Posts tagged features
Fukuoka Pictures: URAS
Dec 26th
This picture was taken outside of URAS in Fukuoka, Japan. Uras is a car shop that specializes in Drifting and is owned and operated by Nomura Ken, also known as NOMUKEN. NOMUKEN is a professional drifter that drives in the Japanese D1 Series and has drifted all over the world from Europe to the United States.
The next picture is ET and Nagai-san the manager of URAS.
Nishi Nippon Newspaper 西日本新聞
Dec 22nd
Nishi Nippon Newspaper 西日本新聞
The Nishi Nippon Newspaper is Kyushu’s most popular newspaper and the best source for news from Fukuoka and Western Japan. Unfortunately, there isn’t an English Edition and if you want to get the news from this newspaper you will have to break out your Kanji Dictionary and start translating! They do have a few English language pages that tell you about the paper and it’s circulation, which is mostly for potential advertisers. The Nishi Nippon Newspaper has a long history of delivering Kyushu’s news to the people, in fact they have been in business for 125 years.
西 ＝ Nishi = West
日本 ＝ Nippon or Nihon = Japan
新聞 ＝ Shinbun = Newspaper (or literally translated “New hearings”)
Helpful Links:
Nishi Nippon Newspaper Main Page
Sports Page
Entertainment
Events
Travel
Gourmet
Medical
Economics
If you don’t want to study Japanese and you want a quick and dirty way of reading about Kyushu happenings, then try using Google Translator. I recommend using one of their tools that you can add to your bookmarks tool bar on your browser. Also if I remember correctly the folks over at Fukuoka Now have some English Language headlines.
PS. On a side note, I used to wonder why Japan is talked about East to West instead of North to South. I never got a real good answer but one of my students at a language school told me it’s because Japan is more horizontal than virtical on the globe. I have since gotten used to it but still tend to think Fukuoka is South and Tokyo is North. 
忘年会 What is a Bounenkai?
Dec 19th
What is a Bounenkai?
First let us break down the meaning of the world by defining the Kanji (Borrowed Chinese Characters).
忘= Forget
年= Year
会= Meet
So as you can see from the Kanji definitions the word Bounenkai is a “Forget The Year Party”. The cool thing about Bounenkai’s in Japan is that you usually get to go to several of them. My wife said that the average is about 5 Bounenkai’s for most normal folks!! Don’t be suprised if you get invited to a lot of these parties by:
- Company
- Coworkers
- University Friends
- Friends
- Family
- Students
- Team
- Clubs
At Bounenkai’s expect to have to drink and eat a lot. You might also have to go to sign at the local karaoke box after the first party is over. I recommend you get a lot of rest before these parties. It would also be a good idea to not work the day after a Bounenkai!! The number one thing you want to do at Bounenkai’s is have a good time and forget all the bad things that happened to you, and remember the good ones. The ideas is to have so much fun, you forget the negative things.
Zooomed in on Fukuoka
Dec 13th
A good friends of mine over at 808Talk the site that inspired this one made a little Flickr mashup. The idea of this mashup (a program or site using programming API’s to create something new. Like Google maps and Flickr combined to form a unique site) was to give a zooomed in view of a place at any given time. The site features 24 pictures from Flickr that were tagged with the subject matter of choice. What the site does is grabs the images from Flickr and posts them to a site, using the Flickr API and some creative coding by VBrown. Once the data is loaded you can either click on the picture or roll over it with your mouse and it will display. Pretty cool little project if you ask me. Once he showed me the site I told him you know you have to create a Fukuoka Page!! He was like….”Already done my friend” and sent me the link.
If you have a Flickr account and have pictures of Fukuoka, add the word Fukuoka as a tag and they will appear in on the site.
Hakata Live Web Camera
Dec 13th
Hakata Webcam
There are several live web cameras in Fukuoka. This web camera link below is one in Hakata and gives the user the ability to control the camera’s movement. You can control back and forth, and up and down. Plus it has 8 preset buttons to the left that you can just click. It’s better if you have a broadband connection to view this (if you don’t then why are you even on the internet?)
Link to the Hakata Webcam Page
Fukuoka Pictures: Uras VIP Drift Car
Dec 11th
Our friends over at URAS turned a usual “Jiisan” (old mans car) car into a VIP Drift Car. It took them a couple months to finish it and the biggest problem they had was the wiring. Unlike a lot of American turners that just scrap the wiring and run a stand alone computer system to run the basics (ie. Engine and guages). Most Japanese sports car/drifters want their performance and they air conditioner!! I am with them on this one especially when the temperature hits 35 degrees C (over 100 degrees F). You never know what car URAS is going to tune, but they are always fast and interesting.
Misia
Dec 10th
Misia is a Japanese R&B artist that was born and raised in Fukuoka. Misia is all of 153cm (5 Feet), but packs a voice of a person three times here size. Her trademark is her dreadlocked hair and her powerful soulful voice. I was lucky enough to catch one of her amazing concerts at the Fukuoka Dome a couple years ago. It was my first arena concert in Japan and I was not let down! I have just about all of her CD’s and several of her concert DVD’s. If you get a chance to see her in concert, I highly recommend you get the tickets ASAP because they usually sell out fast!
Facts:
*Her real name is Misaki Itō (伊藤美咲)
*Date of Birth: July 7, 1978
*Her name, MISIA, is a combination of MISaki and AsIA
*Measurements (in cm.): 83-56-80
*Weight: 40 kg (88.18 lbs)
*She debuted on February 21, 1998
*Both her parents are doctors
*Studied Gospel and R&B Singing while in high school
*Tries not to perform on any of the Japanese Pop TV Shows