Anyone who’s ever spent even a minute in a classroom with a Japanese high school kid will probably know about the mad pen spinning skillz they all seem to have.

I’ve never seen anyone this good before -

Incurable romantic that I am, I’m spending my honeymoon in Paris. Now, my wife is Japanese, so I was startled to learn that at least 12 Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris. (Link.) Some of the reasons mentioned are the rude shop assistants, the dirty streets and the bag snatchers. To be honest though, I imagine this syndrome isn’t restricted to Japanese people or even Paris - any overly sheltered person going to pretty much any country in the world on their own and not as part of a tour group is liable to end up a little shaken. Reality versus hype. We all know which wins every time.

I’m going to make sure she’s fully briefed on all the cultural stereotypes, perhaps make up some new ones, and hopefully deflate the balloon a bit so she’s actually chuffed when she gets there. Although she might end up being mad at me for having lied to her, so that might also ruin the trip.

Decisions, decisions.

I know, I’ll just show her this -

Yup. That ought to do it.

We’re not going out of business. We’ve just been super busy for reasons to be announced soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy this healthy dose of surreal…

I swear if you only do one thing today it should be to go and look at the new commercial for Cheese Curry Cup Noodles.
Absolutely fantastic - a human cheese man thing doing beatboxing and shooting cheese out of his fingers. Perhaps the weirdest thing I have seen all day.

Of course, if I had time I might have figured out how to grab it and put it on YouTube for the whole world to enjoy, but you know - I’m a busy,busy man. Who suddenly has a craving for cheese curry noodles…

Link.

Uga is a karaoke company who seem to advertise exclusively on satellite round my way; they’ve done a whole series of commercials that feature this panda popping up and announcing that he wants to sing, but nobody I speak to knows what I’m talking about. Now I can share with you the funniest in the series. This one is for a ringtone download service. Not that that’s particularly important. What is important is that there is a panda with a sword, slaughtering samurai.

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(I should point out that this was posted ages ago on TV in Japan. But I love this commercial so much, that a little bit of repetition won’t stop me.)

Sushimatic is go! A slinky new blog about a hoary old chestnut - Japan. There’s lots more I could say, but I’ve already said it on the About page.

And so, without further ado, I bring you our first post - the legendary sushi documentary that you should take with a pinch of salt: it has its basis in reality, but is largely a complete fabrication. See if you can spot what’s true and what’s not…
And see if you can spot more falsities than Crushmonkey did. I think he scored about 3, if memory serves.

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