Posted in: Buying a camera in Japan? Think again See in context
Enormous price differences can be found in Japan. Yodobashi Camera is one of the best known camera shop chains in Japan but also one of the most expensive. Yes, they give you 10% discount points if you have their customer card but they are at least 15% more expensive than other shops.
I bought a new Canon 7D camera body recently from Amazon for 138,000 yen that was priced 188,000 yen at Yodobashi. Yes, exactly 50,000 more expensive. OK. I would have receives 10% discount, that is 18,800 yen in discount points but I would have had to spend these points also at Yodobashi. 50,000 yen minus 18,800 is still 31,200 yen more I would have had to pay at Yodobashi.
I don't know if Amazon here in Japan would deliver to hotel guests but it's worth trying it out.
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Posted in: Student arrested for using counterfeit money at flea market See in context
Why do you guys even bother to comment on this?
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Posted in: Man arrested for abducting junior high school girl in Iwate See in context
I bet that she told her parents that she was forced to get into the car in order not to take responsibility for her actions, and then they called the police. It's a common thing in Japan to blame others for your own stupidity.
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Posted in: Why the Japanese Are a Superior People See in context
If the Japanese are such a superior people, why are they the only people in the world that don't tell jokes? In the 25 years that I have been in Japan, not a single time has a Japanese come up to me and said: An American, a Japanese and a German went to a bar and .... Not a single time in 25 years has a Japanese tried to tell me a joke or understood a joke I told them. Superior? Without a sense of humor? My ass!
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Posted in: The trouble with Harry: He's nearly all grown up See in context
Talking of scary stories - what about Little Red Riding Hood where the grandma is eating alive and all the other fairy tales with gruesome scenes? Did that stop you from wanting to hear them or from reading them as a kid? Harry Potter is not even half that scary.
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Posted in: Should marijuana use be legalized? See in context
In The Netherlands marijuana is not legalized but the government turns a blind eye to users because marijuana is not addictive. The reason the Dutch government allows the use of marijuana is to cut the link between the occasional weed user and the hard drug dealers who give free samples of cocaine and heroine to people who just come to buy weed. In this way the dealers get the weed users hooked on hard drugs which they then have to buy from them. With marijuana for sale in coffee shops, weed users do not have to get their stuff from dealers anymore and the result is that the number of heroine and cocaine addicts has dropped drastically in the Netherlands since the use of marijuana was allowed.
No, I don't want the pilot of my plane who flies me to Hokkaido be high on weed, just as I don't want him to be drunk on booze either.
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Posted in: The Otaku Encyclopedia See in context
Next we will see Otaku being cute as well, I guess. LOL
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Posted in: 'Teen repellent' in Adachi park spurs flood of inquiries See in context
Teen repellent my ass! I downloaded the sound and although I am 66 years old I can hear it.
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Posted in: Giant Internet worm set to change tactics April 1 See in context
Buy a Mac and you will be safe.
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Posted in: Suicide hotline struggling to cope See in context
There are several reasons for the high suicide rate in Japan and one of them is the old samurai code, bushido, that considers suicide a noble thing to do to get out of all your problems. People who kill themselves are forgiven for whatever they have done because they have shown remorse by killing themselves. Another reason is that Japan is a country where Christian charity doesn't exist. People don't feel sorry for the homeless or feel that they should give them any help. That's why there is hardly any social security for those who lost their jobs or need help. Single mothers, for example, can get help from the government, but there is such a stigma attached to asking for help as a single mother, that most of them shy away from going to the city hall to fill in the papers that would get them the help they deserve. Many people also get into financial trouble because of the debts they have with loan sharks who charge enormous amounts of interest - a practice that is still tolerated by the government. Then there is the stigma attached to getting psychological help from a therapist or psychiatrist. If you go to a shrink you must be mentally ill. One of my friends is a nurse at a psychiatric hospital and it has a back door entrance to allow patients to slip in and out without being seen, such is the stigma attached to going to a therapist for treatment. Japanese people have nobody to talk to when they are burned out from stress or other problems, so the only way out is suicide. Indeed, unlike Christian societies, Japan has no religious system that prevents people from killing themselves. 30,000 suicides a year means about one every 15 minutes - hard to imagine but true, sadly enough.
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Posted in: The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth See in context
I recently had my teeth cleaned. After doing my lower teeth, the dentist told me to come back a week later to have my upper teeth cleaned. I told him he was nuts and I insisted to have the whole job done at once to which he reluctantly agreed. When I told this to a Japanese friend of mine, she said that she had to go four times to have her teeth cleaned: once for the left side of her upper teeth, once for the right side, same for the lower teeth. So the dentist got paid for four visits for what takes only about 15 minutes at the most. And then people wonder why there are so many dentists in Japan and why the health insurances are nearly bankrupt.
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Posted in: Japanese men need to learn to say 'You are beautiful' to women, particularly to their wives. The phrase is magical and can make both men and women happy. See in context
How does it make the man happy? If the woman is happy she will be more willing to engage in marital sports and that will make the man happy. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.
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Posted in: Bread shop See in context
Sorry, I meant a 'pet shop' with the name POO without the H and there used to be a bakery in my neighborhood that sold 'hot bums' instead of 'hot buns' and now they sell 'sandwitches.'
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Posted in: Bread shop See in context
In Katsura, Kyoto, there is a pet show with the name POO - yes, without the H.
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Posted in: Bagpipe See in context
Bagpipes are the most obnoxious instruments that we ever created. If someone plays anywhere in a park you can't get away from that noise and the silence is destroyed until he shuts up. Arrest him I'd say.
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Posted in: Trump announces immigration official Tom Homan as 'border czar'
Posted in: Trump announces immigration official Tom Homan as 'border czar'
Posted in: Man found dead on Osaka Pref coast with ankles bound by tape
Posted in: Trump announces immigration official Tom Homan as 'border czar'