Gucci teaming up with long-standing Japanese silk company to make beautiful limited-edition bags

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Gorgeous traditional Japanese art combined with Gucci’s history makes for some really stunning bags. 

Kyoto is famous for a lot of traditional Japanese art and food, and one of those is Nishijin silk textiles, known as Nishijin-ori in Japanese. Produced in the northwestern Kyoto district of the same name, this fabric is made of woven silk that has already been dyed, giving it a rough but durable texture. Nishinjin silk dates back to the Heian Period (around 1200 CE) when it was supported by the nobility, the warrior class, and the wealthy, and is now known as one of Japan’s traditional art forms.

With a 20-step production process, where each step is overseen by a specialist, these textiles are, naturally, very expensive. That’s why it’s used for some of the highest-quality, luxury products like the newest limited-edition handbags from fashion brand Gucci.

Gucci has teamed up in a special collaboration with Japan’s oldest Nishijin silk company, Hosoo, to make beautiful, durable bags, made with the involvement of both by Japanese artisans using traditional techniques handed down for generations and Gucci’s artisans in Florence.

Employing the signatures of both Gucci and Hosoo, they’ve come up with three new, three-dimensional textiles of Gucci motifs woven with the refined, shining silk, gold leaf, and silver leaf that Nishijin textiles are famous for. These textiles are used in two new extremely limited-edition Gucci bags.

The Gucci Bamboo 1947 is a contemporary reinterpretation of Gucci’s bamboo handle handbags, which have a long and painted history. In the post-World War II Italy of 1947, when materials for making handbags were scarce, Gucci founder Guccio Gucci, with the help of Florence artisans, came up with the idea to use light but strong bamboo for the handles of their bags. These “bamboo bags” soon became beloved by Hollywood actresses and jet setters and were known around the world as iconic fashion pieces.

Though designed in the traditional bamboo bag style, the Gucci Bamboo 1947 makes use of a beautiful finely woven floral Nishijin silk brocade with a pink leather border, a gold and bamboo catch, and a bamboo handle. It’s a feminine and sophisticated version of an already classic design.

The Gucci Diana is part of a line of bags that reimagine the bamboo-handled tote bags originally released in 1991, and is part of the Overture Collection. A signature of the new design is the leather belt surrounding the handle, which is removable but is designed to help maintain the shape of the handbag.

The Nishijin fabric used in the Gucci Diana is three-dimensional, with a very minute version of the Gucci logo woven in a single, neutral color. The result is a very sophisticated, refined handbag that looks like the height of luxury.

The bags are also meant to embody the bonds between the Gucci brand and the city of Kyoto. For example, in celebration of its 100-year anniversary in 2021 and in anticipation of the next 100 years to come, Gucci held several special events in Kyoto, one of which was Gucci Bamboo House, an exhibition themed on tradition and creation that showcased Gucci’s iconic bamboo handbags.

Both the Gucci Bamboo 1947 and Gucci Diana will be available for sale in extremely limited quantities at select Gucci shops around Japan on December 1. These are guaranteed to draw the eye and the ire of any who see them, so if you’ve got the cash to spare, you won’t want to snooze on them!

Gucci doesn’t often team up with Japanese brands, but when they do, the result is always stunning, even with something as bright and youthful as Doraemon. We’re always excited to see what they come out with next!

Source: PR Times via Japaaan
Images: PR Times
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Pokémon Center apologizes for writing model Nicole Fujita’s name as Nicole Fujita

https://ift.tt/cCOz02i Casey Baseel

Even native Japanese readers had trouble spotting the problem in collaboration announcement.

Pokémon is such a huge pop culture force in Japan that the franchise is always working on at least a few creative projects with other famous organizations and individuals. For example, next month there’s a new line of accessories coming to the Pokémon Center megastores that’s a collaborative effort between Pokémon and fashion model Nicole Fujita.

In addition to accessories inspired by Pikachu and universally-agreed-upon-as-cute Piplup, Teddiursa, and Stufful, there are two other unexpected Pokémon species that are part of the collection. According to the above announcement from the Pokémon Center official Twitter account, there are also “items with Flygon and Hydreigon motifs, which are two of Nicole Fujita’s favorite Pokémon.”

