Saiki (Honjo) hills: Tea and satsuma mikan

I really appreciate how easy it is to eat mostly local food while living here in ruralish Japan. Our rice, vegies, tofu, fruit, and fish are all locally produced. Tonight we had Oita chicken, local oysters, and spinach, cabbage and broccoli all from area farms. We can also get soy sauce, cooking oil and miso from local producers. I have planted some things that are hard to find such as cilantro, basil, Thai basil, and beets, and plan to grow more once I have more time. However many of my cravings are often only available from very-far-away regions. I buy frozen blueberries from New Zealand (for some reason all frozen food is regularly 50% off and I keep a steady supply in the freezer here), cheese also from New Zealand, olive oil and organic tomato sauces from Europe, coffee from the States and  I’ve got a stash of  goodies(dried fruit, nuts) from Trader Joe’s. Many people have recommended Costco to me, but I don’t like to buy in such great quantities and it’s too far of a drive. We get a few items such as yoghurt through a delivery service (Green Coop), but the prices are high and the quality is mediocre.

Persimmons drying

With Thanksgiving coming, I decided to spend some time looking for other sources of hard-impossible-to-find-in-Oita food. I discovered three sites that look promising. Warabe Mura located in Gifu prefecture offers a wide variety of organic and natural foods mostly produced in Japan, but also some imported products. The Foreign Buyers’ Club is mail order business that specializes in imported products from the US. Most of their offerings are processed foods you’d typically find in the supermarket, but they also carry organic foods (listed under special diet) such as dried beans. While looking for a source for phyllo, I came across The Meat Guy, which offers all kinds of meats, including alligator. We don’t eat meat much, but after looking at the available foods I decided to order a turkey for Thanksgiving (I also ordered guacamole and cranberry sauce). The turkey is 3.4 kg and will fit in our small oven. When it arrived the label says that it is from Peru and is Halal certified. I am really excited to have a Thanksgiving dinner, and plan to make dressing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin(kabocha) pie. I am looking for brussel sprouts in our market- I know I’ve seen them here before. I have to work on Thursday and Friday, so we’ll have the dinner this weekend.

It has been awhile since I’ve written..lots going on and writing sometimes seems like a burden. I know I’ve written this before, but I think I need to work on writing more frequent, short posts. I’ll keep this one short and try to post again within a week.

Thanks everyone for your concern for my mother-in-law. She is doing much better and was discharged after only a week. She celebrated her 81st birthday last week. I continue to be annoyed with her attempts to be

Stone Lantern at the local Shinto Shrine

helpful- it reminds me of how young children always want to help with “grown-up” work and how everything takes twice as long with their help. It was more fun doing things with the kids….and less irritating when a dish broke or when I came across a hidden treasure.

People here often ask me what is different between life in the US and in Japan. I wish I could answer in a few words, but I never know where to begin. It is so difficult to  generalize and it often seems that people are not interested in a conversation, but rather they want a list of things. “You’re right, most Americans don’t eat miso soup for breakfast. But some Americans occasionally eat miso soup.” “Yes, many people in the US own guns, but I didn’t and most of the people I know don’t have guns.” I think the biggest difference I experience here is the lack of ethnic diversity and differing perspectives in the workplace and schools. I am sure that there is more diversity in large cities such as Tokyo, and I think I might feel the same if I lived in a more provincial region of the US. This will  be a longer blog post someday

However, I do find pleasure discovering things that can be included on the things-in-Japan-that-are-different-than-in-the-US list. One recent discovery was the different Google logos. A couple

Isamu Noguchi-inspired Google logo

of weeks ago, I noticed this logo on the Japanese Google site, honoring Isamu Noguchi. I checked into what logos have been used on the Google Japan site and found that there have been logos to honor Doraemon, authors such as Edogawa Rampo and Miyazawa Kenji, and for commerating holidays and celebrations such as Tsukimi. The Google Logo Museum site lists all the logos from around the world.

Wanted to write more about persimmons, Miyazaki, food, my favorite Japan blogs, library/librarian musings, visit from American tour group….but will try to get to one of those topics within a week. What do you want to read about?

It’s always fun to find examples of multinationals adapting their products for host markets. Such adaptation (a.k.a. local responsiveness) is one of the key choices such firms face (along with decisions regarding the extent to which resources and activities will be shared/integrated)

The recent 40th birthday of Sesame Street reminded me of their expansion efforts. Actually, Google’s adapted logos showcasing the very familiar characters alerted to me the anniversary.

The list of logos Google used is indicative of the adaptativeness of the Sesame Street creators (once known as the Children’s Television Workshop – now called Sesame Workshop). There were different Muppets featured on Google’s page in Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, India, South Africa and Mexico.

