Japan - News/General Discussion

gaijinmark wrote:"Hey, you're supposed to be dead!!!" From FujiTV News:The Omuta Police Station in Fukuoka Prefecture mistook the identity of a man found dead at a local train station. The mistake came to light when family members ran into the man just hours after the cremation.[/list:u]

Man, that's crazy can you imagine how his family felt when they saw the man....

Transsexual geisha is former Ministry of Defence worker

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A former Ministry of Defence worker called Malcolm has become a transsexual geisha.

By Alastair Jamieson


Miss Murdoch retired from the MoD in 1994. The 5ft 11, 15 stone former cartographer, who is undergoing hormone treatment and is waiting for sex-change surgery, is now called Mary.

Miss Murdoch, a retired civil servant aged 70, persuaded tourism officials in the Japanese city of Kyoto to allow her to wear the lavish kimonos, heavy make-up and thick black wigs, which are required in the traditional Japanese role.

She said: "My ambition was to dress up as a geisha. I love Japanese culture and dress and wearing the clothes was the thing I looked forward to most."

Miss Murdoch said she was initially prevented from having her photograph taken in the traditional dress because only women could do so.

"I told them I had a female name on my passport and showed them my breasts from having hormone treatment," she said. "After that they were very welcoming and put aside the normal rules for foreign tourists."

Miss Murdoch, from Greenwich, south-east London, retired from the MoD in 1994 after becoming a manager. In the 1970s she took an Open University degree in Sociology.

"My job involved mapping military aircraft routes with the Civil Aviation Authority," she said. "It was a very masculine job and a lot of responsibility."

She began taking female hormones in 2004 after being referred to the Charing Cross Hospital in London and is waiting for an £11,000 sex change operation.

70????

I guess you're never too old to get a sex change. :beaten: :sweat:

Ugliest post ever :bleh:

gaijinmark wrote:Ugliest post ever :bleh:

Really I think Miss Murdoch compares rather well to the real deal... wouldn't you agree? :hehe:

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Tu_triky wrote:

Really I think Miss Murdoch compares rather well to the real deal... wouldn't you agree? :hehe:

You know, you're right. If I close my eyes, I can hardly tell the difference. :rolleyes: [/list:u]

gaijinmark wrote: You know, you're right. If I close my eyes, I can hardly tell the difference. :rolleyes: [/list:u]

Imbibing 13 bottles of sake has a similar effect.

gaijinmark wrote: You know, you're right. If I close my eyes, I can hardly tell the difference. :rolleyes: [/list:u]

If I stand a mile away from my monitor, I can hardly tell the difference.

^ Wow, Geisha is art.

Lifo wrote:^ Wow, Geisha is art.

Not the pic Triky posted. :bleh:

bmwracer wrote:
Not the pic Triky posted. :bleh:

Gomen nasai. :bow:

Groom Sets Hotel on Fire to Avoid Wedding[/list:u]TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man set fire to the hotel where he was due to get married at the weekend, rather than go through with the ceremony later the same day, newspaper reports said Monday.

Tatsuhiko Kawata, 39, had gone along with wedding plans despite already having a wife, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

"I thought if I set a fire I wouldn't have to go through with the wedding," the Yomiuri quoted him as telling police
I guess the drama will be titled "Mo ichido kekkon otoko" [/list:u]

gaijinmark wrote:Groom Sets Hotel on Fire to Avoid Wedding[/list:u]TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man set fire to the hotel where he was due to get married at the weekend, rather than go through with the ceremony later the same day, newspaper reports said Monday.

Tatsuhiko Kawata, 39, had gone along with wedding plans despite already having a wife, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

"I thought if I set a fire I wouldn't have to go through with the wedding," the Yomiuri quoted him as telling police
I guess the drama will be titled "Mo ichido kekkon otoko" [/list:u]

LOL. :rofl:

Now why didn't I think of that before I got married? :doh:

gaijinmark wrote:Groom Sets Hotel on Fire to Avoid Wedding[/list:u]TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man set fire to the hotel where he was due to get married at the weekend, rather than go through with the ceremony later the same day, newspaper reports said Monday.

