I only bought four pens when I was in Japan earlier this month. And I wish I'd bought more. As usual. But I like all four of them.

I picked them up at a fantastic department store called Hands, formerly Tokyu Hands, but it changed its name a couple of years ago. — Read the rest

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Last month I went to Japan with my family. It was my 10th time in Japan. But until this visit, I had never gone to any island other than Honshu, the one that has Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. This time we went to Kyushu, which is south of Honshu. — Read the rest

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Japan's GMO Internet is verifying alleged customer data posted by suspected hackers following a cloud service breach.

When I was in Japan earlier this month, we visited the village of Kurokawa Onsen, which has over 25 Japanese hot-spring bathhouses you can walk to. It was an incredible experience.

You can read all about the spas at Kurokawa Onsen with a Google search, so I will instead tell you about the fantastic cat I met in the village. — Read the rest

The post Kurokawa Onsen has 25 hot springs, but I'd go back just for this cat appeared first on Boing Boing.

When I was in Japan earlier this month, one of my travel companions introduced me to the wonderful world of Umaibo, a puffed corn snack that you can buy in all convenience stores throughout Japan.

I wasn't expecting them to be so much fun to eat, but after trying one, I could not resist having at least one or two every day on the trip. — Read the rest

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When I was in Fukuoka, Japan, last week, I stopped by Rakusuien garden, a small strolling garden with a koi pond, a waterfall, a picturesque bridge, and meticulously tended plants. It also has a tea house, but on the day we went, there was no tea ceremony. — Read the rest

The post A box of free acorns at a Fukuoka garden put me in a great mood appeared first on Boing Boing.

Whenever I go to Japan, I like to shop at Daiso. It's kind of like a dollar store in the U.S., except the stuff is good.

It was started by Hirotake Yano, who was born in Beijing in 1943. He had an interesting background. — Read the rest

The post Japan's Daiso is like a dollar store, except a thousand times better appeared first on Boing Boing.

When I was in Nagasaki earlier this month, I visited the Atomic Bomb Museum there. One of the displays, which showed the damage caused by the bomb that the U.S. dropped on the city, had long audio narration in Japanese only. — Read the rest

The post I wore Timekettle's translating earbuds around Kyushu, where few people speak English appeared first on Boing Boing.

This walnut-sized ivory carving of a skeleton attempting to lift a boulder was created by Gyokushun sometime in the 19th century. The British Museum holds it, and Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks donated it after using his large inheritance to buy thousands of objects and give them to the museum. — Read the rest

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I'm on the constant lookout for the tiniest umbrella available.

On my recent trip to Japan, I found the smallest one yet at the fantastic Hands store in Fukuoka.

It weighs just 65 grams and measures 8 inches long and about 1.5 inches in diameter when collapsed. — Read the rest

The post This 65-gram umbrella from Japan fits in my front pocket appeared first on Boing Boing.

The U.N. General Assembly in New York this week honed in on global conflicts, especially the Ukraine-Russia war and the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. On Tuesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian gave a speech describing his nation as “victims of terrorism” by the U.S., emphasizing that Iran was “hit” but “we did not bend the knee.” He held up images of more than 120 children killed by a U.S. missile strike in the early days of the war, actions described last week by a U.N. fact-finding mission as “reasonable grounds” for war crimes. 

“It must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force,” Pezeshkian said. It was, as the Associated Press put it, “a striking instance of a foreign leader addressing the world body while their country is at war with the host nation.” A U.S. representative at the U.N. walked out during Pezeshkian’s speech.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Pezeshkian’s speech, telling reporters afterward “I don’t know what standing Iran has to lecture anyone on human rights or the international system when they habitually violate it.” 

“They violate the sovereignty of every one of their neighbors by sponsoring terrorist organizations that reside in the borders of those countries. They slaughter their own people,” Rubio added.

During his own speech the day before, Trump continued to mull the idea of escalating the Iran war, which has seen global energy prices spike to unprecedented levels and killed between 1,800 to 3,000 civilians across the Middle East. The Washington Post reported last week that the Pentagon is also not disclosing the true number of U.S. soldiers who have died in the war. The Pentagon’s public database cites 18 servicemember deaths, but officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the figures, said the true number could be as high as 23. 

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“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said Tuesday. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered remarks Wednesday urging the world to keep up the economic pressure on Russia to impede their ability to wage war against Ukraine. “When someone gives Russia more money through trade, they give this war more time. And that is exactly why we insist on limiting trade with the aggressor, and why we are burning Russia’s revenues ourselves,” he said, describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as unable to embrace peace. Russia will address the assembly Saturday.

“Can you even imagine him without war? He is ‘Patient Zero’, the one from whom war keeps spreading further,” Zelenskyy said. “‘Patient Zero’ must be stopped.”

Additionally, Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, called on the U.N. to stop using references to former Axis powers as “enemy states” in its charter, a World War II-era designation that the New York Times reports China and Russia have recently used to attack Japan. “Japan feels a sense of responsibility to safeguard the ideals of the United Nations as our beacon of hope,” Takaichi said on Tuesday. 

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