snowy tokyo

On the almost February end, it is snowy in Tokyo.
It is the first snow, we called "Hatsu Yuki".

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Unagi Power

I like "Unagi" that is eel. Unagi is the power food for many of Japanese. There is a little difference of cooking between western and eastern in Japan, but they are similar anyway. We usually like to have a grilled unagi with the sauce(so called "tare yaki") or just with salt(so called "shirayaki").

Here is the picture of "Una-juu" we have last week, that is the grilled unagi lapping over the rice. "Una" and "Juu" stands for "unagi" and "lapping over rice" respectively.

At the supermarket, we can see grilled unagi imported from China. Those are cheep,but a kind of unsellable. Many of Japanese are nervous when any food imported from China because of their fear about the contamination in China. So they choose Japanese eel that is almost double price.

I don't know the eel the unagi restaurant uses is from China or Japan, but we don't care almost. hahaha

I guess most of the unagi restaurants don't have English sign like "Unagi" so you may see just "鰻" in Japanese, but if you want to have a good Unagi, you may ask anybody you meet on the street. I guess every town in Japan have some local unagi restaurants, and they may like it.

Ume in bloom

Recently, it has beem a kind of warm, so that the flowers might almost be coaxed into showing signs of blooming.

At the park in YOYOGI area, I could enjoy seeing Japanese apricot trees in bloom. It is really cute pink flower that is a kind of the sign of the spring coming. So it is earlier than SAKURA in bloom.

The plum trees will be in bloom until early March.


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Ruby City Matsue Tour

I visited Matsue City in Shimane prefecture to attend as a panelist of the OSS promotion event held by Shimane Univ.

Whie waiting some person in front of the gate of the University, I noted the gate itself.

According to the explanation plate of the gate, it is made of pier white granite, built in 1924(TAISHO 13th). And it was registered as the tangible cultural properties.

Actually, this city is unique. It has been labeled "Ruby City" recently, because Mr. Matz who develops the programming language "ruby" lives in Matsue, so the city government use to promote "ruby" strategically.

It is the reason why the focus of the event is almost how to cultivate the software industry in Matsue using ruby language. We enjoyed some discussions among the regional government officer and some business person, anyway.

After that, we were invited to join the dinner, that was shimane-style. Of cource it was good.

Here are Deborah, the manager of Open Source lab in Oregon State University, and Noda, Shimane Univ. They are active and zealous to promote Open Source.

By the way, I was surprised Ms. Deborah could use HASHI - chopsticks very well, and she liked to have some Japanese sake. She told me that using hashi is a kind of common habit in the West. Really?

On the table, we could see the Japanese haiku written by the restaurant manager so called "okami".
It reads freely:

We feel spring is coming, when we see the apricot tree in bloom like an attractive woman, and the Shinji-lake is shining simultaneously.

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TOKYO Gourmet - community

i reminded there are online TOKYO Gourmet Community I opened before.

On orkut.com, there are 630 more members.
TOKYO Gourmet / orkut.com
http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=11468


On facebook.com, there are some 100 members at this time.
TOKYO Gourmet / facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27867490638

Interestingly, there are a lot of foreigners living in TOKYO, so you can easily enjoy to exchange information. Yes, getting better food is the common issue for all. So I believe all of members are willing to help strangers in TOKYO.

Why not come and join us?
Have fun!

OHSHO - a reasonable chain chinese restaurant

When I was a teen-aged boy, I often go to OHSHO, a kind of chinese casual restaurant, to have a lunch after playing in the music studio. Actually I used to play drums with some jazz func so called 'fusion'.

Today, I went into OHSHO to have a lunch on the way to IPA office. It's been a while since I had some in OHSHO.

OHSHO is a good chinese restaurant or rather casual, and reasonable one. I don't know whether they have the menu in English. But if you look for some reasonable chinese just to reduce hunger by eating, it is not so bad. Get in and just say, "Gyoza" means dumpling. Gyoza plate costs just 220 yen. Cheap and pretty good.

Actually, OHSHO is a kind of historical chain restaurant, and it is the listed company and they seems to do well at work as far as taking a look at their stock chart. They aren't Jiao-zi stock! ;-)

I sometimes see some travellers looking for the reasonable restaurant, but they seems to confused to read their TOKYO/JAPAN guidebook. I think they don't need to be hesitate to ask Japanese men and women around them anytime. They may look shy but they know and they can explain where the reasonable shops are, at least, more than the guidebook written in English...

May I help you?


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Academy Hills at ROPPONGI

At Roppongi, there is the area named Roppongi-Hills including the typical big tower.

There are a kind of large mall, the business tower, art museum, movie theater, and the library. My favorite space is Academy Hills, that is the membershiped library on the 40th and 46th floor.

Today I am in the special space of the library to write some reports for the school(actually I am a student of business administration;-).

The space as the follow is yellow circled. I do not know how good for concentrate, anyway I feel pretty good ;-).

Academy Hills is the membershipped library, popular among the researchers, business person, and jounalists as far as I know.

FYI:
http://www.academyhills.com/english/index.html

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40085701080



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Google Chrome Out of Beta Party

I attended the party Google Chrome Out of Beta Party at the Google Office in TOKYO Shibuya, the sessions included some exciting information about Google Chrome and 10 lightning talks by fans.

"Information needs to be free"

quoted by Kazuho Oku in his talk, he introduced his concept about Web browser is not for just viewing but for utilizing web sites.

Google Chrome Out of Beta Party

Google provided some souvenir for attendants at the party ends, and they announced to send Manga about the development story of Chrome in Japan! Checking out.


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1st "TOKYO CROWDS"

I am Rio OKADA,TechStyle founder and CEO, living in TOKYO since 2000.This blog is for publishing the information about Japan in English,which information are very few.

Focuses are:
- venture biz info for investers
- music, food trend for sightseeners and just interests.
- for engineers especially security, web, crowdsourcing, marketing (that my interests are.)