Only In Japan

Sep 27
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Only In Japan: Tokyo Office Building Is Also A Farm?!

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via Quartz. Instead of building a new headquarters from the ground up, Japanese recruiting company Pasona renovated a 50-year-old office building with a double-skin, green facade and rooftop garden and, most notably, urban farming facilities throughout the building. The building has a rice field in the lobby, a hydroponic tomato farming space surrounded by offices, pumpkin vines growing over one of the reception areas, and lemon and passion fruit trees forming partitions that divide the meeting rooms… pretty cool! Check out some more photos and an informational video below.

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Sep 21
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Only In Japan: Designer Toilet Paper

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Apparently, run-of-the-mill toilet paper is not good enough for some people. A Japanese company has come up with rolls of “designer” toilet paper who subscribe to a “Toilet Paper of the Month Club.” Each roll is $18. They arrive in specially handcrafted boxes inlaid with silver leaf. Lol.

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Jul 20
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11-year old Rock Climber – Ashima Shiraishi

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Wow… Amazing. Check out the video below.

Ashima Shiraishi is a 4-foot-5 Japanese-American 11-year old girl who can kick anyone’s ass rock climbing. She grew up climbing boulders in Central Park when she was 6 – her parents came to the US from Japan in 1978 – and for the past couple of years has been dominating some of the hardest climbs in the world including the Crown of Aragorn, a V13 (do you know how hard that is??) near El Paso that most adult professional climbers can’t flash. Yes, she does have the advantage of being tiny. But that doesn’t make her any less badass.

Here’s a recent story about her in the NY Times.

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Jan 20
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Only In Japan: Store Employs Colorful Language to Advertise Sale

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via japansubculture. Hahaha… I remember I was in India once around Christmas time and saw a sign that said “Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!”… that made me laugh. It is not uncommon for people in foreign countries to misuse words or phrases in the English language. Recently in Japan, there was an advertisement for a “f*ckin’ sale” at Gallerie (which appears to sell handbags and women’s clothing)… too funny. Photos after the break.

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Jan 18
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Only In Japan: Goldfish Salvation

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via thisiscolossal. Watch the video first. 🙂 You can get a sneak peak at how Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori “paints” these amazing (and realistic) three dimensional goldfish paintings. As you can imagine, the process is very detailed, meticulous, and painstakingly executed. More photos and video below.

The fish are painted layer by layer, to finally create a full 3-D painting that would look exactly like “real” and live goldfish. Only, these fish won’t move. The transparent resin gives an excellent appearance of water, making the painting appear all the more realistic. Fukahori displayed his work at a recent exhibition in London titled Goldfish Salvation.

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Jan 10
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Only In Japan: Mochi Master

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Mochi is one of my favorite Japanese desserts… it is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into its shape. It was traditionally made in a ceremony called Mochitsuki. The traditional process involves pounding the rice with wooden mallets in an usu (traditional mortar). Two people alternate the work: one pounds the cooked rice while the other wets the mochi. They must keep a steady rhythm or they may accidentally injure each other. Check out this process below. Amazing!

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