arakawa riverview

Ikebukuro to Hakusan

2012-01-14T12:14:00.001+09:00

Ikebukuro to Hakusan, a set on Flickr.

A wander eastwards from Ikebukuro to a little local area called Hakusan, just before oshogatsu (new year).

Brilliant

2012-01-11T17:28:00.001+09:00

Hayaku: A time lapse journey through Japan...

Crazy Ivans?

2012-01-05T16:37:00.003+09:00

According to my stats, between 29th December and 5th January the highest pageviews of this blog, sorted by country, are by far from Russia.

Who are all you Russians out there and why are you looking at my blog? Answers in the comments please :)

My word is my...

2012-01-05T12:25:00.001+09:00

When the DPJ took power for the first time a couple of years ago (not counting the brief flirtation with office they had 1980s) when the Hat got elected they produced a manifesto. Like most political manifestos it was long on hot air and short on details of any concrete policies, but you expect that from politicos. I suspect it was full of things like ‘we’ll try not to rock the boat too much or fuck things up royally’ and ‘we promise to think very carefully about certain things, related to but not necessarily including things we can do anything about’ and, of course, ‘we will maintain the rule of bureaucrats so that we do the talking and they, the grey, unelected mass, do the running’. You know, the usual sort of thing.

What they did not write in their manifesto was ‘in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and subsequent even-more-lethal tsunami we will raise consumption tax to facilitate the rebuilding of the Tohoku region (as we won’t have enough money to do it as we’re already in hock to ourselves to a rather overstretched degree (but at least we’re not in hock to the Chinese, oil-rich Arabs or the New World Order))’. It was a tad remiss of them to leave out this important clause, indeed 9 DPJ MPs thought so and are now 9 former DPJ MPs, or, more accurately, the 9 founding members of a new political party called Kizuna (named, possibly, after a song by, variously, Aya Matsuura, Aya Ueto, Orange Range or Ayane; or maybe after an action rpg for the Wii – only the 9 will know). Kizuna also means ‘bond’ in Japanese, though I’m not sure if that’s bond as in ‘ties like our ties to the DPJ aren't very strong’ or bond as in ‘glue’ or maybe bond as in ‘the name’s Bond…’; again maybe the 9 know and they’re not saying (more likely I haven’t found out, so I’m going with the Ian Fleming option).

Anyway, it got me thinking about these 9, are they:

a) Unaware of how big the Japan’s debt currently is?
b) Woefully ignorant of what faces Japan and especially Tohoku in the coming years in terms of rebuilding, not to mention the social welfare and pension time bomb?
c) Wankers?
d) All of the above?

(by the way ‘c’ is a trick option, they’re politicians so of course they’re wankers).

Their claim is that the DPJ are betraying their pre-election promises, and their manifesto no doubt, as nowhere did it say that the party was going to raise consumption tax. Well ok, they are right, though I think the raising of this tax, from its current 5% has been on the cards for ages, if for no other reason than Japan has to pay for its current and future welfare/pension liabilities somehow, but there you go. But the real impetus has come from the quake and the need to rebuild, which Japan absolutely must do, but because the manifesto didn’t mention it these 9 have said they refuse to be party to a party that will do this. Quite how they expect the government to fund the rebuild is anyone’s guess, though as far as I can tell they haven’t actually said anything except ‘not by raising consumption tax’.

So I don’t really get what they want. What I know Japan doesn’t want, or need, is another political party, especially one of only 9 MPs. Also, what about the people that voted these tossers into power? Akira Uchiyama was voted in by the people of Chiba as an MP for the DPJ but has now become an MP for Kizuna, shouldn’t he be going back to the people of Chiba and asking them if they would still like him to be their MP, now that he has formed his own party? Same for the rest of them – but of course no chance of that until the next election, at which point I hope they boot him out.

Now I personally don’t want my tax to increase, but I can see the need for it. And it’s not like it’s going to happen overnight, it will go up from 5% to 8% in April 2014 and then 10% in October 2015 – so still some way off the 17.5% you get in the UK and will still be pretty low as the total tax take is only 17% of GDP, the lowest in the OECD according to the Economist (interesting article here).

Anyway I think these 9 are just your average grandstanding politicos, looking to get some easy short-term advantage whilst the country goes to the long-term dogs (notwithstanding the article above). OK, something like 58% of respondents in a recent survey said they didn’t want their tax to increase, so maybe these guys can see some popular support, but I wonder how the question was asked – if the question was ‘do you want to pay more tax?’ then I expect the answer is mostly ‘no’; if the question is ‘to fund the reconstruction of Tohoku would you agree to a modest increase in consumption tax, otherwise we can’t pay for it?’ then I think most would answer yes.

This is why I have a sneaking respect for current PM Noda – I think he can see the writing on the wall, the elephant in the room and that the king is not wearing any clothes (though the emperor is, I have from a trusted imperial source, fully attired). He knows that 1) they need to raise revenue 2) consumption tax is the way to do it 3) it’s not going to be popular and 4) his PM-ship is a one-way ticket to the dole queue but, as the saying goes, it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. He has already said that he will not call an election on this matter but will force it through, a fait accompli if you will, which is exactly what needs to be done. I think he can see this and has decided that he’ll do it for the good of Japan before disappearing off to retire by the sea.

If he does, respect to him.

In other news:

So in many ways I guess I had a pretty successful 2011.

I didn’t die in either the most catastrophic earthquake to hit Japan in 16 years or the subsequent and even more lethal tsunami. Admittedly I wasn’t anywhere near Tohoku at the time, but there you go, good planning.

I have a great family who were all general healthy and well through the year.

I still have a job that I enjoy in a school that seems to holding its shit together in this increasingly turbulent economic epoch.

No one I know has got radiation poisoning from Fukushima (so far).

I ran a half-marathon and not only finished but finished in the top 35%

So all things considered it wasn’t too bad, then again, roll on 2012…

And finally...

In the Annual Intercontinental Bowdidge Backgammon Bonanza I'm very glad to report that Japan triumphed 25-18 in what was once again a brilliant display of backgammon skill. Bad luck and well played to the losing finalist.

Your democratic right to assembly and free speech - Japan style

2011-12-30T22:47:00.003+09:00

Power to the ~~People~~ Authorities

Born to run

2011-11-21T21:36:00.001+09:00

As long as it means I don't have to run too far the next day...

So yesterday I finally donned the old New Balances and set out running in anger, taking part in the Ageo Half Marathon, my first competitive race. This was the first time I had run a race with other people since, probably, secondary school, so it was a bit of an eye-opener.

So, some thoughts and observations about running...

1. Everything I've read about it, which is a bit in recent years, says that at the start of a race novice runners tend to get carried away with the moment, so try to curb your instincts and don't rush off. This was not a problem for me - I had very sensibly headed for the sign saying 1h40m-2h00m, thinking that most people in front of me would be faster. Oh how wrong I was - now the people right at the front were seriously fast, fair enough, but most of them were not, so that for about the first 3 to 4 kilometres I had to run at quite a slow pace (for me) as I dodged around slow moving other runners who should in no way have been up near the front at the start. All the dodging and stop-starting meant I couldn't get into anything like a normal slightly under 5-minute kilometre pace, most frustrating. It might sound poncey, but even my breathing didn't get into the proper rhythm for about 20 minutes.

2. Running with other people is weird. As I said, I haven't done it for a long while, so having thousands of other people around doing the same thing (there were about 6,000 of us) was quite off putting to begin with - again it's all about getting into your own rhythm and with all these people around you with weird breathing or funny footfalls it really puts you off. Now I realise that to someone else I was quite possibly the most annoying person there (actually no, that would have been the bloke in the AC Milan shirt who sounded like Monica Seles with a heavy cold during a long baseline rally) anyway, other people are annoying.

3. But not as annoying as little bands playing music - especially playing traditional Japanese music, which is a few drums, a flute and some clicky stick things. The natural speed and tempo of this 'music' is so completely out of sync with running that it it really fucks you up and, naturally, they were all placed at strategic points where you'd just found your own natural running tempo and now you're thrown off kilter. And it's not like you can tell them to shut the fuck up as they're so happily enthusiastic about playing.

4. Fast runners can run really fast. This, you may think, sounds obvious, but you don't realise quite how fast they run. It's a bit like watching cars around you on the motorway and then stopping and watch them whizz past you - on the TV marathon runners look like they are running, yes, but as the cameras are on motorbikes you don't get a feel for their actualy velocity. The winner was running sub 3-minute kilometres, that's about how fast I sprint, for 21k!

5. 21kilometres is quite a long way, but not nearly as long as 42k, a full marathon, and whilst I enjoyed the run yesterday, there is no way I could contemplate running the whole thing again immediately afterwards. OK, I'd do more training if I was going to do the full monty, but really, it looks crazy.

6. But it was a good day. On my watch I did it in 1h49m53s and later my official time came in at 1h50m01s. I was aiming for about 1h45m so I was a little disappointed by the time (but happy to have finished, not got lame or gome home in an ambulance, as some runners did) but knowing more about the start I will edge closer to the line next time so as not to get too boxed in. And yes, there will be a next time as it was enjoyable in it's own way - indeed there was a section from 10k to about the 16k mark that felt really good (mainly, as I think, it was quite an empty, relatively, bit of road so not too many other runners to put you off and no dinky little drum bands to piss you off). Actually I think I could break the race down into sections:

Pre-race: ok, nervous, waiting for the race to start but having to listen to Ageo bigwigs saying stuff for 15 minutes - get on with it!
0-5k: dodging and weaving, slightly frustrated with other runners, quite slow pace. first drinks at 5.5k mark
5-10k: get into rhythm, relax, felt good, lower-left shin pain from previous runs disappears. Pass the front runners at about 8k mark as they had started the double-back, realise quite how fast they run. Seond drinks at 10k
10-16k: head out into the countryside, nicely spread field, good rhythm, stretch legs, everything felt smooth, best bit of the race. Third drinks at 16k
16-19k: gets busier as people in fron start to slow down whilst I am happy at regular pace, annoying AC Milan bloke, long straight bit of road that we ran down earlier, feels like it's going on for ages, calf muscles begin to feel heavy. Last drinks at 19k
19-21.1k: back through the underpass and on the home stretch. Calves and hamstrings begin to feel heavy, but then pass a few drop-outs and second wind hits (will not end up like them!). Into the stadium, one lap to the finish, looking around for the Guru and Marcus, see them just after crossing the finish line. Older Japanese bloke comes and thanks me, he'd been following me for the second 10k (good to have someone to pace you, for the first half I followed a woman in very pink running gear as she was easy to see in the crowd, went past her at about 12k mark - very useful to get your rhythm going), made me feel good that he made the effort to say that. Happy but shagged out. Off for pizzas for lunch in Omiya...

Shitamachi - Ueno to Komagome

2011-10-21T23:58:00.001+09:00

Shitamachi - Ueno to Komagome, a set on Flickr.

An afternoon wander from Ueno north to Komagome, Tokyo

Noda - the first few weeks...

2011-10-19T12:25:00.002+09:00

So the new boy wonder is in the hot-seat and what has he come up with to save Japan from fiscal, environmental and demographic catastrophe…?

Well, fuck all so far, it seems. The new kid has been keeping his head down and grafting, I know this because the media types have been bemoaning the fact the kid keeps his head down and doesn’t do interviews or press conferences. The old boys used to have at least 1 press conference a day, sometimes 2, with all that pressing going on you would think they didn’t have much time to do anything, and you’d be right (expect back-stabbing, mud-slinging and, in the case of (The Man Who) Kan, standing stock still in panic induced paralysis at the shit in front of him). But Noda has said “No, da won’t be many press conferences from now on” (apologies for the forced pun there), and those that he will do will be at ad hoc in locations the press will be told about with 2 minute’s notice (cue Keystone Cops-style charging about Kasumigaseki by the press corps whilst Noda chuckles to himself in Roppongi Hills/a rice field/Washington DC etc.)

But like most recent Japanese PMs, I can’t really think of much he’s done. I suppose he has overseen the indictment of the crook that is Ichiro Ozawa, who is still protecting his innocence, deriding the legality of the court and accusing the prosecutors of fraud, thereby acting like the supercilious, arrogant tosspot that he is; I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if he had shouted ‘don’t you know who I am!?’ several times already.

Sorry, back to Noda – er… There’s been a bit of talk about the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), a sort of free trade agreement with the US, but that will be wrapped up in the Futenma base shenanigans that are *still* going on. Then there are the proposed tax hikes, which will put my tax up in the not too distant future through a combination of increased income and sales taxes (yes, I can see they are needed but no, I don’t want them if all they will do is go towards more a) useless, anti-competition hand-outs for rice farmers/fishermen (for example) to keep them voting the right way b) ridiculous pork-barrel construction projects (there are enough real construction projects needed in Tohoku) c) bureaucrats d) semi-public institutions still bankrolled by govt. through my tax (JAL, Japan Tobacco et al) e) anything else that promotes waste and that I don’t agree with. Jesus, I sound like a Republican!).

I’m sure there is other stuff he’s done, but I can’t remember much about it. I’m sure he is doing great things to start the rebuild of northern Japan which will be, in the main, unsung, so maybe he needs to start blowing his trumpet a bit more.

Radiation news

The thing about having a nuclear power station going into meltdown 250kms away is that it makes everyone really paranoid about radiation. The first accusation is that the govt. and TEPCO aren’t telling anyone anywhere near enough about what’s going on at the plant. This was undoubtedly true at the time and though I suspect the flow of information is now much better, after the general panic has dissipated, I’m sure there is more they are not (or maybe not able) to tell us yet.

The second accusation is only possible after the general panic has dissipated and people can get back to living their normal lives, this is the paranoia that radiation is everywhere and the government aren’t telling us about it. The idea is that large amounts of radiation fell on Tokyo in very specific areas, creating radiation hotspots that will, for example, give your child incurable radiation sickness and/or cancer the second he/she goes near the aforementioned hotspot. There is no way the govt. can counter this unless it takes radiation readings from every street corner in Tokyo every 5 minutes for the next 10 years, and even then certain people, like some parents at the school I work at, will not believe the readings are real.

What makes matters worse are completely unrelated, random events that ratchet up the panic. For example a bunch of ‘concerned residents’ got hold of a radiation meter (another really, really bad idea as these are sensitive instruments with which it’s easy to pick up false readings unless you know what you’re doing) and started measuring bits of Setagaya-ku in west Tokyo. Somehow they managed to get an accurate reading and found a really quite large spike in radiation in one spot on a road outside a slightly rundown house. Cue local hysteria so the real boys were called in and, interestingly, found the same readings. Cue national hysteria and calls for the government to resign en masse for lying to the public (actually I made that bit up, but I’m pretty sure someone was saying it). Anyway, what the big boys found was that the radiation was coming from the house and, after getting permission to go in, found several bottles containing radium 226 (the stuff they use as luminous paint for watches) under the floor of the house. The woman who owned the house but no longer lived there said her (now dead husband, died if radiation poisoning…?) might have used the stuff but she really had no idea. So in the end it was all completely unrelated to Fukushima, but the paranoia goes on. Also, the level of radiation just above the bottles was 600 micro Sv/h, about the amount you would get from a stomach x-ray; so not exactly lethal though you wouldn’t want to stand there for too long, so outside the house on the street the level was around 3 micro Sv/h, so no one was going to get anything nasty just walking by the house every day, not that you’d think that listening to some of the comments that came out.

The Rugby World Cup

It’s almost over and I haven’t written anything about it. So, some musings…

- England were pretty rubbish on the field (looking good against Romania and Georgia does not count)

- Off the field England were not saints, but a large section of the media did seem to have it in for them from the moment they arrived in NZ (Mick Cleary and Mark Reason in the Telegraph spring to mind)

- I feel sorry for Wales but Sam Warburton should not have made that tackle as he did, whilst James Hook and Stephen Jones should have done better than 1 from 6

- I feel slightly sorry for South Africa, but they should have been a lot more savvy in realising that Bryce Lawrence had given carte blanche at the breakdown for anyone to do anything

- Japan played well, very well, at times but lacked composure when it really mattered

- No one put 100 points on any of the “minnows” – this was a great improvement and will only get better the more opportunities they are given to play the ‘big’ nations

- I now want France to win on Sunday, just because everyone is writing them off and saying they are the worst team ever to grace the final. Allez les Bleus!

- Stop blaming the refs and start looking at you team’s shortcomings

- Roll on 2019 when it all comes to Japan

And Dan Wheldon, R.I.P.

Lastly some pictures of cars from La Fest Mille Miglia in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago

La Festa 2011, a set on Flickr.

Who was that Man...?

2011-09-04T15:33:00.000+09:00

So The Man Who Kan is officially now the Man Who Couldn't. As I said before, he was dealt a shitty hand but seismic catastrophes are in the job description for a Japanese PM and I'm afraid to say that he didn't handle it particularly well. Yes, politics is riven by factions, especially within his own party, but at some point he had to stop, draw a line in the sand (after clearing away the wreckage and checking for radiation), grow a pair and, firstly, tell Ozawa to f*ck off and expel him from the party (and deal with the crook later) and then take charge of the country post-quake, show a bit of leadership, be strong, fight and all that. Sorry, but on both counts: FAIL.

So he finally did the decent thing, after the 3rd emergency budget was passed (or whichever one it was) and fell on his sword. After a bit of ministerial tooing and froing, the suits of the DPJ elected another of their own, Yoshihiko Noda, as the new #1. Of the candidates he was one of few who I didn't really want to get it, mostly as he looks like a toad (imagine a flesh-coloured Baron Silas von Greenback and you'll see what I mean), and he sounds a bit like one as well - and kudos to him if he ever starts burping really loudly in a cabinet meeting in a vain attempt to attract Renho for a ministerial debrief...

So Noda has also been dealt a pretty shitty hand by the fates, but at least he has the excuse that he saw it coming. Of course the main problem is the economy - at the moment government debt is running at about double the annual turnover of Japan Inc, meaning that we are well mired in the deepest of deep shit. That said, unlike the mountainous debt of Europe and the US, most of the people the J-govt are indebted to are the people of Japan, as pretty much all the IOUs are written to Japanese banks backed up by the savings of millions of households across the land. This is a good thing, and the only reason Japan Inc hasn't gone bust for the last 20 years, as the people of Japan are very unlikely to stop saving, take the cash from the bank and blow it all in Vegas (or, in the case of US/European debt, the Chinese suddenly saying, "hey, you know all those IOU's? Reckon we'll cash them in now...").

But with a shrinking popuation and no mass immigration any time soon, the tax base will decrease and govt income fall even before the rebuilding of Tohoku gets underway. So sales/consumption tax will probably have to go up, no defintely have to go up, from its current 5% - I can see that at 10% in the next few years and probably 15% in a decade. It's going to hurt but it's got to be done. The Tohoku clean up is, naturally, another bit blot on the landscape (quite literally) - of course things have begun and lots of work already done, I think pretty much all of the displaced people now have temporary housing, as opposed to living in gymnasiums and other evacuation centres - that's pretty damned good going, considering how many people lost their houses. But rebuilding lives, towns, communities, jobs and all the other myriad of things that go into a place to live, that's going to take some work.

And then there is Fukushima. The nuclear plant is still not safe, though the chances of it blowing up and spewing radioactive crap all over Japan have now, it appears, receded. Interesting that everyone is now happy to use the word 'meltdown' to describe 2 or 3 of the reactors - it seems that the partial meltdowns happened within days of the disaster, certainly when we were sitting at home in Tokyo wondering whether we should get the hell outta Dodge. If anyone had mentioned the 'M' word at that time we would have been on a plane without pausing for thought, as would about 12 million people around me. So in a way it is hardly surprising that no one used that word, panic would have ensued, but now the attitude is more 'we I lived through it and I'm not dead yet, so the cores melted, big deal, there's no mushroom cloud over Tokyo...'. Probably way too blase, that, but there you go.

Anyway, good luck with all that, Noda-san.

Oh, er, oops...

2011-07-19T16:44:00.000+09:00

Sorry, keep doing this, not exactly a blog you can set your watch by, now are we?

So I can't really remember everything, nay, anything, really, that has gone on since the last time I posted back in April, though I am absolutely sure that some things have, indeed, gone on. Anyway, let's try the ol' stream of consciousness approach and see where we get to...

(The Man Who) Kan ('t do a f*cking thing)

OK, the guy has been dealt a fairly shitty hand, all told. No PM really wants a catastrophic earthquake on his or her watch, but in Japan it's one of the hazards of the job, as it were. Now as we discussed last post, the govt didn't really know what to do in the immediate aftermath, though things did swing into action. Of course once the initial shock has been sort the job of rebuilding begins – the idea of not bothering to rebuild Tohoku was, I admit, a bit of a non-starter, not just because ok, it had been devastated, but actually only a relatively small bit, up to about 10km inland, so that left an awful lot of Tohoku not devastated, so it would have been a mighty kick in the knackers (and a potential vote-loser) if the govt had said ‘ah, sorry, don’t have the cash to rebuild, best you move down to Kyushu and hope there isn’t a lethally big jolt down there in the next 20-30 years’.

Now, the quake has been a big opportunity for the people of Tohoku, and everywhere else as a show of support, to pull together, cooperate, work in harmony to get things done. Everywhere except, of course, Kasumigaseki, where the politicians all live. For them this has been an unparalleled opportunity to stab each other in the back, criticise, divide and generally act like, well, a bunch of politicians. In the beginning the tone was unduly harsh on The Man Who, as I said he had been dealt a shitty hand by nature and TEPCO but seemed to be doing the best he could. There were plenty of ‘we don’t think he’s handled it very well’ calls from other politicos who were safe in the knowledge that they would never be in that position so could snipe all they liked.

But then it really did begin to look like didn’t know what to do, what to start or even how to look like he was doing something even if it was just buying time (surely a pre-requisite for a politician?). It ended a few months back with a no confidence vote in the guy, which he survived reasonably comfortably. This should have been the green light for Kan to say ‘right, fuck off you lot, I’m The Man (Who), I got the vote, people have confidence, cut the crap and let me get on with sorting out this shit’.

But what he actually said was (something along the lines of) ‘er, what, I survived? Er, well, I guess that means that some people still don’t like me, so tell you what, I’ll resign when we have reached some point of stabilisation in the current recovery situation’.

So, the worst of all worlds; he didn’t flip the bird (like he should have done), he didn’t resign, he didn’t give a timetable for a possible resignation and didn’t clarify what that ‘point of stabilisation’ might be. It would have been better if he had just stood up and said ‘I do not have the first effing clue what I am doing, end of.’

So now Japan, from a leadership viewpoint, which should be steaming full-ahead on the recovery is still sitting in the ferry terminal arguing who is going to board first. I had some sympathy for Kan when the rest of the politicos wouldn’t let him do his job, but now I realise that he was not up to doing the job in the first place. What Japan needed, no needs, is someone to drain the poison out of the political system, remind politicians that they are there to serve the people and then, well, I don’t care if that person a) kicks as many butts as necessary, scruff of the neck, bull by the horns and other ‘strong-man’ clichés or b) builds a genuine consensus, one of mutual aid and common sense, either/or but which finally starts governing this country… I was going to write ‘governing this country properly’, but the way it is now no-one is running the show, so there isn’t even a ‘properly’ to live up to.

Nuclear Armageddon update

Apparently, according the newspaper this morning, we’re over the worst of it now, as you can see from this lovely graphic:

Now I’m not entirely how much of this I believe, especially now as beef contaminated by caesium has recently been sold in Tokyo, but still, it’s a start. One thing that (The Man Who) Kan has decided, or been told to decide, is that Japan, like Germany, is going to phase out nuclear power even though he, nor anyone else it would seem, has any really clear idea of what to replace it with. This is also after he stated, quite publicly, that Japan would not do anything to derail Japan’s long standing nuclear power policy – so clear and decisive leadership, then.

Update from yesterday [writing a few days after I started the rant] – apparently Kan’s u-turn on nuclear power, (the phase-out phase) is not government policy after all, merely the audible ramblings of a confused mind. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up…

Oh Ambassador, you’re spoiling us…

Not one but two invitations to be wined and dined at the Ambassador’s residence at the Embassy, that’s how important a member of the British expat community I am these days, that or a absolutely reliable (as in, will turn up if asked), probably won’t embarrass us, almost certainly British (no matter what Ichikawa ward office thought) person to make the room look full.

The reason it was 2 invites was because of Jeremy Browne MP. He is the Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, which I think means he’s like a deputy foreign minister, and he was meant to come in May but, in true British fashion, he was waiting for his flight in the US and his plane broke down. As this was at the last minute, as it were, the Ambassador, Dave, decided to go ahead with his soiree anyway and the caterers had been booked and he would have given less than 72 hours’ notice for a cancellation. So off we scooted to Hanzoumon, where we Brits have our embassy, and food and drink was laid on. Now free food and drink is always, in my book, worth getting out of bed for (hence the absolutely reliable above), but even more so when the British taxpayer is paying for it. I can tell you, all those of you who pay taxes on your hard earned cash in the UK, the Ambassador keeps a pretty good table and cellar – I’ll admit that we were not treated to his 1999 Chateau Lafite but a decent bit of plonk was provided, along with canapés and some other, more substantial foodstuffs. This time we were also treated to a few glasses of Pimms by way of greeting, which in Japan is a little hard to come by so that was nice.

But on neither occasion were we, I am very sad to report, offered any Ferrero Roche chocolates! When I grew up it was touted as the height of sophistication to offer them around, indeed the subtitle to this very piece was the tagline of the commercials, shot at some dodgy studio dressed up to look like some ‘swish embassy in a former communist republic but now very cosmopolitan place’ like Prague (think the embassy scene from mission impossible 1).

Anyway, dashed expectations are generally the forerunner to national insurrection so I am now fermenting revolution here in Tokyo at the hopeless decline of Her Britannic Majesty’s Foreign Service provision of chocolates at free nosh-ups. I mean, not even an After-Eight or a tray of Matchmakers! Pitiful! What will johnny-foreigner think? We’ll be a laughing stock. I believe the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands was predicated on a bowl of Quality Street being proffered at a cocktail reception at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1981; “If zis is ze only chocolate zey can afford…” General Galtieri is alleged to have said, ‘…zen we are in viz a chance, boys!”. At least they were offered…

So come on, buck your ideas up, Tokyo!

Finally in sports news…

Well done to the Japanese ladies footy team, who won the World Cup

And the gents rugby team who won the Pacific Nations Cup

Well played all

What's going on...? (as a famous man once sang)

2011-04-14T16:19:00.005+09:00

So it's been an interesting month or so, to say the least.