12月7日（水）、藤田二コルさんとコラボレーションしたアクセサリー「Pokémon accessory×25NICOLE」が、ポケモンセンターに登場！
ピアスやヘアアクセサリーをはじめ、藤田二コルさんお気に入りの、フライゴンやサザンドラをモチーフにしたアイテムにも注目してね！https://t.co/K9OiwYbTLU pic.twitter.com/l2neoAewls

— ポケモン公式ツイッター (@Pokemon_cojp) November 25, 2022

However, three days after sending out the above tweet, the Pokémon Center posted an apology, informing everyone that it had written Nicole Fujita’s name incorrectly in the first tweet, and correcting the mistake by rendering her name in the proper way.

藤田ニコルさんのお名前の記載に誤りがございました。
誤：藤田二コルさん
正：藤田ニコルさん
お詫びして訂正させていただきます。

— ポケモン公式ツイッター (@Pokemon_cojp) November 28, 2022

So what was the problem? Well, the initial tweet wrote the model’s name like this…

…but the correct way to write it is like this.

Having trouble spotting the difference? Maybe it’ll be easier if we put them right on top of each other.

▼ Top: wrong
Bottom: right

Still scratching your head? Don’t worry, you’re not alone, as plenty of people in Japan had trouble figuring out what was wrong too.

Your first guess might be to go looking for a difference between the first character for each version, but we’ll save you the time and eyestrain and let you know that all 18 strokes are identical in both, and also the correct way to write the “Fu” part of Fujita’s family name (since the Pokémon Center’s tweets are in Japanese, her name is written family name-first, as “Fujita Nicole”). No, where the Pokémon Center slipped up is with the third character.

But wait, aren’t they both just a pair of horizontal lines? Yes, but look carefully and you’ll see that in the incorrect character, the lines are longer than they are in the correct version, and there’s also a bit more vertical space between them. That’s because they’re actually two different characters. The top one is kanji, a character with a connected meaning used for indigenous Japanese words and names, while the bottom is katakana, a strictly phonetic character used for non-Japanese loanwords and names. Since New Zealand-born Fujita’s given name is Nicole, it’s written with the katakana, not the kanji.

▼ Top: kanji
Bottom: katakana

The difference isn’t something most people, even native Japanese readers, would be able to easily spot, though. Kanji and katakana aren’t ever mixed within a single family or given name, and while Fujita (藤田) is a common Japanese surname, the name 藤田二 doesn’t exist. Then there’s the fact that one of the pronunciations of the kanji 二 is “ni,” so even if someone did mentally register that the first katakana of Nicole’s name is replaced with the kanji 二, odds are they’d still read it as “Nicole.”

Add it all up, and Japanese Twitter users couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, even as the Pokémon Center said “We apologize for the error and wish to issue this correction.”

“Am…am I the only one who can’t find the difference?”
“I can’t either.”
“I spent about 10 minutes staring at my PC screen and still couldn’t figure it out.”
“Wasted so much time searching for some difference for 藤.”
“The person who caught this has some serious eagle eyes.”
“It’s like some new kind of ‘spot the difference’ activity book puzzle.”

All that said, the kanji 二 and the katakana ニ are different, and the difference is marginally more noticeable in other fonts.

Another problem is that while the two characters might look the same to the human eye, electronic devices know that they’re different right away, so using the wrong one in digital communications (like social media) can limit the reach of the message by making it harder for people who are spelling the name correctly to find the related tweet, website, etc. So keeping your 二 separate from your ニ is an important part of communicating effectively in Japanese, just like keeping your ソ separate from your ン.

Source: Twitter/@Pokemon_cojp via Hachima Kiko
Images ©SoraNews24
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How to make your own hoshi-imo Japanese dried sweet potato snacks【SoraKitchen】

https://ift.tt/QGPREAX Casey Baseel

Making one of Japan’s favorite snacks is a slow and easy process.

Japan loves sweet potatoes, especially in the fall when they’re in season. The most popular way to enjoy them is as roasted sweet potatoes, or yaki-imo as they’re called in Japanese, but Japan also has an alternative sweet spud snack named hoshi-imo, or dried sweet potato.

