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Nagoya Speed Dating 12/15 in Sakae! 2007-12-01 13:49:00 Nagoya International Speed Dating Returns Dec. 15th!!Date: Saturday December 15th, 2007 Time: 6-9pm registration from 6:00 to 6:30pmPlace: STEPS, a new exciting club in the heart of SakaeHasegawa Bldg. 2F, 3-2-29 Sakae, Naka-ku, Nagoya Fee:2500 Yen Gentlemen, 1000 Yen Ladies Price includes 1 free drink!!Dress code: Anything (Casual, etc) Reservations:Regular Reservations,Pre-Paid Reservations, and Drop Ins all welcome Pre Paid spots are Gauranteed!Nagoya Speed Dating is a great way to meet new people in the Aichi, Gifu and Mie Areas! At Nagoya Speed Dating, you will receive a number, an assigned table, and a personalized Speeding Ticket form. When the host says to start you will have between 3 to 5 minutes to talk to the person at your table. When the time is up the host will give you a signal. At that time the men will change tables and the women will remain seated. All you have to do is mark your speeding ticket with a yes or a no for each person. At the end of the event, the tickets ...

Nagoya Friends - Latin Fever at Salsa One 12/8 2007-12-01 13:47:00 Latin Fever at Salsa One in SakaeDate: December 8, 2007 (2nd Saturday) Time: 18:30 - 21:00 Drinks will be served between 6:30pm-8:45pm. Free Salsa Lessons for anyone who wants one! Place: Salsa One, Okuda Bldg 3F, 5-3-4 Sakae, Naka-ku, Nagoya Fee: 3000 Yen Gentlemen, 2500 Yen Ladies Dress code: Anything (Casual, etc) Reservations: Not necessary but recommended and appreciated. Just show up to the party! Over 25,000 Yen worth of exciting prize giveaways each month! First 15 foreigners in the DOOR, only 2000 YEN There will be free food along with free drinks (beers, wine, cocktail drinks and juices). Our party is not a dinner party, but we will have light food & snacks. Quantities are limited, so please come early! Please free to come alone or bring your friends. EVERYBODY is welcome to join regardless of nationality/gender. Reservations are greatly appreciated. About 125-150+ people are expected to attend. Approximately 55% female and 45% male, 70% Japanese and 30% non-Japanese. Pic ...

Izumo Taisha 2007-12-01 03:25:00 ????Izumo Taisha, also known as Izumo Oyashiro, is said to be the oldest shrine in Japan having existed on its present site for 1500 years.The current buildings date from 1744 and the main building (honden) is also the largest shrine structure in the country.One of the shrine's presiding kami (gods) is Okuninushi, the deity of marriage and visitors here often come to pray for luck in finding a partner.Outside the main hall of worship are massive straw ropes - shimenawa - good fortune falls on those who can toss a coin that lodges in the cut ends of the ropes.Izumo Taisha is 8km outside Izumo city in Shimane Prefecture and can be reached by train to Izumo Taishamae on the Ichibata Line. The tourist office (Tel: 0853 2100) is just outside the main torii gate to the shrine on your left. Izumo city can be reached by overnight bus from Tokyo and Nagoya and by overnight train from Tokyo Station (the Sunrise Izumo).Yahoo Japan Auction ServiceBook a hotel in Japan with BookingsTokyo S ...

Narita Airport Immigration 2007-11-29 10:22:00 ???????I went through the new immigration procedures today at Narita Airport near Tokyo.There are now distinct channels for native Japanese citizens, re-entry permit holders and "other foreigners."Narita is so far the only airport to our knowledge that has set up a separate channel for re-entry permit holders so re-entry permit holders at other airports will have to queue in the "other foreigners'" channel.As re-entry permit holders now have their own channel at Narita Airport it should speed up immigration procedures for them as they no longer queue in the Japanese line. However at other airports throughout Japan, immigration procedure times will no doubt lengthen for all foreigners entering the country.The actual fingerprinting of the left and right index fingers is fairly seamless and the same machine takes your mugshot without any blinding flash as you stand at the immigration booth. The surrounds of the screen show cherry blossoms, shrine gates and traditional templ ...

Book Review: Losing Kei 2007-11-29 08:11:00 Losing Kei Losing Keiby Suzanne KamataLeap Frog PressISBN 0972898492216 ppSuzanne Kamata touches a nerve, something that may be too painful for some to read. In Losing Kei, she tells the tale of a young mother far from home fighting to regain a son lost permanently due to divorce.In Japan, divorce represents the severing of two “ie,” or households. If there are children, they almost always are awarded to the mother. The children will henceforth have nothing to do with their father; he is literally “dead” to them. (A very public example is the case of former Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi, whose now grown children did not see him for more than a decade following his divorce.) In the case in which the mother is foreign, however, custody is nearly always awarded to the father—and the mother is now the one who no longer exists.Shared custody or visitation rights remain unheard of.Jill Parker is a painter living in rural Japan, an American woman far from home. To support her art ...

