Objection!

 

Yesterday I read one article on BBC.com saying that Tokyo is now the ‘most espensive expat city’ in the world. In the article, the reporter said

>  that Tokyo’s top slot in the ranking would not surprise locals, who could find themselves paying $15 for a watermelon and $25 for a mango.

What !?  A mango costs U$25?  It’s impossible. Of course when people buy mangos at very expensive department store where people usually buy for gifts, they might cost that money, but local people like me buy fruits at nearby supermarket. I checked the price last evening and found it costs 680 yen (U$7) for a domestic mango and 298 yen (U$ 3) for Mexican mango.

I know some of the expats live in very luxury apartments and do shopping at high class supermarkets, maybe the reporter from BBC is also having good life in Tokyo !

 Originally Tokyo has a image of  ’an expensive city’, and together with the image of ‘a very far place’, those images have been long time the reason Tokyo has few visitors from overseas countries. And Japanese government is stepping up its campaign ‘YOKOSO’. Of course, exchange rate impact a lot, as this article also mentioned, but please remember that compare to other coutries, Japan is not necessarily expensive. Visit Japan, you will know : )

Summer Evening Ride

 As I worte on my last entry, we are celebrating Star Festival today.  At the same time  it is the day for people to think about environmental issue especially global worming called ‘Cool Earth Day’.  Some of the buildings, towers and signboards turn off the light to save the energy. This is a campaign started from last year when we had hosted G8 summit conference in Hokkaido Japan.

Photo is Tokyo Tower and Zojoji Temple before tower’s light is switched off.

This summer we are planning to have ‘Summer Special Ride’ besides our regular weekend tour.  Summer Morning Ride is for Tsukiji and central Tokyo area to ride in early morning. And Summer Evening Ride is for water front area and canal to ride in the evning. For more information, please look at our website ! 

Top page icon design – Tanabata Festival

Maybe not many people have noticed, but  on the top page of our website, we put small icon which shows seasonal event in Japan every month.

I put this  for July.

 

Tanabata festival or star festival which usually is held on July 7th (lunar month) and originally comes from Chinese folk story.  For details,  please read the article of wikipedia.

We celebrate Tanabata festival writhing our wishes on strips of colorful paper and hang them on bamboo branches. It’s one of exciting seasonal events, especially for small kids.

Last Saturday, on our tour, we visited a pilot shop of Niigata Prefecture in Nihombashi. All of us wrote our wishes. <Above picture>  I wished world peace, happiness of human beings …. and a little bit (?) for my private

Rainy season 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rainy season is called ‘梅雨’ (TSUYU) in Japanese. It literally means ‘Plum Rain’ , it is said the reason why we call so is that the fruit of the plum tree is ripe in this season of the year and we have much rain in this time.

Every year the Meteorological Agency announces the beggining and ending of the rainy season. Following is the forecast of this year’s rainy season period for Tokyo area announced by Weather News Company (Japanese page)

1. Forecast for 2009                 From   Jun. 8           to   Jul. 16
2. Last year                                       May 29                Jul. 19
3. Average year                                   Jun. 8                  Jul. 20

 [  It is  going to rain gently and softly and the temperature will be lower than usual in June, and  in early July the weather will be hot and humid during a break in the rainy season. At the end of the rainy season , it will rain rather heavily. ]

Construction site of the new Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower, built in 1958  with 333-meters-hight , is still the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, and it was originally built for television and radio broadcasting purpose. But because we have more and more high rise buildings now in Tokyo, so Tokyo Tower is not enough high to cover its broadcasting area and now we have plan to have the new Tokyo Tower – Tokyo Sky Tree.

Last week I went to the construction site of Tokyo Sky Tree to see how is the construction progressing. Ofcourse I went there with my bike!  I can’t tell they have good progress or not, but it looks the construction is going forward! At this moment, it’s about 20 meters high almost same as the 10-floor-apartment building. When the tower is completed in 2011, it will become 610 meters high ! 

Riding around this area by bike, I could still feel the atmosphere of old and small downtown in Tokyo. Maybe there will have a drastic change in this are for coming several  years.  

Long Ride Event @Japan in 2009

We are operating a city bike tour, rather a fun ride with many stops, chat, including lunch and snack time.

But if you are a serious cyclists, here are your choices! 

