http://oldschoolmusiclover.wordpress...es-dies-at-61/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Degrees

Gyoz-ers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8129617.stm

Looks like Japan's finest is now testing urine. Guess we better avoid bars in Roppongi and Shibuya.

Debito's link

And another here

Work will start next week on the construction of the new development around Shibuya Station's east exit. Above is an idea of what it will look like when it is completed in the spring of 2012. The 34-storey building will be 182.5m tall and will include a 2000 seat theatre, offices, Tokyu department store, an exhibition hall and other cultural facilities. In case you've forgotten, this is what used to be there:

AFP: Japan may deploy troops near disputed islands
Japan's defence ministry is considering deploying troops on an island in the East China Sea near a group of islets that is claimed by Tokyo, Beijing and Taipei, according to a ministry spokesman. "We are studying (the deployment) so that it could be included in the planned year-end revision of the basic defence programme," the official said, confirming a news report on the plan to send an army unit to Yonaguni island. Yonaguni is located 120 kilometres east of Taiwan and 170 kilometres south of the uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The ministry official said the location of military deployments along a chain of islands between the southern tip of Japan's Kyushu island and Taiwan is "an important factor in the nation's defence deployment." The Tokyo Shimbun daily described the planned move as part of Japan's shift of its defence focus from its northern borders during the Cold War era to the country's southwestern borders. Japan's current southernmost deployment of troops is in Naha on the main island of Okinawa, 500 kilometres northeast of Yonaguni, according to the defence ministry.

Roman Forum: Restaurant shut for overcharging
The ‘Passetto’ restaurant in Via Zanardelli, near Piazza Navona, was shut down yesterday after foreign tourists informed police their credit card had been charged €695 for their meal. The Japanese couple who ate there last Friday reported being surprised by the bill total but realised something was definitely amiss when a €115.50 tip that they claim never to have offered, showed up on their receipt. They immediately reported the restaurant to officers at the Trevi Campo Marzio police station (situated on Piazza Collegio Romano 3, midway between the Via del Corso and the Pantheon) who upon investigating the incident found the couple had been charged above and beyond the prices listed on the menu. They also uncovered several health and safety defects at Passetto. The cost was broken down as follows: two starters of lobster and oysters (€142), two pasta dishes of linguine all’astice (with crayfish) (€208 ), a main course of sea-bass (€82.50), topped off with a €108 bottle of white Sauvignon and a €31 dessert...Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno stated, “as far as I’m concerned this restaurant should not be allowed to reopen and in such cases the permanent revocation of licences are required”...more...



The AP report says: "The couple - a 35-year-old man and a 26 year-old woman - filed their complaint a few days after their lunch...According to the couple's account to police, they sat outdoors and an English-speaking waiter offered to bring a few dishes without the couple's consulting the menu".

Mishima stuff to be auctioned
July 2, 2009 - StraitsTimes.com
TOKYO - A Japanese bookseller will on Sunday auction off letters and photos of the nationalist author and poet Yukio Mishima, famous for his writings and his public samurai-style suicide in 1970....
This weekend the antique book auction house Meiji Kotenkai will offer two letters and several photos that were discovered at a store in the United States and taken to a Tokyo antiquarian bookseller late last year.
The 1967 and 1970 letters, addressed to his American friend Jan von Adlmann, an art museum director, hint at a possibly intimate relationship between them, while a series of pictures foreshadow Mishima's suicide.
Mishima in both letters spoke of Saint Sebastian, a third-century Roman martyr and an oft cited symbolic figure of homosexuality.
In one letter, he thanked Adlmann for a gift, presumably an art book on Saint Sebastian, praising its 'lyricism of brutality.' In the other letter, Mishima enclosed black-and-white photos showing himself posing naked as Saint Sebastian, with his wrists tied up over his head and bleeding with arrows piercing his body.
'One of the photos was made public for the first time,' said antiquarian bookseller Shigeru Natsume...more...

The manga "Kami no Shizuku" (神の雫) was honoured at the Gourmand Awards in Paris yesterday with an induction into the Gourmand Wine Book Hall of Fame. The judges said that the series, which began in 2004, became popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea and helped change the wine market in Asia. It's the first time a Japanese book has been honoured in this way.

A sharp piece of detective work has led police to conclude that soaplands might not just be about getting a wash. They have arrested the founder of the Kadoebi Group on suspicion that operations at their soapland establishments violate anti-prostitution laws. Police say 76 year old Masao Suzuki was detained along with several of his employees. The company's website shows that the group operate nearly thirty soaplands, mainly in the Tokyo and Kanagawa area.