Best humor blog for everyday life
Posts tagged japan
Narita Drum Festival 2012
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Only in Japan could you find such an amount of talent in one place and at one time. 150 percussion groups and bands from all over Japan. Pure heaven for those who appreciate culture or music.
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© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.affiliate program More >
Tokyo Christmas Lights 2011
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One of the biggest surprises for westerners visiting or working in Tokyo is the extremes that the Japanese go to in order to celebrate Christmas. This is particularly unusual when you take in to account the fact that less than one percent of the population are Christians. Every store is blasting out Jingle bells and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, all the shop windows have sleds and Christmas trees and the streets are lit up everywhere with multi colored fairy lights. One of the most spectacular Christmas traditions is the multi-media outdoor display held each year behind the Tokyo More >
Smokeless in Japan
I found these smoking area signs at a rest stop on the way to Mt. Fuji. Smokers be warned, you are not welcome! To this day I dn’t know where the smoking area was. Lucky I don’t smoke.
Smokeless in Japan
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Dogs in Japan
If you have to be a dog the place to live is in Japan. The Japanese worship their dogs and spoil the silly, and I mean silly. And the great thing about being a Japanese dog, as opposed to being a Japanese kid, is that there’s no homework, you’ll never have to work and there’s always someone around to clean your paws after you get home.
Here are a few examples that I saw in Tokyo
Dog attire from the pet floor of a Tokyo shopping mall
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All the clothes you could possibly need for your new baby pup
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Don't let these confuse you, More >
Bug Art
There is art and there are bugs. Up till now each one knew their place. That is until I found this artist who creates frighteningly realistic creepy crawleys
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Kai Kurosawa – master of the tap guitar
In a music world where originality is often a dirty world, I was happy to meet Kai Kurosawa, at an Indian restaurant of all places. Kai has created his own musical instrument, simply called a tap guitar, hopefully he will go far.
From the artists homepage: Born in Japan, Kai Kurosawa picked up the electric bass guitar at the age of fifteen. Eventually he discovered the Warr Guitar and not only self-taught but also self-created fresh new cutting edge musical techniques for this unique instrument. Today his primary axe is the Beartrax; a custom 24-string tap-style instrument which he designed. Widely More >
Truth in Advertising
Truth in advertising is something we very rarely see.
I found this sign on a small museum in Kyoto.
Truth in advertising
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Sumo Wrestling – It’s over before you can say the competitor’s name
Sumo wrestling must be one of the fastest sports in the world. Not in the way it is played – squash is a much more obvious choice, but in the time the fight actually takes – a long one might last up to 30 seconds. This can make it hard for western sport commentators to deal with. A few facts before I proceed:
The two contestants, known as rikishi, wear a silken loincloth called the mawashi and colorful silk glue enforced strings that bounce up and down. More happens in the minutes of preparation than in the fight itself. The senior More >
The Art of Fruit
Sometimes fruit is not just to be eaten, as these photos from an exhibition in Tokyo demonstrate. These are real fruits carved to perfection and too good to eat!
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© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Tokyo on a Budget – you never had it so cheap!
Tokyo is often considered one of the most expensive cities in the world, but for those in the know there are many ways to have a great vacation without burning too big a hole in your pocket.
Here are a few suggestions for saving some Yen.
100 yen stores You’ve seen them all over the world – dollar stores, pound stores, but believe me you haven’t seen anything until you visit a 100 yen store. The Japanese believe in quality and this goes for the 100 yen stores too, so they have got it down to a real art. The 100 yen stores More >
New Directions (no not Glee)
Tokyo is blessed with interesting streets and boasts over 200,000 restaurants, the only problem is that the streets rarely have names and the buildings almost never have numbers. Giving directions can therefore be a real problem.
HE: (on the phone) “Hi there, fancy meeting me for dinner tonight?”
SHE: “What did you have in mind?”
HE: “There’s this cute Japanese restaurant in Roppongi called Himogaya (restaurant name has been changed to protect the innocent and overworked). It’s really quite reasonable and they serve great Tampura.”
