Now I find it hard to believe it will  feel realistic reeling in a fish, but for someone who just can’t make it out to the water, this is probably the next best thing.

The Japan Times - KYODO PHOTO

I congratulate this woman for finding a new market to cater to grieving pet owners, but for me this is a bit too creepy.  Granted this is quite a bit less disturbing than the people who decide to take their beloved pets to the local taxidermist. It’s amazing that she has such a backlog, but I have to wonder how many grieving customers will change their mind after waiting months. Most likely the grief they are currently feeling will lessen and they might not feel spending a large sum of money on a statue is such a good idea. She should hire some more people in order to meet the demand.

What do you think? Is creating a stone sculpture in the image of your deceased pet something you would be interested in having done?

I already have my pre-order for the “Cosmo Black” version and am very much looking forward to the release date. I’d love to have pre-ordered a Japanese unit, but after finding out that it will be region locked I decided to wait on the USA release.

Yodobashi Camera in Kita Ward, Osaka. KYODO PHOTO The Japan Times

All of these vending machines come in very handy while travelling around Japan on vacation. It means that you never have to worry about carrying around a bottle of water, as you will usually be within a few paces of a vending machine.  Beyond just having beverages for sale, vending machines can sell anything from snacks, ramen, coffee, all the way to used panties and adult DVD’s. While the latter products are usually quite hard to find, unless one goes to a more seedy part of town.

One of the perplexing things that a Westerner might run into is noticing that two of the same beverages might cost exactly the same amount of yen, but be of different volumes. Why would anyone pick the beverage that contains less liquid for lack of a better term? Notice in the following picture, the Calpis drink is priced at 120 yen for both the “big” can and the smaller bottle.

For a  far better and funnier explanation on this phenomenon I’m going to link to a vlogger on Youtube that I’ve been watching since he first hit Youtube. That person is Kevin Cooney, who goes by tokyocooney on Youtube. Enjoy!

My goal is to have the entire Hiragana character set learned by this time next week. Then it’ll be onto the Katakana.

私の幸運を祈ってください。

Picture of Rieko Fukushima Photo by: Hiroko Tabuchi for The New York Times

Not only is Toshiba making waves with new 3D HDTV’s that don’t require glasses, but Rieko Fukushima is breaking through Japan’s glass ceiling and heading the development. It’s already difficult for one individual to have so much impact on a company, but it’s even rarer for a woman. I know I’m holding out for a 3D HDTV that doesn’t force me to wear glasses.

Woolly Mammoth (Source: blog.devonanddorsetcottages.co.uk)

I’m very much looking forward to seeing if these scientists will be able to clone a Woolly Mammoth. While I know that “Jurassic Park” didn’t turn out so well for those involved in its creation, it would still be amazing to have a theme park with extinct animals. If anyone will eventually create such a park, it would have to be Japan. (even if the scientist said he doesn’t have that in mind at the moment)

What are your thoughts? Should such a them park be created or not?

Seiyu in Ikebukuro

We flew there on Japan Airlines leaving from LAX, which took about 12 hours to arrive in Tokyo. When we arrived it was about 11:30PM and we were pretty exhausted from traveling, especially myself, as I can’t sleep on airplanes. (just can’t get comfortable ;p) After making it through immigration, we were tasked with purchasing a ticket on the Narita Express, which I have to say was relatively easy thanks to the English menus. Next up was just waiting for the train to arrive and making sure we got off at Tokyo station.

After arriving at Tokyo station we purchased tickets to get ourselves to Ikebukuro station. Now my real estate agent gave us very basic directions to the apartment, which was basically look for this gas station and make a left, then walk two blocks until you see a Family Mart. We of course had the address as well, but for us this worked out, being that street signs, if there are any, are primarily in Japanese. (minus major roads) After lugging around our massive luggage for about an hour, we finally happened upon the apartment. To be fair it was our first time in Japan and it was night time, so cut us a break on turning a 15 minute walk into an hour! ^_~

The apartment has two double glass automatic sliding doors and I go up to pass through the first one, only to find out it is locked. I look to my right and see a keypad on the wall and look to my friend to say, “She didn’t give me a pass code”. At this point I’m ready to just crash on the street, as I know I won’t be able to talk to my real estate agent until the morning. At that moment I see that someone was leaving the apartment and the thought crossed my mind to quickly go in after she walks out, but then I would be stuck between the two doors for who knows how long waiting for someone else to leave or come back. After about another 15 minutes someone returns to the apartment and swipes something in front of the keypad, which causes the door to unlock. It was the key to the apartment, it had a microchip built into it! This information would have been helpful to have beforehand and my real estate agent did apologize, but at that moment we were just thrilled to finally get inside and up to our apartment.

The apartment itself wasn’t anything super fancy, just a studio apartment really. It did have a fancy Japanese style toilet seat with all the bells and whistles. (seat warmer, seat automatically puts itself down, a bidet) My friend goes into use the bathroom and all of a sudden I hear a yell from the bathroom and my friend comes out with a wet shirt! He was playing around with the buttons and got surprised when the bidet turned on and got up only to get soaked!

Japanese toilet seat. Features faucet on top of toilet.

After that we both just crashed right away. We had to pay the real estate agent an extra $100 for the month to have a futon, so I got the bed and my friend used the futon. That was our first night in Japan and I hope it was at least enjoyable for you to read. I’ll continually be updating the blog with various past travel experiences and hopefully in time present experiences.

じゃまたね

This is great to see happening, as it was talked about all the way back during the World Expo in 2005. I guess all the extra ad revenue they are getting from companies who are advertising on JR’s new LCD panels at various stations is already paying off.

I’ve never been much for blogging, but the idea to have a place to express my ideas and share my experiences with others has recently intrigued me. This blog will mostly be centered on Japan, (shocking I know!) but I’ll sometimes discuss things related to technology, world politics and pretty much anything that crosses my mind as interesting.

I’ll also be making posts regarding my current status in learning the Japanese language. At the moment I am at the beginning of that journey, so if anyone has any recommendations on resources in learning Japanese it would be much appreciated. I’m currently making my way through learning all the Hiragana and Katakana, as I’d like to be able to move away from relying on Romaji during my studies.

Thanks to all who happen upon my space on the internet. I hope you find something interesting while you are here and if you find something interesting leave me a comment.