HRP-4C The first girlie humanoid

Only in Japan..

I got this from  Yahoo news couple weeks ago:

Japanese researchers showed off robot that will soon strut her stuff down a Tokyo catwalk. This girlie humanoid designed to look like an average Japanese woman with black hair trimmed down the shoulders, 158 cm height (the average height of Japanese woman aged 19-29), weights 43 kilograms. She has a manga-inspired human face but a silver metallic body and 42 motions motors programmed to mimic the movements of flesh-and-blood fashion models. 

"We have deliberately leaned toward anime style." said the one of the inventors, humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita.

(All pictures courtesy of AP Photo/Koji Sashara)

Like her real-life counterparts, robot model HRP-5C commands a hefty price, the institute said developing her cost more than 200 million yen (two million dollars)

Birthday dinner

It's another beautiful day, it was raining in the morning then clearing up during the day and and the afternoon was just perfect for a Friday night in the city.
As soon as I wrapped up my works at 5 I called to book a table for dinner at Masuya, I reckoned it would be ok to book just an hour before they open but a nice voice of a lady at the other end replied '..sorry but all the tables has been booked for tonight..' err... even only for two people please?.. I insisted, but she couldn't promise anything at that point. Don't give up, I said to myself, just go there and let see if they would be hesitate to refuse customer. I got there at 6 pm just when they opened the door, and thank God.. they gave us two seats at the sushi bar, that will do I! We still can order everything on the menu except the hot pot ones.

Finally we enjoyed my birthday dinner at Masuya, one of the best Japanese restaurants in Sydney, located at basement level of 12 O'connel street just a stroll walk from Wynyard station. We ordered Otoro sushi, Wagyu beef teriyaki and Jewfish Masuya's way, one of masuya’s signature dishes, a jewfish fillet with a carefully rolled potato net, oven baked till crispy and served with dill lime butter sauce & soy infusion.

Wagyu beef teriyaki

Otoro sushi

Jewfish fillet

Niseko avocado and Sanghai berry for the drinks

The food was oishi!...service was great and the price..umm 'you got what you paid..'

Purezento

Today I got some 'purezento' from my missus, as I have promised her that I would post her 'presents' on my blog and now I gotta keep my words! Here are some of the presents:

- Our Memories, it's a very first web created for my special day, it's more like an 'experiment' web and even I feel that the contents would make us look like 'narcist' :) anyway, I give her the credits for the efforts of digging out our old paper-printed photos, digital camera was still a luxury back then when we married, restoring them in digital files, and uploading the snippets on the web.

So if you wanna take a peek on our journey over the last 7 years, please clik on Our Memories

- A set of my favorite deserts and drink: Durian ice cream, strawberry mochi, and a Korean Plum wine.

- Emi Fujita CD

- 3 nights weekend getaway for Easter long weekend to Cairns, a famous destination of Tropical North Queensland (can't wait to board the plane)

- On the top that I still asked her "How about a DSLR ?"

My strawberry ice cream mochi

Durian ice cream

Plum wine

Black Raspberry wine

In the mood of Ume blossoms (in Japan), I was looking for Umeshu (Japanese plum wine), but no luck! Couldn't fine this favorite wine of mine in the city, eventually I got a Korean Black Raspberry wine instead.

My Black raspberry wine

This Bohae Bokboonjajoo (Black Raspberry wine) is the world's best black raspberry wine, that's what its brewery company claimed. A small bottle of 375 ml for $17, above average price if I compare to normal western wine. This enchanting purplish color wine won the silver medal at 2005 Dallas Morning News International Wine Competition, indeed has a superb taste and less sweet compare to plum wine. This wine was also selected as a official wine for APEC 2005's dinner party.

For you wine lovers, this one is worth a zip!

Talking about wine, I got some unique and funny wine pictures taken last year during my visit to Hunter Valley, a famous winery region in Australia.



