hello harue

This weekend I took a trip to Katsuyama despite the persistent rain. Heisenji is without a doubt one of my favorite places in Fukui.

Inspired by this article . Those cats in the background are reenacting this JPOP spectacle:

Today, I’d like to write about Gudetama “the lethargic” and some other delicious characters I never heard about until I moved to Japan.

You can watch a video of Gudetama’s various forms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFYfEkNE0Ts I admittedly didn’t watch all eleven minutes yet, but my favorite was the onsen egg. Onsens are hot springs and onsen tamago is a special dish of an egg slowly cooked in hot spring waters. Of course, Gudetama says “onsen itaiii” the onsen hurts!

He is often pictured saying things like “stop” or “uguuu” or “sleepy” and can be found in every possible shape an egg can take (custards, cakes, tamago sushi).

Both Sanrio (the creators of Hello Kitty) and San-X (the creators of Rilakkuma) have created characters based on food. I find this both weird and strangely fascinating. That these products seem to have enough popularity to warrant them being sold in every form, clear file folders, pen cases, keychains, stuffed animals, bento boxes, stickers, you name it, is amazing. Here’s Sanrio’s Kirimi-chan (a walking peice of salmon) and her family of walking meat.

One of the best English sources for information about strange characters you’ve never heard of is Quirky. Though it looks like the last update to that website was a few years ago, it’s still an excellent source of information. The lifespan of these cute characters and their merchandise is unpredictable. Right now, Gudetama is all the rage, and the Kirmi-chan merchandise I saw when I first came to Japan is no longer stocked on the shelves of the local shopping mall. Through the Quirky blog, I found out about Cheese Family. While it may have once been popular, I haven’t ever seen any merchandise for it, which is unfortunate, because I love cheese! 

When I first watched Clannad, I remember being entranced by “the Big Dango family” popular in that universe. I never really realized such food-based characters really do flourish in the Japanese market.

Somehow, it makes me both very happy and very weirded out to exist in a universe where our food is personified with the quality of sarcasm and kawaii. 

Here are some recent outgoing mail and package items. I’ve been sending my friend’s the hiragana karuta cards of their names. All about that Chihayafuru fever.

The stickers and paper flakes available at Japanese stationery stores are an obsession of mine.

And now that it’s getting hotter, the cutest fans are popping up in stores. It’s taking a lot of willpower not to buy them all.

I want to share some of my favorite publications I’ve found in Japan.

Farmer’s Market Chronicle NORAH

http://norahnorah.jp/

Luketh: Visual Travel Magazine

http://www.luketh.com/index.html

Sotokoto

漢字火曜日 Kanji Kayōbi

ぼくで(墨で) Boku de

In ink

Fukui Kar Rally 2015

Kar Rally was first described to me as an “Amazing Race” type challenge where teams are given photo-op challenges and tests of ability in order to receive points. The theme this year was superheroes, so my teammate and I threw together a last minute late-night craft party and excursion to Don Quixote to make the Fukuincredible Girls a reality. (We pulled it off with the help of our mascot, Clancy the incredible super sheep). The day ended at a campsite in Obama with a well-deserved visit to the onsen. Our team got the slowest team award, but it was only because we were soaking in the beautiful sights of Southern Fukui.  However, the best experience of the weekend was seeing the fireflies at the river of the campsite. I’d never seen fireflies before, so it was a truly exquisite moment.  enjoying the thoroughly ridiculous aspects of life,

漢字火曜日 Kanji Kayōbi

リス (Risu)

Squirrel

The start of rainy season.