(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
From this guy(bear)
'Kuma Chang, please say something for all Kuma Chang fan people!'
"Mmm . . . Me wish u happy year *mumble mumble*"
Sorry, it seems like Kuma Chang is already half in hibernation!
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
I thank you all your supports within the year 2007!
Thank you all who's been checking here, who bought my music, listened to my songs somewhere, gave supports to me and got to love Kuma Chang, all of you!
Wishing you all have a happy new year!
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
New Year's Eve is already here - !
Yay to New Year's Eve ! !
Guys how's everything going with you?
Some would be busy, others chilling out, cleaning their room, or just exhausted after a bunch of year-end parties, whatnot. Everyone would be spending their own time in various kinds of ways I guess.
So what am I doing . . . ? I'm taking a little break from work, meeting friends, doodling, or doing some shopping. That's about it.
I did some cooking at home with my friend the other day, for the first time in ages!
I just wrote "with my friend," but I was in a position of something like an operation assistant, handing her what she needed, like "Peeler" "Yes!" "Consomme" "Here it is!", cleaning up the garbage, or doing all other supportive things, so it was almost only my friend who actually did the cooking. Do you see any problems? 
I really wished if I were born as a boy, when I went to the supermarket store together with the girl, and was asked "What do you like to have ~?" (lol)
She smoothly put the food stuff in the basket making on-the-spot decisions, not following the procedure like checking recipes and making a note of what to buy.
She rocks 
She's so cool
(Gotta learn a lot from her )
So, the dinner dishes of the day were the simmered ?or steamed? (I can't even tell which) pumpkin, potato and pork; bouillabaisse-ish soup of shrimp and crab; salad of tomato and mozzarella.
We cleared all our plates, once again super-praising ourselves like "This tastes soooooooo good!" "Mmmmmmm!!! Couldn't be better!" "Awww! Yum yum!" "How come this crab soup tastes this good!?" "A genius!" "You deserves the presidency!"
The super-good balsamic vinegar that my staff people gave me as the gift for the 9th anniversary of my debut, tasted so good, that it almost killed us(this has nothing to do with the cooking skill thing (lol))
Maybe next time I'll give it a try if I can cool them by myself . . .
*trembles* It scares me so much just to imagine what an unknown substance is going to be made
As an after-dinner exercise we watched the DVD of Gottsu A Kanji.
It gave us 5-year equivalent laughter.
I'd wanna be Lenny Kravitz if I were reincarnated
(*NOTE: that's not what's called reincarnation)
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
Yesterday the weather was nice and sunny!
I did all the shootings in the studio as usual, though.
As it's been a long time since I last did the shootings, I found I had muscle aches in some weird parts of my body when I got up this morning, but anywayz a bunch of nice photos taken~. I feel quite *fulfilled*
Later that day in the evening I moved to an another studio and saw a lot, a bunch of people! people! people! around Harajuku station where I passed by on the way. Seems like it was partly because a concert was held nearby, but even excluding that, there was a lot of people around the station, as if any festival was going on.
I couldn't help but murmur "Jeez . . . I don't wanna go out . . ." Being lively is not a bad thing, though.
I think I prefer quiet New Year days where you see fewer people, over exciting Christmas.
I just felt like eating Nattō, and checked the fridge as I remembered there should be some in there which I bought some time ago, and yes there you go!!!! I found the Nattō!!
Yaaay!
. . . . Oh
. . . . It says the expiration date was 22th.
. . . .
But that doesn't matter at all! (Kojima-san, keep it up next year!)
So, I rushed to taste the 3-day expired Nattō.
It tasted so good.
Utada Hikaru is the type of person who is happy to eat expired things as long as they don't get moldy or smell strange, basically.
"Nattō is nothin' but fermented soybeans, huh? There shouldn't be a problem"
I believe it's not just me who eats expired Nattō telling myself that. I mean, it's just natural if you are a Japanese!! (I know that's not a good reason)
So anywayz,
*Merry Christmas*
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
December 24th is already here~!
It's the Merry Christmas Eve~.
And same as the last year, Utada Hikaru is scheduled to do some shootings~.
Like artist photos. And movie materials for commercials. I'm going to shoot all those kind of stuff today.
Lately I get sleepy quite early in the night, hit the sack at an early hour when I'm at home, and always wake up at half past 3am in the morning
My dad was saying the same kind of things
Could this be
the life cycle of grandpa or grandma?