First the earthquake, then a lot more earthquakes, then (not really) nuclear armageddon in Fukushima, then a gaijin-only broohaha (about flyjins or denyjins or cryjins or whatever the label de jour-jins was), then (not really) social and infrastructural breakdown in a large city an awfully long way from the earthquake and (not really) nuclear armageddon zones and a whole load more stuff as well. Phew, it's been a ride!

But for us good folk of Arakawa Riverview (in the large city an awfully long way from the earthquake and (not really) nuclear armageddon zones), life has been reasonably normal, to tell the truth. In the week after the quake there were indeed shortages of foods like milk, bread and dried and canned stuff, but since then things are back on the shelves. There was a subsequent yoghurt scarcity, but that's pretty much OK now, and then a very real scare as breweries suddenly realised that beer producing and shipping capacity was way down and Tokyo running dry suddenly became a very real possibility. So far so good on that one, but we are monitoring the situation carefully (and stocking up on red wine and gin (I will re-label myself a gin-jin)).

Also in the week after the quake the British Embassy (to whom I will doff my cap to a job reasonably well done in the face of enormous stress) changed their travel advice from 'everything is pretty much OK' to 'British nationals should consider leaving Tokyo'. This freaked me, along with the Guru, out and we made plans to move south to a branch of the family down in Kyushu. But after a little reflection and a realisation that the travel advice was more to stop people coming to Tokyo, thereby giving the embassy more responsibilities if things did go bad, rather than a cry to run to the hills (and not Roppongi Hills), we decided to stay put. Others didn't, some went to Osaka or Kyushu, some went to Singapore or Hong Kong, others further afield to Australia or the UK. Fine, I have no problem with that, people make the decisions best suited for themselves and their families. What I find most poisonous is the subsequent name-calling and label-making mentioned above - people that left became flyjins, branded cowards by some who stayed; people who left called the stayers naïve, delusional and crazy to put themselves in harm's way. Basically everyone trying to justify their actions, as if a) it matters or b) it has anything to do with anyone else. So, anyway, get over it people as we’re all people and we don’t have to justify our decisions to others.

Now because of the goings on in Fukushima TEPCO (that’s Tokyo Electric Power Company, for those who have been living in the north pole for the last month) and the Japanese Government have come in for some pretty stinging (by Japanese standards) criticism in the last month. The main foci have been:

1) Tepco don’t know what they are doing

2) The govt don’t know what they are doing

3) The govt don’t know what Tepco is doing

4) Everyone is covering up the scale of the nuclear related problems

The first 2 are undoubtedly true as neither Tepco nor the govt have a clue what to do about the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant or, if they did know what to do, they have no idea how to do it. The 3rd point is probably true – Tepco are definitely the bad guys here (except the valiant Fukushima 50 (and probably more) who are trying to cool the reactors and sort out the problems – these heroes are distinct from the homogenous Tepco mass as I think they do have a clue what they are doing and probably a clue how to do it (and are trying to do it the face of seemingly insurmountable incompetence by their “superiors”)). Er, yes, Tepco, definitely the bad guys, or more likely lethally negligent guys…lost my train of thought. Ah yes, so, not only does it look like Tepco have been pulling the wool over the eyes of their staff and the people of Fukushima, it seems that they haven’t really told the whole story to the govt, or the IAEA, or anyone else. This does not, as you may well imagine, fill one with confidence about what is happening there right now, but it will, hopefully, mean that those (ir)responsible will be brought to book when the (radioactive) dust finally settles. One thought – some argue that Tepco should be nationalised, as should all nuclear power production, but I wonder. Private firms will cut corners to save costs, thereby endangering lives like now; however state industries can be woefully inefficient and ‘jobs for life on the state sector’ can very easily lead to similar sloppy work procedures. So what to do…?

Point 4 above, that everyone is covering up, does, I think, have some merit as an argument. The reason, I think, is that the govt need a diversion to take everyone’s mind, and view, off what has happened to Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami. The devastation up there, the sheer scale of the rebuild that will need to take place is, I think, on a level that people cannot comprehend, and when they do start to think about it the excrement will hit the slowly rotating cooling device. So, better to keep the focus of the people and the world on Fukushima, which so far has killed 2 people (I think) rather than on the destruction wrought upon Tohoku area on 11th March, after which some 30,000 are dead or missing. So when, again, the radioactive dust finally settles, (the man who) Kan can quickly whip a satin sheet off Tohoku, say ‘ta-daa’ and show everyone that the clean-up is underway, reconstruction has already started and things aren’t as bad as you thought they were, so keep calm and carry on. Mark my words, you read it here first.

But here’s a seditious thought – why bother rebuilding Tohoku? It was full of old people, most of whom were unfortunately swept away by the tsunami. Rural depopulation is such that the areas affected were dying anyway, there was little inward investment above the govt building useless roads to nowhere and empty concert halls in vainglorious but futile pork barrel projects. Schools were closing and classes amalgamating in towns all over the area as fewer and fewer children were born because the kids that were born moved to Tokyo as soon as they were old enough, never to return. So why bother? Rebuild the ports and the fishing fleets as they were useful; and then put all the rice fields together in one big lump and either nationalise rice growing in that area or sell the land as one or two blocks to a major agricultural business and let them grow rice on an industrial basis as opposed to the millions of mom & pop farms that again are slowly dying as the kids realise rice farming is hard work. With the hundreds of thousands of displaced people, ship them to Tokyo or other areas of rural depopulation (which is most of Japan outside the major cities) and start filling up the gaps in those communities – Tohoku is lost, don’t bother trying to find it again. Japan needs a radical rethink towards the countryside, maybe this is the time to do it…

Of course the counter argument to that (apart from the humanitarian one), is that Japan should be trying to de-centralise, especially Tokyo, as there is too much important stuff here so if/when the big one hits us (as it surely will) too much infrastructure will be destroyed. What Japan should be doing is rebuilding Tohoku and encouraging (forcing?) govt departments, businesses and the like to move to these areas to disperse the potential damage when another quake hits (I don’t mean when another quake hits that area – Tohoku could be the place to go as it has now been ‘disastered’ so the chances of another catastrophic event are, compared to Tokyo which hasn’t had a major quake since 1923, hopefully reduced). I don’t know, I don’t think there is a right answer, just options that all seem a tad bleak.

Let’s leave those happy thoughts for a while and talk about fashion.

I don’t, and won’t, claim to know a lot about fashion, especially where young ladies are concerned, but a recent trend has got me confused. As a rule I don’t criticise what people wear – if they want to look foolish then that’s their lookout, also I don’t want to sound like an old fart, which is getting harder as the years go by.

Anyway the recent trend is for women to wear glasses. Nothing strange there, I know, but the fashion is to wear what look like oversized, plastic framed glasses but only the frames, no lenses. Now wearing glasses is a pain in the, well, often the nose and behind the ears, but generally it’s more just annoying having something stuck to your face, so why go to that trouble if you don’t need to?

A pictorial reference to the fashion would look something like this

OK, yes, she’s fit, but she would be without the frames.

The Guru says these women are wearing the big glasses to make their faces look smaller and therefore more cute. If this is true it seems odd, as to me it looks like they have big glasses on, not a smaller face. Another explanation is that they actually need the glasses and lenses, but can’t wear them with the lenses in as they get in the way of the artificially long eyelashes – this, I think, holds more water as a theory.

So I don’t know, but it seems to me that this fashion cocks a snook at people who really do have to wear glasses. ‘Ha haa’ they seem to be saying, ‘I can take my glasses-frames off and suffer no degrading of my sight, whereas you, have-to-wear-glasses-person, you will stumble around bumping into things if you tried to do the same’. This seems a little rude to me, but there you go. If I fine out the real reason I’ll let you know.

Friday night and Saturday morning

2011-03-16T12:17:00.000+09:00

So at about 7pm most of the parents had collected their offspring so we had to thing about getting home. We have to take a train home, it's too far to walk or bike (especially as we're either bringing or taking Marcus with us). At this point the trains were not running but we were hopeful that they might start again that evening, but at maybe 7.30 or 8.00pm an announcement was made by JR that train services would stop for the night.

OK, what do we do? Well, we could try looking for a hotel, you never know... (at this point I should mention that the Guru had, at about 3pm, suggested that she should go and get a hotel room as things looked dicey about getting home - I naturally poo-pooed this, having far too much faith in JR getting their trains running again; silly me). So we loaded up and with the IT Manager Rey, his wife and kid (who live about 2 minutes from us in north Tokyo) set about trying to find some food and a bed for the night. We were lucky in that we knew, if we couldn't find anywhere, we could just stay in the school, many others didn't have that luxury. We wandered up to Children's castle on Aoyama-dori as we knew they had rooms, but naturally all was full when we got there. Also, judging by the number of people on the streets, we figured pretty quickly that every room in Tokyo would probably be taken by now. So, after a brief stop for contact lens solution (which I subsequently found I had already bought and put in my office earthquake emergency pack for this very situation - I'm organised without remembering it) we headed off.

Thinking about food, we walked down towards central Shibuya but, as you can imagine, most eateries were either closed or packed, whilst all convenience stores and coffee shops were empty of easily eatable food. On the way passed we checked the Tokyu Hotel on Meiji-dori but the scrum in the foyer put us off, so then we headed to TGI Fridays - again I poo-pooed this suggestion, thinking we should stick to less crowded areas, but when we got there not only did they have space but they could do us a table for 6 in the non-smoking section! So with minimal wait we sat down to burgers and well deserved beers. It was busy there, but probably no more so than a nornmal Friday evening, and the staff were surprisingly positive, helpful and unstressed. So hats off to them, they shall now be known as TFI (Thank Fuck It's Open on) Fridays :)

After refuelling we headed back to school. The business centre/office was one option, but I realised that the teacher's staff room would be a better place as they had sofas and cushions. We thought that a few people might already be there, but all was in darkness when we arrived. The cleaning crew were still in school and a few others from the business group who couldn't get home, so some went to the library to sleep, others in the office and we in the staff room. All this time the youngster and Rey's little boy (the year above but he and Marcus are friends) were having a great time, completely hyperactive, excited and enjoying themselves thoroughly. By 11pm they should have been spark out but it was a struggle to get them to sleep.

A check of facebook, a few more emails and text messages and a phonecall with the folks later and that was it for me; off to sleep. Unfortunately the staffroom is on the 6th floor of the school so every little aftershock made the building sway, so sleep was hard to come by, for the adults at least - Marcus slept soundly all the way through but I reckon I got about 2 hours, on-and-off, through the night.

Yes, it wasn't the most comfortable place to spend the night, but we were dry, warm, together, fed, alive, relatively safe and had a roof over our heads, things that people in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima did not have. I counted my blessings several times over.

Next morning we woke early as the blinds aren't too effective in the staffroom. The tv news said trains would start running around 7 or 8am, so after a bit of breakfast (Rey had sensibly bought food before everything went from the convenience store the afternoon before) we headed to the station. As we left we walked past our next door (Japanese) high school we saw what looked like all their students leaving the building. I think that they kept all the students in over night to make sure they were safe - goodness knows what they did for food and blankets.

At Shibuya station it wasn't the chaos I had half expected. It seems the Japanese don't do chaos (or rioting, looting or any of the other things you might expect to happen - it seems more akin to British blitz-style stoicism). We got to the platform and there was a Yamanote line train waiting to approach the platform, whilst our Saikyo train was about to leave Ebisu. About an hour or so later neither train had moved.

On the way we had seen a Ginza subway line train moving so we decided on a subway strategy that would get us almost all the way home. So, hot-foot to the ginza line, check the Namboku is also working and then onto the platform. We just missed the departing train but were first in line for the next, but just then there was an announcement that due to overcroding at Ueno the ginza line was suspended... Loud groans but what can you do, JR wasn't running either. So we waited and after only about 10 minutes they decided to start running agin. From there it was plain sailing - ginza line to Tameiki-Sanno, change to the namboku and it took us all the way to Akabane, which is only 2 stops from where we live (but the last bit is JR only, hence trying to take the train before).

We decided to get a cab home for the last little bit, well, 2 cabs, one for each family. As we were walking down the road to the taxi rank Rey was lucky enough to hail one and got off straight away. We weren't so lucky and so had to join the queue at the rank for what proved to be the longest wait of the journey home. Over an hour we waited but finally we picked up a cab.

At 11am we finally got home and I'm glad to say our apartment was entirely undamaged and the tv, which I was sure would be on the floor in a million pieces was standing proud and upright.

"Holy fuck that was a big one"

2011-03-12T22:16:00.000+09:00

Words of wisdom, those, posted on Facebook at about 2.49pm yesterday, Friday 11th March, after the first big shake of the earthquake.

I was working in the office in Shibuya, over the road from the school (where, incidentally, the little fella attends). I was just sending a last few emails before heading over to our other campus down in Sangenjaya when the shaking started. As earthquakes go it started off fairly innocuously, a bit of shaking, yes, perhaps a bit more than 'normal', but nothing to get too excited about. Then after about 5 or 6 seconds it got a bit stronger.

"This is quite a big one..." said one of my colleagues

"Ha, this? If you think this is big then you've never been in a big earth..." started our boss but was cut short by the increase in violent shaking that then began.

Earthquakes are a fact of life here. I won't say you get used to them, they are too intense for that, but you do get, well, accustomed to the fact that there will, about once a month, be a bit of a shake. It will keep you on your toes so you don't get too complacent, but they don't tend to scare the bejayzus out of you. This one started as a regular, keep-you-on-your-toes kind of one,but this one kept going and kept getting stronger. Having read a few things about the Kobe/Hanshin quake my basic philosophy was 'if you have time to think you're in an earthquake then the chances are it's not going to kill you', as Kobe, apparently, went from nothing to unimaginable violence in a split second, meaning many people didn't have time to wake up before they died.And I suppose, on reflection, that is still true as yesterday I had the time to think, "I'm in an earthquake" and I'm still alive, but this time was more of a close run thing.

As this one got stronger reflex took over, to an extent. I had been waiting by my desk, as others were in the office. As the shaking got stronger I grabbed my hard hat from the cupboard behind me and put it on. Now it was strong but at a level i'd experienced before. Then, it got worse and for the first time in my life in Japan I got down under my desk (well, almost under my desk) as one is meant to do.

Hindsight is a weird thing. The brain, I am sure, is very good at blocking out unpleasant memories, as now, barely 24 hours later, it is hard to remember exactly what was going on. The things I can recall are:
Grabbing my mobile phones and disconnecting one of them from its cable
Thinking 'this might well be it...'
My computer monitors moving across my desk
Hoping that it would stop soon

That's about it. I'm glad I thought about the phones as if the building were to collapse around me better to have something like a phone available to contact the outside world. But I'm a bit disappointed that my life didn't flash before me or that I didn't think of the Guru or the little fella. Then again at that moment, when you can't move and the world is almost crashing around your ears, perhaps all you can do is hope you aren't about to die.

But die I did not, obviously. Then, first priority, post the above words on facebook - don't know why, but it was. Actually I tried to post 'Holly fuck...' due to shaking fingers and adrenaline OD, but managed to correct myself. The second thing I did was fire off a quick email to family to say I was alive as I knew they'd be worried. Then, hat on head, I'm glad to say I headed straight over to the school whilst most to the other staff stood around saying 'my wasn't that a strong quake!'. I quickly looked over the outside of the building and saw that no windows were broken so went inside and upstairs to the 2nd floor. Two teachers were waiting by their classroom doors, ready to evacuate, the kids were silent as church mice, waiting under their desks (good 'duck and cover' awareness). I told the teachers that I didn't think we'd need to evacuate but to be ready just in case. Then I walked towards the 'bridge' that joins our 2 buildings and, on the other side of the emergency door, met a senior staff member picking up posters that had fallen to the floor. Afterwards I remember thinking that it was perhaps not the most pressing need at that time, but at that moment I was just glad to see her as I knew she needed to make an announcement about staying or evacuating.

She also realised this so I figured it was better to check the lower parts of the building to see if there was any significant damage. I did and there was none that I saw, so I went back and told her so we stayed put, or rather, as it was that time of the day, we proceeded with the kids dismissal as normal. As She made the announcement I went back over the road to the office, part of me thinking 'well that's all right then' - I went back to my computer to see if there was any info, that's when the first reports started coming in about the size and location - off the Miyagi coast and a 7 on the Japanese scale (that goes up to 7). Whoa!

(Just thought about those last 2 paragraphs and if they make it sound like I had a plan then it shouldn't, I think i was on instinct and trying not to panic (as panicking is a very bad thing, as I always tell the youngster)).

Then it was back into the school as I realised I should probably make a more thorough check of the buildings. At this time parents were turning up to collect their kids and I'm happy to say the guru arrived to pick up the little fella. She was fine, had been in a train that had automatically stopped at Harajuku, the stop before Shibuya, and she has run from there to the school. The buildings seemed fine, a cracked pane of glass here or a crack in the plasterboard join there, but nothing looking too severe. Then it was back to the office for more info.

We were very lucky in that though the phone network went into meltdown, email and the internet were still working. This was great so we could see what was happening, the 7 in Miyagi was a 5+ in Tokyo (on the j-scale) which later transpired to be at magnitude 8.9, possibly the biggest quake to hit Japan. Facebook became the school communication saviour as it was one of the few things that was updating constantly, so our Communications Manager was able to get the message out to parents that they needed to be here, or to teachers that parents were on their way. The manager in question did an amazing job, hats very much off to her.

At this point, though the trains were stopped we were hopeful that they might start again. So we went into pretend-work but really what's-going-on mode. Then the first images of Miyagi and the tsunami started to come through. This really was a 'holy fuck...' moment...it was devastation, no other word for it, like Hiroshima after they dropped the bomb. Some of the images were unbelievable, they still are.

Anyway, enough for now, more tomorrow abut that night and how we got home

Christmas

2011-02-12T17:14:00.003+09:00

OK, it's a bit late, but there you go. So the first part of our story is 'us as tourists' - by us I mean, me, the Guru and the youngster and by tourists I mean just that, tourists, as the first week of our christmas holiday was spent in London doing all the touristy things one would expect.

The trip almost got off to a disastrous start for two reasons, work and the weather, but both bothersome banes were skillfully avoided by, well, being avoided. We were to fly on the last Friday of term but I, as HR personage, had a particularly difficult situation to deal with concerning a departing member of staff who had not, it must be said, personally chosen to leave. Our plan was that as soon as I got home we were to go to the in-laws in Chiba who live close to the airport, this was to make the Friday less stressful and to repack as we were borrowing a suitcase. But the surly staffer was proving annoyingly reticent to meet me on Thursday afternoon - I had to see her to explain stuff and collect paperwork from her - and as the clock ticked closer to my leaving time I still hadn't met her. So in the end, finally getting her on the phone, gave her the cunning option of popping into the office on Friday to meet one of my staff. Being lazy and useless (also the main reasons for her departure) she took this and I was off the hook. Right, home we go.

So, home, final preparations, set the alarm (the Guru had been trying to work it out for weeks) and we're off - "oh, by the way, you did the online check-in at work today, like you said you would, right...?" Er, shit, wait - 15 mins of fully justified stern looks later... "yes dear, of course I have, how could you ever doubt me?"

Station, trains, taxi, parents-in-law. Hello, quick beer, repack and it's now 10pm. Right, arrange taxi to station for tomorrow morning and then bed. Next morning, breakfast, taxi, train and Narita. I love Narita airport - lots of people hate it because, they say, it's so far out of town, but with a train that takes 36minutes to get to the centre of Tokyo, I say they're talking crap. It's big, wide, open, uncrowded, clean, cheap, well designed, helpful, friendly, works when it's snowing and, essentially, everything that Heathrow isn't.

Everything navigated nice and easily and onto the plane - this was the youngster's first real flight, he'd been to the UK before but only when he was 8 months old so obviously he couldn't remember. We were worried that he would get bored and/or hyperactive, but actually it was all one big adventure. He watched a couple of movies, read some books, did some sticking of stickers and then slept. He even ate all the food. For us more seasoned travellers it was much the same, I am glad to report, though without the stickers.

Whilst we had been flying, however, mother nature had been dropping a prodigious (for the UK) amount of snow on the south, so much so that traffic was at a standstill and the arrival committee were in serious danger of not getting to the airport on time to carry out their duties. Luckily good old Heathrow came to their aid as, even thought we landed on time, the baggage reclaim was in meltdown (or rather freeze-up) so that all but first-class luggage was delayed coming off the plane by an hour (amazing how they could only open the doors to the rich person's compartments...) Anyway this bought enough time for the family to arrive so as we wandered through the exit the welcomers walked into the arrivals hall. Cue much back-slappage and 'welcome home's. The snow flurry almost but didn't quite derail the air transport system, however the following day the snow shut everything down for about 5 days, so our leave-on-Friday plan was perfect, not only cheaper but we actually arrived on time :)

So for the next week, from Saturday to Friday (Christmas eve) we stayed in a London apartment hotel (Castletown House in West Kensington - thoroughly recommended) and went to see stuff...

Saturday - Natural History Museum - mainly for the dinosaurs but also for everything else. Excellent basement area where staff were on hand to amaze small children with experiments, microscopes and stuff like that. Well done to Marcus for stumping one of the assistants; 'what animal do you like that you want to know more about?' 'Er, maybe the Pronghorn'. 'Hmm, what's that...?' Of course it's a type of African antelope sort of thing, as everyone knows, but not, sadly the assistant that Marcus spoke to. Anyway the NHM is great, interesting and really quite cold.

Sunday - not really touristy but went to have lunch with friends south of the river. Again crappy weather but a warm welcome from very hungover hosts.

Monday - was meant to be a family get together for some photo portraitage, but the weather stumped us all so getting down to Hampshire would have been akin to a polar expedition (so we were told). So instead we went to the Tower of London. This was great but get this, the price, in big letters on the ticket office wall, was something like 17.50 per adult. This, I felt, was quite a lot, but then, in very small print underneath it said 'This includes a voluntary donation of 2 quid.' Well excuse me, but I do feel a voluntary donation is, in essence, me offering, not the ToL automatically deducting! So naturally I refused to pay, I mean really. I was happy, though, as even though the youngster was 5 and the price list said '5 and over: 12 quid' (a blummen rip off as well), the nice lady let him in for free. The Tower was great, lots to see, hardly anyone there due to christmas and bad weather, Henry VIII's suit of armour with enormous cod-piece, crown jewels and loads of stuff. Great but very expensive.

After that we walked across Tower Bridge and went to HMS Belfast. Marcus was really excited about this but, whilst going around, he became unnerved by the mannequins set up to show what life was like on-board ship. So much so that he had to be carried out in something of a state.

Tuesday - British Museum and the National Gallery with Uncle Julian and Cousin Charlie. So, you send someone a message saying, 'we're in Covent Garden, in a coffee shop near the Crusting Pipe, come and meet us here'. Now a normal person, on arriving at Covent Garden, would then look inside the various coffee shops near the Crusting Pipe until he had located said person to meet. Not my brother, oh no, he walks close to the Crusting Pipe and then, not seeing anyone, sits down and has a doughnut. Only when I go out to look for them as they should have arrived by now, do I find him sitting behind a coffee stall not 10m from where we were. And for some reason I get the blame for this!

Anyway the British Museum is ace, lots to do, especially the trails for the kids to follow. Marcus and Charlie had a great time together finding stuff out, though Charlie had done the trails before so helped Marcus instead. Lunch at Wagamama's (they say it's Japanese...) and then a wander to the National Gallery to look at pictures. Great day and big thanks to Uncle Julian for showing us all around.

Wednesday - Westminster Abbey (and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben). Never been to Westminster Abbey and I must say that it was fascinating. Again expensive, about 15 quid a head to get in, but Marcus got a trail to follow and we got the audio-guide things and it was, well, really interesting. I know it's obvious but blimey it's old, there is an awful lot of history in those stones - I don't know why but it felt much, much older than the Tower of London, though they are contemporaries. Again loads to see, lots of tombs and graves and again not too full of the tourist hordes. After that a fine pub lunch we took a double-decker to Oxford Street, mainly so we could ride on the top deck and also to see the christmas lights. OK, the bus ride was fun but boy did we find where all the tourists had been hiding. Oxford St was heaving, more than heaving and basically not very nice. Night was falling so we headed home.

Thursday - Science Museum. For our last full day we headed to the Science Museum, just up the road near the NHM. Again it was excellent, interesting and informative and, most importantly, free. Also they had on workshops for kids, one about space and another about bubbles, both of which the youngster very much enjoyed. I think museums have come a long way since I was a kid and the people that run them realise now that kids are important so they have to do something to make it a worthwhile experience for them. Jolly good, I say.

Friday - we were heading to Gosport for Christmas and, after various rearrangements, we were travelling down by National Express coach from Victoria to Portsmouth. This necessitated going to Victoria, of course, and as the coach wasn't until 2pm and we had to be out at 10am, we had a bit of time to kill. Marcus was quite happy, he said, to sit in Victoria Coach Station for 4 hours, but we weren't and, as Buckingham Palace was only a shortish walk away, off we went (much to the unhappiness of small child). The guidebook said that the changing of the guard would not happen on that day as it was an odd-numbered day in December and was cold, but lo-and-behold, when we arrived they were just starting up. Now I think it's probably quite interesting to watch, certainly plenty of the Oxford St tourists had turned up, but with a whiny kid and a cold, biting wind, spirits soon sank。So we watched a bit and then departed back to the safety and warmth of a shopping centre. A spot of lunch (our one and only trip to a UK McDonald's) and then the usual scramble and confusion trying to find the right coach going to the right place, made more confusing by the fact that so many people wanted to go to Portsmouth that they laid on an extra coach which said Southampton on it. Also Guru most surprised that, though we had tickets, seats were a free-for-all as there was not seat numbering allocation ('very third world' I'm sure she muttered - I know I did).

So the journey down was slow but uneventful - the coach's purported wifi cut out about 50m from the station so our slow progress and delay could not be forwarded to family members waiting in the freezing evening at Portsmouth Hard. But arrive we eventually did, and then it was Christmas...

Christmas

2011-01-07T12:59:00.002+09:00

- report coming soon -

Oh, has it been that long already?

2010-12-09T18:05:00.000+09:00

Goodness I think it has been.

Kan he? I'm not so sure...

So, what's been going on. Well, in Japan, not a lot that I can really remember, hence the fact that I haven't bothered posting anything. One snippet this morning, though, is that Primae Minister (The Man who) Kan is quickly becomming (The Man Who) Kan't (if, of course, he became (The Man Who) Kant and then went around quoting dear old Immanuel all day long, for example "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination" or "All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.", or even "Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world", though a few might argue with that, especially over one's personal definition of 'safely'; anyway if he had done this sort of thing then I think he'd be onto a winner, or at least a position within a university's philosophy faculty, but he hasn't, he's tried to be a PM, and a Japanese one at that).

