kiwiboy comments

If you're 18, you're an adult. If you're an adult wanting to go overseas, you can pay for your own passport - which is the bare minimum requirement for going overseas.

If the govt. wants more people to travel they need make the situation such where young people feel like they can travel. That really comes down to money. How much they earn in their part-time jobs and how far their yen will go once they're overseas.

If you want young people to travel do two things:

1) Raise the minimum wage to something reasonable.

2) Improve the economy, which will result in two things - a stronger yen so their money will go further overseas and optimism in the future so they're not worried about spending what little money they've saved on an overseas trip.

I only want to know where my taxes end up, that's all, and maybe not asking for too much.

Agree!

It's our tax money and that's a LOT of it, so if they say it's to reduce our costs, I want to see where and how much I'm saving. For example, on my electric bill, show me the portion that's been deducted and paid for by the govt.

If there's no accountability, what's to stop it just disappearing, without us actually saving anything?

Whaling: Why the practice will not go away

I read the article to see why it won't go away, but that wasn't answered?

She recommended that people avoid exposing their skin by wearing long-sleeve tops, full-length trousers, hats, gloves and other clothing, as well as making sure they cover their necks with towels in woodland areas, use insect repellent and take baths following outdoor activities.

Oh I can't wait to go outside and enjoy nature like this.

Many owners have insurance.

Not for loss of earnings.

They come in steal some of your wires and your solar units are no longer producing power. It might take a couple of months until they can be serviced at this time of the year, meaning possibly a couple of months of ZERO power production (money generation) during that time.

Insurance won't cover that. So yeah, you'll get your new wires installed - but you're still going to be waaaaay out of pocket.

If you aren't a VERY competent swimmer and VERY confident around water, go to the pool instead of the beach or river.

Japan can be so lame and boring sometimes. Just change the rules and allow them!

These days everybody seems to think everything is "not what it seems" and there "must be more to it".

Most of the time in life though, the simplest and most boring explanation is the real one. And all these conspiracies are nothing but fiction.

The ministry declined to comment on the issue.

Why didn't they comment? Isn't it their job to comment?

They could have at least used it as an opportunity to strongly discourage anyone from joining the war.

Then why were they sending similar leaflets into the South not so long ago, covered in poo no less.

Don't do to others what you can't tolerate yourself.

Did you try carnivore? Or keto?

Yes, but it's all easier said than done. You're juggling work and life and you're at a convenient store looking for lunch. There's not much that will, at reasonable cost, fill you up and be keto or carnivore.

One reason hollywood stars remain thin is because they have private cooks and personal trainers.

Yes, you could consider these drugs "cheating", but why not!?

You could struggle for years trying to succeed at all the normal diets and end up failing, or take the medicine and succeed. The side-effects are very rare. If you started taking the medicine and it really didn't agree with you, you can stop. Far outweighing the risks of the medicine are risks of being obese and all the health problems that come with that.

It's easy for people who've always been active and never been overweight to judge, but when you get to a point, there's no harm in getting help that works to kick-start your new lifestyle.

Does your doctor have a plan to wean you off it once you've reached your target weight, or is it a long-term thing? And does the doctor expect a bit of rebound once you're off it? And have you experienced any uncomfortable side-effects from it to date, or has it pretty much been smooth sailing?

Honestly, there's not a lot of research of people coming off them, as most people that take the medicine have diabetes and need it for life. It's going to be one of those things where self-control and discipline are important.

My friend who came off it 6 months ago said his hunger never returned to anything close to what it was before. He gained 2kg and settled there, but still about 10kg down from where he started - and he only took the medicine for 4 months.

I'm going to lower my dose next month, and then come off it at the 9 month mark.

Of course if I eat like before and don't exercise, I'll put weight back on. But I'm far more active everyday now than I was before because it's easier to move around. It's fun to go to the pool and smash out 80 laps. I can easily take the stairs instead of the escalator. I can eat a banana and yoghurt and be content.

