Hiro at 08:50 (AM).
Website →Kid’s Tokei
Hiro at 20:41 (PM).
This one doesn’t look like Hiro… but I remember he kept trying to move around. The location was at the church.
He looks hilarious.
☺☺☺
Kids version of bijin tokei has been on internet for some time but I didn’t know about it at all until I saw one ad of a photo studio near my house looking for models for Kid’s Tokei. Haha, I’m not a mother who wants to make my own child to be famous or star, but the deal at the photo studio was really good (2000yen for printed photo, data, unlimited costume change etc) . The deal was that I had to send the photo taken at the studio to kid’s tokei to enter the competition, and had to write down the name of the studio as a referrer.
On the day of photo shoot, I realized his chin was covered with red rash. It was perfectly clean till the day before, but why today! (><). Anyway we had our booking and headed to the studio.
For the costume I was thinking taxido but we decided to use “Momo-taro” instead. Hiro was happy…. just until we tried to change his clothes. He started crying when he saw “strangers” (staff at the studio). He cried and cried, and all his photo was his unhappy face with tears 😐
This is the photo we chose out of those screamig faces…
I didn’t think he would be chosen for Kid’s Tokei, but I sent this photo anyway.
….. Guess what! He is chosen for a Kid’s-tokei model!
We are having the photo shoot for website this Friday, and he will be on kid’s-tokei website around May this year :))). I want to update about it when it comes closer to the date.
Here is an unique Christmas gift idea. Upload a photo and make your own pillow!
PillowMob makes your custom pillow and ship worldwide. You can also chose to buy featured designs such as animal and people.
It’s $30.00 each, and it includes shipping fee! I think it’s very reasonable price. There are two options for the size : oval and circle. Whichever you chose, I’m sure it will be a great gift to surprise your friends or families!
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Today it’s raining, but it had been wonderful weather here in Perth. Warm, sunny spring. Not now though… Heavy rain outside. News of Steve Jobs has been everywhere since Thursday. I knew him just as little as other people did, but D has been one of the people who admire Steve since long time ago.
I didn’t really think about how we started to use computers and Internet in everyday lives many years ago, until I saw the news. GUI, mouse… To think about it, we wouldn’t be leading our lives like today if Steve didn’t invent these gadgets… I can just say “sugoi” about him. He changed the way we live.
D wanted to visit Apple store yesterday, so we headed to city. We had quick lunch at Matsuri in Enex beforehand. This Matauri does special bent box for $6.00. The menu changes day to day, but yesterday was chicken katsu again. They keep 1 ~ 2 in the counter showcase so that busy people can just grab and run, but you can also ask for fresh-made.
The Apple shop was busy just like normal Saturdays. There’re flowers and fruits for Steve in front of the store, and people had written few words for him in Post-It and sticked to the shop windows. Few people were gathering around the flowers and taking photos.
Inside the store has been changed. There are iPads placed next to each products, and customers can brows the info of the products on iPad. You can call staff via iPad if you need assistance or purchase the item as well, by tapping the “call staff” button.
We bought a iPod Nano because D wanted to use it as a watch. New Nano has new watch faces, which you can also download online.
They look so cute! Colorful Nano would go with Carmit and Micky watch faces, but D bought dark silver and wants to get metal watch band, so he will probably use something less casual for the watch face, I guess.
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There are few coupon sites in Japan now, and I’m subscribed to their daily deal emails. It’s just that Japanese coupon sites offer much better deals than those in Australia. Australian coupon sites, such as Scoopon, DealMe, LivingSocial etc, offer quite same deals over and over and I’m little bored with them.
I check deals at Groupon and Ponpare at the moment, but I prefer Ponpare. Their deals are more interesting than those at Groupon. So far I’ve purchased 4 coupons from Ponpare: ¥500 worth MacDonald’s voucher for ¥100, 86% off hotel stay at hotel in Osaka Umeda for ¥10000 for two, 80% off skin whitening masks for ¥1050 etc. These things are what we may actually use! Groupon’s offers are always discounted hotels, discounted restaurants, and discounted activities. I like Ponpare because they have lots of free-shipping items on deals and they are pretty cheap, such as more than 50% off on organic shampoo set, electric items, photo print services and fashion items.
Sigh… after checking these interesting offers for hair salon, I wish I were there right now! Cut, colour, perm, etc etc are so cheap and these salons are pretty well-known. I’d pay ¥2000 hair colour package without hesitation.
I’m checking these up everyday so that I can use the coupons when we go there 🙂 I’ve ordered several ¥500 worth MacDonald’s vouchers already, so we may be probably spending lots of time at MacDonald’s this time :p
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Mercy Hospital Mount Lawley has just become the first hospital in WA to provide new parents with a live and secure video streaming service direct from the maternity cot.
Exclusive built-in hospital camera system sends a live broadcast of your baby in the maternity cot to family and friends locally, interstate or overseas. It is like ‘visiting’ your baby in hospital 24/7 at their convenience on computers and mobile phones. It is the Virtual Baby Visit!