Where was I? Oh yes, our man who Kan is, apparently, on the way to becomming the most unpopular PM Japan has ever had, and as you can imagine, that's up against some pretty stiff opposition. The real problem is this:

It's not the bit at the end that is doing our man down, poor support though that may be. No, the problem is at the start. For some insane, perhaps Japanese-only reason, every new PM, no matter who it is, always starts off with an approval rating that is really high. I guess it is a hangover from the fall of the previous guy, who, no matter who it is, will have stunk by the time he left office (think Silent Shinjo or Fuckwit Fukuda, anyone after them would have seemed like a renaissance man), which basiclly means that anyone who comes in is set up for a fall. I mean look at Kan's approval rating when he started, nearly 70%, no one is going to sustain that so it's a long slippery slope downhill

That said it does look like he had a pretty good rally there in the middle, towards the end of September... ah, that was when he was fighting the odious Ozawa for control of the party and, indeed, the country, no wonder he looked good then...I'd have looked good standing next to that crook! But anyway, apart from that, which had nothing to do with actual governing, it's all downhill, and it's the same for every single politico that takes the job on. It could be that he's in charge of a lousy party in a deadlocked house (a bit like Obama) but he's just not really doing anythign about it - I was tryign to think of some things that have happened that would have upped, or downed, his popularity, but I'm struggling apart from the Ozawa thing. OK, I expect that was a foot-in-mouth gaffe from a senior minister and a cabinet member-in-bribe scandal, but these are run of the mill events that happen to all PM's. But maybe that's it, they're all rubbish and it just takes a few months for everyone to realise. So it makes me wonder why they bother as I am certain that when (TMW) Kan goes, a new guy or [reality bending delusion] woman [reality bending delusion/] takes over, it will all happen again. Oh well...

Cricket News now

Ennnnnglaaaaaand! Ennnnnnglaaaaaand! etc

Come on you rubbish Aussies! An innings and 71! In Adelaide! (the first time we've beaten you by an innings there for 118 years!) And you couldn't even roll us over in Brisbane after taking a 220 run lead in the first innings! 517-1! ha ha ha ha hoo hoo hooo wa-ha hah ha etc etc

But pride cometh before a fall and we're not at home to Mr Cock-up, so watch out boys as a wounded Aussie is a tricky beast.

And other stuff

Er, well, we're still on course to head to Blighty for Christmas, leaving a week tomorrow as it happens - looking forward to that.

Also on the cricket front I, along with some other staff, took the primary cricket team down to near Mt Fuji for a cricket tournament a few weeks back. Great fun, I took charge of the B team (naturally) and we out-performed even our own sky-high expectations by winning two games and coming within a whisker of making the semi-finals (though a good job we didn't as the games we lost were by embarassing margins and a semi would have been a similar proposition) - but it was a cracking weekend and the kids all had a jolly time, which is what it's all about, and, in the end, cricket was the winner (as well as Gunma CC A team). Anyway here's a photo (our chap's batting):

And last but not least, it's chilly here, but not as cold as England! What's going on? I do not expect to spend a 2 week holiday on a bench in Heathrow as no traffic is moving anywhere in the UK - sort it out!

Politician is a bit of a prat shocker!

2010-10-18T15:20:00.001+09:00

Goodness it was over 2 months ago since I posted about the centenarians – where does the time go…? Anyway,

Political news now

I have little time for most politicos, it’s all about self interest and not about running a country properly, or even trying to most of the time. But about Japanese politicos I am even more in despair – I just don’t know why they bother. If there wasn’t actually a prime minister I don’t actually think it would make the slightest bit of difference to the country as a whole. OK, there might have to be a top level game of ‘paper, scissors, stone’ (or the j-equivalent ‘junken’) to decide who goes to the [insert name of international conference here] this week to stand at the back, not say anything and then come home and be criticised, or there might be an unseemly tussle if Carla Bruni comes a-visiting and someone has to shake her hand (or other stately appendage), but otherwise Japan would probably quite happily carry on with no head of state, or rather with the faceless grey bureaucrats and the plain grey emperor. But anyway they do have a PM so I’d better write about him.

Actually it’s not about him, the Man Who Kan, I am going to write, it’s about his erstwhile Moriarty, Ichiro Ozawa. OK, this is all old news, but hey, I’ve been busy. So Ozawa is the oldest of old skool, he is only in politics for one reason – himself. Pockets to line, plebs to rule over, god given right to lord it over other people with the expectation that they will thank him for doing so. I don’t like him, if you can’t guess.

Anyway a few months ago a probe was started into some alleged falsification of his financial reports by him and his little minions. At this time Ozawa was a serious heavyweight in the Democratic Party of Japan, a contender for future PM if he could avoid scandal. Now, as we know the DPJ had been out of power for decades until the The Hat came along and won an election. He then ballsed it all up over Okinawa and fell on his sword, as reported here before, and then The Man Who took over. So, new government formed for the still fledgling DPJ ruling classes, what better thing to do than launch a hostile bid for the leadership, just for a laugh. So that’s what Ozawa did.

Now, the timing of this, as you can see, is a bit odd. OK, the DPJ, according its constitution I think (a constitution that needs some serious revision by the sound of it) have to have a leadership contest – but as a party, if you’ve just been through a messy divorce with the standing PM and your popularity is shaky to say the least, you do not want the party ripped apart from the inside by an extremely partisan leadership contest. So, someone needs have a word with the potential leadership contenders along the lines of ‘this is a really delicate time, a time for unity, so there won’t be any challengers, will there…?’

Unfortunately the possibly most-appropriate person to have this little chat is our friend Ozawa, controller of the largest faction in the DPJ, but his chat is more like ‘Come on! Where are all the fighters in this town!?’ So he throws his hat in the ring.

All the while this is going on the investigation into his ‘financial irregularities’ is in full swing and the evidence is pointing increasingly strongly to the fact that he is a lying, cheating bastard (he’s a politician, as if there is any doubt!). His response to this is a simple ‘fuck you!’ to the investigators, reporters and general population of Japan.

So now we have a spot of internecine warfare in the DPJ and not just a little bit but a full on battle front as Ozawa is an important figure in the party who then gets endorsed by ex-PM, and current waste of space The Hat, and the very real possibility that, if Ozawa wins, he will become the first PM to be indicted whilst running the country (as well as the small matter of being something like the 3rd PM in 12 months).

The saving grace is the election process – now I won’t claim to understand the whole shebang, but basically the election votes are divided between (I think) the equivalent of the power-blocs in the Parliamentary party and the rank and file members. In the parliamentary party the votes are reasonably even between Ozawa and Kan, but the rank-and-file, who have been watching as this idiot Ozawa tries to destroy their attempt at government, are horrified at the prospect of him being PM and so are in favour of Kan by about 8-2.

In the end, of course, the election was won by the Man Who with the votes going almost exactly along the lines above. Was Ozawa repentant? Of course not, probably do it all again. The happy news is that he will be prosecuted by the police for the financial irregularities, but not before he threatened to sue the entire panel that came up with the indictment in the first place – his defence being ‘You can’t do that, don’t you know who I am?’ and other such choice defensive posturing. I’d like to think that’s the last we’ll ever hear of the inestimable Ichiro Ozawa, but I have the horrible impression that he will somehow avoid prosecution and bide his time whilst the Man Who inevitably cocks something up and then step into the leadership vacuum. Will be a sad day for Japan if it happens…

Holiday news now

Lock up your daughters, Mr Sexy Peasant is a-coming home for Christmas! Or something like that. Yes, we will be back to Blighty for festive celebrations from December 17th to, I think, 3rd January.

Already I have been instructed to present myself and family at a photo studio in Crowthorne (I know, who’d have thought it!) for family picture snappage – though worryingly father parental has mentioned something about having smart clothes with us for a ‘formal’ shot (golf-playing-brother is the organiser (I know, who’d have thought that adjective could be applied to that person!)). Anyway word to the wise, we will not have much in the way of formal clothes with us, not with normal clothes, Christmas presents and a small child with us.

And now, a brief mention of house guests

We have a house guest by the name of Adam – he is the nephew of a friend of the family and, unlike most 18 year olds (well, unlike most 18 year olds I knew when I was 18 (as I don’t really know very many now)) he doesn’t drink, take drugs or smoke – maybe he isn’t really 18… but he is jolly polite and somewhat diffident.

Anyway he’s here as he has a deep and abiding interest in Japan that needs knocking out of him so he’s staying with us for a couple of weeks. He arrived on Saturday evening looking slightly bewildered by it all, though he had been on a plane for 12 hours and had used, so he told me, one of paper bags that most people just make fun of.

Yesterday the Guru, youngster and I had to go to Meiji Jingu shrine near Harajuku for some serious feng shui praying (don’t ask me) so took Adam along with us. Then we wandered back through Harajuku to Shibuya and thence to Shinjuku and a ride to the top of the TMG building for a look over Tokyo’s sprawl. All very pleasant but at the time a little, niggling worry as whenever we asked ‘where you like to go and see now?’, he didn’t really know. Hmm, thought yours truly, so taking the bull by the horns when we got home I asked him outright, ‘what are your plans for the next 2 weeks?’ to which I got the reply;

‘Er, I don’t know really – maybe go to Kyoto and I’d like to climb Mt Fuji’

So you’ll have done a lot of research, then? Yes, you can climb Fuji in late-October but you tend to have to be an experienced climber with the full kit as snow has already dusted the top of the mountain. And Kyoto, good, that’s a couple of days, what about the rest?

OK, so maybe he is like any other 18 year old; lots of ideas but a bit lacking in the preparation department.

One of our centenarians is missing!

2010-08-09T17:53:00.000+09:00

Actually that’s not true, at last count it was about 60 of the sly buggers – what is going on in the post-100 not out age classification stakes?

You may have seen a week or two ago that that in Tokyo a local ward office official from Adachi-ku, accompanied by a policeman, popped around to see Sogen Kato, a 111year old man, to check the usual things one checks on with 111year old people and to give him a commemorative gift for attaining such a ripe old age intact. Kato’s kids (81 yr old daughter and 53 year old granddaughter) refused to let the official see their pa, saying that he was a ‘human vegetable’ and therefore wasn’t in any condition to meet anyone.

But then the following day the granddaughter reportedly went to visit the stonemason who made the gravestone for Kato’s wife when she died, at the age of 101, and told the stonemason all about the visit, apparently adding:

"My grandfather shut himself in a room on the first floor of our home 30 years ago, and we couldn't open the door from the outside. My mother said, 'Leave him in there,' and he was left as he was. I think he's dead."

No shit! At the time, I read somewhere else, the old fella said something along the lines of “I’m going to become a living Buddha so close the door and don’t come in again, no need to worry about the food and water (but beer and yakitori on a Friday night would be most welcome) !” he probably didn’t add.

Of course with every dodgy event in Japan there is some money involved, this time being pension payments, which appear to be about 9 million to him but only from 2005 to now, and seeing as they reckon he’s been dead for possibly 30 years it could be a great deal more – but in the family bank vault is only about 3 million, so the kids have some explaining to do I expect…

So then a couple of days later a similar thing happened with Tokyo’s ostensibly oldest person, the 113 year old Fusa Furuya of Suginami-ku, who has not lived at her address in Suginami for decades and therefore no one knows where she is. Also missing is Furuya’s oldest son and when the police went to check his address, in the hope of finding him and mom, all they found was a vacant piece of land. They did eventually track down the errant offspring but all they got from him was an ‘I don’t know’ on the whereabouts of ma. At least in this one there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of pension fraud as the kids haven’t been collecting it, but there does seem to have been a lot of parental neglect by the kids, there are 3 in total, who don’t appear to have spoken to each other since about 1990 and when they were all asked ‘where’s your mum?’ all pointed to the person on their left and said ‘living with him!’

Of course since all this kicked off all the wards in Tokyo, and I daresay other prefectures as well, have suddenly realised they better be checking up on this sort of thing, and when they have it appears that at least 63 of the longest livers (I don’t mean that their livers are particularly long, or any other internal organs for that matter, just they have lived a long time) might not be that long lived after all. In Osaka prefecture at 21 are missing, including 18 in Higashi-Osaka alone. It’s not clear if this is just carelessness on the part of the local governments and/or relatives of these oldsters, or a more sinister plot being concocted by North Korea to bankrupt Japan by over claiming pension rights (no one has made the North Korean connection yet, so remember, you read it here first).

Half the problem, though, seems to be the kids (kids in the broadest possible sense, of course). For example in my own ward of Itabashi a welfare worker who visited the home of a woman recognized as the ward's oldest in September last year and again this spring was not allowed to meet the woman, as her family said she "had difficulty going out." Quite why ‘difficulty going out’ means the ward official ‘can’t go in’ wasn’t immediately made clear, but there you go.

A lot of the time the ward offices are trying to contact the old folks to give them presents or other handouts, whereupon their progeny basically say “yeah, he lives here; no you can’t see him but I’d be happy to pass on the cash”, but ‘pass on’ soon turns to ‘pocket’, which is, of course, fraud. Why the ward offices can’t make a simple rule along the lines of ‘you want the cash? Show us the person’, I’m not really sure, though the Guru said it was against their human rights to demand to see someone (but then again she was happy all the pension money was going back in the pot).

Anyway with 40,399 centenarians as of September last year this could well be a slightly more widespread problem, just watch out for those North Koreans!

So then we went to Summerland

2010-08-05T17:35:00.000+09:00

Summerland is a big water park out past Hachioji, so still in Tokyo but not in the city.

Summerland is a big place run by Japanese people for, mainly, Japanese people, but there was a surprising amount of English around so obviously there get a lot of foreign visitors there. We went on 13/14th July and I know what you’re thinking, ‘why did we go so close to, or rather in, the rainy season?’ well, it was one of those work-holiday-price-overcrowdedness questions, with the potential overcrowdedness issues of going leter in the month outweighing all other considerations. Don’t believe me, this is the large pool at ‘peak’ time:

There is a pool there, it’s just you can’t see it as it’s covered in people!

The “pool” above is their big, indoor wave pool; they also have a couple of kids’ play pools and a couple of waterslides inside; whilst outside they have more pools, more slides and an amusement park. So we got there after a journey involving not only trains but also a bus too. As I mentioned we went on the 13th and whilst this did overcome the overcrowdedness issue it failed on the nice weather criteria, being grey and wet and, as we were a little way out of Tokyo, quite cold as well – surprising, I know, for rainy season, but once you get away from the heat island effect of Tokyo’s 23 wards the temperature drops dramatically, there is tundra in Tochigi, you know… (not really).

Anyway, as we’re staying for the night we are allowed to drop our bags at the ‘lodge’ and head to the attractions. As it wasn’t really raining at this point we thought we’d try a few of the rides. Knowing that the little fella isn’t really into being scared that much we head for the gentle looking Spin Dinghy, a ride based on, if you can guess, a spinning dinghy. Apprehensive though he was we board and the ride gradually builds up spinning speed. Approximately 0.25 seconds into the ride Marcus starts to scream, a scream that lasts the rest of the ride and causes concern in parenting circles that the fella might pass out through lack of oxygen. He didn’t, I’m glad to say. With that and the prospect of the ‘Air Catapult’ looming we felt discretion was the better part of valour and headed for the pools instead.

The pools – what can I say, they were big and full of water. The first one the little fella tried was the Tropical Fruits Island, which was a bunch of little waterslides designed for the smaller members of public (e.g. children and members of the ‘under 5-foot club’). So Marcus slid, jumped, wallowed and generally had a very nice time. There was also another pool next to this that had a climbing frame and a big bucket that filled and then dumped water over everyone. Then there was the big wave pool in the picture above.

Because it was a Tuesday still in rainy season the place was pretty much empty, comparatively speaking. There was a big kindergarten group that Marcus attached himself to and played with for a while, until they disappeared somewhere else. But hordes of fun seeking holiday makers there were few, which was good as it meant we didn’t have to wait for anything. At lunchtime we did the decent thing and went for lunch. After my much documented travails with TDL I was most happy to discover that this place, as it is run by Japanese, realised that doting though fathers may be, they still like a beer with their chicken and chips, and a reasonably priced beer at that.

The evening was spent at the aforementioned ‘lodge’ – this was a bit of an odd place. To start with there were only 2 occupied rooms in the place, leaving 22 gaps, as it were. As is natural the place had a big ‘ofuro’ (lit. bath) but as there were only 2 sets of guests the lodge people decided that we, as a family could have one bath to ourselves and the other guests could have the other. OK, so even knowing this it felt weird using the ‘women’s’ bathroom because I knew, deep down, that even though I had been told I could use it, I knew I shouldn’t, not really – it was the women’s bathroom. A relaxing bath it did not make.

Dinner was taken in a dining hall with space for about 40 scoffers but with only actually 5. Vast, echo-ey spaces and all that, but at least they served beer (pet hate here (might have mentioned it before, but this one annoyed me) – went to the serving lady, who was also the front desk lady with whom I had conversed earlier, and asked in flawless Japanese, as we stood next to a poster of a bottle of Suntory Premium Malts beer, if I could have a beer, please. She looked at me, then turned to the Guru who was getting some water, and told her that they only served bottled beer, was that OK? Er, hello, I’m standing next to, asking you a simple question in Japanese that we have previously established I can speak to a reasonable degree, the least you could do is address me first and wait to see if I do the confused guppy-fish expression before asking my wife. For fuck’s sakes).

Anyway, dinner was a mostly Japanese affair, with lots of small dishes of mostly edible stuff. Nice, but not awe-inspiring. Breakfast, on the other hand was a sight to behold – it was a full on Japanese morning dining experience, that meant a bowl of grey slimy stuff, a bowl of pink slimy stuff, black slimy stuff that might have been seaweed, rice with raw egg, natto and other not so easily identifiable or digestible delicacies. Mmm. Envious glances at Marcus’ kid’s breakfast, which included toast, hash browns, a sausage, scrambled eggs and a small, pleasant looking salad. Oh well…

The rest of the day was spent in the pools, of course, but this time the weather was fine so we could use the outdoor pools as well. This was good, of course, as we could use the slides. Bit of a gripe that there were three different water slides open but 2 of them were ‘pair rides’ so 2 people had to go at the same time, but with a small child and a wife who wasn’t into water slides I had no one to go with – boo hoo etc.

And that was about it, all in all a good couple of days away, but like TDL I wouldn’t want to go there on a bank holiday Monday in August – actually to be honest there aren’t that many places that I would like to go to on a bank holiday Monday in August…

A tale of two amusement parks

2010-07-16T17:16:00.000+09:00

Part 1 – in which our intrepid heroes visit Tokyo Disneyland

We don’t get to go away on holiday much in our house, mainly as it’s too expensive and we don’t have enough of the folding stuff. This means we have staycations, which is great as so does everyone else these days so we are being hip and trendy like other people, as opposed to being poor.

This does mean, though, that we go on a few day trips and/or ‘short breaks’ and it is to this we turn now. So, back in May Marcus had a half term holiday of 2 days and on one of those days the Guru decided she and Marcus were going to go to Tokyo Disneyland – only the two of them, you’ll note, as I had long maintained that visiting anything to do with that old racist Walt Disney was right up there with golf and Alzheimer’s – i.e. when I do it, shoot me there and then as I will have lost my marbles and I need to be retired, permanently.

Anyway that’s what I thought but, low and behold, when we told the little fella that a trip to TDL was in the offing he was mightily excited as only a 5 yr old can be but, importantly, only if both parental entities could take him along. And so, after much wheedling, I bowed to the inevitable pressure and found myself going along as well.

So we aim to get there early, around 930am for a 10am start, not too early as this is a Tuesday in May, not a national holiday and not a school or university holiday period either, so kids older than about 4 yrs should be thin on the ground as they’ll all be studying. As we approach the gates there aren’t any queues so we smile a bit say various thanks – then we get to the turnstiles and realise that today the opening time was 930, probably a bit before, and so there are people already inside. Oh, ok, then we go through and realise that it is not a few people but a shitload of people, the place is heaving!

Nowadays at TDL they have a smart queing system, so you can buy pre-booked tickets to rides so you don’t have to wait for hours in lines; this works to an extent, except you have to wait in line for hours to get the pre-booked ticket, thereby shifting the queue to a different queue. So we really wanted to go on the new Monsters Inc ride, so we rushed there along with 1/3rd of the population of Japan and waited for about 45minutes until we got our ticket for, if memory serves, about 230pm, so for 5 hours later! We went to another popular ride to see if we could pre-book that but by the time we got there the ride time was about 7pm! Er, no thanks, not staying here that late…

So after that we decided to get on some of the less popular rides, like the Star Wars one, which was really cool whizzing through the universe and had zero queue (and amusingly scared the shit out of Marcus), and Buzz Lightyear one (which had a longish queue but wasn’t too bad). Then in need to refuelling we went to some pizza place and got a couple of somewhat stiff slices of pizza and small drinks for the GDP of Vietnam.

“And can I have a beer with that?” I asked…

“A beer! Here? In Tokyo Disneyland!? What are you, some kind of demented alcoholic wife-beating child-molester?” the serving lady shouted at me (with her eyes) before calling the Pentagon and having me transported via extraordinary rendition to Fort Bragg via Rangoon, Kabul, Algiers and Panama city, where I was kept for 72 hours in a dazzlingly white room and had classic Disney songs played constantly at ear-splitting volume before being dropped naked in a lay-by near the M3. Or something like that, but the important thing was that I didn’t get a beer. A sneer, yes, but no beer – this did not make me happy. I thought about asking if they had any crack instead, but I don’t think they would have got the joke.

After that we went to see the parade – as a show this was actually pretty good, as parades go. The song and dance routines were very song-y and dance-y, though the irony of course is that all the performers looked they had taken speedballs moments before they were unleashed on the suspecting public because no-one can look that perky for that long unaided.

So what else? We went on a number of rides or attractions that, after a while, seemed to blend into one. A lot of them, like the pirates of the Caribbean and one with small furry critters were of the ‘sit in a boat and go slowly with the flow whilst looking at the vignettes’ variety, so good in that a lot of work has gone into the production, but not really that original an idea and a bit, well, dull towards the end. We also went on an Amazon ‘river’ cruise which was in a proper boat looking at not-real animals. Lunch was actually very nice with decent sized portions but cost the other arm and leg and I still couldn’t get a beer, even in a ‘proper’ restaurant.

Oh, splash mountain was good but as we didn’t have fast-track tickets we had to wait for this one and it took nearly an hour of queuing, but at least that one had a bit of oomph about it, and proper ride rather than a sit and watch stuff ‘experience’ – also it amusingly scared the shit out of Marcus again (not literally I am glad to say), but he was most proud of himself afterwards that he survived.

And that was about it – oh, except for the long awaited Monsters Inc ride, the new pride and joy of TDL. Well, remember I mentioned the Buzz Lightyear ride? In that one you were in a trolley/car thing and you had to shoot aliens that popped up and the Zarg thing as you went around – all good fun, that one. In Monsters Inc you were in a trolley/car thing and you had to shine a torch on monsters that popped up [and then something big at the end] as you went around – all pretty much the same as the Buzz ride, just with a different backdrop.

And that was the problem with TDL, it’s basically about 3 rides which are repeated with different themes, so after you’ve done them once that’s it, you’re bored. Now on a busy weekend, when you’re only going to get to do about 3 rides, this may work well (though a rip-off), but if you can squeeze in 8 or 9 things in one day (as I said, it was busy there, but obviously not that busy as we did a lot – I would hate to be there on a bank holiday Monday during Obon…) then it gets a trifle boring.
And Mickey-fucking-Mouse is everywhere.
And you can’t get a beer anywhere.
(They could make a world of difference for the better by swapping those last two around…)

So shoot me now as I have lost my marbles and I need to be retired, permanently.

And coming soon…

Part 2 – in which the courageous team head to Tokyo Summerland

The man who Kan

2010-06-06T01:02:00.001+09:00

Oh hang on, probably not, anyway here's the gen on the fella in case you missed the changeover...

The Hat Goes!

2010-06-02T13:04:00.001+09:00

So the Hat has gone, done in by his ability to do nothing at all - normally for a Japanese politician this isn't a problem, in fact many a political career in J-land has built on the ability to prevaricate and procrastinate, but for the Hat this has not worked.

So, 4 PMs in 4 years and now another on the way, but the big question is, will anyone notice the change?

Towel Wars & other stuff

2010-05-24T11:48:00.002+09:00

As if to prove that the recent plunge in stock markets, instability in the Euro and general demise of the world’s capitalist economy is just something that happens to other people, big manufacturing news in Japan! So, how’s this for a headline…

Osaka, Shikoku battle over No. 1 towel production title!

Now you may laugh, I know I did, but towels are important, and not just for drying yourself off (or wetting your brow on a hot day, wiping up spills or many other of the myriad of uses that a square or oblong piece of cloth can be put to) – I mean, where would Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent have been without their towels? So as you can imagine when I saw this headline on 17th May I immediately though I had better investigate further as it was prime Arakawa Riverview, ahem, material.

But, I’m sure you’re wondering, how can this be a battle, surely the association with the highest sales is the winner, no? Well, no. You see the Osaka Prefecture and Shikoku region (the smallest of the 4 main island of Japan, containing 4 prefectures, Kochi, Ehime, Kagawa and Tokushima – and yes, I did just have to look that up – and very close to Osaka) both claim they are the top producers of towels in the country, but base their claims on different calculation methods.

Ah, the murky world of towel production statistics.

Before WWII Osaka was, apparently, the place for towel production in Japan, however post-war the upstart island, through cunning use of cotton blanket production, overtook Japan’s second city. Recently the figures of 9,381 tons to Shikoku against 9,209 tons from Osaka have been bandied about, accounting for 99% of domestic towel production. But this of course, raises a number of questions – how were these figures compiled? What percentage of overall towel sales in Japan does this represent? Where does the other 1% of domestic towels produced come from? Who, outside of Osaka and Shikoku towel production associations and me, really gives a fuck about any of this? How on earth did this story get onto page-2 of a national newspaper?

Well, I can’t answer very many of those questions, except, luckily, the first one – the Osaka Towel Industry Association (102 member firms) uses as its basis the volume of towels brought to dye houses as the production figure – so if 1 ton of towels arrive to be dyed then the production figure is 1 ton.

The Shikoku Towel Industrial Association (132 members) calculates production by using the yield rate, which shows the percentage of cotton yarn that is actually turned into towels without being wasted. The association multiplies the amount of yarn by the yield rate to calculate towel production – the yield rate has gone up from 84% in 2007 to 95% in 2010, they argue, meaning the amount of towels actually made has increased.

