Origin of Halloween

Do you know why people wear costume on Halloween?
What is halloween for?


When I checked wikipedia, I found it interesting!
It was a big suprise for me to know that jack-o' lantern was originally curved rutabage in Europe, not pumpkin!

Why gaust?
The Irish immigrant to U.S. celebrated harvest by slauting livestocks.
Masks or costumes immitate those livestocks' spirits.

I am wondering if there is any relationship between Salem and Halloween?
Salem is known for Witch Trials.
On Halloween week, people wearing costumes show up in Salem.
Is it because of the relationship with gaust???


Why Boston?
The biggest pumpkin carving event is taken place in Boston common in Halloween week.
The park is fulled with 30,000 Jack-O-Lanterns! (2006 records)
Was it because of Irish community?
It's fun to carve pumpkin and eat pie.
But I definitely recommend to go to the park at night.
It is amazing to see candles inside those lanterns!


If you know some trivia, please add me a comment!

Otogen Live!

Hi, guys!

I did a gig in Fujisawa city last night. That was wonderful night. See my blog :

http://otogen.blog59.fc2.com

Fujisawa is located west from Tokyo, seaside, many surfer live. We can get comfortable ocean wind and great scenery of Enoshima-island & Mt.Fuji.

Best,

jig musician Otogen

Pretty Flower

Hi, good news!

My cozy garden got pretty yellow flower. Do you know the flower name?
This is very pretty = "kawaii" in Japanese.
Enjoy this photo!

http://otogen.blog59.fc2.com

Best,

from Otogen

Hi from Otogen

Hi, everyone!

My name is Otogen, a member of jig.jp and also am acoustic guitarist. So, I am jig.jp musician!
My homepage is http://otogen.blog59.fc2.com (Japanese lang), I am happy if you visit my homepage.
My play style is finger picking. The melody is romantic.

Otogen

Vernacular Video

Video was used to be a more personal tool to shoot, watch and keep by yourself.
Nowadays, video became a more communication tool to share with people in a casual way.


Vernacular Video In Culture and Education
This video tells us how this casual style video, called "Vernacular Video" can work and contribute to the society.

By using vernacular video, we can shoot video in a casual way, not using any "big" camera, formal language, or good quality of image.
We can easily share those videos by uploading to one of those vernacular video share portals.

This casual communication tool can be useful to connect people in a far distance.
Teacher to educate children doesn't have to be physically there.
Doctor to see a patient doesn't have to be there. (depending on its legal condition)
Those tech might help people who are not accessible to education or medical check.

I hope life will be better by using this technology!


These are the video share services.
YouTube

seesmic

justine.tv

Revision3

Super Deluxe

If you know more, please let me know by adding comment!

iKnow-sustainable Japanese language learning service

How many languages do you speak?

1.5 ?
Why haven't you succeeded to acquire second language at that level?

iKnow is the service which provides personal learning data to visualize how much the user have made progress.
You can share the data to your friends within iKnow community.
So, you can compete your score or achievement with your friend and you can also be motivated by seeing how much your friend has done.

iKnow is originally the service for Japanese learning English.
Japanese language learning course in English is available.

Don't miss it!

Tasty and Healthy

As you may know, food in Japan is tasty and healthy!


Teste:
According to Michelin Guide, Tokyo got 191 stars, Paris got 97 and New York got 54 as a total.
People acknoledge that food in Tokyo is amazing.

Yet, Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in Japan which collect local foods.
So the local foods are more fresh and tasty.

Rice, seafood, and vegitable are local productions in Fukui.

Photo 1) Sashimi: fresh fish/ shrimp, sea bream, tuna, and squid
Photo 2) Bon branded sake
Sake, one of the popular alcohol in Japan is made from rice.


Health:
Japan is famous for the longest life expectancy.
Fukui is the second longest place within Japan, following to Nagano.
It is 78.55 years.



If you want to feel "test of happiness", Fukui might be an option for you!

Sabae Office

jig.jp has two offices in Japan. Head quater is in Tokyo. Another office is in Sabae city in Fukui prefecture.


It takes three hours from Tokyo by Shinkansen and local train.
Our presidne, CEO, and founder of jig.jp, Taisuke Fukuno lives in Sabae and commutes to Tokyo this 200 mile two days a week.

Sabae office is located in Sabae city which is famours for optical glasses.
90 % of the optical glasses made in Japan is made in Sabae. And the share holds 20% of the world production amount.
I heard the news that Sarah Palin uses Sabae glasses.

Our Sabae office is located in Japan Optical Center.
It is a symbol tower in Sabae.
Fukuno-san (that' s how I call him) describes the building as "Sabae hills" and Sabae city as "small Kyoto".

If you have a chance to visit Japan, Sabae can be one of the options to experience traditional, beautiful, and tasty Japan!

Search by Image, GazoPa

:photo @TechCrunch50

People get used to search by keyword.
what if people do not know the name of the thing to search?
Here is the answer....we can search by image (by GazoPa).

We can draw an image and search it.

Have fun!