コキュCocue my favorite store in Japan!

Check out their web site! It’s fairly easy to navigate even if you don’t speak Japanese. www.world.co.jp/cocue/

The first time I was in Tachikawa shopping I noticed this brightly colored store of clothes and what not, but what really got my attention was the shoes. As I took a closer look I found shoe clips and shoe bands. Shoe bands became one of my favorite things! This store is most popular for their shoe clips and bands.

Here is a preview of this seasons collection!

I like that this skirt come with a slip.

Hippie chic!

Cocue also has a great selection of unique hats and purses! 

Awesome hat that would pair nicely with the dress above!

Sun-brella! or just an umbrella.

One thing that is popular in Japan is having an umbrella to protect your skin from the sun! Most people in Japan value the soft white skin tone. Plus why not have it match your wardrobe!

Cute clip on bow you can attach to a purse or even your clothes.

The strap on these shoes is much easier to fasten then the kind you have to tread through the hole. All you do is clip/clasp it and your ready to go! Makes it much easier to take your shoes off when enter a home or dressing room in Japan. (that’s right, no shoes on in the dressing rooms)

Super かわいい lace up sandals!

These shoes come with a pair of shoe clips! Wear them with or without these pretty yellow flowers.

Shoe clips. Wear them with any shoes you like to change the look of them!

Add shoe clips to any pair of plain shoes and voila! you have a new style shoe!

For my favorite… Shoe bands!

(I’m going to have to make a separate post for these eventually)

Slide them over a pair of pumps to keep your foot from falling out! Plus they look super cute!

And lastly here is a pair of shoe band’s I bought from Cocue about 3 years ago! 

すごい! Acid mothers temple! A band that is like no other! （＾Ｏ＾☆♪

Such an awesome band we saw the other night! It was my second time seeing acid mothers temple. If you don’t know about them they are a psychedelic Japanese jam band. Probably some of the nicest most patient guys I’ve ever met. My boyfriend and I bought a snare head that had custom drawings from Kawabata(the guitarist) and signed by the band. I posted a photo below. Never seen anything like it in my life truly original.
Check out there site. http://www.acidmothers.com/Cgi-bin/index_main.html

Check out these videos from the show!

This second one is a much softer, dreamy type song. Wish I knew the name of it.

ひらがな かわいい flash cards! How can you resist the cuteness!?

Jbox now offers the super cute hiragana flash cards that I mentioned in my previous post! They offer learning the hiragana along with a word in Japanese on each card so you can learn more at once!

http://www.jbox.com/product/PRE979

日本ご absolute beginners Japanese! Alphabet and pronunciation

Before I write about learning words in Hiragana I thought it would be good to learn the very basics. To start Japanese has a few alphabets. First they have hiragana which is what I would call their main alphabet, then katakana which is used to write foreign words that the Japanese adapted, also the hardest of all is kanji because their are so many characters to memorize. Kanji are characters from china that kept most the same meaning but are used with the Japanese language. The average Japanese person knows about 2000 kanji to understand written things. I’m on about 50, so I have quite a ways to go, though my goal is only 1000. Last but not least is romaji which is romanized characters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Some useful links for study…

http://learnthekana.com/the-hiragana-chart/

http://www.digitaldialects.com/Japanese.htm

http://www.textfugu.com/

Here’s some basic sounds…

     あ-a ah as in hot
     い-i ee as in meet
     う-u oo as in food
     え-e eh as in the name Ed
     お-o oh as in oat

し- shi as in she

つ-tsu as in t plus the name sue

じ-ji as in jeep

ふ-fu as in food

Also common letter combinations you come across isあいai as in I, えいei as in hey, おいoi as in toy, and おうou which gives it a longer oh sound.

あ      い      う     え     お

a         i        u        e       o

か     き     く     け     こ

ka     ki     ku     ke     ko

さ     し     す     せ     そ

sa    shi     su     se     so

た     ち     つ      て     と

ta     chi     tsu     te     to

な     に     ぬ     ね     の

na     ni     nu     ne    no

は     ひ     ふ     へ     ほ

ha     hi     fu     he     ho

ま      み     む     め     も

ma    mi    mu    me    mo

や              ゆ              よ

ya              yu             yo

ら     り     る     れ     ろ

ra     ri     ru     re     ro

わ              ん             を

wa              n             wo

So these are the basics of hiragana. Also there is a thing called ten-ten that is added to the k,s,t, h groups that change the first letter to those groupings. They look like quotation marks.

が　ぎ　ぐ　げ　ご

ga     gi     gu    ge    go

ざ　じ　ず　ぜ　ぞ

za     ji      zu     ze     zo

だ　ぢ　づ　で　ど

da     ji      zu     de     do

ば　び　ぶ　べ　ぼ

ba     bi     bu    be    bo

Last is a circle that is added to the h group to make p sounds. These are called maru.

