Japanese landscapes

Japanese ''jidou hanbaiki''

Aaaaaaaaaaand here we go again about my presentation about the most random stuff: Jidou hanbaiki.
translation, automatic vending machines.

Once again, you must ask yourselves: is this girl crazy?? talking about dictionaries, vending machines...

And once again, I will amaze you and surprise you by the wonders of Japan. I will prove to you that even a vending machine is so cool in Japan...! Or not.

Not to disappoint you or anything, but when I say that Japanese vending machines are so special, it's not because it's of the finest and latest technology, that you don't have to press the button as the drink you want is served by a robot, that it flows to your month directly without lifting a finger, and opens itself with your favourite music on the background. Without adding that the machine recognises the sound of your voice when it takes your order so as to find your bank account for you to pay without anything to do...!!

No no. It's just that... It looks very different from vending machines here or in Europe...it's more good looking, nicely designed, smooth..Without forgetting that everything is dirt cheap compared to those here or in Europe. And it is absolutely everywhere. In every corner of every road in the middle of nowhere between cows and sheeps. When you're a little bit thristy, when you're little hungry.. just look for those.



The most unique and special thing about those it that ... all their products are so good! So many drinks that you cannot find elsewhere in the world. So much variety, colours, tastes, brands, hot, cold, sweet, bitter... Bref. Everybody finds his happiness  It's something that you cannot miss when you go to Japan and that you should definitely try. I see it as part of my culture to have those everywhere, I grew up with those and I miss them a lot.

Japanese singer

 Now I'll talk about music.. stuff that I love so much.

One of my favourite Japanese singer ever, is Utada Hikaru. She is incredibly famous in our country, and sometimes even across the borders.

Utada Hikaru is a singer-compositor, born in Japan, raised in the US in a Japanese international school. (A friend of mine used to go there and she met her in real life!!!)

Unlike other singers, she has a perfect English accent. Which I love. Something you should know about Japanese people, is that they suck in English. Big time. So it's really nice to hear singers who can actually speak English and have a decent accent!

check some of her songs out, one of my favourite songs is ''sakura drops'' which means drops of cherry blossoms.

Japanese ''denshi jisho''

 What is  a ''denshi jisho''?

It's a dictionnary. But not an ordinary one.

It litterally means: electronic dictionnary.

Now you must be asking yourself, why I'm writing about a dictionnary. Yes I write about the most random stuff. But when you think about it, aren' t those random stuff usually the most interesting and unexpected stuff ever?

 Denshi jisho is part of every Japanese people's every day life. It is light, small, and it actually looks like a small laptop, with a screen that you can light up, and a keyboard. Some of them also has tactile screens where you can write on with a special pen. This is very useful for us, as sometimes when searching a definition of a word, we don't even know how to read the word as we don't know the Chinese characters of it! In that case you take the pen and you write it down, instead of looking for the character first to know how to read it and THEN search the definition of the word like in the old days...

 It's in fact such an ordinary and unexciting tool for us, that we actually don't talk about it. The funny part is that it exists since the beginning of time in Japan, but each time my non-Japanese friends see it, they freak out as if I had between my hands the most coolest thing ever of the latest technology after the Iphone 5.

It is indeed, very cool, and incredibly useful. You can search definitions, or translate. In either way, you can choose to put different languages.For example, mine has French, Englism Japanese and Spanish in it. I can translate from frenc to Japanese, the other way around, translate that into Spanish, to end up with the French word.

You'd maybe think that you can do the same thing with internet... or even with your phone..

Yes maybe, but it's still something increadibly practicle, you don't need internet or nothing to do it, and it's faster to search with that.It also has other features, like remembering words, and you can create customised revision sheets with vocabulary of your choice etc.. It also can give you synonyms, create sentences to give you examples in which your word is used to better understand the meaning of it, etc. You can also connect it to the computer to download updates or to trasfer infor;ation that you had saved in the dictionnary to your computer!

There is a large variety of them, and the latest versions and cost up to 200 dollars!!

Japanese purikuras

And now I'll talk to you about this thing called...

purikuras.

No, you have not heard of this word before!! It is unique, it's been there for ages, and it's now truly becoming part of modern Japanese culture.

it is basically a photobooth, but of the highest technology.

you pay around 500 yen(=a few dollars), and get into the photobooth where you have all kinds of frame, colours, themes that you can choose. They for a few minutes you have fun with your friends taking silly poses, funny faces, serious modelling faces...etcetc

You then get out of the photobooth, and now begins the second part! for the next 10 minutes its the war against time. Yes. you take your pen, jump to a corner from another, page one to 5, to decorate all your pictures.

you can add texts, frames, captions, change the colour of your hair, of your eyes, ... There is so many things you can do!

Once you're finished, your pictures are printed. and its stickers!

What people usually do is they cut all those purikuras and share between friends, and collect them.

You can decorate your notebooks, cell phones with them, or just give them to people whenever you want.

IT IS A LOT OF FUN you definitely have to try it when you have the chance! You can now find them in China too, they started importing them!

Japanese manga

Manga is basically Japanese comics. If I start talking about its history, it will be endless... That's how old it is in japan. every Japanese person has read all kinds of mangas throughout their lives, its part of our Culture. there is a lot of diffrent kinds, love comedy, horror, science fiction.. Just like with books!
 But these last few years, Japanese mangas became not only succesfull in Japan but everywhere in the world. So many mangas have been translated in different languages: Death note, One piece, Full metal alchemist....

These are mangas that you have heard of at least once!!

This manga boom mostly touched European countries, the biggest manga reader country after Japan being France!!

As I lived in France, I can tell you that it is TRUE. You can easily find mangas everywhere in bookstores, online.. There is even huge expositions organised each year entirely dedicated to mangas, it is impresive. It's called JAPAN EXPO if you want to check it out! You can go there to buy all kinds of Japanese stuff, food, and just to meet with people who share your passion for mangas.

people love doing ''cosplay'': they dress up like manga characters. Honestly, some of them are sometimes creepy. They give all they've got into those costumes! huge heels, red eye contacts, pink and sparly hair, etcetc..

If you ever have the chance to read a manga, try it! It's really different but I grew up with it and I find it really funny and entertaining.

Japanese food: sukiyaki

Speaking about Japanese food, most of the people will think about.. SHUSHIS yes.. shushis.

But you know what, it may be hard to believe, but Japanese people don't eat only sushis every day!
In fact, sushis are more like a special food that is eaten at cultural ceremonies and celebrations! It is far from being a dish that you will casually eat at a family dinner...


That is why i want to introduce you to a dish called, ''sukiyaki''.
When you directly traslate this name, it goes like this: like and cook. It litterally means that you cook anything you want. Ok, not ANYTHING either!

In a sukiyaki you normally put all kinds of vegetable,tofu,jelly noodles and meat, all this being cooked in a sweet soya sauce based sauce in a huge pot :) It is one of my favourite dishes. I will strongly recommend you taste it.

it is really a convivial dish, one of those where people gather around the  pot, and eat from eat. It is so good and so fun to do with people you love!

now, itadakimasu!

''the beginning of everything...''

First post of my blog.
I'll be posting about my life, myself, Japan, Canada, .. everything that influences me in my life!

I hope you will enjoy :)