Gahhh alright I'll do the radio gymnastics then
And dry-skin brushing
And wear Attento
But the good thing is that I'm never late for work when it starts from early in the morning, as I'm always completely awake(lol)
Today I'll get to the shooting site right on time so that everyone will be surprised! I'll surprise all of them!
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
Awwwwwwwwww 
I thought of writing a new message and checked the net, then found the news of the announcer Ms. Do Mariko's marriage on the top page!
Do sa-------------n
You know I was secretly in love withh her!
I'm just kidding.
Congratulations!
My Mariko-tan 
Goodbye to the light of my youth
I'm always excited whenever I appear on M-Ste. It's because Do-san is so cute. I sniff her when she is around 
Sorry I'm such a kinky girl (She always smells like sweet fragrance) (So was I always thinking about things like this when I appear on M-Ste!? (lol) (Yes exactly)
She tops the list of my "announcers I wanna go out with" ranking! She's the only one! I always approach, correct, talk to her when we have a meeting about talk parts or in rehearsals (lol)
Well, all right, we very much understood how much you love Do-san,
- now what's this picture all about?
I got it from this hair stylist person who's been cutting my hair for these past two years.
It's called "A Love Potion Chocolate from Ecuador, South America"! It's the chocolate containing chili pepper.
It says "In Maya civilization there was a custom of drinking cacao as a decoction, with plenty of chili pepper to give it a snap. And people drank it as love potion."
I was given this with this comment "It may be fun if you eat it with somebody," but when I tried one it tasted so good, that I ended up eating all of them by myself. A waste of love potion! (lol)
But you know, it's the chocolate with a chili pepper taste! It has a spicy hot flavor-of-life in sweet chocolate!
Man it was so yummy.
On top of hat it's got this too cute package. The chili pepper shaped fleecy drawstring bag! This is cute isn't it. I'm considering if there is any good use for it!
For your information, I didn't have any effect of love potion from it. Maybe it's just a matter of feeling I guess. (lol)
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
Time passes so fast and December 20th is already here . . . !!
Really fast
It's already the very end of the year before I knew it. No wonder it's been getting chilly in Tokyo lately.
I heard that yesterday was particularly? cold, but I was taking a walk for the whole afternoon without knowing such a thing. A walk for the first time in a long time. Autumn and winter are the seasons for walking! You've got to take a walk!
So, I took a walk to a park in the slight distance, wandered around, then found two stray cats sitting on a bench, so I sat next to them. They were huddled up with the severe cold, and when someone started to eat something at a distance, they moved in and stare at the person with longing in their eyes.
Winter really is the severe season, for stray cats.
I bought a tuna can in a convenience store, and another two appeared as soon as I opened the can, so I bought more and watched them until they had enough.
After that I once again went there as I worried about them, then the most friendly one stared at me and said "Meow meow meow" so maybe it remembered my face.
I have a feeling I will go there again . . .
There were a bunch of stray cats living around the apartment where I had lived in with my parents when we had come back to Tokyo, and the bossy one was real cute, smart, friendly and attached himself to us so we often fed him, but when we went to New York and came back, he was dead.
He couldn't survive winter. He was called Brown Sugar by us the Utada family, as his color was like of brown sugar cubes.
We very much regretted that we hadn't kept him in our apartment, and it looked like my mom mourned his death very much too. (all of our family are cat lovers)
I remembered that cat and couldn't help but feed them.
I hope they will survive winter 
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
*tsk*
Darn it Omitsu rumor has it that the woman's been hoarding money but me can't find valuable things anywhere
Where is she hiding them
Uh-oh somebody in the house noticed me All right I'll wrap up this today Good bye for now
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
Hehehe Me is the wandering thief Kumakichi
Right now me is robbing the house of woman called Omitsu of Utada that I've targeted from way back
In this broad daylight
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
'What are you doing Kuma Chang?'
"Me arranged my fave tenugui around my head snappily"
'You look like a tea picking girl!'
"Japanese dye goods rock What are u doing Hikaru-chan"
'I'm taking a little break from writing lyrics. I think I'm almost wrapping it up.'
"Oh OK U can write lyrics but Hikaru-chan When will u draw another manga of Super Kuman next time Me has been waiting for it"
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
I saw the news!
So Automatic, distributed free of charge for 4 days, has had 500,000 downloads, right?!
Isn't that amazing! (the power of free of charge is . . . ! (lol) )
People are susceptible to free of charge . . . hehehe . . .
