Archive for March, 2007

Tokyo’s missile defense shield deployed

Japan’s new patriot missile defense system arrived this morning under the blossoming cherry blossoms:

Japan trucked its first ballistic missile interceptors to an air force base at Iruma, north of Tokyo, on Friday in an effort to beef up its defenses against its unpredictable neighbor North Korea.

The deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) equipment, capable of shooting down incoming missiles in the final stage of flight as they near their target, was sparked by Pyongyang’s firing of a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over Japan.

Feeling safer?

A Couple Amusing Daiwa House Commercials (Video)

The marketing folks for Daiwa House have delivered us two more funny commercials:

A Doggy Commercial

A Presidential Commercial

Otaku Tourism (Video)

Here’s a short Japanese news segment on the changing nature of foreign tourism in Japan. Temples and shrines have always been a major draw, but now subculture tourism is becoming more popular. The focus of the report is on otaku-themed tours of Akihabara and the otaku boom abroad:

Some highlights:

• The foreigners visit a maid cafe. [One woman is wearing a "Searching for Japanese boyfriend" t-shirt!]
• We are shown anime/manga shops in London and New York.
• Foreign Minister Taro Aso expresses his support of subculture tourism.

Spooky Amusement Park

These spooky photographs are of the disused Tsuga fun park in Tohoku. It was built in 1973 but has since been abandoned, and local kids believe it to be haunted. The creepy pics were taken by the ace photographer Kotarou Shibakoen, and more can be seen at his homepage.
It looks like the sort of place Scooby Doo and Shaggy would stumble upon.

Why you should use your Nintendo DS to study English (Video)

Watch out! If you don’t study English with your DS, this will happen to you:

Toilet paper thief arrested!

In another hard-hitting national news story, a staff member at high school in Osaka has been punished for stealing toilet paper:

The 44-year-old female staffer was allegedly caught putting toilet paper — worth 37 yen — into her bag on Aug. 23 last year. The principal of the school subsequently filed a report with police.

The woman was summarily indicted and fined 100,000 yen. She reportedly has admitted to the allegations, but said she “didn’t know” when asked why she had stolen the toilet paper.

The woman’s colleagues had apparently been watching her behavior after toilet paper began running out at an abnormally fast pace around September 2004.