After my natto-bagel post, I’m sure that some of you expats were wondering just where you could get your sticky fingers on some real natto, without having to travel all the way to Ibaraki-ken. Well, guess what? You can get it in Tokyo! Across the street from Tokyo station, in the Shin-Marunouchi building, in the […]

Tokyo Youtube Gathering at a Hub Pub in Shibuya courtesy of Tokyo Cooney. We talk about Tokyo, Youtube, and our lives which are often intertwined.
This is the second half of the Tokyo Youtube Hanami Gathering on March 30, 2008. I missed the first part with the hanami at Yoyogi Park and the last part at […]

CNN has an entertaining and revealing 2-minute video on Tokyo’s lost and found.  In a city of 12-or-so million people, it’s staggering how much gets turned in.  The piece discusses the 130,000 umbrellas, the change in policy of holding items from 6 months to 3 months due to storage issues, and cultural differences between the U.S. and […]

The New York Times has a quartet of articles related to Japan.
One article deals with a lawsuit regarding WWII forced suicides. I have not heard much about this issue before and it is quite interesting. The topic of revisionist history is a universal one. In this particular case an author wrote about […]

It has been revealed that the Rainbow Bridge, the pride of Tokyo’s waterfront development, actually is a major blunder that has shut the Queen Elizabeth 2 and other modern passenger liners out of the city’s Harumi Terminal because its clearance is too low.
The Tokyo metropolitan government had the QE2 in mind when it built […]

A Tokyo man has been arrested for growing marijuana in a public park in Tokyo, after his apartment became to crammed with plants that he ran out of room.
The man, who admits his offense against Japan’s Cannabis Control Law, said:
“I was growing plants in my apartment, but I ran out of space, so I […]

Tokyo is about to lose one its most popular tourist sites as the Tsukiji Fish Market adopts new rules in April that urge visitors to “refrain from coming” voluntarily.
It seems that tourist promotion activities for Tsukiji have been so successful that the hordes tourists showing up each morning create a hygiene risk and are […]

Who cleans up those fetid pools of strange-colored liquid and piles of half-digested noodles deposited here and there in Tokyo’s train stations by people who literally can’t hold their booze?
Whose job it is to clean up after someone decides to check out of this cruel world by taking a swan dive off of a train […]

Speaking of snow in Tokyo, the other day the trucked in some serious piles of the white stuff where some folks crafted them into snowmen that are real works of art.
Mr. Pink was there with his camera and he kindly shares with us what he saw. . .

Last week it snowed briefly in Tokyo on my way to work. I love snow but it doesn’t snow in Tokyo that much any more these days.

Are you a window-gazer? Can you spend long, contented periods just staring at not much at all? Or perhaps you crave a view that your window lacks?
For me a decent view is one of the joys of no longer being a city-dweller. It’s one of the reasons (along with fear of crowds, […]

Check out this young lady’s hot licks on the accordian.

Koharu is 19 years old and is also a member of a street band named Minority Orchestra (Japanese page).
If you are lucky, you can catch her live at Tokyo’s Ueno Park.
Her Japanese-language website is here.

As we reported on here and here, Japan recently instituted a new system for dealing with illegal parking. From this year the government started subcontracting the task of dealing with illegally parked vehicles to private firms employing traffic wardens.
I must say that I personally found a dramatic drop in the number of parked vehicles interfering […]

Still more congratulations are in order with word from our friends over at YenX that they are celebrating their second anniversary on online
YenX is a site that is devoted to “Pink Chirashi - Call girl advertising put in my apartment mailbox in Tokyo, Japan,” such as the one shown below.

The popular Blue Man Group　is coming to Japan in December and will be performing here throughout next spring in a special theater being prepared for them in Roppongi.
The Blue Man Group was created in New York City back in the late 1980s, when its three founding members, including Matt Goldman, started to give street performances.
In […]

In case you have not seen it yet, check out this amazing dance trooper routine performed by Danny Choo, a guy that likes to show up at places dressed up as an intergalactic storm trooper.

Big thanks to Len Cullum, a talented woodworker who specializes in Japanese-style works.

And now for something completely different (as they say)…
Hitotoki: a narrative map of Tokyo.

Police are getting ready to perform an autopsy on a human leg, severed at the thigh, that was found recently floating in a river in downtown Tokyo.
Local police are set to examine how it was severed from its body.
Noting that many boats pass through the area as it is connected with the Sumida River, […]

“We need to improve (taxi drivers’) working conditions to continue to offer safe and convenient services.”
Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba at a news conference announcing the government’s plan to allow Tokyo taxi companies, hit hard by gasoline prices and dwindling ridership, to raise initial taxi fares from 660 to 710 yen.