Earthquakes are quite frequent in Japan, but now we had three tremor days in a row, which is a little unnerving.

And did I mention that Earth's rotational speed has increased recently, for unknown reasons nonetheless?

Circle K sunkus wishes to offer you a unique and cozy store to put a smile on everyone's face. That wish has born a new concept Cherie Dolce. Its comfortable and warm atmosphere will smooth you and ease your mind anytime. We wish to begin a new style of c-store with this new concept Cherie Dolce. It would be a little bit comfortable c-store for you.

Just like the New Tokyo International Airport, and Tokyo Disney Land (and Sea), the Country Farm Tokyo German Village is not really in Tokyo, but in the neighbouring prefecture of Chiba, where things are less crammed and there is more space for roomy ventures like, well, an international airport or a theme park. The German Village is mostly a big park (in the traditional sense, with meadows and flowers, and ponds) which is intended to bring a healthy breath of country-side lifestyle to stressed big city families. It is only mildly interested in trying to recreate Germany (or Bavaria): You do get beer tent background music, imported sausages, beer, Maus and Diddl goods, and Haribo, but there are also completely generic attractions like golf courses, a petting zoo, a pizza restaurant, a video game arcade, a Ferris wheel, and decidedly un-German foodstuff, such as dried jellyfish and other local (as in Chiba) snacks.

Japan has a new mobile phone service provider: Disney Mobile launched at the beginning of this month. They are a virtual network operator using Softbank's infrastructure (and also collaborate with Softbank in other ways, such as marketing, there are posters all over the place now). There used to be a Disney Mobile in America, but they failed and folded last year. In Japan they target women in their twenties and thirties rather than families with children in the US. This could actually work, Disney's various franchises are very popular in that demographic and they can also draw on an existing base of three million subscribers to their mobile content offerings (ring tones and such).

There have also been rumors that if the iPhone gets introduced in Japan, it would be on Disney Mobile. Unless this is going to be a non-exclusive deal, I do not think that this is a good match, seeing how Disney only targets a very specific market, and how both of these strong brands would probably not like to share the limelight with the other one. On the other, Steve Jobs is the biggest individual shareholder in Disney...

In any case, au sent me (completely unsolicited and for free) another three months' worth of pre-paid calling cards, so I am good until November now.

We have just returned from a three-day sightseeing bus tour through Japan's western-most island of Kyushu.

• The flight to Fukuoka in completely clear skies offered the most spectacular view yet of Mount Fuji.
• Much to Cissy's dismay, all public toilets were Japanese squatting-style.
• Scores of Korean tourists.
• A hotel that spanned two prefectures: The lobby was in Oita, our room in Kumamoto.
• Onsen, onsen, onsen.
• The governor of Miyazaki used to be a popular comedian and many local products bear his likeness. The one-man publicity campaign has boosted sales and helped the poultry industry weather the impacts of multiple bird flu outbreaks.
• Many outgoing and connecting flights were cancelled (not ours, fortunately) because of adverse weather (wind and snow) throughout the country.

Welcome to the small house of the cats!!
NEKOBUKURO is the strange space which twenty cats live in freely !
It is the wonderful space where we see cats and it touches it and it plays together.

The eighth floor of the Ikebukuro Tokyu Hands department store houses a room with two dozen cats in it. Not in cages (only when they are off-duty), but out in the open. Admission is 600 yen per person. Excellent idea for a city where not everyone who wants to have a cat can keep one at home.

It is a drink of the jelly type with which a necessary nutrient is anywhere easily ingestible when there are neither a busy morning nor an appetite.

The taste is atrocious, too.

With the Flying Czechman in town for a few days and looking for the latest and greatest in weird Japanese pop-culture we went to a Maid Café.

A product of the otaku cosplay scene, maid cafes are restaurants where the staff dress as (manga fantasy versions of) French maids and treat the customers as masters returning to their private homes. Akihabara is home to over sixty maid cafés, as well as a few butler cafes. Welcome back home, Master.