Kyoto Gundam Manga Exhibit 2007-11-26 02:02:00 ???????Kyoto's Eki Bijutsukan, a museum located on the seventh floor of the Kyoto Station building in the Isetan Department Store, is currently hosting a wonderful exhibit of manga drawings by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. He is well-known within Japan; abroad he would be better known for the characters that his work spawned: Gundam.These are the figures that can be taken apart and rebuilt in many ways.The 300 drawings and actual figures in the exhibit are stunning. From large canvases, clearly influenced by traditional Japanese folktales, to huge standing figures--an amazing exhibit.The themes of love and conflict run throughout the works.The Exhibition of YASUHIKO Yoshikazu's WorldKyoto Station Museum, 7th Floor of Isetan Department StoreUntil December 2, 200710 am - 8 pmAdults 700 yenYahoo Japan Auction ServiceBook a hotel in Japan with BookingsTokyo Serviced ApartmentsBudget accommodation in JapanHappi CoatsTagsJapan Tokyo Kyoto Manga Gundam ...

Japan This Week 11/25/07 2007-11-24 19:52:00 ?????European aquariums boycott Japanese goods over Japan's whaling policy.Japan TodayTokyo sees Michelin stars, lots of stars.GuardianFailed investment firm sent $40 million to the US in shrimp scam.Daily YomiuriJapan struggling with its immigrant "problem."BBCVintage Japanese porn.MainichiJapan StatisticsFewer than one in four companies have introduced means to allow workers to balance their private lives with work. Such systems include flex-time, shorter working hours, or "leave for volunteer activities." 24.5% of polled companies said they had flex-time, 20.2% said they had the option to work shorter hours.Source: The Yomiuri ShinbunThe average monthly earnings of full-time employees in September 2007 was 273,008 yen, which was a 0.6% decrease from the previous year.Source: Health, Labor & Welfare MinistryThe Meteorological Agency predicts Japan is in for a very cold December, primarily because of the La Nina weather pattern. Current average temperatures are calculat ...

Mountain Whale (Yamanokujira) 2007-11-22 19:25:00 ???Just had a delicious meal of locally-caught Mountain Whale ribs!The mountain whales were raiding the village gardens more heavily than usual recently, I lost all my sweet potatoes, half my pumpkins, and half my taro, and most of my neighbors suffered too. All up and down the river I've noticed a lot more garden fences going up recently.My neighbor set a trap at the place at the bottom of the mountain where they come out of the forest to raid the gardens, and over the past month 4 have been caught. We don’t have a hunter in our village anymore, but one from a nearby village comes over, and, wearing his official hat and armband dispatches the beast with one shot.Afterwards the tail is cut off and taken to the local town hall where a bounty is paid. In our town its 3,000yen (30 USD), but in other towns its more. The mountain whales are classed as a pest because of all the damage they do to gardens, hence the bounty.I’ve met plenty of town and city-dwelling Japanese who have ...

Nagoya Friends party - THIS SATURDAY! 11/24 2007-11-22 06:20:00 Nagoya Friends Open Mic Night @ Misfits!Date: Saturday, November 24th, 2007 (4th Saturday) Time: 19:00 - 21:00 (registration from 18:30-19:00) Place: Misfits, Imaike Bee House 3rd Floor, Imaike 4-chome 10-16 Fee: 1500 yen (includes 1 free drink) ... Performers admitted free!Dress code: Anything (Casual, etc) Reservations: No Reservations Necessary. Just show up to the party! Great local musical talent, poetry, comedy, and art Pictures from previous Nagoya Friends Parties. Map & DirectionsContact: 080-5169-1666(Japanese) 080-5469-6317(English) Get off at Imaike Station (Higashiyama Line[Exit #4 or #5]) MisfitsImaike Bee House 3rd Floor, Imaike 4-chome 10-16 Train DirectionsFrom Nagoya Station, take the Higashiyama Line and get off at Imaike station Take Exit #4 or 5 and follow the map.Yahoo Japan Auction ServiceBook a hotel in Japan with BookingsTokyo Serviced ApartmentsBudget accommodation in JapanHappi CoatsTagsJapan Party Nagoya Misfits ...

