All you need to know when visiting Tsukiji

Great post on the Nihon Sun site, with a number of useful links, giving the lowdown on visiting the Tsukiji fish market.

Financial crisis hits universities

In the New York Review of Books, Andrew Delblanco says that the fallout from the current economic downturn has combined with longer-term trends in higher education financing to make college less affordable for lower-income students, and to degrade the university experience at the institutions where the less affluent are likely to go.

Geopolitics and geographical determinism

In Foreign Policy, Robert Kaplan argues that geopolitical realism is back in style, and that more attention should be paid to geographic factors in analyzing that reality.

Missile bunkers converted into homes

Wired runs a photo essay about Ed Peden, who lives in a decommissioned nuclear missile bunker in Kansas. The article include pictures of Peden’s home as it is now with period photos of similar bunkers when they were operational in the early 1960s.

Japan: First-class capsule hotel in Osaka

The Shibuya 246 blog reviews the First Cabin capsule hotel, taking the capsule experience to a whole ‘nother level. Via Japundit.

Japan: Tokyo is world’s #1 food city

According to Food and Wine magazine. Via Tokyo5.

Free large photos

This is an interesting site, that offers photos on the condition of attribution.  This picture of the Hotel del Coronado, © Copyright 2009 Roy Tennant, FreeLargePhotos.com.

 

Japan: Famous yakuza boss becomes Buddhist priest

The UK Independent describes the circumstances of boss Tadamasa Goto’s entry into a Buddhist monastery. Via Jake Adelstein.

Unusual custom guitars

A photo essay at Boing Boing.

Japan: Uchimizukko Daishugo

Danny Choo photo-documents an interesting event earlier this month in which a large group of cafe maids gathered to sprinkle water on the street.