This was my first motor show, but it was basically what I expected. A geeks paradise. Cars, girls, lots of guys with cameras, and an excuse to point your camera at anything and take 100,000 photos in one afternoon. I even saw this one Japanese guy with one of those dual holster side strap sling things so he could have his two DSLR cameras ready at a moments notice. Hardcore.

I put my photos on the usual social photo sharing locations. Check out my Picasa Album here. You can also get to my Flickr via the thumbnails at the bottom of this blog.

Here are some of my favorite shots.

U-POHS had the most popular booth... and no cars.

There was one hilarious booth in particular that wasn’t even promoting a vehicle, but they had three girls. Two of the girls were wearing bikini tops and cutoff jean shorts and they came out every few hours to sing and dance and pose for all the cameras. This show attracted a bigger crowd than any of the other booths. The company was U-PohS and the girls are called the U-PohS LipGirls. Apparently the company provides a service where they will give you a quote free of charge for the used car you are considering selling to them.

This is the LipGirls dance I never saw because the crowd was so thick. Luckily it seems that one of the lucky guys up front made this video and put it on YouTube! Enjoy LipGirls! When they start to sing the harmony part you might want to turn down the volume… ouch.

How about a bit of language fun to try to keep this a bit intellectual?

The girls who work at these car shows are called “companions” コンパニオン and “campaign girls” キャンギャル (shortened to kyan-girl). I believe that the “companions” are down on the show floor passing out pamphlets and answering questions, while the “campaign girls” are usually the more elaborately dressed models who are up on stage posing with the cars.

There is a Chinese expression: 香車美人 (xiāng chē měi nǚ in Chinese, or I guess きょうしゃびじん : kyoushabijin in Japanese) which basically means beautiful cars and beautiful girls. 香車美人 is a real phrase, though it seems to be more common in China and not so much (if at all) in Japan. (My wife didn’t know it.) It’s real though. See?

If you search Google and YouTube for “大阪モーターショー2012″ you can find a lot of other photos and videos from the event.

Car Research article Page 1
Car Research article Page 2

A Japanese blogger on the scene.

Here a YouTube video that is a collection of the Campaign Girls at the event:

Here is a slide show of what must be every single girl at the show… This guy really made the rounds.

That’s all! Remember just Google “大阪モーターショー2012″ if you want to see more of the show.

This youtube introduction of Royal Milk is pretty good, and the host actually speaks Japanese which is a plus.

Have any of you been to maid cafes? Any recommendations?

Also while we’re on the subject, if you are going to go to Akihabara as a tourist I strongly recommend also visiting NAKANO BROADWAY Shopping Arcade. It’s like Akihabara but with more focus on the anime/maid/figure side of otaku culture rather than the electronics. I haven’t been there forever… and I can’t believe I didn’t blog about it when I did go… but it was great, and my tweeps assure me that it does indeed still exist. Danny Choo has a great piece on Nakano Broadway here you can check out.

Back to the subject of maid cafes, I went to e-maid cafe in Osaka back in 2006 with a quite otaku Japanese buddy and had a fun time. You can read that old school JapanNewbie e-maid cafe blog post here, and you can check out e-maid cafe official site here.

e-maid cafe in Osaka circa 2006

Let me know if you have any maid cafe recommendations!

Okonomiyaki at Takenosuke in Shanghai

The name of the shop is Takenosuke (武之助). They serve Okonomiyaki in Shanghai and play old school Japanese music on the sound system, like Ishikawa Sayuri, Inoue Yousui, Okamoto Mayo, Yumi, and Uemura Kana (hope I got all those names correct). The place prides itself on being a Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki shop, so you can get the Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki that is filled with noodles, and the place has Hiroshima Carps baseball team photos everywhere.

No Carps stuff in this photo though...

It took forever for our three okonomiyaki orders to come, but we all agreed that it was solid okonomiyaki when they finally showed up. Note, my wife is from Osaka, so her standards for okonomiyaki are pretty high.

If you sit upstairs you will take off your shoes and sit in one of those low tables where the floor is also also depressed so you don’t have to cross your legs. This type of table is called a horigotatsu…shiki (掘りごたつ) table. Hori is to dig. Kotatsu is one of those indoor heated tables… These are not heated, of course.

Unlike they would in Japan, this restaurant doesn’t give you extra aonori (青のり seaweed flakes) or katsuobushi (鰹節 dried fish flakes) or sauce at your table, but that wasn’t a big deal for us. Also, you don’t cook the okonomiyaki yourself a hotplate, they’ll completely prepare it and bring it to your table.

