Freeze-dried Soup is handy for hiking!

Many Japanese people from young to old enjoy hiking a lot. Even in the summer it is still cooler at the high altitude so it feels great and relaxing to eat or drink something warm at the top of the mountain.
Freeze-dried soup is so popular for hiking because it's so light and convenient that you don't have to worry about a heavy backpack or carrying cooking equipment. It is also good for usual meal as it's easy to cook.
Japanese typical soup is miso soup but many other kinds are also sold besides miso soup.
A hiking season will peak soon and freeze-dried soup will be playing a great role.

The Summer solstice and the Winter solstice

Some people like winter and some like summer and how about you? I personally like the summer because we have long day light and we can enjoy after work time till late.

In Japan,traditionally,we have things to do and things to eat on each the summer solstice day and the winter solstice day.

For summer solstice day,we make baked wheat flour cakes and dedicate to God with appreciation for having a good harvest and some other places they eat octopus to pray for growing rich rice field after this day for autumn harvest time. Since octopus has 8 legs and that means rice of the roots are growing all over like octopus legs.

For the winter solstice, all over Japan, we eat pumpkins, which is considered to be good for avoiding catching a cold in cold winter because pumpkins are rich of vitamin A & carotene. We also take a hot bath with citron, called yuzu on the night.

Do you have such traditions in your country on these days? If you are in Japan either days, please enjoy our culture!!!

Unspoken rules at a Japanese movie theater

I would like to introduce several unspoken rules which are even normal in your country, but if you break them at a Japanese theater you get all the attentions from people around you.
First, even though it is a super funny comedy or a horror which make you wideawake in the middle of the night, people try not to laugh or scream. Everyone enjoys a movie very quietly. It's strict prohibition talking or a cell phone ringing.
Next, basically it is common that you throw rubbish of drinks and popcorns into a trash bin by yourself after the movie but it's carried without exception in Japan. You hardly see rubbish on the seats or on the floor. Also I reraly have seen people with their foot on the seat in front of them while watching movies. So seats are CLEAN!
You might find more small differences, but these are the unspoken rules I would like you to know at least.

World Smallest Can of Beer??

You have seen some different sizes of can of beer in a shop but in Japan, you can find a variety of sizes from 135ml to 3L.
You can imagine sharing 3L of beer with your friends but you find it hard to understand why that small cans need to be sold for.
There is a reason. Before 135ml cans were sold, a survey was done and more than 40% of people who took the survey answered 「The first sip of beer is always the best!」And some answered「350ml is a little too much」or「 Beer gets warm before finifhing a big can」and so on.
You might think it is not worth drinking only a few sips of beer, but there must be a huge demand for the small can considering that it has been more than 10 years since it was released.

Do not want to damage your clothes when you wash? Washing Net will help you!

Washing Net is a net for protecting your sensitive clothes from damage when you do laundry. The material of the net is mesh and zipper on it.

It is easy to use, you just put your sensitive clothes in it and do laundry as usual. The sensitive clothes includes such as under wear, favorite T-shirt or expensive clothes. They are sold in Home center, drug store and \100 shop.

Yes, Summer Vacation!! Kids are off for over a month!!

Japanese school is usually three semesters and first semester starts from April then then they have summer vacation from end of July. The second semester starts from September thus kids have over a month off during summer.

They need to do homework for summer vacation which is a lot of work. What they do during summer depends on parents but many of them go to summer special training such as swimming school or exercise classes.

Around middle of August, many Japanese companies also have summer vacation so many families go trip or go parent’s place.

Japanese Drug Store sells various things

Japanese drug store used to sell only drugs and daily commodity but now it has been changing. They sell snacks, juice, bread, instant noodles and milk products.

The amount of the sales of such products is very large so more and more stores sell NOT drug related products recently. Also the price of the snack and food are tend to somehow cheaper than the supermarket.