Japan is an absolutely fascinating country. Adding the to mystery and the fascination is that I'm never quite sure whether the reports coming out of there are true or not. Some of them are just too bizarre for words, while the use of
Engrish provides an inexhaustible supply of amusement. I saw some cartons of Japanese food at a local store the other day. The only thing I could decipher was the English slogan "Peanut & Me." I shudder to think that the ingredients are.

Continuing the note of just plain weird stuff, there's a reporter who claims that there massive secret tunnels under Tokyo. He's been tracking down inconsistencies in published maps, construction records and apparently inexplicable events. For instance, he claims that the new O-Edo Subway Line had been there already long before the official building began. I am in no position to assess the veracity of his claims, but with Japan, few things surprise me anymore these days. It would not surprise me that there are more tunnels in existence than the maps bear out, but that would be true of most cities with an underground transportation system. It's the scale of the undocumented tunneling that's the issue here. It would make sense to have some kind of an underground bunker to keep the government safe in case of a military attack, or perhaps even in the case of a big earthquake. Then again, I'm not sure you'd want to be underground in a case like that. Anyone with seismic imaging equipment in Tokyo?