Those wacky otaku folks at Thanko have come up with an (ideal?) gift for your Japanese OL office lady girlfriend this Christmas – the USB Bust Beauty Pad USB バストビューティーパッド.  It’s actually designed to warm her breast under her bra during those cold winter days working at the computer.

The USB Bust Beauty Pad is powered by your pc and your girlfriend just slips the U-shaped pads under her bra which will warm to up to 40C. The pads are meant to last about six months, and the whole set-up costs about 1980 Yen.

Joy is having fun with the family.  It’s the same in Japan. Here a Japanese family is having fun jumping rope together.  Photo taken a nursery school event.

This beautiful Japanese flower often seen in traditional paintings  is the Japanese plum blossom which comes from the Japanese ume 梅:うめ (Japanese apricot or Chinese plum tree)

The tree  is cultivated for its fruit and flowers and although generally referred to as a plum in the English language, it is actually more closely related to the apricot. The tree flowers in late winter, typically late January or February before the leaves appear. Each flower has five petals has coloring ranging from white to rose to deep red.

The fruit called  ume plum and umeboshi plum (the latter referring to Japanese pickled ume) ripens in early summer, typically June and  coincides with the rainy season of  Japan. Each fruit is round with a groove running from the stalk to the tip. The skin is green when unripe, and turns yellow, sometimes with a red blush, as it ripens. The flesh becomes yellow.

Ume blossoms are often mentioned in Japanese poetry as a symbol of spring. When used in haiku or renga, they are a kigo or season word for early spring.

Ume viewing in Osaka

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How to cook Umeboshi (Pickled ume)

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How to Make Umeshu & Ume Syrup (Plum Wine & Plum Syrup

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Here’s one Japanese farmer who uses his hobby RC (remote controlled)  helicopter to good work use – spraying his small rice field in Goshogarawa in the Tsugaru area in Amori prefecture.

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According to the Japan times, Japan has  more than 100,000 family names now in use in today.   That is more than the 200 in Korea and comparable to the the few thousands in China but still behind the US which has around million surnames.

Can you guess which are the most common family names in Japan?  Here are the top 100 most common Japanese family names these days

1. Sato
2. Suzuki
3. Takahashi
4. Tanaka
5. Watanabe
6. Ito
7. Yamamoto
8. Nakamura
9. Kobayashi
10. Kato
11. Yoshida
12. Yamada
13. Sasaki
14. Yamaguchi
15. Saito
16. Matsumoto
17. Inoue
18. Kimura
19. Hayashi
20. Shimizu
21. Yamazaki
22. Mori
23. Abe
24. Ikeda
25. Hashimoto
26. Yamashita
27. Ishikawa
28. Nakajima
29. Maeda
30. Fujita
31. Ogawa
32. Goto
33. Okada
34. Hasegawa
35. Murakami
36. Kondo
37. Ishii
38. Saito (different kanji)
39. Sakamoto
40. Endo
41. Aoki
42. Fujii
43. Nishimura
44. Fukuda
45. Ota
46. Miura
47. Fujiwara
48. Okamoto
49. Matsuda
50. Nakagawa
51. Nakano
52. Harada
53. Ono
54. Tamura
55. Takeuchi
56. Kaneko
57. Wada
58. Nakayama
59. Ishida
60. Ueda
61. Morita
62. Hara
63. Shibata
64. Sakai
65. Kudo
66. Yokoyama
67. Miyazaki
68. Miyamoto
69. Uchida
70. Takagi
71. Ando
72. Taniguchi
73. Ohno
74. Maruyama
75. Imai
76. Takada
77. Fujimoto
78. Takeda
79. Murata
80. Ueno
81. Sugiyama
82. Masuda
83. Sugawara
84. Hirano
85. Kojima
86. Otsuka
87. Chiba
88. Kubo
89. Matsui
90. Iwasaki
91. Sakurai
92. Kinoshita
93. Noguchi
94. Matsuo
95. Nomura
96. Kikuchi
97. Sano
98. Onishi
99. Sugimoto
100. Arai

Source: Japantimes

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source: Japanprobe

For those of you who are enjoying the fun Japansugoi Friends service (run by the guys at Worldfriends networks), we recently came across an e-book called Japanese girls – the Guide. The e-book contains some very useful information about dating Japanese girls especially if you’re new to the scene and need a few tips to figure out why you’re striking out.  So whether you’re just trying to make friends or seriously want a Japanese girlfriend or wife, click here to find out more.

Manablog is a car blog written by a 39 year old car enthusiast from Tokyo.  Though the site is in Japanese, you can watch his great youtube videos that shows his passion for all the latest cars available in Japan and attending all the auto shows.

Japanese car blog Manablog videos

HONDA CR-Z 2009

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LEXUS LFA 2009

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Toyota Auris hsd 2009

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Earlier this year, wanting to create some publicity,  Japanese hair fashion magazine HairMag.jp. hired some bald models to walk around Harajuku and Shibuya.  The Japanese girls with no hair (wearing bald wigs actually) created quite a stir everywhere they went.

Ever wonder why Japanese search engines are better for searching for gravure idols and maids? a) the results are geared for otaku b) they search in Japanese c) they don’t have family filters or d) they index content better than Google. The answer is probably b) searching in Japanese as most web content about gravure idols and maids is in Japanese language.

We base our answer on the following funny TV commercial from top Japanese search engine and portal “goo” owned by Japanese phone giant NTT. Type a search for “gravure maid” in your local area and get the following results.