My favorite discount drugstore chain in Japan is Matsumoto Kiyoshi. An interesting characteristic about the store chain is that items are priced differently depending on the location, so you have to do your research to know where to purchase what.

Anyway, I found myself at Matsu Kiyo in Umeda in Osaka, which my mom swears has the cheapest prices overall among Matsu Kiyo stores nationwide. I spent 45 minutes there last weekend finding birthday present items for my sister and examining items that I’ve never seen in any of their Tokyo locations.

Some of the more interesting ones: a glue-type thing that helps shape your eyes to create an ephicanthal fold (which makes you look “cuter”), lip cream made of uric acid (supposed to make your lips soft, but as PMK says, “Why not pee on your lips if that’s the case?”), a powder that helps you get rid of panty outlines on your skin (a must-have pre-sex item?), and a powder that makes your nipples pink (hence the title of this blog item).

Don’t worry M, I didn’t get you any of them… though I was tempted to get you the lip cream.

We went to see Spiderman at Roppongi Hills two weekends ago (I’m behind on my blog). The movie theater was having a big promotion for the movie Deep Blue, featuring, you’ll never guess — three penguins on loan from an aquarium. The penguins were in a little cage no bigger than a coffee table with one block of ice between them to cool them down. They were inside a barely air-conditioned theater on an extremely hot day.

So cruel.

A large order of fries in Japan is the equivalent of a medium order in the United States. Another reason why even fastfood-eating Japanese are skinnier than the average American.

PMK tells me that people are freaking out because it was recently unveiled that a grande frappucino at Starbucks has over 800 calories.

Okay, not exactly milk, but milk-colored bath salts. A hot spring hotel in a famous resort was caught putting bath salts in their bath water, which was known for its special milk-colored water. Apparently, the water source was losing its color so the hotel felt like they needed to “reinforce” the milkiness.

Yes, it does exist. Come to Japan during the summer, and you’ll see almost every woman carrying a sun umbrella (parasole). For the most part, they’re frilly, pastel-colored, silly-looking things.

On the other hand, after two weeks of extreme heat in Japan, I understand better why women carry them. Sunglasses don’t prevent the sun from burning your face and a hat can look pretty stupid when you’re wearing a suit or dress. And the sun in Japan is simply intolerable, especially with all the walking we have to do here.

Hence, last Friday, I found myself at a department store going through the sun umbrellas to find the least frilly, flowery one. Lo and behold, I find a Furla umbrella made out of a cream colored linen-like material that prevents UV rays from going through. It had a navy ribbon edge, but was probably the most decent one I saw.

Imagine Furla trying to sell sun umbrellas in the U.S.. Wonder if they sell them in Italy where the rays are even stronger…

The Japanese obsession with efficiency and convenience apparently extends to glasses.

I saw a commercial the other day for glasses with removable lenses so women can reapply makeup without removing their glasses. The idea is that they would lift up one lens at a time while seeing out of their other eye.

Another commercial I saw was for a baseball cap with sunglasses attached to the hat. You can lift the sunglasses up when not using them.

Needless to say both were butt ugly. The baseball cap with glasses, in particular, looked even ugly on the beautiful model that was pictured wearing it. Both seem to be the kind of thing that an inventor wannabe would conceive of.

The Japanese government last week chartered a plane for an American army deserter and his two daughters in North Korea and took them to Indonesia so he could see his Japanese wife. His wife, Hitomi Soga, was abducted from her hometown and taken to North Korea as a student nurse decades ago, but was repatriated last year.

Putting aside the fact that the Japanese are pressuring the U.S. basically on whim to not court martial Jenkins if he comes to Japan, all of this is just too much. I can see why the government may feel like they want to help this family, especially in an election year, but there was absolutely no reason they had to charter a plane or put them up in a suite of a five-star hotel in Jakarta. And the Japanese press are just as bad. They’ve lost any sense of news judgment on this topic.

The latest “development” highlights the ridiculousness of both the press AND the government. Seen on the news this afternoon: The menu on the charter plane that will bring the Jenkins family to Japan after a tacit agreement between Japan and the U.S. to not seek custody of Mr. Jenkins until he recovers from an unnamed illness.

Apparently they will have a choice of shrimp, salisbury steak or a Japanese meal. There will also be kimchee and rice balls as well as chocolate cake for daughter, Belinda, who loves chocolate.

The Mainichi Daily News is rapidly becoming my favorite English language news source in Japan. They have a top 10 news page that has little to do with relevance and all to do with popularity. Among the important news items I missed is a June 11 article: “Cancer,’ ‘excrement’ among controversial Japanese name character proposals”

Here’s an excerpt:
“The Chinese characters for “cancer,” “hemorrhoids,” “corpse” and “excrement” are among 578 proposed additions to the list of characters that Japanese parents could use to name their children, it has been learned.

The list of characters was released Friday by the name character section of the government’s legislative council. The proposed addition, which is the biggest since World War II, would raise the number of Chinese characters, or kanji, permitted for use in people’s names from 2,232 to 2,810.

The Ministry of Justice will seek comments on the characters from the public and could approve the selected characters for use in names as early as October after receiving a report from the legislative council.

