Via Fark, the Daily Telegraph reports on a true hardcore biker:

A JAPANESE biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2km, leaving a friend to pick up the limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, yesterday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

That's why you should always use your rear brake, not just the front brake: So you know if your right leg is missing.

Japanese company Toto makes the Washlet, a robo-toilet that sprays a jet of water to cleanse your nether regions and then dries you off, making toilet paper virtually unnecessary. I have similar units in my new house, and they're awesome. But it's definitely a hard sell until you've tried one for yourself.

Blogger Gen Kanai notes that Toto is now marketing the Washlet in America; check out this comprehensive flash-based website. It's kind of funny to watch the actors on the site talk about the product while dancing around the subject of what it's actually doing.

Ladies and gentlemen, the inimitable Danny Choo:


Via Jean Snow. (I previously blogged about Danny's stormtrooper antics here.)

The Associated Press brings us another sweet, sweet story about the Chinese government freaking out at the realization that it can't perfectly control the media — especially the media of other countries with that whole pesky "freedom of the press" thing:

China warned the media Tuesday against exaggerating its food safety problems and stirring consumer panic, even as officials announced dozens of snacks for children had failed standards and more fake blood protein was found in hospitals.

China's dismal product safety record — both within and outside its borders — has increasingly come under the spotlight as its goods make their way through global markets. Major buyers such as the United States, Japan, and the European Union have pushed Beijing to improve inspections.

"I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular news briefing.

Hey, Gang, you know what? I think it would be better if China would stop exporting contaminated food, deadly toothpaste, and poisonous toys. How about it?

Via Unfogged, Reuters reports:

A young clerk with no knowledge of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown allowed a tribute to victims slip into the classified ads page of a newspaper in southwest China, a Hong Kong daily reported on Wednesday.

The tiny ad in the lower right corner of page 14 of the Chengdu Evening News on Monday night, read: "Paying tribute to the strong(-willed) mothers of June 4 victims".

...Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said a young woman on the Chengdu Evening News classified section had allowed the ad to be published because she'd never heard of the June 4 crackdown.

Heh.

From the Inside Looking In reports:

Burger King returns to Japan this Friday, with the first store opening in Nishi-Shinjuku...

The Burger King is located within the Shinjuku Island Tower building, taking over the premises of a Lotteria burger joint (the BK franchise is being developed by Lotte which owns the Lotteria chain).

Interesting to note, the Island Tower is home to McDonalds Japan’s head offices.

Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

I've been on hiatus for a while, but I simply can't fail to note this update to a story previously covered here at Riding Sun.

Via Fark, the Wall Street Journal reports:

TOKYO–All over Japan, retailers are scrambling to keep up with a new look known as "bon-kyu-bon." It means "big-small-big" and it signals a change in the way Japanese women look: they're getting curvier.

...Today, the average Japanese woman's hips, at 35 inches, are around an inch wider than those of women a generation older. Women in their 20s wear a bra at least two sizes larger than that of their mothers, according to Wacoal. Waist size, meanwhile, has gotten slightly smaller, accentuating many young women's curves.

...The physical changes are largely the result of an increasingly Westernized diet, say nutritionists. Meals that used to consist of mostly fish, vegetables and tofu now lean heavily toward an American-style menu of red meat, dairy and indulgences such as Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Cold Stone Creamery ice cream.

So the WSJ has finally caught up to this story, which I covered over a year ago. But I tip my hat to the Journal for, um, fleshing out the facts by interviewing actual Japanese women:

Nami Sakamoto, an advertising-agency employee, embodies the new look. The 26-year-old is tall – by Japanese standards – at 5 feet 5 inches. She's also voluptuous, with a 35-inch bust and 35-inch hips.

"I had a hard time finding button-down shirts that would close," says Sakamoto, especially when she was in high school and there were fewer foreign retailers in Japan that actually sold bigger sizes.

"Sometimes the buttons would burst off." Now she buys clothes at Western retailers that carry larger sizes.

The WSJ's not a bad newspaper, really. But when you need the scoop on Japanese breast sizes, you know where to turn first.

FOLLOW-UP
Fark has cravenly deleted its thread on this topic after readers complained about not being able to post pictures illustrating the trend of increasingly busty Japanese women. This is not the Fark I knew and loved.

I know I said I was busy, but this is too good to pass up. As I mentioned in the previous post, I am looking for a house in Tokyo. At the real estate agent's office today, I saw a listing for a very nice, luxurious, spacious new house, with a suitably high asking price. And since this is Japan, sellers often think up an elegant-sounding Western name for such high-end properties, like Garden Cove or Park Terrace or some such.

The name for this luxurious estate? Welfare Court.

Hey, my fiancee and I could have our wedding at Twin Ring Motegi!


The name "Twin Ring" refers to the two racetracks they have there, not wedding rings. Their special "Circuit Wedding" plan lets you do a "Wedding Run" lap around the racetrack in a Honda S2000 convertible. I wonder if they let you use your own motorcycle instead...

