Art: Subtext’s Kokeshis for Bunka-No-Hi

To celebrate Bunka-no-hi - the Japanese national culture holiday - San Diego’s Subtext together with Christina Conway, have selected 75 artists from 13 countries to create Japanese Kokeshi dolls. Featured artists include Audrey Kawasaki, Julie West and many more….

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Art: Manhole covers in Japan

We got interested when we saw the great selection of Japanese manhole covers from Flickr streams by Haha.nu…

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Tokyo: Catering for the brand conscious

In fashion and brand conscious Tokyo it can be one of the greatest sins to step out of a shop with the wrong bag - ideally you are carrying one with a major European brand name printed on.
Now help for those is literally - at hand.
A department store in Tokyo has put up machines [...]

Japan: Mobile Phone checks for drink-driving

Anew breath analyzer system from DoCoMo that is connected to a mobile phone is becoming popular with bus and transport companies in Japan.
The new system that uses a 3G handset, is considered to be foolproof. Before a driver starts every day or at certain intervals, (s)he makes a video-phone call to the company and [...]

Humanoid robots: More on the Actroid DER2 (videos)

You might have heard about Sanrio’s new Actroid DER2 feminine robot recently. You will already know that its for rent (about USD 3,500 for 5 days) but now there is a series of videos online to see her / it in action.
Dressed up in black latex or as a Japanese young girl it gives us [...]

Street life: Cardboard house paintings from Japan

Japanese web site Cardboard-House-Painting has a set of galleries online with photographs of cardboard shelter paintings from people who lived on the street in Japan’s homeless city that was created around the Shinjuku Underground station’s in the mid-1990s.

…Hundreds of cardboard houses grew up in the underground passageways of the west exit. On each of [...]