Stones Throw

Sumo Baby | Neil Duckett

I scanned an image from the “Ichi The Killer” manga and made a desktop wallpaper out of it.

Follow the link for the full image.

僕はよく使っているFlickr.comと言う写真サイトで珍しいものをたくさん見つけた。「Okinawa Soba」と言う人が昔の日本の写真をいっぱい載せた。どやて手に入ったか分からないけどすごくきれいな写真だ。下にちょっとだけ載せたがOkinawa Sobaのサイトで全部見られる。

LITTLE GIRLS OF JAPAN CARRY BABIES WITH BROKEN NECKS

Cherry Blossom Road

THE GEISHA WHO REFUSED TO LOOK

MEANDERING MONK MOVES IN THE MORNING MIST...

GEISHA IN A JAPANESE FLOWER GARDEN

I'm not a super train geek or anything, but I do know the Yamanote line pretty well. It's the green-and-silver train that does a big loop around central Tokyo, that takes you from Meguro to Tokyo Station in 19 minutes and from Shinjuku to Shibuya in precisely 7. I used to take it everyday to school and now I ride it all the time to get places. Now, with this strange-but-kinda-cool digital watch that looksl ike the train station sign announcing the arrival of the next train, you can wear the Yamanote line on your wrist.

Link

Related stories:

Yamanote Line tape measure
Yamanote Line cell phone straps

via http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2008/09/yamanote-line-d.html

Anyone learning Japanese who also happens to spent a lot of time wasting away in front of a computer will definitely get a kick out of a bunch of new Nihongo courses on iKnow from Cerego Japan.

The Japanese Core 2000 module, for example, splits a large vocabulary list up into ten bite-size chunks complete with examples, pronunciation guides and more.

I won’t go into detail here, but the site is so Web 2.0 it almost hurts – that can be a bad thing when overused, but Cerego has done a great job of making the learning experience as clean and uncluttered as possible.

So far, the vocab stretches only to roughly a lower-intermediate level of Japanese, but plenty more is promised to arrive soon.

(Via iKnow)

via http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/digital_tokyo/japanese_language_20_with_iknow/#When:07:44:32Z

So I decided that it’s about time I start posting some things in Japanese around here. I’ve been living in Japan long enough now (over 1.5 years) and besides it’s good Japanese practice for me. I’m sure I’ll be making plenty of mistakes along the way, so please bear with me and feel free to make any corrections in the comments.

Great news for all you lovers of wacky Japanese products out there with the announcement that Thanko has added an English portal to their Rare Mono Shop.

Via Akiba Today

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via http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Japundit/~3/394790478/

via http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Japundit/~3/359022179/

A restaurant located at the Naokata City, Fukuoka prefecture government office building has added a new Oppai Lunch (Breast Lunch) to their menu to mark the release of the movie Oppai Volley (Breast Volleyball), which was shot in the city.

The Oppai Lunch consists of two cups of breast-shaped chicken rice with strategically placed green peas, and includes vegetables, a bowl of soup, and flag for 500 yen (milk separate).

Via The Road to the Deep East

via http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Japundit/~3/357995483/

Tokyo Genso’s photoshopped post-apocalyptic images of Tokyo overgrown with vegetation are haunting and beautiful. Shown here is Akihabara, but there’s also several views of Shibuya, Shinjuku and other neighborhoods.

Tokyo Fantasy: Images of the apocalypse

(via Geisha Asobi)

via http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/356090545/tokyo-overgrown-with.html

Some interesting statistics that reflect changes in Japan:

Around 19,000 of the babies had non-Japanese fathers, 26,000 had non- Japanese mothers, while both parents of 9,000 originated abroad, according to the survey.

North and South Korean nationals formed the largest group among non- Japanese fathers, followed by Chinese and Brazilians. Among the non- Japanese mothers, Chinese formed the largest group, followed by Filipinas, and North and South Koreans.

The trend reflects the increasing number of foreigners marrying Japanese nationals. Of the newly registered marriages in Japan in 6.6 percent, or 49,000 involved at least one foreign national.

Of the 49,000 marriages, about 36,000 involved a Japanese husband and a non-Japanese wife.

Of the babies with at least one non-Japanese parent, 5.7 percent were born in Tokyo, followed by 4.9 percent in Aichi Prefecture and 4.5 percent in Mie Prefecture.

via http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=5516

via Gizmodo

I’ve FINALLY figured out a decent solution to the Google Calendar sync problem with iPhones. This is the best solution I could come up with until Google gets around to offering us free push calendars. Let me know if you can make an improvements or find something better.

Required hardware: Mac with OSX Leopard, iPhone/iPod touch.

1. Create a calendar in iCal as a temporary holding place for your iPhone events.

2. Setup Google Calendar to sync with iCal by following the instructions HERE.

3. Set the iTunes preferences for your iPhone to sync to both calendars from the previous 2 steps.

4. Download and install the Yellow Camp iCal Actions from HERE.

5. Create and save the following workflow in Automator:

*Get Specified iCal Items (add the [calendar from step 1])
*Move iCal Events (move to: [calendar from step 2])
*Find Events in iCal (find:[events], whose:[calendar] is: [calendar from step 1])
*Delete iCal Events

6. Add an entry to your crontab file to run your new workflow every hour as outlined HERE.

Don’t forget to use absolute paths or it wont work!
You can tweak the recurrence settings to your liking, just check out the man pages for “cron” and “crontab.”

That’s it!
Now every time you sync your iPhone to your computer all the new events you added to your iPhone calendar will be copied to your iCal. Once the cron job runs all those will be moved to the google calendar, which will then be synced with your iPhone.

A canned drink called “Unagi Nobori,” or “Surging Eel,” made by Japan Tobacco Inc., hit the nation’s stores this month just ahead of Japan’s annual eel-eating season, company spokesman Kazunori Hayashi said Monday.

“It’s mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer’s heat,” Hayashi said of the beverage, believed to be the first mass-produced eel drink in Japan.

Many Japanese believe eating eel boosts stamina in hot weather.

via CBS News

JR East has launched special Pokemon bullet trains:

At Ueno Station, Pokemon character Pikachu made an appearance and saw off smiling children boarding the bullet trains.

“I was surprised to see Pikachu, but I really like the character so I’m happy,” said one 7-year-old boy who was traveling to Iwate Prefecture with his family on the first day of operation. “It’s a cool bullet train,” he added.

JR East is operating four decorated trains on the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen lines and one on each of the Yamagata, Akita and Nagano Shinkansen lines.

via http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=5212

This past weekend family moviegoers in Japan lined up to experience Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, (Gake no Ue no Ponyo), the latest 2D-animated feature by Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki.

Ponyo, which was released on 481 screens on Friday in Japan, centers on a five-year-old boy’s friendship with a “girl-fish” with human face who wants to be human and ventures out of her underwater world. The boy’s character is based on Miyazaki’s own son Goro. Miyazaki, was reportedly directly involved in many aspects of the animation himself, preferring to draw the sea and waves himself. With a plot that echoes Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved The Little Mermaid fairy tale as well as a traditional Japanese folk tale, the movie received positive reviews from critics.

via Miyazaki’s Ponyo Swimming with Raves | Animation Magazine