KISS Charity T-shirt

KISS and Hard Rock Cafe have a collaboration T-shirt and pin to help the City Of Hope charity.

Here’s the YouTube video to promote it:

Hard Rock Cafe Japan

When I came to Japan in 1990 there was only one “Hard Rock Cafe” in this country at that time.
It was the “Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo” in 六本木 (Roppongi, Tokyo) with the gorilla hanging on the window.

Back then, I went to the Hard Rock Cafe occasionally…mainly because it was a popular place around the world back then and, as Japan only had one HRC back then, it was almost certain that American and European rock musicians would stop by there after their shows on their Japan tours.

I talked to Van Halen, Blue Murder, and Bon Jovi in the Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo.

But as time went by, Hard Rock Cafe set up more and more shops in Japan.
I don’t know why. I don’t think they’re very popular anymore. The food and drinks aren’t so good and they’re over-priced, in my opinion.
I don’t eat at the Hard Rock Cafe anymore. I haven’t been inside one in many years.

I do like the collection of guitars and gold records that they decorate their walls with…and the KISS memorabilia that seems to be at each of their restaurants, though.

But now in Japan, there are eight Hard Rock Cafe restaurants:

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo in 六本木 (Roppongi, Tokyo),

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Uyeno-eki in 上野駅 (Ueno Train Station, Tokyo),

○ Hard Rock Cafe, “Narita-Tokyo” in 千葉県成田市 (Narita, Chiba)…just like “Tokyo Disneyland” and “Narita Airport“, this HRC is in Chiba, Japan which is near Tokyo,

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Yokohama in 横浜 (Yokohama),

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Nagoya in 名古屋 (Nagoya),

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Fukuoka in 福岡 (Fukuoka),

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Osaka in 大阪 (Osaka), and

○ Hard Rock Cafe, Universal Studios Japan at the Universal Studios Japan in 大阪 (Osaka).

I passed by a Hard Rock Cafe yesterday and noticed that they’re having a “HRC meets Hello Kitty” campaign.

This doesn’t really interest me…as I wrote above, I don’t eat at Hard Rock Cafe and my wife and daughters aren’t into Hello Kitty (And I certainly don’t care about Kitty-chan either), but if you want to see the “HRC meets Hello Kitty” merchandise then click here.

Do they have many Hard Rock Cafe restaurants in your part of the world?
Have you visited many? Do you go there often? Have you been to any of them in Japan?
Do they sell “HRC meets Hello Kitty” merchandise in your city? Would you buy it?

Western Stores in Tokyo

Many overseas companies want to open shops in Japan.
The Japanese market is very lucrative…for companies that prove to be popular here. But the Japanese consumer is very finicky. Companies that don’t meet Japanese expectations are doomed to fail.

For example, the American donut company, Dunkin’ Donuts, is popular in America. But when they opened stores in Japan, the Japanese people found their donuts too sweet…and Dunkin’ Donuts was  unable to stay in Japan.

On the other hand, the less-sweet American donut chain Mister Donuts is very popular in Japan. (Ironically, Mister Donuts isn’t very popular in America).

Krispy Kreme Donuts set up shops in Tokyo recently, too.

Some American chains have been bought by a Japanese company and were brought here by their new Japanese owners. For example, the convenience store chain 7-Eleven was bought by the Japanese department store Ito-Yokado. (A couple years ago Ito-Yokado changed the signs on their department stores to reflect their connection with the popular convenience store they own…their signs now say “Seven & i Holdings” on the Ito-Yokado stores.)

7-Eleven (and other convenience stores) are very popular in Japan. Japan is a small country, but there are almost twice as many 7-Eleven stores here than in all of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico combined!

Convenience stores in Japan are very different from their counterparts in America. Japanese convenience stores are great!

7 & i Holdings, the Japanese company that owns 7-Eleven also owns the restaurant chain Denny’s. Denny’s in Japan have a different menu than Denny’s in America. I like Denny’s Japan better (but that may be because I’ve been in Japan for awhile now, and I’m more used to Japanese style food).

デニーズ・レストラン「セブン＆アイ HLDGS」 (Denny

The American bakery Vie de France is in Japan, too. But it’s not American anymore either…Yamazaki Bread owns this company. I like Vie de France. Their bread is excellent.

Of course, American fast-food chains are here…

ケンタッキー (KFC) in Japan.

I have wrote a post about Domino’s Pizza in Japan. Click here to see it.

I like Subway sandwich shop, alot. The Japanese Subway sandwich shop. The menu is much better at Subway Japan than the U.S. branches.

There are Japanese fast-food restaurants, too.  These include MOS Burger, First Kitchen, and Freshness Burger (which has beer on the menu! 🙂 ). Occasionally you can still find a  Dom-Dom Burger, and there used to be a chain called Love Hamburger. Love Hamburger went out-of -business about 12 years ago and the U.S. chain Burger King bought all of the Love Burger shops and opened Burger King in Japan in the late ’90s…but they made the ill-fated decision to offer only a limited menu to test the Japanese market. That didn’t go over well and soon they went out-of-business in Japan, too.

But recently, Burger King decided to re-try the Japanese market…and I guess they learned from their past mistakes—they seem to be doing well in Japan now.

There are also branches of Sizzler, Outback, and Tony Romas in Japan.

All of these foreign companies that have stores in Tokyo (How many of these have stores in your town? Do you shop at any of these?):

"The Body Shop" in Tokyo	"Godiva Chocolate" in Tokyo
	Toys "Я" Us

There are other foreign companies here, too…but you get the idea.