I have to say I was disappointed. Since the point is to feel like the master of a wealthy estate, I pictured heavy carpets, comfortable slippers, a dark red velvet smoking jacket, and arm chairs. That may have been completely overblown expectations (hell, I even shaved and dressed up a bit for the occasion), but considering the amount of detail that goes into other theme restaurants such as the Alcatraz in Shibuya (fashioned after a mental hospital/prison ward, guests get to sit in cells, and the staff are dressed as nurses and doctors), or even Hard Rock Cafe or TGI Friday's the very bare-bones cafeteria that it turned out to be was quite a let-down. Even the New Year decoration on the wall kept falling down.

(Lack of) interior design aside, Wikipedia claims that although exemplary customer service is typical of Japan, maid cafés take special care to pamper patrons. No one was prepared to take our coats, though.

Speaking of patrons, they were a mixed lot, we were not the only foreigners (there was even a non-Japanese, but still non-French, maid), and Cissy was not the only female, either. The menu was okay for a cafe in Akihabara I guess (we had cake), but most certainly not the base upon which their business was built. Picture-taking was strictly forbidden, except for having the maids take polaroids, on which they would then also scribble something cute. That would have been an extra 500 yen, as would have been a game of cards or rock-paper-scissors.

We received membership cards (Licenses of Majesty, Level One: My Master -- a few dozen more visits would promote us to Glorious Masters), but if there is a next time, we definitely have to find a more upscale establishment.

We started the year (well, the first afternoon of the year) at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is dedicated to the spirits of those who died fighting for the Emperor, and among the 2,466,532 enshrined are 1,068 convicted World War II criminals. It has become a mecca for the political right, and each visit by a high-ranking government official sparks outrage in China and both Koreas. Nonetheless, recent prime minister Koizumi used to go every year.

The shrine also houses a museum of the history of Japan, whose representation of war-time events is also widely criticised as being revisionist. But you do get to see a kamikaze airplane and even manned torpedoes.

By breaking down old customs and producing consistently original items, we are pursuing a new level in chocolate enjoyment.
Our artisans make the finest in premium chocolate.

Sparkling water is rare in Japan, but Lawson started selling Gerolsteiner now (if you buy enough bottles you can win other German goodies, such as Lamy ball pens, Goldpfeil stationary, Meissen plates, or a Rimowa trolley case). This brings me back to my amazement about the fact that there are apparently millions of litres of Evian, Vittel, Perrier and the like shipped across a number of oceans from Europe. Seems perverse from an ecology standpoint, and how can this be cheap enough for the water to retail at not much more than domestic brands? Maybe bottled water is totally over-priced in general. It also reminds me that someone told me about a water-only bar in Ikebukuro that I wanted to check out.

Studio Ghibli (creators of popular animated movies such as My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away) operate a fine museum in Mitaka, and it is a must-see for anyone remotely interested in their art. Tickets have to be bought online or at Lawson convenience stores well (weeks) in advance, but because of the restricted number of admissions it appears to be less packed than some other museums at weekends (though still far from empty), so overall this approach works out for everyone. You get to see an overview of the history and technology of animated films, not limited to Ghibli works. A main attraction is a spinning table with character models in different poses that when synchronized with stroboscopic flashes of light creates a very real illusion of movement. Other rooms show sketches, reference libraries, cameras, film frames, and other tools of the trade. The building is an attraction in itself, kind of like a Hundertwasser house with spiral staircases, low tunnels, and lots of greenery. Kids (only them, unfortunately) can climb into the Cat Bus, there is a cinema showing exclusive short films, a special exhibition about other artists (currently Tolstoy and the Three Bears), and of course a museum shop.

You can always depend on the compulsive geeks compiling comprehensive references about their particular field of interest and publishing them on the web. So thanks to the train otaku everyone can enjoy the sounds of (among many others) Yamanote Line and Sobu Line.