As unabashed lovers of both sweet stuff and traditional Japanese cuisine, hoshi-imo show up on our shopping list pretty frequently. As much as we love hoshi-imo, though, we’re often surprised at how expensive they are. On our last grocery store visit, for example, the shop had the packs below on offer, with hoshi-imo made with extra-sweet bani harkua sweet potatoes costing almost 1,000 yen (US$7.20), and even more ordinay varieties costing about 400 per pack.

Meanwhile, you can get a whole beni haruka sweet potato for about 300 yen. So we started wondering if we could just make our own hoshi-imo, and it turns out it’s a really simple process! Aside from the sweet potatoes, all you need is a steamer, a pair of cloth work gloves or hand towel, and a hanging drying net, of the sort you can get at Daiso or other 100 yen shops.

Once you’ve got all that, though, the next thing you need to do is to check the weather report. In order to transform your sweet potato into hoshi-imo, you’re going to need to let it dry for three days, and maybe even as much as a week. Obviously, the more sunshine there is the quicker the process will go, so we started making our hoshi-imo when the forecast predicated three days of sunny weather ahead.

The first step in the kitchen is to steam the sweet potatoes, with their skins still on, on low heat for one to two hours. You’ll know they’re ready when you can stick a toothpick or skewer through the potato smoothly and easily.

Then it’s time to remove the skin. You’ll want to do this right away, since once the potatoes cool down again the skin becomes harder to remove. Of course, the fact that you just spent an hour or two steaming them means the sweet potatoes are going to be piping hot, which is why you’ll want to use gloves or a towel. The skin will basically peel right off, but you do not want to make the mistake we did of using a plastic bag as a kitchen substitute and scalding our palms.

▼ Searing hand pain = blurry photos

Next you’ll need to slice the sweet potatoes into strips about 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) thick. Thankfully, it’s better to wait until the potatoes have cooled down before you start cutting, which took about 30 minutes.

By the way, if you’re wondering if you can just peel the raw sweet potatoes so you don’t have to worry about their heat, that’s not recommended. Steaming the potatoes in a skinless state makes them take in too much water vaper and turns them soggy.

Even with leaving the skins on for steaming, though, the sweet potatoes get very soft in texture. Japanese sweet potatoes have an especially high natural sugar content, so they sort of caramelize when heated.

But with some careful knife work, we managed to get everything sliced into strips, and then it was time to place them in the drying net and play the waiting game.

Like we mentioned above, it can take anywhere from three to seven days for the sweet potato to dry.

The way you can test to see if they’re ready is to take a piece and bend it lengthwise.

If it can fold in half like this without crumbling or tearing…

…then it’s ready to eat!

So how did our batch taste? Good. After three full days of drying, we had a pile of proper hoshi-imo, and at a fraction of what it would have cost us to buy that much pre-made at the store.

However, we have to admit that our hoshi-imo weren’t quite as sweet as professionally made store-bought varieties. We’re not sure if that’s because they use higher quality potatoes than what we could get our hands on at the supermarket, have a more sophisticated drying setup, or some other factors are at play.

The biggest difference here, though, is how much of a time savings store-bought hoshi-imo are. Making your own dried sweet potatoes doesn’t involve a lot of active prep time – setting up the steamer only takes a few seconds, and the peeling and slicing are both pretty quick processes as well. From start to finish, though, you’re looking at about three hours from when you start steaming until you have the sweet potato slices in the net, and at least three days after that until they’re ready to eat.

On the other hand, there’s a certain satisfaction then comes from making your own all-natural snacks, along with the unique slow-life appeal of the eventual reward for your patience. Plus, if you happen to live in a part of the world where you’ve got access to sweet potatoes but your local shops don’t have hoshi-imo, waiting three days for them to dry is probably still quicker than waiting until you next trip to Japan. Oh, and if you’ve got your heart set on making roasted sweet potatoes instead, we’ve got a new way to do that too.

Reference: Tebunuma
Photos ©SoraNews24
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Man rides motorbike into lobby of Fukuoka police station, demands they crack down on rude driving

https://ift.tt/V986Nky Master Blaster

If it worked for the Terminator, why not him?

When I took the police tests for a Japanese driving license, one of the most important things was to keep my car very close to the curb. It’s not something that’s done a whole lot on the actual roads here, but the police seem to really encourage it during testing. The logic is that by keeping the car so close to the side, it avoids collisions with people on bicycles and motorbikes by cutting them off them from squeezing into your blind spot.

