That´s the way the cookie crumbles

Coming from a politically prominent background with maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi as Prime Minister (1957-60), his (Kishi´s) biological younger brother, Eisaku Sato, Prime Minister (1964-72), paternal grandfather Kan Abe a politician in the House of Representatives (1937-46) and brother Shintaro Abe, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1982-86), general secretary of the party (1987-88), (son-in-law of Nobusuke Kishi, his second son is Shinzo Abe, current Prime Minister), Shinzo Abe is the current Prime Minister of Japan, (2006-7, resigned for health reasons, reelected 2012-) and also the President of the Liberal Democratic Party, LDP. Undoubtedly, this idea of a career path resembles those of other political clans such as the families Kennedy and Bush and probably a number of names from all around the world.
The longest ever running sentence and unnecessary complicated? I agree, so to make a long (and probably complicated with a good dose of drama) story short, the current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has now ended up as superman on cookies. I spotted these outside the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine he has visited on several occasions to other countries dismay, of course…

Kappabashi

Kappabashi dori (dori= street, avenue or road), also referred to as kitchen town, is a street between Ueno and Asakusa. Most of the shops cater to the kitchen and restaurant trade and sell everything you might need or didn´t even know you needed if you´d ever come up with the idea of setting up your own restaurant. The small shops along the street sell all you could possibly think of and more in terms of furniture, ovens, pots and pans, decorations, chopsticks, kitchen utensils, china or crockery, Japanese knives and plastic food to be displayed in your restaurant window to tempt potential dinner guests. I was looking for some extra plates and ended up buying these in blue and funky blue and white. The deep plate is a typical Japanese soup bowl, which I intend to use for pasta.

Unless you´re a devoted fan of crowds, avoid weekends.

Kitty-san

On the theme of kawaii, I mustn’t miss mentioning Japan´s Kitty-san or Kitty White キティ・ホワイト Kiti Howaito, who is a white Japanese bobtail cat, a fictional character produced by Sanrio. She was first designed by cartoonist Yuko Shimizu. Kitty-san is found on everything from school supplies, stamps and flower arrangements to consumer goods such as Swarovski´s high end Hello Kitty range. She also has her own theme parks. To make Kitty, who was named after a cat in Lewis Carroll´s Through the Looking Glass, more interesting, her background story is that she was born in the suburbs of London as England was trending in Japan at the time. Have a great weekend everyone!