Tag: Random Japan

AFTERSHOCKS

A motorist in quake-hit Iwate died of carbon monoxide poisoning while waiting for gasoline in a line that stretched longer than a kilometer. The man had been trying to keep his car warm with a kerosene heater.

Billionaire US investor Warren Buffett apparently believes that the earthquake “is the kind of extraordinary event that creates a buying opportunity for shares in Japanese companies.”

It was reported that Kansai Electric Power Co. will invest up to ¥100 billion in an effort “to make its nuclear plants more resistant to earthquakes and tsunami.” Maybe they could ask Warren Buffett for some help.

The speaker of the Osaka Prefectural Assembly was forced to apologize after calling earthquake-inflicted damage at a local government office “a divine fortune.” The pol had opposed a plan to move all municipal offices to the damaged building.

It was reported that some teachers and school officials in Tohoku are holding graduation ceremonies at evacuation centers. Others are visiting their students’ homes to hand-deliver diplomas.

The central government is mulling whether to establish a full-fledged federal agency that would specifically deal with post-quake reconstruction.

They Passed The Test  

Despite The Governments Best Efforts To Ensure Failure    

Violate Traffic Laws  

You’re Fired  

Safe Cracked By Tsunami

Money Grows Legs Walks Off  

Residents feel isolated in movement-restricted areas near nuke plant



FUKUSHIMA    

While residents who live closest to the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture have evacuated, those who have remained in a movement-restricted area 20 to 30 kilometers away from the plant say they are feeling increasingly ”isolated.”

Towns were abandoned by many people apparently scared by the government’s instruction to shelter indoors for fear of radiation exposure, local people said.

Residents said they were also troubled by a misperception prevalent among people outside the area that they live in ”a contaminated area,” expressing discontent about what they see as slow actions for help by the central government.

Stats

¥4,800 Price of a one-way ticket from Tokyo to Bangkok offered by travel agency H.I.S. from March 15 to May 8

¥68 billion Estimated sales of e-books in Japan during fiscal 2010, according to the Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute

216.8 million Number of appliances and electronics disposed of in Japan last year, according to the environment ministry

840 Students at an elementary school in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, stricken with food poisoning after eating a school lunch of “potato-miso soup, salad… and radish

Government By Tweet  

Yea, That Will Work  

These Tests May Seem Important  

Truthfully They’re Pointless

Eels He Imported Fake Eels  

Fake Eels?  

How-to books on living comfortably on welfare selling well





TOKYO  

A healthy economy affords almost everyone a livelihood. For those who fall through the cracks, there’s welfare relief. An unhealthy economy swells the welfare rolls. Japan’s current economy is extremely unhealthy. The welfare system is strained to the breaking point. “Strange world,” muses Shukan Shincho (March 3), referring to a recent spate of briskly-selling how-to books offering advice on milking welfare for all it’s worth and more. Why struggle? is the implied message. You can live pretty comfortably on welfare, if you know the ropes.

By 2005, the nation was some 15 years into its ongoing “lost decade,” and 1 million households were on welfare. By last November 1.42 million households were – 1.97 million individuals. Welfare payments in 2009 came to 3 trillion yen.

FIGHTING CLING-ONS FOR THREE DECADES

 

Toto’s warm water-spraying Washlet toilet seats celebrated 30 years of keeping things clean down under, living up to their slogan, “Buttocks, too, want to be washed.”

Locals in Miyazaki rolled out the welcome wagon for the Yomiuri Giants as they opened “spring” camp, lavishing 20 kilos of kumquat, 20kg of mikan, 10 boxes of strawberries and 100 broiled eels on the Central League powerhouse.

But the Giants gave as good as they got, donating some ¥3 million to support local relief efforts as Miyazaki battles bird flu and a spewing volcano.

Meanwhile, the Softbank Hawks also got a welcome gift at their camp when 10kg of tuna and 10kg of shrimp were dropped off by the Miyazaki Fish Federation.

16-year-old ballet dancers Shizuru Kato and Yuko Horisawa finished fifth and seventh, respectively, at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition, each earning year-long scholarships to some of the top dance schools in the world.

CHOWING DOWN

 

The Japan Food Service Association said that sales at restaurants around the nation rose by 0.5 percent in 2010.

Overall, the number of customers at restaurants around the country dropped, but sales per customer increased.

