kohakuebisu comments

Tonjiru, a hearty version of miso soup with pork and lots of veggies, especially potato.

Its handed out at many winter events.

The only way for people from outside those 1949 signatories country to drive in Japan is by paying 300 thousands driving school.

I'll flag this because it's incorrect. People from Taiwan, France, Switzerland (here) etc can drive in Japan with a JAF translation that can be printed out at 7-Eleven. Only for one year though.

"Stand up" is just the latest in a long line of euphemisms The sex industry has loads of them.

One problem appears to be YouTubers hassling the women to make edgy content.

Wait. The article starts by making it look like they're renting those things to people without licenses. But further into the article, it's two people. 

I bet more than two people per winter will be driving cars without valid licenses in Niseko, either as customers on holiday or as seasonal staff driving every day for accommodation providers or ski rental places. International destinations like Niseko and Okinawa are inaka, so the local cops won't know much about international driving licenses either.

The story should name the company involved. With no name, readers will blame every kart tour company for what sounds like slackness at the least clued-up one. Does anyone know who it is?

I only know about the one sued by Nintendo, Maricar, but they have country-by-country guide to licenses on their website. Their staff only need to read their own website to know what licenses are needed for customers from different countries. I doubt it is that company at fault here.

To ban the karts as many people would like, the police would have to change the rules. I suspect they are street legal because they pass rules intended for mobility vehicles used by old people. People rely on such vehicles, so the best approach may be to ban "formation guided tours" or something like that.

Nice sunset.

A bit weird to shoehorn in Niseko, a town of a few thousand people that is not particularly close, as the reference point. It's just as near/far from Hakodate, a quite large city.

As a Derek and Clive fan, my favourite was the Izusu Bighorn.

Great comments from ThonTaddeo about the gap between what perceive as Todai and what Todai actually is.

The point about "immigrants taking stuff away from locals" is also well made. The presence of international students with different perspectives and backgrounds is likely to conversely strengthen the institution and improve the education of the Japanese students there more than the presence of more Japanese people would.

That's very poor from Ezure's parents if they favour their son and not her.

My viewpoint as a father is that if my daughters don't get an education or professional qualifications, they'll be dumped into 1200 yen an hour part time work if they ever have kids, the fate that meets most female office workers who do not have professional qualifications (like accounting, real estate, shakai hoken bookkeeping, etc. that let people switch jobs) It is becoming increasing important for women to financially contribute to the family. Very few men can afford a spouse who does not earn.

There was an unusual triple-dip La Nina, mostly during lockdown, and then El Nino last year. Many skiers see this oscillation as affecting winter in Japan, which is a big reason why people pay attention to it.

Last winter was unusual in that it was mostly so-so for snow (typical El Nino), before what felt like the first cold and snowy March for fifteen-twenty years. For people who ski, the very clear trend this century has been for the snow season to start later and end earlier, especially spring coming earlier. Due to this, March 2024 was a surprise, a welcome throwback to happier times in the past.

People try to look good for many reasons, but yes, impressing the same sex is part of it. You cannot blame the opposite sex for all of it.

These many reasons include "to increase self-confidence". This is usually by approaching some accepted beauty standard. Millions of men worldwide use anabolic steriods to bulk up, so its not just women. In this campaign, Dove (essentially a soap, not a beauty brand) is actually trying to empower people with a "don't let beauty standards destroy your confidence" message, but its been done in a hamfisted way that highlights the standards and not the "be yourself" message.

Our eldest goes to a tech college as one of the few girls there, but has fallen out with her mates after she called one of them out for working in a hostess bar to pay for plastic surgery. This is nineteen year old women who can do science. Pretty much every photo is Photoshopped now and stars like the K-pop ones have had procedures galore. This must do young people's heads in.

Convenience stores are all essentially the same. There are a few but not many things that can be done at 7-Eleven but not at Lawson or Family Mart. If 7-Eleven stopped accepting something, I dunno, say local tax payments, another one would pick up the slack. People are not welded at the hip to the 7 and i Corporation.

with the stores nicknamed konbini often acting as community hubs that contribute to local festivals and help in disasters, he added.

