IT’S A DOG’S LIFE
From the “Only in Japan” file: A column in The Japan Times mentioned that many pet groomers in this country now offer “claw decoration,” i.e., having your dog’s nails done. One “dog beauty artist” in Tokyo charges between ¥3,000 and ¥5,000 for all four paws. Apparently, a common request is for dog and owner to get matching nail art.
Good news for cat lovers. Cat cafés, where customers can “mingle freely with felines in a relaxed atmosphere,” might not have to abide by new Ministry of Environment regulations that limit the hours pets can be displayed (8am-8pm). It’s all part of a plan to reduce the stress level of animals at pet shops.
And a bit of good news for bald mice, as well. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science have reportedly been successful in efforts to grow hair on hairless rodents. It’s tough enough to find a mate when you’re at the bottom of the vermin totem pole, but when you’re bald, too…
Another group of some ten protesters went on a hunger strike in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to show their displeasure over the government’s plan to restart nuclear reactors at the Oi power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
A Yokohama court gave a “spiritual salon” manager a suspended sentence after finding her guilty of fraud. The 48-year-old woman committed a “clever and malicious crime that took advantage of people’s worries about health and work to scam them out of money.”
Police were investigating the case of a severed wire in a wing of a Boeing 787 produced at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plant in Nagoya. The cut appears to have been intentional and is similar to other cases in 2002 and 2009.
stats
29.9 million Twitter accounts created in Japan before Jan 1, third most among countries, according to social media research company Semiocast
127,799,000 Japan’s total population as of Oct 1, 2011, a decrease of 259,000, or 0.2 percent, from a year earlier, according to government data
126,180,000 Japanese nationals as of Oct 1, 2011, down 0.16 percent from 2010
great snakes
A 66-year-old man in Ushiku was found dead outside his house with bite marks on his head and arm and a 6.5-meter python nearby. The man’s son operates an exotic pet store in the area and had a reptile compound at the house.
Investigators think that the driver of a minivan in Kyoto that killed eight people, including himself, might have had an epileptic fit after dinging a taxi prior to the deadly crash.
A 67-year-old woman in Gunma Prefecture finally lived her college dream and entered the Tokyo University of Social Welfare, but not before she had survived severe poverty as a child, had lost a daughter in a car accident, was hurt badly herself in another car accident, and then survived being swept up in the killer tsunami last year.
Drug Channel?
Bites Man
For Love
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