About the slide show

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft.com,

Recently we updated the top page slide show.  I think I need to explain about them.  My colleague visited Osaka and took these photos.

Osaka is the second largest metropolitan of Japan with the population of over eight million. This is the city where you can meet with unique culture - quite different atmospheres from other cities and towns in Japan.

For example, the neon advertisement boards are very bright and colorful. Osaka citizens love bright colors and unique designs. They just don't want to the same as other people. The language spoken in Osaka is called "Osaka-ben" or "Kansai-ben"  (literally Osaka dialect) and has unique intonation. Tokyo people and Osaka people are still able to communicate with each other, but the spoken language intonation is quite different.

The following photos were taken at Doton-bori area where you can find many bars and restaurants. Doton-bori is the name of a river and you can find these large neon boards on the both sides of the river. The running man advertisement is the symbol of Glico, a confectionery and food producer in Osaka. They produce chocolates snacks, ice creams, and instant curry.



Along Doton-bori street, you can find many small restaurants and bars.

What Doton-bori makes attractive is many unique advertisements and symbols.
Easily understood, this restaurant serves crab - this shop is called "Kani Doraku" or crab mania!

This is the octopus pan cake called "Tako-yaki". They bake flour with a piece of octopus inside.

Oh, a demon is there!

This is another confectionery ads. This snack is called "Carl" and has been long loved by Japanese people. In TV, this farmer wearing the hat always appears for this snack ads.

This is Biliken, the god of lucky. Biliken was first created by an American artist in 1908 and introduced to Japan.

If you have a chance, please visit these areas and meet with the unique culture and atmospheres.

Thank you!

Wind ring bell train

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft.com,
For traveling information, here is the wind-bell decorated train that run in the northern part of Kanto (approximately 100km north of Tokyo). This train runs between Kiryu and Maebashi in Gunma prefecture. The website of this train service company is at http://www15.wind.ne.jp/~joden/, but once again it's only in Japanese. This is a very local train. It's so local that I don't think any English written guidebook pick up this wind-bell train.

To visit there, take Tobu express train from Asakusa station in Tokyo and transfer at Akagi station. It is about two hours trip from Asakusa.

Wind-bell is usually used for feeling freshness in humid summer in Japan. It's very interesting that they attach so many wind bells on the ceiling of train cars so as to make them ring as they run.

Sorry to say, the wind-bell train service ended at the end of August but should be again next summer.
I have uploaded the movies. I hope you will find them enjoyable.

Thank you!
- Ken

Japan Block Fair in NYC

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft.com

On August 21st, we participated in Japan Block Fair in NYC. Lots of guests visited the fair and thanks many customers for coming into our booth! We also enjoyed communicating with New York people.
The Japan Block Fair is the Japanese culture events held occasionally in NYC every year and it was our first time to get a chance to participate.
On the day, the weather was fine in the morning and through 4:30pm, but it was unfortunate that we were hit by a sudden T-storm just after 4:30pm, when we had to close our booth. Very much sorry for the guests to whom we told that we would stay until 6:00pm. We had to leave after the sudden storm!

Madison Avenue b/w 43rd and 44th

Our shop decorated with our handmade flags

 You can find the whole photos of this event at the following :

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw1YBqs

We flew back to Japan last week, but if our back flight had been this weekend we would be hit by the hurricane and could not make a back flight! This was fortunate.

We are looking forward to meeting with New Yorkers in the future again. We will make a chance to participate in this event again.

Thank you,

Shop closed from August 11th to August 25th, 2011

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft,

This is a note about our summer holidays.
We will suspend our shipping and delivery process from August 11th to August 26th, 2011 due to our business trip to USA and summer vacation. No one will be at the shop during this term. The shipping of goods from our site (Japan) will be delayed until August 26th if you place an order after August 11th.
Sorry for this inconvenience.

- Ken
Shop manager

New York Japan Event on August 21st

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft.com,

I would  like to announce that Nipponcraft.com will participate in JAPAN BLOCK FAIR which will be held on August 21st (Sun.) on Madison Ave. (between 43rd and 44th street), NY, USA.

This is an one day street event where you can meet lots of Japanese unique culture, performance and foods and lots more. The official site is JBF.

We will showcase our products there and we will be giving campaign to those people who could register E-newsletter on our website.

We will bring in Noren-curtains, Tenugui cloth, Furoshiki wrapping cloth, Sensu folding fans, Tairyo-bata flag and much more directly from Japan. They are genuine traditional handmade products and may be hard to find these brands in USA.

Please visit our booth and have a look at our products.

We are looking forward to seeing New York people!

Hohzuki (winter cherry) bazaar season

In July, there are several Hohzuki (winter cherry) bazaars in Tokyo.
Hohzuki pot is sold like this:

Each pot is 2,500JPY

 wind ring bell sold separately

Most of the Hohzuki bazaars take places at shrines or temples and the biggest bazaar in Tokyo is the one at Sensoji temple at Asakusa. This year's bazaar was held on July 9th and 10th. There were about 120 Hohzuki shops and every shop sold a pot at 2,500 JPY for each. So, many same shops!

Some shop sold a bag of five pieces fruits at 500 JPY like this:

Traditionally, visiting the Sensoji temple on July 10th is believed to be lucky for many years and it is worth visiting and praying for 46,000 times.  Since many people gather to the temple on July 10th, I think many Hohzuki dealers got together for selling pots because the Hohzuki whose fruit is becoming big in July was used to be medical herb. This custom of selling Hohuzki became the tradition.

Vermilion red pieces but should be still green in July in nature

Buy the way, the tenugui cloth sold at our shop has the Hohzuki design:

Thank you!

Ikesu

Hello and Welcome to Nipponcraft.com,

It is getting very hot in Tokyo and the temperature is well over 30 degrees Celsius. Also it's very humid!
In this hot summer, I found globefishes swimming in a water tank in Shibuya, one of the largest shopping center in Tokyo.

This is not an aquarium.
As you see in the photo below, this water tank belongs to a restaurant that serves sake and fish dishes.

Yes, we eat globefishes in Japan! And they are relatively expensive.
The globefish has a poison and only the trained and certified chef is allowed to cook the fish.
The restaurant keeps these globefishes alive in the water tank and the chef takes one of them for cooking according to customer order.

The custom of keeping fishes alive in water tanks until cooked is quite common in Japan. This kind of water tank is called "Ikesu" (生簀) .

If you have a chance to visit Japan, please enjoy very fresh fishes preserved in Ikesu.

Thank you,
 - Ken