All of these foreign companies have to keep on their toes and provide the service and products that the Japanese expect…and for each of these foreign stores in Japan, there are Japanese companies that provide similar products that they have to compete with.  But if the effort is worth it…Japan is the most profitable market for most of these companies.

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Anyways, today is Valentine’s Day.
My wife and daughters made delicious chocolate for me. ♥
(Click here to read a post I wrote about Valentines Day in Japan).

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秋分の日

Yesterday was a Japanese holiday, 秋分の日 (Autumn Equinox)…so we all had the day off.

Both the 秋分の日 (Autumn Equinox) and 春分の日 (Spring Equinox) are holidays in Japan. Japanese people pay a visit to their family grave on these holidays.
(See my FAQ here to read about Japan’s holidays).

After we went to our family grave site, we decided to go to the Tokyo Dome City amusement park because we still had ride tickets from our last visit there.

I agreed to ride on the big, wild roller-coaster with my kids.

I’ll never do that again! I used to really like roller-coasters when I was my kids’ ages…but I’ve decided that I don’t like them anymore!

I thought I’d be able to take a video of the ride…but the amusement park staff wouldn’t let me bring my camera on the ride. It’s just as well…I couldn’t have been able to use my camera since both of my hands were holding the handrail on the roller-coaster with a deathgrip for the entire ride!

(But last month I took a video of this roller-coaster while I was standing safely on the ground. It’s on this post).

After the amusement park, we walked to 根津神社 (Nezu Shrine).

This is a video of the shrine’s entrance:

Nezu Shrine has a row of over 150 Torii Gates.

Here’s a video I took while walking under all of the 鳥居 (Torii Gates):

Here’s the rest of them:

A few more videos of the shrine:

From there we walked to 上野 (Ueno) and went to some temples, the park, and a few stores around there.

We found this small 蝉 (cicada):

We had dinner in an 居酒屋 (Japanese izakaya restaurant).

We went home from 上野駅 (Ueno Train Station)…and walked past the Hard Rock Cafe, Uyeno-eki Tokyo.

Here’s a video I took walking to the entrance of 上野駅 (Ueno train station):

敬老の日

Today is 敬老の日 (Respect For The Aged Day).
(I wrote a short FAQ about it here).

My kids bought a small gift for their 94-year old great-grandmother. They took it to her house and paid her a visit.

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Yesterday we went to 上野 (Ueno, Tokyo).
As we were leaving 上野駅 (Ueno Train Station), we passed the Hard Rock Cafe, Ueno Stn Tokyo. We didn’t go in, but I noticed this poster outside the cafe:

I like the American rock band Mötley Crüe, and I know that they’re coming to this year’s Loudpark Heavy Metal Festival in October (see my “Festivals In Tokyo” page)…but according to this poster, they’ll be playing dates in Japan after the festival, too.

From there, we went to the big 「やましろや」 (Yamashiroya Toy Store), and then we went to a lake that has rental boats.

We rented a boats for our daughters and they had fun paddling around the lake for a half-hour.

Here are a couple of videos of the boats on the lake (none of the videos of my kids are online):

After that, we saw some people feeding the 亀 (turtles) and 鯉 (carp).
It was crazy. They started swarming to get the bread:

A nearby shrine:

At shrines in Japan, you can buy your fortune. After you read it, you tie it to one of these:

You can also buy an 絵馬…which is a wooden board that you write your wish on and then tie it near the shrine so your wish may come true.
Here are some people’s 絵馬 with their wishes written on them:

The shrine was setting up in the evening for the 祭 (festival) the next day (today):

My wife and daughters folded bamboo leaves into boats:

We stopped at an Okinawan store in Ueno to buy some Okinawan food. I really like Okinawan food.

This シーサー (Shiisaa) was outside the store. They are Okinawan mythological guardians (usually found in pairs):

And here’s an intersection in Ueno at night:

Statue Of Liberty

Everyone knows the symbol of America, the Statue Of Liberty (or the full name: the Statue Of Liberty Enlightening The World, or in Japanese 自由の女神像 (which would translate to Statue of the Liberty Goddess).

But many visitors to Japan are surprised to see the 自由の女神像 (Statue of Liberty) in Tokyo. Like the one in NYC, it was a gift from France.

I’ve seen the one in New York and, of course, the one in Tokyo (pictured above)…but I was surprised to learn (from this Wikipedia site: in English or 日本語) that there replicas of the 自由の女神像 (Statue of Liberty) all over the world.

How many of them have you seen?

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Wanna see some more various photos that I’ve taken at different times / places around Tokyo?

靖国神社 (Yasukuni Shrine):

ミルクスタンド (Milk stand) at a train station. (If you buy a drink at one of these, it comes in a glass bottle. You stand there and finish the drink, then return the bottle. You’re not supposed to walk off with the drink):

In a supermarket:

The 大船観音 (Oofuna-Kannon) statue near 鎌倉 (Kamakura):

The first Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo in 六本木 (Roppongi). When I came to Japan, it was the only HRC in Japan. Now there’s eight or nine around Japan, iｎcluding two more in Tokyo (well, one of those isn’t actually in Tokyo…the Hard Rock Cafe, Narita Tokyo is in 千葉県成田市 (Narita, Chiba) near Tokyo.

Actually, I don’t eat at HRC.

At 三渓園 (Sankeien Gardens) in 横浜 (Yokohama):