Archive for February, 2009

For sale: naming rights for public toilets in Shibuya

Anybody want to adopt a Japanese public toilet?

Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward has started selling the naming rights to each of its 14 public toilets to raise funds and improve hygiene at the facilities.

The ward expects that some of its toilets, located in busy areas such as Omotesando Street and in the vicinity of Shibuya Station, will attract substantial bids. Officials stressed, however, that they would also take into consideration the best proposals for how to keep the toilets clean before choosing winners.

Winners will have the opportunity to plaster the toilets in question with lots of advertisements.

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E5 Series Shinkansen

JR released a computer rendering of its new E5 Series Shinkansen earlier this week:

And they also showed a model to the press:

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1/5 of domestic ground chicken samples found tainted with salmonella

The Asahi reports that a survey has found that 20% of domestic ground chicken sold in Japan is tainted with salmonela (twice the level found in Europe):

The salmonella research, the first on a nationwide scale, was conducted from 2007 to 2008 by Katsuya Hirai, a professor of veterinary microbiology at Tenshi College’s graduate school in Sapporo.

With the cooperation of public health institutes nationwide, Hirai collected and examined 820 samples of ground poultry for sale whose place of origin could be confirmed.

Of the samples, 163, or about 20 percent, were contaminated with salmonella. That compared with 4 to 9 percent found in similar surveys in Britain, Italy and Spain in or after 2001, according to Hirai.

Worse, most of the salmonella strains found in the survey were resistant to antibiotics.

If you’re worried about salmonella, be sure to kill the bacteria by thoroughly cooking your chicken before you eat it.

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Deer avoids an icy death

A deer in Hokkaido struggles to free itself after falling into an icy lake as crows peck at its eyes:

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Video: Car hit by landslide

A scary video out of Niigata Prefecture:

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Philip Harper – master sake brewer

The Los Angeles Times has a cool article today about Philip Harper, a British resident of Japan who has found success brewing sake:

For 18 years, this unlikely foreigner has stubbornly endured both hard labor and silent resistance, studying Japanese and the brewing craft until he was eventually accepted — and celebrated — by even the most traditional brewers.

In sake-drinking circles across Japan and abroad, Harper is considered a cross-cultural pioneer: the only non-Japanese sake-maker to rise to the rank of toji, or master brewer. This “miracle” of the conservative world of Japanese brewing has people scratching their heads that a foreigner has emerged as the boss of a factory floor.

“Philip loves sake, but he also loves Japanese traditional culture,” says Hiroshi Ujita, a Kyoto brewery owner. “His character is almost Japanese. He understands the Japanese way of thinking, our style of daily life. You can taste it in his sake.”

Harper, who has won awards for his sake in the US and Japan, has also written two books: The Insider’s Guide to Sake and The Book of Sake: A Connoisseurs Guide.

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