A Taiwanese toy company name Wind Hobby reportedly has come out with a radio-controlled toy Apache helicopter that can shoot BBs while in flight. Flight time is eight minutes between charges.
One? Heck. . . I’d like to get a squadron of these. . . I wonder if they play Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries during attacks . . .
Via The Raw Feed
The New York Times recently reported on a new trend in Japanese tourism, both those visiting Japan and Japanese going abroad. While fewer Japanese are traveling outside the country, more foreigners are visiting; most of whom are coming from Asian countries.
Once prohibitively expensive, Japan is suddenly drawing soaring numbers of Asian tourists who splurge at the nation’s department stores, lounge in its hot spring resorts or explore remote corners, like this stretch of pristine mountains and forests on Japan’s northernmost tip.
Japan itself was once known for its free-spending tourists, who flocked to boutiques from Hong Kong to Fifth Avenue. But as Japan’s economy stalled for the last dozen or so years, rapid development in countries like China and South Korea raised living standards there.
At the same time, there has been a decline in the number of people going abroad from Japan. The number of Japanese traveling abroad has fallen 3 percent from the peak in 2000 of 17.8 million, the government-run Japan National Tourist Organization said.
By contrast, the number of visitors to Japan from South Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong almost doubled last year from five years earlier, to 5.36 million, according to the tourist group. Those four regions alone accounted for nearly two-thirds of all foreign visitors to Japan last year, the organization said.
Many Asian tourists interviewed said they liked to shop here because Japan has the latest fashions first, and at prices way below those in many other Asian countries, where tariffs are steep. They also said they liked visiting Japan because it was close, safe and cleaner than much of the rest of Asia.
During the 1980s, Americans were the largest group of overseas visitors to Japan, but have now fallen to fourth behind South Korea, Taiwan and China. Surveys also showed Asian tourists came to Japan for different reasons than Westerners. While Americans said they came to see cultural attractions like temples, Asians cited shopping, followed by hot springs and nature. Visits to factories are also popular, he said.
Here’s a little avant-garde weirdness from Tokyo Design Festa.
She’s from Taiwan and was one of the performers at the Design Festa - vid coming up soon on that!
Music by SevenCycleTheory
Check out this Chinese dude doing some pretty cool MC Hammer moves.
I don’t know what is cooler, him or the woman behind him who seems to be totally unphased by what is going on around her.
Hong Kong’s first branch of the Toilet Restaurant of Taiwan was opened recently, complete with its toilet-shaped seats, commode-shaped dishes, and urinal-shaped cups.
The photo below shows the restaurant’s most popular item: pork ribs in black pepper sauce.
This is S.H.E., a music group from Taiwan that consists of three young women named Hebe Tian, Ella Chen, and Selina Ren.
Ever since their debut CD in 2000, the members of S.H.E. have produced hits in pop, rock, R&B, and other genres, and they have received an impressive number of music awards. In addition to their music, the S.H.E. girls also have appeared in dramas, variety shows, concerts and other TV programs, making them one of the most popular groups among young people in Asia.
Already very well-known throughout Asia, S.H.E. is a group that bears watching as its popularity spreads to other shores.
Here is S.H.E. performing their song Ring, Ring, Ring.
The China Daily is reporting that a woman in Taiwan who had undergone breast enhancement surgery three years ago had one of her bosoms deflate after being stung by a bee.
The report claims that she was shocked when her right breast wenrt flat two days after being stung.
As just about everyone probably knows by now, a China Airlines jetliner exploded into flames earlier this week shortly after arriving at Naha airport in Okinawa, Japan from Taiwan. Luckily all 157 passengers and eight crewmembers escaped unharmed.
Shortly after that, I saw video reports on TV news programs in Japan in which the president to China Airlines, Chao Kuo-shui, apologized to the passengers that were on the plane as he handed each one a red envelope containing a 100-dollar bill as “compensation money.” Though a number of passengers, who lost all of the baggage they had with them in the fire, expressed disdain at such a paltry sum, a China Airlines spokesman said, “We believe the passengers accepted our sincere apologies.”
Now we get word that China Airlines, which has been deluged with cancellations since the accident, has shifted into full damage control mode and has painted over their company name and logo on what is left of the burned out wreckage still sitting on the tarmac in Naha.
After the accident, photographs and video footage of the jet continued to appear in news reports, and the company apparently painted over the name and logo to limit further damage to its image.
Before
After
According to a spokesperson from China Airlines, “We followed international procedures. We do not have detailed information.”
Thanks to Mr. Pink
A dance studio in Taiwan is teaching housewives and other women the art of stripping to music. The purpose of the classes is to: “help women appreciate their bodies, discover their ’sexy charms’ and boost their self-confidence.”
“All women want to feel sexy, charming and attractive. I tell my students that they are dancing for themselves because they like themselves and they are confident in themselves,” [says Nina Chen, who runs the school].
“In the process of stripping they can re-examine their bodies and explore the sexy sides in them. I think a woman regardless of her figure can be sexy if she wants to be,” she said.
According to Chen, some of the women attend the classes just for fun, while others hope to spice up relationships or marriages.
According to one student:
“I used to worry too much about how people think of me and I was not satisfied with the way I looked. At this class I learn to appreciate the curves of my body from different angles and I am more at ease.”
A ceremony was held in Taiwan recently to mark the changing of that name of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. People for and against the name change gathered at the hall, scuffling with police and with each other, and doing what they could to demonstrate their feelings about the name change.
One old man decided to express his distaste over the even by dropping his pants and shouting ”[Taiwan President] Chen Shui-bian has no balls!”
As funny as this seems, it looks as if dropping your trousers for a good cause it becoming quite the fad around the globe. The photo below shows a scene from Mexico City where demonstrators were demanding the return of land they way was confiscated from them illegally.
