GotJapan

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi came to work on a Segway scooter on Friday, enjoying a gift he received a month ago from visiting U.S. President George W Bush in Kyoto.

Koizumi rode the two-wheeled stand-up vehicle the roughly 150 meters from his official residence to his office building within the same premises. “It was relatively easy to navigate,” Koizumi told reporters afterward, saying he practiced the ride on Thursday night. Under Japan’s traffic law, the Segway cannot run on public roads as it has no brakes.

Seihan Mori, chief priest at Kiyomizu Temple, writes the kanji for “ai,” (love), which was selected as the character most apropos for 2005 in the annual Kanji of the Year contest held by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. Organizers said voters may have been influenced by such events as the marriage of the former Princess Nori and the outpouring of aid to victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina in the U.S