One fun thing was that they had some examples of Hiroshima dialect and other random things on the table.

takenosuke031

It also seems that they have a sort of system set up where Chinese speakers can get an automated explanation of the menu items… it had something to do with a scanner device and special tags embedded into the menu. Looked pretty interesting, but we didn’t try it.

If you’re in Shanghai and need Okonomiyaki be sure to check out Takenosuke!

Japanese post Takenosuke
Address
上海市長寧区古羊路537号
古羊路 near 宋园路
guyang lu near songyuan lu

We are living in Shanghai now, which makes a quick trip to Japan every now and then surprisingly quick and affordable. I took a few days off of work a few weeks ago to take a 5 day trip back to Osaka to catch up with the in-laws and meet some peeps. My father-in-law also treated us to a Japan road trip taking us from Osaka, to Shirakawagou, to Takayama, and back. We saw some historical sites, went to a great onsen, and ate and ate and ate. Here’s the scoop!

Route:
EN: Osaka → Shirakawagou → Fukuchi Onsen → Hida Takayama → Osaka
JP: 大阪 → 白川郷 → 福地温泉 → 飛騨高山 → 大阪

More Photos on my Flickr:
Shirakawagou
Magokuro Onsen
Takayama

Shirakawagou

Our first stop was Shirakawagou 白川郷 in Gifu prefecture. We left Osaka by car at about 8:00 am and arrived at Shirakawagou at about noon.

Shirakawagou is a UNESCO world heritage site and is famous for it’s old gasshouzukuri 合掌造り style construction. This construction not only looks beautiful, but it is very efficient and was necessary to withstand the heavy snowfall the region gets each year. You can read more about the details around the web (like Wiki), but a picture tells a thousand words right? Check it out.

Irori!

It was raining a bit when we arrived so I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked, but I still got a lot! There are many houses that you can enter, and the entire place is very camera friendly and has a good tourist infrastructure. It’s easy to figure out, just show up, park your car, and walk. I would recommend checking this area out in the winter if you have the means, it would be great to see in the snow.

We met an old lady selling… stuff… and she mentioned that it costs about 3千万円 (30,000,000 yen) to replace a roof on one of these buildings. The roof changing project is something that involves what looks like 30-40 people but is only done once every 30 or 40 years. The cost is subsidized by the government because of the world heritage status, but private individuals still have to pay a bit. Some details on the roof changing are discussed in the second video below.

The famous Gasshouzukuri Architecture in Shirakawagou

Shirakawagou was a really nice spot. Highly recommended!

After spending a few hours at Shirakawago we got back in the car and drove to our Japanese-stye Inn (旅館 ryokan) in the Fukuchi Onsen (福地温泉) area.

Magokuro Ryokan

Check out the official Magokuro Ryokan website. Fancy! It took us about 2 hours to drive to Magokuro from Shirakawagou.

Magokuro Onsen

The Ryokan was top notch. I have been to a lot of ryokan, and this one didn’t disappoint. The food was excellent, the onsen is great, and the service is energetic and helpful. They even claim to have English language service available, but I didn’t try it out. They also have two different family hot springs you can use on a first come first served basis. One is indoors, and the other is an open air bath (露天風呂). The indoor family bath is tiny, the open air bath is much larger and very nice.

Checking out the neighbors

The eating area was very nice. All the guests eat together in a huge room with enough space between the tables to ensure privacy. There is also an いろり (囲炉裏, hearth, furnace, kiln, thing…) where you can warm-up while waiting for your meal if you want. As I said, the food was excellent. Usually seeing an entire fish head still attached on a stick makes me pause a bit before digging in, but this いわな (iwana) was so, so, delicious. For breakfast they busted out a great miso paste that was cooked on a large leaf over the fire to be spread on your rice or other dishes — also delicious.

This fish was really, really, really, good. IWANA.

Dinner!

I was surprised to see that Miyazaki Hayao of Ghibli fame frequently visits Magokuro Ryokan! Just think. I have now soaked in the same waters as Miyazaki Hayao (and countless other random Japanese dudes). Awesome. The Ryokan boss said that usually when he is here other guests notice, but not all are forward enough to get all up in his business and say hello. She also mentioned something about Miyazaki’s tough side being shown in the media recently in his dealings with his son, so some guests are a little afraid to approach him these days. I haven’t been following the Miyazaki media gossip, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about… Anyway… it seems Miyazaki Hayao often goes to this Ryokan in the summer… Gotta meet him!