Well, seriously, this number is much more than we could expect. Guys thanks you for downloading, even if it's free of charge.
My dad and Miyake-san were surprised at this. Or rather should I say, freaked out. (lol)
Free of charge distribution, doesn't exactly mean that no one spends money: put simply it means that we are to bear the expenses.
I heard that this free of charge distribution had been realized by the decision that my office and EMI were going to bear those costs like the song royalties.
It was a big fun for me to watch my dad and Miyake-san, freaked out a lil bit by the number of downloads increasing at an incredible rate of speed. The more the download increases, the more they must pay. (lol) The company and my office receive the royalties as well, but have more expenses.
I've never thought about this before, but the royalties are something that are to be paid to me with no exceptions, no matter if I said "This time I am going to carry out a plan like this on this condition, so I do not need any royalties concerned with the sales of these!"
Having heard about those circumstances, I said "if that's the case, then I'll refund the royalties paid to me again back to my office and the company, so that no one has loss!", but it was declined. Well, they said they declined my offer as the plan was decided to express our hearty thanks to all the people.
So, the tabloid headlines said "Generous Utada!", but actually it should have been "Generous U3MUSIC and EMI MUSIC JAPAN!" (lol)
Aside from this, look at the image above.
These blue roses jumped to my eyes when I was looking at a flower shop to kill time while waiting for my friend!
They are not dyed. It seems like, it's been found out how to raise blue roses.
I bought 5 roses and gave them to my friend! My friend might have preferred pink ones, as she is a girl . . .
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
LyricsLyricsLyricsLyricsLyrics----- ! ! !
Maybe I could do a lyrics dance, instead of rain dance- ! !
Seems like people were excited by the football club match lately, while I was looking at Robocon. I look forward to watching Robocon every year but often miss it actually, so I've never watched the whole show from the beginning to the end yet.
Those boys (sometimes girls are also joining, though) who are in the interview are just too interesting, or rather should I say, too cute. I mean, their mood is. Every time the whole contest is quite tasty, including the project itself.
They are like, pure, I'd say (lol)
It's like, they make me realize something important that I shouldn't forget. (lol)
Hey why am I talking about Robocon.
Oh yeah, lyrics!
Lyrics ---- ! ! Lyrics haven't come to me yet ~ !
Come on! Come on! Lyrics, come to me!
This is like, you've got weakest signal for your ke-tai~.
Aww~all I can do is just to force myself to wait.
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
This is the chonmage wig that I got at Hands lately.
This makes my coordinates perfect!
"Sorry but I'm doing this as a business . . . I'll take your daughter in payment for debts he he he he . . . . (mimicking a moneylender man in samurai dramas)"
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
As of December 9th, it's been whole 9 years since Utada Hikaru debuted!
It's so-called 9th anniversary! I'm about to step in the 10th year!
Thank you for all you guys who celebrated my anniversary~!
Also thank you for all you guys who have no idea about what I'm talking about~! (lol)
Well~, first I thought it's the 10th anniversary year, learning about this anniversary here and there from the news(like the ones concerned with free-of-charge download of Automatic ringtone! and such) lately. Math is difficult
Besides, for whatever reason, I always tend to spend the days just casually around this time of every year, since I can't remember if my debut anniversary day is 7th, 8th or 9th of the month.
By the way, around this time of 4 or 5 years ago I was working on recording every day, December 9th came and went, with no celebration, then on 19th when I arrived in the studio just as usual, my dad appeared with a cake prepared for me, smiling, and said "Congratulations~!"
" . . . . . . . . Huh?"
"Congratulations for your debut anniversary~! (*sheer shining smiles*)
Well
Dad ! ! !
10 days have already passed ! ! !
I had such a happening in the past.
He confused my birthday with my debut anniversary day, that's why he got it wrong.
My dad went very quiet with sagging shoulders and looked pitiful, but it looked very cute as well. (lol) His state hit my trigger point of Moe. (lol)
This year things went a different way!
I heard we were gonna have a meeting in the studio at 6pm so I went to the other room, which turned out to be the surprise party ! ! !
I was really surprised!
'Cause there were a lot of people, like the record company people and top management guys in a business suit, and on top of that the red-and-white drop curtains were set in the room. (lol) Yes, that's the red-and-white fabric that you see in Matsuri festivals or the back of Kuji lottery places!!
It looked so festive!
I was thrilled all the more, as they showed up for the party even though it's the busy time now.
Although they were still at work, all of them looked red in the face because of a glass of champagne on an empty stomach, which was fun.
