Ramen Vending Machine
A Japanese Youtube user gives us a closer look at the Ramen vending machine that was featured on TV recently:
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Categories: Japanese Food, Technology
Will the Public Ever See the Senkaku Boat Collision Video?
The DPJ government is facing a lot of pressure from opposition parties over their decision to withhold the video footage of the September collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese coast guard patrol ships near the Japanese-held Senkaku islands. The tape is said to provide indisputable evidence that the Chinese trawler rammed the Japanese ships, and it seems the DPJ is afraid to release it because it could make China angry:
“It’s important to inform the public of the facts,” LDP Secretary General Nobuteru Ishihara said.
New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi also wants the footage shown to the public. “The information was obtained by using taxpayers’ money,” he said at a press conference Wednesday. Your Party shares this view.
Now, the DPJ is walking a tightrope as it deals with this issue.
The DPJ agreed to submit the footage to the Diet in return for opposition parties’ cooperation in managing Diet affairs, but releasing the footage could aggravate still strained Japan-China ties.
Senior DPJ leaders will have to balance the potential benefits and fallout of releasing the footage.
“There are differing views on this matter, and there are diplomatic considerations to take into account,” said Yoshio Hachiro, chairman of the DPJ Diet Affairs Committee.
The party leadership is lukewarm on the idea of releasing the footage. It wants the video shown only to a select group, such as directors of the lower house Budget Committee, sources said.
However, only partly releasing the video would give opposition parties ammunition to use on the DPJ, they said.
Many DPJ members believe the government may have already blown its chance to make best use of the video.
“It was a mistake [that the government] didn’t release the footage shortly after the Chinese captain was arrested,” a midranking DPJ lawmaker said. “The government missed an opportunity there.”
Since the Chinese government and media have insisted that the Japanese ships were the ones doing the ramming, a video tape that proves otherwise could be embarrassing enough to trigger some form of retaliation from China. For now, it looks like the DPJ will at least wait until next month’s APEC summit over to release the tape.
Should the video tape be made public?
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Categories: Anti-Japan, Politics
China Revokes, Then Reissues Osaka Governor’s Invitation to Shanghai Expo
A couple days ago, the organizers of the 2010 Shanghai Expo contacted the Osaka city government and informed them that Osaka Governor Toru Hashimoto was no longer welcome to deliver a speech on the last day of the expo. The sudden un-invite made the straight-talking Hashimoto quite angry, and he made his feelings very clear to the Japanese press:
Hashimoto told reporters the cancellation came ”perhaps because they took into account the domestic situation” in which anti-Japanese demonstrators have been taking to the streets.
He also said, ”This has undercut my confidence (in them) very much. I don’t want to become a human (who treats others) as China did.”
The prefectural government will mount an official protest to the secretariat soon.
Hashimoto has long placed emphasis on keeping friendly ties with China by visiting the country five times. During his tour of the World Expo in July, he inspected the Osaka Pavilion, while holding talks with former Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan in Beijing.
When commenting about how much the incident had damaged his trust towards China, he said it was now at “zero” or “negative 20,000 points” [ほぼゼロ。マイナス2万点だ].
It seems that somebody in China realized that the sudden and rude revoking of Hashimoto’s invitation would do nothing but hurt Sino-Japanese relations, so he was re-invited. A letter was sent claiming that the un-invite had been an “error”:
Hashimoto plans to accept the re-invitation.
Related stories:
- Anti-Japanese riots are not good for tourism: 11,000 people have canceled their reservations for Japan Airlines or All Nippon Airways flights between Japan and China.
- Japan will increase the Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fleet to 22 from the current 16. The move is seen as a response to increasing Chinese naval activity near Japanese waters.
- Japan plans to team up with Vietnam on the development of rare earth metals to reduce its dependence on China.
- China is still not willing to confirm that its leaders plan to talk with Japanese leaders at the upcoming Asian summit in Hanoi. There is apparently some anger over the fact that Foreign Minister Maehara said that China’s hysterical reaction to the Senkaku dispute was “hysterical.”
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Categories: Anti-Japan
Mixi Perv Arrested
A 22-year-old man has been arrested for hijacking a high school girl’s Mixi account and using it to send sex-related messages to other high school girls:
According to the MPD, Imamura was arrested on Oct. 21 for allegedly posing as a 17-year-old high school girl in Tokyo by obtaining her ID and password through Mixi on March 27. After logging into her account using his cell phone four times, he posted indecent words as if they were posted by the high school girl before removing her account from the service.
“I wanted to enjoy chatting with women,” Imamura was quoted as telling investigators. Police believe the IDs of a total of some 20 people who have signed up with the Mixi service were abused by Imamura.
Imamura allegedly started accessing Mixi illicitly after he helped out a male acquaintance to register with the service a year and a half ago. He posed as a classmate of the high school girl to obtain her e-mail address, which was used as her ID on Mixi. The suspect then hacked her password based on her birthday listed on her profile page, according to the MPD.
It sounds like Mixi needs to create a feature that would block dumb users from using their birthdays as passwords…
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Tokyo to Osaka Maglev
It looks like the planned maglev train line between Tokyo and Osaka will take a more cost-effective direct route:
The construction of the direct route would be more cost-effective as the route is shorter, which will make the construction cost lower and attract more passengers than the other routes would.
JR Tokai hopes to open the new maglev train line between Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station and Nagoya in 2027, and the maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka in 2045.
The firm expects the direct route to connect Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes, shortening the travel time by about one hour as Shinkansen trains now cover the distance in about 100 minutes.
Still, even with the least costly of the three plans, it will be super expensive:
At issue is who will cover how much of the construction costs of maglev train stations, which will be set up in Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Mie and Nara prefectures. JR Tokai currently plans to build about one station in each prefecture and is asking the central government and local governments to cover the building cost of three rural stations, while JR itself is covering the cost of the three major stations in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.
Since a maglev train line mostly operates underground, the construction of a subterranean station is estimated to cost up to 250 billion yen. While there are plans to build stations in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, and in Iida, Nagano Prefecture, local governments have been reluctant to cover the immense cost, posing a threat to the smooth implementation of the maglev train plan.
Tokyo to Osaka maglev train:
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Categories: Technology
Bathtub Dog
A dog in Japan that loves to relax in warm bath water:
The owner says the dog will sometimes just stand in the bathtub for as long as 15 minutes, enjoying the bath and making no effort to get out.
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Categories: Animal Videos