India’s character’s (above) include Boombah, “a hedonistic, vegetarian lion who believes he is descended from one of India’s historic royal families” and Chamki, “a schoolgirl dressed in the uniform of an Indian government school [who] is the only Sesame Muppet to practice a martial art”. The show is called Galli Galli Sim Sim on the subcontinent, and is predominantly in Hindi.

It isn’t surprising that a company targeting children has made such substantial alterations to meet the needs of overseas markets. Making the show understandable (i.e. in a local language) and relevant (reflecting these kids’ experiences) is the only way the show would achieve its aims (it is worth noting the firm here is a not-for-profit). But I like it because its a fun example.

Oh, and of course, we shouldn’t ignore that Google also adapts its interface for host country audiences…

Any other quirky examples out there?

Google Logo Of The Day: Sesame Street and Wallace & Gromit

You may have first noticed this week when you went to “google” something that the logo for the search engine was Big Bird’s legs.  Today you will notice the Cookie Monster featured in the Google logo.  This week in North America, these logos represent the 40th anniversary of the children’s television show “Sesame Street”.  At the same time Google’s British counterpart celebrates the 20th birthday of “Wallace & Gromit”. 

I grew up on Sesame Street! I wish it still shows on regular TV so Athalia could watch it (because even if she’s got too short an attention span when it comes to television and she’s too busy at play, she actually knows the TV programs my mom watches and their respective timeslots).

Happy 40th Sesame Street!

These two showing Big Bird and Cookie Monster are the more “general” Google logos and showed up in www.google.com.ph (today and yesterday, respectively):

This was used for Google Mexico:

For Google India:

For Google Israel:

For Google Belgium:

And for Google South Africa:

My darling SIL alerted me about these cute Google logos (because apparently, they didn’t show on Firefox and I had to open Google on IE.)

Yet another brilliant logo from Google

Some Gandhi Quotes,

- words that have lived on long after his assassination -

Cultures, People, Google Logos, World's Celebrations

I’ve been a fan of the Google logo directory for a few years now.

http://www.google.com/logos/logos09-1.html

This morning I was just reviewing the new logos for the last year when something hit me.  I’ve been visiting this site because it shows creativity and imagination with each cool design.   But, I also love it because it reminds me that we live in a global society.  A fact this is sometimes easy to forget when you are managing all your “life responsibilities”.

Each culture has their own traditions and holidays represented on these pages.  Scrolling through the logos and reading each holiday  is a quick way to feel just a little bit more connected with all the other folks out there beyond our cubicles or homes.

Go visit and let me know what you think.

http://www.google.com/logos/logos09-1.html

Have you ever logged onto Google and noticed their special logos on certain days? Google often celebrates birthdays of notable people, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Seuss, as well as worldwide and regional holidays by posting special logos on their home page. One cool thing about Google is that they have all their holiday logos posted on their site. The above logo was posted on March 2nd, 2009 in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, but there are so many more to look at. It’s interesting to see differnt takes on the same logo. Google Holiday Logos

Google have put a yellow ribbon on their homepage for its memorial day in US. “Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Earlier it is known as Decoration Day it commemorates US men and women who died while in the military service.

Click to search Google in Reverse Order

Moreover, Google was criticized for not changing its logo on this day while others have congratulated Google for ignoring the holiday.
In addition, Google has put a red ribbon for World AIDS day and a black ribbon was put up during bomb attacks in Madrid in 2004, and London in 2005.

[ More ]

Google is my search engine of choice and I absolutely love watching as the logos change to celebrate holidays, seasons, birthdays and events. I was so happy this morning to open my internet and see this:

A tribute to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (40 years old today), a beautiful picture book loved by me and by the world. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of those basic picture books, along with the likes of Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, and Strega Nona, that come to mind when you’re buying a present for a new baby. But then you don’t buy it, because the baby already has three copies, because everyone loves these books and wants to share them. 

Read more in this great article on Carle from last week’s The Guardian.

Google’s logo got me wondering, what other authors or books have graced the Google pages? I remembered a few, such as this one from earlier this month in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday:

Here’s what else I found:

for Beatrix Potter’s birthday in 2008

for Paddington Bear’s 50th birthday, Oct 13, 2008

for Cervantes’ birthday in 2008

for Roald Dahl’s birthday in 2007

for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday in 2006

for National Library Week in 2005

for James Joyce’s Bloomsday, in 2004 

and, while not my favorite, perhaps the most interesting: 

for Valentine’s Day in 2007. Probably the first thing you notice is that it appears that Google forgot how to spell its own name. Whoops? Nope. Google’s blog says that:

Strawberries are red, stems are green…

and that 

those with true romance and poetry in their soul will see the subtlety immediately.

