Archive for 'Entertainment' Category

Grand opening of “NEWoMan”, department store complex in Shinjuku

A major department store chain “Lumine” opened its new commercial facility complex called “NEWoman” at the south exit of Shinjuku station Tokyo on this Mar.25. (http://www.newoman.jp/)

This new facility showed up in one of the busiest areas in Japan consists of 5600㎥of 6 floors and  2000㎥ of three floors just above the station areas connected to a part of the station facilities. NEWoMan provides about 100 shops and expected to make 20- billion- yen revenue in its first year. Foods , cosmetics, fashion shops, cafe, a daycare,  clinics, an event hall ,and so forth are there and mainly targetting working generations  of females in thier 30-40s.

“Hyakudan Hina-matsuri” at Meguro-gajoen

Lots of events related to Hina-matsui (Girls’ Day’s festivals) were held nationwide in Japan on the March 3rd, the Girls’ Day.  One of the popular events was  the “Hyakudan Hina-matsuri”(/ hina doll decoration event on one hundred stairs ) at Meguro-gajoen in Tokyo (Jan.22-Mar.6).(http://www.megurogajoen.co.jp/event/hinamaturi/)

This year, for the first time  traditional Hinadolls from three prefectures in Tohoku region, namely,Iwate,Miyagi,and Fukushima were decorated and exhibited.

 

Tokyo Marathon 2016 and Friendship Run

Tokyo Marathon 2016 was held on Feb.28th. (http://www.marathon.tokyo/en/) This time the marathon was the tenth and more than 36,000 people joined the big event. The start point of  the square in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Office Buildings in Shinjuku, Tokyo was covered with the runners and specutators.

And  the forerunner event “Tokyo Marathon Frienship Run 2016” was also held on Feb.27th. (http://www.marathon.tokyo/news-media/news/news_000056.html)

In the Friendship Run, 919 foreign runners and 530 Japanese runners joined.  The public speeches at the opening ceremony were made in both Japanese and English and the international friendship atmosphere was around.  In addition, three other forerunner events of  press conferences of Men’s elite Athletes, Women’s elite Athletes, and Wheelchair Athletes were held on the same day of 27th.

popular chocolates for the Valentine’s Day 2016

St.Valentine’s Day on Feb.14th is a popular  practice among young people.   Some websites  carry out  rankings of  top popular chocolates.

 

Most of  top popular chocolates are deluxe foreign ones such as Bvlgari’s   “Saint Valentino 2016 Lui e Lei” (http://gourmet.bulgari.com/shop/default.aspx), Jean-Paul Hevin’s  、“LES PIEDS SUR TERRE, LA TÊTE DANS LES ÉTOILES (http://www.jph-japon.co.jp) ,and other European brands.

a new hotel open near Ueno station

A new hotel “Life Tree” opened near Ueno station, which is one of the oldest and hub stations in central area in Tokyo on this Feb.2nd.(http://www.lifehotels.jp/ueno/)

It takes about 5 minutes to Ueno station from the new hotel. The station area is home to a lot of  popular tourists’ destinations such as traditional Japanese-western restaurants,  Ueno park, the most popular cherry- blossom veiwing spot in Tokyo,  Ueno Zoo, art museums, national museums, Kaneiji temple, Ame-yoko old shopping street,and so forth.   And  ueno is close to other popular areas, such as  Asakusa, Ginza, Yanaka and others.

Setsubun, soybean-scattering festival at temples

Setsubun, a winter-closing day’s festival when people scatter roasted soybeans to dipel evil and becon good fortune is popular and that scattering -bean festivals were held on  Feb.3rd nationwide.

For example, the festival hosted at Ikegamihonmonji temple in Tokyp on that day was viewed by a lot of visitors  of over 10,000 there.

“Hotoriya”,a new cafe-and-sourveir shop in Hakone

A new facility for tourists opened at Hakone-machi port on the lakeside of Lake Ashi  in Hakone, Kanagawa pref. on this Jan.23rd. The name of this new establishment is “Hotoriya”(means; a shop on a lakeside ) and is a commercial complex of “wa-cafe”(/traditional Japanese style cafe) and sourvenir shops.

Hotoriya’s nickname is “Chaya-honjin”(means;cafe-style main local guest house ) because  the building has a  figure of  an old  main local guest house of hundreds of years ago where  high-class samurai warriors stayed when Hakone was an important check point of travelers to monitor and control people by the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Eating facilities and sourvenir shop to provide a variety of  local food, beer,and other sorts of  sourvenirs are in the establishement.  Some of those shops are directly run by the operarion company of  this facility,  Hakone Sightseeing Cruise Co.,ltd.(http://www.hakone-kankosen.co.jp/foreign/en/index.html)  and some are branch shops of renowned  old  major  shops from Hakone and other neighboring areas. And from the cafes, you may enjoy  magestic and panoramic views of Mt.Fuji and Lake Ashi.

The open hours of  souvenir shops on the 1st floor is daily 9:30-17:00 and cafes on the 2nd floor is daily 10:00-16:00.

The foreigen tourists’ number exceed 19 million

Keiichi Ishii, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport. and Tourism (MILT) declared that the total number of foreigners visiting Japan thsi year as of Dec.19 has exceeded 19,000,000  on Dec.22nd. (http://www.mlit.go.jp/en/index.html)

The number 19 million is already higher than the total number of the visitors in the year 2014 which was 13,41 million and reflects the rapid ongoing growth of the number of foreigners in Japan. This year 2015, the total number in the first half of year was 9,14 million and the verocy seems accelerating.

