Tokyo’s population is hitting the roads, trains, and planes to get out of town for the Golden Week holiday, so there’s no better time than now to do some traveling in the capital! While you’re visiting tourist attractions, you’ll probably be overwhelmed by the huge volume of tacky souvenirs available and have no idea [...]

A Hello Project-tastic recycling promotion commercial that’s been airing for awhile now on Japanese TV:

There is also a pretty cool commercial in this series featuring sumo wrestler Kotooshu, which I’ve been trying to record for some time now without success. Anyone got a copy of it? [Update: The Kotooshu CM can be viewed [...]

On Saturday, the annual “Baby-cry Sumo” contest was held at Sensoji temple in Tokyo. In the event, which is thought to bring good health, Japanese babies face off against each other in matches to see who can cry the loudest.

More photos from the event can been seen here and here.

Today’s Japan-related news links:

South Korea and Japan will once again wrangle over the name for the body of water that divides them at the International Hydrographic Organization conference that opens in Monaco on May 7. [Link]
The volume of Japan’s crude oil imports from Iran in March recorded a 64.9% growth compared with the previous [...]

A man from Hong Kong travels to Japan to make a documentary about Tokyo’s homeless population. In Ueno Park he meets Mr. Kawaguchi, a homeless man who speaks English and claims to have worked for the Japan Foundation. The filmmaker follows around Mr. Kawaguchi, interviewing him and observing his daily life (As well [...]

Or at least they do in McDonald’s commercials advertising the arrival of the McFlurry (they didn’t have it until now in Japan?):

Readers have contacted me to tell me that certain McDonald’s locations in Japan are offering free McFlurries with sets purchased after 2:00PM. The McDonald’s Japan homepage also says that anyone who goes to [...]

Here’s a cool and very informative video about a day in the life of an English teacher in Japan. It was created by YouTube user Posatrocible, who had the following to say about it:
This was a video I shot and put together to show to the fam and friends a few years back illustrating [...]

One of my favorite DS games, Big Brain Academy, has hit the Nintendo Wii. Here’s a commercial featuring a family as they train their brains:

Just a reminder: it seems that you can be charged with defamation of character in Japan if you aren’t timely enough when deleting an insulting message posted by a third party on your bulletin board:
OSAKA — A company executive who supervised an online bulletin board has been reported to prosecutors for allegedly failing [...]

Yoshihisa Komori of Japan’s conservative Sankei Shinbun newspaper was interviewed on the comfort women issue for the PBS series Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria on March 29. Although Abe has since made additional statements of apology since that date, many continue to insist that the Prime Minister is denying history. In this interview, [...]

Here’s a cool bit of Japanese TV that the Digg-ers dugg up. It features a dish called “swimming bones” sashimi. Basically, the sushi chef fillets the fish nice and quick, and drops its quickly diminishing self back into the tank. Like Anthony Hopkins dining on Ray Liotta’s brains while he’s alive, this is partly [...]

Golden Week, a week of national holidays and festivals is just about to start here in Japan. So I decided to share a festival photo with you this week. Festivals occur all over Japan throughout the year, but really start to pick up during the spring and summer. This photo is from [...]