It would seem the police more than anyone know how bikes can seem to pop out of nowhere and cause trouble. But it’s probably safe to say that even the Fukuoka Prefectural Police were shocked when a moped suddenly appeared in the middle of their front lobby on 28 November.

The bike was ridden by a 41-year-old office worker from Kitakyushu City who brought it up to the doors at about 7:10 in the evening. After the automatic doors opened, he proceeded to ride into the lobby and then started revving his engine loudly. Upon seeing an officer, he shouted: “I’m here to talk about bad driving!”

The police accepted his invitation and arrested him for unlawful entry so they could have more time to talk. According to police he admits to his crimes but adds that he wanted them to crack down on people who engage in rude driving techniques like tailgating. He had been earlier cut off by a driver and according to some reports had been having some problems with people at work as well.

As for why he decided to ride into the police station rather than walk, he said “I knew there was a parking lot in the police station but I rode up to the lobby.” While not much of an excuse, his honesty ought to count for something.

Readers of the news were understandably baffled by what happened and left comments explaining that while he may have a point about rude drivers, this clearly wasn’t the best course of action.

“What is going on here?”
“Is this a comedy bit?”
“Maybe he felt he was going to do some reckless driving and wanted to turn himself in.”
“If he were on drugs they would have said so, but he must have been on drugs, right?”
“He does have a point. I don’t see many patrol cars recently and people drive like idiots.”
“They’re not the manner police. What does he want them to do?”
“What kind of thought process goes from ‘I’m frustrated’ to ‘I’m going to rush a police station with my bike?'”
“Even though it’s a police station, the people inside must have been terrified. He could have had a weapon or sprayed the place with gasoline.”
“You can’t get arrested for rude driving. You can, however, get arrested for driving into a police station.”

No one was injured in the incident and no damage was done, but I have to assume that driving into a police station will result in a suspended license at the very least. However, we can’t know his fate without understanding all the details of this case.

Speaking of details, the man claimed he was cut off by a driver while on his bike. That means there’s a more-than-remote chance that he could have been behind a car doing the police-recommended technique of driving really close to the side to stop bikes from passing. If that is the case, it still wouldn’t even be the strangest or most ironic aspect of this whole incident.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun, FBS News, Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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Can we pick out the Japanese premium priced persimmon in this blind taste test?

https://ift.tt/RBPSEWx Katie Pask

Premium vs. supermarket — we try to avenge our persimmon failings from five years ago.

Our writers here at SoraNews24 pride ourselves on having something of a refined palate when it comes to food, so much so that we regularly take part in ‘Gourmet Writers’ Rating Check‘ challenges. The challenge premise is simple; participants are presented with two versions of a food item, and using only their taste buds, have to pick which one is the premium, more expensive option.

So far, the Gourmet Writers’ Rating Check challenges have taken on the challenges of seeing if they can tell the difference between real beer and happoshu, or distinguish fresh tuna from frozen tuna. But while our writers have clocked many taste testing hours over the years, there’s one taste test challenge in particular that still haunts them to this day.  The story takes place around five years ago, when our writers were much wetter behind the ears.

▼ Back in 2017, the gang looked a little different

In 2017, the challenge was set — could the SoraNews24 team pick out the more expensive persimmon from the run-of-the-mill supermarket persimmon?

In a surprise result, every single participant chose incorrectly.

Such a devastating loss has haunted the SoraNews24 team ever since, and so today, five years since they first failed, they decided to avenge their past selves and attempt the challenge once more.

▼ The persimmons were purchased, and the participants prepared themselves.

This time, the two persimmons being used were Isetan’s premium Taishu persimmon, which cost 1,296 yen each (US$9.30) from Japanese department store Isetan. Taishu persimmons are said to be carefully chosen for their sweetness, so this really is a premium product.

Up against the pricey persimmon was a regular supermarket-bought persimmon, which cost around 80 yen. That makes the fancy persimmon more than ten times more expensive than the normal persimmon, but will our writers be able to spot which persimmon is premium?

All participants knew what was on the line here, and nerves were running high. Would they all pick the same? Would this year end in failure too? Let’s find out!

