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Forget hiking the Appalachian Trail, the path up Mount Hua should get your heart rate up and provide all the exercise you’ll ever need


Located about 120 kilometers outside of the city of Huayin, Shaanxi province, Mount Hua is one of China’s Five Great Mountains. Certainly beautiful, the mountain has historically been a religious retreat for “strong-willed” monks able to find “the way” to the top on narrow pathways alongside gut-churning drops.

With tourism now booming in a more affluent China, the government has worked to improve access to the top of the mountain by widening the trail, adding railings and safety chains, and in general working to prevent hikers from experiencing a quick, unplanned descent to the bottom. Let’s find out what the dizzying location has to offer!
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Enjoy the delectable taste of chocolately Edible Anus

Excuses are like anuses; everyone’s got one. That’s the reasoning behind the Edible Anus line of chocolates created in England. These handcrafted chocolates represent something that transcends cultural boundaries to offer creamy sphincter shaped goodness to the whole world, even reaching Japan where netizens have been left open-mouthed at the idea of munching on a chocolatey orifice.

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Today’s trivia: Strange new koala spotted in packs of Koala’s March cookies

For today’s random trivia, we try to catch a rare and elusive special koala from Lotte’s delicious Koala’s March snacks.

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America has hot springs too! Our Japanese reporter puts one to the test

There’s no nation in the world that loves hot springs more than Japan. Known as onsen (lit. warm 温, and spring 泉), there are very few Japanese alive who could ever claim to having never taken a dip. If you’re tired, you head to the onsen; if you’re going on holiday, you visit an onsen; you go to the onsen to hang out with your friends, on a date, to relax with the family – anything is an excuse to strip off and let the hot water soak your aches, pains and worries away!

But onsen actually exist all over the world, even in America. Today our Japanese reporter Yoshio reports on his stay at a hot spring hotel in America, and his experiences in their natural sulfur spa. Let’s find out if the US’s version of the hot spa stands up to our reporter’s rigorous testing…

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Teruhiko stirs up controversy on the net and makes a mean yakisoba

The yuru-kyara world watches with a cautious eye as recent unofficial mascot Teruhiko has been steadily building a fan base online. This slightly emo looking mascot character operating out of Hakodate has been winning over hearts with his cooking tips.

However, Teruhiko has a dark side that occasionally appears in impassioned tweets that threaten to undermine the otherwise diplomatic and squeaky clean world of people in puffy costumes.

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We visit “the best conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Japan”

While our reporter was out visiting the Nation at War Tavern and other sights in the southern city of Kagoshima, he perused a guide map of the area and saw a listing for “Japan’s best conveyor belt sushi restaurant.”

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants, also known as sushi trains or kaiten-zushi in Japanese, are eateries where the dishes float past your seat allowing you to effortlessly serve yourself.  They are fun and cheap places to get some decent quality sushi, but are hardly considered haute cuisine in Japan. So what could Mawaru Sushi Mekkemon be doing that elevates it past the largely uniform conveyor belt sushi preparation and presentation to earn it the coveted title of “Japan’s Top Conveyor Belt Sushi”? Our reporter went to find out and brings us this report.

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Dragon Quest slime hourglass makes interminable wait for cup noodles a little cuter

Square-Enix is offering this adorable, limited edition slime hourglass for Dragon Quest series fans with the munchies. The company says the hourglass is timed at about three minutes, which is around the same amount of time it takes to perfectly cook a cup of instant ramen noodles.

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Koi-Yamagata Station is for lovers

Koi-Yamagata Station, nestled deep in Tottori Prefecture where few people reside, now has a bold new makeover. The once drab station, mostly devoid of staff or passengers, has been given a hot pink paint job and a heart-shaped monument for love.

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Still have any mix tapes lying about? Go digital with this cheap converter from Sanwa Direct

Remember making all those mixed-tapes after the Walkman burst onto the scene at the beginning of the 80s (for those of you who grew up with all things digital, ask your dad)? Do you have any of them left? Perhaps there are a few stuffed away at the bottom of the sock drawer? If you still have all or part of that collection, Sanwa Direct can help. Their new 400-MEDI002 cassette to MP3 converter makes changing those old analog compilations to digital format cheap and easy.

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Go to jail, learn to… dance? 【Videos】

Going to jail is, regardless of the country, never fun. Between wardens forcing you to do their taxes for barely a bottle of suds, and the food, it’s got to be a horrible way to spend a few years of your life.

