Don't be a Pod People... Be a SAUNA Man!
Topic: adviceS


Many folks visiting Tokyo think they can save money staying in the pod room, called capsule hotels. Read about them on this guys blog;
http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/lodging/capsulehotel/
Capsule hotels cost at least 3,000yen. All-night Saunas cost 1,200-800 yen. Both have beds. Both are noisey. So save yourself some money and be a real a SAUNA Man!

The public saunas (not gay) are used by real saavy salarymen who miss the last time but don't want to spend money on a $300 taxi ride. At a saunna you check in after 8pm work-out on the gym equipment, do the hot tub, suana, cold plunge, etc, and then crash on a lounge or deck recliner in the "Resting Room" for the night.

I used to do this so often at the "Rosco Sauna" next to my office that I bought an IC card that checked me in automatically for 450yen per visit when buying more than 10 visits. After working overtime past midnight, I would pop in my "Member Card" (sic) into a locker, pull out my yakakata and towel, hit the Unversal weight machine, then the hot tub and plop on the lounge to sleep like the baby Bejesus. They wake me up before 9am, give me a breakfast discount coupon. Then I would snarf their 300yen breakfast in the 1st floor coffee shop, and I'd be back at my desk by 9:30am looking sharper than any of my coworkers.

Don't be a Pod People... Be a SAUNA Man!
But if you're whimp, here's a list of many capsule hotels throughout tokyo
http://gojapan.about.com/cs/accommodation/a/tokyocapsule1.htm

Bombs rip apart packed bullet trains; heavily armed attackers disguised as homeless storm Tokyo city hall...;
Topic: Japanese life
...attack fears among tense public
07 Apr 2004 06:42
TOKYO (Reuters) - Bombs rip apart packed bullet trains; heavily armed attackers disguised as homeless people storm Tokyo's futuristic city hall; a hijacked super tanker explodes in Tokyo Bay, spewing thousands of tonnes of oil into the waters of one of the world's busiest ports....
Japan weeklies fan attack fears among tense public --Reuters / 07 Apr 2004 06:42 <

Basic is the most difficult jigsaw"
Topic: Japanese Tech

Here's a Japanese jigsaw puzzle that cut out one piece of clear cystral glass with a ultra-high-power water jet.
View full-size image
http://www.tanomi.com/limited/images_item/glassjigsaw_01.jpg
Japanese site
http://www.tanomi.com/limited/html/00021.html

Good way to fix a Japanese male?
Topic: Japanese life
Mom held for slicing 4-month-old son's genitals with razor
Japan Times, April 7
OSAKA (Kyodo) A 24-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of cutting off part of her 4-month-old son's genitals early last month,. ... Shizue Tamura from Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, told investigators that she used a safety razor to attack her son's genitals at her apartment March 1, the officials said.

"so many otaku -- calling them 'sick' loses all meaning"
Topic: Japanese life
Otaku proud of it
Japan's 'otaku' have been branded just about everything from geeks to anoraks, but they couldn't care less
The Japan Times: April 6, 2004
....Last December's Comic Market convention at Tokyo Big Site attracted a staggering 420,000 people: per day, more visitors than the Tokyo Motor Show. ...As counterculture gatherings, otaku conventions dwarf mere "political" events. The anti-Iraq war demonstrations in Tokyo, despite being the largest of their kind for decades, only had tens of thousands of participants, whereas large otaku gatherings regularly attract hundreds of thousands.....
"When we reach the present situation -- where there are so many otaku -- calling them 'sick' loses all meaning," says Hiroki Azuma. "There are just too many."

More Filipina nurses!!
Topic: Japanese life
Job hunt: A reluctant Japan is being asked by Asian nations to open up its labor market.
The Asahi Shimbun / April 7
.... Nursing is a job area given special treatment. Foreigners can work up to four years in the profession in Japan as long as they have passed Japan's national qualifying exams, which are difficult and require high competency with the language.
Nguyen Thi Duyen, 23, from Vietnam, recently passed the national exam after graduating from a nursing school in Chiba Prefecture this spring. She arrived in Japan three years ago at the invitation of the Tokyo-based civic organization AHP Networks, which supports Vietnamese studying for Japanese nursing qualifications.
``Just learning Japanese was difficult (in addition to studies in nursing),'' she recalled.

Japanese vibrating condom VS Taiwanese vibrating
Topic: Japanese Tech

Vibrating Condom Video Shocker gadgets
Gizmodo / FRIDAY, APR 2 2004
...video of a Taiwanese news report about the Vibro-Jimmy which somehow involves none-other-than Latin pop sensation Ricky Martin. Has Martin endorsed the product? Is he using his international acclaim to broker negotiations between the conflicting Taiwanese and Japanese condom technologists?.....
VS
... {{Ryann's}} Japanese vibrating condom from 2002. Is there intellectual theft here? God forbid, physical theft? Could Gizmodo be breaking the vibro-jimmy controversy of the century? Read Gizmodo's I Think These Were In 'Dune'

Using keitai & holding an umbrella while bicycling
Topic: Japanese life
Using keitai, putting on make-up and holding an umbrella while bicycling in a typhoon....Sheesh, that's like half the population of Tokyo.
Japan cracks down on 'killer' cyclists
Telegraph.co.uk, 7 April
... campaign against cyclists yesterday after more than 2,000 pedestrians were injured and six killed in collisions with bicycles last year ... Cycling while using a mobile phone or holding an umbrella will be liable to fines of up to #250 or up to three months in jail.

