The Osaka District Court has acquitted a 57-year-old man arrested for touching the breast of a 25-year-old woman on a train, ruling that the touching was not intentional.
“We have found that the man’s hand touched the breast of the woman for more than a few seconds,” said Presiding Judge Nobuyuki Yokota at the Osaka District Court. “But the hand didn’t necessarily grab her breast.”
The judge added that the touching of the breast was so faint that no other passengers noticed it.
Maybe it’s a constitutional right. . .
All you Kittyler out there get ready. . . Sanrio is about to launch a new package that combines an official Hello Kitty laptop with an official Hello Kitty iPod Nano.
But you’ve got to act fast. This is a limited production run of only 100 units.
Price: 248,000 yen
Via Plasticbamboo
Got a note from Graham Webster who runs a blog called Transpacific Triangle alerting us to the fact that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just may be trying to borrow a page out of the book of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.
When Irish rock star Bono recently presented Abe with a pair of a pair of red Giorgio Armani sunglasses (”Red”-branded product part of whose profits are donated to AIDS programs), Japan’s leader slipped them on and posed of the cameras.
No doubt more than one person in the room held their breath in anticipation of a Koizumi-esque air guitar performance, but none was forthcoming.
According to a Reuters report on the meeting, Bono suggested that the world might have something to learn from Japan in terms of international aid and assistance.
“The world doesn’t really understand that Japan in the ’90s led the world not just as a percentage contribution to the world’s poor but as the volume contribution,” he told reporters at the prime minister’s office.
“The world doesn’t understand that Japan has had a lot of success in its aid and assistance in Southeast Asia in particular, and that there’s a lot we can learn from Japan in applying this to the rest of the developing world.”
Though imports of Beaujolais Nouveau by Japan declined this year for the first time in more than a decade, there are still plenty of people over here who are still bent upon making its arrival a major event.
A hot springs resort in Hakone just outside of Tokyo is one of them, pouring a dozen bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau into one of its pools each day to create an open-air “wine spa.”
“We installed the wine spa last year, and conducted the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration. It was a great success,” said Seiji Sanada, an official at Yunnesun.
“The aroma of Beaujolais is very pleasing, very nice. From the open-air spa, you can see the mountains, leaves turning color and hear the sound of a nearby ravine. It’s very pleasant,” he said.
It is said that people in the bath enjoy being on hand when the wine is poured in so they can catch some of it in their hands and have a drink as they soak.
Sanada claims that a Beaujolais bath gives you smooth skin and helps to relieve stress.
Norio Minorikawa has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for his sheer inability to shut up. The garralous television personality spends nearly 22 hours a week gabbing away on Japanese TV screens.
“I want to die talking,” was his response to the news.
It can be arranged, as they say.
A skin care company named SK-II is laying on the “Mysterious Japan” shtick pretty darn thick to tout a lineup of products they promise will deliver the benefits of a beauty secret known only to Japanese.
For almost a generation, Japanese women have known a secret. This secret was discovered by a Japanese monk who visited a sake brewery in Kobe.
He was surprised to discover that the brewery workers had extraordinary soft and youthful hands. Even an elderly man with pronounced wrinkles on his face possessed the silky smooth hands of a young boy.
This observation encouraged the monk to conduct a series of experiments. He eventually discovered a clear, nutrient-rich liquid that could be extracted during the yeast fermentation process. He shared his findings with a group of skincare scientists, who became equally excited by the potential of his discovery.
For the following five and a half years, intensive research was undertaken to understand more about this magical seemingly ‘age-defying’ liquid.
The site includes a section that describes the “ritual” required to keep your face youthful that sounds part Zen and part Karate Kid, with passages like: “VISUALIZE: Empty your mind and visualize your skin now and in the future. ”
May the Face be with you. . .
There’s much I could say about this, but I think its better if I just link to the site itself.
Ladies and gentleman, the first High Tech umbrella featuring built in Wi-Fi and digital projector!
CLICK HERE for the full article.
The Yomiuri Shimbun claims that a number of muncipalities are getting tougher on parents who claim free school meals for their children and then turn up to collect the kids in luxury cars. One parent even claimed he needed to avoid payment in order to finance the running of his car. Others claim the meals are part of the child’s compulsory free education and they intend to contest the law suits on human rights grounds.
Perhaps the municipalities concerned could take inspiration from the dubious practices revealed in this WaiWai piece, where host bars force women who can’t pay their bar bills to do sex work for them. These parents won’t be so keen to brandish their Louis Vuitton while they’re washing dishes or cleaning down tables at lunchtime.
