28Lab

A creative musician transforms spider crabs into incredible sounding didgeridoos. Not content with carving stunning wooden instruments, Kazuki Kitagawa decided to turn his hand to the crustaceans famous to Heda, Shizuoka prefecture, in eastern Japan. The 34-year-old turned the giant crab into a stunning 320cm long didgeridoo after taking inspiration from the seafood after moving to Heda in July 2016. Receiving his raw materials from a local restaurant, Kazuki unveiled his first spider crab didgeridoo in July 2017.

Have you heard about the “High school girl” in Tokyo everyone’s been talking about these past few years on twitter and other social networks? Hideaki Kobayashi, 54 years old, works at a printing company and on the weekends he goes out in a girl’s high school uniform. He says he has a lot of reasons for wearing the uniform, but his initial inspiration was a campaign for free ramen for anyone over 30 wearing a high school girl uniform that his friend told him about. At first he wondered what would happen if he wore the uniform, but unexpectedly, nothing came of it. After he started wearing the uniform, he traveled to Tokyo, Osaka, and other cities. He even went to France and China in uniform, where he attracted lots of attention; many tweets were written about him and he started to become known as “that old man wearing a girl’s sailor uniform.” Now, he is also popular among teens, and was invited as a guest to the “Cinderella Festival,” a high school girls only event. At the event, he was asked to promote a game developed by a group of high school girls. When he stood at the booth, many girls asked if they could take their pictures with him, a middle aged man wearing a sailor uniform. As we sat observing him surrounded by all these young girls, we felt like it’s not just the uniform that drew people to him, but his character as well. We even heard that there is a rumor with the girls that if you meet him, you will find deep and true happiness. 这几年在东京常有人目击到的一位特别的「女子高中生」，在推特和个网絡社群中造成不少话题。他是小林秀章（54岁），平常是位在印刷公司工作的普通上班族。一到周末却以水手服（日本女子高中生常有的制服样式）姿态出现在各地。有很多原因促使他开始穿水手服，但最主要的契机是2011年在神奈川的拉面店举办的一个活动策划：30岁以上穿水手服来店即可免费得到拉面一碗。小林先生在朋友的建议下决定挑战看看。在穿之前他预想了许多可能的状况，但事实上并没有任何大惊动发生。 在那之后，他开始在东京，大阪，以及国内其他城市旅行。他甚至也穿着水手服去到了法国和中国。其特殊的样子吸引不少人注意而在推特造成话题，也慢慢以「水手服欧吉桑」闻名。 最近小林先生的人气不减，甚至被邀请到专为女子高中生举办的活动「辛德瑞拉节庆」。他在现场为一个女高中生团体所开发的游戏作推广代言。现场活动的摊位前有许多女子高中生等着要和他合照。 观察被这些年轻女孩包围的小林先生，我们发现他的人气并不仅仅因为其特别的打扮，而他本人的性格也是相当有魅力。也因此出现「只要能见到他，就会得到幸福。」这样的传闻。 Produced by 28Lab Inc. & E.x.N K.K.

Gosen Asakura started using techno music to attract young followers. Syoonji temple, Fukui prefecture, Japan.

There are more than 100 wild monkeys in Iwatayama monkey park in Kyoto, Japan. After 15-20 minutes hike, you will get to the top of Iwatayama and meet wild monkeys. Here you can buy fruits and feed the monkey. Funny thing is that people are inside of cage and monkeys are outside!! Don't look straight into monkeys eyes. It means fighting.

Yumeka is originally from Ichihara Elephant Kingdom in Chiba prefecture, Japan. About 20 years ago, the owner of the Elephant Kingdom watched a TV show about a painting elephant. Then he (the owner) knew that training elephants from early age makes drawing skill much better so he decided to teach baby elephant how to draw when he will have one. Then Yumeka was born. The daughter of the kingdom’s owner told me that each elephant has different skills but Yumeka has been trained by same trainer from Thailand since she was 2 so they have a strong bond. And also Yumeka always looks happy when she was praised after drawing. These made her skills better and better. The zoo sells her paintings, goods and also LINE stamps (Please download the pictures from the above link). And Yumeka will use the money to have her baby. So we could say she earns part of her birth fee by herself! Yumeka is planning to go back to Chiba in this Summer hopefully after she gets pregnant.