Bigger image of this list, please click here! (MS Excel file will be opened)

This year, I want to try a hill crime for my first time in my life. Maybe in autumn, summer is too hot to try…

The May Grand Sumo Tournament @Tokyo

Photo by Antoine

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you know, Sumo is Japan’s  national sport and a type of  martial arts, but it originally was a religious ritual of Shinto (Japan’s indigenous religion). The story can be traced back to ancient times and the ritual was used to tell the harvest would be rich or poor, by seeking the divine intention of the Gods.

In the 16th century, it became an entertainment sport and during the Edo period many people enjoyed watching Sumo at shrines and temples, and this is the origin of current professional Sumo.

 Photo by M. Abe (TGCT)

(He is wearing a mask! To protect himself from the swine flu!?)

 

 

 

There are six Grand Sumo tournaments (Hon Basho) each year, three of them are held in Ryogoku, at the Sumo Hall (Ryogoku Kokugikan) in Tokyo. They are called Tokyo Basho and have tournaments in January, May and September every year. This year’s May Grand Sumo Tournament (Tokyo Basho) started on May 10th and will end on the 24th.

Everyday the wrestling match (bout) starts in the early morning for lower rank wrestlers and  continues until late afternoon for higher rank wrestlers’. During this period, many Sumo wrestlers can be seen around the Sumo Hall and you will know right away who the low rank wrestlers are and who are high. The high rank wrestlers are walking together with their assistants and the lower rank wrestlers are walking by themselves carrying their own belongings. You might also be able to tell the difference from their Kimono (traditional Japanese clothing) – those wearing simple cotton Kimono are lower in rank, and those wearing luxury silk Kimono in beautiful colour are of course higher in rank!  

The general admission tickets are available at 8:00 AM at the Sumo hall main gate at 2,100yen. With this ticket, you can stay for the whole day ! Maybe worth a try!?

We have a bike tour riding through Ryogoku area every Sunday. Please check here!

Wagashi – Japanese sweets

Wagashi, which means Japanese sweets is usually made of  starch syrup  (or sugar), rice, wheat and (pasted red) bean – relatively few kinds of ingredients.  It is often served with green tea, so it is sweet but free of oil and fat, and unlike western confectioneries, fruits are not normally used for wagashi.

The taste is of course very important for wagashi, but the appearance is also very much emphasized. Sometimes it is regarded even as art work. 

Although the ingredients of wagashi are the same all year around, you can actually feel the season from the appearance and the taste.  The above photo is  Sakura Mochi, which literally means  ” Cherry Rice Cake” - a rice cake filled with pasted red bean and wrapped with a pickled cherry leaf. It is available from mid February until early April, during the season of  Girl’s day (Hinamatsuri – March 3rd) and the cherry blossoms . Usually wagashi is sold a bit ahead of the actual season. So if you go to Watashi shops right now, you’ll find another kind of wagashi.

Tuna auction @Tsukiji fish market

 
On our bike tour – Tokyo Bay Ride on Saturdays - we visit the Tsukiji Fish Market every time. But because we usually arrive at around 11:30AM, the market is just closing down. (But don’t worry you can still feel excitement there)  Today, Masa, Haruna and I visited Tsukiji to see the tuna auction. We have never been to the auction, as we tend to think we can visit whenever we want, and so we have missed the chance for a very long time. What a shame it was not visit the fish market!! 

We arrived at Tsukiji at 5:00 in the morning, and as this of course  was too early for the train service, we instead rode our bicycle. The visitors area is open between 5:00 – 6:15, but when we arrived, many people including overseas visitors were already there! Although it was very in the early morning, but everyone looked excited to see tons of enormous tunas lying around, and so we were.

The auction is split into two parts, first  at 5:30 and the second at 6:00. Before the auction started, an intermediate wholesaler checked the meat quality around the tuna’s tail. The trader rang the bell, and announced  the start of the auction, then shouted in high-spirited voice the auction number, the current highest price, and the bidder’s name at the end of each bid. Everything was so speedy, it was impossible to understand what they were saying perfectly, even for the Japanese.

We watched the auction breathlessly. We now we know why Tsukiji is so popular amongst overseas tourists and marked as a must see spot in Tokyo!

Cycling under cherry blossoms

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sakura trees in Tokyo are now in full bloom!!  The weather was just perfect today, a lot of people were outdside to enjoy the flowers. Of ourse we enjoyed cycling under the cherry blossoms!