The government announced that it would be allocating JPY11.2bn in funds, five times the 2012 number, to help Hokkaido tourism recover from the September earthquake.

Last week the audio/car electronics manufacturer, Pioneer, announced that it was selling a large private placement to Baring Private Equity in Hong Kong. The placement will be for JPY60bn, and appears to give Baring control of the struggling firm.

A company to catch our attention this last week was Huber, a matchmaker of mostly Japanese students acting as low-cost uncertified guides to foreigners who feel intimidated by the language barrier here.

Uber Japan pulled off a bit of a coup, by announcing completely unexpectedly that it was teaming up with Fuji Taxi of Nagoya and launching the Uber taxi app with Fuji.

Not challenging the big foreign firms who control the inbound market causes lost revenue not getting reinvested locally, and this hurts the development of new products and services.

Like many Japanese fast-rising internet companies before them, the Mercari senior management have a "bug up their butts" about taking on the e-commerce sector in the USA. Why this market is so important to them at this early stage, versus Asia, is not exactly clear.

Instead of the local players making good in Japan, it has taken a Taiwanese firm to show the locals how to revitalize the market. And the way they are doing it is really interesting.

Also foreigners do their bit to make lives of disadvantaged children better. Recently we interviewed Michael Clemons, the founder of the NPO named YouMeWe NPO and a social impact fund called eMPOWER.

While my fellow Japanese passengers knew to be patient and endure, the foreign tourists could only wait about 30 minutes before they started fidgeting and needing more information.

After some embarrassing exposes in the press, the government has cracked down on some of the worst offending employers - the ones withholding passports and salaries, seeking sexual favors and unpaid overtime, etc.