Book Review: Sun and Steel 2007-11-21 00:23:00 Sun and Steel ????Sun and Steelby Yukio Mishimaby Yukio MishimaKodansha InternationalISBN 4770029039107 ppSun and Steel is a critically acclaimed treatise on the estrangement of body and spirit. It is essential reading for anyone interested in what motivated Japan’s most (in)famous writer.Words came early to Mishima, earlier than a conscious recognition of the body. Cosseted by his manipulative paternal grandmother until his early teens, he was kept inside and denied physical activity. His isolation as a child continued into his teenage years when his literary talent distinguished him from his peers.In Sun and Steel words are white ants eating away at a pillar; writing a ‘medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason.’ In contrast to the abstract mind and the corrosive nature of words Mishima extols the virtues of the physical, tangible body. The dichotomy between ‘ideas of the flesh and the loquacity of the body’ was perennial in his work ...

Wedding at Izumo Taisha. 2007-11-19 22:05:00 ????????On a brief visit to Izumo Taisha last weekend I caught one of the many weddings that take place there.Yahoo Japan Auction ServiceBook a hotel in Japan with BookingsTokyo Serviced ApartmentsBudget accommodation in JapanHappi CoatsTagsJapan Shimane Wedding Izumo Shrine ...

Japan This Week 11/18/07 2007-11-18 03:22:00 ?????Tokyo seeking a top niche in global finance markets.New York TimesCyber bullying on the increase.Washington PostJapan to resume hunting humpback whales.Washington Post88-year-old woman donates 1 billion yen ($9 million) to her hometown of 44,000 people.Japan TimesIvica Osim, coach of Japan's national soccer team, suffers stroke.Daily YomiuriThe Nova Collapse: Foreigners Get Mixed Results From Joining Unions in Japan.Japan FocusOzawa talks down coalition after next general election.Kyodo NewsFilm Review: The Glamorous Life of Sachiko HanaiMidnight EyeJapan's roads play music thanks to engineers who have developed a musical road surface, aka "melody roads."GuardianThe salarymen of Japan's porn industry.MainichiJapan StatisticsJapan's economy grew at 0.6% in the July-September period in real terms from the previous quarter. The first expansion in two quarters.Source: NikkeiThe average monthly total of hours worked per regular employee in September 2007 was 148.6 hours a ...

BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test 2007-11-18 03:20:00 BJT???????????? Today I sat the Japan External Trade Organization’s (JETRO) 16th BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test. My examination center was Jochi (AKA Sophia) University in Tokyo’s Yotsuya district.I already have Grade 1 (i.e the top grade) of the Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (JEES) Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and, on the strength of that, plus the four years I have worked as a translator in a business environment, imagined I would not find today’s exam particularly difficult.How wrong I was! Three hours of my life, between 1.25 and 3.30pm, whizzed by in a blur as I strained my ears, refocused my eyes, and turned every part of my being to the task of getting through that test in time.To revert a little, the first section was deceptively easy: looking at a photograph of a situation and choosing the most appropriate words being exchanged. However, after that, apart from a few easy ones thrown in to keep me from completely throwing ...

Kaze no Kuni Shimane 2007-11-17 05:54:00 ???Kazenokuni in the mountains of Shimane Prefecture is a new, upmarket resort spa set in wonderful, wooded countryside.The Kazenokuni resort, which opened in 1997, includes spacious grounds and play areas for children, indoor tennis courts, an orchid garden, handicraft studio, outdoor onsen baths with sauna as well as a Noh stage and even an indoor gate-ball ground. The handicrafts visitors can see being made and try their hands at making are kachiji washi, a kind of paper only made in the local area and taketombo bamboo propellers.Accommodation is either in 15 hotel-style guest rooms or separate, wooden cottages. The staff run shuttle buses to Gotsu Station to pick up guests and the area makes for a relaxing base to discover the charms of Shimane.As with nearby Mizunokuni, the local food served in the restaurant was superb.AccessKazenokuni2696, Nagatani, Sakurae-cho, Oochi-gun, Shimane, 699-4431Tel: 0855-92-0001Fax: 0855-92-0003kazenokuni.jpFrom Gotsu take National Highway 261 ...

Tokyo 2016 Olympic bid 2007-11-16 07:43:00 ???????????2016? Tokyo first made it big on the post-WWII international stage with its hosting of the Olympic Games in 1964.43 years later, Tokyo is bidding to host the 2016 Olympic Games. The process began on August 30, 2006, when Tokyo was elected as Japan's national candidate city. Then, the next month, the Tokyo 2016 Olympic Games Bid Committee was established as a private organization, becoming a non-profit corporation in February, 2007. The international bidding itself began this May. Since last month, Tokyo Tower, the city’s tallest structure, and one of its most distinctive, has been sporting a huge ‘2016’ to raise awareness of the effort.Promotion for the Olympic campaign can be found all over Tokyo, including on its buses. This picture (at right) of the back of a bus in Tokyo's Shinjuku area shows the official 2016 Tokyo Olympic bid symbol: the Olympic colors arranged in a "musubi", i.e. a special knot used on auspicious and celebratory occasio ...