To view more of Martin-Munoz’s works, check out at www.martin-munoz.com.

If you are not in mood for Christmas cheers, these creepy snow globes are perfect for you. You can have it for about $750 if you look for it via internet somewhere.

Sources: Gizmodo, Dvice, InventorSpot.

Minado serves a variety of all you can eat dishes including sushi, tempura, beef or chicken teriyaki, barbecue ribs, savory udon noodles, and meaty selections of seafood. Don’t forget about delicious Japanese salad and desserts as well. The bite size sushi allow to try different ones til you’ve had your fill of ‘em.

Of course, the “buffet” term may cringe some because of quantity-graded foods that you would normally find anywhere else. You don’t often align the words like fresh and quality together when it comes to buffet, but it really does at Minado. The buffet foods are being replaced constantly before they even lose any freshness just to maintain its high-quality reputation. As a proof of this, I’ve snapped few pictures before having my camera banned (which is quite surprising).

www.minado.com

Bailey Part 1

Bailey Part 2

Click here for Part 3.

Click here for Part 4.

The end result will look like this:

check out his Bailey Blade website at www.baileyspeed.com.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be a cultural anthropologist or even pretending to be one, but I do know the real significance of public display of affections in the Asian countries. The Asian countries are generally not touch oriented societies and that hugging in the public is relatively new to them in their respective countries.

Maybe it’s because in recent years, the Western and contemporary values and ideas have become more popular and has either influenced, altered, and even replaced, some of the more traditional gestures. So, understanding human behavior is tricky stuff. We see a lot of Western-influences in Japan and South Korea, but not so much in China (except perhaps for Hong Kong).

Hugging may be universal, or at least the Olympic events proved that, but it appears to me that Westerners are more willing to give hugs than Asian people in their respective countries as you will notice in some of the videoclips below. These videoclips will show Free Hugs movement that took place in Japan, South Korea, and China. Watch and see how these people react bit differently in each of their countries.

Free Hugs in Japan

Free Hugs in South Korea

Free Hugs in China (this guy got arrested at the end of this videoclip)

As the global village continues to shrink and cultures collide, it is essential for all of us to become more sensitive, more aware, and more observant to the myriad motions, gestures, and body language that surround us each day. And as many of us cross over cultural borders, it would be fitting for us to respect, learn, and understand more about the effective, yet powerful “silent language” of gestures as hugging.

Takeji Nakagawa hand-crafts his toys so meticulously piece by piece all by himself, just so that wooden materials’ true quality and beauty can shine through. He runs a small toy company with his wife, yes just him and his wife, in Japan. The Take-G toys are really a “toys” in the truest sense and it’s meant to be. In his own words, he shares his view about why he made these toys:

“I often get asked “Why do you make robots with wood?” I don’t really have an exact answer for it but I often relate my robots with ‘future’. 

What do you relate future with? Cities full of metals, glasses and plastics in a SF movie? What we really want is not that kind of future but one full of trees and something more natural. I don’t think humans can live without trees no matter what advances technology makes. 

When I think of ‘future’, I cannot help thinking of ‘past’ at the same time. Trees take long time (tens and hundreds years) to grow and show us their beauty (the product of their past). I think that I have responsibilities as a craftsman and an artist of breathing new life into these trees. I have a job to link 100 years in the past and 100 years in the future through my work. This is my values toward my work. 

I wish my work, which carries such values, can grab imaginations of children of the past, present and future.“ 

Unfortunately, the Take-G toys can’t be bought by any conventional means, not yet anyway. Take-G, however, only sells them at exhibitions and art galleries. I guess that would really make them all the more rare and valuable collectible items for anybody. Here, you can check out his website at Take-g.com. The english version Take-G website will be coming soon. 

Source: Usatoday.com

For more Yamaha Vmax pics, view gallery here.

According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th Century). As a solution to this alarming problem architect Vincent Callebaut came up with this ecotectural marvel that could serve as a luxurious future retreat for 50,000 inhabitants seeking refuge from rising waters due to global warming. He believes the world will be desperately seeking shelter from the devastations of climate change, and hopes the auto-sufficient amphibious city will serve as a luxurious solution. To bad that right now we are close to 7 billion people and this luxurious future retreat is just for 50,000 inhabitants ( just for rich people ).

Vincent Callebaut called this project “Lilypad“, but this ecotectural marvel is also called as “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees”. The whole structure is covered in green walls and roofs, the top portion covered in grasses with the inner portion featuring a palm oasis, and the under portion serving as a bed for natural sea planktons and oceanic plants. Finally if you were already planning to reserve a place to this luxurious future retreat stay calm, because Vincent Callebaut hopes that “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees” will make the transition from design to reality around the year 2100