What do you do when you really need a smoke break but don’t want to leave your office? You step into your personal smoking booth, of course. Tokyo-based Ryonetsu Co. has started selling prefabricated ultra-compact one-man smoking box named ES-R1 (links with more info in Japanese are here and here), designed to be easily assembled and installed in offices or anywhere else where you need a separate smoking area.

As seen in the picture, the smoking room is very narrow — the measurements are 60 cm in width, 60 cm in length and 230 cm in height. The top part is equipped with a filter and deodorant as well as special fans that prevent smoke from leaving the box. The company is selling the box at a cost of 216,000 Yen (about $2000).

Via Sankei.

Say konnichiwa to the latest online celebrity — Kimiko Nishimoto, a 88-year-old Japanese woman from Kumamoto, who likes to take some unusual self-portraits in amusing and often dangerous situations. As Kimiko-san (that’s her online nickname) writes in her photography blog, she was born in May of 1928 and has first touched camera at age 72 and learned how to use a Mac at age 74. She has been enjoying doing digital photography ever since.

When not doing any crazy stunts, Kimiko-san likes to capture still lifes and flowers, some of which you can see below. You can find a lot more of her work in her blog Kimiko Nishimoto’s Creative Life.

This is welcome news for tourists coming to Tokyo where finding help in English can be a real challenge. Starting October 1st, English railway map for sightseeing will be distributed for free at major train stations. The A3-sized map was created by six railway operators with the goal of helping tourists reach major sightseeing spots in and around the capital.

Another useful thing — on the reverse side there are instructions and notes for taking trains and searching for places like drug stores or money exchange, and they were made in a way so that you can just show the pictures to the staff without trying to explain what you’re looking for. Additionally, there are instructions on how to access the airports, how to use the IC card for trains and buses, and train manners.

You can see the Tokyo Sightseeing Map with both sides here.

I must say I never heard of this, but rock balancing is a discipline and a form of art. It’s definitely not something anybody can do; you need a great deal of patience and dedication. Kokei Mikuni is an extremely talented Japanese rock balancing artist who has really become perfect in what he does.

The sculptures he makes from river stones are balanced so well it makes the stones look like they came to life. It’s practically hard to believe they’re standing on their own without any sort of support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEo1ibsaSTg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-J-LbJgJVs

You can see more of Mikuni’s art on his web site or you can follow him on Facebook.

Photos via Rocksportrait.

Archaeologists excavating at the site of the Katsuren Castle in Uruma City in Okinawa have found something fairly unusual: four copper coins that are apparently from the 3rd and 4th century ancient Rome.

This is the first time ever that Roman coins have been found in Japan. Based on X-rays they took, the coins show a portrait that looks like the Roman Emperor Constantine I and a soldier holding a spear.

So how exactly did these coins end up here? Reportedly, it’s likely that they were transported to Japan sometime in the Middle Ages, during the time of expansive trade between Okinawa and the West.

Via Mainichi.

In the summer of 1982, Seiko released a wristwatch that had a miniature LCD TV screen built in. Wow! This futuristic gadget was produced in limited quantities and a few versions were made during the mid-1980s. The Guinness Book of Records named the 1984 edition as “the smallest TV set in the world”.

Technically, the wristwatch part itself was indeed small, but there was a catch. The retail packaging the watch came in had a TV receiver box, and you had to carry that thing with you to be able to receive any channels. The box was about the size of an old Walkman cassette tape player. Wait a minute… Apple? Sort of like the Watch that needs an iPhone to get internet access?

The TV Watch was so cool that even James Bond wore it in the latest movie of the time, Octopussy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIAPwyVuXI

With the price of $495, the watch wasn’t meant for the average consumer. They felt it would appeal only to a limited market. In this article from 1983, The New York Times wrote:

Two New York retailers, in interviews, said they expected the watch to appeal only to a limited market. Erich Hirschfeld, president of Willoughby’s Cameras, said: ”I think it will have a market for the upper class so that the venture will be successful. But I think the price is too high and will probably come down to half within a year to two.” Robert J. Wexler, managing director of Tourneau Inc., the jewelry retailer, said: ”It will sell to the limited audience which feels it must be the first to have a novelty. The average consumer probably will have little interest in it.”

Via The Computer Museum and Hightechies.com.

From the outside, the Ruriden looks like a traditional Buddhist burial building. But once you swipe an electronic IC pass card at the entrance, the tall wooden doors open to reveal a futuristic display of hundreds of multi-colored LED-lit Buddha statues.

You have just entered a cemetery.

The Ruriden (literally “The Shrine of the Lapis Lazuli Gemstone”), operated by the Koukokuji temple and located in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, is a new type of a columbarium that is home to 2,045 small altars containing ashes of the deceased.