● P.K. Sanjun: B

P.K.: “I heard somewhere that cheaper persimmons don’t have seeds in them, so I was trying to find seeds. Neither persimmon had any seeds though, so I’m just going with which one was sweeter, which was Persimmon B. From start to finish, B was just sweeter. A was really delicious, but I can still taste the sweetness from B in the back of my throat now.”

● Go Hatori: B

Go: “There’s definitely a difference, but it’s hard to tell which one is more expensive. But B is a little sweeter than A, so I’ll go for B. A was ripe but not sweet. But B was firm and sweet. Something was mentioned about the expensive persimmon having more sugar content, so I’m picking the sweeter of the two.”

● Seiji Nakazawa: B

Seiji: “Actually, I remember how the expensive persimmon tasted last time, so I’m confident this time around. A was soft but slightly sour, B was firmer but not sour at all.

Anyway, I’ll trust my memory and my gut and go with B.”

● Ahiruneko: B

Ahiruneko: “There’s no way that A is worth more than 1,000 yen. These are two completely different fruits. The texture is totally different and B is much, much sweeter. So far I’ve gotten all of these fruit challenges wrong, but if I get this one wrong then I’ll lose all faith in my taste buds. This might be the easiest challenge yet.”

● Masanuki Sunakoma: B

Masanuki: “If you bought A at a really fancy supermarket, you’d feel pretty ripped off. But I’ve never eaten a persimmon like B before. A tastes like a persimmon your grandparents give you when you visit, and B tastes like a fancy fruit.”

● Yuuichiro Wasai: B

Yuuichiro: “‘A is delicious… but B has a totally different texture! How should I explain it… I don’t usually associate crisp persimmons with a sweet taste, but this one was crisp and sweet. Plus, I can’t imagine a fancy supermarket selling soft persimmons like A.”

● Mr. Sato: B

Mr. Sato: “I usually guess these challenges based on the texture, but I’m going to try something new today. Hmm… I’ll guess B. A has a soft, almost soggy texture, and not worth 1,200 yen. If I’d bought this from a fancy supermarket, I’d definitely complain. I can’t really tell anything from the sweetness, but I guess B is a little sweeter.

Plus, B was much crispier than A, so in the end I guess I’m going to choose based on texture again.”

● Yoshio: A

Yoshio: “I actually eat a lot of persimmons because my kids like them. I’m gonna go with A here, simply because it’s the one I liked more. A is juicy and B is crisp, and for me A is the one I want to eat again. I’d recommend A to others, so I’m going to stick to my guns here, even if it means I lose.”

So with Yoshio going with A, no matter what the result the team somehow avoided the dreaded “everyone is wrong” scenario they were faced with last time, which was a relief. With 7 ‘B’ guesses and just one ‘A’ guess, which persimmon would be the premium one? It was time to find out.

▼ Drum roll please…

The premium Taishu persimmon was…

…

…

…

▼ Persimmon B!

With the whole team (except Yoshio) successfully guessing correctly, it’s safe to say their revenge on the challenge was a huge success.

Let’s look at each individual correct guess success rate, with a final comment from each competitor.

▼ Seiji Nakazawa (correct answer rate 84.2 percent) “B was crisp but not sour at all. ”

▼ P.K. Sanjun (correct answer rate 80 percent) “At any rate, B was sweeter.”

▼ Masanuki Sunakoma (correct answer rate 62.5 percent) “A was like my grandma’s persimmon.”

▼ Ahiruneko (correct answer rate 61.9 percent) “B was much, much sweeter.”

▼ Go Hatori (correct answer rate 60.8 percent) “I’ll go with B, which is crisp but sweet.”

▼ Yoshio (correct answer rate 52.3 percent) “I’m going to stick to my guns.”

▼ Yuichiro Wasai (correct answer rate 50 percent) “B is crisp but unusually sweet.”

▼ Mr. Sato (correct answer rate 47.6 percent) “If A was from a fancy supermarket, I’d definitely complain.”

You can check out the blind taste testing as it happened here —

So, with the exception of our poor boss Yoshio, the SoraNews24 gourmet writers managed to get their revenge on the persimmon challenge after five years. Here’s hoping the gang can keep on riding the victory train all the way to their next taste test, and see you again in five years time when the team take revenge on the overwhelming failure that was the cherry blind taste test challenge!

