Silly Swedish-style ice bar in Tokyo


Just what we needed, a Swedish ice bar here smack in the middle of Tokyo... I'm being sarcastic of course. Can't imagine anything sillier. The bar made of ice blocks is in a stylish district of Tokyo's Nishi-Azabu. This is the first Icebar opening outside of Europe, but the fourth in the world, joining London, Milan and the original in Stockholm.

According to AFP, the operator shipped ice blocks to Tokyo directly from Sweden's Torne River, the same method used for the Stockholm bar, and keeps the room at a freezing minus five degrees Celsius. And AFP raises a very good point:

While Tokyo is famously trendy, it is also the land of the Kyoto Protocol and the eco-friendly "cool biz" plan last summer when businesspeople were urged to dress casually to save on air conditioning costs. So is it environmentally friendly to ship ice blocks thousands of kilometers from Sweden every six months and keep frozen year-round a room that fits a maximum of 50 people?

The answer is, obviously: NO!!!

Read more here.

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