Tatsuhiko Kawata, 39, had gone along with wedding plans despite already having a wife, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

"I thought if I set a fire I wouldn't have to go through with the wedding," the Yomiuri quoted him as telling police
I guess the drama will be titled "Mo ichido kekkon otoko" [/list:u]

So this guy was still married to someone else and was going to get married to another woman?? Guess there are Mormons in Japan too.

Tu_triky wrote:Guess there are Mormons in Japan too.

Lots of 'em, I think.

bmwracer wrote:
Lots of 'em, I think.

Well if he was trying to be all sly and wife himself another woman, that went up in flames, excuse the pun.

:crazy:

From FujiTV News:A third-grade boy went on a joyride in his family's car, driving about three kilometers from his home in Gifu Prefecture before being caught when he stopped to ask for directions.[/list:u][/list:u] Here's the video, apparently he stopped at a convienence store:http://fnn.fujitv.co.jp/en/news/headlines/articles/CONN00143615.html

gaijinmark wrote:From FujiTV News:A third-grade boy went on a joyride in his family's car, driving about three kilometers from his home in Gifu Prefecture before being caught when he stopped to ask for directions.[/list:u][/list:u] Here's the video, apparently he stopped at a convienence store:http://fnn.fujitv.co.jp/en/news/headlines/articles/CONN00143615.html

LOL i drove when i was in third grade once, except it was in the middle of a desert...

Edit: posted already. I didn't notice before :sweat:

Japanese 9yo takes family car for a spin


A nine-year-old Japanese boy drove a car alone for three kilometres to see his grandmother, saying he was confident at the wheel after playing video games, police said.

"I learned from playing video games at arcades and watching my father drive," the boy said, as quoted by a police spokesman in central Japan.

He took his family's car from his house in the city of Ogaki earlier this week, and headed for his grandmother's home, 15 kilometres away.

As the boy was driving, police received a call from a passer-by who said he had seen an vehicle that appeared to have no driver moving down the street.

Police found the car in the parking lot of a convenience store, where the boy was asking a store clerk for directions.

The car was nicely backed into the parking space, according to the police spokesman.

"I am sorry, I just wanted to go to my grandmother's house," the boy was quoted as saying when a police officer found him.

The boy was able to take the car as it had been parked outside of his house with the key left in the ignition.

The boy's parents did not notice his absence as the incident took place early on Monday, a public holiday.

"The boy is interested in driving because of video games. He drove the car out of his adventurous mind," the spokesman said, adding the police told his parents to keep a closer eye on him.

- AFP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/07/2414037.htm

Japan picks astronaut mom for 2010 flight
37-year-old is first mother to go on space mission for her country

By Mari Yamaguchi (AP)

updated 2 hours, 22 minutes ago
TOKYO - Japan has chosen a female astronaut to board the space shuttle Atlantis in 2010, the country's first mother to go on a space mission, officials said Tuesday.

Naoko Yamazaki, 37, is set to lift off for a two-week flight as a Japanese crew member of the Atlantis sometime after mid-February 2010, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said in a statement.

Yamazaki, the mother of a 6-year-old daughter, is the second Japanese woman to go into space after Chiaki Mukai in 1994 and 1998. She will be Japan's eighth astronaut in space.

During the mission, the Atlantis is to carry equipment and materials for the International Space Station, and Yamazaki will be responsible for operating a robotic arm, JAXA said.

Yamazaki joined the country's space agency in 1996 after studying aerospace engineering at the University of Tokyo, Japan's top university.

Dressed in a blue JAXA uniform, she told a news conference that she was a big fan of space adventure animation on TV as a child and space flight has been her lifetime dream.

"Now my daughter is beginning to understand space and space shuttles. She told me 'Mom, you're going to be the one to fly on that! I'm very happy,' " Yamazaki said. "I'm hoping to convey the wonders of space to many people, particularly children."

After about a decade of construction, the international space station, a project that involves Japan, the U.S., Russia, Canada and European countries, is set to be complete in 2010.

Yamazaki said there have been times when she struggled to balance child-rearing and work, but her commitment to the space mission was unshaken. And she has got a helping hand.

"During the two-week flight, my husband is going to take care of all housework," she said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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