東京五

I discovered that I’m not the only “Tokyo Five“.

But I’m the only one that’s actually in Tokyo.

There seems to be an Australian pop band who call themselves “Tokyo Five“.
Not only are they not from Tokyo…but there’s only four members in the band!

Their MySpace page is here.

Then there’s also an American clothing company named “Tokyo Five“!

On the top of my blog here, I write my blog’s name in Japanese as 「トーキョー・ファイブ」 which says “Tokyo Five“. The clothing company writes their name in Japanese as 「東京五」, which are the kanji characters for Tokyo and five…but they are kinda odd together.

Maybe I should buy one of their shirts, and use it to advertise my blog. 😉

Their website is here.

As I wrote in my About Me page, I live in Tokyo with my wife and our three kids. So, we’re a family of five in Tokyo…that’s where the name of my blog, my YouTube page, and my main website came from…I wonder if that Australian band and that American clothing company got their name from my site!?

ラーメン・ガール

First of all, today is my mother’s birthday. So…Happy birthday, Mom.

Yesterday, I watched the movie 「ラーメン・ガール」 (“The Ramen Girl“).

Have you ever seen this movie?

It’s not bad. It’s much better than that other Tokyo-related but over-rated 「ロスト・イン・トランスレーション」 (“Lost In Translation“)!

A boring movie....

The movie “Lost In Translation” is about an American woman who follows her boyfriend to Tokyo when his work sends him here and he is too busy to spend time with her so meets another American who is working in Tokyo and just as lonely as she is.

If you haven’t seen it…don’t bother. It’s painfully boring.

The movie “The Ramen Girl“, though not great, is a much better movie than “Lost In Translation“.
Ironically, it has some similarities in the story.
An American woman follows her boyfriend to Tokyo when his work sends him here in this story, too. He decides she’s cramping his style and he moves to Osaka without her.
She becomes depressed and lonely and one night has a bowl of ラーメン (Ramen*) at a nearby Ramen shop that are all over Japan.
(* Real ramen. Not the instant type that is cheaply sold in supermarkets. It’s quite different.)

She falls in love with Ramen and decides she wants the Ramen chef to allow her to become his apprentice. Which is grudgingly agrees to…even though she can’t speak any Japanese and he can’t speak English.

It takes her awhile to understand that, in Japan, that a student is expected to take his role seriously and follow everything his teacher says…without question.
(Much the same lesson that “Daniel” learned in the movie 「ベスト・キッド」 (“The Karate Kid“).)

Karate Kid Japanese movie flyer

The movie 「ラーメン・ガール」 (“The Ramen Girl“) definitely wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen. But it was fun. It had parts that over-simplified or stereotyped Japan…but it also showed Tokyo better than alot of other overseas movies do. They even showed the Yokohama Ramen Museum briefly.

(You can also click here to read a review of this movie by “Manmanchi“).