Hello Kyoto

In my last post, I mentioned the regional Hello Kitty merchandise sold in gift shops in Japan. Here's the piece I brought back from Japan: Kyoto Hello Kitty on a tin that was originally filled with chocolate crunch candy. (The candy has been absorbed into the American system.)

The art features several trademarks of Kyoto, such as the shop-lined street running up a steep hill toward a temple; the black pagoda; and the cherry blossoms that come every spring (or so the guide told us; we visited in the dead of winter).

An interesting (well, to me) cultural point: The tin phonetically spells out the words "Hello Kitty" (or, more specifically, "Haroo kiteii") in hiragana -- the sound alphabet used to spell out native words -- rather than katakana, the sound alphabet used for foreign words.