Viewing items with Tag: "photos"

Found something really cool while reading pink tentacle, where clouds have formed in to "streets", cunningly named Cloud Streets. Apparently its not a rare occurance, but its pretty rare to get a photo that so clearly displays them. This shot was taken just off the coast of Hokkaido.

Via Secret Japan:

The technical term for these is Ita-Sha. Ita is derived from the kanji for pain, while Sha simply means car. It may also be a little play on words of “Italian car”, but who knows.

Any readers around Tokyo ever actually seen some of these? I was thinking of gimping out my bike with a decal or something... (JOKE! Seriously, that was a joke...)

SO it IS getting bigger in japan. I thought it was just the dirty little shops around me.

Theres quite a bit of discussion going on at the moment on this guys Flickr concerning those people that just lurk in the aisles of combinis and book stores leeching manga without paying a cent for the privilege. The discussion is regarding a fitting name for these folk, with the current winner being "hobotaku".

Got something better? Post in the comments here for my personal entertainment, and then try and beat hobotaku off the top spot over at Flickr.

Having trouble seducing that new sexy secretary this allergy season? Worried that todays masks just don't have waht it takes to keep you on the top of your game (and your cheerleaders)? Well look no further because our friends at @nifty have solved our snivelling blues with some creative (and might I add super sexy) allergy masks. Please do check it out over at Nifty.




A story related to this one was also recently submitted by aniki, here are the details:

The latest fashion wave to hit Japan is the ... face-mask. Soon to be released "Mask Musume" DVD features a ton of your regular cosplay goodness, with the added bonus of every girl wearing a face-mask with varying designs. I do hope there's a kitty mask in there somewhere, that would just be *adorable*. Personally, I think anyone into face-masks is obviously a closet masochist, and might wanna consider going for the full on gag. Be sure to look out for this title on your favorite JAV torrent sites!

Story source: Secret Japan

Kikko: Honeycomb Pencil



From a 90's art exhibition with carvings by Mizuta Tasogare and Kato Jado.


Ball-joint Pencil



Sidewards Pencil



The info's kind of in Engrish, but there are more pencil designs at JAD Project.

This island in Nagasaki Bay was bought by the Mitsubishi Corp. in 1890 as a platform for mining coal under the sea. Workers, who lived on the island, eventually required high rises which now combine to make the island look like a battleship. Legend has it that the U.S. navy fired on the island in WWII thinking it was an enemy ship.



In 1959 the population on the island rose to 83,476.2 inhabitants per km², supposedly the highest population density ever recorded anywhere. By 1974 petroleum had taken over coal as Japan's fuel of choice and Mitsubishi shut down the mine, giving everyone a limited time to evacuate. The result is a ghost island that's remained relatively untouched to this day.






Saiga Yuji has outstanding photo sets both before and after the island was evacuated.

Octopus dropkick says: "Tokyo is an impressive city above ground, but one of the most incredible things about this city is it's mind-bogglingly complex underground. The G-Cans Project is a massive project, begun 12 years ago, to build infrastructure for preventing overflow of the major rivers and waterways spidering the city (A serious problem for Tokyo during rainy-season and typhoon season). The underground waterway is the largest in the world and sports five 32m diameter, 65m deep concrete containment silos which are connected by 64 kilometers of tunnel sitting 50 meters beneath the surface. The whole system is powered by 14000 horsepower turbines which can pump 200 tons of water a second into the large outlying edogawa river."

Here are some photos. Supposedly you can take a free tour in Tokyo.

Taken by altus on Dec. 31st from the Mori building in Roppongi.

Flickr pics.