A polite society based on mutual respect and courtesy requires new tools for the road. You flash your brights when you sugget someone go ahead or if warning on-coming traffic of a speed trap but what to do to when you want to indicate thanks to those that let you into traffic? Thanks Tail is [...]
As we drove through Chinatown this past weekend, we saw preparations for the Chinese New Year’s celebrations. Many were carrying sprigs of cut plum blossoms which are just starting to bloom so we bought some to go with the Girl’s Day display which we set up each year around this time and keep up until [...]
This is old news but Terrie Lloyd, who’s always good a picking up tidbits for his excellent email newsletter “Terrie’s Take” highlights the striking resemblence of the new FCC mascot, “Broadband” to Doraemon, the cartoon every Japanese kid knows by sight. Turns out the publisher of Doaemon, Shougakkan, is going to take legal action but [...]
I just love the Crime column in the English language Yomiuri. It’s either about some extremely gruesome incident which makes you question how people can be raised to be capable of such things or it’s some totally mundane non-event that makes you feel sorry for the totally bored reporter that had to write the silly [...]
Our friends over at Klein Dytham architecture have made Time Magazine’s Best of Asia list as a cool spot to hang out and catch the pulse of the avant-garde scene in Tokyo. Located in what looks like an old auto body shop in Azabu, SuperDeluxe has turned into the modern day equivalent of a Merry [...]
Poking around to look for the latest Krugman column in which he illustrates the arrogance of President Bush’s one page request for an additional $25 billion for adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, I see that he’s also brought together the best of his writings on Japan into one place.
The state of Japan is a scandal, [...]
UPDATE: the link is sadly dead – BoingBoing effect for sure.
A charming site that plays back a collection of Japanese Station Melodies.
In Japan, special melodies play when trains pull into or pull out of train stations. These melodies are unique, depending on the station. This website is devoted to these sounds, giving samples of them. [...]
Do you think Japan is Cool?
“Japan is reinventing superpower—again. Instead of collapsing beneath its widely reported political and economic misfortunes, Japan’s global cultural influence has quietly grown. From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and animation to cuisine, Japan looks more like a cultural superpower today than it did in the 1980s, when [...]