Photos © SoraNews24
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The joys of fatbiking around Okinawa’s remote Taketomi Island

https://ift.tt/kji2o4G Dale Roll

No other way will get you around the island so smoothly and quickly!

When it comes to beautiful ocean scenery, there’s nowhere better in Japan than the Yaeyama Islands of Okinawa, and if you want that and a look at the Okinawa of olden days, then you’ll certainly want to visit Taketomi Island. With a population of 323 and very little in the way of municipal development, visiting this remote island is like taking a step into the past, and since Taketomi is close to Ishigaki Island, the main travel hub of the Yaeyama chain, it’s an easy excursion for curious travelers to make.

Our Japanese-language reporter Kouhey, who’s been eating and drinking his way around nearby Ishigaki Island, recently made his fifth trip to Taketomi Island, and discovered the perfect way to get around. But first, he had to get there. A 15-minute ferry from the Euglena Ishigaki Port Remote Island Terminal connects Ishigaki Island with Taketomi, the “gateway to the Yaeyama.”

Unlike the other islands, Taketomi has something of an entry fee, which is 300 yen (US$2.15) per person. However, this fee is mostly dedicated to the environmental preservation of the island, and it’s actually voluntary. If you’re amenable, you can pay it either at the terminal or when you arrive at Taketomi Port.

▼ Naturally, Kouhey paid his dues. He loves Taketomi Island.

Once he paid his fee, he headed for the pier.

After a rocky, 15-minute ferry ride, he arrived at Taketomi Island. While alighting from the boat, Kouhey was surprised to see someone who looked like an Uber Eats delivery person. Could someone have ordered delivery all the way from Ishigaki…?!

Taketomi Island is famous for its water buffalo-drawn carts, which tourists can ride on a lazy circuit around the island while listening to the sanshin, an Okinawan string instrument. These carts are a unique part of Yaeyama Island culture, so just about everyone who visits takes a ride on one.

But Kouhey has another recommendation: renting a bicycle, and not just any bicycle, but a fatbike. Kouhey rented his from a fatbike rental store called Fatbike Rental Taketomi Island, located in the center of the island.

If you’ve never heard of a fatbike before, it’s a type of mountain bike with extremely thick tires.

Their thick treads make peddling on difficult roads easy and smooth, even those covered with sand and snow. The fatbike that Kouhey rented also had gears, which he hoped would make it easier to ride on the island’s hilly terrain.

The cost was 1,200 yen for the first two hours, and 600 yen for every hour after that. Rental bikes on Taketomi generally go for 400 to 500 yen per hour, so the fatbikes are a little expensive by comparison, but the island is full of sandy soil roads and hills. If you think about the convenience afforded by their wide tires and gears, that extra 100 to 200 yen per hour is worth it.

After several days of bad weather, the sun was out bright and brilliant, making it the perfect day for sightseeing, so Kouhey was eager to get on his fatbike and get going. With the rental process complete, he headed out on a tour of the island.

After the torrential rain of the day before, the dirt roads were in pretty terrible condition, but thanks to the fatbike Kouhey was able to quickly pass through the town and onto the island’s perimeter road without incident.

His progress was quick as he roared down the road.

His first stop was Kondoi Beach, the most famous swimming spot on Taketomi, which is also known for its superb beauty.

The water was amazingly crystal clear!

When Kouhey had his fill of its beauty, he headed back out on the perimeter road.

Ten minutes to the east, he came upon his second spot: Kaiji Beach, known for its star-shaped sand.

Here, too, the water was beautifully clear, making this a spot to compete with Kondoi Beach.

The sand was packed with tourists trying to find some star-shaped grains, but they aren’t so easy to find. Kouhey thought it would be easier to just buy them from souvenir shops.

Kouhey rode another kilometer (a little more than a half mile) east before he came upon a street called “Chocho no Michi”, or “Butterfly Road.” This dirt road was muddy and filled with puddles, but the fatbike had no trouble navigating it.

This took Kouhey to his third spot, Aiyaru Beach.

Since it’s relatively far from the main town, there were far fewer tourists there. Kouhey considers this a great hidden gem on Taketomi Island.

Back on the road for another kilometer, this time to the west. His destination: the West Bridge (Nishi Sankyo).

The very end of the bridge affords a gorgeous view of the sparkling blue waters surrounding the Yaeyama Islands.