Gotoku-ji Temple, Tokyo. This temple has become a sight-seeing spot for travelers from all over the world thanks to its collection of 1000 cat figures. It is said that the first “Lucky Cat” (maneki-neko) came from Gotokuji. Though there are many stories of how the first “Lucky Cat” came to be, according to Asahi Shinbun, it was made to honor a white cat named Tama, who once lived in the temple. Upon his death, the original figure of a white cat beckoning with its paw was made, and since then its popularity has only grown. Mr. Kazuo Hiroshima, a volunteer guide at the temple, further illuminates the story for us. “In 1633, Lord Naotaka Ii was resting under a tree near the temple when Tama appeared at the entrance and beckoned him inside. Not long after Naotaka went in, the weather suddenly turned bad, and the tree he was resting under was hit and destroyed by lightning. Naotaka was extremely grateful to both Tama and the temple and appointed Gotokuji the official temple of the Ii family. Thanks to the good fortune Tama brought, the temple grew and survives to this day.” This temple is a big tourist attraction, and is easily accessible from the central part of <a href="https://rumble.com/v3xtpb-go-kart-in-tokyo.html">Tokyo</a>, which is why it's always flooded with cat-loving tourists all year round.

They say that you can meet Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy in Saitama Prefecture’s Chichibu City, two hours northwest of Tokyo, Japan. The Chichibu Museum of Rare Stones exhibits many unusual rocks, including a popular display of more than 700 that resemble people’s faces. Almost all of them has a name, with some of them resembling popular Japanese entertainers, anime characters, and even Elvis Presley and the like. Each one captures their characteristics really well. The Japanese have even invented a term that is applied to stones that resemble human facial features – “jinmenseki”. The rocks were all gathered over a 50 year period by the museum’s first director, Mr. Shoji Hayama, at the nearby Arakawa River. The current director is his wife, Ms. Yoshiko Hayama, She was formerly the chief curator of the Museum of Rare Stones and she took over the position held by her husband who passed away in 2010 – a <a href="https://rumble.com/v3keop-father-and-son-keep-family-tradition-alive.html" target="_blank">family tradition</a> literally set in stone. Ms. Hayama said that the museum, which opened its doors 27 years ago, was like an extension of her husband, as she explained the stones’ various characteristics. An avid collector, the late Shozo Hayama spent 50 years collecting rocks that looked like faces. His only requirement was that nature is the only artist. It seems she has truly inherited Mr. Hayama’s passion for the stones. There is, at the moment, such a large number of <a href="https://rumble.com/v3b3ys-raccoon-help-mama-by-pulling-rocks-from-her-shoes.html" target="_blank">rocks</a> on display that some do not even have names. Therefore, the owner is known to sometimes invite visitors to give names for rocks.

There is a rock climbing gym in Okinawa, Japan, called Boulbaka2, with an “employee” who has become quite the topic of conversation online. Her name is Lala (1 year old).It all started in October, 2016, when they were renovating and she jumped from a ladder onto the wall. When a video of her climbing the wall was uploaded to Facebook afterwards, it got more than 7 million views, making her an instant online sensation. Lala came to the gym when she was around 2 months old, in July of 2016. The gym’s owner, Mr. Goan saw Lala alone walking down the busy street in front of the gym and took her in. At the time, her right eye was badly damaged by ticks, but she has recovered fully and strolls about the gym freely every day now. She doesn’t climb much anymore, but even today she awaits customers as the manager of the gym... (Filmed on 20 March, 2018)

Ono City, Fukui, Japan, called the Hokuriku region’s little Kyoto, is overflowing with nature and tradition. It is a home to one of Japan’s best fresh water springs and Shichiken asa'ichi, an early morning farmer’s market that has been going on for 400 years. According to Ono City Hall’s Mr. Shimizu, Ono City’s Echizen Ono Castle has been garnering national attention of late, as “The Castle in the Clouds.” It earned this nickname due to the clouds that form about its base from sunrise until around 9 A.M. that make it appear as though it is floating in the sky. These clouds form when the day prior was humid, there is a big difference in temperature between noon the previous day and the morning, and the wind is not very strong. It is a rare event that only occurs 10 times a year, from fall through spring. Produced by 28Lab Inc. & E.x.N K.K.

On February 7th, 2017, Tokyo’s Tama Zoological Park held a practice drill for what to do in the event an animal escaped from its enclosure. It is a drill held once a year alternating between Tama Zoological Park and the Ueno Zoo, and the scenario was a chimpanzee fleeing from its keepers. Though the chimpanzee was a costumed staff member, there were those among the unknowing park visitors who thought a chimpanzee had actually escaped as they watched it harass the drill participants, who were equipped like it was the real deal with tranquilizer guns. Altogether 80 people, from police officers to fire fighters participated in the drill. The person who dresses up as the animal is typically a new staff member. This time the chimpanzee keeper, Mr. Yosuke Taguchi played the part. In the past there have been drills for lions, snow leopards, and orangutans, and a chimpanzee, milu deer, red panda, and hermit ibis have actually escaped before.