On top of that, I got a lot of gifts from them! Just how lucky I am.
Macchan the engineer gave this to me! the Hanten(traditional Japanese short coat)! So that I won't get chilled. I was impressed by the first Hanten in my life. And I found it's so warm, when I returned home and put it on. I was so surprised. It was so warm, as if I pulled the futon cover over myself. It was almost hot, I should say.
I was surprised even further, learning that the Hanten suited me very well. I once again realized this kind of clothes suits Japanese best. (lol)
Maybe I should put this on in the studio, as I always have a nap on the sofa and catch cold . . .
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
The other day, when I gave the squashed-faced Kuma-san hot-water bottle to Murakami-san, it led me to a totally unexpected scene.
"Thank you~! Here you go, this is from me, in return"
She gave a nicely wrapped gift to me! (I just put mine into a paper bag(lol))
Ah, so maybe she read the Kuma-san hot-water bottle story here on this site and thought of giving something back to me - I thought so at first, but what I learned from her was that she bought the gift before she saw that message.
A wonderful, incidental gifts exchange was done!
Never thought this would happen. I feel kinda happy about it.
And you know, what Murakami-san gave to me is this, a pair of Bonjour slippers!!!
The Kuma-san, who fairly looks like the Kuma Chang illustration that I draw randomly, is saying Bonjour! Bonjour!
If you put these slippers on and walk watching your toes, every step you take he'll say Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjo
Alright alright, I'm okay, I'm not going crazy.
Well~but come to think of it, Murakami-san and me who sends Kuma items to each other . . . this is too wonderful!!!
We are getting closer to what human beings are supposed to be, I should say . . . !
Everyone, why don't all of us exchange Kuma items with our neighbors, heading for an ideal nation . . . ! Or rather, to paradise . . . !
What I am talking about.
Well, er, put simply, exchanging gifts is lovely I think. Exactly from around now through the end of the year, it's the season of exchanging gifts.
This winter my toes are going to be warmed up with these Bonjour slippers
I have no idea why a banana-like thing is floating above his head though.
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
"Me can't believe it You put my private photo scratching my butt on the web That hurts that hurts That can't be right"
'Uh . . . Sorry, my bad. I'm so sorry!'
"Me dun know what's up with 10th anniversary of your debut but anywayz there are some things you can do and some things you can't"
'Awww seriously, I think I got carried away. My sincere apologies.'
"Me got angry Me won't be your friend for an hour"
'Eh-! An hour! You mean we can't even talk to each other?'
" . . . . "
'Oh, so it's already started . . .'
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
"*scratches* Hmm My butt itches *scratches*"
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
After I wrote a message this morning, I further wondered which one to watch, this Beautiful Dreamer or KAFKA, and ended up watching KAFKA.
First I thought of watching Naushika and reached KAFKA . . . about 85 percent of my life goes like this
Today I was surprised as the studio was decorated for Christmas! A cute Christmas tree and beautiful wreath were flickering. It's about the season of them, come to think of it~.
Every time I see a Christmas tree I remember the memory that the tree had been in the room of my NY home for more than 2 years when I was an elementary school student.
It was too much of a bother to put something that you beautifully decorated away and later decorate it again, and we thought it would not be bad just to leave it since it was beautiful, and 2 or 3 years had passed before we knew it.
It wasn't in the way at all as it was not a big one, and looked quite pop as it got pink lights on white plastic branches! Yes that's right! My family is not freaky I believe!
People always got surprised when they came to my house, as it was placed in the entrance.(lol) Like, the delivery guys or my friends.
It was always flickering in a corner of my home, which I loved. It always looked beautiful at night.
It was very impressive for me as a child.
That's a wrap.
(a photo is uploaded. please check her official site)
There's a lot of songs that need lyrics piled up~
Aww~
Some time ago I was only writing songs intensely, so a lot of songs are remaining now waiting for lyrics-related works.
It's something like a lot of washing piled up. I'm not too crazy about finishing them
I mean, it's so hard to do.
I find it most difficult to make the last 3 songs or so for an album.
(Yes that's right, I'm going through the hardest part, of making my Japanese album)
I felt like watching Kaze no tani no Naushika after a long time, so I dug in the box DVDs were in and found it! Yay!
But what I found was the VHS videotape.
I don't have a VCR
Maybe I'll get one in DVD version later . . .
Instead now I'm thinking which one to watch, Mononoke Hime or Bagdad Café.
