Weird Japanese Drinks & Beverages
If you’re interested in a “Cool Calpiss Drink” you must already be living in Japan, which offers cucumber flavored pepsi soda, real chilled breast milk, and black vinegar juice:
Check out this list of The Top Ten Weird and Bizarre Japanese Soft Drinks. You’ll never look at coffee the same way again!
Bon Kyu Bon (ボンキュボン) Fashion Style
The new style in Japan called “bon-kyu-bon” means “big-small-big” and trails the Western obsession with buxom girls, small waists, and big hips. You just have to hear the Commodores sing “36-24-36, what a winning hand!” in their hit disco song Brick House to realize this isn’t anything new. It’s not often that you see Japanese fashion on Digg, but with the mostly male geek crowd there are plenty of Japanophiles.
This wouldn’t fly in the US, but in Japan everything is game
Apparently the new trend is driven by better, calorie-rich Western nutrition:
Today, the average Japanese woman’s hips, at 35 inches, are around an inch wider than those of women a generation older. Women in their 20s wear a bra at least two sizes larger than that of their mothers, according to Wacoal. Waist size, meanwhile, has gotten slightly smaller, accentuating many young women’s curves. The average 20-year-old is also nearly three inches taller than she was in 1950, according to government statistics, and the average foot has grown by nearly a quarter of an inch.
The Star wants to indicate that Koda Kumi is to blame for the “show it all off” trend:
The cleavage craze took off in 2003, when a young pop star named Kumi Koda appeared in ads around Tokyo wearing a barely-there metallic bra and not much else. In one image, she wore coconut shells over her chest. Then, two years later, she performed at the televised Japan Record Awards wearing thin tape-like gold satin straps over her breasts that revealed nearly everything when she danced. The 24-year-old star has become the champion of a new “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” attitude among young Japanese women.
You can check out these photos of singer Koda Kumi yourself if you get bored. I really like her. As for the style, if I were a girl I’d probably try it; since I’m not and have to wear a suit most of the time, I will never have the opportunity… and it’s getting so hot here!
Sayuri Anzu Photos?
Someone uploaded these photos to my free image host, under that title “cute sayuri.” So, I’m not sure which Sayuri they are talking about, but Sayuri Anzu (after minor Google-ing) seems like the best bet.
The defining feature for cuteness, in my experience, is really enormous eyes. This Sayuri Anzu definitely has them, and that soft fox-face look which betrays cute-not-sexy when you see it. If I have a daughter she will look this cute!
Utada Hikaru Divorced
Utada Hikaru just got divorced. She writes about it (in translation by Hikki):
Yesterday, on March 2nd, I, Utada Hikaru, and Kiriya Kazuaki, officially divorced.
To all the people who have supported us until now, we would like to thank you very much. Our apologies for surprising you with the short notice. We believe that both of us have learned so much and grown up with the 4-year and a half marriage. While we mutually keep changing, a perception gap on the direction of the future and concept of marriage has gradually emerged between us. The lack of communication in our life, passing each other while both are working internationally, is one big reason as well.
“Though divorce is a pity, it was good that we have met each other” - that is what we talked. As an creator and a dear friend, we hope we can continue watching the growth of each other. I am looking forward to following Kiriya-kun’s career in the future.
March 3rd 2007 Utada Hikaru
It’s a pretty mild divorce–probably the result of her growing musical ambition and her husband’s divergent movie career. It’s hard to stay together when you’re not in the same business.
Japanese Emoticon List
Here’s a pretty cool list of the top 30 or so Japanese Emoticons. Asian emoticons generally seem to come in the following form:
emoticon ::= ear (eye mouth/nose eye) ear
The trick is that you have to visualize a face laid out horizontally instead of vertically, after which the Asian-style emoticon directly resembles a human face:
- (^_^)
- (>_< )>
- (^_^;)
- (ToT)
- m(_ _)m
- (^^;)
- （￣ー￣）
- (≧∇≦)
- （￣□￣；）
- (#^.^#)
I like the last one best (#^.^#) Some other lists of emoticons can be found below:
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