Japanese summer is hot and humid. When you go out from your house, you sweat profusely.
But if you eat anmitsu, the heat of summer will vanish immediately!

Anmitsu is one of the most popular Japanese sweets in summer. It means bean jam, agar, and pieces of fruit served in syrup. You can eat it everywhere in Japanese cafes but I will introduce an especially delicious place in Tokyo this time.
Mihashi is a long-established sweet store which was founded in 1948. The main store is in Ueno, but there are another 6 stores in and around Tokyo. Although there are many sweet stores in Tokyo,　this one is famous for having a strong obsession for the ingredients. They always use Bean jam (adzuki beans) from Tokachi in Hokkaido. The brown sugar is from the south island 200km to the left of Okinawa.

The lightly coloured syrup between black syrup and white syrup. Agar is made from agar-agar blended in Miyake island, Hachijyou island, and Koudzu island.

Creamed anmitsu is 530 yen. Agar, syrup, red peas, bean jam, and oranges are topped with thick soft cream. It tastes very smooth. The Agar is chewy and fresh.
If you go there in the daytime of a weekend, maybe you have to have line up to eat it, but eating anmitsu in the hot summer must be very delicious!

(Translated by Humi)

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What do you associate with summer? In Japan, fireworks are the real feeling of summer. We wear yukata (Japanese traditional costumes), go to festivals, eat or play something at stalls, and watch fireworks. This is the standard style in Japan and used as a date spot.

By the way, there are toy sparklers in our country. This is an epoch-making thing. Because we can play with sparklers (fireworks) easily very much. In fact, you can enjoy very much if you play with them with your family, friends, and boy or girl friend. Generally, these are made for children but can enjoy regardless of age or sex because sparklers are very safe if you don’t use them wrong.
For example, waving sparklers or pointing them to someone.

“senkou fireworks” is one of the most popular sparklers among Japanese. Senkou means an incense stick in Japan and this figure is similar to incense stick. This sparkler is very short-lived but very beautiful. If you get toy fireworks, you
should try to this!

(Written by Humi)

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Every Japanese knows Peko-chan. She has been one of the original characters in Fujiya (Famous confectionery in Japan) since she was born in 1950. The meaning of her name, ‘Peko’, is calfs.

Peko-chan yaki which is made in the shape of her face can only be bought in Kagurazaka, Tokyo in spite of there being a lot of Fujiya shops in Japan. The outside tastes savory but the inside is fluffy, soft and mellow.

Adzuki beans, chocolates, custard cream, and cheese are standard flavors. In addition, 2 more kinds of tastes are added. They change every month or every season and those sorts are rich in variety! For example, Black sesame bean jam, mangoes, pineapples, vegetables curry, and so on. You can buy them for a really reasonable price (about 1 dollar for 1 cake) so you can enjoy a lot of different kinds of tastes. If you buy some kinds of Peko-chan yaki, you can’t tell what their flavors are from their outward appearances so they wear ribbons marked with their flavors. They look very cute!

Poko-chan who is Peko-chan’s boyfriend has also been in appearance as doll yaki since 2006. There a few of him produced, so if you meet him, you are lucky!

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Kanzashi means a long ornamental hairpin in Japanese. This is one of the Japanese traditional hair accessories. Kanzashi was the most popular at the end of the Edo period (about 200 years ago) and hair accessory artisans created many kinds of beautiful works.

Kanzashi’s popularity was waning with the popularity of Western hairstyles, and only used by brides in Shinto weddings and geisha or geiko in modern times. But in recent years, this has become popular among young Japanese women again. They are charmed by kanzashi’s elegant beauty, and would like to incorporate it in their usual Western clothes. Although raw materials were like lacquered wood, gold/silver-plated metals, tortoiseshell, and silk in the past, plastics are major materials at present.

But the beauty of kanzashi hasn’t changed and this accessory is loved by many women now too!
As we wrote above, Japanese tried to incorporate kanzashi in Western clothes. And it was successfull. Recently there have been so many kinds of Western-style cute kanzashi in accessory shops. How to use it is very easy. So beginers can use it easily by themselves. And of course, there are traditional beautiful ones too. When we wear kimono or yukata, we often use it.

