Video of “Megumi” kidnap victim

The current visit to Japan by Kim Hyon Hui, a former North Korean agent who planted a bomb which brought down a Korean Air jetliner in 1987, is reminding us again of the ordeal of the kidnapping victims and their families. She is here to meet with the families of victims kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s.

Her visit reminds us of the fact that the kidnapping issue is still unresolved.

An anime film about one of the kidnapped victims, Yokota Megumi, is available for download for free in multiple languages besides Japanese:

http://www.rachi.go.jp/jp/megumi/

It has a few scenes of her father taking her picture. The 25-min. film illustrates the story and circumstances behind the snapshots of Megumi we have seen before. At the end, you hear Paul Stookey (from Peter, Paul & Mary) singing a song about Megumi that he created. Highly recommended film.

News article about Kim’s visit:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100721a1.html

L&L Hawaiian BBQ in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

L&L Hawaiian BBQ restaurant in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

L&L Hawaiian BBQ is a restaurant chain based in Hawaii. They specialize in what we call “plate lunches” which typically consists of two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, and a main dish such as fish or meat.

They are a local favorite in Hawaii and famous for serving large portions. L&L Hawaiian BBQ finally opened a branch in Japan in early June 2010. They are located in Shibuya, a well-known shopping and entertainment area of Tokyo.

I went to eat there soon after they opened. I went twice. The first time, I had the mahimahi plate lunch. And the second time, I had the huge locomoco (eggs and hamburgers on rice). The food really reminded me of my beloved hometown. People from Hawaii who now live in Japan will like this place.

Locomoco had two large eggs over two large hamburgers. Makes you very full.

Mahimahi plate lunch.

The restaurant is conveniently located in Shibuya, a short walk from Shibuya Station on the way to Tokyu Hands. However, I immediately saw a few problems which may break or blunt their success in Shibuya.

The first problem is the ineffective physical configuration of the restaurant. The restaurant has three floors. The 1st floor is on the street level and it is just a small space to place your order at the ordering counter. It also has a few chairs facing the street. People passing by the street will only see this hole in the wall to order food. They will not notice the main dining area on the 2nd and 3rd floors. On the 1st floor where you order, the existence of upper floors is not apparent because you don’t see any stairs. You have to step outside and enter the building’s elevator or fire escape to go upstairs. You find out about this only when you order and the staff tells you.

If you pass by and peer through the window from the street and don’t see any stairs (like at Starbucks or McDonald’s), you will assume that there’s no real place to sit. This discourages people from entering. The restaurant should put out a big sign saying that there are more tables/chairs upstairs.

2nd floor dining room of L&L in Shibuya. Hawaiian music plays in the background.

2nd floor dining room of L&L in Shibuya, for couples and larger groups.

3rd floor dining room of L&L in Shibuya. Smaller and quieter.

Too bad the people passing by cannot see the dining rooms because they are really nice as you can see above. There are chairs/tables for single people, couples, and larger groups. This is an ideal configuration for a restaurant, but as you can see, customers were sparse during both times that I went. You order and pay for your food on the 1st floor, and you go up to the dining room. (Take-out also available.) They will bring the food to the dining room and announce your receipt No. You raise your hand and they will come.

Another problem is the prices. By being in Shibuya, L&L is targeting the younger generation. However, these teens and early 20s people are used to McDonald’s prices which are well below L&L’s average meal price of 800 to 1000 yen (excluding drinks). L&L’s prices are not unaffordable and they probably see a good lunchtime crowd, but Shibuya’s youth like to hang out at cheaper places. They are also used to meals which include a drink or side order. I think L&L should offer such combo lunches which should be cheaper than ordering a plate lunch, drink, and/or side order separately.

L&L menu includes smaller "mini" portions and "healthy" lunches which include vegetables.

When I went the first time during the first week it opened, I didn’t see picture menus. But they had it the second time I went about a week later. Although the A4-size picture menu was adequate, it looks like a homemade job. I’m not complaining, but in Japan, we’re used to larger, slicker picture menus with large photos of everything. Just go to any family restaurant here and you’ll see what I mean. The food will always look more impressive with larger pictures than with thumbnail images. There are large pictures of plate lunches outside the restaurant, but we need to see them inside as well.

When I went the second time with family members, they had ran out of hamburgers (cheapest meal on the menu). This was shortly after lunchtime at around 1:30 pm. If you want to make a good impression, don’t run out of food at such an early time of day. Especially something as common as the lowly hamburger (another reason to switch to McDonald’s?). Nothing is more frustrating in a restaurant than finding out that what you want to order is no longer available. The staff never tells you what is not available until you mention it. (Also applies to most Japanese restaurants.)

