Japan

Earthquakes can happen at any time. Typhoons, cyclones, floods and volcanic eruptions are among the many natural disasters that occur around us and there is a huge difference between being prepared and not being prepared when a natural disaster strikes.

Japan, like PNG, experiences earthquakes, floods from rain, cyclones and volcanic eruptions but it has changed its awareness of disaster preparedness and is targeting children with disaster education.

In PNG, Indomie's Pop Mie from neighbouring Indonesia is the most popular cup noodle.

Loop PNG this week visited the Cup Noodle factory in Yokohama, Japan, and witnessed firsthand how the cup noodle is prepared and packed.

This reporter is among 10 journalists from member countries of the Asian Development Bank that visited and had the opportunity to hand pick ingredients for their cup noodle before it was sealed.

The factory sees a lot of visitors, especially school children, during their breaks.

This program, in the form of a tour, is a lead up activity that the second largest city in Japan is hosting before the 50th ADB meet in May.

Journalists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Maldives and Papua New Guinea will be given an insight of the city’s infrastructure, technology, lifestyle as well as arts and history this week.

Papua New Guinea is being represented by Loop PNG’s Sally Pokiton.

 With a new FAA drone license in tow, Amazon has received a patent for its Prime Air drone delivery system.

The country has a long history with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and has used the devices for land surveys, farming, security, construction, and even town mascots.

According to telecom operator KDDI, Japanese employees spend far too much time waiting for a lavatory to become available, so it has developed an app which shows the nearest vacant loo, the Japan Times reports.

Many roboticists and computer engineers seem to think so, because they're always trying to make their creations more human.

Take Solo, the "emotional radio", for example. A wall-mounted device that resembles a large clock, it features a liquid crystal display at its centre. When you approach it, the pictogram face shows a neutral expression.

But it then takes a photo of your face, a rod or antenna on the side cranks into life, and the LCD display indicates that it's thinking.

Every winter, towns and cities across the country glow with impressive festivals featuring millions of colorful bulbs.

Best of all, these festivals keep going long after holiday cheer has passed, some carrying on well into spring.

Among the biggest and most impressive of them all is Nabana No Sato.

The bars come in three flavors, which fortunately don't taste anything like the varieties of sushi they're modeled to look like -- unless you count the seaweed.

There's tuna sushi, which actually tastes like raspberry. The seaweed wrapped sushi omelet is really a pumpkin pudding KitKat.

Lastly, the sea urchin sushi is a Hokkaido melon with mascarpone cheese KitKat.

All three have a base made of puffed rice with white chocolate and a hint of wasabi.

Inspired by an April Fool's Day joke

Japan's hi-tech toilets famously include features such as lid and seat controls, flush strength, front and back bidets, and air drying,

Different manufacturers all use their own pictograms for each function.

But the Japan Sanitary Equipment Industry Association says this confuses foreign tourists.

The organisation said (in Japanese) that it hoped its eight new pictograms would make things easier for non-Japanese speakers and create "a toilet environment that anyone can use with peace of mind".

The meeting is one of several precursors to Japan's eighth Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting or PALM to be held in 2018.

Japan has been holding the summit every three years since 1997.

16 countries are expected to attend the meeting which will review progress since the last summit and prepare for the next one.

Speaking on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum chair the Federated States of Micronesia's foreign secretary, Lorin Robert, said he was looking forward to discussing the Pacific's relations with Japan in the areas of climate change and ocean management.