Ornaments of my house

I wish you a merry Christmas!

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I love beer!

I love to drink beer.

In Japan, there are four major brewery comapnies.

Their names are KIRIN, ASAHI, SAPPORO, and SUNTROY.

Japanese brewer’s name is used as the brand name for their manufactured products.

So we used to say “buy KIRIN” (means buy KIRIN’S beer) or “buy SAPPORO”.

There is a fifth company whose name is ORION.

ORION brewer had manufactured their products only in Okinawa prefecture before,  but now they made a business tie with ASAHI, so we can buy ORION beer at supermarkets and alcohol shops.

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Japanese mobile website

I’m developing a simple system for a mobile website, and I happened to find that the Japanese mobile browser is really frustrating!

Each cell phone company expands their mobile web browser’s functions originally and each of them renders a html code in their original way, so every mobile phone displays a different mobile website completely.

It’s frustratingly like IE browser!

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Windows XP forced my computer to restart

Recently, my personal computer frequently restarts.

I set a recording software on my computer to record a radio broadcast of an English learning program automatically.

However, it hasn’t recorded any programs for a few weeks.

I are really disappointed because it’s my main method for learning English.

I found that it’s caused by Windows XP’s update program.

It forces my computer to shut down and restart very frequently!

It is really annoying me now!

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KY (low price) at supermarket which is owned by Wal-mart

I once wrote about Wal-mart, Seven-Eleven adn Seven&I holdings group.

I’d like to continue talking about Japanese supermarket chains.

Seiyu, one of the largest supermarket chains, have been using promotional catch-phrase, “KY”.

It is a shortened phrase of “kakaku-yasuku”, and it means “low-price” in Japanese.

Seiyu was established in Japan and it was an absolutely Japanese supermarket chains before, but it was capitalized by world’s largest supermarket  company “Wal-mart”.

Wal-mart doesn’t open their original store in Japan, but strategy of them, “low price supply”, is adopted to their group company Seiyu.

There is another meaning of KY, but it’s a kind of a Japanese slang, so I won’t explain about that.

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Orion

In Japan, we can see Orion from November to March.

I love to watch constellations, and Orion is my favorite constellation.

We can see many bright stars in the southern skies in winter.

Orion has two bright stars.

One is called Betelgeuse, the red star.

The other one is called Rigel, the blue star.

In addition to the stars in Orion, there are other bright stars named Sirius and Procyon.

Along with Betelgeuse, they shape a great triangle in winter.

This triangle really fascinates me, so I always look up to the sky in winter.

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It’s getting cold day by day.

Now it’s December, and the air is so cold that I can’t go to my company without warm coat and gloves.

The number of people who wear a long coat is increasing everyday.

I have to avoid catching a cold because there are so many things to do until the end of this year.

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A new year’s greeting card “Nenga-jo”

Japanese people don’t have a custom of sending a Christmas card, but we usually send a new year’s card.

In Japan, it’s called “Nenga-jo”.

“Nen” means “a year”; “ga” means  a “greeting”; and “jo” means “card”.

The Japanese postal company sells Nenga-jo every year, and it has an original lottery.

We can get premium gifts is we win.

Nowadays Japanese people tend to use an e-mail greeting, and the number of people who send paper new year’s greeting cards is decreasing yearly, but there are still many people who love to send and write a paper greeting card.

I have to print out and write a message to my friends because it’s the end of the year!

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Seven Eleven

I wrote about Ito Yokado and Seven Eleven in my journal earlier.

Speaking of Seen Eleven, I can’t forget the Seven Eleven’s logo in a music video.

That was Justine Timberlake’s “Like I love you”, the mega hit tune in 2002.

In this video, Justine put on a T-shirt and the Seven Eleven logo was on it!

I was really amazed by this video, and still wondering if it was some kind of  promotion.

Is Seven Eleven still spreading in the USA and other countries?

As I wrote earlier, Seven Eleven is the biggest convenience store chain in Japan and we can see theme everywhere.

I heard that the biggest supermarket chain is Wal-mart, and it’s spreading over all USA.

Wal-mart is not popular in Japan.

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Ito Yokado, one of the biggest supermarket chains in Japan

The other day, I went shopping to buy household supplies with my family.

The name of the shop we went  was “Ito-Yokado”, one of  the biggest supermarket chains in Japan.

In Japan, there are several big supermarket chains. The biggest one is the “Seven and I group”.

It has an “Ito-Yokado” and the famous brand of convenience stores known as Seven-Eleven.

A long time ago,  Seven Eleven was established in USA, but its stock was bought by the Seven and I group, so it is now part of a retail conglomerate in Japan.

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