The word “plate lunch” might also be misleading in Japanese. It sounds like they got only a lunch menu, and no dinner. They need to explain what it is. L&L has a Web site, but it has nothing more than the Tokyo restaurant’s address and phone number in English. Like what time do they open/close? What’s on the menu? They need to have their own official Web site in Japanese. All we see now are Japanese bloggers writing mostly incomplete and unofficial announcements about the restaurant.

They’re gonna have to work on these little details to better market and tailor themselves to the Japanese crowd. I hope they are advertising in Japanese hula magazines as well.

I plan to keep eating there until I tried all of their plate lunches. As I do so, I’ll keep updating this blog entry.

The L&L staff are friendly, always saying “Aroha!” There seems to be one or two staff from Hawai’i, mainly in the kitchen. Anyway, I’m glad to see them here. I hope they become as popular as Kua’Aina which is just a hamburger joint.

Of course, what we are really waiting for (those of us from Hawaii living in Japan), is Zippy’s (chili, saimin, etc.) and Ono Hawaiian Foods (for poi, kalua pig, lomilomi, etc.)

Japan Blog revamped

After 3 years of neglect, I’ve finally revamped this Japan Blog and hope to start writing here again. The previous blog system was so cumbersome to use, and upgrading it to a major version update was way too much trouble. So I’ve installed a new blogging system and ported the old entries (not very many) to this new system.

I plan to use this blog to fill the gap between my big online photo gallery (PHOTOGUIDE.JP/pix/) of 36,000+ photos and my Japan Articles collection (PHOTOGUIDE.JP/txt/) of full-length, magazine-like articles and book-like chapters.

Sometimes I wanna show only one or a handful of images or sometimes I wanna write shorter articles or opinionated commentaries about something. Japan Blog is where I’ll do this.

Japan Blog entries will all be about Japan, by someone who has been living and working here for a long time and who can speak, read, and write (with a computer) Japanese quite fluently. By someone who loves to travel around Japan and visit places and see things for the first time (or maybe second time). By someone who loves to take pictures and videos to help people better understand Japan. And by someone who is old enough (but not that old) to give advice and tips to younger and less experienced folks.

I also maintain two other blogs:

• PhotoGuide Japan News – For sister site photojpn.org which is a guide to photography in Japan.
• Shiga News – For sister site shiga-ken.com which is a guide to Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

Our online gallery’s new look and features

Movie: Katen no Shiro

Released in Japan on Sept. 12, 2009, this movie is about Okabe Mataemon, a Nagoya (Atsuta)-based master carpenter who in 1576 was ordered by Japan’s leading warlord Oda Nobunaga to build Azuchi Castle on Mt. Azuchi fronting Lake Biwa. The main castle tower or donjon was to have an unprecedented five stories. It was to be the grandest and most lavish castle Japan had ever seen. Mataemon and his crew had only three years to complete the epic construction which they did. The movie shows the major and minor tribulations Mataemon and his crew went through during the construction. The movie is also unusual because it has no battle scenes despite being a samurai movie.

Being a castle fan, I really looked forward to this movie. However, I was somewhat disappointed with the quality of the acting, completeness of the story, believability, and overall visual and emotional impact. The movie does have a few outstanding scenes with what looks like thousands of people working, but they were too few and too short. Computer graphics depicting the construction of the mountaintop castle were impressive enough. But I thought there were too many story lines and characters which could not be fully developed or explained within the movie’s 139 min.

For history buffs, it might be frustrating because the movie is obviously not historically accurate since it is a work of fiction. For castle fans, the movie does not show all the major aspects of building a castle. I wish they showed more scenes of the actual construction (which sped by too quickly). Work on the stone walls, interior, moats, etc., are missing. Seeing the stones being cut and fitted onto the walls, the beams being fitted to the main pillar, the construction of the roof, moat digging, interior painting, gold leafing, etc., are all missing. So the educational value of this movie does not attain its potential.

The movie does have interesting story lines. Construction of a major castle with mostly manual labor, Mataemon the carpenter prodigy, Nobunaga’s affection for imported European goods, merchants getting rich from European trade, ninja-like assassins, and a few love stories. But the movie was too short to adequately develop them all. It tries to cover everything, but in doing so, it never really developed any story to its fullest and best potential. It might have been better to make it a TV series rather than a movie.