That said, some prisons certainly are better than others. For example, the dancing prisoners in the Philippines sure do seem a lot happier than if they were forced to do manual labor. And while a visit to a prison might not exactly be on the top of your average holiday to-do list, this is one jail you would want to go out of your way to get into! (At least for the show.)

Here’s RocketNews24 Japan‘s Sekai no Shogo with the report!

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Eat mayonnaise, get paid $1,500 – most bizarre job ever?

Mayonnaise is a highly debated condiment. There are those who praise it as a creamy, delicious gift to sandwiches while others curse its very existence. Even though the following job requires you to eat mayonnaise, mayo haters may still want to apply. Currently a topic of discussion on Japanese textboard, 2channel, the job in questions is simple: just eat mayonnaise and get paid 150,000 yen (US$1,540)!

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Japanese man dies in car accident, Cause of death: not the car accident

On the morning of 5 June, along a highway in Makubetsu, Hokkaido, a car swerved off the road and crashed through a tree before stopping on the sidewalk. The 87-year-old driver of the car was taken to hospital but sadly died soon after.

However, the actual accident wasn’t what killed him and the official cause of death had nothing to do with his age at all. In fact, the reason he died was something you may have done yourself while driving.

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$70 to climb Mount Fuji?! Is nothing sacred?

Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest and much-climbed mountain, has lately been acknowledged as a priceless part of the world’s cultural heritage. But a climb to appreciate this heritage may now come with the hefty price tag of 7,000 yen (about US$70) per person.

If you only make it half way up, how about a half price discount?

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China turns to tech to curtail cheating on tests, employs fingerprint scanners and metal detectors nationwide

In China this year, 7 June was the day prospective tertiary education hopefuls sat down to take the national university entrance examination. It’s a high stakes affair that has a great impact on each young person’s future.

Given the pressure these students and their family face there’s no question some will resort to cheating to get through. This year alone 9,120,000 people will take the exam. Considering those numbers, even if the cheating rate is only 0.1 percent, there is still a serious problem.

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The only McDonald’s in the world where the golden arches aren’t golden

Everyone knows the famous golden arches of McDonald’s. Wherever you go in the world, you can be sure you’ll spot that big yellow M, calling out to you with promises of juicy burgers, greasy fries, and gallons of soda pop.

But did you know that somewhere out there is a lone blue M? That’s right, blue!

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On July 13 this year, the film Bruce Lee, My Brother (released as Young Bruce Lee in English), will be coming to Japan. It was originally released in Hong Kong in 2010 and tells the story of Bruce Lee’s childhood and early career as based on a book, Memories of Lee Siu Loong, written by the dearly departed movie star’s siblings.

Robert Lee, Bruce Lee’s younger brother, has visited Japan to promote the film. While here he took part in an exclusive interview with online newspaper, Tokyo Sport, where he addressed many of the rumors surrounding Bruce Lee’s untimely death at the age of just 32. He also shared an unexpected story involving the top-notch fighter’s dreadful fear of cockroaches.

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We enlist at “Nation at War Tavern”, where luxury is the enemy and you can step back in time

On 15 August, 1945 Japan had announced their surrender and set the end of World War II in motion. However, in one small space tucked away in Kagoshima City the atmosphere of that time over 60 years ago has been preserved.

Upon hearing of this unique location one of our reporters headed down to see if Nation at War Tavern (Gunkoku Sakaba) could really take us back to a very different Japan. The following is their report.

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Showa Era newspaper’s drawings of future Tokyo scarily accurate, hilariously off base

These photos, which surfaced recently on a Vipper forum, show a Showa Era newspaper’s predictions of what Tokyo would look like in their future. If Mark Twain can foresee the Internet nearly a hundred years in advance, surely a Showa Era newspaper can get a few predictions right? Let’s take a look:

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Can’t keep a good dog down: One dog’s 12-kilometer journey home from death

What could possibly be worse than having to put down your beloved dog? How about that dog coming back from the grave and hunting you down?

Okay, that’s a gross exaggeration, but as you’ll see, there’s a good reason for that being my first thought when I saw this story.

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Visit sacred ‘ranobe’ spots around Japan with Book Off’s handy otaku map

Light novels (or ranobe for short, a portmanteau of raito and noberu) are popular in Japan as short, cheap reads for young adults. They often come with manga-style illustrations and feature many tropes from popular anime. This makes the transition between genres easy, and many light novels have been adapted into popular anime such as Ore no Imōto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai (There’s no way my little sister’s this cute!) and the currently airing Date-A-Live.

And now, Book Off–Japan’s brilliantly-named used bookstore chain–has added to the the recent spate of interactive maps with their new “Light Novel Pilgrimage Map”.

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