Japan Soc

one mans run in with japanese immigration, detained at the airport and ejected from the country.

It takes a while to get started - fast forward to about 1:00 if you're impatient

Evidently the site I soc'd yesterday was using the photographs without permission. So I have asked for that Soc to be deleted, and am now Soc-ing the photographer's original site. Hope everyone will enjoy the nice job that this photographer did with illustrating the emoticons.

In some countries, its customary to stand on one side of the escalator and let others who are in a hurry to walk up/down the escalators. While its a common sight in Japan, it seems that the subway stations in Japan are rolling out new policies to ban people from walking on escalators. The rationale is being that they wanted to reduce the number of accidents that occur on escalators. It was mentioned in the news article that escalators accidents have almost doubled over the course of 10 years.

From loneleeplanet, everything you ever wanted to know about theme Love Hotel rooms, with pics. How anyone can pay to do the do in a Supply Closet is beyond me, though...a must see!

A brief introduction to tengu in both Japanese myth and pop-culture. This is my submission for Mazikeen's March edition of the Japanese Blog Matsuri.

Washington Post comes out of nowhere in particular and tags Fujita's ideas as "too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion".

A decrease in Japan's murder rate has led commentators to believe that in an increasingly impersonal society, fewer people actually appear to care enough about others to kill them. Good news then?!?

A submission for the March 2010 Japan Blog Matsuri. It's the story of the tragic suffering of a plate-counting, well-dwelling Japanese ghost called Okiku who torments her murderer from the afterlife.

The Yamate Tunnel will be open at the end of this month. Yesterday was a day for the public to walk through the tunnel.