Confused? I am. Why don’t they just count the number of finished towels shipped from their factories? Or the sales? Or at least agree on something? Why hasn’t the Japan Towel Industrial Association (or maybe the Japan textile Federation) got involved and sorted this out.

Uncertainty reigns as both Osaka and Shikoku associations are both now using ‘Japan’s largest towel production center’ on their advertising and websites – as you can image, in the cutthroat world of domestic towel production this has huge ramifications (and if I can think of any I’ll let you know).

So this is set to run and run, I’ll keep you posted if anyone ever writes anything about this ever again…

Yukio ‘the Hat’ Hatoyama news now

Jeez, talking about things set to run-and-run…

A few posts back I mentioned that the relocation of the US Airbase at Futenma, Okinawa, was a pressing issue for the Hat (I don’t think he is particularly known for his hats, by the way, it’s just an easy (read lazy) nickname for him). He was going round the houses desperately trying to find a solution that wouldn’t piss anybody off – fat chance of that as who would really want a US airbase next door? Not I.

So two updates, the first from a couple of weeks or so ago – so he’s the PM of a major, first world country, he knows he wants (or maybe needs) the US to be here, but he also knows that the ”people”, whilst knowing deep down that having the US here is a good thing, especially with Krazy Kim torpedoing S Korean ships, the “people” want the US to ‘here’ but not ‘here’ as in ‘close to my house’ but ‘here’ as in ‘over there – maybe in between Osaka and Shikoku so they can sort out this towel battle business’. So what does the Hat do? He goes to somewhere that isn’t where the base is now (I can’t remember where, the details of this story are so unbearably boring, which is ironic as the associated politicking is undeniably fascinating) and says to the local worthies;

“Ah, excuse me, terribly sorry to bother you, er, would you mind awfully if I put a US airbase in your prefecture…? No? Not the sort of thing you really want? Ah, I see, well, sorry for the trouble, do have a good day. Thank you.”

Oi, Yukio, grow a pair, will you! I mean, what did he expect, a tickertape parade and a welcome with open arms? This story has been going on so long that anyone, in any prefecture, is going to tell him to take a running jump. So instead of slapping down a few compulsory purchase orders and sending in the bulldozers he’s fart-arsing around and getting nowhere. OK, so maybe he’s trying to be less like the LDP which would have sent in the bulldozers (unless it was farmland) and ignored the locals, but this way everyone is looking at him saying ‘did we really vote for this guy…?’

So the weekend just gone he eventually went back the Futenma people and told them that, sorry, all been a big mistake and they would still have the base that they don’t want, but also the expanded version that they really, really don’t want. So 6 months of fucking about, a period which has seen his popularity plummet, to get back to the original plan which will still piss off the locals and will get the media even more on his back as he opposed this plan way back in 2006. Nice work there, Mr The Hat.

In other news

Goodness a lot has been going on since I last bother to write. Britain has 2 new leaders, well done there – I personally like the plan for the Clegg-Haig house share, with each getting to use it on alternate weekends, I’m sure they’ll get on like a house on fire…

Japan Cricket news, well, more like school cricket news in that now yours truly is coaching the primary cricket club kids on Monday mornings before school. This is jolly fun as these kids are some of the only humans on the planet who know less about playing cricket than I do, so I can generally sound knowledgeable when talking to them. Actually on Saturday just gone I took them up to Gunma Prefecture for a knockabout with a load of Japanese kids who are being coached by a chap named Richard, who is a loud, Aussie ex-pro cricketer who, I’m glad to say, told the kids basically the same things as I have been telling them when he gave them an impromptu batting session in between games.

Last but not least

Who are you all, part II.

I now have, it says on the sidebar, 38 followers of this blog – good on yer, as they say. Now, please could everyone who is a follower please leave a ‘hello’ type comment, just see how many we get – go on, you know you want to…

I'm depressed

2010-04-17T23:11:00.001+09:00

Once upon a time, in July 2003 to be exact, I wrote this:

Even more impressive a scam is the newly formed Resona bank, which was previously known as Asahi bank, and a couple of others. This is now in seriously deep trouble, so what do the government do? Let it go to the dogs for having such inept managers? Oh no. They decide to pump in 1.96trillion yen's worth of tax payers cash to bail them out. That is 1,960,000,000,000, or 98,000,000 quid...for a private bank. In any other country this bank would be allowed to become bankrupt, probably as soon as everyone found out they were in trouble and took out their savings.

In light of events over the last few years I can't believe how naive I was. As usual Japan was at least half-a-decade ahead of the curve, bailing out rubbish banks and even more rubbish managers with my cash.

I think Gordon, Obama, Alan, no hang on, it's not Alan anymore is it, it's Timothy and Ben, and all those other shysters that have fucked the world up, they all owe a nod and a wink to Japan and the Kool Kid to acknowledge that, once again, Japan was there first, at the forefront of propping up big business with our money.

A blog of note

2010-04-17T20:51:00.000+09:00

In fact so noteworthy that I have been interviewed for a prestigious online blog voting thing, or something. Anyway have a gander here and vote for me (see the doohickey on the sidebar below) and I can win cash! How great is that!

Alas, poor Yukio

2010-04-08T09:14:00.000+09:00

A while back, here if you're interested, I wrote about the (then) new Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama and is election victory. It was important, I seem to recall, as it meant an end to the almost uninterrupted post-war LDP monopoly of nice offices in Kasumigaseki (or whatever the Japanese equivalent to Whitehall is - I think it's there, I went there once and I think the Guru told me that's what went on in the office buildings...I digress). I might even have attempted a spurious resonance with the elecetion of Barak Obama as they both came from left field, upset long standing cartels (middle aged white men in Obama's case, now the whitehouse as a middle-aged nearly white man at the helm) and were meant to be all about change.

So, a year or so on Obama has done his healthcare thing, turned America in socialist/fascist/communist/progressive wasteland/utopia/same as it ever was, whilst also reducing nuclear weapons stocks, playing basketball in his back garden and doing some other stuff as well.
Well done there.

The big question, therefore, is what monumental changes to the very fabric of Japanese society has Yukio wrought in his term of office so far (which, to be fair, is just under a year as he was elected in May 2009)?

No, I can't think of any either. He's talked a lot about the relocation of the US Airforce base in Okinawa (but not actually done anything about it). He's talked a lot about the state of the Japanese economy (but not actually done anything about it). He's talked a lot about letting foreign permanent residents in Japan vote in local elections (but not actually done anything about it). He's talked a lot about members of his cabinet and party being found out for taking sizeable undisclosed donantions of a political nature (but not actually done anything to stop it). Made some firm commitments to carry on talking about the relocation of the US Airforce base in Okinawa (and been good to his word).

He has worn a couple of very nasty shirts that should have been banned by the Geneva Convention, like this one:

and another but I can't find a picture of it; it was even more alarming.

OK, I admit it, I thought that with Hatoyama it would be a bit of a change - I mean he was coming after Silent Shinzo Abe and that Fuckwit Fukuda so he couldn't have had an easier 'in' to the big chair - but things just haven't materialised. There were promises to end corruption that have spectacularly failed thanks to members of his own party; promises to curb the pork-barrel spending projects of the provinces, things like dams and concreting over rivers, but nothing much has stopped or changed. The amukudari are still floating down from heaven.

Oh, hang on, he did promise to increase child allowances and from June I think we do get an extra 8,000yen a month for the youngster, so we can add one tick to the credit column.

But it was not meant ot be like this, a return to the old ways with a PM from a party who didn't have any old ways. He shouldn't have known what the old ways were, let alone how to get to them. Maybe I, like a lot of other people, were getting a little bit too carried away with his 'fresh-faced new change' thing to actually listen to what he was saying at the time, which probably wasn't very much. Maybe more should have been made of the fact that he is very old-school politician (which inevitably means conserative, with or without the big 'c') as his grandfather was PM and founded the LDP and his father was foreign minister.

But he wasn't meant to be LDP, he was meant to be different. He told us he was. New broom. Fresh start. Not like those other old farts. But it's been; No broom. Fresh scandals. Same as it ever was. And bad shirts.

You have to wonder why. I'm sure that when he got the top job he did want to make a difference, but at this rate he will go down as one of the most rubbish/least effective PMs in postwar Japan (and as you can imagein, that's up against some pretty stiff opposition). His cabinet approval rating has gone from over 70% at election time to just 33% now - that despite not doing anything, or maybe because he hasn't done anything... now I'm getting deja vu - I wrote almost exactly the same as this after the Kool Kid had gone and we had whoever came after him...

Oh no! Maybe it's Japan that turns you into a caricature of yourself, rehashing the same-old same-old and never coming up with anything new. Oh my god! I'm becomming a Japanese politician!

You gotta have form

2010-03-27T22:41:00.002+09:00

Ready for a good old fashioned rant? OK, strap in and let's go...

How many world class Japanese athletes can you name? I'm talking about genuinely world class, ones that would walk into any team (if it's a team sport) or at the top of the tree individually. I can think of two, Kosuke Kitajima the swimmer who won double golds at the last 2 Olympics and Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. For a country of 120 million people that doesn't seem a good return to me, so why is that?

Personally I think it all starts in school. I've written before about sadistic baseball coaches who train their teams literally to death every summer, I think that's a big part of it, but I think there are a few other factors as well. One is too much specialisation, this might seem counter-intuitive but bear with me. When I was a kid at school I got to play just about every sport the school could give me, so winter was rugby, football, hockey and cross country; summer was athletics (having a bash at all events) and cricket whilst all through the year we played indoor sports like badminton, squash, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff as well. It helped that my school was next to a sports centre, but even if it wasn't we'd have still done a lot of this stuff. After school I could have joined a load of teams had I wanted to, I chose rugby but I could have represented the school at football as well if I had wanted - the more the better.

At a Japanese school, once you have decided you are a footballer, for example, that's it, you will play football all the time and it will be the only game you play. You will play it in the winter and the summer. You will not be allowed to play baseball even if you are quite good at it. You are a footballer and football you will play. Why is that? Doesn't it seem a bit rubbish? Rob Andrew, amongst others, was a blue at rugby and cricket for Cambridge - wouldn't happen at Waseda.

The argument, I'm sure, is that this makes you better at the sport you've chosen to specialise in, but that's hokum. The skills you learn in one sport will usually have a beneficial effect in other sports - think of the balance you gain from gymnastics, how useful would that be for our footballer? So I think they're missing a trick here, the more sports you play the better generally at sports you'll become, but that's not how it's done here.

But the real problem, I think, is all the fault of martial arts. Remember the film Karate Kid? Old Mr Miyagi gets Daniel-san to do menial jobs around the place - wax on, wax off etc. At the end Daniel says "you haven't taught me anything!" but then they spar and, lo and behold, cunning Mr Miyagi has been teaching Daniel the 'form' of the moves he needs to know. And that's the problem, in Japan it's all about form, or put it another way, it's about style over substance and especially being able to look correct, follow the form book and not being able to think for yourself. This might be a good approach for karate but it's a disaster area for everything else.

Walk past a school tennis club session and for 20 minutes you will hear the swishing of racquets but if you look at the session you will see a long line of (probably) girls swinging their arms practicing backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand, backhand. Stop, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk from the coach. Forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand, forehand etc but, and this is the important thing, the only thing they will be hitting is thin air. Isn't the point of tennis to hit a ball? It's the same with baseball, swinging bats or throwing & catching; same for football, swinging your leg; I watched a rugby coaching session a while back for 14-16 year-olds and they weren't allowed to touch a ball for 30 minutes of the one hour session while they were running through back's moves! The point from the coaches is that you have to practice the move, but how can you practice hitting a ball if you don't, actually, hit a ball?

The problem is this creates generations of kids who can swing a bat but can't hit a ball properly - how can you learn the hand-eye coordination needed to hit a ball if you can spend half the time swinging the bat with your eyes closed? Also a generation of kids who are told what to do all the time so can't think for themselves and play what's in front of them. It also walks hand-in-hand with the Japanese trait of squashing individualism and being a member of a team - in the team you don't have to think as the coach tells you what to do, but it means that Japan will never create a 'genius' sportsman or sportswoman, a Chris Hoy, a Michael Jordan, a Kelly Holmes, a Dan Carter, a Lionel Messi, because these players used their brains and natural talent to excel at their sports. If any of these kids grew up in Japan they would have had talent coached out of them by the time they were 14.

It's such a shame as Japan has the wealth and resources to create athletes that should compete with the best on a regular basis. Their football team should, by any measure, be right up there, but they are functional and utilitarian at best - the best player they produced, Hidetoshi Nakata, was generally regarded as a maverick, difficult to mange and didn't get on with other players on the team. At least the managers had the good sense to pick him - just before the recent winter olympics in Vancouver a Japanese snowboarder and gold medal prospect Kazuhiro Kokubo arrived at Narita Airport in his official olympic blazer but with his shirt hanging out and his tie undone. The shock, the horror - he's a snow boarder, what do you expect? But officials from the Japan Olympic Committee (quite possibly the biggest bunch of old farts in the sporting universe, and as you can imagine, that's up against some pretty stiff opposition) wanted to ban the guy from the games - a gold medal prospect banned for not tucking his shirt in! You couldn't make it up. It took a quick bit of negotiation from some agent or other with the guy and a bit of top level mollification toward the JOC and finally the kid was allowed to go (once he tucked in his shirt, one trusts). Eventually he came 5th in his event and I wouldn't be surprised if his mental equilibrium was shot by the crap he had to go through before getting on the plane.

Last there is this. Do you know that characteristic is most prized by Japanese parents in their children? Courage? No. Intelligence? A distant second. Apparently the most prized characteristic parents want in their kids is, according to a recent poll, shyness. Apparently it is considered cute. Oh for fuck's sakes, cute! It might be OK for a 4 year old (though I would have serious reservations about even this) but you want to cripple your child for the rest of his or her life by making them socially inept, scared and unable to think clearly when conversing with another person? This of course has a far more wide ranging impact than just making decent sportsmen and women in Japan (for example the abnormally high suicide rate in Japan), but that was how this rant started so that's how we'll end. Can you think of a shy elite athlete? I can think of plenty who value their privacy but shyness? Elite athletes tend to have big personalities to go with their enormous egos which drive them on to win. Ichiro, who we mentioned above, has a pretty sorted ego, as did Nakata, that's what made them better then the rest of the baseballers and footballers of their generations, it's why their Japanese teammates didn't like them and why they ended up playing overseas. Let's hope a few more of them and their ilk come along and manage to slip through the fingers of their junior high school coaches and they find someone decent to nurture and develop their talent, not beat it out of them...

At last

2010-03-20T20:15:00.000+09:00

So today, 3 months to the day after my ill-fated 10k, I was finally able to go for a run with enough confidence that my thigh/groin would be able to take it.

And I'm glad to say that the leg took it well and, this evening, I am able to move with no problems. Phew!

I must say I was a little worried, who wouldn't be, but I took it nice and easy and didn't go very far. I jogged at a gentle half-pace to the running track up the river (passing the preparations for tomorrow's Arakawa Marathon, which I will join next year rather than Tokyo as it starts about 500m from our apartment), did a lap of the running track at half-pace and then jogged back home, stopping to stretch at various points along the way.

Probably about 3k in total but I didn't time myself as that wasn't really the point. We'll see how it feels tomorrow, but if tonight is anything to go by I should be OK. Now I can get back into it again - I have really missed running - but it will be slow, steady and short for a while longer yet.

Skiing

2010-03-16T22:01:00.001+09:00

So last weekend I went skiing.

"I?" I hear you ask, not "we" as in with the family?

No, this was an 'I', along with 3 teachers from the school and 19 kids in the 'school ski club'. This may sound like a recipe for disaster, but it was not, in fact it was a jolly good weekend jaunt, there are several reasons for this.

Firstly it was the ski club, which means it wasn't an unruly mob of kids but a bunch who had done this twice before this year so were used to the whole caper, this meant that they were not quite into the silly bugger mode as might be expected. Secondly I didn't have to pay for anything as it was a school trip and I was 'staff' so shinkansen tickets, accommodation, lift passes (and the odd enormous gin and tonic after the kids had gone to bed) were all covered by the school and parents of kids on the trip. Also the kids knew how to ski very well, so we didn't have to worry too much about them hurting themselves by accidentally falling off something inappropriate, like a mountain (however it did mean we had to worry about them attempting to break the sound barrier whilst racing their mates). And last but not least we stayed in a great place called Canyons, which is essentially a cheap & cheerful outward bound centre, the sort of place that for some reason generally does not exist in Japan so is run by a bunch of crazy New Zealanders.

It's weird but ski places in Japan are extremely po-faced and serious, a place to go to ski, have a bath and sleep, missing out that important 'get shitfaced in the evening' bit after the bath. I don't know why this is, but trying to find an open izakaya, let alone a bar or karaoke place, after about 7pm at a Japanese ski resort is next to impossible. Well it was until Aussies realised this and started opening bars especially in Hokkaido, but not in Gunma, where we were, but luckily the Canyons place we stayed at had a most convivial bar that required propping up on a Saturday night.

However before we got there we had a day of skiing to get through. As I said this was the ski club so no beginners here, but they were there to improve so had lessons. The kids were split into groups and taken off with an instructor and as a responsible adult I went with one of them. Now it has been a while since I last ski-ed, I think it was with Steve on his last trip with the high school he worked at, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, so I knew it would take me a while to get back into the swing of it. So we went up the first lift and then a second, then the instructor stopped, had a quick explain of what he wanted us to do.

Quite straight forward so off we went - the first slope was quite shallow and we all cruised along. Next bit, stop, explain again, off down a steeper bit and zoom, off they all went and quite an alarming pace. Of course I was last to go as I had to make sure I was following up if anyone fell over or got lost, and as the rest were quicker than me by the time I caught up with the group the instructor was saying "everyone got that? Right, let's go...". And off they went. This carried on for about 45 minutes until, coming down on a reasonably long run into the main starting area, the last of the kids who I was following disappeared over the lip of a hill and by the time I'd got there had completely disappeared...uh oh. To be fair there were a lot of people down there milling about waiting for lifts, but I lost them totally. Ah, slightly embarrassing, outrun by a bunch of kids.

Oh well, luckily I found another of our groups and tagged along with them, figuring we'd probably meet again at some point and the kids were with an instructor so probably weren't in too much danger. And meet up again we did about 30 minutes later - cue much bullshitting on my part about how I had to find Mr L to discuss something... no, I don't think any of them believed me either...

After that I had to speed up, but of course the more confident I became so did the kids, so they were always far out in front of me, but I consoled myself in the knowledge that it wasn't a race. No, that came in the afternoon and on Sunday. We set up a slalom course and Saturday afternoon was practice for the big race on Sunday. Naturally the steepest bit of slope was found to set up the course and whilst skiing a steep slalom course is tricky (believe me), setting one up is even harder as you have to stop, drill into the snow and screw in poles with a big corkscrew type thing. Anyway that done the kids all set about the course, some better,some worse, but none quite so bad as yours truly. I figured I had to have a go, but soon realised that a slalom course is extremely down. This may sound obvious, but when you ski you tend to go across slopes more than down, until you get better and are confident about more downness than acrossness. I only fell over twice, but one was a real headfirst-into-the-snow wipeout - must have looked good from above, judging by the mirth.

So then on Sunday (after a Saturday night ski and aforementioned g&t) the kids spent all day racing down an even longer slalom course to see who could record the overall best three times of the day. More wipeouts from the kids this time, but then again they were really going for it and it was very icy in the morning. In the end we had various champions but the biggest winners were that we didn't have any injuries and managed to get all the kids back to Tokyo in one piece and with all their gear.

I was knackered by the end of it, but will definitely be back next season.

I think we're getting there

2010-03-07T16:49:00.001+09:00

Slowly but surely - at least I've got the photo in the header box centred, re-sizing is an issue so we may have to stick with what we've got. Even got proper titles for the posts now!

2010-03-06T22:38:00.003+09:00

A new beginning

So, the old comments really have gone this time, they have been obliterated by the new template, which for some reason doesn't like old things.

The new look is because I found out that new blogger templates have loads of stuff on that you can play around with really easily - the old template, from about 2003, was all html based so any changes you wanted to make you had to code yourself, or rather, I had to code myself. But this new stuff is all drag-and-drop and edit in real time - super I say! Shame about the photo in the title not really being the same size as the box, but I'll figure out how to resize it sometime.

Anyway; off with the horns, on with the show...

2010-02-27T21:34:00.005+09:00

Haloscan...

OK, so the comments haven't disappeared, don't blame me, I was just passing on what they told me, or what I thought they told me. Whatever, the comments are all still there and new ones can be added so I don't know wtf is going on (hah! like that's any change...), but as long as I don't have to change anything with the template I'm good with that.

Signs

They're everywhere, man, just everywhere. And I'm just, like, OMG! It's sooo kinda out there!!! Ooops, sorry, a bit of the princess dippy blog there spilling back into the Arakawa universe (see the comments section of the last post if your really want to).

No, signs, they really are everywhere, telling you what to do or passing on information that you really don't need. Then again, every now and again you see a sign or two that makes you think 'yeah, see what they mean' or 'hmm, useful info, thanks' or even 'wtf?'

This is a long way of getting around to talking about a couple of signs the Guru and I saw the other day. Last Sunday we were in Kudanshita (I know, on a Sunday! Believe me not a lot goes on in Kudanshita on a Sunday but there we were, actually, not a lot goes on in Kudanshita most of the time, I reckon) as we were taking the little fella to a birthday party. "What, in Kudanshita? On a Sunday!?" Yes, believe it or not. Kudanshita is the bit of Tokyo just to the north of the imperial palace compound, with a bit of moat, a lot of cherry trees for spring, Budokan (if a concert is on - I saw Oasis there many a moon ago, maybe 1998), Yasukuni Shrine (enshrined class A war criminals (read the archives for more)) and not much else. But one of Marcus' school chums' fathers works for OUP and probably has strong embassy (which is close by but round the corner in Hanzoumon) connections and so for some reason chose a restaurant, no, a Bar & Grill, in Kudanshita for his daughter's 5th birthday party. Maybe it's because his wife is Russian, I don't know.

Anyway, we dropped the fella off (does this make us bad parents? A birthday party - here, you look after 20 kids with too much sugar intake for 2 hours whilst the wife and I have a Starbucks, just the two of us, for the first time in 3 months... No, sensible parenting, if you ask me) and then went to find the aforementioned Starbucks. The cafe in question was on the ground floor of an office building, which had the following sign affixed:

Now, doing business is the purpose of an office block, if you ask me, so what is it that people have against pets in Kudanshita? Worried that a bunch of market-savvy corgis are about to move in and clean up, or maybe a syndicate of Siamese are about to move in - that's probably a good idea as the area looks like it needs a high class pussy or two around to liven things up (ba-dum-tsh, I thank you!)

Anyway also spotted on our wanderings was the next sign:

It's the 1st floor that is of interest here. Now, think about James Bond (bear with me), when he is under cover and trying to get that all important first meeting with Blofeld he doesn't call up and say "This is James Bond from MI6" does he? No, he says "James Bond, Universal Exports" - it's called a 'cover', from what I am to believe reading John Le Carre novels. In Japan they don't bother with this sort of cloak-and-dagger stuff when it comes to espionage, they just play it straight and tell you how it is.

So I couldn't believe it either when I saw the sign above which says (roughly translated)

1F Office Japan Secret Service

Of course it could all be a front, I mean there was me, a shaven-headed foreigner taking pictures of the Secret Service building and so far no SWAT team has jumped through our living room window spraying bullets and tear gas...

2010-02-17T11:32:00.003+09:00

Haloscan comments, they just can't go on...

Apparently they are going all Rita Hayworth on us and discontinuing the service - it looks like a pain in the ass to transfer the comments (to a service that costs $12 a year!), so I may just not bother - I can't import them into Blogger template anyway.

So they will all probably disappear, quite possibly tonight, so if you have any personal favourites, go read them now...

2010-02-14T20:17:00.006+09:00

Who are you all?

Now here's a weird thing - usually, in your average week, about 10 or so people inadvertently stumble into Arakawa Riverview's universe, realise they have made a wrong turn somewhere in google and bugger off. Occasionally one of these persons may stop and read a post, possibly out of sympathy or maybe they are trying to find inane ramblings to comfort themselves that there are sillier people out there than themselves.

Anyway, for some reason, from 29th January onwards, my viewing public has increased alarmingly, averaging about 80 views a day, with a high point last Thursday of 112 poor unsuspecting souls reading my missives about dodgy thighs and trying to run. And I haven't even posted for about 3 weeks.

So come on, just who are you and what are you doing here? And how are you getting here? The blog stat thing Site Meter just says you are all coming from the blogspot navigation bar, but not much more than that, so why now and what do you want...?

Other stuff

Anyway, other stuff. So the 6 Nations has kicked off, well last week really, but a jolly good kick it was, with us beating the Welsh. Can't wait for this evening's game against the Italians - hopefully England will put in a performance to match the French dispatching of Ireland last night, 80 minutes of the best the northern hemisphere has to offer, come to that the Wales:Scotland was even more exciting, but more because both teams seemed more intent on losing the game than winning it - Wales in the 1st half were rubbish and Scotland in the 2nd just shaded it in the 'anything you can do we can do worse' stakes.

My dodgy thigh is now, almost and yet not quite, better. There is still one stretch that I do where I can feel that it is not right, but even that one is getting better so I think, hopefully, this Thursday, I will go for a run for the first time since December 20th. That will be February 18th so almost 2 months to the day - what a pisser it has been, my whole body feels fat, apathetic and lethargic. I can't wait. But I will take it very easy, a nice short run - or even go to the running track about a kilometre upriver and use that as it is obviously a much better surface to run on.

I have devised my own new training regime after talking to Andy, my triathlete workmate, who had some sensible advice. He reckoned that my old regime of plodding along at the same pace for session after session was a big contributory factor as you begin to get a sort of repetitive strain injury if you don't vary what you do. So, when I'm back up to a proper level of fitness my schedule will be: Tuesday night - interval training at the track (essentially sprint-rest-sprint-rest etc over varying distances); Thursday night - 8km run at brisk pace; Saturday - 1 hour biking along the river bank; Sunday - 10km+ run at normal plodding pace. The biking is in there to use different muscles and reduce the impact stress on the legs (whilst still having a good aerobic workout). Who knows, hopefully it will be better for me.

