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Maison Commode
A bathroom-inspired apartment building
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Tokyo Transportation SeriesOedo subway.
Tokyo Transportation SeriesOedo subway. 11:56 pm.
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Words of the Week
Words I’ve learned this week: buji: safe, untouched chukei: live video tero-jiken: terror event minkanki: commercial airplane fumei: unknown, no information zenbun: full story doujitahatsu: simultaneous occurance
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Japanese calendar
It could take all day to explain this calendar page. Today is Sunday, September 2nd. On the lunar calendar, it’s 7/15 and the feast of the dead, Bon. Today is also “lottery day” (takarakuji no hi). In the ancient calendar today is a dragon day (the seahorse is known as “dragon’s child”) and its element…
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Mini-digger SKR-301
9:01 am. The extremely cute, bright turquoise mini-digger (model SKR-301) is doing a balletic dance from its flatbed truck to the ground. The skilled operator uses the digging head as a fulcrum to slide the machine off the raked bed of the truck without bouncing it off the asphalt. Sadly, it is a Sunday morning….one…
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Electric Work
“Hey, come quick. There’s a man walking on the power lines outside the window,” Tara urged from the office. Sure enough, there he was. He and his companion were dressed in the uniforms of the electric company and were walking along the power lines, inexplicably unbundling the wires that were spiralled together. Tara stuck her…
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Japanese holidays
Japanese lawmakers are angling for more long weekends. This year saw the change of two holidays (Coming of Age Day in January and Health-Sports Day in October) from fixed dates to floating Mondays to create long weekends. This is great for overworked salarymen and a boost for the economy as many people turn these three-day…
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i-mode penetration
20 million i-mode users
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Everyday tongue twister
Although there’s no phrase for “tongue twister” in Japanese, the language has quite a few words that are challenging to say. Japanese has 5 vowel sounds (plus a few dipthongs) ah (a), ee (i), oo (u), eh (e), & oh (o). Paired with the 11 consonant sounds, this means pronunciation is very regular. Ko is…
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Japan Webgrrls 4th Anniversary
Today, one day only. Japan Webgrrls 4th Anniversary event, e-Lifestyles This is the volunteer project that’s eaten up all my spare time this fall. In fact, it’s eaten all my sleep, too, at least last night. We’ll have a video premiere, “e-Lifestyles” demonstrations, speakers and a keynote presentation. Plus refreshments, and really great door prizes.…
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