It might be no surprise to you that the world’s oldest rugby player is… Japanese.

According to the Senior World Rugby Championship, Sadayoshi Morita, now aged 90, is officially the world’s oldest player.

He may not have the zip that he had when he started playing for his local team in Fukuoka prefecture in 1934, but he still trains three times a week.

(from ndtv.com)
He hopes to play for some time longer, but admits it’s not getting any easier.

He said, “It is extraordinarily tough for 90-year old guy to run at top speed. But you must get over it to enjoy playing rugby. If it weren’t for the sprints in this game, I would be able to play rugby until I was 110 years old.”

Morita played for his company’s rugby team and lead the Yahata Steel team to three straight championships in Japan’s Industrial League from 1950 to 1952.

At 39, he retired from the team but could not abandon the game for long and joined a league for over 40s. At the age of 80, he returned to the rugby field even after falling out of a tree — an accident which left him wheelchair-bound for three months.

“The secret is to play a lot of sports and eat alot, that is the secret of my fine playing.”

Morita has no plan to quit his favorite sport until he is at least 95-years old.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to retire if you’ve got another 5 good years in you. You can see Mr Morita in action with this video from GrowingBolder.com.

Everyone keeps telling me how on a clear and perfect day, you can see Mount Fuji from Tokyo. Well hell, I’ve spent the better part of two years in and out of Tokyo and every time I’m in town, I have never once been able to see it.

But some lucky shmuck with the Associated Press today was able to snap off this photo and capture it perfectly. Damn it! In case your not familiar, Japan said on Monday it would try to have its famed Mount Fuji and four other sites registered on the U.N.’s World Heritage list.

I’m not sure if Fuji really constitutes a world heritage site. Its a very iconic image, but UNESCO wants places that speak to the history of human kind. Mount Fuji as far as I know hasn’t directly impacted mankind. It is a very iconic image of Japan of course. But World Heritage Site? I don’t know… I’m not sure where I stand on this.  How about you?

Looks like the King of Ped’s on-again-off-again trip to the Land of Wa is on again.

For a mere 400,000 yen, you can purchase a premium ticket to something laughingly called a “fan appreciation event,” which is scheduled for this March.

There you will be graced with anything from 30 seconds to one minute in the presence the Beat It Kid during which he will. . . Well, who knows what he will do? Moon walk? Remove his nose? Offer your kids a slug of Jesus juice?

Michael says he really likes Japan

“I love Japan,” he said. “It is one of my favorite places in the entire world.”
“My friends and fans in Japan have been so supportive of me and my family for many, many years,” he said. “My fans in Japan helped me achieve historic milestones in the music industry.”

Here is a video from the water purification festival that I wrote about below.

Warm Winter Weather Portents Of Severe Global Warming?

Less Blue Skin Than Last Year

Recently an annual purification ritual at Tokyo’s Kanda Myojin Shrine was held. The ritual involved men and women jumping into a shallow pool of freezing cold natural water and showering themselves vigorously with bucketfuls of icy water. These purification-through-freezing-water rituals known as Misogi are often held in Winter to display the fierce dedication of the participants.

Young Girls Brave The Cold Water And The Warm Winter

Most winters, particulary the record cold one last year, this ritual would be viewed as brave, strong, and more than a little insane. However, this winter given the abnormally warm temperatures, it actually looked rather refreshing.

Preparing For Their Refreshing Wintry Dip

With the exception of a few storms here and there, Japan’s winter has been exceptionally warm this year. This is in sharp contrast to last year when record snowfalls blanketed the northwestern coast and over a hundred people died in snow-related injuries.

Heavy Snowfall Last Winter In Nagano

Even Tokyo was hit with a significant amount of snow.

Last Winter’s Snow In Ueno Park in Tokyo

The winter has also been conspiciously late. Autumn leaf viewing has long been a popular tradition in Japan but in Autumn! Autumn and Winter seemed to have set their seasonal alarm clocks rather late. People were viewing Autumn leaves in Kyoto as late as New Year’s Eve!

Beautiful Autumn Foliage - But Two Days Before Christmas!?

A number of Japanese ski slopes only received their first heavy snow within the last few weeks. Several skiing events had to be cancelled or relocated to better slopes.

The warm weather is not only in Japan. Prior to the ice storms now sweeping across much of the US, the weather in many places felt like a fine day in April rather than January. The ice storms themselves are byproduct of the unnaturally warm weather.

Perhaps Former US Vice-President Al Gore saw the Kanda Myojin Shrine event and took note of the lack of blue skin of the participants because he was in Japan recently urging Japanese business leaders to set the example for the world to follow on environmental policies.

Gore mentioned Japan’s unusually warm winter and the early blooming Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C. were ominious signs that not all was well.

Stretching Out Their Cold Limbs After Their Dip

“Our planet now has a fever. And it’s not going away,” Gore said. “We have a moral obligation to those coming after us.”

Gore was also promoting his documentary An Inconvenient Truth on global warming.

Obviously Smarter, The Japanese Snow Monkey Prefers A Hot Bath To A Cold One In Winter

« Collapse story

From the website of Strapya World, a site that calls its self “A world-Wide Japanese Cellphone Strap & Accessory Superstore” come these delightful Mario Mushroom chairs!

Admit it! It looks comfortable doesn’t it? Damn it I want one! My only question is though it kinda looks like it would be annoying after a while. The cylinder of the mushroom seat doesn’t look particularly comfy after an hour or so…

Taken from the excellent Tokyo-based site PingMag, this feature on Bruce Osborn’s Oyoko series of Japanese generational portraits is worth a read.

Well, maybe not quite eternal, but at least longer and healthier. Mosburgers, Krispy Kreme, Mr. Donut, and Mega Macs are definitely not involved. Obviously the Quadruple Bypass Burger (not available in Japan) is certainly not involved, and especially if you order the “Flatliner” fries and smokes on the side. No, fish and rice are the keys.

The Stamford Advocate and others report that Yone Minagawa, now believed to be the world’s oldest living person, has a healthy appetite that’s developed over the last 114 years, according to the staff at her nursing home in southern Japan. Japan has one of the world’s longest average life spans, a factor often attributed to a healthy diet rich in fish and rice.

Born January 4, 1893, Minagawa has outlived four Japanese Emperors. Minagawa has been living at the Keiju nursing home in the southwestern city of Fukuoka for several years and maintains a healthy appetite, though she seldom leaves her bed, said nurse Sumako Katsuki who also added “When she feels good, she ventures to the dining room
by motorized wheelchair.”

The world’s oldest man is also Japanese. Tomoji Tanabe, 111, was born Sept. 18, 1895, and lives in the southern city of Miyazaki. In 2003, Japanese women set a new record for life expectancy, at 85.3 years, while men live an average of 78.3 years. The number of Japanese living beyond 100 has almost quadrupled in the past 10 years, with the once-exclusive centenarian club soon expected to surpass 28,000, the government announced in September.

The number of people living past 100 has been on the rise since 1971, and has accelerated since 1996 when Japan had 7,373 people who had reached three figures. While experts say that there are more active centenarians than before, the rapidly graying population adds to concerns over Japan’s overburdened public pension system. Its centenarian population is expected to reach nearly 1 million - the world’s largest - by 2050, according to U.N. projections.

It’s still not exactly clear to me why this story was reported first in an American newspaper, though. Stamford did have the oldest person (until he died recently) so I suppose that’s the connection. But still–it seems to be a Japanese story?