Wargo-nippon is the only web selected shop which specializes in kanzashi. Their concept is ‘Japanese accessory goods incorporate daily fashion.’So, this site deals in various of types of kanzashi. For example, Japanese, Asian, Western, limited goods, and so on. They deal in original ones at the center, and some of them are the only one in the world, made by artists of various types. They send special goods you can’t ever find at other places!

(Written by Humi)

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Have you ever eaten or seen TAIYAKI? It is Japanese confectionery and means fish-shaped pancakes stuffed with bean jam (ann).

Although we can eat “famed” fish (baking many taiyaki at once) in a lot of places, “natural” fish (baking them one by one) are very rare because workmen need to learn a special technique.

YANAGI-YA is one of the rare shops which bake natural taiyaki(140 JPY). Lots of people stand in a long line to buy them made by expert workmen even on the weekdays. This shop was established in 1916.

They use the highest ranked adzuki beans and the way of how to make bean jam hasn’t changed for 94 years! After baking taiyaki, many other shops cut down the parts left on the edge because they look unattractive but in the case of Yanagi-ya, they don’t do such things on purpose. They know, this part is the most delicious!!

(Translated by Humi)

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Have you ever thought it was too simple when you write letters or cards to your beloved persons? You wrote down whatever came into your mind and decorated it in a lovely way but you want to add a little more…..

A KAOIRO STAMP is only for making face marks. KAO means FACE, IRO means colors, and KAOIRO means COMPLEXION in Japanese. Those marks are a little different from European and American ones. Of course we use them on letters or e-mails too but we use much more detail! Actually, designers got the idea for kaoiro stamps from daily stamps. Each dial is part of a face and you can make your own original one. This stamp can make more than 2000 kinds of expressions! You can use it for your special signs, messages, or little jokes.

This stamp has become the center of public attention now in Japan too, and many people give it to someone as a gift. If you get letters that contain face marks made by that stamp, you may be able to feel a little happiness, but the senders can also feel the pleasure of making them! This can make each person feel confortable, so it’s no doubt that the stamp is handy as gift too.

(Written by Humi)

*Gaijin Life reviews this Kaomoji stamp; Kaomoji (^_^) — Japanese emoticons (^ 0 ^ )/

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Do you want to little stimulus in everyday life? If that “stimulus” were snacks and you could get them easily, do you think you would want to try them?

There are spicy snacks all over the world, but “Bokun Habanero” is special. This is not only hot and tastes just like potatoes but also tastes of vegetables. This snack strengthens the taste of tomates and a mellow mushroom flavor. By improving them, “delicious” and “spicy” could keep the best balance. Of course this is very hot and spicy, but you will never have had enough of them. Once you start to eat this snack, you won’t be able to quit!

If you aren’t satisfied with “Bokun Habanero”, there is another kind of spicy snack from the same company.

“The evilest tyrant Habanero” is in doubanjiang (it is a Chinese seasoning) which enriches the taste. And “Devil Jolokia” is very popular too. This is used in “Bhut Jolokia”. which was recognized as the most spicy cayenne pepper in the world in 2006. It’s a complicated mixed spice, black pepper, and the sour taste of tomatoes make exquisite harmony. They are for advanced people.
If you think Death Rain or Doritos flavor are not good enough, you should try to eat them and find your favorite snack!

(Written by Humi)

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Many junior and senior high schools have their own school uniforms in Japan, but recently, there are an increasing number of schools which don’t adopt that system. For example, about 10 percent of seinior high schools in Tokyo don’t have uniforms. It’s very hard and troublesome to choose clothes every morning. That was why “Nanchatte Seihuku” appeared in Japan.

“Nanchatte” means “only as a joke” and “Seifuku” means “school uniform.”

