I thought I’d seen everything when I read the headline in today’s paper that Nestle was going to bail out Yubari city from its bankruptcy.

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Japan has drawn world attention recently due to efforts aimed at increasing her defensive and offensive military strength. Two of the strongest opponents are South Korea and China. In part due to a poor history stemming from WWII and Japan’s strong connection with America, these countries view an armed Japan as a real threat. They often cite history of the war atrocities that Japan can not be trusted with such power, where as Japan stands to reason her military build-up is only a response to the changing political climate that surrounds the island.

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As you may have noticed, we were down for the last 4 or 5 days. Some malicious person decided that hacking stippy would be a novel idea. Well, I was away for a week, and did not have access, and therefore not a chance to restore from backups until now, but this is the first [...]

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The final part of Stippy.com’s “Prison in Japan” series. We have had a lot of feedback about this ten part journal of one gaijin who spent 22 nights in the lockup, for one bad night out. Probably it served him right, yes, but he shared the experience for the rest of us to think about.

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Japan has been injected right into the biofuel debate, and has recently started trialling the bio-based “green” diesel and petrol in 55 “gasoline stands” around Tokyo. What does biogas mean for Japan? Will Japan be importing corn from the US rather than crude from the Middle East?

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Part 9 of Stippy.com’s Prison in Japan series

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This is stippy’s eighth part in a ten part series (see also parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) about one foreigner’s experience of being put in a Japanese prison (留置場 or “ryuchijyo”, a prison for locking up people for as long as 23 days until they are convicted, or cleared of a [...]

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Apparently 1 in 20 of Japanese weddings last year included at least one foreigner. As a recent addition to this growing group, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to be married to a Japanese person. Pre-marital counseling is all about preventing one of those “this isn’t the (wo)man I thought I married” style shocks, half a year into your marriage. Not only does it give you a great chance to express your fears and hopes to your partner in a supporting atmosphere, it also enables you to learn a lot about some of the stranger expectations that your partner might have for you in your new life together.

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