This happens but is unremarkable and minimal in practice. It is inappropriate to single out convenience stores (especially not only 7-Eleven as it currently exists) as charitable in their communities or at time of disasters. Only someone who does not understand Japan could think this. A new 7-Eleven is likely to take trade away from any local mom and pop shops, local cafes, and local eateries, all run by members of that community.

About 20% of Japan’s population resides in areas that are at risk of flooding when heavy rain causes rivers to overflow, according to a recent Asahi Shimbun analysis. 

This will include parts of major urban centers like Tokyo. If some dam or river gate or "super teibo" huge dyke or the underground chambers fail or be overloaded, other areas could also be at risk. Rivers like the Tone have masses of infrastructure built along them, any of which could fail when placed under enough load.

It won't just be places in inaka getting folks to build on paddies to up the population.

fwiw, my kids elementary school is entirely within a landslide danger area. It presumably wasn't when the original school on that site was built back in Taisho, but has been reclassified since.

Anyone who prints "government sources say", "a source close to government" (who could be anybody), "experts in the field" etc. with no verification of whether the thing is actually true is part of the propaganda machine. They are knowingly repeating lies. This is a very high proportion of what the BBC does.

Russiagate was used to attack Trump solely because it did not implicate Democrats. There are many stronger attack lines on Trump but most of them involve things the Democrats are also guilty of (corruption, kowtowing to Israel, kowtowing to big business, hopeless on policy, nepotism, apathy about ordinary Americans, etc. etc.)

I agree with donations to help with the upkeep of historical buildings. Most temples already have a collection box into which you can put notes and coins, it is possible to put more than 5 yen in, so I presume they must mean digital money or other alternative forms of payment.

What I disagree with is

"Kyoto is so swamped with tourists"

err no, fewer than in some years past, and anyway this is completely unconnected to the cost of temple upkeep. Is it perfectly possible to talk about Kyoto without framing it as "OMG ITS SO CROWDED AND THE CROWDS AFFECT EVERYTHING". Lets stop the lazy cliches.

and "it has started a program to solicit donations from foreign visitors"

As everyone points out, why only foreigners? Should this be "extend the program to foreign tourists" or something like that. Phrased as it is, it reads as ""lets grab the foreigner cash", which for a tourist destination is very poor PR.

Expect this to get worse with the likes of Starmer and Rayner in power.

I agree that this is likely. They've inherited a mess but seem unwilling to do anything about it.

No-one in Japan, which has a far larger national debt and deficit than the UK, talks about "fiscal rules" or "the nation's credit card being maxxed out" and other such frankly idiotic sentiments. Instead, people urge the government to do more. I suspect its because Japan has no Murdoch press. It has poisoned people into cheering tax cuts that only help the rich, accepting very poor service from private rail companies, water companies, energy companies etc. and cuts to public services that hit everybody.

The big and clear victory here is Man City against the 2021 rules rushed in to stop the Saudis flooding Newcastle with money.

It has also come out that many clubs have huge interest-free loans from their owners. Brighton's are larger than the fee Newcastle were sold for. These loans are not used to calculate financial fair play.

The whole thing is a total mess and has cost the league getting on for 50M in legal fees, money which would have been better spent on grassroots and lower league football.

The 36 hospitals in Gaza, at least 32 of which have been attacked by Israel.

If I can ever afford 30,000 (2024 yen) a kilo meat, I won't be bothered about getting it 20% cheaper several hours away from home.

The Seoul equivalent of Center Gai has food stalls all down the middle. It also has a banner across the street saying "just hand your garbage to any stall". I don't understand why Japanese are so incapable of dealing with garbage. The rest stops on expressways, which are very expensive to use, have big signs moaning about people dropping off too much garbage. If the highway authority is short of funds, it should employ fewer amakudari.

