As convenience store chains go, Family Mart is one of the nicest. The quality and cleanliness always seems to be higher than average, which perhaps explains why minimalist retail store Muji  chose it as the convenience store to carry Muji products. Or maybe it’s simply because both were originally part of the Seiyu Group, a large conglomerate and operator of Japanese supermarkets.

East Asian countries led by South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are the best wired in the world with the highest number of fast broadband connections to the Internet, a recent report has found. In Speed they're easily battling off the US Internet even.

Today there are colorful portable gadgets and iPhone applications to cover up the sounds people make when using the toilet, but a museum here has a large bronze urn dating from the 19th century that could be the earliest form of such devices.

The Japanese celebrate St. Valentine's day in a rather unique fashion. Only women give away chocolate to men they care about. It is not unusual for them to buy 20 to 30 boxes of chocolate. But other than in the Western world the chocolate boom goes on until March 14th when the men are asked to give chocolate in return.

“What is the true identity of this HanaBlo beauty?” That’s the tagline for a teaser campaign promoting the hay fever medicine HanaBlo (literally, Nose Block) manufactured by Fumakilla, a company better known for its household pesticides.

Japanese beer drinkers are tired of the same old tastes from the big four brewers and instead turn to a growing number of microbreweries across the country for something different. Also the already mentioned Suntory/Kirin merger was recently called off again.

The below postet numbers give you an insight into Japanese business, habits and ways of thinking. They were postet on JapanTimes JapanPulse Blog on 29st January this year so its pretty recent. Check out what is trend in Japan right now!