In one way, a young attractive woman will have an “easy” time dealing with the corrupt officials along the Silk Road, but damn…
Personal security aside, crossing the Gobi Desert, which is now larger, hotter, and drier thanks to environmental degradation, is going to be literally Hell on a Horse. She needs a least a mule or better yet a camel.
Adventurer to follow silk route by horse
Dorset Echo, Tuesday 22nd April 2008
Becky Sampson, 24, will ride by horse along the ancient silk route from London to Tokyo. The 15,000km journey is called Expedition Equus…Miss Sampson said: “I’m excited, especially about visiting Iran, but …
…It will take some four years and see her travel through 15 countries…When Miss Sampson reaches the eastern seaboard of China, she will catch a ferry to Japan, find her final horse, and ride on to Tokyo...more…
“Four years“? The Mogols rode into Europe in less than six months. Never breaking into a trot, it only takes 2-3 months to ride across the US. However, Ms. Sampson an English teacher and most likely is going to spend some of the four years teaching as well as her planned “SOS Children” charity work.
Here’s her planed route according to her website expeditionequus.com
Tombow Corporation’s Uniform Museum (machine translation)
“The opportunity when Japan turns into Western clothes from Japanese binding is said to be the uniform introduction of the early period of Meiji.” (sic)
“Traditionally” Japanese suicide with been done in the past couple of decades with carbon monoxide –poisoning with leaving a small, burning, charcoal grill in a confined space or commonly inside a rented automobile. However, there has been a new fad in the past few months to mix Japanese Sunpole® toilet cleaner and bath salts to produce deadly poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. The problem is that poisonous hydrogen sulfide–the rotten-egg gas–produces a lot of collateral damage killing the rescuers… family members, firefighters, and police officers. It even endangers people in other apartments below the suicide room since the gas is heavier than air.
Couple suspected of gassing themselves to death with hydrogen sulfide 
Mainichi Daily News, April 17, 2008 KITAKYUSHU – A couple is suspected of fatally gassing themselves in a suicide pact by mixing detergents in their car and generating toxic hydrogen sulfide, police said Thursday. The case follows a spate of 26 incidents in which 27 people have allegedly killed themselves by mixing detergents and generating hydrogen sulfide since the beginning of this year, police said. In some cases, family members or neighbors also suffered poisoning…more…
Kyodo News photo - Apr. 12, 2008
The Japanese press calling this an “entertainers’ procession” is just a bit ingenuous. At least the Mainichi Daily News gets closer to the truth by explaining that these entertainers were Oiran “high-class” (expensive) “courtesans” (prostitutes).
Mainichi Daily News - AP Photo - April 12, 2008 –A participant (right) dressed as an Oiran, or high-class courtesan in the Edo period (1600-1868), marches during the annual Oiran festival in Tokyo’s Asakusa shopping district…
Via masashi_furuka’s flickr
The-other-side-of-the-coin would be…
That similarities could be found between the ancient Greek hetaera, the Japanese Oiran, and Babylonian Nadītu–all complex figures that are perhaps in an intermediate position between prostitutes and entertainers.
Japan turning itself into Cyberman machine civilisation
–Three million converted to undying robotoids by 2025–
The Register / 9 April 2008…. a specialist thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation (MIMF?), has been set up to monitor the gradual infiltration of society by mechanoid impostors… MIMF’s latest estimates predict that 3.5 million Japanese workers - nearly three per cent of the population - will actually be automatic surrogates as of 2025.
In fact, the idea is that this is positive - the greying of Japan’s population is well known, as is its failure to reproduce itself….more...
Japanese love to claim they are “Homogenous” [inbreed] and “Unique” [un-diverse], so the nation policy of promoting humaniod robots makes perfect sense.
No foreigners—yes Cyberman!
Japan wants a robot “future” ….even though humanoid robots can’t do any real work and won’t able able to for many decades. Any kind of humanoid robot, even a clunky ”Star Wars” C-3PO is damp dream since autonomy –“consciousness”–for acting on their own is a long, loooong time away. Without “consciousness” robots are just spot welders, bolt tightening arms, burger flippers, spray painters, and factory drones that can swivel dexterously back and forth in a pre-programmed for assembly line work. They’re expensive toasters—one-trick-ponies. It will be many decades before humaniod style robots are going to be sentient.