The sources of the growth are something like the week Yen rate,  relaxiations of  visa systems, the expansions of  objects of duty free items for foreign tourists, and so forth. The Japanese government  now has decided to increase the total budgets for tourism related arrangements from this year’s 10,390 million yen to 24,550 million yen (+14580 million yen).  This abrupt and huge increase implies the huge expectation of the government of the growing inbound markets and revenues created by the related industries.

 

The Word(s) of The Year 2015

The Word of The Year 2015 hosted by U-CAN was announced on Dec.1st and two words were chosen.  One of them is “Triple Three” and the other is “baku-gai”(/ explosive shopping).

 

The first one is a great titles of a baseball player who has achieved “a batting average of 300 or higher, 30 or more home runs, and 30 or more base stealings in the same   single  season”.  To achieve this is so difficult that only eight players have achieved this title during the 80 years of the Japanese pro-baseball history and the last one was made in 2002. However, this year two players have achieved the remarkable title for the first time in 13 years, namely Yuki Yanagida of Doftbank Hawks and Tetsuhito Yamada of Yakult Swallows.

 

And the second word “baku-gai” or “explosive shopping” is a nickname of the current phenomenon of  huge or even binge shopping done by Chinese tourists in Japan.  This year the number of  Chinese tourists visiting Japan has increased so rapidly and a lot of them enjoy shopping at comodity stores, electric appliance stores, restaurants and so forth. At the award’s ceremony of the Word of The Year,  Luo Yiwen from China, the president of LAOX, one of the major home appliance  store chains popular among foreign visitors including Chinese “explosve shopping customers” received the award on behalf of the the baku-gai phenomenon. The store chain prepares a various services for those customers, such as providiing chinese speaking staffers. The situation is expected to maintain and satisfy even more foriegn tourists to Japan.

 

Introducing Japan through paper cutouts in China

A Japanese artist’s paper cutout works’ exhibition is currently being held at a gallery in Shanghai China Nov.25- Dec.6th. The host is Shu Kubo, a well-known paper-cutting artist.(http://www.shu-kubo.com/)   He was a cultural coordinater of  Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2009.

 

 

The event has been facilitated by  the Japan Culture Communication Center of  Shanghai University of Science and Technology. And the Japanese consul-general in Shanghai and other influential people in China and Japan were invited to the opening ceremony of the event.  72 paper-cutting works are exhibited at the event, which depict  Japanese scenery, landscapes, parts of culture and so forth to represent and convey images, atmosphere,and concepts of Japan to enhance and expand understanding those attractions to Chinese people. Actually, the art of paper-cutting was first introduced to Japan from China about 1,200 years ago and developed in a unique way in Japan since then. So, this art is expected to work  as a “bridge” to bind the two nations together, strengthening goodwill and rapport there. Kubo says, the power of this art will work for those purposes  so well.

 

 

 

 

“Good Meat Day”

November 29th  is the “Good Meat Day” which is a designated (not as an official) day for meat.   This is because “29/11” can be pronounced as “ii niku”  which means “good meat” in Japanese. This event day ‘s concept was establied by the Yoriyoki MiyazakiBeef Council (Miyazaki council of strategies for producing better quality MiyazakiBeef) to promote the brand meat goods consumption produced in Miyazaki.(http://www.miyazakigyu.jp/en/)

One year ago in 2014,  a young female idol group, Chubbiness,who had debuted on November 29th 2013, was apoointed as the “Ambassador of  the Good Meat Day” and carried out plans to promote meat consumption of such as beef steak.(http://avex.jp/chubbiness/)

Santa Run in Osaka

A special charity  event of  runing  called “Santa Run” was held  in the Osaka Castle Park  in Osaka City on Nov,29th.(http://osakacastlepark.jp/)   Abou 10,000 runners joined the event and every runner run being clad in a Santa Clause costume.

The revenue from this event will be donated to medical facilities to help  about 800 children suffering diseases.

Tokyo Motor Show 2015

The 44th Tokyo Motor Show  was held  Oct,29-Nov.8 at Tokyo Bigsight.( http://www.tokyo-motorshow.com/en/)

A lot of new type cars  were shown and attracted visitors.

“Movie Campus”, the 12th Movie Week of Agency for Cultural Affairs Symposium

The special symposium, “Movie Campus” of  “the 12th Movie Week  of Agency for Cultural Affairs”  is to be held at Kaguraza in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo on this Oct.24th. (http://bunka-cho-filmweek.jp/symposium.html)(http://www.walkerplus.com/event/ar0313e123255/)  (http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/)

The Week is Oct.22-25 at the above avenue. At the event well-known movie directors and personalities particiate in panel discussions and “Gamera vs. Barugon”(1966, Daiei),an old special effect Japanese monsters movie will be run.

 

Jidai Matsuri in Kyoto

“Jidai Matsuri”(/ the Festival of Ages) was held on this Oct.22 in Kyoto.  (https://www.kyokanko.or.jp/jidai/)

This  is one of the three greatest festivals of Kyoto held annually and about 2,000 people clad in costumes to represent people from various eras in Kyoto histroy paraded  on the big street of 4.5 km from Kyoto Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. The festival started in 1895 dedicated to Heian Shrine where Emperor Kanmu  who established Kyoto as an ancient capital in 794 and Emperor Koumei who was the last emperor to reside in Kyoto are enshrined. The festival’s participants represent the changing ages when Kyot owas the capital of Japan.