"Masuyama" Rare Lehman Toy. 1910. Chinese coolie pulling a geisha girl in a ricshaw $2300.00

Let's retro 1979 happy!
Topic: Japanese Tech

Sony Walkman Museum

Posted by trek/taro at 11:09 AM KDT
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"You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."
Topic: Japanese Tech
High-tech Japanese home of the future
Companies envision robots, high-tech toilets, personal jellyfish "agents."
April 6, 2004: 9:59 AM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Imagine getting home from work to be greeted by the family robot, which recognizes your voice and reminds you that you've forgotten your spouse's birthday ...You go to the study and use a touch panel to activate your video messages on a display that takes up half the wall. A doctor appears: "I've been monitoring your urine on the Internet. You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."

Get Geisha!
Topic: Japanese life
Via Metafilter check out...

Immortal Geisha

Mo' betta than Batboy. it's CARPMAN!
Topic: Media
Today on the front page of "Tokyo Sports" shimbun....
After 14 Years
In Korea
Fish With Human Face Re-Discovered!
See the weird, full-size JPEG picture of the front page and find the Japanese link at the Michael Schubart's Weblog.

Love doll

Morissette strips down to blast US 'censorship'
Mon Apr 05 2004 14:14:52 ET / Drudge
Not another wardrobe malfunction !! ... feisty rock singer Alanis Morissette poked fun at Janet Jackson's notorious breast-baring episode by stripping on stage to reveal cartoonish fake nipples and pubic hair.
Morissette, hosting Canada's annual music awards, said the stunt, in which she appeared in a provocative skin-hugging body-suit was intended to expose US "censorship."

Student Konglish VS engRish

Well this is good time to [url=http://wheresdrew.com/B1443844990/C303591547/E1188482182/index.html]plug this student enRish.[/url]

'Ganguro": Geisha in blackface?
Topic: Japanese life
Yikes! Now here's a damn smart pimpin' scam.
For Japanese Girls, Black Is Beautiful
New York Times / April 4, 2004
.....Since graduating from the M.F.A. program at Yale in 2002, Ms. Brown, who lives and works in Chillum, Md., has been included in almost two dozen group exhibitions. She has dealers in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, and in February received a grant to travel back to Asia.
"At the base of it, I'm intrigued by the global influence of hip-hop," she said. "I want to return to Japan to look for ganguro, , but also check out China and Korea, where I am told that hip-hop is big. The ganguro is just one idea, and I don't want to, you know, pimp it."

Missing Bach transexual found out after 80 years hidden in Japan
Topic: Japanese life
Missing Bach original piece found after 80 years
TACHIKAWA, Japan (Kyodo) April 4
....part of a musical score composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), which had been missing for about 80 years but has been found among the possessions of the late Japanese pianist Chieko Hara, at his school in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, on April 3.

The real news was uncovered by Kyodo Press, was that the "late Japanese pianist Chieko Hara" was actually a beguiling transexual.

GET GODZILLA GOOFY!
Topic: Japanese life

GET GODZILLA DRUNK!

See the full-size JPEG athttp://images.es-designs.com/stevenmendoza/IMG0874.jpg
http://www.eastasiacenter.net/stevenmendoza/pictures/viewer$77

'Japan became rich before it became old' China won't
Topic: Japanese life
Demographic obstacles in Asia's way
Straits Times / Fri April 2- - .....Japan is the worst example of an ageing Asian country. In 2025, 30 per cent of its population will be over 65. It will have 'nearly as many .... the economic consequences of Japan's ageing population may not be as dire as predicted... Greying Japan's economy is bound to slow, but that doesn't mean it won't grow at all....
.... that China may suffer worse economic consequences from its ageing population. Nearly 300 million Chinese, or 21.4 per cent of the population, will be over 60 in 2025. 'To put the matter bluntly, Japan became rich before it became old; China will do things the other way around.'
.....problems in China: a virtually non-functioning pension system; a one-child policy leaving a one-to-one ratio between elderly parents and the children obliged to support them; and the combination of relatively less healthy ageing and the relatively more arduous nature of work in the country leaving fewer older Chinese productive...

WTF with Japanese 'corokke' in Kenya?
Topic: Japanese life
1.) The average daily wage in Kenya is $1.75. 2.) Kenyans know how to spell, "croquette". 3.) Potatos are grown cheaply in the highlands of Kenya.

Japanese 'corokke' shop opens in Kenya Kyodo - Friday Apr 02 11:05 AM SGT
Africa's first Japanese "corokke" shop has opened in Nairobi, with the Japanese operator realizing a longtime goal of taking a step into the African market.... At the shop, one dumpling, which the company says is made only from premium Japanese potatoes, sells for 50 Kenyan shillings (less than US$1).

Nekura VS Neo-masochists in Nippon
Topic: Japanese life


The Dark Subculture of Japanese Youth
Yo Yahata, Sekai (monthly magazine), Tokyo, Japan, February 2004; From the April 2004 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 51, No. 4)
Recently, there is a growing trend for some young people to lean toward a spirit of something we may call ?the dark.? ....the term ?gloomy old men? (nekura) gained popularity with stand-up comics, and the previously lauded workingmen with brows knit from their laborious efforts fell out of favor and were no longer respected. The worker?s masochism of people who used to believe that ?as long as I endure, someday I?ll be rewarded? has ceased, and I believe that in its place we now have the neo-masochism of young people who tend toward ?the dark.?
....working masochists think that they (the suffering workers) are nobler than those who relax and enjoy their lives. Neo-masochists think they (the innocents) are nobler than the sullied, worldly people.
But the elements they have in common end there. The endurance of the working masochists soon changes into resentment. The intensity of this identification as a victim tends to put distance between the masochists and the people around them.
The neo-masochists who expose their bleeding wrists in public are unlikely to ask, ?Who put me in this situation??