I think it’s a great item for parents who have to leave their unwell or premature baby in the hospital, as well as for the families who live far away from the hospital and can’t visit to see the new baby.
Scoopon, DealMe, OurDeal, AllTheDeal, etc etc. There are so many websites that sell daily deal coupons online now. The first one to do this was American company Groupon (www.groupon.com), and was founded in November 2008.
Groupon is operated worldwide, except Australia – some people should know the battle between Groupon and Scoopon. Scoopon bought the domain “groupon.com.au” and forced Groupon to buy it at an insane price. Groupon accepted it, but then Scoopon changed their maid – they’d only sell the domain and trademark if Groupon buys the entire Scoopon business. The deal is off. Groupon sued Scoopon, and Groupon is now doing the business in Australia under Stardeals (www.stardeals.com.au).
Anyway, I’m sure many people have already purchased at least one deal from one of these websites before. Some of the deals are great! They offer big discount (sometimes over 80% off) on food, entertainment, accommodation, beauty and more. I’ve purchased once before, and now I’m waiting for a good deal on massages. There’re so many similar deals and I don’t know which one to pick.
I was browsing Groupon Japan today. They have deals on each prefecture across Japan (Tokyo has the most), from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Tokyo has the deals on almost each cities. Nice…
Bijin Tokei, meaning “beautiful woman clock”, is a website that showcases different young ladies telling you the time every minute, and has been a big success since it started. Now they have few different versions of bijin-tokei such as circuit-tokei (where all the girls are race queens) and Ver. Night, and also local versions of bijin-tokei in Kobe, South Korea Ver. 1 Ver. 2, Taiwan, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Thai, etc etc…
I wrote about this bijin-tokei here, here and here before in Umeboss. Why I’m writing about it again here is because I found a Shiga version of bijin-tokei in app store!
Bijin-tokei Ver. Shiga was released in August last year. As you know (?), I’m from Shiga and wonder that there may be one or two of my friends in the 360 girls picturing the clock on the app! The photo shoot was carried out in the malls, universities and train stations from May in Shiga. If I knew about it and was in Japan I might be in the queue for the candidates! hehe..
I’m somehow proud of it, because not all the cities/prefectures in Japan are used for bijin-tokei. So far there’re only 9 cities across Japan : Shibuya, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Fukuoka, Kobe, Nagoya, Sendai, and Shiga. I’m proud of it as a Shiga person (kind of), but also curious… why Shiga?? There are many other nice and famous cities across Japan. Some Japanese people don’t even know where Shiga locates in the map. I’m also curious about the bijin-tokei ver. Sendai. … Why Sendai??
There’re many web companies providing the service where you can create your own websites, and when I was browsing yola I came across this handmade soap bar website Ceedee Soaps.
The story is, the owner of this natural, non chemical handmade soap business is a 11-year-old girl, Clair. This industrious girl was interested in online-selling business and built this website with the help of her father. Together, they have became a team of hand making natural soaps at home.
Clair didn’t want to use any chemical and artificial things in the soaps from the beginning, and their soaps are made by all natural ingredients. The soaps are avaliable in a variety of scents, and I love the natural looking website and packaging. Each soap is very reasonably priced ($4.00 each free shipping in US).
I wish this young business much continued success, and can’t wait to see what Clair’s next adventure would be 🙂
As I mentioned on my previous post here and here, bijin tokei is getting more attention across the world – 240000000 viewers a month! They’ve made Osaka version of bijin-tokei (kiss x bijin-tokei),and now here are some new versions:
The difference between this circuit-tokei and normal bijin-tokei is that girls in circuit-tokei are all race queens!
A guy version of bijin-tokei!
…. I don’t know what to say about this! Apparently this av-tokei is run by different company. After the success of original bijin-tokei, everyone is trying to copy the system. For example, Korean version bijin-tokei (Mi-in sigye) was created by a Korean company after Japan started its original bijin-tokei. I guess there are going to be more versions …
Here are some of my favorite apps for iPhone.
<Kiss X Bijin Tokei> website
“Kiss” is the Osaka version of bijin-tokei “the beautiful woman clock” (I wrote about it before in here ) ranked the first place of the entertainment section at the “Kiss FM Kobe” release first day supported in Kansai area around Kobe by many listers. Like original bijin-tokei, this “Kiss” is one of the popular apps for iphone.
<Wa Kingyo>
“Wa” means “Japanese” “Japan style”, and “Kingyo” means goldfish.
Pretty goldfishes drawn on the Japanese style of painting swim elegantly. You will be surprised by their cute movement. This is similar to “Koi Pond” (I wrote about it here ) Enjoy relaxing time…. 🙂 This app is created by a Japanese.
<Puff!>
… ummm, this is one of those crazy Japanese stuff. In this app, you blow into your iphone or rub the screen with fingers, then the skirt of the pretty girl in the picture goes into an upskirt. There are a few different girls on the screen to choose from and they all wear different clothes, such as yukata (Japanese casual summer kimono) and office lady type of clothes. To me, I think it’s an obsession and I don’t like it, but this app is ranked in the top 10 and it seems many people around the world is enjoying it. If you want to have this app on your iphone/touch, please make sure not to show to your girl!