That said, there are lots of issues around Halloween. Japan may have a rep for cosplay, but is poor at providing spaces for folks to get changed or apply makeup. The standard solution is to use the toilets in a department store, basically freeloading which messes them up and obstructs the stores' regular customers. I get the impression folks riding the trains in full costume is not welcomed either (from what cosplay events say).

Wishing her a full recovery.

Her husband's abdication six years ago was opposed by conservative forces. Its why he had to go on tv and address the nation. Had conservatives had their way, she would still be Empress. I say this because the Imperial family faces other challenges, most notably female succession. The abdication showed it can change for the better.

If you place the same ingredients in a pan on low heat, you will get the better results, probably thirty minutes faster. You won't have to watch it.

There is no reason to stew beef for forty five minutes for sukiyaki. If anything, it'll just make the meat tougher.

There are more affordable Japanese crafts, basketware, textiles like furoshiki, Imabari towels, noren curtains, even simple things like nice chopsticks. Place the emphasis on vase-type pottery or handmade furniture and you'll blow most people's budgets. The simple things I mention can even be used in the grey and beige "Scandanavian" interiors everyone has these days.

If more folks are going to remain childless, you might as well fill your nest with nice stuff. No little ones to break any of it or make you so busy you have no time to look after it. I'd rather drink any coffee from a nice cup than Starbucks super fancy pants limited edition whatever out of a paper one.

This is all corporate sellers, isn't it.

You're local independent ramen joint won't do it. You'll local kissaten coffee shop won't do it. If you have one, your local corner shop won't stock new biscuits or new flavours of potato chips anything like as frequently as Family Mart.

If you go exclusively to independent ramen joints or coffee shops, you will have something different in every store. However, McDonalds and Starbucks have proved that's not what folks want. What they want is consistency. The limited edition stuff will be mostly to break up the (probably inevitable) boredom.

But the central government's support system for traditional craftworks is said to be less generous than for agricultural products due in part to the stove-piped nature of multiple organizations in charge.

I would far rather the government spent money on crafts than on air-freighting strawberries grown in heated polytunnels to Singapore and Hong Kong.

If you want to buy pottery, my advice is to get yourself to one of the pottery towns instead of buying online. We bought some sinks for our house in person in Shigaraki and they were much cheaper than the ones I'd seen on Rakuten.

While Japanese people will say they like Japanese crafts, the huge fall in spending mentioned here shows how few people are actually willing to spend their money on them. Most newbuilds have no shoji in them, no garden outside, often not even a Japanese coffee cup. They'll drink miso soup out of a plastic thing from Nitori.

Apparently only four of the nine sites with prefabs that flooded were in known flood zones. This suggests the rains were off the chart in terms of what experts had imagined.

Building four sets of prefabs on flood-risk land may seem reckless, but its a mountainous area with little suitable land for building at short notice.

https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/356075

Maybe she's a bit muddled. That may be why she's also walking around with 215,000 yen on her.

In Asia Japan is definitely at the bottom when it comes to authentic original historical architectures.

South Korea is lower, but they were occupied by Japan and also had a civil war. The big palace with the changing of the guard in Seoul was destroyed at least once by the Japanese and is a complete rebuild. If you think Tokyo has lots of high rises and concrete, get yourself to Seoul to see way way more.

Japan was heavily firebombed so there are mitigating factors here too. Its also "ki no bunka", wood which rots, which cannot be compared with "ishi no bunka", stone that doesn't stay up when you have earthquakes. Other places have earthquakes too, but not as many big ones as Japan.

Conde Nast is for cashed up Westerners, and for them, Japan is a great destination. Few hassles, little crime, great intercity transport etc.

Due to wage differentials and yes, the exchange rate, Westerners doing many common jobs will now be cashed up compared to Japanese. They will also get enviable time off work compared to those working in Japan.

This may just be a symbolic visit but is a good move by Ishiba. It will have gone down well by the people there.

While I am sure mistakes have been made, a large part of what has happened in Noto is force majeure/act of God, which has been multiplied by the remoteness of the area. The news often shows prefabs built for earthquake victims that flooded in the rains, but it is likely the local government chose their location, not the national govenment.