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Losing time in Japan/England

Posts tagged with "news"

The Week in 1s and 0s (or pictures stolen from chinadaily.com.cn)

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If you're interested in reading world news from an Asian perspective, there are a couple of decent English language newspapers including China Daily, despite being based in Beijing it seems to be fairly balanced. English language newspapers tend to get away with being a lot more critical than their native counterparts. Apart from the usual stories of Japan failing to give any compensation to Chinese forced labourers it also features a spiffy photo gallery, from which I have raided a rather low effort roundup of the week.

Top story has to be little Jian Bing, who despite being the tender age of four, has taken up smoking. His other past times include: hanging out with his dad and friends, cracking open a beer and occasionally soliticing the odd prostitute.

























The usual eclipse fever grips the world while Ehud Olmert becomes the new Israeli PM with promises to pull out of the West Bank, hopefully Hamas will play ball and stop blowing people up

Some geezer protests about beef, I would care if I wasn't top of the food chain and something was trying to eat me. But we are.

Fashion week in Sinagapore kicks off, something about balloons makes me feel good

John Howard and Tony Blair looking remarkably smug. Despite both being proven to be total liars and the recent news that Tony gave peerages in return for vast sums of money

Dubai continues its quest to build the most extravagant buildings in the world, this one will be the tallest in the world and is only part of a 500 acre development

This just looks cool.

The American Military In Japan

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Doing my usual news round up I was deeply shocked to find that my sleepy, little region of Japan had gatecrashed international news. Albeit in a shy, standing at the back of the room and leaving after 10 minutes kind of way.

What for you cry? The Americans. Although the Japanese Self Defence Force (re Army) numbers 250,000 there are 50,000 American soldiers in Japan fighting radical, Buddhist extemists. Or some other lie. Nobody really knows what they're doing here apart from raping the odd school girl or murdering middle aged women.

They're here because the American government wants them here and the Japanese government is too scared to say no. Needless to say they're not all that popular.

Just 30 minutes from my house is the unexceptional city of Iwakuni, save for the big American military base for keeping prospective American criminals away from America. Tokyo recently agreed to increasing the size of the base as part of the restructuring of American forces in Japan. The locals have decided to hold a referendum on the matter which, like in any decent democracy, will be ignored.

Its not big news but what really amused me was the photograph above. Contrary to popular belief, Japan is not pretty. Very not pretty. This is what my home looks like. Except for the American death machine flying above. Now if only we could convince Tony Blair that spending £36.25 billion on the English military every year wasn't really worth it, and that perhaps, schools and hospitals might be more useful.

Interesting reading, a full list of countries by military size, Iran comes in at #3!

Sudanese man forced to 'marry' goat

The headline says it all really. Full details here.

1 year 2 months 2 weeks

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It seems like a long while since I left the shores of Blighty in a daze of lost sleep to wind up over here in Yamaguchi-ken, Japan. The fatigue wasn't such a problem it turned out, as Shunan-shi, my current home, is a sleepy town. Not to mention horribly industrial and smelly to boot. Lets just say that I don't like the place. Yamaguchi-ken is the highlighted bit of the map, in western Honshu.

As I am a lazy man, and I am sure all of those who know me will certainly vouch for this, this is my ultra hi-tech, cutting edge and slightly geeky way of letting you know whats up and down in my life.

Life has been good to me recently, I am still harmoniously cohabiting with my beautiful Japanese girlfriend and am now the manager of the school in the next town.

Thats the aforementioned girlfriend, no pics of school. We're looking spaced out after a fast paced tour of Kyoto with very little sleep.

Current plan is to come back to Albion next August, start your stopwatches!

Otherwise drop me a line at ppbkk498@ybb.ne.jp

December 2009
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