A few News items

A few stories from the recent news that I found interesting…

• A アシカ (sea lion) named 「ななみ」 (“Nanami”) at a zoo in 愛媛県 (Ehime, Japan) was unable to compete for food with the other sea lions in her pen. So she began leaping over three meters (9 feet) and holding onto the wall to eat fish held by the zoo’s visitors.

  She has become a very popular attraction.

  

  (Photo from the Japan Times).

• There was an explosion in a warehouse in 東京都渋谷区 (Shibuya, Tokyo) last Wednesday. It was initially reported that the owner of the place escaped the burning building…but his wife and mother died inside the building.

  It was reported yesterday that the man didn’t escape on his own. He was rescued from the building by a famous Iranian celebrity* who happened to be nearby. (*His name is Rahim Arvanaghi, commonly known as “Randy Muscle“, and he’s famous in Japan).

  He ran into the burning building and pulled the man out. But he was unable to save the man’s wife or mother.

• The 2009 edition of the Michelin Restaurant Guide will be out soon. And once again, Tokyo has more four and five star restaurants than any other city in the world.

  As I mention in this post, Tokyo had the most stars in the 2008 edition as well.

  Tokyo is the capital where there are the most restaurants, more than 160,000, and also excellent cuisine.

  Jean-Luc Naret, Michelin director

2008 Olympics

Today is August 8. The opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics in 北京 (Beijing, China) will commence today at 8:08PM (China Standard Time).

Maybe you’ve heard why it’s set to begin at such an unusual time. It’s because the number eight is lucky in China (and Japan, too). So the Chinese decided to start the ceremony at ’08年8月8日午後8時8分 (’08/8/8 8:08PM).

(By the way, in China the numbers four and seven are unlucky because they have the same pronunciation as the word for “death” in Chinese. In Japan, the numbers four and nine are unlucky because they sound like “death” and “pain” in Japanese, respectively.)

The Official Website of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is here.

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The Food & Wine website just voted Tokyo as the number one restaurant city in the world.

Paris, New York, and London were numbers 2, 3, and 4 respectively.

Click here to see their entire top-ten list.

This is after the Michelin Guide gave more stars to restaurants in Tokyo than any other city in their 2008 edition.

Click here to read the Yahoo news report about it. (from Nov 2007)

Tokyo is a shining star in the world of cuisine…

Michelin Guides Director Jean-Luc Naret