Japan News Roundup
Surfing Al Gore’s interwebs and came across the following interesting Japan related news stories.
From the British Times website: Ochone! Japanese whisky is voted the best in world. I find that a bit hard to believe, but then I have never really been a big fan of whiskey. I remember on the ferry to China that a couple of Japanese backpackers, long-haired and already a little smelly had a large bottle of Nikka whiskey which they were sharing. Very kind of them. Anyway the Californian photographer who had the bed next to mine had a few too many and ended up passing out on the ferry’s helipad. It was a little disturbing when the ships stewards carried him in around 3 am. He wasn’t in good shape, but luckily he kept it all down.
The BBC news website has a story Japan PM’s party in poll defeat.
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has been defeated in a key by-election, dealing a fresh blow to the leadership of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
LDP candidate Shigetaro Yamamoto was easily defeated in the vote in Yamaguchi prefecture.
Senior opposition MP Kenji Yamaoka told Japanese media the result was “the beginning of the end of LDP rule”.
Hopefully this will mean a return to a Japan lead by people with interesting haircuts.
Japan detects bird flu in four wild swans from Reuters. I think I can discern the beginning of a newly revised Tchaikovsky ballet in this story. The swans were discovered near Lake Towadako which is in Akita, closish to where I used to live. Quite sad really.
Lastly the most disturbing of the stories: Japan: Where has all the butter gone?
No butter = no toast = no breakfast….
7 Comments, Comment or Ping
Bryan
I’d like to know who paid off the whiskey journalist. The day a Japanese whiskey beats a good Islay scotch…!
It is a shame that more Japanese don’t appreciate good beers. I went to the Ebisu beer festival once and the selection of micro brews was wonderful. All sorts of ales and IPAs and what not. Great stuff. The problem is you can’t buy it anywhere except directly from the producer (most of whom don’t have websites or easy ways to find them).
Great Nikka story, by the way. I think I might just go around asking random expats like the both of us about their Nikka experiences. I’m sure I could make a book out of it.
Apr 29th, 2008
psymeg
Cheers Bryan:)
The story does sound a bit iffy. Someone probably got some kickbacks somewhere along the way.
It always surprised me too that a country like Japan, much larger in terms of population than New Zealand should have a much smaller range of beer available. Although we are starting to get a few kiwi beers here which is great!
Apr 30th, 2008
ray
Thanks for that– seeing the story moved me to check in with one of my old Kosaka coworkers with whom I hadn’t spoken in quite some time…. Looks like their golden week won’t be so golden this year: piles of inspectors and tests going on throughout the area.
so rare that “Akita” and “Lake Towada” get mentioned together in the national news. Many people don’t even remember that Lake Towada touches Akita until you remind them….
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May 3rd, 2008
bitshifter
Can you buy margarine in Japan? I don’t eat butter any more in NZ the land of butter!
May 5th, 2008
psymeg
@bitshifter: yes, you can get margarine here in Japan. Why did you stop eating butter? gone vegan?
@ray: ã¾ãƒ¼ã€ãƒã‚¿è‡ã„人もã„ã‚‹ã—ã€é…’è‡ã„ã®ã‚‚ã„ã‚‹ã。
May 6th, 2008
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