Good ole underground comics.

Despite Japan having 80% of its landmass uninhabited, sheer, bare wilderness, spending days on the trains commuting to and from work in Tokyo and you would think the place a railway subsidised ant farm with vested interests in concrete manufacture, but this is most definitely not the case.

A day away from the centre of Tokyo can refresh you beyond belief, but as a stressed out foreigner who doesn't know those secret hideaway walks and oft or seldom beaten tracks or the means to reach them, thankfully Gary DA Walters has spent the time to outline interesting walks, strolls, and proper hiking trips in his book "Day Walks Near Tokyo"

絶対絶命都市 - Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (Desperate City) was a game the premiered some years ago on the PS2, putting the player in the shoes of an earthquake survivor. Outwitting the hazards of an earthquake torn city, the lead character was also involved in revealing a cartel conspiracy. While the game presented a unique story and unique gameplay. i.e. it pre dated Ico with the idea of nurturing your game companions, their welfare was your welfare. Even though this was one of the first games to use the Hollywood disaster movie genre, the game never really delivered all you expected from it. Still it was a brave attempt.

Passing Akihabara last week I noticed a huge billboard for the next installment of this game, it looks graphically polished, with greater interaction between characters and more characters (the last game only saw a handful of survivors which lead to an unrealistic feel).

It will feel strange playing a game about earthquake survival in a country that lives with a daily threat of complete devastation, being situated in one of the most earthquake prone parts of the world.

I just hope I pick up some survival techniques from the game for not IF, but WHEN the "big one" comes.

My lady and I went to the local botanical gardens recently. Whereas most botanical gardens are expensively heated glass domes guzzling non renewable heating fuel to propagate plant growth, in Japan they do it that little bit different. The site of the gardens was built on land filled with non burnable rubbish and next to the gardens, a local incinerator for burnable garbage provided the heating system to generate the tropical temperatures required for plant growth. First time I'd ever seen a real cocoa plant, the smell was choco-tastically intoxicating; I wonder what I would be like to eat one raw ?

The use of "new" of a word can draw our attention like the zeitgeist sycophants that we are to anything no matter how mundane. If its "new" we will give it our interest, unless its "traditional" which favors to a different "market appeal"...How about "now", its like "new" just a change of vowel...?

Like the west anything slapped with a "new" sticker when it comes to a product gives good sales, but in Japan it can be juxtaposed into comedic positions; see above "new salt" - its regular salt, no changes, but its NEW !

Well, no! We don't call it"Japanese rice cracker"!

Sembei - What the hell do you call em in English ?! Why not call em what YOU call em ! The Japanese people I ask you !?

February 3rd marks "Setsubun" in Japan - A pre Spring "Halloween" type affair without silly outfits,well kids wear masks and hurls peanuts, soy beans and other pulses screaming "Oni ha Soto, Fuku ha Uchi" - Devils outside ! Good luck inside !

The significance ?

Various reasons abound,. The birth of spring, the celebration of an old monk driving out demons by hurling pulses at them, sometimes the beans are heated, splitting them to encourage the growth of spring as one co-worker mentioned.

Regardless, its a time for supermarkets to stock up on pulse based products accompanied by paper masks for the kids to celebrate a tradition no one really understands anymore including bewildered gaijin like myself seeing kids running around with red devil masks chucking peanuts screaming like they've escaped drowning.