Does a USB-powered necktie cooler actually make you feel cooler?
TBS news puts a necktie cooler to the test:
The necktie cooler, which contains a miniature fan (powered by either a USB cable or a battery), supposedly has the power to cool down salarymen working in hot offices.
TBS put it to the test and, as the before/after photo in the post shows, it was partially successful. The reporter found it was good at cooling the neck area, but it had little effect on the rest of the body.
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Categories: Technology
A dog with eyebrows
“Nanikore Chin Hakkei” finds a dog in Fukouka Prefecture that has eyebrows:
The dog, named Panda, was born with black spots around his eyes. However, as he grew older, the spots shifted up and became like eyebrows!
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Categories: Animal Videos
Waterfall practice 滝修行
The sacred mountain, Ontake-san 御嶽山, is a volcano that pierces the sky at 3,067 meters. The mountain stands alone, independent from the Hida and Kiso ranges that flank it to the north and east.
From far away Ontake-san appears smooth and rounded, like a dome. However, exploring the mountain’s broad base up close one begins to understand that its geography is much actually much rougher. Ontake-san was birthed through slow, yet violent, uplifts that heaved the massif up into the air one layer at a time, creating something more akin to a wedding cake. Ontake-san, therefore, might be thought of like a digital image: coherent and continuous when gazed at from afar, but jumbled and chaotic when viewed closer up.
This physical geography has played havoc with Ontake-san’s hydraulic system. Rivers are forced to find their ways down the great mountain and its intricate robe of canyons, valleys, and ravines that often turn abruptly or drop vertically in maze-like complexity. A series of magnificent waterfalls is the result of this geologic hullabaloo.
The photo above is of shin-taki 新滝 (meaning “new waterfall”), one of two major waterfalls used for spiritual practice by those who revere Ontake-san. Mountain ascetics, known as yama-bushi 山伏, (as well as anyone else with enough courage) stand below the falls and let the waters pummel them. The practice is known as taki-shu-gyou 滝修行. I can’t give an accurate account of what this practice entails, or of what it is meant to instill in the practitioner, but I think it’s safe to call it a form of meditation.
I’ve tried taki-shu-gyou once and it was quite an interesting experience. The pain of the water hitting my head and shoulders was more of a shock than the freezing snow-fed water. Several sets of the white robes and waraji わらじ (rice straw sandals) used by practitioners are usually available in small huts that sit below the falls. So, if you’ve the interest, and you’ve the guts, come on over to Ontake-san and give taki-shu-gyou a try.
The nearest train station to Ontake-san is Kiso-fukushima 木曽福島 on the JR Chuo Line JR中央線.
Contributor Bio: I am a doctoral student of environmental anthropology currently living and conducting research in a mountain village in Nagano. In my research I explore modernity as it is expressed in a rural mountain community. Specifically I look at national management structures, as well as social discourses, related to forests and probe the impacts these have on local human communities. I have lived and worked in Japan for 5 years. My interests also include Buddhism, literature, music, and mountaineering. Read more at my personal blog: In the Pines.
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Categories: General Japan, Odd / Strange
Japanese rider competes in the Tour de France
A video report about Yukiya Arashiro, a Japanese rider competing in the Tour de France as a member of the BBox-Bouygues Telecom team:
[hat tip to Jason P.]
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Categories: General Japan
Japanese cop overlooked foreigners driving without licenses
A Tokyo police officer has resigned after it came to light that he failed to take action against two foreign drivers who did not have driver’s licensees:
According to the metro police, the officer issued one of the tickets for an illegal lane change and the other one for ignoring a signal. The two foreigners were stopped in Minato, on April 12 and May 3.
The two foreigners did not speak Japanese and the police officer was quoted as saying, “It was too much trouble to investigate them via an interpreter.”
Judging from past conversations with other foreigners in Japan, I’d wager that quite a lot of Japanese police officers are guilty of the same failure to carry out their jobs. The “I don’t speak Japanese” excuse seems to be very effective when used on traffic cops who are can’t be troubled with the language barrier.
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan, General Japan
Pyramid shaped watermelons: $560 each
A farm in Hokkaido has created pyramid-shaped watermelons:
Only 16 of the premium watermelons are being sold at a cost of 52,500 yen ($560) each. They’ve been branded with King Tut stickers [perhaps because you'd have to be as rich as a pharaoh to buy one].
Would you pay 52,500 yen for a watermelon?
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Categories: Odd / Strange