water, water everywhere

Saw this the other day and I can’t decide if it’s a good idea, or just a gimmicky one. It’s a cup that comes with a water filter so that people can just fill it straight from the tap and drink it right away. I looked at a couple of blogs that seem to think it’s a nice idea because it encourages people not to buy bottled water (which are mostly imported and produce a lot of waste plastic). One cartridge can filter up to 60 liters of water (that would make 30 2-liter bottles), so if the cartridge is recyclable (Brita ones are I think), then its definitely a good idea.

Whatever, it is probably a better idea than buying this…

This Keiju water (image from here: www.mrpartner.co.jp) is from the Tateyama mountains (one of the few bottled waters that is not imported at least), which is apparently renowned for good water. It is now being affiliated with Keiju medical institution and advertised as so. Kind of makes me feel a bit uneasy that people are being encouraged to buy water by affiliating it to a medical institution. But there seems to a lot of that going on right now: Doctor’s menus in restaurants, bento packed lunches with real doctor’s approval labeling, etc. On the one hand it looks like a decent promotion of healthy products. On the other, the stuff being promoted as healthy appear to be really ordinary products that have simply been packaged differently, endorsed and increased in price…

ongoing baby trend

This is actually just an update on something I mentioned a while ago. I wrote about a little tag that train lines were giving out to pregnant women so that they could subtly make others aware of their pregnancy and maybe be offered a seat. PingMag have now done a piece that goes into a bit more into detail. The above images, taken from PingMag’s post, are a couple of the designs that were also submitted to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for the project. And in case you forgot, the chosen design looks like this:

better training from JR

JR is promoting its new shinkansen (bullet train) by plugging its environmentally friendly design. AFP compares JR’s N700 to France’s TVG (world’s fastest train service), saying that JR preferred to concentrate on the train’s co-friendliness rather than on its speed. See here www.terradaily.com for more info.

The new train, which begins running next month, will stop at Kyoto (because of the Kyoto Protocol and the train’s efforts to be eco-friendly), will use 19 percent less electricity than other bullet trains (and therefore produce less CO2 emissions), and have no smoking carriages (yes we do still have those here!) although it will have special ventilated smoking areas.

my hashi, my heart

“My Hashi, My Heart” (www.my-hashi.jp — where these images have been taken from) is a campaign to encourage people to carry their own chopsticks instead of using the free unenvironmentally friendly waribashi (disposable chopsticks) that are given at convenience stores and restaurants.

The chopsticks they sell come in 30 different “traditional Japanese” colors and can be bought individually (you don’t have to have a matching pair and you can replace one if it gets lost or broken). They already have various Japanese celebrities endorsing them and they are now being sold in Natural Lawson near the bento boxes and lunch foods.

a pickle for the self-defense forces?

Waaaaaaaah! KA-WA-IIIIIIIIIII! Ne! ne? Kawaiiiiiii!

This is Japan’s Self-Defense Forces new mascot — Mr. Pickles, nay, PRINCE Pickles. YES, a royal salted vegetable has joined the forces because “he is very endearing, which is what the Japanese military stands for” (?.??) um, according to Defense Ministry official Shotaro Yanagi.

I nabbed this rather amusing piece of Self-Defense Force PR from a Japan Times AP article. So please go here www.japantimes.co.jp for the full story and another picture. I checked the date, it’s not April 1.

I guess they can just about get away with this because it is a Self-Defense Force, which is as about cute and cuddly as a military force is going to get. But my God, what will he look like if they change the constitution? I don’t know how endearing Prince Pickles could be wielding a sub-machine gun screaming “shoot to kill!”

But at least he is a human in uniform — I have always had a hard time taking the Japanese Police Force seriously when it is being protected by Peopo, the flying mouse-thing (described as a cross between “a rabbit and a space trooper” in the AP story, which, let me just remind you, is here: www.japantimes.co.jp). And there’s always something to be said about a man in uniform… in this case it has to be “The forces will make your eyes pop wider than psychedelic drugs ever could” and “it is possible to protect a nation, without a nose.”

I wonder what Iraqis will think of this vision of their future.

warui waribashi (bad disposable chopstick)

I saw this and thought: Oh that’s nice, disposable chopsticks are incredibly environmentally unfriendly, so getting people to pay for them and contribute ecology is great. You pay 5 yen for a pair of these instead of getting a free pair from the store.

Unfortunately, the store I found this in, haven’t quite grasped the concept of them. So even after charging me for these, the assistant still managed to slip in the usual free pair of chopsticks (I didn’t see her do it, I swear!). Which means I ended up being just as, if not even more environmentally unfriendly. They became the disposable chopsticks of hypocrisy.

more about the spud u like

Still on vegetables…

Recently more and more veggies are being tagged with QR codes. QR codes, in the simplest terms, is a way of coding an html address. If you have a QR reader on your phone, you can scan the code (its like taking a mobile-phone photo of it) and you will directed to the Web site on your phone. Which means if you want to know more about these potatoes before you buy them, all you have to do is point your phone at that funny looking square bar code on the bottom right of the label.

Yes, you do look kind of daft doing it. But in general QR codes are great, for example they are used at exhibitions so that you can find out more about artists while still there. And they are used at stations to guide you to local maps and information on restaurants etc. (I should have posted that a loooooong time ago, but now it seems so dated).

Having said that, I haven’t actually spotted anyone actually pointing their phone at a QR code.

baby on board

The first trimester of pregnancy apparently is the worst for morning sickness and general uncomfortableness (not speaking from experience here, just what the babymakers tell me). But it is also a time when the only way others can really tell someone is pregnant is if they wear one of those ‘baby on board’ T-shirts with a huge arrow pointing at the stomach. Thank goodness JR East (along with 15 other private railways) have decided to distribute small tags for mothers-to-be so that they are easier to identify, and offer your seat to, on crowded trains.

Why ‘thank goodness’? Because ‘baby on board,’ ‘baby under construction,’ ‘knocked up’ and ‘bun in the oven’ T-shirts are chav-tastic tragedies of fashion, which only the worst of smug mothers could possibly wear. These little plastic badges (5cm wide), on the other hand, are subtle and can be attached to bags or wallets.

The aim is to encourage more people to give up seats for pregnant women, and to stop people worrying about mistaking a healthy, slightly larger woman for a tired pregnant one.

This photo is from the poster advertising the service. Check Mainichi’s report http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp to see what a real one looks like.

good training

A good training rain manual

Umbrellas are part of Japan’s national identity; just as the meteorologists here are gods. For example, if you wake up and it’s a nice day, but when you go outside you see everyone is carrying an umbrella — go back and get the biggest one you have. Even when the sun is blazing and the only precipitation visible is the perspiration of your palms. Otherwise you will be sorry.

Oh and never EVER put your laundry out on a sunny day without checking the forecast first, because that just guarantees you rain. And if you see me putting my laundry out, always bring yours in, because I never check the forecast.

And the ad? Oh right. Yes, “Happy Manners” for the underground (metro). It says something like “Please put your umbrellas away carefully.” The metro has a whole series of “Happy Manners” ads to encourage people not to annoy others while traveling. Aren’t they just so couth.

BTW, if you are into umbrella worship, please click “brolly” under “other stuff”

recycle and gamble

Slot machine for recycling cans. After all, why not encourage people to recycle by gambling! Put a can in, it gets crushed and the wheels spin. Not sure what you win though.