The ride back to the perimeter road from the West Bridge is all uphill, and that is when the gears on the fatbike really came in handy. By the time he made it to the top, Kouhey was grateful his bike was equipped with them.

The West Bridge was the last stop on his fatbike tour. The island itself has a perimeter of only 3.4 kilometers (about 2.1 miles), so, even if you take your time at each spot, you can easily enjoy all of Taketomi in about an hour with a fatbike.

His tour finished, Kouhey headed back to town…

And returned the fatbike to the rental shop.

So there you have it–a tour of Taketomi Island by fatbike! Taketomi has plenty of bicycle rental shops that offer street bike rentals, but if you have the chance, Kouhey absolutely recommends renting a fatbike to help navigate the dirt roads and hills of the island.

But whether you decide to go with a fatbike or a street bike, make sure you follow the rules, including parking only in designated bicycle parking spots and not riding on the beaches themselves. Of course, you probably also shouldn’t get drunk on awamori jelly before you get on a bike, either.

As long as you ride safely and respectfully, though, a fatbike lets you fully enjoy the beautiful sights of Taketomi Island without a hitch!

Images © SoraNews24
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Buying Japanese concert tickets may get even harder for foreign tourists with new government plan

https://ift.tt/eVX9Bb0 Casey Baseel

Digital agency wants to link sports and concert ticket purchases to resident-only government-issued ID card.

Back in September, Taro Kano, Japan’s Minister of Digital Affairs, called on the Japanese government to stop using floppy discs, cassette tapes, and other outdated storage media. It’s a move that many think is long overdue, but his latest initiative isn’t being met with nearly as happy a response from the public.

According to a Yomiuri Shimbun report, Kano has directed the Cabinet’s Digital Agency to begin concrete discussions with professional sports leagues and other event management organizations to encourage them to require eventgoers present their My Number Card, a government-issued ID card, both when purchasing tickets and attempting to enter the event venue.

The Digital Agency’s suggestion is that when buying tickets, you’d be required to touch your My Number Card, which is equipped with an IC chip, to your smartphone before you could finalize the purchase. You’d then also be required to present your My Number Card on the day of the event before being let into the stadium, concert hall, or theater.

▼ “Hello, Tokyo! Let me see everybody put your…My Number Cards up?”

The advantage to this system, the Digital Agency says, is that the increased security and improved identity confirmation would help prevent ticket scalping. That may be true, but it seems significant that it’s not the sports and entertainment industries who are going to the government and asking for their ideas on how to stop scalpers, but the government that’s initiating the talks.

Currently, all residents of Japan have been issued a My Number number, which is similar to a U.S. social security number and is used as a form of identification for pension, tax, and other government functions. In 2024 the My Number Card is scheduled to replace the current national health insurance card, and the government is also thinking of having it function as one’s driver’s license too.

However, only about 60 percent of Japanese residents have applied for the currently still optional IC chip-equipped My Number Card, with many saying they don’t see a significant benefit to it. The government wants to eventually increase that number to 100 percent, and making it easier to get sports and concert tickets if you have a My Number Card is being seen by many as a ploy to pressure the general population into applying for one.

Of course, it’s more accurate to say that the proposal would make it impossible to purchase tickets if you don’t have a card, so the Digital Agency’s recommendation wouldn’t so much be providing a new benefit to My Number Card holders as it would be taking away a convenience people already have and locking it behind the get-a-My-Number-Card gate.

The proposed system would also make it impossible for those without smartphones to purchase tickets, since the device is required to authenticate the buyer’s identity via the My Number Card IC chip. Many have also expressed concern over privacy and personal information security if they’re required to electronically send data that essentially links the card holder, the government, and the events they’re attending. And though it’s not something that’s currently a major point of discussion within Japan, ticket purchases and event entry requiring a My Number Card, something only residents of Japan can obtain, would essentially lock travelers and short-term visitors out of live entertainment events unless organizers go to the trouble of setting up a completely separate purchase protocol for them.

▼ Going to see a Baystars game as an international tourist doesn’t seem like it should require you to convince the Japanese government to let you into Yokohama Stadium.

Add it all up, and comments on Japanese Twitter about the proposal haven’t been at all positive.