I thought I found a good place for our upcoming wedding. Just check out this artist's rendering from their website:


Looks nice, doesn't it? Here's the view they don't show you — what's on the other side of those trees:


I was hoping for something a little more secluded.

The Mainichi Shimbun reports:

Two trains came to an abrupt halt early on Wednesday after running over rocks left on the tracks, police said.

The driver of a Keihan Electric Railway Co. train applied the emergency brake after hearing an unusual noise as the train passed a railway crossing in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, at about 5:10 a.m.

...About 1 kilometer south, another Keihan train made an emergency stop after its driver also heard an unusual sound.

Police think the rocks were left on the tracks deliberately. No word on how long the trains were delayed by this sabotage.

...at speaking Japanese.

Ugh. You'd think a movie meister like Spielberg could find a dialogue coach.

The Arab News reports:

MINA, 29 December 2006 — The increased security vigilance in the holy cities has been a headache for motorcycle drivers used to scooting around town without proper paperwork or helmets. This is also the first Haj where motorbikes have been banned from the holy areas of Makkah and Madinah.

As of yesterday, officials have already impounded about 350 motorbikes since heightened security operations began earlier this month, according to an officer who didn’t want to be named.

...At a press conference held in the tent city of Mina at the General Security Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, Interior Ministry spokesman, said he prefers not to call it a “ban”, but rather simply a way to make the traffic more organized and the safer. [sic]

Of course, just about every year during the Hajj pilgrimage, hundreds of people get trampled to death on foot. If safety is such a concern, perhaps it would be better to call the whole thing off.

More importantly, with this ban, Saudi Arabia now joins China and Nigeria on the list of countries banning motorcycles from certain areas. They are also three of the least-free countries on the planet, with three of the worst human rights records around. Call them the Axle of Evil.

Based on a recommendation from Gen Kanai, I have tried the bagels at Maruichi Bagel. As their website says:

MARUICHI make bagel based on the way of Ess-a-Bagel as known as #1 Bagel Store in NEW YORK.

My verdict? Perhaps a bit too chewy, but clearly the best bagels I've had in Japan. Doing the Atkins diet here just got harder.

I just got back from this year's Merry Run. Here's some pics:




I got stopped on my way back by some cops who checked to see if I'd been drinking. You know, just because I was dressed as Santa Claus riding a bike covered in tinsel and flashing lights is no reason for them to single me out.

FOLLOW-UP:
Big Ben's own Merry Run post is up over on his blog.

Via Fark, ANP (Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau) reports that a Japanese trend I blogged about previously appears to have spread to the Netherlands. I love globalization.

It's a little small for a caption contest photo, but this picture of an itamae serving up a piece of sushi is quite amusing. (Via Gen Kanai)

According to Oddpeak.com, of the ten most bizarre people on earth, a whopping three are Japanese. (Via kottke.org)

Shuu-san sent me a few issues of Big Comic Spirits, a weekly manga with several ongoing stories, including "Master of Sea Umishi". In that one, the main character, Rintarou Nanba, a diver in the Japan Coast Guard, rides a Honda X-4:


Sure beats Richard Gere's dinky little Bonneville from An Officer and a Gentleman.

I recently noted that officials in Guangzhou, China are banning motorcycles. And now, sadly, Nigeria's capital city of Abuja is following Guangzhou's lead. The New York Times reports:

“They don’t want to see the common man, the poor man,” said Comrade Daniel, a motorcycle taxi driver, standing in the rubble of his neighborhood. He lost first his home and then his livelihood to a recent campaign to rid this stately capital of the blemishes of poverty. “They only care for themselves,” he said.

Mr. Daniel and others who live on the unruly edge of this tidy city in the mossy hills of central Nigeria say that Abuja has declared war on its poorest citizens.

In the interest of cultivating an image as a world-class city, comparable to London, Paris, New York or Hong Kong, the government has been razing unauthorized and unsightly slums, clearing out street hawkers and banishing popular and cheap motorcycle taxis, all in the name of spiffing up the city.

Nigeria, of course, is one of the international community's true basket cases, where corrupt rulers exploit a severely impoverished citizenry and human rights are a cruel joke. I'm starting to think that the fairness and justness of a government can be determined by its attitude toward motorcycles.

FOLLOW-UP:
Interestingly, the Times itself can't quite seem to decide how it feels about Abuja's motorcycle taxis. First it describes them as "popular and cheap", but later on in the same article, we find the following:

Abuja is a planned city, originally designed by a group of American firms in the 1970s.

...But the city’s master plan was ignored for years by corrupt officials who allowed illegal neighborhoods to blossom, unauthorized street markets to spread and torpedo-like motorcycle taxis, called okada, often driven by illiterate young men, to choke the streets.

So, are motorcycle taxis a good thing, or a bad thing? It depends. If you want to show how the wealthy elite of Abuja are hurting the masses, they're popular and cheap. But if you want to point out how a plan devised by American firms has failed, they're torpedo-like street chokers.