There are some shops selling school uniforms goods (like blazers, shirts, skirts, slacks, ribbons, ties, socks, and so on) and students (especially girls) enjoy creating their own original school uniforms. They coordinate their own school uniforms by themselves, so they can feel a strong attachment to them! And it’s much cheeper than buying many clothes. If you get tired of that style, you can change to another uniform just by buying a new item. For example, by changing the color of the shirt, ribbons, or tie.

CONOMi is the biggest internet shop in Japan and specializes in goods of ‘nanchatte seifuku’ and arCONOMi is it’s original brand. The brand’s concept is “Love School Uniform(恋する制服)” ; “Schools are for studying, but love and dressing up are also very important.” If such girls wear uniforms of arCONOMi, they can shine brightly!
CONOMi has shops in Harajyuku(Tokyo) and Nagano too.

(Written by Humi)

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Cakes, macaroons, cookies, and chocolate…..Do you like sweets? Maybe many people will answer “yes”. So, do you want to be surrounded by such pretty sweets everyday? If your answer was “yes” again, you should pay attention this time much more than before!

Today, we’ll introduce you to “Sweets Deco.” This means “people decorate many things with pretty sweets.” Of course we don’t decorate with real sweets but the parts are made by resined clay and they look like real ones! The glue is silicone and this serves as whipped cream. Decoration artists make full use of those sweets parts, silicone whipped cream, and colored sauce to make wonderful sweets goods! They give many women a lot of dreams. Have you ever dreamed of living in the house made of sweets in “Hansel and Gretal” ? Although you can’t live in that house, you can spend happy days surrounded by many pretty sweets.

“Dolce Deco” is the website managed by Yukari Kumagai who is a sweets deco artist. They make and sell “sweets decoden”(=decorated cell phones), sweets straps, sweets keyrings, DSi/DS Lite covers, iPod covers, accessories cases, compact ashtrays, mirrors, necklaces, bracelets and so on. All of them are handmade. Her works are picked by many media and she appears in lots of Japanese TV shows and magazines too.
Decoden kits and some sweets parts are also sold at this website so you can make sweets deco goods by yourself!

Yukari Kumagai

*history
2005 When she lived in the U.S., she showed her sweets decorated works on her blog.
Models, actresses, and talent put on her macaroon straps and accessories as their favorite ones
2006 Dolce Deco set up as a web shop.

*media
Sweets decoden were shown on Fuji TV “Appare Sanma Shinkyoujyu.” It was the first time they were introduced in Japan.
Brand collaborated bags were showed in “Shibuya Tokyo Girls Collection”.
Appeared in “Himesama no corner” of TBS “Ousama no branch”.
Appeared on NHK “Tokyo Kawaii TV”.

*magazine
BRUTUS, Scawaii, Jelly, Decostyle and so on, American advertising agency Japanese culture of “Wise ＋ Kenedy”

*school
Opening of a sweets deco class in Ikebukuro Community College, school tour ship of Inc.
Lisow Education, LAFORE Harajuku Sendai, workshop in PARCO Niigara, Dolce Deco Nakameguro private school. Appeared as a lecture in a hobby show superintended Japan Hobby Society.

*plan and production
2009 Aug. Appeared in event plan of Inc.Johnson.
Sep. Appeared in event plan of scotch 3M.

2009 Dec. Disney Sweets Deco Book went on sale written by Yukari Kumatani and Miwa Tani.

(Written by Humi)

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Have you ever come across situations in which you’re troubled with what shoes you should put on?
For example, when you go shopping with your friends or when you have a date with your boyfriend, you have already chosen your favorite clothes, but you can’t choose your shoes so readily.

You want to display your originality in fashion. Although your clothes at this time are casual, if you put on common sneakers it’s not interesting!
“High-heeled sneakers” are very unique fashion items. At first sight, they look like common sneakers, but actually high heels are put on those soles. This item is neither pumps nor sneakers. You can get not only a cool, sporty, active and casual style, but also your legs look long and beautiful!

There are many color variations. In addition, since the soles are sneakers, they’re very comfortable shoes.
Let’s put on heeled sneakers and have a great advantage over your friends!

(Written by Humi)

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