iLikeTurtles comments

My wife comfortably hits 15 of these, sadly #5 is not one of them :(

It is because of diet.. Japanese food however is being attacked with free trade and imports of food that are not healthy.. and kids eating McDonald's.. she should put out a memoir... and share her knowledge... I would be very interested in her and other Japanese and people in Okinawa who eat good foods, fish, organic rice, seaweed .. fruit? and drink sake and seem to live a long time.. while People in America are dropping like bees...

Funny then, that 2 of the 3 oldest people ever recorded were American, with the oldest being French...

There is more to it than diet.

If the artificial motorized vagina is a sleek cylinder, the motor has to go somewhere, thus contributing to the length. Further there may be a valve to remove fluids. And there will need to be additional electronics for the computer/smartphone interface. Why is it when sex is mentioned, logic vanishes and the jokes start? Sex is a wonderful natural activity. Jokes are okay, but in general we should all take it a bit more seriously.

I'm not sure that hooking up an artifical vagina to your PC and filling it with fluids really counts as 'wonderful natural' activity...

Last time I was in Tokyo I noticed this was a real problem, what I found amazing was people walking through very busy stations at the peak of rush hour playing games - it's not like they were sending an essential mail or something. Crazy.

Hindsight is always 20:20 vision.

I feel really sorry for the victims actually - they lose both money and a relationship. Vulnerable people who have been taken advantage of, not nice at all.

Common sense failure, compounded by panic no doubt.

China are so used to shoveling propaganda to their own citizens, they're now trying to do it to the rest of the world...

"Independent Scotland makes little sense". Do Denmark, Singapore, Finland or Paraguay also make little sense as >independent countries?

Notably, all the countries you mention have their own currencies, except Finland (EUR). Scottish EU membership has been pretty much ruled out. So no GBP, no EUR - now what? A Scottish pound with no central bank to back it up? Good luck with that.

Utterly horrific, I hope lessons are learned and it never happens again.

The bar has no rights to tell anyone not to talk about them...no matter what the reason is. I can't see how they would win this.

Please remove this idiot from his job.

I’m with Frungy here - he left them behind, so yes, it’s his fault. Regardless of the circumstances, any right thinking person would not have done that without some kind of contingency for the 7 people underwater depending on them.

It takes two to tango... sometimes the way girls break up with guys in this country is quite cold too.

This comment beggars belief – she had previously been assaulted and moved to a different prefecture to escape him, before being shot in head several times - and you suggest it was her fault for a cold breakup?

Astounding.

What a waste of a hard-working young woman’s life. Murdered for JPY10k – pathetic.

Is it just me or does anybody else see a biased towards making the foreigner look like the culprit, when in fact, it >was his Japanese mate that did the stabbing and more than likely instigated the attack. I'm not defending him, but it >just seems that thi article wants to focus on the foreigner. Just saying!

I didn’t get that, to be honest. It clearly says the other culprit was already tried and is serving life in prison, whereas this kid is on trial right now, hence the article’s focus is on him.

I wish them nothing but the best but I’m intrigued to see how a multi-millionaire pop singer marrying a bartender can ever work. That’s a huge financial disparity.

Wow, the IAEA has urged Japan to consider "controlled" discharge of highly contaminated water into the sea, while >recommending a subterranean "freeze wall", to stop it?? I guess we will have to Google this 72 page report to understand >the logic behind this recommendation.

The big difference is Sea Water vs Ground Water - the later being fresh water stored deep underground within rocks and commonly used as drinking water. Obviously if this becomes contaminated it can have greater consequences as it will be contaminated forever. Sea water isn't used as drinking water so the main danger will be contaminated fish (pretty serious problem itself but less of an immediate danger vs ground water contamination).

Mass suicide? Wow, how did they manage to bury themselves?

Read it again.

“Eight years ago, the man living in the house at the time, along with two women he met online, all killed themselves in a mass suicide, TBS reported. Police believe the two people were murdered and their bodies wrapped in sheets and stashed beneath the floor before the other three committed suicide.”

So from that it sounds like the man had murdered 2 people before he killed himself.

What would be nice is if the phone companies would allow foreigners to easily buy pre-paid SIM cards. In the UK you can walk into a phone shop and buy one over the counter that will have calls and internet included, and you can top it up easily in any shop. You don’t need to register it or anything, simply buy and plug in.

The lack of good internet for tourists is a major inconvenience. Data roaming charges are extortionate.

My in-laws live in Oita Prefecture and I've been there several times. Beautiful place.

Rolls are made in England but owned by BMW so why is it called a British car company? Are the Toyotas manufactured in America not made by a Japanese company? The only truly British luxury car manufacturer remaining is Bristol.

Mclaren? Morgan? Both considered luxury brands and completely British as far as I know.

The Rolls are definitely not British though, they're not even designed by British people. I would still like one though.

If only life were as simple as some people on here think it is. Not all pregnancies are planned. Birth control is not 100% effective.

I have nothing but sympathy for the woman who has to work night shifts 1 month after giving birth. I'm pretty positive this would not be by choice.

You might be surprised to learn that the main catalyst for divorce in each of their scenarios was rarely related directly to cultural differences. Instead, it seems that a combination of other factors played the decisive role.

Nope, that's not even a little bit suprising. My wife (Japanese) and myself (British) knew about the cultural differences before we got married, and they are, frankly, a minor consideration. As long as you are generally open-minded (which you are likely to be if your partner is foreign) you’re fine. I actually find the cultural differences help keep things interesting. Her family welcomed me with open arms, and I get treated like a celebrity whenever we visit them in Japan.

The biggest issues would always be money, children, intimacy etc – in ANY marriage.

Dammit kids, don’t ignore the signs.

She had previously been institutionalised. Hanging someone who clearly has psychological problems solves nothing.

The authorities need to look at how she was treated, what follow-up care she received (if any) and make sure vulnerable/ potentially dangerous people are not put in this position. Mental healthcare in Japan is not given anything near the attention it requires.

@funnycar Again, you still don’t get it. It’s not about viewing it negatively, it’s about not making race into an issue. You want to ‘emulate’ black disco dancers? How patronising.

She appears to be taking the picture with a flower.

I find her quite scary.

European men also lived up to their reputation of finding poetic ways to express their love, such as the Spanish boyfriend of a Japanese woman who begins every email he sends her with, “To the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

@funny car It’s disappointing that in 2014, there are people who still don’t ‘get’ racial discrimination. A white man who is not offended by race, racial differences or racial attributes – well, isn’t that amazing. Someone from an ethnic majority who has enjoyed all the benefits of being white for his whole life is comfortable with the race issue. I assure you that those from ethnic minorities will hold a somewhat different view.

You mention that you may want to dress up as a black disco dancer – why is the race of the disco dancer even something noteworthy? Why not just ‘a disco dancer’? The fact that you casually used this to support your argument shows how ingrained it is in some people to define others by the way they look above anything else. People are people. Racial stereotyping is dehumanising. If you’d been on the receiving end of this for your whole life you’d probably understand better. I don’t want to sound like a blubbering liberal who gets offended on behalf of other people, as the truth is very far from that, but you need to at least understand the issue.

Obviously Japan is a largely racially homogenous country, with people who actually enjoy the idea that they are all the same, who have rarely mixed with other cultures and who have little or no experience being on the receiving end of discrimination, so it’s not surprising that ads like this (or the Toshiba one with the stupid font and heavily accented Japanese which was arguably far worse) can appear on TV. At the very least, it’s disrespectful.