Nippori Nick comments

Looks more like a big fish coming up to take bait.

600,000 yen per year? Wow.

Not a good idea to invite Trump. Might give him ideas about him becoming an emperor himself.

Is anyone, anyone at all, enticed to buy clothes that look like that?

If a manager acted like this in my company, he would not be demoted or suspended. He would be fired.

that should have read tourists.

Tourists pay no sales tax because it increases consumption, but Japanese pay 10%

Tori’s then pay tax on hotels bills, meals etc. Likely the biggest part of their spending while in Japan. Yes, some goods are tax exempt, but those are for export.

I try to go to places where zillions of tourists don't go rather than seeking out the top ones.

Agreed. They are like land based aircraft after all. I'm not sure of the statistics, but I can take an educated guess that there are more crimes commited on trains than there are on planes. Yet train station security is far inferior to airport. 

Kind of hard to hijack a train and have it take you to wherever your want to go.

There are more crimes committed on city streets. Should we start putting metal detectors all over the place?

is it me or is that thing leaning to one side?

Perhaps designed by a descendant of the leaning tower of Pisa?

To even think the President is a racist is just laughable, 

Really? I for one am not laughing. He panders to racist supporters...there's no doubt about that.

Well, I knew this was bound to happen and more violence will occur if both sides don’t dial it back 

is this how you Americans define yourselves? Both sides? Are you fighting a civil war?

Saw video of him 3 days ago at a rally yucking it up while crowd chanted (about Hillary) "Lock her up".

Trump clearly is an instigator of this divisiveness. Even though he defeated her in the election, like all bullies he revels in mistreating others.

Conspiracy websites like Voltaire Network, calculate that the mainland Chinese army. They will invade Taiwan by force between the years 2022 and 2026.

.....

You have to start worrying.

No, actually we don't. Most people don't spend a lot of time worrying about what conspiracy theory websites have on their menu of the day.

Folks, the recipe is from New York and in the USA Shepherd's pie is actually made with ground beef. Yes, it is different than the UK version but fact of the matter is very little lamb and even less mutton is consumed in USA. It's beef and that's that.

Palease magical mystery tour is much better

It was never an album in the UK. Just a double EP.

US networks also show sports..that's not going away soon

People in the past used to say Japanese quality meaning it was good. The way things are going with these scandals, it may end up being used as a euphemism for bad or shoddy.

Well if you let your opponent take 4 out of 5 games, it ain't looking good for you.

Really a fairly sad story. Problem is Japanese funerals are outrageously priced...they really are.

I googled their NYC menu. "Reasonable" is not the word I would use to describe their prices.

Also US customers are not used to ordering steak by the ounce (with minimum price and then going up for every ounce after that).

Just price a certain steak one price and another a different. People are not interested in ordering by weight like that

George Martin their producer stated his biggest mistake was not putting Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane on the Pepper album and instead allowing Parlophone/EMI to issue them as a Double A sided single.

Had those 2 been released on the album instead of as a single there would be zero doubt about the greatness of that album.

Pretty low down to steal those apples.

But then again, apples in Japan are expensive, so I suppose some criminal type figures it was easy money.

That's a polite way of saving "Never".

Zero interest in staying there and I mean zero.

The Mrs would not sleep a wink.

Nippori - Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. 

Well obviously that is the case. I was simply offering my opinion. You seem to agree yourself, so not sure why your phrased it this way.

It's going to be chaos like Y2K all over again

Not in my opinion, because when the clocks rolled over to year 2000, nothing happened.

With Brexit there will be a chain of real consequences, not just imaginary ones. And they won't be good (for the UK that is)

Not worth it.

but the husband, father and wage earner is a gambler whose 5 million yen debt burden makes the strictest economy necessary. 

Disgraceful.

. “All we do at home is sleep,” says mom, to all appearances aspiring to nothing more.

The correct word for her is lazy.

30,000 yen for that ? No thanks.

If you wore that as an adult outside of Japan you would be a laughing stock.