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OK, it’s a joke that only geeks are really going to get, but I came across this bizarrely named beauty salon near Spinshell Towers in Akabane.
For those of you who don’t know what Unix is, it’s a big operating system used in many servers. It can only be considered beautiful and loved by computer geeks.
We’ve been getting a lot of attention for Ai’s 2008 Tokyo cherry blossom article, so I thought I’d write a quick guide to using Yahoo Japan and their hanami prediction pages. Yahoo has loads of great content for Japan, but navigating through the Kanji can be difficult. I always use their weather service, but this is the first year I’ve ever tried their sakura map. And now with the sakura in full bloom, choosing where to spend these precious days is important business!
Story by Karryn Cartelle
Being a vegetarian can be tough especially in a country where you can’t read or speak the language. At a recent dinner party hosted by the Tokyo Vegan Meetup Group we asked Miki Noguchi how hard it is going vege and what advice she could give us.
I read a piece in Boing Boing about how most of the companies who advertise on Japanese trains use a search picture, with an input box and pointer to show that you should search for the term. In contrast, most companies in the US seem to give a URL for you to enter into a browser. Most of the comments focussed on how this is going to be how things are done in the future and how URLs are slowly being phased out in favour of search. Many mentioned that people now don’t know how to enter a URL and instead use the search box to get to a site. I think the reason for these search boxes is different.
Last weekend someone tried to put this dog out in the Sodaigomi (large rubbish). It seems the owner thought the animal had passed its use-by-date and it was acceptable to put it out with the trash. The rubbish collector offered to take the dog to the hokenjo, but the person’s neighbor, disgusted by it all, volunteered to find the dog a home. Luckily she called Animal Refuge Kansai (ARK) and they were able to rescue the dog and pursue the matter further with the police.
Playing with Tokyo train data and google maps today, I was looking through some of the big lines. When I tried the Yamanote (Tokyo’s loop line) it’s shape really surprised me. I’d always thought that it was kind of egg-shaped, roughly following the representation on train maps. In fact it makes this cute almost-heart shape as it travels around the megalopolis.
You can see the Emperor’s palace (the big patch of green inside on the right) and Yoyogi park (the patch on the left, just outside the loop).
Another picture after the jump..
As Japan rests precariously on an intersection of tectonic plates, earthquakes have become a fact of life here. Following on from a series of quakes in the Tokai region in the 1970’s the government has predicted that a major quake in this region will happen—it’s just a question of when. It has been estimated that if a quake hit in the morning in the Tokai area, about a hundred miles southwest of Tokyo, it could result in a death toll of up to 9,000 people. A staggering number compared to the Kobe quake in 1995, which killed roughly 6,400.
The fact remains that an earthquake could hit in Japan anytime, anywhere, so being aware and prepared is a must.
Here’s a remote control helicopter I saw today, which looks like a robot that ripped off James Bond’s jet pack. It looks almost exactly like Asimo, the lovable little robot made by Honda, but I guess for trademark reasons it’s not called AsimoCopter, but RoboChopper. Actually, the C is a bit badly drawn, so it looks like RoboShopper. The guy in the hobby shop where I saw it was really nice, and explained all about the control. It’s able to go up and down and rotate left and right. There’s no control for forward, but when it goes up it veers that way by itself. He said they’re hard to control and easy to break, but still, how often to you get a chance to own a bit of the future. If the Honda techs are listening, this would definitely be the next cool thing to do with Asimo.
More pictures after the jump, including an Indoor Remote Control Doraemon Helicopter!
Story by Karryn Cartelle
With Japan being the second largest market for music in the world, talented foreign bands like Monkey Majik and singers like Kat McDowell are grabbing a slice of the action. But how difficult is it to make your way in Japan’s music industry and what is going to set you apart from the rest?
Story by by James Coulson
Thanks to plate tectonics, Tokyo lies equidistant of America and Europe. For us here in Japan this means we are recipients to regular shipments of the best international DJs from around the world. As many of us already know, someone can always be found somewhere spinning the wheels of steel alongside Japan’s own legion of talent, in ground-shaking venues so good it borders on otaku…but in a good way! The following are some such locations that regularly host the best of these East-meets-West DJ events, yielding dangerously enjoyable nights of pure club magic.