This one is Sakura Shiraz from Windowrie brewery in Cowra, I got this when visiting Sakura Masturi in this small country town last year.

Sakura Shiraz

Harajuku Unique Church

Only in Japan..

This Harajuku Protestant Church is located at 3-42-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo and kinda futuristic Church with the ceiling is specially made to reverberate natural sound for 2 seconds to provide a unique listening experience for worshipers and tourists. The church was completely built in September 2005, by architecture duo Ciel Rouge Creation (Henry Gueydan and Fumiko Kaneko), it has white interior as well as the chairs mostly in white which gives a futuristic impression.

All pictures courtesy of Harajuku Church

If only I had known this Church during my last visit to Tokyo, I would definitely visit this beautiful and unique Church, anyway I have added my must do’s in Tokyo for my next visit. 

Happy Friday The 13th

Friday has been considered as an unlucky day, as well as number 13 as an unluckiest number. This superstition believed to be traced back and related to the story of 'Knights Templar' which I found in Wikipedia as follows:

The Knights Templar were a monastic military order founded in Jerusalem in 1118 C.E., whose mission was to protect Christian pilgrims during the Crusades. Over the next two centuries, the Knights Templar became extraordinarily powerful and wealthy. Threatened by that power and eager to acquire their wealth, King Philip secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307 - Friday the 13th.

Some other stories related to the 'unlucky Friday' are about Black Friday (the day when the stock market crashed and collapsed) and JESUS was crucified on Friday.

I found this special promo by a famous online store in Australia, oo.com.au, which challenge people to be a lucky winner of 'Lucky Friday'

So which one you believe in 'Friday the 13th' ? unlucky or lucky day? what you gonna do tonight? me... might be watching some Japanese horror movies.. ho..ho...

Happy Friday the 13th guys.... :-)

Ume Matsuri

The best time to experience Ume Matsuri (Plum blossom festival) in Japan is during mid January till mid March when you can see the beautiful plum flowers in the parks across Japan. There are some famous park for its Plum blossom such as Atami baien in Shizuoka, Yushima Tenmangu in Tokyo, Mito Kairakuen park in Mito-Ibaraki, and Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto where you can find 6,000 plum trees.

The plum blossom photos above were taken by a friend at Sumaura Rikyuu Park in Suma, Kobe. Suma is known as one of the places in The Tale of Genji, the first long novel in the world, written more than 1,000 years ago.

*Thanks Kumi-san for the pictures and the information about Suma*

Ume or plum is also called Japanese apricot, which is famous for Umeboshi or Japanese pickled plum. Talking about plum, plum wine is my favorite wine which is very famous in Japan and Korea. Some says that the sweet taste and aroma of umeshu could appeal those who even don't like alcoholic drinks.

Ajinomoto Stadium

March this year will be the 9th birthday for Ajinomoto Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in Chofu-Tokyo which was the first stadium in Japan that offered its naming right and sold to Ajinomoto. This stadium is about 5 minutes walk from Tobitakyu Station (Keio Line) and home home of FC Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy, members of Japan League football.

Nothing really special about this stadium actually, but I found a funny commercial about it, check this out!

Otaku

Otaku literally means a fan of any particular topic, but recently Otaku has been used especially for anime, manga or game mania. This Otaku industri has become a successful industry not only in Japan but also spread accross Asia and western countries as well.

This Otaku word came accross my mind when I was hanging around in the city and passed by a Tokyo Anime Fair 2009 poster hanged on the wall of a Japanese Travel agent who offers a special tour to this biggest anime fair.

One of some famous works about otaku is Densha Otoko (Train Man), is allegedly true story about a Japanese geek who saves an 'office lady' from a drunken on a train. You can read the review on this lil fella's post about Densha Otoko movie.

Here are some of last year photos taken from Sydney Animania, you can see the folks queeing for at least 2 hours in a chilly winter morning and I was somewhere on the line :-)