From June to August, temperatures rose by 1.64 degrees Celsius higher than average, and the highest since 1898 when the weather agency started recording data.

Central Tokyo has seen 48 “tropical nights” with the lowest temperature of 25°C (77°F) at night. The average temperature in Tokyo was 27.1°C (80.78°F) which is 2.3 degrees higher than average. These calculations do not include the heat island effect in urban areas and other phenomena.

According to the forecasts, the country can expect daytime high temperatures to stay around 35°C (95°F) at least until September 14.

Heatstroke has so far sent more than 40,000 people to hospitals and claimed hundreds of lives, mostly senior citizens.

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Source: http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201009020435.html

PET bottle caps trash bin. Found in Adachi-ku City Hall, Tokyo.

In Japan, recycling is part of daily life. Besides separating caps from plastic bottles, people usually remove the labels from bottles as well before dumping them into recycle bins.

There even exists a special organization — The Council  for PET Bottle Recycling — established in 1993 for promotion, research and study of plastic bottle recycling.

A law for container and packaging recycling which also includes plastic bottles has been enforced in April 1997 by the Japan Ministry of the Environment.

These two and 200000+ others didn’t survive.

The incident brought an early end to the second world war and marked the beginning of more safer and a more peace-loving period, a true nuclear renaissance of humanity with yet more bombs, explosions and harmful psychopaths on the highest political positions.

A Japanese artist named Isao Hashimoto in 2003 released a video that shows all nuclear detonations between 1945 and 1998 on the map of the world.

The ten-minute show kicks off with the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test bombing in the desert near Los Alamos in the US and concludes with a majestic series of Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998. In the beginning, the explosions are relatively rare, so if you want real action, fast-forward to 1962. Total number of detonations is 2053; the players are the United States, Russia/USSR, France, United Kingdom, China, India and Pakistan.

The digits in the upper right corner are month and year. The bottom right shows the total count of explosions.

Like a computer game.

Japan – Heartbeats of Time

The Moments Between, Episode 1: Japan

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trey Ratcliff, who is blind on one eye, has a lot of really neat photos in HDR technique on his web site at StuckInCustoms.com (the Japan category is here).

A note for the technically inclined: the slow-motion footage in the above videos was achieved using a Casio EX-FC100 digital camera. This little gadget costs only about $200 and can capture up to 1000 frames per second.

Let’s begin with a teleport to Shibuya, the location of a once world’s busiest pedestrian crossing. The famous Shibuya 109 still stands in the middle, but there will be no more shopping…

In the first street on the right — Shibuya Center Gai — we see the ruins of the electronic retailer Sakuraya…

…where everything is soon taken over by vegetation.

At Nakano station we wait for the train that never comes…

…and so we walk further to Shinjuku which surprisingly wasn’t affected much by the destruction…

Akihabara, once a mecca for everything digital, has been flooded by rivers. Palm trees grow atop electronics giant Sofmap.

Time stands still at Yoyogi Station.

And what about airports? Seems like there will be no more flights at Haneda.

Want to see more? Tokyo Genso has a gallery on DeviantArt. What’s really neat about these illustrations — besides the obvious great skill — is that all locations are real, with beautifully detailed buildings that you can see in today’s Tokyo.

Rainbow shines near the unifinished Tokyo Sky Tree tower. Photo taken after some heavy rain from our balcony.

Recent rain and incredible humidity have marked the start of the yearly rainy season here in Japan. This means about one month (possibly a bit less) of frequent raining. In most parts of the country, the rainy season begins in June, except in Okinawa where it begins about one month earlier. The northern island of Hokkaido gets barelly affected by the rainy season.

Japan Meteorological Agency has compiled a quite precise schedule with average starting and ending dates for several regions of Japan:

Okinawa: May 8 – June 23
Southern Kyushu: May 29 – July 13
Shikoku: June 4 – July 17
Kinki (including Osaka and Kyoto): June 6 – July 19
Kanto (including Tokyo): June 8 – July 20
Northern Tohoku: June 12 – July 27

Even though tourists usually aren’t too excited about the rainy season, this time of the year also has its advantages. There is less travel which means less crowd in popular outdoor attractions. Temples, gardens and similar attractions offer some breathtaking views and unique atmosphere that will make you feel like you’re visiting Japan in ancient times. If you visit towers or other tall buildings, for example Mori Tower’s Sky Deck in Tokyo, you can enjoy a wonderful panoramic view after the rain has cleared the skies, giving you a chance to see far into the distance.

So what can you do when you walk around, happily buying Hello Kitty goods and you get surprised by sudden rain?

No panic! In Japan, umbrellas sell like hot cakes (oops, rice!) You can buy a typical transparent umbrella for just 300 Yen or about $3 in pretty much all convenience stores, like 7 Eleven, Lawson, Sunkus, Family Mart and others, as well as supermarkets and kiosks at all train stations. Since they are so common, you and a few million other consumers will be using the same type of umbrella.

If umbrellas are too old school for you, you can also buy a disposable raincoat. Convenience stores often carry these for as low as 100 Yen or $1.

In order to protect the floor from wetness, Japanese stores like to use a small trick: outside the entrance to most supermarkets, shopping centers and department stores you can find dispensers with thin disposable covers which shoppers put on their umbrellas to prevent them from dripping. When you’re finished with your shopping spree, just throw the cover away in the basket in the dispenser.

The drill took place at the zoo in Ueno Park in Tokyo.

Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama speaks at the World Economic Forum Japan Meeting 2009 in Shinjuku, Tokyo. (World Economic Forum / Kaori Nishida)

Nothing better than starting the month off with politics!

Embattled Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama said Wednesday morning he will resign over his broken campaign promise to move the U.S. Marine base off the island of Okinawa.

According to national surveys, Hatoyama’s approval rating among Japanese has plunged below 20 percent in recent weeks. Hatoyama leaves office barely nine months after he led his party to victory in last year’s historic election. He is the fourth Japanese prime minister to step down in the last for years.

“Since last year’s elections, I tried to change politics in which the people of Japan would be the main actors,” said Hatoyama at a press conference and admitted that he did not succeed.

“That’s mainly because of my failings,” he added. (Associated Press)

Hatoyama cited two reasons for his resignation: the Futenma base issue and a political funding scandal in which two of his aides were convicted of falsifying political contribution reports. Hatoyama said that Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the DPJ party who was involved in the scandal, will also resign.

In recent months many protests were held in Japan as people demanded that Futenma base be moved off the island of Okinawa. Residents of Okinawa say that the base, home to about 47,000 U.S. troops and their families, is the reason for frequent crime, noise, pollution and accidents on this southern Japanese island.

Under the new law, non-tour group visitors from China will need to meet the minimum annual income of 60,000 yuan ($8788) or own a “gold” credit card. Current rules require an annual income of 250.000 yuan (36,617 EUR).

The Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that this change will expand the pool of eligible Chinese tourist visa applicants to about 16 million which is 10 times the current amount.

Last year, 1.01 million mainland Chinese visitors entered Japan, either in groups or individually.

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Source: http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201005180351.html