Japanese Phrases

Things i Learnt from a co-worker (Nakajima 中島さん）......

口八丁手八丁
くちはっちょう　てはっちょう
as eloquent as competent

まな板上のこい
あないたうえのこい
Prepared to Meet ones fate

馬の耳に念仏
うまのみみにねんぶつ
Falls on a deaf ear

うそ八百
うそうはっぴゃく
Pack of lies

八方の美人
はっぽうのびじん
Everybody's friend

Teru teru bozu

Teru teru bozu ....saw this first in a Japanese dorama that I downloaded when I was in India. At that point, I didnt understand its significance. But now getting to know more, I c how important that was in the entire dorama....

Teru teru bozu (てるてるぼうず; "shiny-shiny Buddhist priest") is a little traditional hand-made doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. This amulet is supposed to have magical powers to bring good weather and to stop or prevent a rainy day. "Teru" is a Japanese verb which describes sunshine, and a "bōzu" is a Buddhist monk (compare the word bonze).
Teruteru bozus became popular during the Edo Period among urban dwellers, whose children would make them the day before the good weather was desired and chant "Fine-weather priest, please let the weather be good tomorrow."
Today, children make teru-teru-bōzu out of tissue paper or cotton and string and hang them from a window to wish for sunny weather, often before a school picnic day. Hanging it upside down - with its head pointing downside - acts like a prayer for rain. They are still a very common sight in Japan.
There is a famous warabe uta (traditional japanese song), or Japanese nursery rhyme, associated with teru teru bozu:

Teru-teru-bōzu, teru bōzu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure
Itsuka no yume no sora no yo ni
Haretara kin no suzu ageyo
Teru-teru-bōzu, teru bōzu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure
Watashi no negai wo kiita nara
Amai o-sake wo tanto nomasho
Teru-teru-bōzu, teru bōzu
Ashita tenki ni shite o-kure
Sore de mo kumotte naitetara
Sonata no kubi wo chon to kiru zo

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
Like the sky in a dream sometime
If it's sunny I'll give you a golden bell
Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
If you make my wish come true
We'll drink lots of sweet booze
Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
but if it's cloudy and I find you crying
Then I shall chop your head off

Like many nursery rhymes, this song is supposed to have a darker history than it first appears. It allegedly originated from a story of a monk who promised farmers to stop rain and bring clear weather during a prolonged period of rain which was ruining crops. When the monk failed to bring sunshine, he was executed.

Ice Bar Tokyo

How abt having your drink in the rocks?

now u must be thinking that it has to be On the rocks and not In the rocks.....well i wrote that purposefully..... u can have this drink in an ice cold bar...

When i say Ice cold, I mean ICE COLD...not as a figure of speech, but in actual....

Yes...there is this Ice Bar in Tokyo which has the bar tables, shelves and even the glass in which they server your drink made of Ice.

Initially I thought that this concept was one of the weird ideas of japanese....but turned out that this concept actually originated in Europe. And Tokyo is the first place outside Euorpe to have this Ice Bar. The other locations are Stockholm, Milano, London, Copenhagen

Browsing a little more, I discovered a whole new world made of ice.

Hope I can visit these places someday.

IPhone

Y Y Y....Y r they doing this to us....
Y do they have to come up with this when I have just bought a 80GB ipod
man....this is amazing!!!!

Rush hour trains in Tokyo

Rush hour trains....my my....They seem to be worse than what ive heard about Mumbai.
Atleast in India, since the trains are open, there is a lot more space for a lot of ppl to get in (rather hang out)....but here...everyone is jam packed inside the compartment...

yday i thought i would definitely end up with a broken arm before i get out of the train...
its not that my hand was stuck at an odd position inbetween ppl....my hands were close to my body...but ppl were so tightly packed that I would def have fainted if I had been in the train for a for more mins...
One might think that the travel time in the train, to feel that bad, would be looong....no its actually only 6 mins...

I would rather go late to work than to get into such a crowded train hereafter....

an interesting fact abt rush hour trains in tokyo
* there are speacial ppl appointed by japan railways at each station near each compartment during rush hour....their job -> to push ppl in and close the otherwise automatically closing door.