However it might all go out of the window as today we, as a family, discovered ice skating. Actually I ought to rephrase that to be more accurate, last week Marcus discovered he doesn't like ice skating very much, which was reconfirmed today; today the Guru found she doesn't like ice skating very much either; however I, much to my surprise, found that not only do I quite like it, I was actually quite adept in a 'first time in skates for 25 years' kind of way. It all started because some of the little fella's friends arranged an ice skating playdate for Friday this week, as it half-term. As he has never been on skates before the Guru thought it sensible to have some lessons, so signed him up for 2 Sunday morning classes in central Tokyo where they have set up a temporary rink for the winter. Lesson one last week seemed to be an hour of falling over and getting up, whilst today was how to skate. Well, it would have been if the fella had mastered the art of getting up, but as he hadn't he went into the 'not so good kids' class and from here he did quite well. He still resembles Bambi on ice, but by the end he wasn't falling down all the time, just a lot of the time.

The Guru realised that when she takes the fella to the playdate she will probably have to skate as well, so today, after the lesson, she strapped on a pair of skates and tried it out herself. The idea was the the fella and I would join in as well, but, scarred for life as he is, the little 'un declined so I stayed on the sidelines with him. Phew!

But then, the curse of the 4 yr old struck, "Daddy, I'm bored...". Unfortunately there wasn't too much else to do so he finally said that he wanted to go skating again. By this stage the Guru was almost done but no, "of course you can come and join me" she beamed. Now, I had been skating before, when I was about 13 years old, one afternoon after school. I didn't remember it being too bad, but then again, I didn't remember ever wanting to put a pair of skates on since that afternoon, and that lack of desire is usually a pretty good indicator. But now I was trapped, so, on went the skates and out the little fella and I hobbled. But, I had used my time on the sidelines to good effect, thinking that this might happen, I had been watching both the skating lesson and what able-skaters had been doing since, so I figured I had a pretty good bead on what one was meant to do.

Of course remaining upright is the first priority and though I had a few moments of panic, I didn't go immediately arse-over as soon as I stepped on the ice. So far so good - now, I have to move... What I'd figured was that it looked a bit like skiing - bend your knees, weight forward - but then use the spiky bit on your toe to push-off with and "glide" (like a le[a]d zeppelin in my case) on the other foot, hence all the one-foot practices they made the kids do, and then do the same with the other toe. And it worked, after a fashion. Now I know this blog won a skating gold at the last Olympics but I'm afraid I don't think we are going to repeat that feat this year. However in an hour of skating I didn't fall over once (came close on a lot of occasions) and by the end I was going around quite well, even if I do say it myself. Of course this may well mean that I will be one taking the little fella to the ice skating play date on Friday, but at least I won't look like a complete idiot on the ice - and that it pretty much the best I could have asked for.

2010-01-26T20:25:00.004+09:00

Follow up

So have been back to the ortho-chap for a follow up. The warm bath-stretch-cold patch treatment was partially successful, but still not right. So in the consultation he prodded me back and front again, I think he was convinced it was a sports hernia, but no such luck I'm afraid, so actually I think he was stumped. Then he asks "do you want an MRI scan to see what the soft tissue damage is like?"
"I don't know, do I?"
"I don't know, do you?"
"You tell me, you're the doctor!"
"Well you could have one, but you don't have to have one"
"What will it tell me?"
"Where your soft tissue is damaged"
"So, basically, it will tell me where my leg hurts?"
"Yes"
"I know where my leg hurts"
"It might tell us why your leg hurts"
"Might?"
"Well, these things are never certain..."
"Er...ok, why not"
"Where do you want to go? There are clinics all over?
Flicking through the MRI brochure...
"Ah, Shibuya, that's where I work, that'll be fine"
"OK, I'll arrange for you, oh, and it's 50 quid"
"So what other treatments are available...?"

So now I go there a couple of times a week for treatment with a sort of prehensile-microwave-leg warming thing and some hot packs. I don't know, it seems to be getting better but goodness it's all taking a bit of time. I did the groin in on 20th December and so that's over 5 weeks past and I can still feel it. Also the weird thing is that in the last couple of weeks, when I put all my weight on it like putting on a pair of trousers, I can't support myself. Probably 'core strength and stability issues' says my Aussie physio footballing friend (who was away over Christmas, otherwise I would have gone to see him straightaway).

Anyway, on we go...

In other sports related news, yesterday morning, at the ungodly hour of 7.30, I coached the junior school cricket team as the regular coach was doing something with a group of ballerinas. Yes, I know where I would have preferred to have been as well, especially as to be at the ground for 7.30 I had to be up at 5.10 in the A.M. (yes, it does exist as a time and no, it was not pleasant (but then again the Guru gets up at this time everyday to make bentos (that Japanese packed lunches) for the little 'un (and sometimes me)).

Anyway, apart from the time and the fact it was perishingly cold, it was jolly good fun. The kids were really up for it, very enthusiastic and not a little skilled. We did some fielding drills, useful as their throwing is wayward to say the least, and a bit of batting and a bit of bowling. Their batting is a touch on the 'kitchen sink' side (i.e. see the ball and throw everything at it...) but some of their bowling was pretty good, including one little Year 4 kid who is a pretty mean wrist spinner; England's Shane Warne for the 2025 Ashes...

2010-01-06T20:16:00.004+09:00

Orthopaedic chap

So went along to the ortho-chap today. We were going to go to our local hospital but then the Guru found what looked to more like a physio/sports-injury doctor so there we went. Interestingly we were the youngest patients there by about 50 years, and it was packed, so goodness knows what the hospital's ortho section would have been like...

Due to numbers of extremely decrepit old personages there we figured that we were in for a long wait, but I think that their interest was piqued by the prospect of treating someone under the age of 90, so a young doctor-ish person came out straight away and started asking questions about what, were, when etc.

First decision was to make sure it was anything to do with problem bones, so it was x-ray time. I thought it would be one, maybe another from the side, but I really must get out of this mindset and remember I'm in Japan. So, something like 15 x-rays later we were done - about half way through I did feel slightly worried that they were taking snapshots of my groin; not that I'm planning on any more kids, but 15 doses of radiation on the old meat & two veg can't be good, can it?

Then a meeting with the Doc - the good news was that there is no bone damage, so it's not like I have a stress fracture in my femur or anything like that (I was worried). And the bad news... well, wasn't really like bad news, except he said, essentially;

"Your thigh hurts and it's muscular - not much you can do except 1 rest; 2 stretch, especially after a hot bath; 3 buy some cold patch things from the chemist down stairs, here's a prescription."

Can I run again?

"Your leg hurts you idiot, no you can't, not for at least 2 weeks, then come back and see me if it still hurts".

So there we go. No real help or advice on what I did wrong or what I can do to prevent it happening again in the future. But then again he isn't a sports physiotherapist so maybe he doesn't know the why's or how not to again's, just what's wrong and how to make it better.

At least another 2 weeks of not running will mean I have been off training for the best part of 5 weeks and it will only be about 5-6 weeks until the marathon; so not enough time to get back to where I was fitness-wise and improve enough/get enough miles under my belt to make the race a realistic proposition (and avoid serious and permanent damage to myself in the process).

So the marathon is off the agenda for 2010, more's the pity. However I will be applying for 2011 and fingers crossed I'll get in for that one.

In the meantime I will recover from this setback, be wiser for it, start running again and launch the 2011 training programme from a much stronger running base. Also I'll try and get a couple of half marathons in there so I know what racing feels like.

2010-01-04T11:03:00.005+09:00

Arse!

Or rather thigh - been two weeks now, 2 weeks of not running, eating too much, drinking too much (probably) and still the accursed thigh is no better. Well, it's a bit better but not better enough to be able to go out for a run.

This means I have missed 2 weeks (and counting) of training runs so the goal of running and completing the marathon seems to be receding into the distance. If I started again now I would have to spend a couple of weeks getting back to where I was and as there are still 8 weeks to the race I think that would be possible - but I'm nowhere near being able to run at the moment, so I have a horrible suspicion that that is it.

I'm off to see a physio on Wednesday to see what they say but I am not hopeful. Oh well...

In different news, read this lovely passage in Herodotus' Histories (book 1), which I feel should be adopted by all world leaders immediately.

He says, talking of the Persians:

"If an important decision is to be made, they discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk."

2009-12-19T21:17:00.003+09:00

Oh for goodness sakes pt.2

So I went out for a 10km at lunchtime and now I can't walk. Oops...

Think I might have seriously buggered up my left thigh, in quite a lot of pain, severely restricted movement, can't put a lot of weight on my left leg at all. Not sure how the left ankle/achillies is as pain receptors seem to have given up working below my knee (because of all the work they are having to do above it, probably). Did a 52m 25s, which isn't that bad, except...

Shit. Not good.

2009-12-18T22:03:00.002+09:00

Oh for goodness sakes...

My body is officially falling apart! Well, the lower half is anyway. You'll no doubt be as glad as I was to know that the plantar thing has cleared up, mainly as I haven't been out as much recently as I would have wanted. However the injury-du-jour is now a thigh/groin strain.

I think, as a result of my continuing left achillies issues, that the last few runs I have not run naturally and this has affected the rest of my left peg unfavourably. I noticed a few odd kind of feelings when running a while ago but it seems to have manifested itself now at the front-top of my thigh, leading me to think it might be a IlioPsoas Syndrome injury, mainly as it doesn't really sound like a 'normal' groin strain that footballers get (been there, had that in September when I started playing football again on a Friday afternoon).

I know, I know, I'm beginning to sound like an utter hypochondriac about all this, but when you start to exercise more your body does seem to rebel - well, mine does anyway. I went out for a 7km on Tuesday night and recorded something in the mid-37m range, so about average which was good, but then Wednesday morning walking with the left leg was quite hard work (especially going down steps, but that was more the ankle than the thigh). I was meant to go out again on Thursday night but it just seemed a stupid thing to do, same tonight, if it hurts when I sturry across the road between schools. So hopefully tomorrow sometime, but who knows? At this rate the marathon is looking remote.

In other news apparently stuff has been happening in Japan, but I haven't really been following it. Lots of words have been spoken about Futenma, the US Marine/Air Force base (one of?) on Okinawa, which may be moved, or may not be, etc. I think the Japanese want it moved but the Americans don't, or something, but Hatoyama was going to talk to Obama about it in Copenhagen, but then Barack got the Nobel gong so the meeting was cancelled, or maybe he just couldn't be bothered with it all, considering the other stuff he has on his mind, like his Arakawa Riverview nickname, but anyway Hatoyama didn't have the meeting with the big US cheese.

Talking of Copenhagen something was going on there - an attempt to reduce all the hot-air in the world by producing more hot air than a farm full of Fresians. Did it work? Has anybody been following it?

Anyway this has all been overshadowed by far more important matters, namely Godzilla defecting to the Angels, whilst the Samurai Blue may as well not turn up in South Africa next summer as they ain't gonna win a thing...

2009-12-14T22:36:00.005+09:00

Just a quickie

As the footie will start soonish. Had all last week off the running because of this plantar thing with my right foot. By Saturday it was feeling pretty good so I thought I'd try it out with a short 5km and glad to say everything seemed OK, I even managed a time, 25.48, that was the fastest for the distance since about July, uncoordinated though I felt. As this felt OK I went for a slightly longer 7km run on Sunday (the first time I had run on consecutive days since the beginning of November), and put in a respectable 37.something, again happy enough with that.

Immediately after the Sunday run, without even passing go or having a shower, I put ice on the left Achilles for 5 minutes, then shower, then ice again for about 20 minutes, and today it hasn't felt too bad at all, so ice treatment is the way forward (will see how it works with the right foot as well). Anyway out again on Tuesday and Thursday nights this week, hopefully, then into double figures at the weekend with maybe a 12 or 14k.

Also tonight I realised another reason why my calf muscles, Achillies and feet might be feeling it a bit. I keep a record of distances and times so tonight totted up what I've been doing recently and discovered:
June -> total distance run 45km
July -> 25km
August ->27km
September -> 54km
October -> 61km
November -> 100km

As you can see a bit of a jump since September and November was 100km! If I keep to my current plan December will 115km!! Pity my poor ankles...

2009-12-10T11:18:00.001+09:00

Plantar Fasciitis

Hmm, maybe the 19km run on Sunday wasn’t such a great move. OK it was good mentally as I did it so I know I can keep going, but the right foot/ankle pain I got during the run looks like a case of plantar fasciitis. Not good as it means right now, on Thursday, 4 days after the run, walking is still on the painful side, let alone running, so my plan of a couple of 8k runs this week has gone and the half-marathon before Christmas might have to be dropped as well.

The reason for the injury? Too far too soon (a 5km jump in distance was not a good idea) and my running shoes, which are getting too old and worn out (probably still ok for shorter distances but not the longer runs).

So now it’s rest, recover and then start building up again. How frustrating but only myself to blame.

2009-12-06T20:15:00.004+09:00

Phew!

I did it, I went long this afternoon, actually slightly longer than I thought. The plan was 18km but due to some building work on the riverbank up towards Nerima-ku I missed the 28km marker and after going on and checking the time it was taking I decided to turn round anyway and then found the marker on the way back. The extra bit took almost exactly 4 minutes, which at normal pace is about 800m (I'm running almost clockwork 5 minute kilometres up to about 12k, then the pace starts to drop a little).

So anyway, I think I did about 18.8km in the not too shabby time of 1hr 41m 00s, although this was less about the time and more about being able to do it without stopping, which I did bar two water breaks, where I didn't have much choice as the water fountains don't move. This keeps me in line for a sub-4 hour marathon time, which as I've said before I'm not aiming for (sub-5 will be ok with me), but would make me extremely happy (or more likely extremely dead).

Pain wise I can really feel today's run in my calf, which is resting on an ice pack as I type. Actually I felt the calf almost all the way on the run, which is not great news, I was hoping my enforced lay-off due to flu would have repaired stresses and strains, but perhaps not. Then again it wasn't bad enough to make me stop so that's good. Also good is the knee, which seems, touch wood, to have found a groove that it likes and so is feeling pretty good at the moment.

On this run, as it was long, I took one of those energy jelly packs to see if it would help as I ran. I think I took it too late, at the 11km mark, as the period from then until the 14km mark I felt a bit crap and the old mental state started to disintegrate a little (the right calf also started hurting), but then, suddenly, there was a sort of epiphany and a 'bugger this slowing down for a lark' moment and suddenly the pace lifted, the right calf was fine, the left felt better and we were back up to a proper running rhythm. I think it took those 3km for the energy to start being delivered to the bits of my body that needed it, and I think the bit that needed it most was my brain.

I know 'they' say that sport is mostly mental and this week I have begun to realise why. Firstly I've needed to psych myself up for running as far as I did today (lots of 'can I do it?' and 'yes you can' but it was 4km longer than my longest to date, which made me worry), and then secondly with the whole 'pull yourself together' moment going under Kawaguchi ohashi (that'll be 'bridge' for those who don't know). Sure, the energy jelly helped, but I think the biggest help was to my state of mind rather than my legs or lungs.

So that done means next weekend will be a shorter one and we're still on course for the half-marathon before Christmas.

2009-12-03T13:50:00.004+09:00

Just a quick one

As I'm writing this in my lunchtime at work. Am fully over the flu, I'm glad to say, so have been out running again. Last friday was a 5k in 26m something, Sunday was 12km in 1h 00m 54s, which is pretty good going if you ask me (2 minutes faster than the 12k I did before) and then last night, Wednesday, it was 7km in 37m something.

So reasonable running but I dropped off a bit when I had flu so need to step it up again. I'm thinking about a long one this weekend (oo-er), maybe 18k, but the weather looks like it will be a bit shitty all weekend long. If it is I might have to rein in my ambitions, but I don't want to as if I do 18 this weekend that means I could get a 1/2 marathon distance (21k) in before christmas, which would be excellent work (e.g. 18 this weekend, a shorter run the following weekend, maybe 12 or 14, then the 21k monster on the weekend of 19/20th December)

Oh, and just to let you know that the old man and I have started playing backgammon regularly online as the old timer needs something to do with his retirement and being thrashed at backgammon seems to satisfy some need. Anyway Monday night I won 6-3 with some admittedly extremely lucky dice; whilst last night I ran out 9-6 winner but this time it was far more about superior skill than lucky dice (well... some lucky dice, but everyone gets some lucky dice, eh?). This all means, of course, that I will be royally thwacked tonight, but it will give the oldster something to be happy about...

2009-11-25T21:44:00.003+09:00

Flu

Have had flu for the last couple of days, passed on to me by my wonderful, giving son - thank you Marcus (but better to get it now than at the end of February when I'm meant to be running the marathon).

Anyway I did go out for a run on Saturday afternoon, this was a long 14km stroll (that's a third of a marathon!), completed in 1h 12m 23s. It got a bit hairy, mentally speaking, about the halfway point as I realised that I had to run the whole way back again, but once I got knuckled down to it it wasn't so bad. I am also indebted to a bloke who was also out running who I fell into step with around the 9km mark as he was running at about the same pace in the same direction and when you have someone to run with, even if you don't know them, it makes life easier.

Anyway I should have been out on Monday and tonight but type-A put a stop to that. The good thing is that it should have given my ankle and knee a bit of a rest, which will only help, so maybe a gentle run on Friday night, see how we feel, then perhaps a 10 or 12k on Sunday.

2009-11-18T22:09:00.006+09:00

On to important matters

Got a bit bogged down last post with politics, history and consecutive posts about the Keystone Cops (and that's three mentions in a row - something must be done about this! Ed.).

So, tonight I feel it is more important to get to the bottom of a much more relevant issue - why are there so few ugly women in Japan?

Now I know what you are thinking, 'there are no ugly women in Japan!', but this is not true. It is true that there aren't very many of them and there are a minuscule number of ugly women over the age of 18, but they do exist. Anyway, I wondered about this for an awfully long time, about as long as I've lived in Japan actually.

When I first came here in the heady days of 1996 with Andy, my mate who I drove mad, we both remarked, after walking around tripping over our tongues for a few days, that the (and please bear in mind that we were young, hormonal and extremely sexually frustrated at the time so the language used was not particularly flattering) 'fit bird:munter ratio' was extremely high in favour of the 'fit birds'. We puzzled long and hard but not could work out why, and since Andy was invalided back to Blighty I have continued to ponder.

Until now, that is (well, April this year actually but I've just got around to writing about it). It is because all the ugly girls are taken away and recycled!

I know this for a fact because not only have I seen the facility where it happens, in the spirit of investigative photojournalism, at no small peril to myself, I have pictures.

Munters ugly bird recycling plant, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo

And it seems to work!

For example Norika Fujiwara is a well known model who advertises, amongst other things, automatic bog seats. Anyway it is a little known fact that she is a Munters alumni. On her 18th birthday in 1989 she was taken away for recycling, because, well, looking like this I think you'll understand why:

Our Norika at her 18th birthday party

However after a lengthy, intensive and probably extremely painful process we have bog seat promoter extraordinaire:

Standing next to the Arakawa soon after her 19th birthday

A vast improvement, I think you'll agree. And it is all done for the benefit of Japan as a whole because, let's face it, no one is going to be interested in an ugly country... Well, Japan is quite an ugly country in places, the bits covered in concrete especially, but no one will be interested in a country full of ugly people at any rate.

Anyway I've done a bit of running and things feel good. Monday night and tonight were both 7.3km-ers along the bank, a 36m 08s on Monday and a 35m 58s tonight. Good going I reckon.

2009-11-14T21:34:00.003+09:00

This week

Two things have been big in the news this week (not counting the Keystone's capture of suspect #1 as reported on Tuesday).

The first big thing was that on Thursday Japan had a big celebration to mark the fact that it was the 20 year anniversary of the Emperor's enthronement. Actually it was 20 years and a bit because the previous chap, the (never prosecuted but let's face it he was a) war criminal Hirohito died on January 7th 1989, I'm not really sure why Akihito's official accession date is 12th November, 10 months and a week after he actually got the job, but there you go, I'm not Japanese so I could never understand (and I forgot to ask the guru).

Anyway the way they celebrated this great event was to have a big party in the Emperor's front garden, with celebs and idols and carefully vetted flag waving proles. Here's a picture of the chap that is in no way related to what happened

Akihito with his panawave headdress slightly slipped backwards

As you can see he is a happy chap and, let's be honest, getting on a bit - not surprising as he was born in 1933 so that makes him 76 years old. The bit that gets me is that they had this big party for him in the evening, so everyone could watch on the telly. Why did people want to watch on the telly? Because it was bloody cold and may well have been pissing it down all evening (we've had a lot of rain this week). Poor bloke (and the missus as well) probably wanted to be at home, feet up with a cup of cocoa, but no, he has to watch people 'doing stuff' for him so he will be amused, sort of like watching the royal variety performance from his balcony in the middle of winter. And the entertainment was probably one thin bloke with a silly haircut hitting a fat bloke with an inflatable hammer (which, don't get me wrong, has it's place, but probably not here).

But I must admit I didn't really watch enough of it to be able to write with any great authority (not that that has ever stopped me), mainly because royal families are an unnecessary anachronism and I never like the British one so I'm sure as eggs not going to give a toss about the Japanese one. (Also he's the Emperor, right, the Emperor of which empire in particular? Maybe he's the Emperor Without Portfolio...)

The other thing about this week is that nice Mr Obama (nMO) has dropped in for a visit - not to our flat, I hasten to add, though he would be welcome to stop by for a cup of tea, but to Japan. I haven't really followed what he's done,but I think he made speeches about being nice to Japan, about Krazy Kim (remember him?) and probably some other stuff as well. I heard he might be going to Hiroshima or Nagasaki as nuclear weapon cuts seem to be high on his agenda. If he does, good on him, he ought to as should Brown, Sarkozy, Putin (or Medvedev), Ahmadinejad and any other world leader/idiot who thinks nuclear weapons are a good idea.

All this important national eventing has meant that the Keystone's fresh from their success in catching a felon (and thereby hitting their target for the 2000-2009 reporting period) have had to double shift and hang around the streets of Tokyo giving people hard stares in case they start plotting. I personally was given a particularly vicious look by a member of his majesty's finest whilst walking through Shibuya station on my way home on Wednesday night. I don't really know what the bobby was doing there as I was heading away from anyway remotely connected with either the EWP or the nMO, but then again I was (and still am for that matter) a foreigner and therefore probably a nutter so deserve a hard stare.

(BTW sorry for all the pauses in the typing tonight but my left contact lens is giving me gyp)

Last but not least I have been hitting the riverbank as usual.Thursday night was a typical 7.3km run in an untypical 35m 45s, which if memory serves is a new personal best. Then this afternoon it was a 12km run down towards the bay, completed in 1h 02m 50s - I was very happy with this as it is the longest for a long time, a good time and i can still walk now, though the knees are stiff and the achillies hurts (I will see a sports physiotherapist next week - we play football together so I will ask for a bit of professional advice).

2009-11-10T21:52:00.003+09:00

Tuesday

For that is what it is. Not much to report from the land of the rising sun this evening - though the keystone cops have finally caught Tatsuya Ichihashi, the bloke who probably topped... sorry the main suspect in the Linsay Hawker case. The last time they nearly caught him was when 8 of the boys in blue went to his gaff to apprehend him and he did the classic 'look! is that the Goodyear blimp?' and then jumped over the wall. Cue lots of head scratching, confused looks and "he was here a minute ago, Chief Super, look you can see him on the TV news camera" type comments.

So this time they sent every single member of the police force, all 290,000 of them, including the 900 strong Imperial Guard (what a great thing to have on your business card!), to arrest the chap, and luckily they succeeded. Now, with an arrest-to-conviction rate of about 115% I wouldn't think the chap's chances are very good, but as he is a Japanese bloke in a Japanese court on a charge of murdering a foreigner you never know.

Anyway, I've been running - I went on Sunday after my 10k on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised about how good it all felt. I thought I would be shagged out but I actually put in a 35m 58s for the 7.3km route - putting that in perspective it's a personal best the day after a long run. I was quite happy. Also this evening I did another 7.3k, this time in 37m 01s, so a bit slower but still OK (it was quite humid tonight for some reason). Also good news on the pain front as I have discovered that [the J-equivalent of] Deep Heat is extremely good for my dodgy knees. Not for the knees themselves but in softening the tendon that is pulling my kneecaps out of position (which causes the pain). So tonight was as close to a knee-pain-free run as I've had in years. :)

2009-11-07T21:17:00.004+09:00

Quite a quiet week

After all the excitement of the kid's health checks and the rugby last weekend, this week has been on the quiet side. This is good as I needed a week off (whilst still being at work). It's actually a quiet time in Japan at the moment; the politicos don't seem to be doing anything wrong (or really anything for that matter), so it feels like a bit of a return to Silent Shinzo's premiership, and big business doesn't seem to want to get into scandalville - they're probably still trying to work out how much money they've lost over the last18 months (and how much they're going to have to declare to the taxman).

One bit of news from Toyota was that they are quitting F1, this is big news as they have been front runners, podium sitters and world champions several times since they joined in 2002. Oh hang on, that must have been someone else as Toyota, biggest car maker on the planet, were utterly rubbish. But the important thing was that the J-boss of Toyota F1, Tadashi Yamanashi, did the decent thing and blubbed when he announced the news:

This is important as it shows he really meant it when he said he was happy to save the company about a gazillion yen a year. Crying is an important part of corporate Japan and is certainly an expected part of any news conference where bad news is on the menu. Indeed some foreign correspondents on the Japan big business beat have taken to ranking the sincerity of the apology given by the unfortunate suit:

Obviously not a good one that - perhaps it was Shinzo's resignation speech? (Actually probably not as a '4' would be far too high for that).

Anyway I've also been running a bit, Wednesday night was a 7.3km trot down the riverbank towards Akabane - that was a 36m 21s effort so pleased with that. Then this afternoon I did a 10km quickstep up the river towards... not sure what's up there actually, Nerima? Anyway I did find out that the kilometer markers stop as 28 (25 is next to the flat) but some useful person has painted a discreet but noticeable maker on the road for 30km so I knew when to turn. Anyway that was done in 51m 45s so maybe the 52m 10k I did a while back was pretty accurate. But again the left achillies is painful, might have to do something about it.

2009-11-02T22:20:00.003+09:00

cold and wet

Today was on the chilly side, but not too bad, and as I wasn't able to go out over the weekend I strapped on the old running shoes and plodded up to the riverbank. As I left the house I noticed it was raining a little but as I got to said riverbank I realised it was also a tad blowy. After about 2km along the top of the bank I realised that it wasn't actually 'a tad blowy', it was a fecking winter storm with wind blowing in from the Urals and throwing rain drops at me at just under the speed of light. It's been a while since the whole side of my face went numb due to the cold. But I finished the run, though I only did a 5.3km instead of the usual 7.3 as I was getting too damn wet. 26m 11s if you're recording these things. Right knee is quite painful now, though, in fact it has been all day - not a good sign

On Saturday, after organising health checks for 230 kids, I went to watch the Bledisloe cup game in Tokyo. Had I been in a position where I had to pay for the ticket I would not have gone (indeed I had not brought a ticket even though people at work had). However when the NZ embassy gives your school a bunch of freebies then what sort of person would I be to decline? (A silly one).