ぱ     ぴ     ぷ     ぺ     ぽ

pa     pi      pu     pe     po

I placed this chart below to make it less confusing with the combo hiragana. Also I placed a link under this photo to the site this image is from. It has a lot of useful tools for learning Japanese.

http://www.textfugu.com/

あお／みどり Go, the traffic light is blue!?

As you may or may not know the Japanese drive on the left side like in England.

One common thing though that you might hear is Go, the “traffic light is blue!” Blue you may ask, what gives? It’s not that the light is even blue, it’s actually green. But in Japanese green みどり(midori) is consider to be a type of blue あお(ao). In ancient Japan their were four main colors to describe things; red, black, white, and blue. Red was to describe thing that were bright and blue for the opposite, pale or faint. The word for green wasn’t in existence in Japanese till the Heian Period(794-1185AC) and still then it was considered a shade of blue. It was only after WWII that the word for green みどり(midori) was used more often.

Not only is the traffic light called blue, also a few other things that are green kept the tradition of blue あお(ao). A green apple is consider a blue apple あおりんご(ao ringo) and green leafy vegetables are considered blue あおな(ao na). Spring trees are あおば(ao ba) meaning youth or newness. Though many modern day things keep to the word for green, like a green car or a green sweater.

Also if you ask what color the sun is they will say red. Also a baby is called あかちゃん(akachan) since they are red at birth. Red is an auspicious color. Another one is that the moon is yellow. いろ(Iro) means color and いろいろ(iroiro) is various.

にっこ Nikko and Edo Wonderland

The other day I happened to record a new show, Culture Japan with Danny Choo. He was visiting Edo Wonderland in Nikko which is a theme park recreating life  in that time period.  For those of you that don’t know what Edo is, it was between the years 1603-1868.

Nikko is located north of Tokyo.

http://www.nikko-japan.org/pdf/mapofnikko.pdf

I’ve been to Nikko once but now I must see Edo Wonderland! Here’s a photo I found of the theme park.

                 http://www.edowonderland.net/html/en/index.html

I was in Nikko in 2010 with family/friend and I could not get over how wonderful it was! We went to a shrine/temple that I thought would take all day to get to the top because of all the steps, but it was well worth it. When you got there it was beautiful! We stayed at the Kanaya Hotel and the food was french style which was really amazing! Here’s a link to the hotel’s website.  http://www.kanayahotel.co.jp/english/nikko/

Also I got to go across this suspension bridge (shown in the photo below) and later that day took a small boat under it. After taking a long walk through Nikko we came across a nice foot hot spring and drank chilled green tea.

Back to Edo Wonderland… On Danny Choo’s show he went through this awesome maze that has secert doors and passage ways that beat any corn maze I’ve been to. Also if you want they showed a give up exit which seemed pretty awesome if you can’t seem to find your way out. The other interesting thing was a building that was slanted but looked completely normal except for the fact that your leaning on a angle. Now thats something I must try. Here’s a link to Danny Choo’s site of the crazy room and other photos.

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/26262/How+to+Become+a+Ninja+Girl.html

Here are a few other links that might be of interest.

http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/tochigi/nikkousinai.html

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3879.html

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3800.html

メイクアップ my curiosity about Japanese make-up

Ever since my boyfriend bought me Ageha magazine, I have been obsessed with Japanese make-up and techniques. He got it from jbox.com They have some really cool things and plan on getting more issues of Ageha.
The main thing with the way Japanese (and Koreans) view make-up is to have a flawless base so you can have the perfect canvas to apply the rest of your make-up.

I found a few good things on yesstyle.com that were featured items in the magazine (photos below). I’ve heard great wonders about bb cream, so I thought I would invest in some. Also I’m going to give the covercom a try too. Both these products are from the company Sana.

Though I can only read some Japanese, it’s pretty easy to understand with the photos.

Note: I only have the two Japanese products, pore putty bb cream and covercom. Otherwise I mix it with US products that work really well in place of the other steps.

I’ve been starting with a green concealer from Physicians Formula to cover up red spots and blemishes. Also I apply to the bottom corners of my nose.

Then I apply Revlon ColorStay Under Eye Concealer to take away any dark areas or shadows under the eyes.

After apply Pore Putty BB Cream to T-zone area. About a pea size.

Around the cheek bones and above the brow line apply Covercom. Sometime on the chin if needed. Gently rub/pat in.

Next I use a large powder brush to apply Physicians Formula Mineral Wear in Natural Beige over my whole face.

For foundation I use one of two things either Urban Decay’s Cream to Powder or Palladio’s Dual Wet or Dry.

To finish it off I apply Maybelline DreamMatte Powder.

So that’s as close as I can get to achieve the photo finish look with only the two Japanese products.

Here are the first two steps below to the photo that I had posted above if your interested in the full application to a perfect photo ready face.

Also here’s the 5th step. This product looks promising but almost near impossible to find online. It’s called Covermark soft es light. I have found it on facial-shop.com but it seemed quite pricey.