A monster bluefin tuna sold for a record 396,000 dollars in the year’s first auction at the world’s biggest fish market in Tokyo Wednesday amid intense pre-dawn bidding.

The 342-kilogramme (752-pound) fish — caught off Japan‘s northern island of Hokkaido — fetched a winning bid of 32.49 million yen (396,000 dollars).

It was the highest such bid yet, topping the previous record of 20.02 million yen paid for a bluefin tuna in 2001, the officials said.

Fans of Apple’s iPhone who just can’t get enough of the popular gadget can now travel to Japan to gobble up a tasty cookie modelled on the popular smartphone.

A small bakery in Japan has enjoyed a surprise hit with its “iPhone cookie”, a handmade chocolate biscuit decorated with colourful, edible application icons.

Green Gables in Tokushima prefecture pioneered the tasty treat in 2008 as a special birthday gift for a customer’s husband, said Kumiko Kudo, the owner of the store.

Japanese jewelry maker Ginza Tanaka has put on sale a 2011 calendar made of 6 kilograms of pure gold featuring popular Dutch rabbit character Miffy.

The calendar measuring 64 centimeters by 40 centimeters is on sale at eight outlets of the company as well as online.

The special solid gold Miffy calendar celebrates the “Year of the Rabbit 2011” and is on sale for a whopping 55 million yen ($655,000).

Tokyo is now the city with the most Michelin three-star rated restaurants in the world trumping Paris, once considered the gastronomic capital of the world.

The Tokyo metropolitan area, which unseated Paris from the No. 1 spot and this year, the number of three-star restaurants increased from 11 to 14.

The total number of restaurants rated in the Tokyo guide was 266 — with 54 two-star rated venues and 198 one-star rated venues.

For those who need more bling in their lives, Mercedes released these limited edition key fobs garnished with Swarovski crystals.

A limited edition of 800 of these luxurious keys will initially be offered to customers in Japan.

The idea for the Swarovski Mercedes keys came internally, amongst the employees of the company’s Business Innovation Community.

A hotel in the northern Japan city of Nagano has installed one of the largest scale model railway sets in the country in a special luxury suite.

The diorama measures 6 meters by nearly 2 meters wide and displays many of the prefecture’s most popular tourist spots, including Zenkoji Temple and Nagano’s famous mountains.

The Hotel Metropolitan’s model has four kinds of electric trains that guests can steer around the track, including a miniature version of the Asama “shinkansen,” the bullet train that runs between Nagano and Tokyo.