fun with japanese newspapers

Two short news items, for your mid-week reading pleasure.

First, a warning for those of you who (like me) have run out and bought heated toilet seats from the Japanese manufacturer Toto. Apparently a malfunctioning seat caught fire and melted at a hospital down in Fukuoka (foo-koo-oh-ka, if you were wondering).

Second, some mischievous students scrawled the word "HUCK" in a large sand dune. Apparently the dunes are protected, and the government frowns upon people writing 50-meter long words. My favorite part:

Many Japanese are taught a form of Romanization where the sound "fu" is spelled "hu." It is possible that the graffiti may have been the students' attempt to spell out a well-known English expletive.