A Japanese producer of milk and dairy products came up with an ingenious way of motivating kids to finish their milk bottles at lunch – decorating the bottles with manga comics.

Seki Milk, a milk producer and processor in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, has been providing its products to local schools, but in recent years the company had seen consumption of milk drop significantly. According to its own research, the majority of school students (around 65% of them) were not finishing their milk bottles at lunch, which caused unnecessary food waste and also deprived them of calcium and other valuable nutrients. However, if you’re a parent, you probably already know that getting kids to eat things that are good for them isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Seki Milk came up with an original and fun way to motivate children to finish their milk – manga bottles.

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Bijin-Hime, aka ‘Beautiful Princess’, is a Japanese strawberry variety that is perfectly shaped and colored and offers an unmatched flavor. It also costs up to $350 a piece, making it one of the world’s most expensive fruits.

Developed by Mikio Okuda, a Japanese farmer with over 45 years of experience growing strawberries, over 15 years of trial and error, Bijin-Hime is one of the world’s most highly regarded strawberry varieties. The largest fruits are about the size of a tennis ball and weigh around 100 grams, but it’s not the size that makes the Beautiful Princess special. Well, actually, it is, but not in the way you expect. Generally, the larger a strawberry is, the less flavor and sweetness it has, but that is certainly not the case with Bijin-Hime strawberries. They are rated at 13 degrees Brix, which makes them considerably sweeter than the 10-degree Brix strawberry standard, and have a flavor reminiscent of roses.

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If you’ve ever wanted to hold a girl’s hand and take long romantic walks in the moonlight, but could never actually find a girl to do that with, there’s now a high-tech device you can try.

Developed by a research team at Gifu University, in Japan, “My Girlfriend in Walk” is an ingenious device that aims to recreate the experience a girlfriend’s hand, without an actual girlfriend. The act of walking hand in hand with the opposite sex, be they partner or friend, can be very satisfying, but we don’t always have someone to do it with. Luckily, technology has evolved enough to provide a viable surrogate, kind of…

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Up until four years ago, Monet’s Pond, a small body of water just outside Seki City, in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, didn’t even have a name, but thanks to social media and a catchy nickname, it has become one of the most popular tourist destination in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Before it became known as Monet’s Pond, this hidden gem was called Namonaki, or “Nameless Pond”, and what’s even more interesting is that it was never meant to be a tourist attraction. It was originally designed as an irrigation reservoir, but after it fell into disrepair during the 1990s, the owner of the neighboring  Itadori Flower Park took it upon himself to clear the overgrown weeds and clean it up. With the help of the neighborhood council, the man filled the lake with clean water from Mt. Koga, and planted beautiful water lilies. Later, Japanese carp were donated by local owners who could no longer care for them. But it would take over a decade and a half for this pristine body of water to reach its full potential as a tourist attraction.

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Many of us living in tiny apartments can only dream about growing vegetables in our own backyards, but thanks to Foop, an ingenious home gardening pod developed by Japanese company C’estec, we can now grow veggies in the comfort of our own home.

Foop (a combination of the words ‘food’ and ‘people’) is a small-size hydroponic agriculture kit that allows users to grow plants in water instead of soil. Its designers claim that you can use Foop to grow small crops of popular vegetables, including lettuce, arugula, basil, parsley or shiso, all of which can be raised from seeds and will develop faster than non-hydroponic plants.

The elegantly-designed wooden frame of the Foop is is produced by craftsmen from Hida, in Gifu Prefecture, one of Japan’s most famous woodworking regions, but the device also comes with a clear acrylic cover that lets you check the progress of your crops. There are no buttons or switches visible on the Foop, because all the settings – temperature, humidity, light, water levels, etc. – are done via a smartphone app. The Foop will also regularly send notifications regarding the state of your indoor garden and alert you when the crops are ready to be harvested.

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Ukai is a traditional Japanese method of fishing that employs trained cormorants to catch freshwater fish called ‘ayu’. For the past 1,300 years, fishermen along the banks of Nagara River have been spending the summer months catching fish with the help of the highly skilled birds. Some of the other rivers where ukai is practiced include the Hozu River and Uji River.

Fishermen who are skilled at ukai have patronage from the emperor. According to legend, samurai warlord Oda Nobunaga took the ukai fishermen under his wing, conferring upon them the official position of ‘usho’ (Cormorant Fishing Master). He is said to have enjoyed watching ukai in action and vowed to protect the art.

When the famous haiku poet Matsuo Basho witnessed ukai fishing, he wrote a poem to honor the tradition: “Exciting to see/but soon after, comes sadness/the cormorant boats.” In modern times, the master fishermen are still the official Imperial fishermen of the emperor of Japan. The sweetfish (ayu) they catch are sent to the Imperial family several times a year.

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Ossan Rental (or “Middle-Aged Guy Rental”) is the newest bizarre rental service in Japan. As the name suggests, it allows people to rent an average middle-aged Japanese guy for ¥1,000 ($10) an hour.

There are a lot of crazy people-renting services in the Land of the Rising Sun, from the now famous Soine-ya Prime rent-a handsome-boyfriend service, to simple rent-a-friend options and even a rent-a-bare-thigh advertising service. So we have hot young guys and girls for rent, but what about middle-aged folks, is no one interested in paying for their time? Surely there has to be a market out there for them, too, right? That’s probably what the masterminds before Ossan Rental thought when they decided to open the first rental service for middle-aged guys in Japan. The company currently offers only two options to choose from, either the 46-year old Takanobu Nishimoto, a college lecturer in fashion and styling from Osaka, or Mikio Sendou, a former baseball player and current sports commentator from Gifu Prefecture. They both seem like interesting dudes, and the company’s roster is only going to get bigger once the business gets off the ground.

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