This Youtube video shows what happens at a McDonald's restaurant in the Akasaka, Tokyo after the bars close. The clip shows at least seven people sleeping off a night of heavy drinking in the booths at Mickey D's. Some of these sleepyheads were probably stranded when the Tokyo Metro closed down for the evening.
Miraculously, the staff doesn't seem to care that their restaurant is being used as a flophouse. This type of thing would never happen in the States. When we used to work at Starbucks in Manhattan, junkies and drunks would pass out in the bathrooms and we'd chase them out with mops. Guess foreign fast food joints are just a haven for assorted weirdness. For more proof, check out our clip of the dancing waiters at Pizza Hut in India.
Seven people are dead in Tokyo after a twenty-five year old man went on a rampage with a rented truck and a survival knife. The killer, Tomohiro Kato, struck in the Akihabara district, where tourists shop for the latest electronics and Japanese nerds visit arcades in manga inspired costumes. The neighborhood is known as the mecca for the obsessive anime and video game fandom known as "otaku" culture.
In the hours leading up to the attack, Kato wrote postings on an online messageboard that revealed his murderous intentions. The first post, written at 5:21 am Tokyo time warned:
I'll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I'll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone.
Though Japan has a reputation as a relatively safe country, CNN notes that "stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years as violent crime has increased." Just three months ago a man killed one person and hurt at least seven others after going on a "slashing spree" outside a Japanese mall, and seven years to the day before Tomohiro Kato lost it in Akihabara, a man stabbed eight people at an elementary school on June 9, 2001.
It might be a good idea to bring along some chain mail if you're headed to Tokyo any time soon. You can tell the anime nerds in Akihabara that you're just joining in on the cosplay fun.
List-loving Forbes has just figured out which airports around the world are the most punctual. They checked into the 50 busiest airports and then looked at their on-time arrival and departure data to figure out who's on top.
The moral of their story is that if you want your plane to leave on time, fly out of Tokyo. Haneda and Narita airports hold the top two spots: At Haneda, 93 percent of flights departed within 15 minutes of the planned time and 87 percent arrived on time. We know Japan well, so this result doesn't surprise us--but it does impress us.
A little surprisingly, the laid back Aussies come in fourth with Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport; the organized Germans get their first rating in the ninth spot with Munich. An airport we consider a big mover on the international scene, Dubai International, came in a disappointing 49th.
Stateside, Orlando was the most punctual (8th) with Houston's George Bush Intercontinental close behind (10th). The US also gets the wooden spoon with LaGuardia coming in last.
Happy belated birthday to Tokyo's very own Disneyland, which turned 25 last week. In a country where even grown women are allowed to go manic about Mickey, Tokyo Disneyland has long been attracting Japanese visitors, many of whom go dozens or even hundreds of times throughout their lives.
But the bosses of Tokyo Disneyland can see change coming. Japan's aging population means there will be fewer and fewer visitors for Disneyland, so they're looking further afield to keep their company going strong. Various sites in Southeast Asia are in the shortlist at the moment so you never know where the culture of Disney will strike next.
In the meantime, Tokyo Disneyland is adjusting for its elderly customers. They've started a special "Flowers and Trees Tour" because that's what gray-haired Japanese like to look at, and some of their current special packages focus on couples in their 60s. Perhaps they'll even let Mickey go gray?
Pop singer Janet Jackson won't be usurping your overhead-bin space: On a recent flight into Tokyo's Narita International Hotel to promote her new album "Discipline," she toted just a neat leather shoulder bag (and later, a bunch of flowers a fan handed her).
Jackson will start a world tour promoting "Discipline" next fall, she recently told the hosts of "Good Morning America."
Track suits are completely underrated for air travel. Just another thing our moms were right about.
We've long been fans of Tokyo's early morning tourist attraction, the Tsukiji Fish Markets, where travelers willing to brave the streets at 5:30 am can see tons and tons of tuna and other fish changing hands, ready to land as sushi across the restaurants of the city.
The polite Japanese fishmongers of Tsukiji have only just realized something that was always obvious to us: All these tourists really get in the way of business! We remember climbing over piles of fish so we could get a better spot to take photos, and we're sure that there are a whole lot of tourists even more annoying than us.
So, sadly, the Tsukiji fish markets are now limiting access for tourists. As of April 1, tourists are only allowed to enter between 5 and 6:15 am and will have a designated place from which to view the tuna auctions. Of course maybe when it comes to fish markets, an hour is plenty.
Typically when a player on a champion professional sports team is asked of his (or her) post-championship plans, the player will say, "We're going to Disney World!" Hopefully members of the World Champion Boston Red Sox got their childhood dreams fulfilled before this week, when they played their season opener against the Oakland A's in Tokyo, Japan.
The Sox played two exhibition games against the Nippon Professional Baseball teams the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants, then won their opener at the Tokyo Dome and lost their second game -- but most importantly, the game turned out thousands of Sox fans who cheered through "Sweet Caroline" for the first time. (In Japan and looking for like-minded people? Try the new bar in Kyoto called Fenway Park.) Both the Sox and the A's return to the US to play more exhibition games before their official home openers.
Big sis HotelChatter has found a great Tokyo hotel for us for New Year's Eve, and Japan's coolest city is certainly a great place for us to celebrate the start of 2008.
The Japanese like to celebrate the coming of the new year, or oshogatsu, by visiting a temple to pray--choose one of the big Tokyo temples like the Meiji Shrine and you'll be stuck in a large but very interesting crowd.
All over Tokyo, you'll also experience the tradition of the "watch night bell", where a bell is rung 108 times, apparently because that will get rid of the 108 worldly desires. (Don't ask us for a list.) All of that makes for a noisy but quite spectacular New Year's Eve, as long as you don't overdo the sake.
