New option for portable cooling – “My Fan Mobile”
In Japan, you typically only have 2 options for fanning yourself off when you’re on the go. You can go uchiwa:
Or you could go sensu:
But you can now add a third option to that list: My Fan Mobile.
Yup, it’s a little electric fan that you can + more
Tokyo Bounce photo #80: Ise ebi (spiny lobster) sashimi
When you order spiny lobster sashimi, don’t be surprised if the display comes a very large, still twitching garnish.
DIY Mos Burger (at 30,000 feet)
This year, JAL has been teaming up with some Japanese fast-food chains to try and bring some more palatable food to the friendly skies (or at least, the Premium Economy segment of said skies). Not surprisingly, the Paris routes get the best deal, with some nice looking Soup Stock Tokyo meals. And for the American routes (plus Frankfurt and London) they’re offering… Mos Burger! Nikkei Trendy Net has the scoop on the whole burgers in the sky thing.
First of all, you may have some doubts about just how they heat the burger without the bun’s texture getting ruined by contact with the meat. 2 non-stick sheets on either side of the patty (all beef, in case you were wondering) take care of that problem. The heated burger kit arrives on your try looking something like this.
Assembly is + more
Video: around Japan in 8 minutes
Hiokinskywalker may not be one of YouTube’s more prolific video makers, but he or she is certainly one of the best at capturing footage thats quietly picks up the vibe of a city or landscape.
The most recent video is sort of a best-of – they go through the hours of the day, choosing their best footage from that time, no matter where in Japan it was. There are English titles to help you keep track. Enjoy!
New stuff! Double-the-fun edition
We’ve added some new goodies to the Japan Gadget Shop. “Double the fun” is definitely the theme of this batch. Read on to see what I mean…
Hello Kitty half-frame camera
Hello Kitty always ups the fun factor (well, almost always), but that’s not why the Golden Half camera fits in perfectly with our post’s theme. This is a 35mm half-frame film camera, meaning it only exposes half the frame with each shot. The result? + more
Video: Beyblade fight
You’d think that as a Japanese gadget & toy blog (among other things), we would have featured a Beyblade battle long before now. Beyblades are spinning tops that “fight” each other in a plastic arena, and they have quite a fan base. Here’s a look at assembling and fighting some of the toys, from YouTube user daletubat, an Okinawan Beyblade fan.
A look at Japanese paper (washi)
Last week we looked at the latest and greatest Japanese goodies, as featured in the Tokyo Toy Show. Now let’s take a brief break from all things tech to admire one of the oldest crafts Japan has to offer – paper.
The term “washi” covers a lot of ground, as we’ll see below. But the basic idea is always the same – the paper is made from ground plant fibers mixed with water to form a pulp and then spread and dried on a screen. Sounds a lot like ordinary paper, no? Wikipedia has the details of the processing, so let’s just get to the pretty pictures, shall we? + more
Tokyo Bounce photo #79: typical Tokyo apartment building
We normally feature picturesque scenery or mouth-watering food in our photo posts. But here’s a reminder of what most of Tokyo really looks like – reinforced concrete apartment buildings with a lot of laundry hanging on the balcony.
Weekend reading list for June 24th
It seems the rainy season has broken and hot, humid summer air is now upon us. Air conditioning has started to feel really good, but most people are making do without (or with less). So no need for scheduled blackouts yet. Great. If you’re indoors waiting out the afternoon heat this weekend, here are a few posts to check out…
The Japanese Press and TEPCO
Jake Adelstein, the reporter behind the excellent Tokyo Vice, has written a very good piece on the relationship between Fukushima plant-owners TEPCO and their good friends in the Japanese media. Read it over at Number 1 Shimbun
Japan creates frankenstein pop idol, sells candy
Girl pop group AKB48 (you know, the group that has + more
Video: evil staplers and tiny-metal-component men (and women?)
Now here’s something you don’t see all that often – a new episode of Metagonz (episode 1 was released 3 years ago, episode 2 came out a year after that and now here’s number 3).