But I still recommend seeing this movie. It is worth seeing the few outstanding scenes that it has. The movie was filmed in Kyoto; Adogawa in Takashima where they filmed the giant boulder scene with 200 extras, Awajishima island in Hyogo for scenes atop Mt. Azuchi overlooking Lake Biwa, Kiso-Fukushima in Nagano for forest scenes, and Taiwan for the big tree scene.
It is pretty much an all-star cast headed by Nishida Toshiyuki as Mataemon, Otake Shinobu as his wife, and Ogata Naoto (who gave a fine acting performance) as a woodsman.

I have posted a detailed review and detailed summary of the movie plot for those of you who cannot understand Japanese, so you’ll know what’s going on:
http://photoguide.jp/txt/Movie_review:_Katen_no_Shiro_(火天の城)

Official Web site (in Japanese only): http://katen.jp/

Real Geisha Real Women, Kyoto geisha film by Peter MacIntosh

I just saw a screening of my friend Peter MacIntosh’s documentary geisha film called Real Geisha Real Women at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on June 22, 2009.

It’s a well-done 52-min. film by Peter who interviewed several Kyoto maiko and geiko who give an intriguing look at how they became a maiko/geiko and how it has affected their lives in positive ways.

It’s a series of interviews in Japanese with English subtitles mixed with various scenes of them putting on their make-up and wig, getting dressed in kimono (by a male dresser), performing overseas, and mixing with the crowd in Tokyo. (See a Kyoto geiko posing with Cosplayers in Tokyo.)

The film shows how these women are actually just normal people like everyone else. They eat candy, watch movies, like to eat good food, etc. The older geisha, though, went through a different experience when she was sold into the profession. There’s a good mix of interviewees. Young and old, upcoming and soon-to-retire, as well as former geiko now married and happy with married life and her three kids.

Being a maiko/geisha is a way of life, and can be quite restrictive. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see some of them retired (or want to retire) to get married (all maiko/geiko in Kyoto must remian single) or find another occupation while still being young enough. It was also surprising to see how some of them have started side businesses/occupations such as singing (a childhood dream for one geiko) and selling their own cosmetics line.

I think it’s valuable visual/audio record of these women, a valuable oral history reflecting Japanese tradition as well as the current times. Peter was mainly motivated to make this film after seeing so many foreign journalists who could never get it right in portraying the geisha. (I can well understand this.) He plans to make a sequel. The cameraman and film editor was John Wells in Kyoto (another friend of mine).

The film is available on DVD for UD$47.99 including shipping. You can order it here:
http://www.realgeisharealwomen.com/

You can also see the trailer, but it’s just a music video clip without any talking. Don’t be misled by it. The actual film has no music, only talking. I think this film is ideal for the education market. Universities, high schools, etc., teaching Japanese would or should be interested in acquiring this video.

Gunkanjima (Battleship island) open to the public

Gunkanjima, a small and intriguing abandoned island used for coal-mining in Nagasaki Prefecture, is now open to tourists from April 22, 2009.

The large apartment buildings atop the island make it look like a battleship, giving its nickname. The island served as a coal-mining station from 1890 to 1974 when the island was abandoned upon the closure of the mine. Over 5,000 people once lived on the island whose perimeter measures only 1 km (or about 480 meters across and 160 meters wide). It was the most densely populated place in the world. The huge apartment buildings, movie theater, elementary school, and other facilities still lay in ruins today. Needless to say, it’s a great shooting op for photographers.

See this page for my full story about the island. I’m delighted that my suggestion to open the island to tourists has been realized.
http://photojpn.org/books/theme/saiga.html

The city of Nagasaki spent about 100 million yen to build a port and tourist facilities on the island. The tour is an hour long, costing 4300 yen for the boat ride and guided tour. Reservations required. Call Yamasa Kaiun at 095-822-5002. やまさ海運

Cell phone decoration

Spotted this camera phone while I was watching a festival in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. It’s not a clamshell type phone. The top slides upward to reveal numeric keys underneath. Such extreme decoration wouldn’t work on a clamshell phone.

I bet she had it done professionally.

Japanzine’s Best of Japan On the Web 2009

Vintage sumo videos

I’ve been digitizing some old videotapes I shot years ago. Here are a few sumo gems.
This is Akebono making hand prints at his stable in Tokyo in 1991. This was before he became Ozeki/Yokozuna.

This is Konishiki at a party in 1987 at a party held in his honor by the America-Japan Society in Tokyo. He and the late US Ambassador Mike Mansfield compare the size of their hands, and Konishiki also sings on stage.

Yokozuna Akebono performs the dohyo-iri ring-entering ceremony during an exhibition sumo tournament at Yasukuni Shrine. He was the only yokozuna and looking totally awesome.