The Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan, is the world’s second largest aquarium behind the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, USA. It’s one of the very few aquariums in the world that keep whale sharks in cavity.
Video of Kuroshio Sea, the largest tank in the aquarium; shot by Canadian filmmaker Jon Rawlinson. Mesmerising stuff; I can watch this for hours…
After the highly popular life-size 18-metre Gundam model in Tokyo, another giant Japanese robot statue, the Tetsujin 28-go (lit. Iron Man #28), is set to welcome its visitors in Kobe following its completion earlier this week.
Tetsujin 28 was created in 1956 by Kobe-born Mitsuteru Yokoyama; it was one of the earliest giant robot characters in Japanese manga. The comic was later adapted into anime series and was aired in US as well, retitled as the Gigantor.
The Tetsujin 28 statue is located at Kobe’s Wakamatsu Park. It’s similar in height with the Gundam statue, but doesn’t have moving parts like the Tokyo counterpart. The Kobe robot is built as a permanent structure though, whereas the Gundam was disassembled after two months of exhibition.
If the trend keeps going, we might be seeing dozens of giant robot models across Japan in future… pretty fitting tourist attraction for the #1 robotic nation lol.
[image from the project's official website [Jp]]
Two Toyama based animation studios, P.A. Works and The Berich have created some short animes to promote Toyama tourism, based on the theme “Tear Bringing Toyama Prefecture”.
Sharing here are videos from P.A. Works; three short stories about love, friendship and family; with Mt Tateyama, Toyama Bay, and Gokayama as backdrop.
A beautiful video by Myles (a British traveller) on Tokyo Metropolis, with a blend of traditional Japanese lifestyle and modern pop culture. Awesome choice of soundtrack, “I am Not Zen” by Liverpool band Ambulance…
Japan’s airport biometric security system was embarrassed by a news last week that a South Korean woman has successfully passed through its fingerprint reading machine by using a special tape.
The woman was deported in 2007 for overstaying and barred from re-entering Japan for five years. She was however found in August 2008 to have re-entered the country using a fake passport and special tapes which altered her fingerprints to pass through the fingerprint reader.
Japanese airports began (in Nov 2007) fingerprinting and photographing all foreigners aged 16+ upon their entry as a security measure to scan for terrorists, criminals or deportees. A few other countries, including South Korea, are planning to implement similar system in near future… they might want to think twice now.
