How the Japanese drive around town without spilling their soup

by Scott Carmichael on

OK, this is absolutely brilliant. Imagine having to speed through Tokyo on your Honda Super Cub scooter. That is hard enough without having to worry about carrying a tray filled with bowls of soup!

Of course, it takes Japanese ingenuity to design a simple and crude way to keep things from spilling.

I’m not really sure what to call it, so I’ll just name it the “scooter self stabilizing soup shelf”, or S5 for short. It’s not much more than a couple of bits of tubing, a piece of wood and some form of shock absorber.

Even a parked scooter will be no match for the S5, parked up against the curb, the shelf stays level, and you don’t lose a drop of whatever you are carrying. Apparently these things have been around for years, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone photograph them.

There are several more of these contraptions captured on film by Lee Chapman, the Brit in Tokyo behind Tokyotimes.org. His site is filled with fantastic articles and some pretty stunning photography, certainly worth checking out.

(Tokyo Times, via Wired gadget lab)

Japanese resident of Mexico City Airport relocates to new home

by Grant Martin on

We’ve been following the story of Hiroshi Nohara for a couple of months now, the Japanese man who showed up at Mexico City‘s Benito Juarez airport last fall, put his bags down and effectively set up residence in the terminal. He wouldn’t explain why he was there or where he was going, but since his tourist visa was still valid, authorities had to let him stay.

Nohara, who had been living on food and clothing donations from visitors and local sponsors, had turned into a bit of a tourist attraction until he mysteriously disappeared from the airport a couple of weeks back, vanishing into a taxi with a woman who nobody knew.

Now, the Mexican newspaper Reforma has positively identified the woman only as “Oyuki,” who tells the media that she just wanted Nohara to have a warm bed to sleep in. Perhaps the woman, whose husband is currently working in Japan was just lonely.

With a new place to stay, Nohara is apparently now sporting a new, cleaned up look and leading a normal life. He probably needs to make himself presentable for meeting the movie producers.

Top 10 stupidest laws you could encounter abroad


Japanese man living in Mexico City airport mysteriously disappears

by Grant Martin on

You might recall last month’s interesting story about a Japanese gentleman who moved into Mexico City‘s Benito Juarez airport.

For those of you that didn’t read the story last month, a little background: Hiroshi Nohara showed up in Mexico City last month on a tourist visa and decided that he wanted to stay. He had no plans, no reason for staying and the full right to call the airport his home — his tourist visa is supposed to last until March and the airport technically never closes. Eventually he became an oddity of sorts, with people coming to get their picture taken with him, local restaurants offering sponsorships and even feeding him.

And so he remained until this month. When the plot thickens.

This past Sunday, Nohara was spotted getting into a taxi with an unnamed woman, a woman who had come to visit twice and who the authorities could not name. And then he disappeared.

Where was he going? Did this woman offer him a nice place to stay or a movie deal? Is it his estranged daughter that abandonded him at the airport? Something tells me we’ll find out when the movie comes out.

Travel Read: 100 Places Every Woman Should Go

by Brenda Yun on

I never knew there could be a book so thoughtful and inspiring for women as this one. Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s second travel book, which lists far more than just 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, is truly an encyclopedia for women travelers. It’s the kind of book that could never have existed fifty years ago, but is so refreshing that free-spirited, female travelers should feel grateful that it exists now, and fully prepared for that next trip into the wide, wonderful world.

Griest’s great book is packed with helpful historical information, inspiring stories, and travel tips. It’s broken up into nine sections — my favorite being the first: “Powerful Women and Their Places in History.” There’s so much worth digesting in each locale described. For instance, I had no idea that the word “lesbian” came from the birthplace of Sappho (Lesbos, Greece). Griest fills each description with great travel tips that often include specific street addresses for particularly noteworthy sights.What I like most about the 100 places she chooses is that she shies away from identifying places that every woman obviously dreams of traveling to, like Venice, Rome, and Paris. Instead, she paves a new path for women, encouraging us to visit Japan’s 88 sacred temples or stroll through the public squares of Samarkand, one of the world’s oldest cities in Uzbekistan.

