Keep your Heart on a Bottle!

It’s the little things that make life fun. Take these heart-shaped bottle caps, for example. Replace the tiny white cap on your water bottle with these humongous hearts and you’ll be the life of your yoga class.

Designer Satoshi Sugie got the idea while watching his mom refill empty bottles with mugicha (cold barley tea). He thought to himself, “How could I make these used old bottles a little more stylish?” Thus, the birth of the heart cap!

Though not just a thing of fashion, they’re a great tool for people suffering from arthritis, too. My mom, for example, has a hard time opening bottles with her arthritic hands. It literally pains her to get a drink of water. With these heart-shaped caps, it’d be a breeze to open.

They come in all the colors of the rainbow (along with pink and white) and fit most bottles. Buy a set of them and watch them flutter in your fridge! \(^o^)/

Himawari

—————————————————————————
Visit us on facebook!

—————————————————————————
Thinking of doing business in Japan? We can make it easy for you!
japanizmo, a Los Angeles based company, provides practical solutions for U.S. ? Japan business projects. Our experienced Japanese staff will support all phases of your business project to seize business opportunities and turn your vision into a reality. >> Learn more

Rice in a Bottle

Have you ever looked at something and thought, “That’s SO Japanese!”

That’s what I said to myself when I saw this:

I know what you’re thinking, “But this isn’t a crazy pizza or even a misspelled sentence…!” Yep, those are super Japanesey things. Though what I’m talking about are those curiously eco-conscious things Japanese people do, like separating trash down to the last soup label or air-drying laundry along the balcony.

At the cost of 680 yen ($7.23), you can use this spout to conveniently store this week’s dinner. Generally speaking, uncooked rice comes in a big, bulky bag that has nowhere to go other than under your sink where scary bugs and germs lurk.

But with this handy dandy spout you can transfer rice into empty 2-liter PET bottles and store them in the fridge. Simply use the cap to measure it out when it’s time to cook.

I’ve never seen a Japanese household without at least two beverage bottles in the fridge, and when it comes to throwing them out, they take up a lot of space in the bag. Storing a bottle of rice in the fridge not only saves a bottle from an uncertain fate it guarantees you’re not going to have bugs in your fried rice. Now who’d want that? Yikes! =X

Himawari

—————————————————————————
Visit us on facebook!

—————————————————————————
Thinking of doing business in Japan? We can make it easy for you!
japanizmo, a Los Angeles based company, provides practical solutions for U.S. ? Japan business projects. Our experienced Japanese staff will support all phases of your business project to seize business opportunities and turn your vision into a reality. >> Learn more

The REAL Eco-Bottle

I didn’t take Arrowhead seriously when they introduced their eco-shaped water bottle a couple years back. Its ‘new and improved’ shape seemed to have more to do with a curvy woman than with saving the environment. It touted “30% less plastic!” but also looked like it had 30% less water, too. Boo~ I was not impressed.

But now there’s one by Coca-Cola Japan, ILOHAS, a water bottle that practically disppears before your eyes:

The half-liter bottle weighs just 12 grams when empty and uses 40% less material than most other water bottles. In a year, that amounts to 3,000 tons less in the landfills. But the real eye-catcher is just how quickly and effortlessly it shrinks in size. It’s like a work of art! With a little imagination, I bet you can twist it into a flower, a robot, or even a person. If only it were biodegradable.

One other drawback is that it sells at about 20 cents more than other water bottles ($1.30). But I think many people will find that at least 20 cents of satisfaction comes when they get to twist the bottle into a measly piece of wire. Pretty amazing, if you ask me. (^.<)V

Himawari

—————————————————————————
Visit us on facebook!

—————————————————————————
Thinking of doing business in Japan? We can make it easy for you!
japanizmo, a Los Angeles based company, provides practical solutions for U.S. ? Japan business projects. Our experienced Japanese staff will support all phases of your business project to seize business opportunities and turn your vision into a reality. >> Learn more