So even if a bit of hunger returns, I'll be more active and eating healthier - which is the goal to long-term weight control anyway. It's just the medicine helped by removing the unwanted urges that make you fail, allowing me to craft my new healthy life in a few months, unlike of all the failed attempts of the past.

Each to their own of course, but if you've tried and failed many times to get weight under control, it's an option!

Will be on a Boeing 737 this afternoon, but not a MAX.

I'm definitely not in a hurry to fly a 737-MAX or 787s anymore and will choose airlines that fly other models when there are options.

For long flights the Airbus A330 configuration of 2 seats X 4 seats X 2 seats is a much more comfortable trip than 3 X 4 X 3 anyway. You can get a window seat and only have to squeeze past one person to use the bathroom.

I started taking Mounjaro in January.

At 171cm, I was 95.5kg, I was very round. High blood pressure (which I was on medicine for). Felt tired all the time. Had tried every diet, had tried swimming a few times a week without any noticeable results.

After a friend did it, I started taking Mounjaro in Jan, which killed my appetite. It was liberating. Cravings for bad food were/are gone. I now eat a banana, yoghurt and a protein shake for lunch, and a light healthy meal for dinner. I go to the local pool 3-4 times a week.

The drastic weight loss (I was down 3kg after the first month, 6kg after the 2nd month and 9kg after the 3rd month) gave me the motivation to keep going with my swimming. I would look down and be surprised my stomach was so small. Or my legs so thin. Definitely a great feeling to finally see results - which motivated me to keep going to the pool.

It's July 9th now and I'm 19.7kg down since Jan 15th. My blood pressure is no longer high (I've stopped taking blood pressure medicine) and have never felt better!

The medicine isn't cheap, at about 33,000yen/month, but I save at least 20,000yen on food as I eat less - most importantly, I eat out at restaurants less.

I'm a believer in this. Not because it's a shortcut - you still need to exercise and stay healthy. But it helps by taking away the bad urges, which let you build your new healthy habits.

Family ruined

Rape per capita in Japan: 1.1 in 100k people

Don't believe that for a second. Once heard that it's thought that only about 1 in 13 rapes in Japan are reported due to stigma and social circumstances.

Of course there's no way to know if a young Japanese person would be more or less willing to report one committed by a foreigner, but I have a feeling they would.

Anyway, we're getting off-topic. I don't mean to minimise this or the other crime or any crime. Any crime is unforgivable and the perpetrator should be punished to the FULL extent of the law. My point was simply that there are a lot of American's in Okinawa and this shouldn't unfairly reflect badly on them.

Hope he's punished to the full extent of the law.

It's unacceptable, horrific and unforgivable.

But also let's remember there are nearly 80,000 American's in Okinawa with the military (active military, their families, department of defense civilians etc).

That's a LOT of people!! So as horrible as these cases are when they happen, let's not bash the military personal there as a whole. With large numbers, a certain level of terrible, unforgivable incidents is unavoidable, and let the law deal with them.

I'd love to see official stats if they exist, but I suspect the level of crime (serious or otherwise) committed by the 80,000 US military and their families is lower than average compared to the general population.

I hate these robots. They move at crawl speed, meaning it takes about 3 times as long for your food to be delivered than if the waiter or waitress just walked it over.

If you're sitting on the far side of the restaurant you can see it slooooowwwly coming in what feels like an eternity. Then it finally gets to your table and makes all these awkward turns before you can take your meal. Then it beeps and buzzes.

There's never any less staff at the restaurant, so I wonder if it's really easing workload that much?

No one can have high expectations when one of the parties to the talks is a totalitarian, Communist police state.

Anyone who expect China to be sincere, open and honest is either hopelessly naive or a fool.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Most people's experience with turbulence is that it starts small and gets worse, often well after the seatbelt sign was activated, so they assume they'll have time to fasten their seatbelts if turbulence starts.