Bijin Tokei (English) means “beautiful clock” in Japanese. Someone started this website where you can see beautiful Japanese girls holding a black board with time, and it changes every minute. That means, one girl is holding “3:15: board, and next minute another girl is hodling “3:16” board.
Some people (especially guys, of course!) are crazy about this and keep checking girls evey minute!
You can set this bijin tokei on the sidebar of your site, email page etc, (my husband actually set this on my gmail so I have to look at Japanese girls every minute :p)
I have updated photos from my Japan trip. Please click here to see 🙂
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I gathered up few Japan-related iPhone/iPod Touch applications.
From the App Store:
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<Koi Pond>
it’s a virtual koi pond that resides on your iPhonepod
Imagine gazing into a pond of crystal clear water. Picture bright, playful koi swimming through its shallow depths. So close. . . . Can you touch them?
You run your fingers across the cool surface of the pond. Water ripples away from your touch. The koi, disturbed, dart away. Only to quickly forget and swim close to you once more. . . .
There are several settings you can control, such as the hue of the water, the number of fish and number of plants.
Koi Pond was released July 30th, and has found itself #1 at the App Store in a relatively short amount of time and with good reason
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<Mokugyo>
In this application, traditional musical instrument “Mokugyo”(wooden gong) of Japan can be performed looking at beautiful scenery in Japan.
The wooden gong was brought by Japan hundreds of years ago.
It is possible to see in the buddhist temple etc. in modern days.
Because the sound is very Oriental, and is mysterious, it is used by the Kabuki.
You will be able to relax by hearing the sound.
In addition, beautiful scenery in Japan is displayed one after another in this contents.
As a result, you will feel a higher relaxation feeling.
（This relaxation feeling is called “Nagomi” in Japan.)
Mokugyo was released October 20th 2008.
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<UNIQLOCK>
Japanese clothing brand UNIQLO have been using their UNIQLOCK – an online timer/screensaver thing – to promote their latest wares for the past couple of years. Now you can download it to your iPhone/iPod Touch.
This thing seems very odd… but I guess it’s a fashion??
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<Furu Furu Pocky>
This is kind of a game you want to do when you want to pick one person out of several people. It’s very simple, whoever pick the pink pocky is the winner.
eg: who is in charge of cooking dinner tonight, who will be a seeker on hide and seek etc…
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<Bonsai>
Bonsai is a Japanese art! Those miniature trees are available on your iPhonepod. There are numbers of Bonsai apps: Bonsai Blast, Bonsai wallpaper, your own Bonsai Tree, iBonsai etc…
I have iBonsai and it’s pretty 🙂 iBonsai uses a random-number algorithm to grow infinitely diverse bonsai trees before your eyes, which you can then rotate around in 3D and save as your wallpaper.
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Here is more!
This live video feed debuted Oct 8 on Ustream tv.
The six Shiba Inu pups, (3 boys and 3 girls) turned 11 weeks old on December 23rd. This is the first litter from their mom, Kika.
Girls:
– Autumn (Purple collar) – Is now with her new loving family.
– Ayumi (Formerly Yellow, now Lavender collar) – 6 lbs 6 oz (as of Dec 12th)
– Amaya (Red collar) – 6 lbs 8.5 oz (as of Dec 12th)
Boys:
– Aki (Green collar) – 8 lbs 0.5 oz (as of Dec 12th)
– Akoni (Black collar) – Is romping around the yard romping around with fallen leaves at his new home.
– Ando (Blue collar) – 7 lbs 3 oz (as of Dec 12th) – Is being a perfect angel at his new home.
Why don’t you get a peek on these cute puppies?? (>v<)
BTW, at night the owners turn off the lights and the camera so the dogs can sleep.
I’ve always wanted to do some volunteer work since I was little. It started when my elementary school teacher showed a video to us in a class: the video was about kids in Ethiopia. The reality in other countries shocked me. As a Japanese, I could eat anything at anytime since I was a baby, and I thought it was normal thing. Apparently it wasn’t. In other countries they have no food to eat and many people die everyday. Kids can’t go to school to learn. They don’t have any facility to do anything. Is there anything I can do to such people?
I tried to find out what I could do, but there was no actual chance for me to go to the country and help them out. School, work… I didn’t even have that amount of money anyway. Then, I found this website- kiva
Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. You can choose someone to lend to from this website, and then make a loan. Help a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. It is a loan, so of course you will get your money back after the period, or if you wish you can re-lend to someone else in need.
There are many interesting businesses, Grocery Store in Afghanistan, Beauty Salon in the Dominican Republic, Taxi driver in Lebanon etc… I made a loan to a restaurant owner in Peru. You can choose the amount to lend in increments of US$25.00 up to the total amount they are requesting.
Email: [email protected]
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