So I went along but, to be honest, it was a bit underwhelming. It wasn't England or Japan, for a start, so I didn't care who won. It was played at the old national stadium near Gaienmae which is big, 45,000 were there, but you feel a bit far away as it's an athletics stadium so you have the tracks around the pitch so everything is distant. Also as I had been working I couldn't meet up with people I knew so I ended up watching by myself (with 45,000 people of course), and whilst I chatted with the Japanese people next to me a bit, it wasn't quite the same.

Anyway NZ won although Aus made a decent fist of the first half. Now both teams are off to Europe. As Japan is hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup and they want to expand the game and its popularity beforehand I expect I'll be able to watch all these games on TV, or at least on Sky... but no, no coverage and the nz/aus game on Saturday was on an even smaller pay satellite channel - these people have no idea...

2009-10-30T09:01:00.004+09:00

A quickie

Forgot to write last night that I was out pounding the riverbank in pursuit of running perfection. Unfortunately it again proved elusive but I put in a 7.3km stint, clocking a reasonable 36m 40s - a bit slower than Tuesday night but still respectable. Pain factor was a little on the high side for the left achillies, so much so that I felt the need to ice it a bit after gtting home. Think I'll give it a rest over the weekend.

2009-10-27T23:23:00.003+09:00

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon...

Not really, but I am listening to a Radiohead gig from the internet as I type - isn't the internet fab, just a quick browse and you can find gigs from everyone from everytime and they're all free. It's great (quite possibly slightly south of legal, but i figure if you aren't able to buy it then it can't be wrong to get it for free).

Anyway it's late so a brief note to note that I was out tonight, the usual 7.3km route in 36m 20s, which is just under the PB time for the distance. Felt good.

2009-10-25T20:08:00.004+09:00

Sunday evening

Evening all, so what a fun packed weekend that was - well, packed is an accurate descriptive expression, however it's something of a stretch to include 'fun' in there as well.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early - actually make that still dark and early as I had agreed to go with a bunch of school kids down to a mass footy kickabout at the American school (ASIJ) campus down in Chofu. The get together started at 8.30 so it was meet in Setagaya at 7.30 so yours truly had to be there at 7.00 to make sure everything was set up ok, so up at 5.15 am in the morning to be on time. Lawks that's early for a Saturday! But I made it, thankfully. The reason I was doing this rather than, say, the Primary PE teachers whose job it is, was that last week was half term and we couldn't possibly ask teachers to work during their holidays now could we? So helpful HR managers step into the breach so the kids can attend a tournament.

So we took three school teams down there; ASIJ have a great campus, they had a choice a few years ago - stay as a city centre school and have limited space and facilities or move out of Tokyo and have fields - they took the latter option and have a great place, lots of space, sports fields, big classrooms, first rate facilities etc. They also have a large fleet of buses to ferry the kids from central Tokyo to Chofu and back everyday. One day our school will have to make the same decision - I wonder which way we will go...?

Anyway I just thought I was going as a bus monitor (got to have enough adults on the bus or it won't be allowed to go), but when we got there we realised that all the teams would be well spaced out and playing almost continuously so in the end it was 'Justin, here's the girls team, look after them, they have only ever had 3 lessons, good luck...'. Ah.

But actually it was great. They didn't have particularly high expectations and the tournament was really a tournament as no one was keeping scores (luckily for us) or progressing to the next round (as there wasn't one). The first game they were completely overrun and didn't really know what to do so were hit for a cricket score (it was 6-a-side and two 8-minute halves), same in the second game with an even worse score, but at least they started playing a bit thanks to some on-the-spot coaching from their new gaffer.

Then in the third game they really started to play (and listen to my shouting from the side line). The first half ended 2-0 to the opposition but the second half, after what must have been a half-time talk from yours truly of Shakespearean (or Fergusonian) grandeur that they went out and played really well, scoring their first goal (a lovely strike by right-midfielder Lauren) and only a late defensive error allowed the oppo to score, making it 1-1 for the half. OK, they lost, but they scored their first goal and the smiles at the end were really special.

The girls lost all their games in the end, but they scored a few more times and really got into it. The fact that all but one of the teams they played were all boys showed that they scrapped really hard, giving one boys team a torrid second half after one of the little blighters said to his coach 'this is really easy, we can score whenever we want' after they went 4-0 up (the second half was 2-2, I think). If they had played another all-girl team I reckon they could have won a game, but it was not to be. Next time, however...

Sunday morning was the next health check day. This follows on from a colon cancer and hepatitis check (results available from tomorrow) and the annual medical on Friday; today was barium time. For those not in the know this is good for knowing if you have stomach cancer - you drink liquid barium and then they take lots of photos on a weird rig thing that turns you over and around and upside down. Personally I think filling your stomach with radioactive barium is a jolly good way to give yourself stomach cancer, but apparently I am wrong in this (or maybe some bit of it).

Anyway as I'm going to run the marathon the guru said I had to get as much of my health checked as possible as she does not want me to keel over whilst running (sensible girl), and as the barium check this is free, organised by the local ward office, then one would be silly not to take it. So off we trooped to Itabashi ward office this morning, after not eating or drinking (no water even) from 10pm on Saturday night to get the job done. There isn't much to write about really, as it was all done with typical ruthless Japanese efficiency, even down to providing the laxative necessary to expel the barium gloop from the other end sometime this evening (took the thing at 2pm and still no sign of Niagara Falls...).

What was not operating with ruthless Japanese efficiency, however, was the Denny's just over the road from the ward office. As you can imagine the first thing a big bunch of people who haven't eaten or drunk anything for over 12 hours is going to do is make a bee-line for the nearest restaurant --> Itabashi Denny's. Waiting 20 minutes just to get a cup of coffee - the first of the day - is not going to make one happy, and the food was cold as well. It was the same for everyone in there and so it was not a happy atmosphere. The staff kept apologising but they were fighting a losing battle - better coordination with the ward office needed, I think.

On top of all that I got a couple of runs in as well. I didn't do the 10km again, but a 5.3km on Saturday in 25m 58s; and a 7.3km this evening in 36m 35s, both of which I was happy with. Felt a bit ropey after the Saturday run (it had been a long day) but much better tonight (even though I kept worrying the the ex-lax would suddenly kick in and I'd have to dive into the bushes for an emergency evacuation a la Monty Python's Marathon for Incontinents). Luckily I made it home safely.

2009-10-22T21:21:00.003+09:00

I know, I know...

I *should* have gone out running last night, but as it was the end of my working week (Thursday and Friday off as it's half term) I had a few beers and watched Valkyrie instead (which was quite good even though you knew what was going to happen in the end).

So anyway I went out tonight and to make up for it I did my first 10k run. I clocked a respectable 52m 05s, which I think is respectable anyway. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it was slightly longer than 10k as there is a big dogleg over a tributary and I think the distance is measured on the river not the riverbank. We'll see on Saturday as I'll do a 10k going up the other way (with hopefully no doglegs) and see what the time is (I was hoping for a 50m or slightly under tonight).

Not good pain wise though as I have a sore left calf/Achilles (again) and the right knee feels iffy, soI'd have to put that at a 4/10, the highest for a while.

Other than that today we went to *another* park, this time one in Shinanomachi (near Shinjuku). Again this was an adventure playground stylee thing, but certainly less bucolic than Abiko Shrine on Sunday. But it was fun and the little fella had a good time. It was also, oddly, chock-full of French kids with their (French) mums. This is not a bad thing, I hasten to add, just odd as it felt like a lot of families - maybe they had arranged a big playdate (there's a weird expression, playdate, it's probably American; when I was a kid it was called 'going to your mate's house after school': I agree playdate is easier, but it sounds so...American) because the Lycee is on half term as well. I don't know, but it was nice anyway.

Then we had lunch and wandered back past other, less inspiring, parks and the, more inspiring, national stadium, (but which I'm not sure they use much anymore - it seemed a bit on the rundown side).

Tomorrow, however, is health check up day... (oh joy)

2009-10-19T23:55:00.003+09:00

Monday night

Out again tonight, 7.3K in 36m 27s, which for that distance is pretty good so happy with the time. Felt good and right knee felt pretty stable so hopefully getting stronger there.

Didn't get the chance to go out yesterday as we went to this shrine place. It is in a place called Abiko and the reason we went there was to save the world. As I'm now writing this I think we can safely say 'mission accomplished' but in a very real way not in a rubbish way like certain former US presidents.

Well sort of. It was all about Feng Shui, which the guru is most into. You write down your wishes, work out which direction from your house is best to travel and then go to a shrine in that direction, the further the better I think, take your letter with wishes on and pray. In the end it all becomes true so fingers crossed. Naturally one of my wishes for politico types to put an end to war in the word so watch this space as it could be happening to local armed conflict near you anytime soon. Our premium direction was northeast, hence Abiko and luckily enough it was northeast for both of us - if your feng shui isn't aligned properly you have to go in different directions apparently - dashed clever the ancient Chinese monk fellows, or whoever invented it.

Anyway we went, we prayed and then I took lots of photos with my new birthday camera. Some of the shots are quite good, but I did make the mistake of leaving it on a really high ISO setting from last time so a lot of the really sharp detail has blurred a bit. Oh well, you live and learn.

Next to the shrine, which really was in the middle of nowhere (part of north Chiba) was a jolly little sort of country park thing (I mean it was little and jolly, not that it was jolly little), with open grassy spaces, ponds, a bbq area (with food supplied) and a little but super adventure playground. So after the shrine we lunched on bbq'd food and then Marcus attempted the play ground. It was great as it had about 20 big wooden obstacle things you had to crawl, jump, balance or climb in, out, through, up, down, under, over and any other prepositions you can think of. Marcus did most of them and was most chuffed by the end, as were his admiring parents. In fact we were all so chuffed we had ice creams to celebrate.

To be honest, however, dad was most chuffed by the fact it was free to get in.

2009-10-17T22:30:00.007+09:00

This afternoon's run...

Was an 8K wander along the riverbank, this was good as it was the longest I have run for a while, certainly since the marathon came along, and overall it was fine.

Whilst I was running I was thinking about politics. I know, I know, but it happens sometimes and once it starts there isn't much you can do to stop it (well, apart from think about sex, but that's not good when one is running - the bulges can get in the way...)

Anyway what I was thinking about was the fact that a lot of politics has gone on since I last wrote about politics on this blog, and that's not good (not good that I haven't written about it, I mean, it's ok that lots of politics has gone on). That isn't good mainly because we've had a few politicians that I haven't given nicknames to, which is most remiss on my part. So we had the Kool Kid (Koizumi) and Silent (Shinzo Abe) and I think that was the last of them that I named.

So, in a better-late-than-never offering can I propose, after Silent we got the Fuckwit (Fukuda) and Short Step (Aso - as in It's only a Short Step from Aso to Asshole) until we come to the present incumbent of the job (I wanted to say where he lived, e.g. the present incumbent of 10 Downing St or the Elysee Palace, but I don't know what the official residence of the JPM is).

Anyway the new guy is Yukio Hatoyama, he is the first non-Liberal Democratic Party (who, lest we forget, were neither liberal nor democratic) PM in years (well, from 1993 to 1996 we had Hosokawa (Japan New), (mad) Hata (Renewal - whoever the fuck that was) and Murayama (Socialist) but apart from that...). So since 1945 we had 64 years minus 3 of LDP and this year the electorate threw them out. Why? Because they were shite and at last people realised it. By the way I knew they were shite ages ago but I'm not allowed to vote so no one else gives a toss what I think.

So Hatoyama is a bit like Obama in the US - he's new, new's not from the old guard and he's making a load or really good sounding promises that he just isn't going to be able to deliver on. You know the sort of thing, an end to pork-barrel building projects, less corruption, no more amakudari, incentives to have children, that sort of thing. He's also a Democrat (but not a Liberal Democrat) which means he and Obama should get on well. However he isn't black, or the Japanese equivalent which would be Ainu, so the parallels stop there.

Anyway he needs a nickname and this, returning to my opening theme, was what I was thinking about whilst running this afternoon. But as I couldn't think of a decent nickname it can't have been that successful a run. OK, I admit Fuckwit isn't particularly original or that difficult to think of, but Fukuda really was one. I'd like to think of something a bit better for Yukio so I think I'll wait a bit, see which of his big election promises nosedives first.

So to the run - 8K in 38m 59s (which is pretty darned good going even if I say it myself - puts me in a 3h 46m marathon time (allowing for slowing) according to Runners World's calculator thingy, to which I say 'no, no, sub 5 hours is fine with me!). Pain factor again only 3/10, some left achillies and right knee issues, but nothing too bad and both seem OK now at 11pm. The most important thing, however, was that at the end of 8K I didn't feel I had to stop - it was nice to, but I could have carried on. Important that.

Tomorrow we're off to some shrine but might get a cheeky run in later in the afternoon.

2009-10-16T22:56:00.005+09:00

Lots of running...

...but no running training tonight; no, Friday night is footy night.

Now I know this throws up a few interesting questions, the first of which is 'I didn't think you could play football...?'. This is both true and, indeed, not true. I cannot do skillful things like dribble (with the ball) or 'beat' players with my silky smooth footwork. However there is a lot to be said for commitment and getting in the way of the opposing players, or, to put it another way, defense. Running around, huffing and, indeed, puffing and stopping other players doing their 'thing' can, in itself, be a thing of beauty. Well, that's what I keep telling myself anyway.

The other question, of course, is what does this have to do with running? Well lots of running around playing football is useful as it is a different kind of running. Usually,when I go out to the riverbank, it's short gentle jog, stop and stretch, long medium/hard run, stop, water, short gentle jog finish. Very little change of pace or direction.

But playing football is good because it is lots of short intense sprints, short recovery time and then short hard sprint again (which is, of course, essentially what Fartlek is all about). Included in this is a lot of changes of direction which good for my iffy knee joints as they need some lateral stress on the tendons. Of course there is the only to real possibility of going over on an ankle or some other such muscular misfortune, but there you go - I'll stop it after Christmas as I would be mightily pissed off if I missed the run with a ruptured achillies after playing football.

Until then I will keep snapping and harrying the opposition. Tonight's pain factor 3/10, got a whack on the left calf and stamp on the right big toe (again) and a smack on the nose (but that shouldn't stop me going out this weekend).

So, 7k tomorrow and I reckon a 9 or 10k might be in the offing for Sunday...

2009-10-14T21:12:00.003+09:00

Don't ask why...

But not only have I signed up, but I have actually succeeded in the lottery, for a place in next year's Tokyo Marathon.

Yup, on 28th February 2010 Iwill strap on a pair of running shoes and slog round 26miles, or about 42 kilometers, of Tokyo's finest urban sprawl. I will be aiming to do this in less than 5 hours and then aim to recover in less than 5 weeks. My aims may be lofty, but I think I can reach them...

I have been asking myselfwhy I should sign up for this kind of nonsense and think it is the responsibility of my mate Dave who... (aside, everyone in the world has, according to an immutable universal law, a mate called Dave. These Dave characters do stuff so their mates can begin stories with 'well, my mate Dave who...'. But it does beg the question, do people called Dave have mates called Dave...?). Anyway my mate Dave who lives in Bangkok and who has done the Bangkok marathon twice was over in Japan a while back and during a drunken conversation a plan was hatched that we would do the Tokyo marathon with Steve as well. Now Steve totally denies he ever agreed to it and I'm not sure Dave ever applied, but I did and I'm in.

I have been running at weekends (and the odd evening) for a good few years now, indeed my MBA was written on the back on 5K runs on Sunday afternoons - very good for clearing the mind of clutter, I usually started the run with a question or a 'how am I going to do this tricky bit of [plagiarism/editorial vandalism/statistics]?' and by the end I would have had an epiphany and the next section would be written.

But big jump from a 5K on a Sunday afternoon to 42K on Sunday morning, but we'll give it a crack. I've already started regular evening runs and will start upping my weekend distances soon. I may even drastically cut my alcohol intake from January onwards! Yes, it's that serious...

Anyway, that means that this blog will now become my online journal of running and pain. I shall log runs, times and all that stuff, along with breathtaking insights on how really dull it is (apparently) to run by yourself for 20 or 30 kilometers.

So tonight, 5.3Km, 26m 59s, slight precipitation in the air with some thunder and lightning, along the riverbank. Pain factor 2/10, felt pretty good but disappointed with the time (best is 25m 05s) as thought it was faster, some right knee issues whilst running but nothing severe.

2009-08-07T16:10:00.001+09:00

Back with a vengeance

OK, apologies, been busy etc, but we’re back now.

As I haven’t put finger to keyboard pretty much this year a lot has gone on, however as it is now August I can’t remember most of it. What I can remember is that 1) we moved and 2) the folks came to visit, so that is what I shall write about (so if you don’t want to know about either of these things, stop reading now).

The moving

Yes, as I type this at the office (it’s summer so it’s quiet…) I know that when I finish I will return home not to the bustling metropolis of Kawaguchi but to the sleepy-except-for-the-trains Ukimafunado. ‘Where on earth is that?’ I’m sure you’re all wondering, well, if you google it you can find it, but it is in Itabashi ward of Tokyo, so I can finally say that I really do live in Tokyo rather than in a bit of Japan right next to Tokyo (not that it ever stopped me). Anyway the new gaff is actually pretty close to the old gaff, over the river and along a bit, so we are still nice and close to the riverbank (good for jogging) and also very close to a jolly nice big park with a pond (but also close to a train line and a fairly big road) and also we’re on a direct line into Shibuya, making the morning commute slightly less stressful for me and the little ‘un (who has now attained the ripe old age of four – about the right age and size for chimney sweeping, which is where I would send him over the summer holiday if only a) the guru would let me and b) anyone in Japan had a chimney… I digress)

So anyway, the first part of the year was mainly taken up with getting this gargantuan move sorted out. As I’m sure you can imagine there were plenty of hassles along the way, mainly involving money and pieces of paper that had to be signed. Luckily the bank and the mortgage neatly involved both of these bothersome requirements and the Guru and I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time travelling to Mizonokuchi (where we nearly bought before and where the man with the money was) and sitting in the bank’s loan plaza (which was unlike a plaza in almost every way) listening to a man with bad breath talk to us about mortgages. Of course we went through the whole fixed or free floating conundrum and ended with a deal that, to be honest, I don’t really understand, but some of the loan is floating and some of it fixed for 10 years, but the rate on the floating bit has limits so it can’t suddenly go up by 5% overnight. Or something. I don’t know, I just filled in and signed lots of bits of paper. Interesting that whilst the bank savings interest rate is something like 0.000000001% at the moment, the rate on loans and mortgages is, of course, much higher at something like 3.5%. Hmm…

Note on filling in forms – over the last few months and, well I suppose a year now, I have had to fill in a shitload of bits of paper, usually with exactly the same bits of information like names, address, work, family details etc. Now as a non-native writer of Japanese I have had to practice a bit to get to a point where what I write is legible. The Guru, on the other hand, is Japanese so has had a lot of practice. The result of this is that, as a Japanese person, her handwriting is allowed to be nearly illegible and another Japanese person reading it will have no issues; however as a foreigner my writing has to be of almost typeface quality otherwise a Japanese person will refuse to believe it is Japanese. A case in point. There is a katakana character 'イ' which is the phonic equivalent of a short ‘i’, on one of the bank forms an officious banker decided that with my written イ the slanting top bar was too short and therefore illegible, so I had to go back to Mizonokuchi one evening by myself after work and redo all the forms because one or two of these characters didn’t look right. It didn’t matter that there isn’t really another katakana character it could be confused with (see here if you want http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana) or that, in context, it couldn’t really have been anything else, to him it didn’t look right so had to be changed. Can you imagine having to fill in the same forms all over again because the bloke at Barclays doesn’t like the way you write the letter ‘e’? What a tosser.

Anyway the important point here was that we got the cash, which made the construction company happy as it meant that we could actually buy the place.

Moving house is a big business in Japan, although I can guess that this may well also be the case in other parts of the world. Moving in April is even bigger business here in Japan as a lot of people do it, so moving companies can, and do, make it more expensive. Interestingly the reason April is so busy is that it is the start of the financial year; ‘so what?’ you may muse. Well, Japanese companies are extremely likely to, at the drop of a hat in March, decide that the company would be better served if Tanaka san from accounts in the Tokyo office would become, on 1st April, Tanaka san from marketing in the Nagoya office. And off Tanaka san will duly toddle, possibly but not necessarily taking family in tow with about 2 week’s notice. This may seem harsh, and it is. The reason, so I am reliably informed by my memory, is a hangover from the feudal samurai period where the samurai were distributed around the country and, importantly away from the wives and families who stayed in Edo (Tokyo), so as a) not to ferment rebellion/assassinate the emperor or shogun in Edo with their mates and b) so wives and family could be held hostage. Nowadays it is corporate salaryman that gets shunted about and usually families are encouraged to go (but if hubby is moved to, say, Utsunomiya would you go…?), but the moves are still there. It seems like a serious waste of time and money to me, but then I’m not Japanese so I couldn’t possibly understand.

Moving into a newly built apartment block can be tricky. If it is a really big block then you can imagine the problem if each and every of the 758 new apartment owners all tried to move in at 9am on Monday morning – so these things have to be organised.

As you can imagine this is a jobsworth’s wet dream.

Our new block is quite small, only 50 or so units, however we also had a partner removal firm appointed by the construction company. It was their job, let’s call them Kitazawa for that indeed was their name, to organise the moving of new owners and, as they are a removal company themselves, basically get as much business for themselves as possible (what, I wonder, was the kickback to the construction company to get the business…?). The equation was quite simple, if you used Kitazawa you could move at any time you wanted, spend as long as you want loading and unloading your gear, block everyone’s access to the building if you wanted and have the them kiss your butt everyday for a month; if you didn’t use Kitazawa then you could move only when Kitazawa said you could, everything had to be unloaded from your removal van in 30 seconds or less, your removal van could not, however, actually stop moving outside the building for more than 4 seconds and parking facilities were available but only in Osaka.

With this in mid we contacted Kitazawa and asked them to give us a quote. For moving all our stuff about 1½ miles and recycling about 13 pieces of old, crap furniture they wanted the princely sum of 500,000 yen that’s over 3 grand in real money. Next! The recycling bit was the bit that got me – in Japan the local council will do this for you, you just call them up, they give you a date and then you buy a recycling sticker from your local convenience store, total cost about 500 yen per piece and the hassle of buying the sticker and putting it outside your apartment on the designated day. So for Kitazawa to quote us 150,000 yen for the recycling was the clincher – well, that and the fact we couldn’t afford half a million yen on the removals.

Luckily the school I work for uses a local mover every summer to cart teachers stuff around, so I gave him a call and asked him to give us a quote and he came back with a removals only price of 100,000, much more like it, though he did blanch a bit when we gave him the ‘rules’ for delivery and unloading.

After that it was mostly plain sailing. We packed up all the stuff, sometimes with the little un’s help but more often with us packing and he unpacking at the same time, sometimes from the same box. The appointed day came quickly, as they always do, but just before it did my folks arrived from the UK for a month’s stay – more of that later.

The moving itself was fine, we stood back and let sweaty men do all of the hard work whilst worrying about the new place and the old place. Although Kitazawa had all these draconian rules and penalties about the unloading of stuff the truth was that the new block was quite small and the arrival of new owners was actually spread out over a number of weeks, if not months, so there was very little in the way of moving in clashes and certainly no removal rage which, apparently, is not uncommon. Also we moved in on a Monday morning so it was never going to be that busy, not like a weekend.

The bigger concern for us was how much, if any, of the deposit on the old place we would get back. The deposit was 100,000yen and we figured if we got 20,000 back we’d be happy. There are horror stories of bastard landlords not only not giving any deposit back but of making demands for huge extra payments for spurious cleaning or repair work. I didn’t think it would come to that, but you never know.

So on the Monday afternoon we went back to the old 7th floor, fine view Kawaguchi flat for the final time to witness the last rites (of our stay anyway). Surprisingly neither the letting agent nor the landlord turned up, just a bloke from a redecorating company who would give his professional opinion. OK, fair enough. So as we sat on the floor of the empty flat he nosed around. The reason we were a tad worried was that over 6 years of wear and tear, including 4 years of small boy, there were bits of the flat in a state of disrepair. The tatami mats in the living room were threadbare in places, the paper on some of the sliding doors was a tad holey (not wholly holey, but enough), there were plenty of nicks in the wallpaper and the kitchen floor had scratches and, worst of all in our opinion, the odd gouge. So we weren’t too hopeful.

So chap did his rounds, then showed me what he’d found, all of which I agreed with. So, how much to put right? He started to fill in his clipboard and take measurements with his tape measure. When he started on the walls and wall paper his comment was – [with sucking of teeth] “and this is where it can get really expensive…” Gulp. And the final tally…45,000yen to you squire.

“Gosh, well, hmm, that seems an interesting number, does that include the tatami?” “Yup, everything in there chief”. OK, hold on…

Of course we were pleasantly surprised and could have said yes right then, but I had an even more cunning plan. One of my team at work is a qualified estate agent (they have to take exams in this country!) and she had said it was ok to call her to discuss what landlords can actually charge for, so I did. I went onto the balcony and left redecorator and the Guru inside. This made redecorator nervous as the Guru told him I was taking legal advice (which was in a sense true), so even whilst I was talking outside the quote came down to about 39,000yen as redecorator had made a ‘mistake’. The advice was that as tenants of 6.5 years and more we were legally only obliged to contribute a maximum of 10% of the cost of a number of items, specifically the wallpaper. Nice work! We told chap this and he said he would pass on to the letting agents – he did and a couple of days later the final bill was agreed at about 25,000yen! Yaay, result! And he never even checked the kitchen floor.

After that it was just trying to work how all the new electronic gizmos in the new place worked (we still don’t know…)

Next, the folks visit…

2009-04-25T20:58:00.002+09:00

Lots been going on...

Which I haven't got time to write about now (though it's coming soon). As a taster, we've finally moved house (into our newly purchased "condo" (as I believe they're called)), the folks have been and gone, we've been to Mt Fuji and taken a lot of pictures and the Easter holidays have happened.

