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.