Sorry, Google, I don’t think it works. I much prefer this guy’s theory that it’s a clever reference to 16th-century poet Barnabe Googe, best known for the line: 

I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die.

Do you remember any other Google literary-inspired logos? What’s missing? I would love to see one for the next Banned Books week incorporating characters from some controversial books. Or a “Google” drawn by Harold and his purple crayon – that could be great. If you could pick one book or author to be Google-ized, what/who would it be?

Google logo

Logo của Google nhân dịp Valentine được đăng lên trang chủ của Google Việt Nam vào đúng ngày 14/2/2009 với chú thích là “Ngày lễ tình yêu”. Có thể nói Google rất tập trung vào thị trường Việt nam khi thể hiện cảm xúc của mình qua các logo. Logo này thể hiện đơn giản, không màu mè nhưng đúng tính chất của ngày Valentine, ngày dành cho những đôi yêu nhau.

Nhân dịp này Còi Xương Shop cũng xin chúc các khách hàng một Valentine vui vẻ bên nhau. Những người cô đơn cũng sẽ tìm được một nửa của mình nhân dịp này.

Sau khi đăng bài viết này Còi Xương vào trang chủ Google Việt Nam và lại thấy thêm 1 version logo nữa của Ngày lễ tình nhân

Google logo - Valentine 2009 - version 2

Như vậy không rõ là Google sẽ chọn logo nào là logo chính thức cho ngày Valentine.

Google Birthday Logos

Google’s been putting them up consistently since 2002. The first year, it happened on September 27, then shifted to September 7, then back to September 27 from 2005 onward.

4th Birthday: 2002

Celebrated on September 27th, 2002.

5th Birthday: 2003

Celebrated on September 7th, 2003.

6th Birthday: 2004

Celebrated on September 7th, 2004.

7th Birthday: 2005

Celebrated on September 27th, 2005.

8th Birthday: 2006

Celebrated on September 27th, 2006.

9th Birthday: 2007:

10th Birthday 2008

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Tags : google, google birthday logos, google logos, google birthday, google 10th birthday
Categories : google, search engine optimization

Yes, I’m a nut about the Google Doodles. I think they are so cute! Here are the Google Doodles from Halloween 1999 and up to 2008.

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Google is celebrating its 10th birthday, not actually a day as Google itself isn’t sure about the exact day of its launch.In fact, knowing exactly when Google’s birthday is depends on your point of view. Some milestones to consider below, which make Google as old as 12 and as young as 9. Plus, more special Google birthday logos.

Google The 12 Year Old
January 1996

This is when Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started working on BackRub, what later become Google. Use this month, and Google is 12 years old.

Google The 10 Year Old
Sept. 15, 1997

This is when Google registered google.com because they both( Larry Page and Sergery Brin)  felt that BackRub needs a new name, and Google was derived from Googol which means a mathematical term with 1 followed by 100 zeros(A geeky decision right?)

Google The 9 Year Old
Sept. 7, 1998

This is when Google may have officially incorporated.

Google The 9 Year Old
Sept. 27, 1998 (Current Official Date)

Back in 2005, Google declared that Sept. 27 was its birthday. But wait — what happened with that Sept. 7 date? Well, in 2005, Yahoo came along and freaked Google out by announcing an index that was larger than Google’s. It had been ages since anyone did that.

Things got resolved by Google doing some PR. They announced that for their “birthday,” they’d gotten bigger — but were also dropping the count of pages from the home page, which helped (thankfully) defuse the size wars that often meant nothing about search quality.

It’s Their Party, They’ll Party When They Want To!

Google Birthday Logos

Google’s been putting them up consistently since 2002. The first year, it happened on September 27, then shifted to September 7, then back to September 27 from 2005 onward.

4th Birthday: 2002

Celebrated on September 27th, 2002.

5th Birthday: 2003

Celebrated on September 7th, 2003.

6th Birthday: 2004

Celebrated on September 7th, 2004.

7th Birthday: 2005

Celebrated on September 27th, 2005.

8th Birthday: 2006

Celebrated on September 27th, 2006.

9th Birthday: 2007:

10th Birthday 2008

Google has FINALLY produced their tenth birthday’s logo change. I must say this logo is great and quite creative. I was wondering what they were going to do with this years and they’ve really outdid themselves from all the other years.
Let me show you their birthday logo for this year!

Happy 10th Birthday Google

I never expected this. Usually they incorporate the number with the letters of Google, but this year is a special year so this was definitely a great choice.
Congrats Google for making it to your 10th birthday and we’ll see you for another 10 more!