KISS Charity T-shirt

KISS and Hard Rock Cafe have a collaboration T-shirt and pin to help the City Of Hope charity.

Here’s the YouTube video to promote it:

Night Zoo

From last Friday until tomorrow (2011 August 16), Tokyo’s 上野動物園 (Ueno Zoo) is having a “Night Zoo” special program where guests can stay in the zoo until 8:00PM and see the animals’ behavior at night.

I took a picture of this sign at the zoo's entrance. It says "So, let's go to the zoo at night. August 12 - 16 until 8PM (last admission is 7PM)"

We went to the “Night Zoo” yesterday. It was fun to go to the zoo at night especially in the summer when it’s sweltering everyday in Tokyo now…because the temperature goes down a bit.

Before we went into the zoo, I mailed a friend of mine a summer postcard from the panda mailbox that I wrote about in this post.

Back of the "panda mailbox". The tail and ears can be seen.

Panda Mailbox

Near the entrance of the zoo, close to the panda house, the zoo was collecting donations for the victims of the 2011 March 11 earthquake.
Anyone who donated at least ¥100 (US$1.30 at today’s exchange rates) was given a special うちわ (paper fan).
We got a couple of them.

Ueno Zoo "Night Zoo" fans...proceeds go to help the earthquake victims.

The front has many pandas and stars and says "midsummer night's zoo"

The back shows the back of seven pandas whose tails spell "Ueno Zoo" and it says 「がんばろう！日本」 ("Never give up! Japan") and 「手をつなごう、子供も大人も動物も」 ("Hand-in-hand...kids, adults and animals")

My camera isn’t so good at taking nighttime pictures, so I didn’t take many photos of the animals.
But we had a good time there. We’ve been to many zoos around Japan many times, but this was our first time to go to the “Night Zoo”. Ueno Zoo only has the “Night Zoo” once a year in the summertime…tomorrow is the last day for this year’s “Night Zoo”. So, if you’re in Japan now, you should consider going!

Does you local zoo have a “Night Zoo”? Have you ever attended it?

Buy a KISS car to help Japan

The English car company Mini Cooper has teamed up with the American rock band KISS to help Japan.

...meets...

The car company has painted four of their “Mini Countryman” cars with KISS make-up (one car for each of the original KISS members’ make-up) and they are currently being auctioned for charity via e-bay.

The auction ends at 4:00PM on 2011 June 8 (PST in the U.S.) (which is 8:00AM 2011 June 9 in Japan), so now is your chance to bid if you want one (or more) of these cars.
The current bid (when I wrote this post) is US$30,200 (about ¥2,421,834) for the cheapest one (the “Ace Frehley” design) and US$31,300 (about ¥2,510,047) for the most expensive (the “Gene Simmons” design).

All proceeds from the auction of these cars will be donated to UNICEF to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan, as well as victims of other disasters around the world.

Here’s a picture of the cars (all of them are autographed by the current band members of KISS, incidentally):

I’m a big fan of KISS, but some the merchandise they release is too “over the top” for my taste (ie: the “KISS Casket“).
I can’t imagine myself driving around in one of those cars…but if I had to chose one—I think the “Gene Simmons / Demon” design is the best of the four.

It is very generous of KISS and Mini-Cooper to do this to help people in need.

How about you? What do you think of these cars?

Songs For Japan

A number of American and European pop musicians have contributed songs for a charity album for the victims of the recent disaster in Japan.

The album is titled “Songs For Japan“.

 

"Songs For Japan" album cover

I assume that all of the artists that appear on this album are famous…but I personally have only heard of a few of them (and I like even less of them).

The musicians and track listing on this album are as follows:

01. John Lennon “Imagine”
02. U2 “Walk On”
03. Bob Dylan “Shelter From The Storm”
04. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Around The World”
05. Lady Gaga “Born This Way”
06. Beyonce “Irreplaceable”
07. Bruno Mars “Talking To The Moon”
08. Katy Perry “Firework”
09. Rihanna “Only Girl (In The World)”
10. Justin Timberlake “Like I Love You”
11. Madonna “Miles Away”
12. David Guetta “When Love Takes Over”
13. Eminem “Love The Way You Lie”
14. Bruce Springsteen “Human Touch”
15. Josh Groban “Awake”
16. Keith Urban “Better Life”
17. Black Eyed Peas “One Tribe”
18. P!nk “Sober”
19. Cee Lo Green “It’s OK”
20. Lady Antebellum “I Run To You”
21. Bon Jovi “What Do You Got?”
22. Foo Fighters “My Hero”
23. R.E.M. “Man On The Moon”
24. Nicki Minaj “Save Me”
25. Sade “By Your Side”
26. Michael Buble “Hold On”
27. Justin Bieber “Pray”
28. Adele “Make You Feel My Love”
29. Enya “If I Could Be Where You Are”
30. Elton John “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”
31. John Mayer “Waiting On The World To Change”
32. Queen “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”
33. Kings Of Leon “Use Somebody”
34. Sting “Fragile”
35. Leona Lewis “Better In Time”
36. Ne-Yo “One In A Million”
37. Shakira “Whenever, Wherever”
38. Norah Jones “Sunrise”

This album costs US$9.99 and is available from i-tunes exclusively. All of the money from this album will be donated to the Red Cross of Japan to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in the Sendai area of Japan.

Click here if you want to buy it.