Chocolate chairs and tattooed goldfish

There's been quite a bit of news involving Asian designers and trends this last week. Crave posted that Michi Jung just launched a new chocolate-styled furniture line from his Italian studio. The highlight is the "Music Chocolate" chair, which doubles as an iPod dock.

In Japan, Toyo Ito & Associates announced design plans for the Toyo Ito architecture museum in Ehime, Japan. Construction on the octahedron-, tetrahedron- and cuboctahedron-inspired museum will begin in 2010, and it will open in 2011.

Japanese artist Ryota Aoki has the ceramics world fired up for his new "ceramics labratory vol. 2" which opened at New York's ippodo gallery last week. Another lesser known Asian artist from Shanghai, Nini Sum, will be headed to New York for the Cut and Paste Championships this October 16. Her David Lynch-inspired slipmat works are currently on display at the A Nice Set exhibition in Shanghai until September 28. Fans of funky, freaky art should really dig her work.

Speaking of funky freaky, how about tattooed goldfish? Next Nature posted on the growing popularity of the tatted bowl dwellers in China. Earlier this month, the price of inked-up little Nemos in Chengdu jumped from RMB9 to RMB100 per fish due to increasing demand. What's next? Soon, fighting fish will be getting teardrop tats for each kill.