Good news for travelers to Japan. Everything helps!

The of the less common stories about Japanese occupation during WWII. I'm sure many more exist, but of course, the normal press just wants to point out the bad and unjust side of humanity. Sells more papers for some reason.

Sort of a Brazilian Carnival gone East. Look like fun, but in the heat, some of those costumes must have been hard to bare (no pun intended).

This is a beautiful area of Japan, too often overlooked my foreign tourists.

What makes this story so compelling to me, is a sad story. Some years ago, when I was in Indonesian on the beautiful island of Bali, I was walking back in the mountains along the narrow curving paths between the rice fields and noticed that there were no ducks. What made this observation so peculiar, was that I'd been to similar rice fields a few years before and there were always many ducks. It was a great system (for everyone but the ducks, I guess ;-), the ducks ate the snails and bugs that had been eating the rice. When the ducks fattened up, they became unwilling table dressing.

But there were, in just a few short years, NO DUCKS! So I asked a few of the rice farmers why this was so and where were the ducks. I heard the same disturbing story from everyone I talked to. They told me that some important people came from a huge American chemical company, and told them how to get rid of the snails, THE MODERN WAY! They (the 'helpful' Americans) gave them free fancy backpack sprayers and enough chemicals for a year per farmer. These Balinese farmers had never met such nice people. And besides, they all looked so cool wearing these space aged backpack sprayers. So naturally the farmers started using all their cool new stuff. Well, you can probably figure out the "rest of the story".

The ducks all died a horrible death, and would no longer return to the fields, so at the end of the year, the snails and bug returned en masse, and destroyed that years crop. So the farmers contacted their cool new American friends for more chemicals to help them with their new problem. Guess what????? The chemicals were no longer free. Surprise, surprise. The large American chemical company now had new customers for life.

And in America, they prosecute drug dealers for much the same thing. I hear you say that drugs are different because they can harm and even kill people. Well, I don't really see any difference at all. Call me naive, but what's the difference between dying of illicit drugs or dying of chemical poisoning? DEAD IS DEAD1 Maybe we ought to hang a few of these new friends of the innocent Balinese farmers. Not only would it serve them right, but might also send a lesson to these companies, that just because their losing their markets in the 'educated' parts of the world, doesn't mean they can dump their death on the innocent places.

Now the Balinese are eating rice grown in waters so saturated with deadly chemicals that no life can live there anymore. Crop yields are down (no more natural fertilizer from the duck dropping perhaps?), and what is being produced can only be produced with the 'help' of chemicals. How long until the Balinese end up dying the same horrible unnatural death as their ducks.

Some 3,500 people have helped create the world's longest painting that stretches some 4,663 meters.

Since May the group spent 34 days working on the painting on more than one hundred pieces of paper sized 25 meters in length and 50 centimeters wide. They mostly painted natural scenery and trains.

Pretty cool, check it out.

I guess it's time to start a high end travel service to Japan.

You'll have to subscribe to read the full story, but if you're planning a trip to Kyoto, it might be worth the money.

All time historical record for high temperatures was broken yesterday in Japan, with a resulting 13 people dead. More high temps are projected.

Just what Japan didn't need; more economic bad news.

Things are starting to heat up with US/Japanese relations. Hasn't the current US administration bothered to take a look at the rest of the world. No support for this failed policy anywhere that I can see. Now the US is going to risk ruining the long standing friendship between our nations.

See the post below for more on this.

Figures, huh? The Japanese want to get out of the mess that Mr Bush has gotten the world into, and now Bush snubs Mr Abe, just when he needs his support. Whether you like Abe-san or not, he doesn't deserve to be treated like this.

For those of you with Adobe Flash player loaded on your machine (and that should be all of you), here's a pretty incredible web site in France. It's all in French and a bit difficult to navigate, but learning how will reward you with one of the most creative sites current on the Internet. Take a little time to fool around with it. Just remember that in Flash, there is no back button, so you will have to find a way to move about with just what is on your screen. I'll leave a permanent link along the right side of this page.

Please enjoy.

What can I say?

The Japanese have come up with yet another great rookie baseball pitcher, but at 39, can he really be called a rookie.

The Obon Festival is coming up in Japan.

Another good piece by Kit Nagamura on walking in Japan. She's written 24 articles on walking the different wards in and around Tokyo, and always shares the inside stories with us. Her articles appear on the Travel section of the Japan Times Online, and a link can be found to all of her articles on the side bar to the right.

Why is Japan the source of so many bright ideas?

I didn't realize that Japan holds more patents per person than any other country, in fact nearly 4 times more then the US, which is third in the world with 350 patents per million persons. Switzerland is 2nd with 500 per million. Japanese people have 1200 patents per million. This Economist article explores this phenomena.

Interesting!