SHE: “Sounds great. Can you give me directions?”
HE: “No problem. You take the metro to Roppongi station and use More >
stay up / stay on
An American doctor received received the following promotion gimmick in the post.
The postmark showed it had come from a Japanese company. The doctor decide to send them a mail.
Dear sirs,
I received your gift in the post. I have wired it up but it doesn’t seem to work.
Please advise
Yours Sincerely
Mark.
Within a couple of days he received the following reply:
Dear Sincerely-san,
pull down to turn on.
If light stay on more than 4 hours pliz call erectricion.
best regards
Viagra-san
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to More >
Everything’s Talking At Me
Imagine if Harry Nilsson was a Japanese singer by the name if Heri Neil-san. Then his updated version of Everybody’s Talking would probably go something like this:
Everything is talking at me from traffic lights that say “Please cross” While the humans here all chose to play it dumb. The ATMs are all so friendly Thanking me for taking their money, Even my anti-virus won’t keep mum.
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Here in Japan, the people just whisper But machines are left to go wild And “elebetors” have attitudes that can bite. As you sit in the loo, it talks to you too and trucks tell you when they turn right, While the train stations More >
How the Japanese keep cool in summer
The crises in Japan has caused a lot of concern worldwide. Here in Tokyo, however, what seems to worry the citizens more than anything else is the need to cut down electricity usage which at many work places means little or no air-conditioning. Outside of going into the office naked – not really company policy over here – here are some of the cooler ways (pun intended) to keep cool this summer.
1. Japanese cooling gel (source Japanese trends)
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2. The universal necktie USB cooler. (Source Reamono)
O.K. this may sound kind of stupid or all out insane but somebody has created a More >
My Radioactive Diet
I’ve been in Japan now for six months now , seen the cherry blossom, experienced an earthquake or ten, climbed more stairs than I’d done in the previous two decades, and read everything there is to know about radioactive mushrooms. All this from the person who never touched a magic mushroom in his life despite frequent visits to Amsterdam. It used to be you went to the local supermarket, picked up a carton of fresh milk took it home, poured some over your cornflakes and then tried to read the Kanji on the milk carton that told you you had just bought More >
Only in Japan: QB House the 10 minute haircut
As a person who fails to suffer an excess of hair (see Curly the boring saga of a man whose hair revolts on him), I fail to see why I have to spend the equivalent of a second mortgage just to have a hairdresser play with my forehead for twenty minutes and massage the back of my neck. Let’s face it, I really don’t have enough left to get it styled. So it was with great anticipation that I picked up courage and ventured into the Japanese franchise that promises a ten minute cut for 1000 yen (around $10). I wasn’t More >
Fake Japanese Pool
Sometimes seeing isn’t believing.
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Seiji Fujishiro – Japanese cut-art painter
Seiji Fujishiro’s is a Kiri artist . Kiri is the Japanese art of cut-out art, fashioned after the principle of silhouettes. He uses three layers of paper behind glass and back lit. The works are displayed in a dark exhibit area that further enhances the effect. This technique doesn’t transfer well to printed matter of photographs so what you see here is far less impressive than the real thing. If an exhibition arrives at a museum near you, run to it.
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more Seiji
continue to Seiji Fujishiro II jump to Seiji Fujishiro III
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved.
If you enjoyed More > 
Tokyo Design Festa #33 – cakes good enough to eat!
I found these cakes displayed at the Tokyo Design Festa. They aren’t real but they sure look it.
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More from Design Festa
Tokyo Design Festa #33 – the presenters
Tokyo Design Fest #33 – animals and monsters
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
Tokyo Design Fest #33 – animals and other creatures
Here are some cute animals and not so cute monsters that I found at the festival.
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More from Design Festa
Design Festa #33 the presenters
© 2011 Steve Taite. All rights reserved. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and pass on to your friends. If not feel free to pass on to your enemies. Don't want to miss a post? What are you waiting for, subscribe now or follow me on twitter.
