Yea, I read somewhere that suicide isn't considered a "sin" there in Japan, whereas here in the west it's frowned upon and considered your first class ticket to hell. That might have something to do with it.
Yeah, irrespective of religious connotations, it's lame.
I think this actually came from the Southern China Tourism Promotion Board. The original caption reads: "We serve everything on four feet - except the furniture; everything that flies - except airplanes; and everything under the sea - except submarines. Come and have the best meal of your life - it's probably going to the last after you get infected with SARS or avian flu, or good ol' fashioned straight-to-the-gut poisoning."
Jean-Luc Naret, right, director of the Michelin Guides, and Bernard Delmas, president of Nihon Michelin Tire Co., Ltd, pose with "Michelin Guide Tokyo 2008" at a news conference to announce the selection of Michelin star-rated restaurants in Tokyo on Monday. (REUTERS)TOKYO (AP) -- It's official. Tokyo has unseated Paris as the world's culinary capital.
That's according to Michelin Guides, the French bible of gastronomy, which announced a Tokyo edition Monday -- its first outside Europe and the United States.
Michelin's Tokyo guide awarded 191 stars to 150 restaurants in the Japanese capital, the most number of stars awarded in any city. Previously, Paris had the most stars, at 65.
Eight restaurants in Tokyo, including two sushi eateries, received Michelin's highest three-star rating. But Paris can still claim to have the most top-rated restaurants, with 10.
Michelin also crowned 82-year-old Jiro Ono of Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi restaurant in central Tokyo the world's oldest three-star chef.
"Tokyo is a shining star in the world of cuisine," Michelin Guides Director Jean-Luc Naret said at a press conference in the capital, after announcing the picks to gasps from hundreds of Japanese reporters gathered there. He declared Tokyo "the world leader in gourmet dining."
"We found the city's restaurants to be excellent, featuring the best ingredients, culinary talents and a tradition passed on from generation to generation and refined by today's chefs," Naret said.
A team of three undercover European and two Japanese inspectors spent a year and a half visiting 1,500 of Tokyo's estimated 160,000 restaurants to decide on the ratings, according to Michelin. The famed guidebook series rates restaurants on excellence in cooking, service, decor and upkeep.
There were so many top restaurants that all entries in Michelin's Tokyo edition have at least one star, a first for any city, Naret said. Five of the eight awarded top honors served Japanese cuisine, while three were French restaurants.
In another first, two restaurants received top ratings despite getting rapped for their service, which the guidebook rates separately.
Sushi establishments Sukiyabashi Jiro and Sushi Mizutani were awarded three stars even though their "Category of Comfort" rating was just 1 out of a scale of 5. Even top sushi chefs here tend to serve their fare in small, starkly decorated eateries with minimal table service.
"It's true that Sukiyabashi Jiro has very small tables and its decor is low-key," said Taku Suzuki, spokesman for Michelin in Japan. "But that doesn't mean its cuisine is anything less than first rate," Suzuki said.
Sukiyabashi Jiro could not be reached for immediate reaction.
The entries in the Michelin Guide Tokyo, which goes on sale Thursday in English and Japanese, were expected to ease local skepticism that the French can be the best judge of Japan's culinary traditions.
"The French do not understand anything about sushi and are so far behind in handling fresh fish. So how can they judge us?" Yoshikazu Ono had told The Associated Press in March when the Tokyo guide was announced. Ono is a chef at Sukiyabashi Jiro chef and son of Jiro Ono.
The first Michelin guide was published in 1900 as a handbook for French motorists. It is published by the Clermont-Ferrand-based tire company of the same name.
Michelin Guides, which cover 23 countries, have been expanding their reach to more cities and launched Los Angeles and Las Vegas editions last week. Tokyo will spearhead Michelin's push into Asia and a guide to a second Asian city will be announced next year, according to Naret.
yeah you can really find a wide melange of cuisines from all over the world in tokyo.....and whether it's japanese food or otherwise, the Japanese take their food seriously.
Man arrested for kicking girl who was sitting near train door
YOKOHAMA -- A man has been arrested for kicking a girl who was sitting near a train door and chatting with her friends, police said.
Yukihiro Morimoto, 35, a company employee from Sakae-ku, Yokohama, is accused of inflicting bodily injury. He said he attacked the girl after warning her.
"I got furious after I warned her (against sitting near the train door) but she failed to stop," Morimoto was quoted as telling investigators.
The girl claims that the man attacked her without warning. "He suddenly kicked me."
At about 7:55 p.m. on Tuesday, Morimoto kicked the 17-year-old girl from Yokohama's Tsuzuki-ku, who was sitting down near a door on a JR Negishi Line train, local police said. The girl hit her face against the door, chipping one of her teeth.
Alerted by a worker at Kannai Station in Naka-ku, police officers rushed to the station and arrested Morimoto.
gaijinmark wrote: The girl is suing for mental anguish because now people think she's Erika Sawajiri. [/list:u]
:hehe: :hehe:
They said she chpped her tooth, not grew an extra one....if she's anything like Sawajiri no need to worry...like all good sharks she'll grow another in no time.
Wynter wrote:Ah okay, that totally justifies why he kicked her. :rolling eyes:
The Japanese can be quite fastitious about behaviour in public. I read somewhere that there was once a survey in Japan on the 'Most annoying behaviour on the densha (train)'. The top slot was taken by 'improper way of sitting' - i.e. with legs stretched out etc. I think talking on your keitai (mobile) came third.
The Japanese can be quite fastitious about behaviour in public. I read somewhere that there was once a survey in Japan on the 'Most annoying behaviour on the densha (train)'. The top slot was taken by 'improper way of sitting' - i.e. with legs stretched out etc. I think talking on your keitai (mobile) came third.
I could have sworn I had written a response to this post... but it's not here... :headscratch: :crazy2:
Anyways, I said something to the likes of:
Ahhh, I see! I suspected that the exceptional mannerisms of the Japanese was involved. But I still don't think it's appropriate to hurt someone... even if they're being rude.
Court rules employee worked to death[/list:u]TOKYO (Reuters) - A Toyota Motor Corp employee died of overwork after logging more than 106 hours of overtime in a month, a judge ruled Friday, reversing a ministry's earlier decision not to pay compensation to his widow.
The Toyota Labor Standards Inspection office, a local branch of Japan's labor ministry, refused to pay the widow the usual compensation for a spouse's work-related death, saying the man had only logged 45 hours of overtime in the month before he died, Japanese media reported.
But the court ruled that the employee had worked far more than that, said Yomiuri Online, a Japanese news website. The Nagoya District Court in central Japan said the ruling overturned the labor ministry's decision.
"We want to think of how to respond to this ruling by discussing it with relevant agencies," an official at the Toyota Labor Standards Inspection Office told Reuters.
The employee, who was working at a Toyota factory in central Japan, died of irregular heartbeat in February 2002 after passing out in the factory around 4 a.m.
"(The employee) worked for extremely long hours and the relationship between his work and death is strong," Yomiuri Online quoted Judge Toshiro Tamiya as saying.
Overworking is a serious issue in Japan, where an average worker uses less than 50 percent of paid holidays, according to government data.
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