Category Archives: Various.

Admiral Fitzroy’s “Storm Glass”

This tool is called Admiral Fitzroy’s Storm Glass. During the 19th century Charles Darwin, among others, was using it to predict weather conditions on board of a ship. Prediction is based on the formation of the crystals contained in the water. Clear water with crystals submerged to the bottom predicts clear weather, whereas crystals floatingContinue reading “Admiral Fitzroy’s “Storm Glass””

A tale of an irregular juice package

There is a steady hype about delicacies in Japanese convenient stores. My discovery this week was not a sweet, but a juice in rather peculiar packaging. Meet “tropical straight 100”. Ignoring my initial reaction (that was something along the lines of “are they selling prepackaged blood serum for vampires now?“), this is actually a juiceContinue reading “A tale of an irregular juice package”

Bontan Candy (ボンタンアメ)

Lately, I came across a strange citrus flavoured candy with an interesting twist, as expected from japanese sweets. Bontan candy is a mochi-chewy style square candy with pomelo and mandarin flavour. The candy comes in a small paper box and each candy piece is covered with transparent wrap. However hard you try to unwrap theContinue reading “Bontan Candy (ボンタンアメ)”

紙で結ぶ絆: A letter set for building relationships

NTT is a ginormous company in Japan, with research facilities and factories all around the country. One of their employees gave our laboratory the following gift: a handmade letter set made from Japanese paper (washi or 和紙). This letter set was made with great care at an NTT factory called 塩山　or “salt mountain”, whose purposeContinue reading “紙で結ぶ絆: A letter set for building relationships”