tokyololas

Another in my growing list of unusual Japanese soft drinks: Chocolate Sparkling. I keep seeing this at my local supermarket and, despite the intrigue, I’ve resisted buying it (which means I’ll just have to continue imagining the sickly sweetness).

PS: posted with the VERY handy Wordpress for iPhone app

WPtouch™ image from the WPtouch™ Gallery

I’ve installed WPtouch™ on tokyololas’ blog, so that those of you visiting from an iPhone™ or Blackberry Storm™ or other smart phones can get a trimmed down view of things (saving both time and data charges). If you click on an individual post heading, or on “Read this post”, you will be taken to the actual post page and be able to see the images in the post, etc. If you prefer the full, regular view, you can toggle the “Mobile Theme” switch (at the bottom of the page) to “off”.

So far it seems like a great plugin from the BraveNewCode people, but if any of you regular readers who read this blog from your mobile dislike it, let me know and I’ll deactivate it!
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For Wordpress users:
A little hint to anyone else installing this plugin and wanting to get thumbnails of post images to show in the post previews in the “Mobile Theme” version: under “Settings” in your WP Dashboard, click on the WPtouch link to customize your WPtouch™ settings and, in the first section (General Settings), change the “Post Listings Options” from “Calendar Icons” to “Post Thumbnails”. Then, make sure that for each blog post you create (or have created) that you enter a thumbnail image (which can be done on the individual post page, on the lower right, under “Post Thumbnail”). You can go back to earlier posts and add in the thumbnail by hitting “Set thumbnail” and then selecting one of the images from that Post’s Gallery, clicking “Show”, and then clicking “Use as thumbnail” and “Save all changes”.

I’ve always immensely disliked February, so I am happy it’s done with yet again!

I have a few blog posts lined up, but I will start with something silly:

I spotted this the a couple of weeks ago as I was passing through Ōsaki station. I am not sure in the least how or why this duck in a chairlift is meant to entice me to buy a JR ski travel package.

Please don’t leave a comment telling me that “Japanese people like cute things, so they use cute things to advertise”. I have lived here long enough to know about all things kawaii. It’s more a question of “why a duck?” or  “is this what the enormously popular AFLAC duck does in its down time?”

In previous years, JR has used other animals on skis – a few years ago it was an ostrich, which was even more bizarre than this little duck. Here’s one of the commercials (it’s a blend of live action and CG, but looks pretty seamless):