Most people have never heard of clear air turbulence, where the plane suddenly drops thousands of feet, causing unsecured items to hit the ceiling and then crash down onto seats and armrests causing serious injury or death.

Airlines should inform passengers why seatbelts should be fastened, except when going to the toilet or retrieving items from the overhead bins, regardless of the seatbelt sign.

There is more that airlines could do.

Although its obvious to interested in aviation, most people don't really understand why they should keep their seatbelt on when the seatbelt sign is turned off.

In their safety videos, they could show a clip of the plane hitting unexpected turbulence and passengers without seatbelts fastened getting flung against the ceiling and being seriously injured - or hitting other passengers and injuring them.

But that would make people scared right as the plane is departing and nervous flyers might try and get off - causing delays. So they don't.

They're kind of trapped into a situation where they want to down-play the risks (which are still very small), but by doing so, don't educate passengers.

And after they get independence, who's going to pay for the functioning education system, medical care system, social benefits etc?

You can't just kick out France and expect everything to keep ticking along as normal.

Chances are they'll all be far worse off independent than they are now. Are they really treated so poorly under the current French system?

The police need to get very tough with this kind of crime.

I feel for the situation these young guys are in. They come over with hopes of earning money to send home for their families. Maybe the job fell through or doesn't earn them as much money as they expected, and they're very likely being exploited.....BUT..... you CAN'T go around tying people up and stealing their stuff!!

It needs to be made perfectly clear that it won't be accepted, and when caught, they'll be in a world of trouble.

If the penalty isn't strong enough, it's going to happen more and more.

I'm really torn by this. My gut says it's awful and it should be one price for all. However, if that means the price for us living in Japan also goes up, well I'd rather they just charge the tourists more - they have more money than us!

But is this going to mean every time we go out to a restaurant we'll have to show our ID to prove we live here to get the cheaper price? What if some of the group live here and some are tourists?

What if a restaurant refuses to give you the local price, even though we're living here?

It doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth at all.....but I also don't want to pay more myself!

How about the govt. pull their hands out their pockets and do something to rejuvenate the country and strengthen the yen in a meaningful way. Otherwise we'll all (us foreigners and Japanese) be stuck here, unable to afford a trip overseas.

I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist at all, but there are far too many reports of covid vaccines causing turbo cancers, giant white blood clots in veins, and changing the DNA in cells far from the injection site, etc for me to consider getting any boosters.

The school I work at got us our first two vaccines almost as soon as they came out in Japan. But no more for me thanks.

Wish nothing but success for the mission and the advancement of spacecrafts. Space X really do make it look easy!

This one is horrific! The poor family, just going about their day and for it all to end like that. There are no words :S

Similarly, regardless of the circumstances, I feel for the driver too. He didn't go out in the morning planning on killing three people. So even if he did something stupid like look at his phone, I can't help but feel for the pain he (and his completely innocent family) are going to go through over this as well.

Have smartphones created an ‘anxious generation’ among teenagers?

In my opinion, YES!

Students earn minimum wage so, even if they could find reasonably priced flights (good luck during GW!) would find it too expensive overseas to enjoy.

Workers in their 20s/early 30s find it hard to get the non-holidays off, so GW isn't a long holiday. It's a couple of short holidays. Plus they're hardly any better off financially. Trying to save to provide for a family (or future family) while the value of their earnings goes down by the day.

Those currently in their 60s see the diving yen and are tightening their wallets to prepare for the rest of their retirement or to help their family.

Those who, before COVID were in their late 60s and happy traveling overseas are now in their 70s - when it's much more of a hurdle to travel overseas.

It really is the perfect storm. And what will airlines do? Put the price up to cover the short-fall, leading to less (Japanese) people flying.

As much as I love Japan and love living here - what a depressing state of affairs it is!

Curse of the shrinking portions of chicken at KFC is more troubling.

And near bankrupting cost for the little you get

Once upon a time, the Japanese used to be the wealthy Asians sought by other Asian countries to come visit...

My thoughts exactly. How sad :(