That encouraged Yamazaki to enter a Bank of Japan contest for the best household budget in 1997.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

While others indenture themselves with 35-year mortgages, Yamazaki is paying off her home in one-fifth of that time .

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Yamazaki even make s her own hair spray with vodka and citrus peel.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Just as he did with a previous artificial brain model, Yamazaki plans to release the source code for the system.

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Japan has been making whiskey for over a century, and its most famous brand, the Yamazaki, is celebrating its 90th birthday this year.

FORBES: Fine Whiskey From Japan - The Next Big Thing

It said sales of its Islay Single Malt increased by 12% with the Japanese malts, Yamazaki and Hakushu, selling well in the UK and Europe.

BBC: Whisky firm Morrison Bowmore toasts rise in profit

But in a nation frozen in downsize mode, Yamazaki Eriko has caught the imagination of talk-show hosts, career men and women as well as homemakers.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Last year, Yamazaki recorded her experiences in a book, Setsuyaku Seikatsu no Susume - "Guide to a Thrifty Lifestyle" - and notched up another feat.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Yet a mere five years ago Yamazaki epitomized that freewheeling life.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

"I wanted to show people an alternative lifestyle, " says 35-year-old Yamazaki.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

At the 2012 World Whiskies Awards, for example, Suntory's Yamazaki 25-year-old was voted World's Best Single Malt, while Nikka won the top spot in the Blended Malt category.

WSJ: The Ascent of Japanese Whisky | The Cult of | WSJ. Magazine May 2013

In some you will find, apart from the typical array of sake, library-like shelves lined not with vellum spines but with dark-gold bottles of Hakushu, Laphroaig, Bowmore and Yamazaki.

WSJ: The Ascent of Japanese Whisky | The Cult of | WSJ. Magazine May 2013

"People are amazed by what we achieved, " Yamazaki chuckles.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Yamazaki and her husband give themselves little treats too.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

But no ot her author has Yamazaki's credibility.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

Yamazaki acknowledges Japan's long-drawn recession is a factor.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

On one recent visit to this exuberant survey, a group of kindergartners could be seen doing just that under a bright-red cube originally conceived by Tsuruko Yamazaki for an outdoor festival in 1956, and reconstructed here.

NEWYORKER: Gutai: Splendid Playground

Yamazaki worked out a seven-year plan instead.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

But according to Tadashi Yamazaki, one of the scientists who worked on the project, the baseball-playing robot is the second largest model of its kind and it runs in real time, meaning its much faster than other systems.

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Yamazaki took the lesson to heart.

CNN: JAPAN'S DOWNSIZING FABLE

In Kyoto, where the giant beverage company Suntory has its most famous whisky distillery, in the suburb of Yamazaki, the bar has reached rare heights of sophistication, with a meditative introspection that seems to unconsciously match and complement the local whiskies.

WSJ: The Ascent of Japanese Whisky | The Cult of | WSJ. Magazine May 2013