Miyazaki Hayao frequents this Onsen Ryokan!

Magokuro Onsen

We left the Ryokan in the morning at about 9:00 am, checked out a small antique shop in the area, and then headed on to Hida Takayama.

Hida Takayama

Our last stop on the 2 days 1 night road trip from Osaka was to Hida Takayama. I had been to Hida Takayama before as you can see in the related links below, but the last time I was there was quite a while ago so it was all still fresh.

We did the usual tourist run checking out the old architecture and gift shops, but we also got lucky with our random lunch stop. We went to this mince-Katsu place called Sukeharu that claims to have the best ミンチカツ (mince-katsu) in all of Japan. It was indeed extremely tasty.

This guy has been on TV a few times with traditional snacks

TSUKEHARU: The best Mince-Katsu in Japan!

My mother-in-law, who is from Osaka, said that she thinks Hida Takayama is more enjoyable than Kyoto because there are fewer tourists. I’m sure there are indeed fewer tourists, but we were also in Takayama on a Monday morning… and she’s a bit biased living so close to Kyoto. If your time in Japan is short, by all means, go to Kyoto! Takayama is great though. If you’re looking for a quick trip out of town and to possibly get away from the crowds, check it out. It’s also very close to Nagoya so if you’re based there it’s an easy trip.

Takayama Streets

After Takayama we got back in the car and floored it all the way back to Osaka. We made it back in about 3 hours. I think it normally takes about 4 hours if you drive the speed limit…

That’s all. Be sure to check out the other photos on my Flickr pages, and let me know if you have any questions about this trip!

Other Related Stuff:

Here are some good videos introducing the gasshouzukuri in Shirakawagou

Old School JapanNewbie Takayama Links:
Takayama Sarubobo
Takayama BEEF BUNS

There were only two of us so we got seats at the counter.

On the way to the counter we passed by lots of small rooms filled with middle-aged Japanese men sitting on the floor excitedly talking and drinking. The other customers seemed to all be Japanese, which is always a good sign if finding good Japanese food is your goal.

From the counter we could see some of the famed Japanese style baked clay plates that Kogumaya prides itself on, and we could also see the young Chinese staff doing the preliminary preparations for the food. Apparently the main chef is Japanese, but we never saw him as he was always back in the kitchen. Regardless of who was preparing the food though, it was all delicious.

The first dish that came was the kakiage. It’s a little different than tempura because it is fried up with many different things together, while tempura should only have one item fried at a time. This kakiage was unique because it was seafood, shisou, and salted. It was great, crispy and light. This was one of my favorite dishes of the night.

Kakiage

Next we had the tatsutage. Tatsuage is basically like karage (Japanese fried chicken) but the flour-base stuff is different somehow. I don’t cook, so I don’t know… it was also awesome.

If you cannot read or speak Japanese or Chinese I have no idea how you would order at this place other than pointing at other peoples food, which would be tough considering that everyone is in a private room. All the wait staff are native Chinese speakers and speak fluent in Japanese. To maintain the ambience of the place they even make an effort to speak Japanese to each other constantly when communicating orders.

Kogumaya's Menu

They had some reasonable course options, one costing 400 RMB a person. Not bad.

We also got the Kansai-style Oden. It came with yuzukosho, basically yuzu fruit and uh, pepper, I think. It’s the green one in the picture, and it’s awesome. I have had yuzukosho on many occasions in Japan, and this was just the same quality. The yellow stuff is simply tougarashi, the spicy Japanese mustard.

Oden

We also ordered the kamataki gohan, which is basically rice prepared in a giant-ish metal pot. Quality rice. Proof again that not all rice is created equal. If there are only two of you and you order this be prepared to take leftovers home though – it’s a lot of rice.

The tofu was what my wife really came for. She had heard from a particularly gourmet Japanese lady friend that it was amazing. It was indeed very good. This tofu was creamy, cool, and sweet. Very tasty. I would recommend this to all of my western friends who don’t really see the point of tofu.

In terms of price, it’s sort of expensive for China standards, but if you’re used to Japanese prices it’s not bad at all. There were only two of us, and I ordered an Asahi beer and an atsukan (180ml) of warm sake, and it cost us about 500 RMB total. We had plenty to eat – too much even. I guess a regular meal there would run about 350RMB per person.

Good stuff. Go check it out if you’re in Shanghai and want Japanese food.

Address!

Kogumaya
105 Chengdu Nan Lu,
成都南路105号
near Changle Lu
近长乐路

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Chinese review site.