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On our street, I noticed this really cool looking Japanese restaurant nearly immediately after we moved in to the area. It’s an old fashion, wooden-made restaurant that serves traditional Japanese food in a set that usually consists of some sashimi, a few tempura, pickles, a bowl of rice and a miso soup (obviously). The other day, as I walked by the restaurant, I saw a lady in yukata (sort of kimono), watering the plants in old fashion style and I thought to myself it was such a cool contrast with the rest of the street where you can find mobile phone shops, convenient stores, drug stores, arcades, hairdressers, etc.

Here’s the photo of the restaurant:

On May 5th, it’s kodomo no hi (Children’s day) in Japan, a day to respect children’s personalities and to celebrate their happiness. It was originally a day for boys only, but now it is for children; however most of the kodomo no hi traditions are followed for boys only, girls being also celebrated for the hinamatsuri (Doll’s day) in March.

Before this day, families raise the carp-shaped flags in their garden, one for each son; carp represent strength (legends state that carps can swim up waterfalls), and success in life. This flag is called koinobori (carp streamer); it is made of several carps: the black carp at the top represents the father, the red carp represents the mother, and the last carp, generally a blue one, represents the son, with an additional carp added for each subsequent son.

As I was walking in my area, in front of a tatami shop, I found this lovely carp streamer.

In Japan, everything has to be cute. The Japanese word for cute is “kawaii” and you hear this word quite a lot!  This cute phenomenon is something I discovered quite early after I arrived and something I have really enjoyed from day one, being a fan of cute things myself. In the country where “kawaii” is a must, even banks and railway companies use cute mascots to interact with their customers, as if they want to reach the kind and docile part of people.

As a designer, this is a very interesting fact to know. Below is an example of these cute characters; this one is the mascot of our local train line in Tokyo, the Toyoko line by the Tokyu Corporation. The company name sounds so big, important, nearly pompous… and their mascot is “Norurun”, the little smiley train. Imagine if Irish Rail in Ireland or SNCF in France asked designers to redesign their brand identity and ended up with a “Norurun”… I think Hell would have frozen over before that happens!

Other photos of Norurun and the company’s campaigns using Norurun.

Two weeks ago, in Kawasaki, a city near Tokyo, was held the Kanamara festival, also known as the “Festival of the Steel Phallus“. I had heard about it a long time ago, when we were living in the Yamanashi prefecture and wanted to find out more about it. So what is that festival anyway? The festival is celebrated at the Kanamara shrine, in Kawasaki. During the Edo period, that area had quite a lot of “tea houses” (i.e. brothels) and local prostitutes used to go to the Kanamara shrine to pray for the protection of the gods against diseases. Later, people started to go to the shrine to pray for fertility, clan’s prosperity, good marriage and married-couple harmony, easy delivery and even business prosperity. Nowadays, it is a very touristic festival and it is being used as a way to bring awareness to sexually transmitted diseases and raise funds. Now, it’s not the most classy festival (quite the opposite actually) but it was worth going once!

It’s this time of the year where Japan gets all excited (and crazy) about the cherry blossom! It’s my second time seeing cherry blossom in Japan and I have to say I am still quite amazed at how beautiful everything gets… I am definitely becoming more Japanese (also for the fact that I took about a hundred photos of the same flowers)! What stroke me is the anticipation of the event and how people get organised to see the finest cherry blossom! There is even a Cherry Blossom Forecast on TV and on the internet. This year’s forecast was:

The Cherry Blossom Festival in Nakameguro was quite impressive: on both sides of the Meguro river are cherry trees and during the festival they are lit up at night and lanterns are put up between the trees; food and drink stalls are also set up along the river; people just stroll on the quays with friends, family or colleagues, while watching the lit up cherry trees. The atmosphere is quite unique…

Photos on Flickr