“So I’m gonna need to take my My Number Card with me to idol concerts? Don’t appreciate the government sticking its nose in my oshikatsu.”
“That’s not what the My Number system was created for at all, is it? The Japanese government is really out of bounds here.”
“It’s like their ultimate aim is to create a total surveillance society.”
“Now they’re just doing whatever crazy thing they can think of to force people to apply for the card.”
“So they want us to put all sorts of personal data on a single card, and use that card when we buy tickets? They aint right in the head!”

Considering some of the scandals we’ve seen in just the past year involving government employees in Japan losing people’s personal data, the reactions aren’t surprising.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun via Livedoor News, Twitter
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso, Wikipedia/横浜1978
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Yakiniku Like in Tokyo starts serving up solo shabu shabu hot pot, and we tried it

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Party of one? No problem at this Yakiniku Like.

Yakiniku Like, a restaurant chain that serves up sets like solo yakiniku and solo sukiyaki, has started selling solo shabu shabu hot pot at one of their restaurants in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood.

The Solo Domestic Beef Shabu Shabu Set at the Shinjuku Nishiguchi branch costs just 1,280 yen (US$9.20), and it comes with Japanese beef, rice, udon noodles, kimchi, and a tare dipping sauce set. Our Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato made the journey to Yakiniku Like to test it out.

▼ He was pleased to discover that for a limited time, you can get free refills of rice with your shabu shabu set order.

Tables at Yakiniku Like normally have a grill in the center of the table to cook your yakiniku, but when Mr. Sato put in his order for shabu shabu, restaurant staff removed the plate to reveal a personal shabu shabu pot.

▼ Yakiniku Like’s yakiniku set table configuration

▼ This is what the shabu shabu set looks like.

Mr. Sato’s order came ready for him to prepare: the beef, the rice, the kimchi, the tare sauce mixture, and some udon noodles to finish it off. His personal pan was also full of broth, cabbage, and mushrooms to accompany the beef.

Not sure what to do? No worries! At the table there’s a helpful instruction card for shabu shabu newbies that explains how to prepare the meal. First let the broth in the pan come to a boil, then dip in the beef until it’s cooked. When all of your beef and most of your vegetables were gone, add your leftover tare dipping sauce to the broth , then add the noodles for a closer. It’s like two meals in one: shabu shabu and udon!

▼ The card also explained that Mr. Sato could ask for rice refills using the touch panel at his table.

Mr. Sato quickly got to preparing what Yakiniku Like calls their Legendary Tare Sauce, which has green onions, seaweed, and chili pepper flakes in there along with the egg yolk.

▼ Mr. Sato waited until the pan contents came to a boil as per the instructions, then dipped in the beef.

▼ When the beef was cooked, he lifted it out of the pan and then transferred it to his personal tare dipping bowl.

Delicious! He felt like it warmed him from the inside out. The garlic and chili flakes in the sauce overpowered the rest of the sauce, though, so maybe it would be better to let customers adjust the tare ingredients to their taste, he thought.

Still, it was a perfect pairing for rice. It made him wonder if the tare sauce was flavored more to accompany rice than to bring out the beef’s flavor. If you’re a rice lover, this is the ticket.

Finally, he finished off his meal with the included udon noodles.

Mr. Sato purposely left some room in his stomach for the udon, though it was hard to resist ordering more rice. The noodles only took one minute to boil to perfection.

▼ Your stomach definitely won’t be empty at the end of this.

Mr. Sato thought this was the best part of the meal. The juices from the beef had flavored the broth even more, so it was a super-rich meal. He began to regret not saving some of the meat to eat with the udon .

All in all, it was an ultra-satisfying meal for Mr. Sato. He hopes they do solo udon next time. It seems Yakiniku Like is just testing out the solo shabu shabu for now, so it’s only limited to one store at the moment. If you want to try out this solo shabu shabu, head over to the Shinjuku Nishiguchi branch!

Restaurant information
Yakiniku Like Shunjuku Nishiguchi Branch | 焼肉ライク 新宿西口店
Address: Tokyo-to, Shinjuku-ku, Nishi-Shinjuku 7-11-17 Blessten Nishi-Shinjuku 1F
東京都新宿区西新宿7-11-17ブレステン西新宿1F
Open: 10 a.m.-11 p.m. (last order 10:30 p.m.)

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