But the most important thing is that whilst the folks were here there was an extended Backgammon championship, best of 5 sets, each set to 21 points. The short story, which I will tell here, is that the home team won 3-2 (and I'm still not quite sure how I did it (though a double 4 in the final game of the final set, with the scores at 17-19 to the away team, that filled up my home board whilst the away team had a man on the bar probably helped...))

Heh, heh heh

2009-01-01T00:27:00.003+09:00

Jammy Git

You know who you are. The only throw I really didn't need was a 6-3, and what did I get...?

18-20 the final score.

Bastard (but thank you for a jolly well fought 3 hour game, most enjoyable except for the final score).

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! etc

Good job I'm not competitive otherwise this would have made me *really* unhappy...

Oh, Happy New Year everyone.

2008-12-29T14:51:00.001+09:00

The right to reside

As I mentioned a while ago one of the things that is meant to make buying property easier in Japan, when one is an alien, is having permanent residency. I didn’t have it when we started the process so, in the spirit of… well, applying, I applied for it. Now this may sound easy, but it is not – actually it is easy to apply but it is a pain in the arse to get everything done for the application.

Now as we know the Japanese as a race love bureaucracy as much as, no, more than, the next nation state, and usually this means that as long as you follow the guidelines and tick all the boxes you should be fine. However the Immigration bureau didn’t sign up to this and to call them capricious would be to describe Usain Bolt as ‘quite fast’. This is not just me, by the way, anyone who has had any dealings with immigration feels the same way and phrases such as ‘case by case’ and ‘depends who you get on the day’ and ‘what a bunch of shysters’ are often heard after a trip of one of their offices.

So, I know that we have to get the required forms, some bits of paper from the town hall to prove I pay my taxes, copy of the marriage certificate, pay slips and other stuff, but then there’s the ‘extras’. Permanent residency is sort of the holy grail of ‘visas’ (it’s not really a visa, it is permission to reside, which is different apparently), so they don’t give them out willy-nilly. If, for example, I wasn’t married to the Guru and/or have a 3.5 yr old progeny running around (and making a lot of noise) then the basic requirement for PR would be 10 years continuous residence and having made a ‘significant contribution to society’ which by the look of it means being a Nobel laureate in pro-Japanese propaganda, or something, so they take it quite seriously. Luckily, if you’re married to a Japanese personage and your contribution to society consists of a 3.5 yr old noisy child then apparently this is on a par with Nobelhood (and thank goodness for that).

So anyway, back to the application. Before submitting the documents we did some research, of course – in one of the Japan forums I participate in there was a plethora of advice, most of it consisting of information like, ‘submit the stuff they ask for and then add…’ some of the stuff they suggest to add sounded quite useful, like degree certificates and references, others quite strange, like a map from your local train/tube station to your house. But then again when we did the spouse visa application we had to submit some daft stuff, like photos of us together, a report on how we met, that sort of thing, so you shouldn’t be surprised. One of the most amusing bits of advice was from a bloke who described the PR application process along these lines – ‘what the bloke dealing with your application does is get your file and start taking bits of paper out, like the application form. He won’t read what’s on the paper, he will just place it on the desk in front of him. He will do this until he has put all the pieces of paper on the desk. If, when he has finished, he cannot see any of the desk uncovered by paper, your application will be approved; if an area equivalent to one piece of A4 is uncovered, he will read your application and decide. If more than one piece of A4 of the desk is uncovered, your application will be rejected.’

So, off we trooped to the Saitama immigration office in May to submit the application. I took along the necessaries and a selection of the optional extras (with full intent on providing sufficient desk coverage). Up came our number and so I started to have over everything – as soon as I started the chap said ‘oh, permanent residency’ as if he were a little surprised – perhaps not the sort of thing that usually happens in Saitama. Once I had given the necessaries I started on the extras, the chap looked a bit bemused when I gave him the map of the station/apartment, but when I brought out the degree certificates he started to look panicked, saying “no, no, we don’t need all this stuff, the application form will do” and started to hand stuff back to me – very odd, I thought, don’t you want to ask me to name all the prefectures of Japan, I have memorised them…? But no, just the docs, as it were.

So, “how long will ask this take?” was the next question; “well, about 6 months to a year, so if you haven’t heard from us by June 2009 then reapply for your spouse visa anyway, just in case” was the response – a whole year!? What are they going to do, genealogy and DNA testing? Probably, is possibly the answer, and I wouldn’t have put it past them. So that was it, really, all we had to do then was wait.

And wait we did, until the end of November when, low and behold, the application was approved. A colleague of mine from the Philippines, who has PR, said his application took a year to complete and whilst it was going on immigration contacted his landlord and his then current and his previous employer, to check he was legit. As far as I can tell there were no checks done on me like that (as, for one our landlord is a right old gossip and if immigration had called him he would have been straight round to us; and two, if they had contacted my employer they would probably have ended up speaking to me as that sort of HR thing would probably end up on my desk). But for us it was almost exactly 6 months to the day since we made our application.

Now, after all the palaver of applying I was expecting a little ceremony or something when I went back to the immigration office to get the stamp put into my passport, but, disappointingly, there was nothing – no ceremonial stamping, no handshake from the branch director, no word of congratulations from the immigration minister, not even a photographer from the local paper to record the happy event. Just a ‘here you go, and don’t forget to go to your town hall and update your alien registration card’, which I duly did a couple of weeks later.

If all that seems like a bit of an anti-climax, rest assured it was for me too. But the good news is that I got it and so I don’t now have to go back and get a new visa ever three years as this one lasts, in theory, forever. But I do need to get a re-entry permit, which does only last for three years, which is the government’s way of… sorry, another government way of making money from foreigners. And gaining it didn’t make any difference to buying property as we’ve already bought it; oh well…

2008-12-24T15:22:00.003+09:00

Jesus Christ!

Apparently he was Japanese, you know, buried in a field in Aomori Prefecture when he died at the age of 106. It was his brother that was strung up by the Romans; tsk, imagine they must have been pretty narked when they found out. Anyway, read the whole story here.

2008-12-18T16:08:00.001+09:00

We like Wordle

See here for the full image

2008-12-16T20:46:00.002+09:00

(started in October)

Hmm, has it really been that long since I posted…

Yes indeed it has. Oh well, back now.

So, we’re still in the process of buying an apartment. As I mentioned below we’ve bought this new-build thing that is, I am glad to say, actually being built (I had a peek in the summer and they’d completed 5 of the 10 floors, or the shells thereof, including ours on the 2^nd floor, so Marcus and I could go ‘oooh look, that’s going to be ours soon…’). The issue we’ve got at the moment is that we haven’t actually, technically, got a mortgage yet, as in signed a piece of paper that commits the bank to handing over the cash – we’ve signed lots of bits of paper that, in principle, mean the bank will hand over the cash, but not a contract. Normally this wouldn’t worry me too much as we’re not meant to move in until March or April next year, but in these uncertain times… well, extremely certain in the sense that the world economy is in meltdown and no one is lending anyone any money any more, we’re getting a touch restive that the bank won’t commit to the cash handover at the moment. It’s not that they’ve said they won’t, it’s more that they haven’t said anything for a while. Anyway, I’m sure it will happen sometime.

So lots of things have been and gone since I last wrote. We went on our hols en famille, which was nice. We went to stay with the Guru’s folks for a couple of days, which was nice, and then, as they live closer to the beach than we do, we moved from theirs to Kujukuri (that’s 99 Kuri beach for language fans out there, a kuri being an olden days unit of measurement, quite possibly equivalent to one grain of sand, or possibly an elephant, who knows?), which is on the eastern Pacific side coast (for all you geography fans out there).

(carried on in December)

It’s quiet, I don’t have a lot to do so let’s write some more of this.

Update on the flat buying thing, we have now signed a sh*te-load more bits of paper that, I’m glad to say, does commit the bank to handing over the cash. Luckily we haven’t had to decide on the actual type of loan yet, i.e. fixed for a period (up to the life of the loan) or on a tracker type thing, we have to do that in March, just before the whole thing is finished and we move in. obviously at the moment a fixed interest loan looks quite attractive as rates are so low. If we did that we could get something like 4% for the full 35 years, which compared to a UK mortgage would be pretty low. But a tracker would be somewhere under 2% and as interest rates have been astoundingly low for the last decade, and are getting lower, that is also attractive. The annoying thing is that we can’t change once we’ve decided, so going for a very low tracker now and then changing to fixed when the economy begins to pick up in a few years isn’t an option. I don’t know, I guess we’ll see when the time comes to sign, I like the idea of a really low fixed rate so I know what we have to pay every month for the next 35 years, but then again, it’s cheaper, of course, not to at the moment. I guess the key is when, in the next 35 years, will the tracker rate be more than the current deal on a fixed rate? Of course if I knew that I would not be doing this job, I’d be a fabulously wealthy financial consultant who didn’t need to worry about fixed/tracker rates of interest – oh the irony!

Anyway as I was saying we went to the beach. This was a great adventure as Marcus had never been to the beach before so was jolly looking forward to it. So, by various means of transport, not limited to buses and trains but also including feet, we made our way to One Pine Beach near Mobara, part of Kujukuri. It was obvious from the moment of arrival that the locals enjoyed a joke as there were, literally and indeed actually, lots of pine trees there. In fact it was impossible to single one pine tree out that might have been ‘the one’ as a veritable forest stretched along the coast. Maybe they just do it to confuse foreigners.

We were to stay at some ‘resort’ place, as they often thought of themselves, but all thoughts of ours were on the beach. Marcus was excited, the sun was hot, we could hear the waves and things looked good. So, the usual dumping of stuff and arguing about what to take to the beach, then off. Down the sandy road we wandered, stopping every few meters so Marcus could play in the sand at the side of the road – it kind of defeated the point, we said, as there was a huge beach full of the stuff just over the way, but you know what kids can be like. Then, as we climbed over the ridge, there was the beach.

I must admit it was a little disappointing, the sand was a kind of light grey, so volcanic, and to me that gives the beach a bit of a grubby look. Also a couple of large shacks sold food and assorted beach paraphernalia, but again on the dilapidated side of used. Still, sand and surf there were, as well as people, inflated inflatables, nary a cloud in the sky to soften the unremitting skin cancer attack and a stiff offshore breeze – all the ingredients for a pleasant afternoon at the beach.

So, beach parasol hired and emplaced, plastic sheet weighted down (for some reason Japanese will only sit on a plastic sheet on the ground, preferable a blue one, although if you have children a patterned one will do. I have no idea why, for example, towels, reed mats, woollen picnic blankets/spreads or anything else will not suffice, but no, it must be a plastic mat – go look at a large hamami (cherry blossom) or hanabi (fireworks) gathering next time and you’ll see. Weird) we hit the waves.

How as you’ll remember this was Marcus’ first trip to the beach and first experience with seawater so, wanting to keep things safe, we were very tentative. Tip toe to the shore and stand at the very edge, water just about to your toes, mmm, nice and warm. So far so good. So then we took a few steps forwards and the water covered our feet – at this point Marcus was laughing and jumping, thinking it all jolly good fun. A couple more steps and the water was shin height, again all good fun and Marcus with a big smile on his face. But then, two waves come together at right-angles to each other and seem to hit each other and Marcus at the exactly the right moment – the upshot was, well, an up-shot of water that went straight up his legs, tummy, chest and splashed into his face and lastly, his mouth. Cue PANIC!

Well, panic it was – it took him possibly 0.02 seconds to get out of the water and to the mat. Then the real fun started. As he was wet the sand clung to him – not good. We tried to brush off the sand but as you know that doesn’t work so and the towel felt like sandpaper – not good. Wash the sand off in the water? Not on your life. Ok, sit there and feel miserable – check. Now we need to go to the toilet – ok dad will take you. Ow, the sand is too hot – not good. Struggle up the beach, round the back of the shack to where the rudimentary toilet block is, think French campsite – breeze blocks, hole in the floor, smell – into a cubicle, no too smelly and nasty to go to the toilet here – not good. Return to mat parasol, repeat 4 or 5 times. Decide to go to shack to get some food and drink, sit down order some basics and a bottle of pop, cut to more whinging about hot sand, hot sun, sea water, toilets, beaches and life in general. State enough is enough and you want to go back to ojii-san and obaa-san’s house as life is much simpler there. Continue until parents realise you have been traumatised for life and beat a retreat to the hotel. Time spent actually on the beach during beach holiday = approx. 42 minutes.

Aah, happy days, now I look back on it.

Luckily the place we were staying in had an onsen, a swimming pool and various other rooms and attractions that meant that staying there wasn’t quite as bad as staring at 4 walls trying not to kill each other, but at times it was close…

2008-06-20T17:06:00.000+09:00

So we’ve gone and bought an apartment

Once I got my new job at the international school the guru and I sat down and wondered just what in the hell it all meant. The most important thing was that it meant I wasn’t working for the English school anymore, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, doing my head in. But it also meant that we had to reappraise our plans, such as they were, regarding staying or going.

The kind of tentative plan was that we would stay in Japan whilst the youngster was young, probably up to the end of elementary school or Year 6, so about 10 years old, and then head back to Blighty as that way he’d get the benefit of both a Japanese and a British upbringing (and the concomitant language benefits contained therein). But then I got this job at the international school and so now he’ll get a British education but in a Japanese environment, perhaps the best of both worlds (or maybe going to a Japanese school whilst living in the UK would be better, who knows), and, not wanting to blow the school’s trumpet too long or hard, the education he’ll get here will be every bit as good, if not better, than an education he’d get at a state school in the UK (except we don’t have enough space, especially playground and playing fields, but we are an inner city school so you can’t have everything).

So anyway, he’s 3 now and he’ll be able to stay at the international school here until he’s 16 at least (assuming I stay here as well, or else I find another job where I can blag 10 grand’s worth of school fees along with a better salary, which, let’s face it, is unlikely) – by the way I didn’t try to get the job here for this reason, but I must say it’s panned out remarkably well. So that meant that the guru and I took a short, direct think about what was in the offing and decided it was probably a good idea to buy somewhere to live and get out of the rental sector, so we have.

Well, I say we have but what we have actually bought, right now, is a big hole in the ground with a few foundations that will, by March next year, have grown into a 50 apartment mansion block. The good news is that it is new, it shouldn’t fall down in an earthquake, it’s in Tokyo, near where we live now, near the river and a nice park (with a windmill, no less), we can choose options we want, it’s bigger than the place we have now, it’s close to a railway station that’s only 25 minutes to Shibuya so not a bad commute and, probably the most important one, we can afford it. The bad news is that it is quite close to a railway line (the very one the youngster and I will get on to go to school), the mortgage is for 35 years so I will probably be paying this off into my retirement, the land is designated as residential/light industrial so there are a few not so nice bits around the area (zoning laws are great in Japan) and the station area isn’t nearly as well developed as Kawaguchi (so no big library, no city hall, only 1 supermarket, no sports centre etc).

The town itself is a bit like Kawaguchi in that it is going through a strong phase of redevelopment, with lost of apartment blocks being built on the sites of old factories and warehouses. With this, usually, come more amenities like supermarkets and the like as there are more people to use them – this might be wishful thinking on my part, but we have watched Kawaguchi change mightily over the last 6 years so I have high hopes for the new area.

Of course it might still all fall through as we haven’t really got full backing from the bank yet for the mortgage. What we have is a positive pre-judgement for a loan for an apartment in a place called Mizonokuchi, where we nearly bought a place but backed out of at the last minute (I will write the story of that one sometime), the new place is slightly more expensive so we need to go back to the bank to get a new pre-approval. Once we’ve got that the bank then takes its time to decide whether it wants to give us the full approval or not, and actually hand over the cash. If it does, all well and good, if it doesn’t we get our deposit back but have to pay for the apartment options we chose – not so well and good. Bit of a long, drawn out process this, but there you go.

So, we’re up and running, roll on March 2009…

2008-06-12T22:32:00.000+09:00

You can have it as an option…

Goodness two posts in two days, verbal diarrhoea!

So, as I said yesterday the Guru and I are looking to buy a place and at the moment we are looking at a newly built place just over the river – so new in fact that it won’t be built until next March. What got me is this.

Last night, as I said, after writing blog type stuff I filled out all the forms necessary to apply for the place and the associated finance that is part of the deal. No problem there, but because it hasn’t been built yet there is also a whole load of add on options you can choose, and pay for, for the particular apartment you are buying; so, for example, you can choose better/more kitchen appliances and bathroom stuff and, well, lots of other stuff as well. The problem is that, for some reason, even though the place won’t be finished for about 10 months, the deadline for option choosing is this Saturday.

Now, as a foreigner it is much more difficult to obtain the necessary credit to buy property – it is possible but takes time. We submitted all the paperwork today, the decision from the bank won’t be made until next week at the earliest but if we want options on the apartment that isn’t ours yet we have to make them on Saturday. That in itself is silly enough, but get this.

On Saturday we’ll hand over a deposit and make our option choices. The following week the bank will make their decision, if they say yes then all well and good. However if they say no then the apartment people will smile, say sorry and then give the deposit back and then give us an invoice for the cost of the options we have chosen as the ‘contract’ for the mortgage is completely different and separate from the ‘contract’ for the apartment itself…

So, how confident are we that we’ll get the finance? Well, seeing as it took us 4 banks (which in Japan is pretty much all of them) to get a mortgage for the place we didn’t buy before, not very, although the sole mortgage provider for the new place is the bank that approved our loan for the old place (but as they are different branches I am sure it will be, in grand Japanese tradition, ‘case by case’). What to do…?

2008-06-11T21:40:00.001+09:00

The decline and fall of Japanese civilization, pt.2

So in the last few weeks there have been a couple of instances which have contributed to the notion that Japan is no longer the place that it was. Now I’m not going to talk about the stabbing thing in Akihabara on Sunday as that sort of thing has been going on for ages here, indeed I think I may have written about it on occasion, so some things never change. No, what follows goes far deeper to the core of what it means to be Japanese (and in the process dragged Japan, kicking and screaming, a bit closer to the 21^st century).

The first one was a couple of weeks ago. In the past large numbers of women have come/been enticed/forced to come to Japan to work in the ‘water’ industry – I don’t mean as hydroelectric engineers or plumbers, but as hostesses and, at times, more besides. Now, some of these ladies were from the Philippines and had more than casual relations with some married Japanese men folk and got pregnant. On knowing they had got the mistress up the spout the Japanese gents did the decent thing and scarpered sharpish so they didn’t have any embarrassing questions from their good lady wives like “you have another son…?”, only to have a crisis of conscience and acknowledge their contribution after the kids were born. The Filipinas, no doubt tutting their disgust, decided to have the kids anyway and stay here in Japan, but herein lay the problem. Because the mothers were not Japanese and because the fathers, though Japanese, refused to recognize their offspring before their birth, the children were effectively stateless – not officially Japanese even though to all intents and purposes they were, and not really Filipino as they had no real knowledge of the country.

Inevitably a group of these people took their matter to the court and inevitably each and every court in Japan told them “tough, if your Japanese father doesn’t recognize you before you’re born then you ain’t Japanese, sunshine”. Except suddenly the High Court, in full frontal assault on the homogeneity of the Japanese people, suddenly decided that this was unconstitutional and just a little bit silly, seeing as if the fathers had said “yup, that’s my kid” before the birth then there would have been no problem.

This, of course, opens the huge can of worms of parental recognition of offspring. In this country if a father doesn’t recognize a kid as his own then the kid is hugely disadvantaged as the kid will have no residency papers and the like as these things are always done through the male/father and if you have no father (on paper) then you are a non-person. So anyway hopefully this will now come an end, though I won’t be holding my breath.

The second all out assault on the homogeneity of the Japanese people (I rather liked that phrase so I thought I’d use it again, I hope you don’t mind…I also hope you don’t mind about me not writing anything for a month, oh well) came this time from the Diet, or parliament, which makes it even more odd than the High Court telling the govt to sort itself out. This time the Diet unanimously decide that the Ainu People, predominantly of Hokkaido and very north Tohoku are, in fact, indigenous to Japan and not another bunch of bloody foreigners. It is hard to know quite why the govt suddenly decided the acknowledge the Ainu as Japanese (as opposed to forcing them to pretend to be Japanese, as they did after 1871 when they banned the Ainu from doing anything ‘ethnic’ or ‘traditional’) but the fact that the G8 summit will be held in Hokkaido later this year (I think) might have had something to do with it.

An interesting aside on this one is that last September Japan was one of 144 signatories on a UN resolution calling for recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples (though of course the Ainu weren’t indigenous at the time, only indignant). Apparently only 4 countries voted against the resolution, countries with a long history of support, empathy and peaceful coexistence between the white settlers and the indigenous peoples they found on arrival. They are, of course, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (still, at least NZ got a 1/2 decent rugby team out of it).

Housing problems

The last thing for now is that the guru, the little ‘un and yours truly are in the throes of buying a permanent place to live in this country. I have applied for permanent residency, somehow secured a mortgage and nearly bought a flat that would probably have fallen down if a magnitude 5 sneeze had hit it, let alone an earthquake. I promise I will write more on this soon, but tonight I have to go and fill in more forms for a place we saw last Sunday and we like the look of. This time it is a new build, have a look here for more.

2008-04-15T21:19:00.001+09:00

Aliens in Japan

Now as everyone knows Japan is full of aliens. This is evidenced by the fact that most of them carry cards saying they are aliens. Well, I say ‘they’ but I should of course write ‘us’ because I am, of course, a card carrying alien, having about my person, so most occasions, an Alien Registration Card.

So, you may be thinking, this is probably a long segue into something interesting because it sure as shit hasn’t got much going for it right now…and you’d be right.

In true X-Files fashion (remember that show, seems so recent and yet so distant – when I first came to Japan, in 1996, I had never really watched it, but soon after arrival Andy (my soon to go mad travel buddy) and I bought a 17^th hand tv and video and, after the aforementioned going mad period, I ‘discovered’ the X-Files and spent no small amount of cash renting series 1 to about 7 from the place over the road from my first apartment. I think I may have wooed the Guru by persuading her that she didn’t want to go out for dinner but wanted to eat cup ramen and watch Mulder saying “it’s aliens Scully, they’ve taken over Kent… I digress)

Er…

Oh yes, in true X-Files fashion aliens have taken over Japan, indeed they may have been here forever (or at least since the 7^th century. And now I’ll tell you how I know.

As everyone knows the Japanese have about 16 different alphabets, but even though they have all these unnecessary ways of writing, the syllabary (if that’s the right word) is fairly constant. In its basic form Japanese 5 vowel sounds and whilst they look like the roman ones: a, e, i, o, u, their sounds are different. I’ll try and make sense now

English	Japanese	sound
a	あ	hat
i	い	tit
u	う	too
e	え	let
o	お	octopus

OK, so bear with me. Japanese vowel sounds are short, so if you want a long vowel sound you have to double up, as it were. Now, looking at the way I’ve written the ‘sounds’ for you there, go down the list firstly making the short vowel sound…

Done that?

OK, now do it but doubling up and long sounds like saying haaaaaat but just making the ‘a’ sound.

Done that?

OK, now do it again but this time change the pitch to correspond to the notes from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind…

Now is that spooky or what? The basic Japanese vowel system, and basis of their whole language, is based on an intergalactic cosmic tonal scale from a Steven Spielberg movie! Startling stuff, eh? And, if that were not enough, when I confronted the Guru with this startling discovery she kind of sighed, then pulled the ‘skin’ off her face, revealing her true, green skinned, bug eyed alien form underneath and lisped “it’s a fair cop, guv’nor”. They never said that to Mulder…

2008-03-09T21:59:00.002+09:00

Tsunami in the Sky
Originally uploaded by DubbleExposure

This was taken by a photographer named DubbleExposure on a recent trip to Hokkaido. I wish I could take photos like this (and others of his) - just awesome...

2008-02-01T16:44:00.001+09:00

The last few months

So I figure it’s about time I wrote something down. Er…

So a lot has changed over the past few months, not least the fact that I have changed jobs. If you may remember I was working for an English school, the fools having been foolish enough to make me Principal in 2006. this was fine while it lasted but I discovered that the higher up the tree you go, the more shite it gets – might only be true for that particular company but more likely it is a truism all over the world. Anyway I wrote in spring/summer last year that I was trying to make myself more marketable, I don’t know if I managed to do this or not, but I think it put me in the right mindset.

Over the summer I had a number of interviews for hr/recruitment related jobs for banks in Tokyo – this was something of an eye opener, as you might expect, not least for the fact that I had to spend about a week in the library trying to find out what it is exactly that banks do to make money. Actually that’s not true, I spent a week in the library trying to get to a point where I could sound like I knew a little bit about how banks make their money. Luckily I have now forgotten everything I read because these none of these banks were that interested in me (nor me them, really, except the wad I might have expected had I joined one of them, they do seem to pay well).

But what I did see was a position as hr manager for another school in Tokyo, this time not an English school but an International School that happened to be quite British in its outlook, curriculum, teachers etc. So after some to-ing and, but of course, no little amount of fro-ing as well, I landed the gig. Even for these guys it took three interviews including one that lasted most of a day! I started here at the back end of November but as part of my lengthy and extended escape period from the last lot I had to return there 4 times in December to ‘finish things off’ – which meant I went to Nishi Kasai and sat there doing not very much at all, but it did mean that I got paid to the end of the December by those guys and the new guys – double salary action, nice…

Being the new guy meant that I got to work for most of Christmas as well, so whilst for the last 10 years or so I’ve had around 10 days off over crimbo and the new year this time around it was Christmas day and new year’s day only (though boxing day was the last day to return to last lot, so it was something of a bittersweet working day). Therefore exciting stories of Christmas adventure are somewhat thin on the ground this year as, basically, I worked. We did go to the brand spanking new train museum in Omiya (in fact the youngster has dragged me there twice), which was good in a lots-of-trains-can-only-keep-me-interested-so-far kind of way, which, I hardly need to add, isn’t nearly as far as they can keep a 2¾ year old boy interested.

Christmas day was full of the usual presents-and-food shenanigans, this year I even got some presents myself, which was most pleasant after last year’s rather dismal showing. The youngster got lots of car/train action, which, well, I was going to say kept him quiet for hours but in reality they kept him interested and loud for hours. The Guru also received presents aplenty, though I’ll be buggered if I can remember what she got, now that it is February after all.

On the Japan front things have been quiet as well. Quiet is the operative word for the new PM, Somethingsomething Fukuda (sorry, can’t remember his first name…might be Yasuro…). Anyway you might remember that I nothing but ambivalence for Silent Shinzo because, as far as I could see, he didn’t do or say anything of note, or anything at all. Well, Fukuda makes him look like Outrageous Abe (I wanted that to be alliterative, and it kind of is when you say it, but it doesn’t work when you read it, if anyone can suggest a synonym for loquacious that starts with ‘a’ then I’d be happy to edit). I digress, so, Fukuda, even more quiet and crap than the last extremely quiet and crap bloke. Goodness how we all hanker for the excitement of the Kid. Along with much of the rest of the world the people of Japan are worried about recession – no, the media are telling everyone that they are worried about recession, making it a truth even if it isn’t.