PS:I created my Wikipedia account today to link to this amazing resource. What was your first Wikipedia contribution?

Armed with it's originality and swiftness, the mission of Excite is to create value and convey it ahead of the trend.
An impression of refinement and the excitement you feel when opening a jewelry box for the first time...
Sharing thrilling experiences which are not obtainable through a search-only internet service with trend-conscious, mode-sensitive sophisticated city-dwellers this is what Excite is proud of and enjoys most.

Ooedo-Onsen-Monogatari, located in the popular Daiba area, opened in 2003 as Tokyo's first and only onsen (hot springs) theme park. Inside the building, constructed in traditional Japanese style, there are baths fed by natural hot springs pumped from 1,400 meters underground, open-air baths perfect for enjoying fine weather or starry night skies, a foot bath set in a large Japanese-style garden, and plenty of other bathing facilities. There is also a re-creation of a traditional street from the days when Tokyo was called Edo to offer visitors an authentic onsen experience that is sure to be one of the highlights of their trip to Japan.

You can also make an appointment with the ever-popular Doctor Fish to nibble away at your hands and feet, or get buried in hot sand for fifteen minutes.

Ran into a large crowd of people outside of the closed doors of a restaurant inside of Shinkoiwa station yesterday. They were apparently reading a document that was posted there. Co-workers were quick to break the news today:

A noodle restaurant in Tokyo's JR Shinkoiwa Station said Tuesday that curry tainted by a dead mouse was served to customers in the morning.
Nippon Restaurant Enterprise Co. said 18 tainted meals were sold for about two hours after it opened at 6:30 a.m. The meals included curry "soba" (buckwheat noodles) and curry rice.
The company, affiliated with East Japan Railway Co., said an employee found a dead mouse about 8 cm long in a pot used to cook the curry shortly after 8:30 a.m.
Concerned customers can call JR East customer service toll free at (0120) 658078.

Kyodo News

PS: Maybe I should take Kitty there.

When an automated voice on the Hanzomon subway line advises you to change to JR Sobu line at Mitsukoshi-mae, keep in mind that while Mitsukoshi-mae and Shin-Nihonbashi stations are be in fact connected by a network of tunnels, and even Wikipedia lists it as a transfer point, it is quite a trip and cannot be too much different from leaving the subway at a random location in Tokyo and walking to the next JR station from there. Stay on until Kinshicho and change there.

eneloop came out as the first cartridge goods, in order to embody clean energy society which is one of the programs of a new vision ThinkGAIA. This low self-electric discharge nickel hydrogen charge pond developed on the theme of there is nothing throwing away and not applying load to earth environment is first charge pond in the world which he buys and can be used immediately, and the energy residual ratio after neglect also maintains about 85% for one year. In order to express the merit of this user-friendliness, the main part of a battery and the graphic design of a package were taken as the minimal design which is not in an old charge pond (battery) and which is simple and has feeling of purity. Moreover, about 1000 repetition charge is possible for this battery, and it can stop to load the earth environment.

So I bought these rechargeable batteries, for which there has been a lot of advertising from a number of makers since last year. I do not know if there have been actual recent advances in technology that merit the buzz, or if it is just a new trend in marketing. The most interesting thing is that the charger came with plastic battery casings that can be used to turn a AA battery (or Type-3, as it is called here) into a physically much bigger C (Type-2) or D (Type-1) battery. I always thought batteries came in different sizes because they output different voltages. Maybe this is not the case, or it is just not an issue anymore with modern electric devices. Or maybe this is the reason why rechargeable batteries are said to not work so well / at all for some applications.

... for my mobile phone. In October 2005, KDDI (who also operate au) acquired the Tu-Ka Group. In June 2006, Tu-Ka stopped accepting new subscriptions. On October, 24th, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was introduced in Japan, shortly after that I got an email from Tu-Ka offering me to switch to a new au phone while keeping my number (even on my prepaid service). This week, KDDI announced the cessation of all Tu-Ka services for March 2008.