To locate the altar they are looking for more easily, visitors can enter a PIN code to light up the Buddha statue in front of the deceased’s ashes.

Directly behind each Buddha — which is made using an ancient glass making technique and contained in a glass casing — is a storage locker storing the cremated remains.

The lights inside the Ruriden, which was built in 2006, are based on the four seasons. The Buddha statues illuminate in different colors depending on the time people visit — reddish hues in autumn, blues in winter and greens in summer.

Currently, there are 600 altars in use and another 300 are reserved. A conventional grave in Tokyo area, especially downtown, can cost several millions of yen, but a spot at Ruriden is comparatively affordable. The cost of of a one-person niche is around 750,000 yen, while a space for storing two people’s remains goes up to around 950,000 yen. A maintenance fee of 9,000 yen per year is required to keep the remains inside the shrine for 33 years. After the time has passed, the ashes will be moved from the locker to a communal area underneath the Ruriden. Once emptied, the Buddhas and the locker are not re-used, they are kept vacant.

Ruriden represents a very modern way of dealing with death in the rapidly ageing Japanese society. Normally, funeral arrangements are made by the people left behind, but many in Japan — especially those without family members — now prepare their own funerals and resting places.

As Taijun Yajima, head priest at the Ruriden, explains:

“The tradition and sentiment towards the deceased has not changed even we though use high tech solutions. This columbarium just meets the needs of the times.”

Via Gizmodo and CNN Style.
Photos: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

If you’re tired of your plain lettuce and tomato salad, a trip to Vegedeco Cafe will make you rethink the whole concept of salad altogether. Located in the city of Sakae in Nagoya, the cafe serves some amazing looking salad cakes called Vegedeco Salad that are made completely of nutritious whole vegetables — with little or zero sugar, gluten-free, and no fat or batter. The sponge part is made of natural ingredients such as soybean flour.

From Vegedeco Salad web site:
“Salads’ composition is based on a healthy and beauty care meal style, Japanese traditional ingredients such as Koji and tofu are used. Very colorful and bright to the eyes, Vegedeco Salads are completely made with natural ingredients, using the vegetables’ lovely color provided by mother Earth.”

The popular cakes are the original product of a food stylist Mitsuki Moriyasu who is a specialist in low-carb and gluten-free food style. She has also been teaching yoga and “breath and control” techniques for 25 years while running her own restaurant for the past 30 years.

The Vegedeco Cafe was opened in April 2015 in the French restaurant “La Porte Marseille” in Sakae, Nagoya and is currently the only place in Japan where you can buy these cakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89coCN5P9CM

Photos via VegedecoSalad.

Remember the floating mountains in Avatar? Now you can create your own miniature Avatar-like world with floating bonsai trees. A Japanese company Hoshinchu from Kyushu has invented “Air Bonsai” — an incredible system that makes bonsai magnetically levitate and spin above a small electrified pedestal.

“This is a project launched by Hikaru Hoshi in Spring 2015. In Japanese, “Hoshinchu” means “star people.”
Our message is to value Earth through Art. Famously known to need nurture with special care, the Japanese traditional culture “bonsai” floats representing the Earth. It is time-consuming to grow and care for a bonsai, but is all worth the time because it brings joy and happiness. We pray for mankind to take great care of this star (Earth) we live on.” – via Hoshinchu web site.

The company is accepting pre-orders for do-it-yourself Air Bonsai basic kits, which are ready for transplanting your favorite plant.

The Kickstarter campaign they launched earlier this year has been a great success and they’ll start shipping pre-orders this November and December (at the time of this writing only to Japan, US and Canada).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jssXjtYoDl0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcBYjvdBwg

Welcome to Fureai Sekibutsu no Sato. Literally “the village where you can meet stone statues” (ふれあい石像の里), an abandoned park in Osawano, Toyama, is a place where almost three decades ago a very rich man named Mutsuo Furukawa — a chairman of a medical corporation — decided to build an area with hundreds of sculptures in hopes to keep them with him for all eternity. He wanted the park to become a popular tourist place where people could come to relax.

Furukawa reportedly paid 6 billion yen (or 60 million dollars) to a Chinese sculptor in 1989 to create the statues. Today there are about 800 of them, sitting like frozen in place on the hills along the bank of Jinzugawa river. Some are based on people Furukawa knew during his lifetime, and some are Buddhist figures.

“I found this incredible place in Toyama Prefecture. I felt like I’d accidentally stumbled into some forbidden area. Amazing,” wrote photographer Ken Ohki who recently shared some amazing photos of the park on his blog.

Photos via Yukison and Netolabo.

Unless you are a car enthusiast, you may have never heard of Mitsuoka Motor. It’s a small automaker headquartered in Toyama, known for building uniquely designed cars, some of which take inspiration from British vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s. Two interesting things stand out about this company. One is that they take production cars (from makers like Nissan or Mazda), utilize their engines but replace various aspects of the bodywork to turn it into their own custom-made design. Secondly, they do it all by hand, with a team of 45 skilled craftsmen.