And, this is much better!
DIY Battle Bot? All You Need Is $742 Million and No Sense of Reality!
Wired.com
Set to slow “simmer” is a how-to drawing from the Japanese bestseller with recent sales exceeding 30 million copies, “Practical Introduction to Slow Sex” (Kodansha, 2007).
–From bottom to top “simmer” (machine translation)
The Mainichi news paper in this article did not even think it was worth mentioned here is that in Japan 70% of single adult females live at home and sponge off their parents well into the 30s.
60 percent of married individuals ’sponge’ off parents
MDN-Mainichi, March 19, 2008– About 60 percent of married individuals received financial support from their parents or their spouse’s parents over the past year, a survey…conducted by Nihon University Population Research Institute...more...
One of the odd aspects of living in Japan is always having to explain the concept of “student loans” to Japanese folks—parents pay for everything.
UPDATE –Fun new information from the 2007/2008 Durex Sex Survey once again showing the Japan as No. 1 for the third year in the running.
The Sun / 03 Mar 2008
BRITS are among the world’s most undersexed, according to a new survey. Around 55 per cent of us have nookie on a weekly basis - making Brits the fourth-least sexed on Earth. Americans and Nigerians fared worse, coming second to last in the love stakes. 
Japan came bottom in the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey, with just 34 per cent of its people having sex at least once a week…
Aussies among world’s most undersexed
NEWS.com.au
About 60 per cent of Australians have weekly sex, making Aussies the sixth-least sexed nationalities on Earth, the Durex Sexual Wellbeing study …
No dating, thanks, just sex
Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand - Mar 1, 2008
The programme makers did the story after Kiwi women last year topped the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey as the world’s most promiscuous. …
–
2005’s survey…
Asians too stressed for sex
Singapore—- Stressed-out Asians have the least active sex lives globally, with nine countries and territories from the region making up the bottom 10 in terms of love-making, condom maker Durex said on Tuesday. Japan was bottom of the list of 41 countries and territories covered by this year’s Durex survey. Japanese have sex an average of 45 times annually, less than half the global average of 103 …Singaporeans ranked second-last with 73. Indians (75), Indonesians (77), Hong Kong residents (78), Malaysians (83), Vietnamese (87), Taiwanese (88) and China (96 times a year) …The Swedes were the only non-Asians in the bottom 10, with 92 love-making sessions a year.…more…
Over the age of 30, the Japanese don’t have time for doing it.
Under 30, Japanese sexual activity is bipolar.
Some are very active, with multiple partners. However, there many, many clueless otaku who are increasingly reluctant to do anything at all….except stay home and scare at a screen. Yikes, that sounds like what I’m doing now!
Update:
It’s that time of the year again!
AFP News. Feb. 20. 2008—Zoo staff spread a net to catch a fake zebra, which made a break for freedum from its cage, as it strolls in the zoo park during the annual exercise for runaway animals at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo on February 20, 2008. Some 150 zoo staffs and policemen participated in the annual exercise.
Previously posted on Feb. 28, 2007….
Every year the Tama Zoo has this “escaped” animal drill. However, the 3Yen found out last year about the scary truth in, Tama Zoo Reveals Secret. Now, there are more revelations about the zoo…
‘Don’t cry children, I was only aping about’
The Daily Mail, 20:55pm on 27th February 2007
As acting goes, it was a little too convincing.
The idea was to test the readiness of zoo staff for the escape of a dangerous animal.
But despite the ludicrously obvious disguise of the runaway beast, its pre-ordained destiny - to be shot with a tranquillizer gun - had children in tears...more...
‘Saru mo ki kara ochiru’ ‘THE NATURE OF MONKEY WAS IRREPRESSIBLE!’ [猿も木から落ちる]
—Hello Kitty monkey bobble
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