Archive for January, 2010

How typhoons affect homeless tents

A video clip shows how a typhoon last autumn damaged the makeshift houses built by homeless people who live along rivers in Tokyo:

The report puts focus on Mr. Aoyama, a homeless man who lives along the river in the Den-en Chofu area of Tokyo. His tent house was pretty much totaled by the storm. As soon as the storm is over, non-homeless friends appear and start helping him rebuild. Within a few days, he’s built himself a nice new tent house and stocked it with food, appliances, and various other useful items.

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Drunk driver nearly kills police officers

Four Tokyo Cops try to stop a suspicious driver, not realizing that he was drunk and intending to flee:

Luckily, none of the officers were run over by the car and a fifth officer managed to use a patrol car to block the drunk driver’s vehicle.
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Wonderful old house in Kyoto

Kyoto University of Foreign Studies professor (and sometimes TV tarento) Jeff Berglund gives a group of celebrities a tour of his amazing house in Kyoto:

The house is 160-years-old and looks out on the Kamo River. As one would expect from a house built in the late Edo Period, its interior is entirely Japanese style and requires a significant amount of maintenance.

Between May and September, its balcony is usually extended so that it can accommodate parties of up to 40 people.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
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Akita sees huge increase in Korean tourists

About a year ago, it was projected that Iris, a new Korean TV drama partially set in Akita, would bring 200 million yen in economic benefits to the prefecture.

The drama has finished airing in Korea, and it seems that the predictions may be correct. As this news report shows, Akita is getting a lot of Korean tour groups:

Thanks to Iris, Koreans now know about the beautiful scenery and onsens of Akita. A survey carried out by the NTV reporter found that random people on the street of Seoul ranked Akita closed behind Tokyo as the place they’d most like to visit in Japan [Osaka and Hokkaido were the other options]. Most who picked Akita did so because they wanted to visit the places shown in the drama.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

When you need to hire a Santa Claus

Live in Japan and need to hire a Santa to visit your house and give presents to your kids? Luckily, handyman businesses like Benry Total Convenience Service have people available who can be summoned to your house to perform almost any job.

Here’s a short clip in which one of their handymen does some Santa duty:

Things don’t go as well as the handyman expected. The kids are nervous around Santa. When he tries to be friendly to a baby, he makes the kid cry. Other children don’t want to sit next to him or make eye contact.

In response to their questions, he says he came from a “secret location” and he left his reindeer at another house.

The total bill for the Santa visit was 6,300 yen ($69) – not bad when split six ways between the mothers who organized the little Christmas party. They were pleased with the handyman’s performance and plan to hire him again for next Christmas.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Ultraman parody commercial

I don’t want to ruin the joke of this commercial, so just watch it and find out what it’s actually advertising:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
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