The company takes great pride in the way they build each vehicle. From their web site:

“Cars that we deliver to customers are most characterized by their keen designs that you cannot find in mass production cars. Every step in our production-line is done by “Hands” of our craftsmen who devote themselves to build each and every car. The car manufactured in that way has a scarcity value and it is really only in the world for you.”

Looks like robots won’t be replacing human hands at Mitsuoka anytime soon.

The cost? Compared to other luxury brand cars, the prices are notably lower. For example, the Ryugi (which looks like a Rolls-Royce), is offered with a hybrid option and costs less than $40,000.

You can read more about Mitsuoka’s production process in this article from Bloomberg.

Photos via Bloomberg and Mitsuoka Motor.

In August, there was a light festival in Kyoto that attracted thousands with some truly incredible illuminations. The event took place for two weeks in Tadasu No Mori at the Shimogamo Shrine — a World Heritage Site. According to the organizers, starting this year, the festival will take root as an annual traditional event with the aim of promoting the cultural value of Kyoto. The illumination is the brainchild of the teamLab art group which has become famous for its interactive digital installations.

Photos by teamLab, Motochika090704, kezuma11 and y_mayucho.

Also known as the Myriad year clock, the Mannen Jimeishou (万年自鳴鐘) was a universal clock designed by the Japanese genius inventor Hisashige Tanaka, who built most of the clock by himself using simple tools like files and saws between the years 1848 and 1851. It is designated as an Important Cultural Asset by the Japanese government.

Standing 63cm high and weighing 38kg, the clock is a true mechanical marvel made of over 1,000 parts and capable of running for an entire year when fully wound. It has six sides, each showing different aspects of time simultaneously. The first one is a wadokei that tells traditional Japanese time where the hours varied according to the seasons (for example, longer daylight hours in summer and shorter in winter). The second one shows the 24 seasonal periods of the traditional Japanese solar year. The third side shows the day of the week, while the fourth indicates the date according to the Chinese sexagenary cycle (translation: it shows the day based on the ten lunar calendar signs and the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac). The fifth side displays the day of the month and has a sphere in the center that shows the phases of the moon. Finally, the last dial shows the usual time.

Placed above the six faces is a glass dome containing a plate depicting the island of Japan and two small globes showing real-time position of the Sun and Moon relative to the Earth. All without any microchips!

In 2004, Japanese government funded a project with a goal of making a replica of the clock to be shown at the Expo 2005. This was an overwhelming task — it took over 100 engineers a year to produce the copy, but even with all the technology available today, it wasn’t possible to produce exact copies of certain parts such as the brass metal plate for the mainsprings, which they substituted with steel. This was the first time the clock was disassembled. Microscopes were used to study all the different components and gears.

Hisashige Tanaka was one of the most important inventors of his time, and just a few years before his death in 1881, he established Japan’s first telegraph manufacturing company Tanaka Seisakusho. Later the company was renamed to Shibaura Seisakusho, and after a merger with the electric company Tokyo Denki in 1939, the company became Tokyo Shibaura Denki, better known today as Toshiba.

In Tanaka’s birthplace, the city of Kurume in Fukuoka Prefecture, in front of the Kurume Station, there’s a big mechanical clock with depictions of Tanaka’s inventions. The clock was designed to look like the actual taiko drum clock that he himself made. At given times, the clock turns around and a Giemon doll comes out to explain some of Hisashige’s works through gestures.

Today, the original Myriad year clock is owned by Toshiba Corporation and is permanently displayed at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. The replica can be seen at the Toshiba Science Museum in Kawasaki.

Via SJX, Wikipedia and Gakken.

Kubo and the Two Strings — critics hail it as a “masterpiece” and “the best animated movie of the summer” — was released in the U.S. last month. Set in mythical Japan, it’s a stop-motion samurai tale, produced by the Oregon-based independent studio Laika (the studio is known for its feature films from a few years ago such as Coraline and ParaNorman). In the flood of computer generated 3D cartoons, it’s captivating to see a movie like this, where the vast majority of elements were made by hand. I can only imagine how much painstaking work was behind the scenes and the result is nothing short of astonishing.

Watch the trailer below, and a short documentary on how they created the visuals.

Female samurai were rare, but they did exist. They were known as onna-bugeisha (女武芸者) and belonged to the Japanese upper class. Trained in the use of weapons, they fought alongside samurai men in times of war to protect their household, family and honor. Some of the famous examples of onna-bugeisha are Empress Jingu, Tomoe Gozen, Nakano Takeko and Hojo Masako.

Via Wikipedia and Niume.