Tatami

For those who would like to have their own tatami room at home, I'm going to tell you right away : Traditional tatami is "just so uncool".

Now to be trendy you have to get a Hikari-Tatami 光畳, the shining tatami.

I don't mean to mop or wax the tatami. In fact, it is quite the same thing that the floor heating system, but instead of heat it is light.

Tatami is made of rice straw and one tatami is 91 by 182 cm, just a few centimeters thick. The upper layer of the Hikari-Tatami is equipped with LED which allows it to shine from the inside. Right now it is mainly used in restaurants, partly because of its price (100 000 Yen for 1 half tatami, about  890 Euros for 1 square meter) which makes it quite difficult to buy for private houses.

Of course, there are other disadvantages : light coming from the bottom just don't make people look at their best (remember when we were kids playing with flashlights) and it is recommended not to wear skirts made of light fabric, it can be very embarrassing.

Up to now, there's only the white light version but very soon the red or purple one will be out. As for me, I'm not going to buy it until the planetarium tatami is made.

A walk in Tokyo

The noise of the sliding front door. Here I am, in a narrow alley of my neighbourghood, Koishikawa 小石川 (meaning : small stone river --> and yes, the name of my neighbourghood sucks).

I walk along the shopping center (Laqua), thinking that I would like to try the rollercoaster one of these days.

 

Once arrived to Suidobashi, I choose to take Hakusan-doori 白山通り (street of the Mont Blanc モンブラン, named after the chestnut cake, so trendy around here). I cross Jimbocho, full with old books shops and universities. It can be considered as Tokyo's "quartier latin". For now I just can't fully enjoy this place that first reminds me that I'm illiterate by Japanese standarts. To go in a book shop and not be able to read anything is so frustrating ! But, knowing myself too well, it is so much better for my wallet.

 

I stroll until I reach Awajicho. I'm hesitating between going toward Akihabara or walking to Ginza. I've already started to explore "Akiba" - as called by intimates -  and I would like to see Ginza again. This part of Tokyo that I visited 3 years ago didn't make a big impression on me, but I just happened to go there a few days before and it appeared more interesting than I first thought.  Then I take the sotobori-doori 外堀通り,  leaving my district , Bunkyou-ku 文京区, for Chiyoda-ku　千代田区.

 

I arrive in Ootemachi 大手町 (big hand town). There are few people in the streets and the small shop windows are replaced by buildings. In japan, you call this type of constructions "biru" ビル, not to be confused with "biiru" ビール (beer).

There is no color in this surroundings except for the road work. The further I go, deeper the silence becomes. Soon I'm walking alone along the moats.

The center of Tokyo is the emptiness. The emptiness of the imperial palace. The water seems so still, maybe here time really stopped itself?

 

I have trouble to take my eyes off that scenery. I take a perpendicular street and at the bottom of the towers, there bloom...

...designer stores! (Those who thought "cherry trees" just lost!).

I take the passage under the railways.

 

And there is Ginza　銀座!

 

The "sign by sign" translation would be "money place". The name dates back to the times where it was a silver mint. But seeing how Ginza is lined with scandalously expensive shops, I think a more appropriate translation can be found.

I'm not used yet to the dazzling advertising signs. I'm walking, gazing at the top of the buildings and enjoying fully the nightly landscape.

 

I'm addicted

Quite close to my home, there's a small shop selling wagashi 和菓子, wa meaning japanese and kashi : sweets (as japanese is such a logical language, when those two words are put together "kashi" become "gashi").

I chose a cake that looked like it escaped right out one of the Monthy Python's movies.

But it was so good!!! It's called usagi mochi うさぎ餅 --> a rabbit shaped cake made from sticky rice (quite hideous rabbit, if you ask me). Inside there's a pumpkin paste.

Ok, now I'm addicted, 'though I used to never eat rabbits when I was in France.