Current Featured Posts on Jamaipanese.com
 Japanese Manholes |
 Gundam Astray Gold |
 Made in Jamaica |
Queen Ifrica is a reggae songstress that has been blazing a trail on the local music scene for a few years now but has recently started to get international recognition. Songs like ‘Far Away’, ‘Daddy’ and ‘Below the Waist’ have been anthems with Jamaicans and lovers of good reggae music worldwide. I have embedded the video for her hit ‘Far Away’ below.
I’m a big fan of Queen Ifrica’s music, her voice, her lyrics, her delivery is all top notch. I love many different genres of music but I always find myself falling back on my native reggae when I want to to build the perfect musical vibe and connect directly with the topic of the music I am listening. read more…
Japan has already got robot teachers, robot pets and robot gladiators so can you guess whats missing? Robot babies of course! The Tsukuba University’s robotics and behavioral sciences laboratory has been working on “Yotaro” designed to remind young people of the pleasures of parenting.
Balloon Head with Tear Effects!
Yotaro’s alien-like face is made of soft translucent silicon. It is connected to projector, computer, speakers and various sensors to simulate crying, sneezing, sleeping and smiling and baby giggles. What would a baby be without a running nose and tears? Yotaro simulates a runny nose using an attached water pump. read more…
It’s coming up to that time of year again when Yoyogi Park in Tokyo, Japan is taken over for a weekend by all things Jamaican. The 2010 Staging of the One Love Jamaica Festival will take place from Saturday May 8th to Sunday May 9th 2010.
Lots of attractions and activities will be on at the festival including Jamaica travel information, singing of Bob Marley songs among many other things. It’s a festival that I have followed for a few years now from afar and still hoping to be able to go attend it one day in the future. read more…
Photography is like therapy to me, helping me to release a lot of negative energy that would otherwise have me decapitating that moron that cut in line in the bank yesterday or drop kicking that scammer I see all over Kingston on different days pretending he has run out of gas for his motorcycle. Through the monthly photography trips I have been going on with a couple local photography enthusiasts all over the island I have gotten the opportunity to leave the hustle and bustle of the city which I rarely do seeing that I don’t drive and have very few if any reason to leave the concrete jungle that is Kingston.
Photos and Collage by Gio – Can you pick out the 2 tiles that feature me above?
My post about Black River is an example of the places we go and the things we do on these outings and it is via these outings that I have met dozens of photographers from all walks of life and even overseas that share a common love for photography. I have prepared a list of some of the photographers I hang out it from time to time whose work is inspiring. read more…
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking websites on the internet. Some argue that it has passed it’s peak but in my mind Twitter is unique and useful enough to be around for a while. It is my most used social networking website mainly because it is the first site of it’s kind of I managed to actually do any social networking with anyone. Ameba is a Japan based blogging service with millions of users, think of it as the Wordpress or Blogger of Japan but with a few other peripheral services like a Youtube-like video sharing service.
Ameba Now Micro-Blogging
Ameba なう is exactly like twitter with a 140 character limit for messages and almost identical layout, but one of the unique features is the ability to use smilies in messages which is a good thing seeing that Japan is addicted to anything cute. read more…
Operation Visit Japan is now a month old. After the first report in January it’s time for the February update on the status of my plan to visit Japan in mid 2011.
Resisting the urge to splurge on anime figures, gadgets, video games and other tech goodies is a battle that I will be fighting inside for many months to come. Also carefully managing my income and expenses monthly is something that I have failed to do properly throughout my working life so although this is only my second report I can already see some benefits on other aspects of my life. The trouble though is with rising costs and bills here in Jamaica my salary cannot do as much as it used to a year or two ago, but I am sticking to the plan and Operation Visit Japan must and will continue. read more…
The air travel business is experiencing some fallout from the global economic downturn but remains a lucrative and growing industry. Air Jamaica and Japan Airlines are two carriers that have been in the news recently as both of them experience financial hardships.
Air Jamaica
After many years of turmoil the Jamaican Government is in the process of winding down the operations of Air Jamaica and merging with Trinidad and Tobago’s Caribbean Airlines. The fact that Air Jamaica failed is not attributed to lack of demand or low earnings but is largely due to mismanagement over the years that results in it not being able to compete with competitors in the marketplace. So now as the fate of Air Jamaica is sealed there has been a whirlwind of discussions on what the loss of Air Jamaica means to the fragile economy of Jamaica and how related services and the hundreds of workers that will lose their jobs will be affected. read more…
Seikon no Qwaser is the first anime off my interesting Winter 2010 list. It first caught my eye because of the poster but really grabbed my interest when I read through the plot synopsis. I usually stick to shows in genres that I like but stay away from the crazy stuff overloaded with fanservice or crazy themes but for some reason I couldn’t resist giving Seikon no Qwaser a watch and after digesting the first couple episodes I decided to do a first impressions post.
Seikon no Qwaser is based off a manga called The Qwaser of Stigmata. The story and setting is heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox church and follows Alexander, a mysterious silver haired younster known as a “Qwaser” with the ability to control iron. Mafuyu Oribe and Tomo Yamanobe are Japanese students of the St. Mihailov Academy whose lives are changed forever when they encounter Alexander, or Sasha he is often called. Sasha and other Qwasers they encounter draw their powers from a scared liquid known as Soma and things just start getting crazy from there. read more…
I’ve been a longtime Final Fantasy fan playing all of the games from one through to nine but apparently I am one of the few people who hated Final Fantasy X and the over dose of estrogen in Final Fantasy X-2. I played the MMO styled Final Fantasy XI for a little while but not having a decent computer at the time or a reliable internet connection doesn’t spell well for a game that requires hundreds of hours of attention and a monthly fee. Final Fantasy XII just didn’t appeal to me and arrived at a time when I had the most fun shooting my friends in multilayer first person shooters.
Since seeing Final Fantasy XIII’s revelation almost four years ago at the Electronic Entertainment Expo I fell in love with Final Fantasy all over again and now I am counting down the days till in gets released int he west. Unfortunately I don’t own a PS3 and the plan to get one is just one of many sacrifices I have to make to ensure that Operation Visit Japan works, but I have access to a few and I am looking forward to spending many hours with Lighting, Snow Villiers, Sazh Katzroy and company. read more…
My anime figure collection might not be the most extensive but that doesn’t make me less proud of it. After wanting to for a long time I decided to start collecting a few anime figures since I spent so much time admiring the collections of many of my anime loving pals. After paying for hosting and related expenses for the blog I found myself with a few extra bucks left over and decided to pick up a Gundam figure. One figure turned into 2 and 2 turned into 3 and in the space of a few months they had overun my computer desk at home with my desk at work now in their sights.
I had so much fun building most of the figures and they proved so popular with visitors to my blog. My photography also improved and I decided to use them as tabletop photography practice. So 14 figures and a year later I thought I’d take a look back at the collection, especially now with Operation Visit Japan now underway and going so well it will be quite some time before I am able to grab another anime figure. read more…
