Oppai Lunch
August 11th, 2008
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).
Tokyo overgrown with vines and vegetation illustrations
August 7th, 2008
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
1 out of every 30 babies born in Japan in 2006 had at least one non-Japanese parent
August 4th, 2008Some 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.
Mecha: Lifesize Scopedog Mecha
August 4th, 2008
“As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation got ironsmithing genius Kogoro Kurata to display his insane 1:1 scale model of the Scopedog mecha from the 80s anime series VOTOMS. Weighing in at two tons and standing a full four meters tall, it dwarfed everything else at the exhibition. The cast iron structure was actually finished in 2005 and has been on display before at other Japanese conventions…”
via Gizmodo
Free Google Calendar sync for iPhone and iTouch
July 30th, 2008
OK, this is waaay off topic for my blog BUT…
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.
Eel Drink Goes On Sale For Japan’s Hot Summer
July 30th, 2008Eel Drink Goes On Sale For Japan’s Hot Summer
It’s the hottest season of the year in Japan, and that means it’s eel season. So, bottom’s up!
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.
Pokemon bullet trains
July 27th, 2008JR 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.
Miyazaki’s Ponyo
July 25th, 2008
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