[via cynicalc]
Jason van Marle spent his summer vacation in Japan. He took lots and lots and lots of photos, and he assembled the 2400 best ones into this excellent little video. Check it out: Japan in 4 minutes, 43 seconds — including credits.
Love it.
A few days ago, I wrote a post about traveling in the Sahara, the favored trip of my adult ESL students. One of the trips that caught my attention was the hiking to Mt. Fuji at night. The intention of this endeavor is to arrive by sunrise.
This travel experience is not a solo endeavor. The article in Budget Traveler mentioned the dozens of people who do the same thing. Mt. Fuji, considered to be sacred, is a bit of a poke from the bottom to the top, 12,388 feet, but it’s doable for even unseasoned hikers. Taking one’s time and drinking plenty of water are imperative and there are rest stops with shack like buildings scattered along the way where, if need be, you can lie down and rest.
The Budget Traveler article mentioned people buying oxygen bottles to help them breathe towards the top, but another article in the New York Times, a first person account, doesn’t say a thing about that. For a quick nuts and bolts overview of the trip up Mt. Fuji, head to Budget Traveler. For an experiential journey, Kathy Glass’s article in the New York Times captures the sites and feelings of the assent and descent, and some tidbits of Mt. Fuji history. For example, women weren’t allowed to climb the mountain until 1867. Her descriptions of interactions with the landscape and the people she met on the way is a read to savor.
Soon, there may be yet another way to come home from that trip to Japan with less money than you anticipated–or if Lady Luck is smiling at you, you’ll end up with more.
Japan is pondering casino gambling Las Vegas-style. According to Bloggingstock.com’s wordsmith Tom Barlow, casino investors are eyeing the gambling investment pay-off in Macau to see if Japan will be lucrative for raking in the dough as another gambling hotspot. Disneyland worked in Japan, so why wouldn’t Las Vegas, the adult version of an amusement park, be a winner?
Singapore, always looking for ways to bring in money, already has gambling–I think I won about $2 Singapore dollars at the horse races once. Wheee!!! A casino project is already underway at the resort island Sentosa. And, according to the info Tom presented, Taiwan may also become a place for a gambling vacation. Recently, sports gambling has been voted in.
As a person who hates to lose money, I don’t think I’ll get a big win by gambling the next time I go to Asia. But, if there are free drinks at casinos as long as one is gambling, like is a common practice in Las Vegas, I might dig into my pocket to unearth some quarters. Because alcohol is so expensive in Singapore, a free drink might be worth a few pulls on a slot machine. Besides, three cherries do come up once in awhile and what a lovely sound that makes.
For gambling options in Asia check out World Casino Directory. There are 10 countries in Far East Asia with gambling already. Here is a place to find out where the best casinos are and how betting is done in each one. Good luck.
It used to be that you’d have to fly all the way to Japan, and befriend some underworld Yakuza denizen in order to indulge in a bit of nyotaimori.
In case you’re not up on your Japanese Mafia culinary terms, nyotaimori is “body sushi.” Or more precisely, it is sushi placed upon a naked (or nearly naked) woman lying on her back and pretending to be a human buffet.
Somehow or another, a new Los Angeles restaurant has gotten around Health Department rules and is now serving this bizarre specialty at Hadaka Sushi on Sunset Boulevard.
The fine folks over at DeepEndDining.com made a special trip with video camera in hand to watch the festivities, eat some raw fish, and interview the sushi model.
I felt a bit bad for the model, a friendly woman covered in sushi, systematically picked at with chop sticks, and otherwise demeaned. I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.