty" in the language of flowers... sounds like she is very difficult person!!

What a exciting night watching F1! At the very hot Heckenheim in Germany, Montoya was undeniably the fastest driver in the race. He is only six points away from Michael now! M Schumacher finish seventh after a problem with his left rear tyre puncture with 4 laps remaining!! Poor Raikkonen involved in an accident at the first corner... I like your way of speak anyway!!

I baked pretzel (brezel) with my friend yesterday. What a fun! My husband C cooked sauer kraut and potato salad. Yum yum! Our guests also seemed happy to eat german food. I got some eulogies for prezels: "This is a original (genuine) taste" (by my GERMAN husband) "It's better than the one I had in germany" flattering? I need to be trained myself.

My sisiter turned up with lots of green soybeans "edamame". She picked them up from a field this morning." Yum〜. I boiled beans quickly just before al dente which you might call al dente of al dente. My sisiter surprised at the hardness of beans but I love it. I can enjoy the real flavor with having a chew. broccoli, asparagus and cold wheat noodles "hiya mugi" everything has to be lightly boiled. When I order nagahama ra-men, noodle has to be ... of course bari-kata (means super hard).