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Hadaka Matsuri – Japanese naked festival Posted: 22 Feb 2011 11:54 PM PST The annual Saidai-ji Eyo hadaka matsuri (裸祭り, nudity festival), a ritual said to have originated in the Muromachi Period (1338-1573), was held Saturday night at the Saidai-ji Kannon-in temple in Okayama’s Higashi Ward. Thousands of men dressed in traditional loincloth packed into the temple grounds and grappled for a pair of shingi (sacred pieces of wood), each measuring about 20cm long, and tossed from the window of the temple’s main altar. According to local belief, those who manage to get their hands on the wooden amulet and race out of the temple’s precincts will be blessed with good fortune for the rest of the year. Info and video via Asahi. I’ll rather have bad luck instead of facing the armpit torture, lol? Hadaka Matsuri – Japanese naked festival from YeinJee's Asian Blog

UAE ready to fuel space tourism Posted: 22 Feb 2011 11:40 PM PST UAE investors increasingly look towards space for investments as the $7.5 billion USD space tourism industry is set to take off. The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) and US-based Bigelow Aerospace recently signed a memorandum to establish a commercial human space flight programme for Dubai and the UAE. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which is partly owned by Abu Dhabi based Aabar, also plans to bring space tourism to the UAE by building a space port in Abu Dhabi as soon as it gets approvals from US authorities. At the moment the cost of a return ticket to outer space for the first flights is between $95,000 and $200,000, depending on the flight provider, but these prices are expected to fall as capacity increases. Some experts estimate that the typical price to fly into space by 2030 will be around $25,000. More on Gulfnews. UAE ready to fuel space tourism from YeinJee's Asian Blog

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