June 2011
16 posts
14 tags
Summer has come ! Summer has come !
I don’t know if winter is coming but summer has come : it’s just a few days before tanabata. Well, if we consider the traditional lunisolar calendar, the 7th day of the 7th month won’t be before August the 6th, but let’s just pretend we don’t know and rejoice !
Hiroshima Railway launched its “Tanabata Train” today, with tanzaku holding...
8 tags
One day, my prince will come...
OK, this is not information, just the results of a social survey I found interesting. Information may come later.
Japanese women’s view on marriage may be the biggest cultural shock I experienced. In fact, as far as I recall, that’s the only cultural shock I experienced.
I was in my early twenties when I came to Japan for the first time, full of certainties, and it took me a...
12 tags
A portable shrine made of rubble
The inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Watanoha in the city of Ishinomaki (Miyagi prefecture) and the volunteers of the NPO 「On the Road」, who have helped cleaning the city since April, used the rubble from the tsunami that devastated the city to build a mikoshi and a dashi.
A dashi is a float that is carried around during festivals. A mikoshi is a protable shrine (that is carried around...
15 tags
Two more Japanese places enter UNESCO world...
Last week the UNESCO registered a few new places in the World Cultural Heritage and World Natural Heritage lists, and a Japanese place made its way to each of the lists !
The city of Hiraizumi entered the Cultural Heritage list, and the Ogasawara archipelago the Natural Heritage one.
Hiraizumi (Iwate prefecture) was once a flourishing city under the Northern Fujiwara rule in the 12th...
9 tags
8 tags
Lord of the Flies
The number of flies is exploding on the Sanriku coast, devastated by the tsunami in March.
The National Research Institute on Infectious Diseases is worried by the increase in number of house flies (Musca domestica) that can ease the transmission of bacterias responsible for food poisoning.
The researches in different shelters show that up to 98% of the bugs collected there are house...
7 tags
Holy things...
Japanese people are always surprised when they hear there are four seasons in France too. For a strange reason, they seem to think this is a Japan-only particularity… As far as I’m concerned, I consider there are five seasons in Japan : winter, spring, tsuyu, summer and autumn. I should be the one surprised when they announce they only have four ones.
Well, yesterday was June...
4 tags
It's over !
Today was the last day of the 1.000 yens discount campain on the Japanese motorways.
Up to now, on week-ends and holidays, the price of motorways was divided by 2, but with a maximum amount of 1.000 yens : for a 1.400 yens route you would pay 700 yens, but for a 20.000 yens one (Aomori → Nagoya for example) you would only pay 1.000 yens.
This was a really popular campain, Japanese...
6 tags
Nuclear is baaaaad, trees are gooooood
World famous animation studio 「Studio Ghibli」has hung a banner on its building : “Studio Ghibli wants to make films with an electricity that does not come from nuclear power”.
Well, you’ve got a building, so you’ve got a roof. Go and install solar panels !
I’m not sure what they want to say and an announcement will be made on August the 10th about...
5 tags
Human electric power
Well, this is no news, Japan is currently struggling with conservation of electricity : never let electric appliances on hold, turn off the lights… 節電 (setsuden, conservation of electricity) may be the word you hear and read the more lately.
The politics are discussing alternate energy producing solutions and other people try their own means.
Like : bicycle-produced...
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People should learn to tell better lies...
Golf prodigy Ishikawa Ryo was arrested because he drove with an invalid international licence : he obtained a driving licence in the USA (where it is far easier and cheaper…) and applied for an international licence. But for the licence to be valid, you have to stay and drive in the USA for at least three months, which he did not do.
The Professional Golf Association decided that...
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The best political initiative ever
The city of Hagi, in Yamaguchi prefecture, has decided that they will increase the number of ladies’ public toilets for it to reach the double of the number of gents’ public toilets.
If I lived in Hagi and the foreigners could vote at local elections, I’ll surely vote for the ruling team on the next elections.
Before deciding they should increase the number of those...
5 tags
The end of the wooooooorld !
Or not.
A really large quantity of sweetfishes (ayu, Plecoglossus altivelis) have been found dead yesterday in the part of Asano river in the middle of the city of Kanazawa (Ishikawa prefecture).
Since yesterday in the afternoon, and till today at noon (it is now 6:30 p.m. on the 15th of June), the fishing cooperative of Kanazawa collected more than 10.000 dead fishes.
The...
5 tags
Somebody's knocking on our door from very very...
OK, maybe not so deep…
There is a Japanese astronaut in the ISS currently so the media are all “Hey look ! Space !”
Furukawa Satoshi has got a twitter (and he’s called 「Astro_Satoshi」, isn’t that cool ?) and all the newspapers are reporting he tweeted (is this verb regular ? shall it go tweet, twot, twitten ?) he’s got...
5 tags
Let's have some Hope to begin with
The city of Kamaishi in Iwate has been hardly struck by the earthquake and the tsunami three months ago.
Seven members of a traditional drums players association in this city searched the rubbles till they found some of their drums that had been washed away with the building they used to train in.
Yesterday, they played those drums again for the first time since the disaster.
The...
1 tag
Hello, tumblr...
Hey, I got myself a tumblr !
It may take a time till I get accustomed to the interface.
Here will be the place where I share my thoughts about Japanese news, a piece of information at a time. I may deal with any event that gets its way to the newspapers : politics, economy, sports, accidents, crimes, entertainment…
No archaeology. Well, except, of course, if anything ＊really＊...
