Kaitenzushi （回転寿司）

In the Sushi video which I watched in the class, the narrator said that Japanese eat Sushi every day, but of course it is not true. Although Sushi is representative Japanese food, it is regarded as expensive and high class food, and most people cannot afford to eat Sushi every day. Especially like in the video, Sushi bar without conbeyor belt is much more expensive than Sushi bar with the conveyor belt (Kaitenzushi 回転寿司), so Kaitenzushi is more popular for common people.
Kaitenzushi was born in Osaka in 1958, and now there are about 5000 Kaitenzushi in Japan. There are two types of Kaitenzushi, one is Kaitenzushi shop with the flat price and the other is Kaitenzushi shop with the various price, and today I’m going to explain about Kaitenzushi shop with various price.





In this type of Kaitenzushi you can know the price with the color of the dishes.
As you can see in this shop the price of Sushi is from 105 to 525 yen.





These are 105 yen Sushi, Maguro (鮪 tuna) and Geso (げそ　squid's legs).









These are 158 yen Sushi, Saba (鯖 Mackerel) andTachiuo (太刀魚).






These are 210 yen Sushi, Ebi (海老　shrimp) and Tako (蛸　octopus)







These are 368 yen, Kazunoko (数の子　herring roe) and Kani (蟹　crab) .






This is Nodoguro (のどぐろ　Doederleinia berycoides)　which is the most expensive Sushi （525yen）in this shop.






Kaitenzushi enabled us to eat Sushi with reasonable price, and people came to eat Sushi more often than before, so Kaitenzushi can be said as important Japanese culture.

The Sportsmanship

When it comes to the gate ball what image do you have? For me gate ball seems sports for the elderly and good for their health. Actually at the school near my apartment the elderly play gate ball on the Saturday morning.

Anyway do you know the history of the gate ball? The gate ball is born in 1947 in Memuro-cho, Hokkaido. Although the gate ball is popular especially among the elderly, it was made for the children. The population of gate ball player was about 6 million in 1990, but now the population became about 2 million.

According to the Japan Gateball Union, the reason of the decrease in population is that many elderly quit the gate ball by aging so much and the younger people are not attracted by the sports.

However there is another reason, it is the bullying among the elderly gate ball player. The gate ball is the team sports; therefore often the fight and the bullying occur in the team. Moreover surprisingly the murder which is caused by the trouble in the gate ball team was happened in 1999 in Kagoshima. In this case a 69 year-old woman was killed by a 70 year-old man, for the woman gave a bad account of his gate ball skill. By thinking such a case what is important to do healthy and clean sports is the moral of the player.

The Manners when You Pray

　





















As you know Shinto is Japanese religion, and now there are over 80,000 shrines in Japan. The number of shrine is greater than that of temple, and many people visit a shrine to pray their happiness especially on the New Years Day, but when I visited a shrine I felt that the lack of manner of visitors, so today I’m going to talk about important manner when we visit a shrine.


According to Masao Fujii , first, we need to bow deeply and make ourselves presentable in front of the Torii (鳥居) which is the gateway to the shrine.





















Second, we need to wash our hands and mouth at the Chozuya (手水舎) to purify ourselves. When we pray, we need to throw a coin in offering box (賽銭箱). The coin is offering to gods, long time ago the offering was rice. After throwing a coin we need to ring the bell, and bow two times, clap two times and pray. After praying we need to bow again.

These are basic manner to visit a shrine, and it is very simple, so at least we should know these manners and practice these at the shrine.

The Japanese Art Eraser

Please look at this picture;

Do you know what these are? You might think you can eat them, but actually you cannot, because these are erasers. There are so many kinds of erasers which is imitation of foods or other goods such as stationary, and these days, such art erasers are in the spot right. Indeed the art eraser got a first prize in the Japanese Souvenir Contest 2008 (日本のおみやげコンテスト２００８).
Today, many companies make the art eraser, but the company which made the art eraser for the first time is the company called Iwako, according to it’s web site the art eraser was born about 30 years ago, and now there are 500 kinds of art erasers exist.

Some of them imitate foods which represent Japanese culture such as Sushi and Wagashi (Japanese-style confectionery).

However not only the design but also the technique to make such small but fine erasers should be admired.