Rainbow Village, located in the suburbs of Taichung, Taiwan, has undergone a massive transformation thanks to a 95 year old man named Huang Yong Fu. He was born in Hong Kong, and fought in the Second Sino-Japanese war as a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party, when he came to Taiwan with his regimen in 1949. Then, years later he settled down in this village and began painting around 2008. At the time the region was to be a part of a redevelopment project, but village fans, seeking to protect the village which had become famous for its paintings, gathered support online and sent numerous e-mails to the mayor of the city, so the mayor came to visit the village personally. Then things changed quickly, and rather than destroy the village, they moved to help preserve it. Mr. Huang Yong Fu goes out whenever he can to greet and talk to tourists, and the village makes an effort to support philanthropic work by donating a portion of the money it makes from souvenirs to charitable organizations.

Keisuke Inagaki, a 48 year old chef who lived in an evacuee camp in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster that followed it, wanted to think of something to bring some joy into the lives of the children living in the camp. When he saw an American doing pancake art on TV, he started making them himself, and has continued, having now made 2,000 of them. His pancakes have become a hot topic on social networking sites and there is now a month-long wait for reservations at his shop. (February 18th, 2018)

In Kada, Wakayama prefecture, Japan, there is a shrine called Awashima shrine which has a huge collection of dolls donated by people across the country. According to atlas obscura (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/a...), ‘’ There are a lot of Japanese superstitions about dolls, and a good number of people in Japan seem to find them a little mysterious or frightening, believing that they have souls or the power to influence human lives. There are a number of shrines and festivals wherein people dispose of their old dolls and toys - they feel that if they just threw them in the garbage, the dolls’ souls might come back to haunt them like ghosts.’’

People and a monk are praying for robot dog, AIBO. After SONY stopped preparing service for their first AIBO there are many AIBO who have ''died'' so the owners send their AIBO to this temple and take the souls away before they are broke apart.

This cave was well known by the locals, but when a tourist posted pictures of it online in September of 2015, people started saying it looked like it was taken out of a Ghibli film. Now shops line the area around the parking lot, and buses have started coming there, bringing the place to life with tourist activity. (Filmed on 15th March, 2018)

There was a peculiar gathering on September 15th, 2016, in Aomori Prefecture’s Tsuruta-machi, Japan. Looking across the venue of this gathering on that harvest moon in the middle of autumn, the most magnificent heads you ever did see were on display. They were the heads of the “Tsuruta Bareheads’ Bearing Up Club,” a group of bald and balding men who gather together every year. The activities they do each year are only possible for the follicly challenged. Their first meeting was in 1989, when the flyer for the group read, “Cue balls unite! Let’s brighten up the world!” The group participates in many activities other than their yearly meetings, such as driving safety campaigns and visits to nursing homes.

Tomoyuki Shioya is obsessed with comic foregrounds and has traveled all over the country, even outside of Japan to places like Taiwan and the United States, just in order to take pictures with them. His collection of photos nears 3,000. In the beginning he would take <a href="https://rumble.com/v4fsln-mystery-pictures-appear-along-niagara-falls-street.html" target="_blank">pictures</a> with the comic foregrounds when he happened to be at a tourist spot, but one day he saw one that was getting thrown out and asked the shop owner if he would take a picture of him in it, prompting the shop owner to say: “Well, if people get this much joy out of it, I’ll put it back up.” Tomoyuki decided he wanted to have more experiences like that and started seeking out “head in the hole” photo boards to take pictures with. He always walks around with a tripod and camera and will take <a href="https://rumble.com/v4fh5f-photographer-travels-the-world-taking-pictures-of-the-dogs-he-meets.html" target="_blank">pictures</a> using the timer feature on his camera no matter how crowded the space. Tomoyuki says that he has never felt embarrassed by his hobby. In time, his activities caught the media’s attention, and he has now appeared on television and in events, as well as held exhibits of his pictures and written a book. He says that he wants to continue taking pictures at comic foregrounds until the day he dies. You could see his pride as an aficionado, and he even seemed pretty cool to us.

The cat village in Taiwan called Houtong has more than 100 cats. The village attract many tourists around the world.