It's the weekend, so time for some more fun links...

Have you seen this photo? It's a Lego recreation by Mike Stimpson, aka flickr user Balakov, of a famous photograph called Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper. The original is a great classic, but I love the Lego version too. Both photos remind me how much fun opening up a lunch box after a morning of hard work can be. (You can buy a print of the Lego photo -- how cool is that? )

Here are the results of another kyaraben/charaben contest in Japan. This one was on a Japanese photo printing service site called Priea, and was sponsored by Sanyo to promote a digital camera called the Xacti. (The camera itself, available only in Japan as of now, sounds nice; it takes still shots or video, and is supposed to be easy to operate with one hand. Sounds perfect for taking bento photos. I'm not sure I like this blurb though: "So easy to use, even Mom can take good photos!" Ook...) Here are the winning entries: the top two have how-to videos. The second one has a lot of explaining in Japanese so may be a bit hard to follow, but the top one is self-explanatory I think - she shows how to make a cute frog face out of cheese, using a bear shaped cutter. Ms. asami, one of my favorite kyaraben artists, is also one of the winners (hers is the fourth one from top, with the two kitties).

The Cartime site, mentioned previously, has a new car themed bento up - a Fiat 500! Anime fans may know that this is the car Lupin the III drives around in the early Studio Ghibli classic The Castle of Cagliostro. Ms. sundae of Cute Obento is the bento artist.

I normally link just to Japanese bento sites or blogs that are mainly visual, so you can understand them without knowing Japanese. I'm making an exception here though to introduce you to Obento Nikki (obento diary). The owner dates each of her entries with the weather and temperature, which is a really great idea I think - you can see the changing of the seasons just from the blog titles. If you are thinking of starting a bento blog, you might want to borrow her idea! Her bentos are straightforward traditional-type (not kyaraben) and nice to look at, and she often includes her own cute illustrations with scenes from the daily life of her family.