Griest does not limit her list to concrete or singular places. Sometimes, she finds a way to take us to virtual spots like the Museum of Menstruation or creates lists like “Best Bungee Jumping Locales,” “Sexiest Lingerie Shops,” or “Places to Pet Fuzzy Animals.” These 100 “places” are really all-encompassing, and Griest manages to take us on an imaginative journey around the world, packing all her feminine know-how into each description.

I did find, occasionally, that there were some places missing from some of the identified places in her list. For instance, I was baffled as to why two Russian writers were on Griest’s list of “Famous Women Writers and Their Creative Nooks,” but Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen were absent. I was additionally confused that cooking classes in India and Thailand were not on the list of “Culinary Class Destinations.”

Griest’s opinions of places are somewhat biased, too. While she does a fairly good job covering the globe, a single locale in French Polynesia or the South Pacific is missing, and some places like Oaxaca, Angkor Wat, and New York are mentioned several times. Her college town of Austin landed on the list, but places like Budapest and Cairo are never acknowledged.

With every list, however, there is bound to be some bias and some personal flair and choice involved, and Griest’s original and creative sensibilities are still well-worth reading about. The great thing about this book is that you can flip to a place description, be perfectly entertained and inspired, and then tuck the book away until the next time you feel compelled to read about the places you can go. Or, you can read it in one sitting like I did and be completely blown away by the amazing places in this one world that it’s hard to imagine why we live in one city for so long and not just pack our bags and get out there and see some if not all of it.

Click here to read my review of Griest’s first travel book, “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana.” My review of Griest’s third travel book, “Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines” is forthcoming, along with my interview with the author in early January. Feel free to jot me an email (Brenda DOT Yun AT weblogsinc DOT com) if you have a question for Stephanie.

Click the images to learn about the most unusual museums in the world — featuring everything from funeral customs, to penises, to velvet paintings, to stripping.


10 snowmen from around the world

by Jamie Rhein on

Here’s a bit of winter fun you can do wherever there’s enough snow to make a go of it. Build a snowman. Even if you only have enough snow for a small snowman, go for it. One group of guys advocates building the biggest snowman you can make in a friend’s yard in the middle of the night. Your creation will be a big surprise in the morning. (Click here for picture.)

One of my favorite memories is going to the Great Wall in China right after it had snowed. There was a whimsical snowman greeting people at the top of one of the sets of stairs.

Here are some snowmaking tips. The one I thought was a great idea was to use three different size buckets as molds for the body. You add snow to the bucket shape to create the roundness. For snowman inspiration, here’s a sampling of snowmen from around the world.

MGShelton, who took this picture, said this fella was in her neighbor’s backyard in Birrmingam, Alabama.

This snowmen crowd was shot by showbizsuperstar in Japan at the Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival.

Last January, NINJ4 and a friend built this snowman on the lawn of Andersen Hall at Kansas State University. It looks like this one is hanging in as the snow is melting.

This snowman in Glascow, Scotland looks like a character in a children’s book or something. I think it’s the hat and scarf combo. Hodgers took this picture in his front garden.

According to thisisbossi who took this picture in Altoona, Pennsylvania, his aunt’s snowman frightened the cat. I think it’s sweet.

This leaning guy was at Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. before the snow melted. I’m impressed by the jaunty hat and smile. Joe in D.C. took this picture.

Although this snowman probably saw better days, it’s background is truly international. ericaflynn, who took this picture in China, said that it was made by two Scandivanvian children.

This snowman in Tokyo, Japan should win the darling prize if there was such a thing. I love the expression that OiMax captured with just the right angle.

This snowman overlooking his kingdom in Denmark was made to sit in a flower box on metal-dog’s balcony.

If you have more time on your hands build a snowman grouping like bgilliard did in Ontario, Canada. He titles this David’s and Goliath. One commenter noted that Goliath looks like a penguin.

If you build a snowman, take a picture of it, post it on Gadling’s Flicker photo pool, and tell me where it was taken in the comment section of this post, I’ll create a Gadling reader’s snowman post where you can share your handy work.