While some of the characters on the list, such as the one for “curse” or the second character in the word for “rape,” seem unlikely candidates for characters in names, they were reportedly included as proposals because there was no measure to determine what was inappropriate and it was thought best to leave the decision up to parents.”

I remember when the parents of a young boy shocked the nation when they tried to name their child Akuma or devil.The father in an interview on TV said they chose the name because they wanted their son to grow up strong and learn that a name isn’t everything. I guess that’s one way to teach him that lesson. And one way to get on television.

The incident became nationwide news when an official at the local government declined to accept the name when the father showed up to add his son’s name to the family registry, fueling debate on whether the government should have any role in naming a child.

Apparently, the government has come around since then.

Japan is a country with a lot of rules. Everyone knows about the ritual in exchanging business cards, but one that is lesser known is probably seating when you visit an office or you go out to a business dinner. Suppose there is a room with the following layout:

Seat B, which is farthest from the door is the most honored seat. If you were visiting an office with a senior colleague, you would sit in seat A and your colleague would sit in seat B (you are the guest). If someone was visiting your office, you would seat him/her in seat B. A colleague of mine gave me this advice about visiting offices when I first got to Japan: When in doubt sit with your back to the window and you’re probably fine.

If this was a restaurant, you would apply the same rules in terms of the seat farthest from the entrance. The only time it gets tricky is when you’re the guest, but you arrive at the restaurant first — do you sit in the guest seat, or do you sit closest to the door as a sign of humbleness? I sit closer to the door, but it’s actually easier to wait for someone when you have a good view of the entrance. If you’re a foreigner, you probably won’t be expected to know these rules, but you might score bonus points if you do. If you’re the guest and you sit in the wrong seat, they’ll probably guide you to the right one, so you don’t have to worry too much about it. When I first starting working here and visited offices, they would have me switch seats all the time.

I think I found the candidate I’m going to vote for in the upper house elections. Here’s a brief description from the Mainichi Daily news:

“Shinobu Kandori, a platinum blonde (dyed, not natural) professional female wrestling and judo champion, grimaces as she is lifted by her opponent Noriyo Tateno during a match in Tokyo.

Kandori, who is running in Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party in the July 11 upper house election, has said she wanted to “enter the ring of national politics” to fight domestic violence and counter Japan’s falling birthrate.”

Yes, it’s true. The Mainichi Daily describes the flavor as the following:

“The chunks of meat inside it offer ample proof of why horseflesh is usually used in dog food.”

If that doesn’t tempt you, how about goat ice cream? ( “Made with, of course, goat’s milk, but also containing plenty of the rest of the animal.”)

The Mainichi also dug up the following flavors: whale, shark fin noodle, oyster, abalone, seaweed, deep sea water, spinach, dracula (garlic not blood), tomato, “sesame, soybean and dried kelp” (yep, that’s one flavor), lettuce and potato, wheat, natto, silk (didn’t know that was edible), chicken, beer, shochu (potato liquor).

Weird, but potentially good flavors: tulip, cherry blossom, red wine.

Baskin Robbins should consider a new chain called “The other 31 flavors”.

(Thanks Mac!)

Chou (pronounced “shoe”) creams, or cream puffs, in Japan are awesome. They are essentially pastries with tons of custard cream in it, or sometimes a mixture of whipped cream and custard. I’ve also had some with sliced bananas as well, but the plain custard ones are the best.

My favorite is Cozy Corner’s chou cream for 100 yen. I’ve had lots more that are more expensive, but I prefer the cheaper version, which probably doesn’t even have 100 percent custard inside.

PMK loves Beard Papa, a little stand that sells freshly made cream puffs. They recently opened a location in Manhattan to great success with lines going around the block.

If you wished you’d opened a Krispy Kreme franchise before it became hot, Beard Papa is definately worth looking at.

There’s a Mitsui Sumitomo Bank branch on the way to Roppongi from where we live. If you pass by there on a Sunday when the bank is closed, you might find 20-30 teenagers camping out in front of the bank. It’s a really odd sight that can also be occasionally found elsewhere in Tokyo. Some of them are sleeping, others are talking to each other, eating or smoking.

It’s unclear why they’re there because they don’t seem to be doing anything. It’s also unclear whether all of them know each other and are there by prior agreement. I asked a Japanese colleague of mine and he had no idea. It must be a generational thing.

I read a book by a Japanese author, Takuya Asakura, called “A Four Day Miracle” (translated). It was billed as a mystery/fantasy and was actually pretty good.

The story is too complicated to get into but the story involves a talented pianist (now disabled) in his late 20s or early 30s and a 15 year old slightly delayed girl. The pianist has been the girl’s guardian since she was 9 after her parents were killed in a mugging incident.

I was enjoying the book until I got toward the end where the girl seems to show a little romantic interest in the guy (i.e. she blushes when their eyes meet). The guy, who, let me repeat again, has raised the girl since she was 9, says to himself something along the lines of “… if her feelings for me deepen when she becomes an adult…”

That just struck me as sick. In what planet is it okay for a guardian to think in this way? PMK tells me Japan just made the U.S. watch list for child pornagraphy or something. It doesn’t surprise me when this kind of passage is accepted in a legitimate novel.