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About some weird 'diet' pills labeled Japanese, even though they aren't from Japan at all, plus some REAL Japanese diets that are popular now.

(This is my Japanese About page. For the more complete English About page go here.)

初めまして。イトウマキコと申します。中年女です。日本生まれ、元帰国子女、アメリカ、イギリス、スイスを経て、現在は南フランスのプロバンス地方の片田舎とスイスに二股かけて住んでいます。海外生活が日本に住んでいた年数よりも長い、いわゆる変な日本人です。

About how I ended up in a French hospital, and how it's been. Some angst and pretty dodgy looking food pics follow.

Using a form of exercise that's a Japanese cultural institution, to get my circulation going while I'm stuck in a French hospital.

(Hi everyone. As Guruman posted, I was hospitalized for emergency surgery 2 weeks ago, and I'm still in hospital unfortunately. So there won't be any new recipes from me for the time being. However, I still have lots of topics from my Japan trip to talk about. Here's an article I was working on before I had to go to the doctor, and I was able to finish it up today finally. I'll try to be back to full throttle real soon!)

Back in March, I got a new camera in Tokyo; the <a href="Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1. I think this one just might be the ideal camera for many food bloggers who are looking to upgrade their point-and-shoots, or for a lighter alternative to a DSLR. Here's a review of the micro four-thirds format itself and this camera in particular. It's not a very technical review - there are plenty of those online elsewhere. Instead it's focused on the photography needs of a typical food blogger.

As I slowly settle in to my new life here in France, I'm finding out about quite a lot of interesting local suppliers of the things that I want to eat, wear, sit on, or otherwise use. But I never thought that I'd find this: French natto, as in natto made right here in my region of France!

In February 2009, I left the house I'd been living in off and on for years, and embarked on a quest for a new place to live. Last week the quest finally ended, and we're now settling into a new house, which is actually a pretty old house, a new country and a new area for us - Provence, France.

Is there any there there?

The final post in my Postcards from Kyoto series, with some reflections on what Kyoto stands for, plus more shopping and food.