michael lambe

Some bright spark came up with the idea of a cola drink flavored with Shiso. Shiso is a herb commonly used in Japanese cuisine. It is a member of the mint family but has a very, very strong flavor.  Seeing a bottle of Pepsi Shiso on the shelf in my local Fresco, I was intrigued. [...]

Tuesday 19th of May: I receive a mail from the company that hires me part time to teach business classes. During Golden Week they effectively forbade me from travelling abroad. I ignored it as I had no plans to travel anyway and do plan to quit the job after my classes end in June. This [...]

I was in a pharmacy/chemists yesterday, and I saw this on the shelf and it got me thinking.
It’s a diet supplement, yeah? You take it and the idea is – you get thin. So why the name? I have no idea, so I’m looking for clues.  The model advertising it is Kaori Manabe, a [...]

This house in Sakyo Ward looks very much like a robot…

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There’s a fresh post up on Deep Kyoto tonight of tasty cafe & bakery Le Petit Mec.  I’ll be posting something else French a little further down too, but for now here’s a picture of a Japanese otaku as drawn by one of my 1st year girls last week:

I guess お宅 (otaku) is usually translated [...]

Teaching business English in Osaka this evening, and the current topic being advertising, I asked my salarymen if they could give me an example of a memorable TV commercial. This seems to have made a big impression on them: Yui Aragaki dancing for Pocky.

There’s a special Osaka version too:
CM – POCKY Ver.[Osaka]by J-CM
But she’s [...]

Here’s an amusing video from the BBC: LINK. Other than being bemused by this guy’s wacky antics, I was really amused by the  J-cops’ inept attempts to catch him without actually having to touch him (using shields and long distance grappling equipment etc.).

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Being foreign in Japan, one is often told one resembles famous foreigners whether one does so or not (because, you know, we all look alike). During the last eleven years I have been variously told I resemble Gary Oldman and (titter ye not) Johnny Depp, and (somebody did actually say this) Brad Pitt. However, a [...]

Here are some pictures from Gion Matsuri I’ve been wanting to put up all week but bubbleshare has been acting up lately so… Anyway, the first set are from last Sunday, I got a couple of tickets to go and look inside two of the festival floats which was pretty cool. I went a day [...]

Ha ha. I was going to write about Edgar Allan Poe’s wacky little novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” today, as I just finished it last night. However, I fear I am too weary for literary criticism, so I’ll just post a few links and offer some lame meanderings on gender issues [...]