Thanks to discount promotions, sales at fast food restaurants increased 2.1 percent, but earnings at izakaya and family restaurants dropped.

A trio of Japanese food companies announced a joint effort to sell processed meats in Vietnamaimed at middle- and upper-class consumers. The firms hope to sell ¥300 million worth of goods by 2013.

KIDS THESE DAYS

A 22-year-old Kanazawa University student who called the cops and claimed he’d been stabbed later admitted he had knifed himself in a failed suicide attempt because he didn’t have enough credits to graduate.

A couple of 10-year-old girls-Miu Hirano and Mima Ito-broke table-tennis prodigy Ai Fukuhara’s record as the youngest players to win a singles match at the national championships. Ai-chan was 11 when she won two matches at the 1999 ping-pong nationals.

At the other end of the age spectrum, 40-year-old tennis player Kimiko Date-Krumm was reduced to tears after blowing a 4-1 lead in the third set of her match against 21-year-old Pole Agnieszka Radwanska at the Australian Open.

A nasty monkey named Lucky, who bit more than 100 folks in Shizuoka last fall, escaped house arrest at a park in Mishima, causing officials to warn local residents to stay inside and keep their doors locked. The rampaging primate was caught a day after ditching his cage.

In an awesomely named place called Bungo-Ono in Oita Prefecture, the local government is planning to let wolves loose in an effort “to control wild animals that destroy agricultural crops.” Can’t wait for the reaction when a wolf chows down on a local farmer instead.

Five middle-aged men in Tohoku filed a fraud suit against three international marriage brokers in a Sendai court, claiming they got unexpected home visits from South Korean women accompanied by the brokers, who convinced the lonely dudes to let the women “homestay” with them for a week or so.

HERE & THERE

The Sanyo Hotel in Yamaguchi, which was a favorite of “Japanese royals and high-ranking government officials,” is being torn down. Among the foreign luminaries to have stayed at the century-old inn were Babe Ruth and Helen Keller.

It was reported that a salon in Nagoya is offering a vitamin-rich intravenous drip to salarymen “as a quick way to get rid of work-induced fatigue.”

A company in Kobe has perfected a method of transforming old clothes into a wood-like substance it calls Rifmo. According to the company president, “You can saw and hammer a nail into it just like ordinary wood.”

Sony and Victor announced that they had developed the world’s first “full high-definition digital video cameras capable of taking 3-D moving images.”

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Surprising absolutely no one, the DPJ has indicated that it will retool its election manifesto and “scale back” popular programs like the “monthly child allowance and the elimination of expressway tolls.”

It was reported that Kota Matsuda of Your Party was the richest of the 121 legislators who won a seat in the July upper house elections. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s Coffee Japan chain, claims ¥486 million in assets.

Television stations around the country decided to extend the deadline for eliminating their analog broadcasts until late July. Which begs the questions: what’s analog TV?

The media flurry surrounding the successful Hayabusa mission wasn’t enough to save JAXAi, the Japan Space Agency’s information center, which shut its doors last month due to budget cuts.

SCREAM AWAY, KIDS

Bullet trains running between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka have introduced “family cars” for people with kids in tow, allowing them “to feel more at ease traveling with rowdy or crying children.”

The education ministry announced that nearly 5,500 Japanese schoolteachers took sick leave for depression and “other mental disorders” during the past academic year.

An anonymous donor left ten randoseru knapsacks worth a total of ¥300,000 at a children’s welfare facility in Maebashi on Christmas Day.

Officials at the Saitama Children’s Zoo gave their capybaras-large rat-like creatures from South America-a hot yuzu-filled citrus bath on winter solstice.

OFFICIAL OVERSIGHT

A woman in Fukuoka sued Google after she discovered that the company’s Street View service showed a photo of her underwear hanging on the veranda.

LDP lawmaker Hiroshi Nagai found himself in hot water after ordering Prince Akishino and his wife to sit down during a ceremony marking the 120th anniversary of the opening of the Diet.

It was reported that a fire sergeant in Hiroshima had been driving emergency vehicles for the past 14 years even though he didn’t have a driver’s license.

The mayor of Utazu in Kagawa Prefecture was rebuffed in his plan to work for the entire year without a salary. Instead, the city council offered to halve his pay for the next two years.

A junior high school teacher in Aomori Prefecture was in trouble with the education board after posting a list of “foolish” students in the school corridor. Then doing it again.