Lots of other things have happened, none of which I wrote down (though at the time saying ‘I must write that down and write about it in the blog’) and now, of course, can’t remember. As you might expect the usual white collar crimes have continued unabated, the usual frauds, embezzlements and backhanders that keep Japan Inc ticking over nicely, whilst erstwhile parents have continued to show their credentials by murdering their offspring (and vice versa to be fair).

One story I did like from a few months ago was about a bloke who got legless, literally. Chap was riding along a motorway in the countryside somewhere in Japan with some friends and strayed a little too close to the central reservation barrier. Apparently he felt the bike twitch a little so thought he had clipped a stone or something so he slowed down a little and moved in a little and then carried on regardless. It was only when he stopped at a junction a little later that he realised that his right leg below the knee was missing – that and his mate coming to stop beside him and then handing over his newly liberated limb. Apparently the bike twitch he felt was his leg catching on the barrier and then being ripped off – without him noticing a thing! You have to wonder, all mad these bikers (or extremely hard)

2008-01-01T21:55:00.000+09:00

Whoa!

Where in the hell did 2007 just disappear to?

2007-12-28T08:45:00.000+09:00

They'll get you, and there'll be no exceptions

Once before, a long time ago, I wrote on this very blog about the local traffic police in Nishi Kasai, or rather the parking police, who drove around putting chalk marks on your car tyres to prove you were illegally parked (having to clean your car tyres being the direst punishment in the Japanese Big Book of Punitive Actions). Anyway it was my contention then that this was 'a bit crap really' and wasn't much of a deterrent - if you can be bothered you can go and read the original post, but heaven knows where it is.

Anyway this general level of dissatisfaction with the parking busies, and the boys in blue overall, should not in any way tarnish the image of the Bicycle Parking Police, who are assiduous and dedicated in their approach to what is, in a country of 120 million people and 874 million bicycles, a hard job. So, on Boxing day I was walking through Nishi Kasai on my way to lunch when I stopped dead because I saw this:

So here we have a child's tricycle illegally parked outside a convenience store. The evil perpertrator of this crime is nowhere to to be seen (thankfully as I would not want to meet them!) but the plucky bicycle police (Child Tricycle Division) have reasoned that illegal parking is illegal parking and, dangerous though the situation may become, they have a job to do and that job is to tag illegally parked vehicles and take them away if no one reclaims them within one year and a day of tagging.

As you can see this tag has been firmly placed on the handlebars of the tricycle and now the Bicycle Police can only sit back and wait for the inevitable backlash. I am happy about this on two counts; firstly that the Bicycle police do their job without fear of favour, protecting and serving as is their remit. Secondly, as of Boxing day I no longer work in Nishi Kasai (that's another story) so will not get caught up in the spiral of violence that will inevitably follow this dramatic event.

2007-11-06T21:49:00.000+09:00

So the other weekend we went to Karuizawa

Karuizawa is a town in the mountains in Nagano prefecture, I think, and is full of bracing things like fresh air, rain, trees and people, so it’s is good to go to if you live in the chemical smog of Tokyo, or, indeed, Kawaguchi. The other good thing about the place is that you get to go on a shinkansen (bullet train) to get there, which, if you are 35 years old is pretty cool (though, following the immutable law of the universe of you wait ages for one trip on a shinkansen and then two turn up together, the week before I went down to Osaka on business) but if you’re 2 and-a-half (and really, really into trains) it is just the best thing ever in the world. Even better than all that, if you are parent of said 2 and-a-half year old, the journey by shinkansen is only about 1 hour, meaning that once the magic of the ride has worn off, child doesn’t have too much time to get bored before you arrive – great! Anyway if you look here you can see pictures of small boys and big trains.

The first part of our trip out of the metropolis was to visit a great big shopping centre. Doesn’t sound like much fun, I know, but it was a jolly big shopping centre and outlet mall place that sells lots of stuff at knockdown prices. Also it was useful as when we arrived at the station it was chucking it down with, well, not rain but misty, drizzly, cloudy, English style rain, so we didn’t have a great deal of choice. Because we went on a Monday-Tuesday jaunt the place wasn’t stupidly busy, but it was still pretty packed, especially as, due to the poor visibility and lack of maps, we only actually looked at one side of the place. Doh! What we did get to do, though, was spend about half-an-hour in the Lego shop, which was ultra-cool. I remember lego from my days as a kid and in those days it was ‘normal’ stuff, basic space-lego, castles and a few of the ‘technical’ kits. Now, wow, the options are enormous, with more, and much cooler, space stuff, aqua stuff, monsters, really wizard looking technical kits, like the Ferrari 360 racing model, and just loads and loads of fab looking stuff. I can’t wait until Marcus’ old enough for me to justify buying this stuff for him and then keeping it all to myself. In fact maybe I should buy some now and give it a test run, just to make sure it is safe for him to play with, hmm…

Later we dumped our stuff at our pension, a slightly sinister, slightly creepy place, in a you’re-the-only-people-staying-and-no one-knows-you’re-here kind of way. Then we wandered off to find a park to run around in. This we did, luckily, and found not only a park but also a small shrine, which was ok, and also a small sumo dohyo, which was really cool. As you can see from these pictures I taught the youngster the finer arts of the samurai scream and the tachiai – gave me a warm, fatherly feeling I can tell you.

Back at the creepy pension we then attended to our nightly routine, i.e. bath, beer and dinner. The bath was fine, though unfortunately not the onsen style that one might have hoped for. Beer was provided by a small fridge on the 1^st floor landing, you helped yourself and made a note for the owner to tot up upon check out. The problem was that they were charging 300 yen for a small can and, as there was no local beer machine and the rooms had no fridges, this was the only way to get a cold one. Unless you are cunning, of course. So before bath I had one of their overpriced beers but super cunningly I had, beforehand, been to a local alcoholic emporium and brought similar though cheaper cans of asahi superdry. Once I had taken one of their overpriced cans I replaced it with one I had brought, thereby keeping it cool. Later, after dinner (more of which in a moment), I was able to drink a couple more cans of cold beer, but it was the ones I had brought earlier for less cash. Anyway the upshot was that I got to drink beer but didn’t have to pay through the nose for it. I thought it was cunning, the Guru just thought I was being dishonest and tutted at me reprovingly as I quaffed.

Dinner, however, was a fine proposition. How many small pensions in Naka-Karuizawa can boast a Japanese chef who thinks he’s French? Only one to my mind, and that’s where we pitched up. The meal he knocked up for us was really good, a 5 course extravaganza that included soup, fish and meat courses, all of which were tasty and of sufficient volume to fill my stomach. The problem, however, was that the food all arrived in something of a rush. The starter was fine as that was waiting on the table for us, then the arrival of the soup was ok as well. But then, as the last drop of soup was slurped the fish course arrived. Again this was very pleasant, some sautéed sole, if memory serves, but as I was pontificating about something the Guru finished hers a few mouthfuls before I did and, as soon as her fork touched the plate for the final time, the meat course was brought out. So, as she started on her beef fillets I polished off the sole, put the used plate on my left and then started on the beef with nary a break between forkfuls.

Now, of course, she was far ahead of me so completed her beef whilst I had only got though half, but no problem as then desert arrived, giving me the slightly cack-handed task of, on finishing my meat, transferring the desert to my place mat and placing the dirty dish on my right (where the desert had been), so that I then had dirty dishes all around me. Ah, the romance of fine dining.

I mean, is it too much to ask for them to allow a breath between courses, of for both diners to finish one course before starting the next? Actually no, not in Japan, as, to be honest, it doesn’t seem to be something Japanese restaurants have got their heads around (generalising wildly as I go). This might be to do with traditional Japanese cooking, where you tend to get everything placed in front of you when you sit down and then just plough your way through (i.e. like a meal in a ryokan) so the serving staff don’t need to worry about courses; or other Japanese eating experiences like shabu-shabu, yakiniku, okonomiyaki etc where you do it all yourself. It also happens with main courses if you have more than 2 people sitting down to eat – often 2 will get their meal whilst the rest will have to wait a further 5 minutes before tucking in. I don’t know, but it does seem to be something of a cultural blind spot.

The following day we what most people do when going away for a couple of days in Japan and went to an onsen. This was a jolly swish, new looking place to the north of Karuizawa, up a hill a bit. This is worthy of mention as it was the youngster’s first trip to an onsen and we were on the wary side due to the often very hot nature of the water (and he, being small, isn’t too good with hot water). But like most things when you’re 2½ years old he just took it all in as a big adventure. The good thing about onsens is that they are generally big, so lots of space to run around naked, which is what all little kids enjoy doing, as, let’s face it, do their fathers. So we did the whole onsen thing of washing and then sitting around outside in the bath generally relaxing and so forth. Nice though the onsen was it didn’t actually provide a beer machine for me to buy beer, so one of life’s little pleasures was unfortunately denied. But the bar next to the onsen did serve some local brew, the name of which I have now forgotten, but it was jolly nice.

That day we also visited an odd shaped church, which was odd but strangely pleasant. The oddest thing about the place was its founder, however, who was big in dentistry in the early 20^th century and this was how he made the money to build the church. Under the church, where the crypt should have been, they had a little museum dedicated to him and it had old slogans he had made up, like ‘Spirituality Through Healthy Teeth!’, which I thought was great.

Anyway that was about it. I’ve written too much now, my work here is done.

2007-10-14T15:38:00.000+09:00

Rugby World Cup

OK, haven't really written much about anything recently (proper new post in the pipeline, with photos this time), but just wanted a quick mention of the old RWC and England's phoenix like rise from the ashes of, well, the last 4 years.

So, into another final, this time against either the Boks or the Pumas. Personal choice would be the Boks so we can beat them and make up for the 0-36 drubbing we got in the pool game - how much would that stick in the craw of the Boks and their supporters? Beat us in a pool but, when it really matters, coming up short... Of course I'm sure England aren't thinking that way as hubris has a habit of, well, coming back to haunt you. Or something. But I would also love for Argentina to be in the final, just so they can stick 2 fingers up to the IRB, the Tri-Nations and the 6-Nations for shamefully ignoring them all these years.

Anyway, whoever it is, come on England. If you have the time, and inclination, take trip back to 2003 and see the nonsense I was writing then.

2007-09-12T23:20:00.000+09:00

Requiem for Silent Shinzo

the end

2007-09-11T21:13:00.000+09:00

Your friendly, neighbourhood bobbies on the beat

Apparently this is a flyer published by the friendly boys in blue from Ibaraki. Just a quiet note to the locals that states the best policy when dealing with the influx of foreigners, all of whom are criminals, is to "stop them at the shores!"

Yes, that is a total of 7 riot police subduing one helpless chap (well, 6 and their mate on his way in to help out)...

Just in case you're wondering, the first 3 kanji in yellow say "gaikokujin", or foreigner. And I thought Japan was a friendly place.

For more see the newspaper report here.

2007-08-23T21:59:00.000+09:00

Not long until the Rugby World Cup

So here's something to get you in the mood (and have a laugh at Association Football)

2007-08-09T18:41:00.000+09:00

Quick hello

Am on holiday this week, and most of next for that matter, so have a little time to post (I said it was only adieu, not goodbye).

So. this week I have mostly been going to the park. Most parks in Japan are a bit rubbish, like the one near our flat. That one is a smallish expanse of white gravel, with about four trees, some playground equipment (which is ok), a toilet (into which I once threw up whilst 'looking after' the young 'un) and a water fountain. This is fine in the autumn and spring but in summer, with 35 degree days, it is like a furnace as you get heat from the sun, reflected heat from the ground and nowhere to hide. The metal playground equipment often reaches temperatures of 850,000 degrees during August, causing small children to combust on the spot.

But the park near the station is different. First of all it's bigger, which is useful, and this space has been put to good use. Firstly a shitload of trees were planted a long time ago. I have posted before about the trees in spring when the cherry blossoms are out, and jolly nice and plentifulthey are too, but they also have maples (to look nice in the autumn) and lots of what I think of as 'western trees', such as beeches, chestnuts and sycamores, giving the place a bit of height as well.

But more importantly than that the good burghers of Kawaguchi also decided to build a small, paddling river that runs from the top of the park to the bottom, with several sections, with little rapids and places that kids, and their hot parents, can easily get into the water. I cannot begin to describe the pleasure of standing in cool, calf-deep water, under a tree, on a blisteringly hot day whilst the little fella mucks about and generally enjoys himself.

2007-06-05T22:53:00.000+09:00

Not goodbye, as such

You might have noticed that I've been rather lax with the posting recently, bit difficult not to notice really. But work is exceptionally busy and I've started studying Japanese again, 930 to 1030 every evening (have a suspicion the company is going through a rough patch, so better make myself more marketable...), which kind of cuts into blogging time.

So, I'll try and post again soon, but I wouldn't go holding your collective breath if I were you, as I don't know how regular this is going to be.

Still, it's been fun.

Adieu

2007-05-19T16:20:00.000+09:00

Preserving the great traditions of S.E Asian nations

Laos the great whaling nation or Japan at it again? You decide...

2007-05-16T21:58:00.000+09:00

Hmm

Lots of odd stuff going off in Japan right now. None of it, I should point out now, concerns Silent Shinzo, but that is to be expected. In fact he's a bit like Silent Bob in those Jay and Silent Bob Do Mescaline type films, one of which I watched once (I think I might have been drunk at the time, that is only reason I can think of that I actually sat through it).

I digress. No, read in the paper this morning that a 17 year old boy, a high school student as you would expect, from a central bit of Japan walked into a police station yesterday morning with his mother's head in a platic bag, as you would probably not expect. Apparently this boy had killed his mother and hacked off her head the previous night because "he really wanted to kill someone" and I suppose his mother was the closest person to hand, as it were. I know Japan is full of weird, but how weird is that? What strike me are parallels with the chap who did all the killing at Virginia Tech in America a month or two ago. Both boys, both obviously very disturbed...er, that's about it on the parallels, but the main difference which I can see, but a lot of Americans can't, is that fact that American college chap got his hands on lots of guns and ammunition and managed to take a lot of his classmates with him, whilst Japanese boy, with only a knife, decided he didn't need his mother anymore and then turned himself in. At least he kept it in the family (I realise that is not a particularly nice thing to say, and certainly isn't too good for his mum, but it did keep the death toll down).

Other weird thing is the new hatch down in Kumamoto. This is a baby hatch, the first in Japan, where parents with new offspring who suddenly decide they don't want said offspring can leave the little one in a hatch in a hospital and the nursing staff will take the baby in and look after it etc. Why anyone would wait until giving birth before deciding they don't want to keep their baby is beyond me, but obviously people do (and before we get into a discussion about the prosand cons of abortion, the Japanese have a very different take on abortion than the typical western view and it is, because of this, a lot more common - I'm not saying that's good or bad, it just they have a different way of thinkning about it with much less of the stigma (but no less of the emotion, I feel sure)). Anyway the weirdness was that yesterday morning, I think, or amybe before, the nurses found a 3 year old boy had been abandoned in the hatch. Now relieving yourself of a newborn must be pretty hard, but a 3 year old! Apparently the little boy is 'helping police with their inquiries', to use the euphemism, but what sort of parents would do that? (answer, I suppose, is desperate ones).

Anyway that's all quite depressing. On a lighter note Steve and I ventured into town last week to watch the Classic All Blacks do a number on the Japan national team on the rugby paddock. At half time it was 6-10 to the Old New Zealanders (I think calling them the All Blacks adds to their aura, they're from New Zealand, so say that!) and so we thought that ew might have a game on our hands, but alas no as after 1/2 time the ONZ's scored 26 points with noreply to walk away with it. The Japan coach is ex-NZ star John Kirwan, he wanted his charges to play the ONZs to toughen them up a bit before the Pacific 6 Nations - that's all well and good but I shudder to thnk what score the Young New Zealanders would put on this Japan team...

And finally. Just a few words about the little fella, he now has more energy than that star that exploded recently and got all the NASA scientists in a tizzy. However he is putting this to good use by learning lots of new words, some of which we even teach him. His favourites right now are 'where are you?' which he says whilst hiding behind the curtains; daddy + noun, such as daddy belt, daddy work, daddy beer or daddy shoooes, just in case I had forgotten; whilst also beginning to realise that some words work better with daddy, like 'pick me up' (as I won't respond when he asks me in Japanese), but when mummy is cooking he'll point to the cooker and say 'abunai' rather than dangerous, both of which he knows. Clever that.

2007-05-01T23:57:00.000+09:00

Lots of stuff

Well where to begin with it all? I think the last proper post was before I went back to the UK on the business trip. This was a successful little jaunt with myself and the principal from Taiwan going in there kicking butt. Well sort of. We certainly went and we certainly kicked about London for a week or so. But whether any butt was involved or not I suppose is a moot point. At the time the trip seemed successful, but now, a month or so later the fruits of our labours seem a little less burnished. This is more to do with the owner of the company and whether he wants to spend money or not, and, as his history in this department is not the strongest, I think our plans may come to naught, or at least, closer to naught that we want. The trip did, however, confirm what a little weasel the supposed boss of UK operations is, I am surprised his cutlery drawer has any knives left in it, judging by the number I saw protruding from various colleagues’ shoulder blades (ooh, bitchy). I now get the Guru to check my back every time I come home – so far so clear, but I will not be betting on any hedges.

Of course the other reason to be back was to see friends and family, which I managed to do equally successfully, though this was a weird feeling as I was back in December, only 4 short months previously, and it didn’t quite feel right seeing everyone again so soon. Usually I go for 12 to 18 months between visits so twice in four months and we almost didn’t have anything to talk about. Indeed the whole trip felt a bit weird, I had a vague and nagging sense that I wasn’t working enough even though my days did seem to begin at about 9 (into the office) and finish about 11pm (back to the hotel), but the evenings seemed to be spent in pubs, which although I was with work people talking about work things (and spending work money, in some cases), didn’t quite feel like work, even though it was. Then the whole slightly odd family/friend feeling and you have a strange sense of, well, weirdness.

Whilst I was away, of course, the poor English teacher was murdered, so for once Japan was all over the English media whilst I was in the UK. I didn’t know the girl but she lived in the town that we used to live in so a few people I know did know her apparently, and possibly one chap even knew the guy that did it (though said chap is a bit of a bullshitter, so that could all be hot air). But get this right, on Thursday last week one of our managers, an Australian woman, was groped on a train. Groping is, unfortunately, quite widespread on Japanese trains and there are posters everywhere saying things like ‘if it happens to you, shout for help’, so my colleague did and no one lifted a finger to help her. She dragged the guy onto the platform, kept shouting, but no help. Eventually a couple of young guys helped her get the miscreant downstairs to the station office because ‘she was causing trouble’, all the while telling the bloke it would be ok (what about her!?). The station officials asked her what she wanted to do, she said call the police so they did but then let the bloke go! She then had to drag him back into the station and lock him in a room. When the police finally arrived she was made to feel that she had done something wrong and caused an affray – right up to the point she showed her ID card and they realized she was married to a Japanese guy, at which point they became very helpful and apologetic. This all happened around 8-9pm but she wasn’t allowed to leave the police station until 3am as they questioned and questioned her, made her act out the scene several times and took lots of photos. She was even finger-printed because she didn’t have an official ‘hanko’ or family seal with her. Good to know that foreign women can feel a little bit safer now after the Lucie Blackman and Lindsay Hawker incidents.

Anyway enough of that. On getting back to Japan work suddenly decided to bowl a few off breaks at me, so I went from quite busy to exceptionally busy in the blink of an eye. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say we have staff problems (they want more) coupled with company problems (we’ve got less) which is the recipe for, well, more crap for me to have to deal with. This one isn’t going to end anytime soon, I fear, so we could be in for a long summer of discontent, which will be fun.

On a much happier note the youngster achieved the ripe old ago of two years on April 27th, which I my book is a good reason to have a party. So we had one. In reality he got an extended, long weekend party as his birthday was on the Friday, the last Friday before I finished work for the Golden Week hols. So on Friday he got to open a couple of presents before I went off to work. At this moment he opened a couple from my parentals (a noisy bus and a couple of DVDs) and from us (books). Then on Saturday he got his main present from us, which was a brand new bicycle. As you can see from the photos below he doesn’t have much to do at the moment except sit on it as he can’t get the hang of steering and has no idea what pedals are for. That meant that Saturday afternoon was spent pushing him around on aforementioned bike.

That evening I went off into Tokyo to see a friend’s band play, which was excellent except for the fact that someone forced me to drink an intemperate amount of beer, mostly without me realizing it, so that come Sunday I was much the worse for wear. This wouldn’t have been too bad had I been allowed to lie in bed and groan the day away, but with a hyperactive 2 year old, with a new bike, and a wife who wants you both out so she can clean the house, it was not too be. We made it to the park, where he could run around a lot and I didn’t have to do very much, but thank goodness the park had a toilet (and for any new parents out there a word of advice – hangovers and children’s’ swings are a match made in hell; avoid).

So then on Monday we had his birthday party. This entailed inviting the Guru’s side of the family over for tea and cakes. The little ‘un is getting pretty good at recognizing the different parts of the family. He knows, for example, that oojiisan and oobaasan (grandfather and grandmother respectively) are likely to visit and is jolly happy when they do, like Monday. Conversely he knows that ganma and ganpa (the closest he can get to grandma and grandpa) live in the computer and we see them every few weeks or so (we see them via webcam, hence them living in the computer). He even knows that cousin Charlie lives in the computer as well, with uncle Julian and Auntie Katharine, though not in the same place as ganma and ganpa as he doesn’t see them so often. Anyway is he in for a big shock in the summer when we all go back and he finds out these are real people!

So anyhoo they came over (the Japanese side, that is, the UK side webcammed on Friday evening, reinforcing the above notion of computer habitage) and the aforementioned tea and cakes were had, as was beer and other food stuffs. As you can probably tell I’m trying to find something interesting to write about here, but alas it was not to be. We did go for a walk down by the river and took photos, as you can see below, but that was about it. Tomorrow, however, we are off the Aquarium in Ikebukuro as I feel it would be beneficial to the youngster’s education (and I think aquariums (aquaria?) rock), so more photos then – might even write something about Japan...

(Oh yeah, Silent Shinzo had a big pow-wow with the Chinese PM (whose name escapes me right now...Jintao, or was that an old one?) and then with the USandA PM Georgie B, but I still can’t think of anything to write about the bloke. For f*ck’s sakes do something Shinzo!)

2007-04-18T21:39:00.000+09:00

What's he talking about?

"It is the vast majority of the people in the world against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world.

"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength.

This was Hilary Benn talking about "terrorists" and the subsequent downgrading of the use of the term 'the war on terror' by the Blair administration.

Or was he talking about Blair, the neo-cons and the George W Bush...?

Anyway Apologies

I'm sorry, I haven't posted for a while, I just don't seem to have the time at the moment. Tonight is the first night in what feels like weeks (it is weeks) that I have been home at a reasonable hour (i.e. before 9pm), so blogging has fallen by the wayside. I will get back on that horse just as soon as I can, especially as the first week of May is all holiday, but it might all be a bit quiet until then.

2007-04-05T21:53:00.000+09:00

Back but jet-lagged

So have returned from my international business jet set lifestyle trip to the UK but have been straight back into the office and am knackered. So, if it's ok with you, and even if it's not, I will not be writing usual post just yet.

But I should mention that I did play backgammon with the fatherly parental and he did whip my sorry a$$ something like 26-10, though even he had to admit that my dice did appear to be loaded against me. Oh well, good work there and better luck (for me) next time...

2007-03-19T21:19:00.000+09:00

The comfort of women

Japan has a bit of a pesky little irritant that just won’t go away. No, not Krazy Kim this time, or gone-bad politicos, or corrupt business persons or even a dodgy building industry (though it does have all of these things to worry about). No, the little itch that Japan just can’t scratch is the Second World War.

Now it might seem odd that I am writing about this a mere 62 years after the jaunt ended, but to use a clichéd Americanism, Japan just can’t get any closure. The problem is, however, self inflicted (unlike the war) because Japan just can’t or won’t accept that they really did anything wrong. It was a war, you see, so anything goes (as in, now for a second tired cliché one paragraph, ‘all’s fair in love and war’ (and as far as I can tell Japan loved being at war (well, in the beginning when they were winning (I digress (and have used too many brackets now (darn))))). Now I have written in the past about certain things that happened in the war (or perhaps didn’t) like the Rape of Nanking and also the aftermath, such as the ongoing issues with Japanese PMs visiting Yasukuni Shrine to honour class A war criminals. But another issue has also never gone away, that of the alleged, so called, unverified, supposed ‘Comfort Women’.

The basic premise of this is simple, during the war the Japanese army forced many thousands of women to work as prostitutes but specifically to provide ‘comfort’ for Japanese soldiers stationed overseas in places like China and the Philippines. Now the government finds it very hard to deny this since former Imperial Army soldiers have come forward and said they did this, the forcible rounding up, and also in 1992 a number of documents were declassified showing that the army did indeed run official brothels. So now, it seems, the official line is that Japan accepts moral responsibility for this treatment, but not legal responsibility, and even that’s pushing it a bit as Silent Shinzo recently declaimed that there is ‘no proof’ of any of this. However the official way they argue it is this:

1. Even if the women were held against their will there was no law against it at the time
2. If it was illegal to force women to be prostitutes (and we’re not saying it was, see point 1), then the international laws you might be referring to didn’t apply in military-occupied territories
3. Even if we are caught out by 1 and 2 above, everything was settled at the end of the war so we have no case to answer

And this is what the courts in Japan have been saying for the last 62 years, or at least since people have been trying to sue the government. For example in 2000 the Tokyo District court threw out a case by 46 former alleged sex slaves when it decided that ‘crimes against humanity’ (on which the case was brought) as a concept did not exist in the 1940s, whilst a court in Hiroshima in 2001 threw out a case stating that coerced sex wasn’t illegal in the 1940s! The courts obviously didn’t know their history because apparently the notion of crimes against humanity goes all the way back to 1904, whilst in the first half of the twentieth century Japan signed up to no less than 4 international treaties outlawing the white slave trade, trafficking in women and the abolition of forced labour. So you’d think that they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but still the government won’t make any reparations or, really, admit that it happened and say they are sorry.

Of course because Japan is a sovereign state you can’t actually sue it from the outside, so you can’t bring a case against the Japanese government in, say, America, you can only do that in Japan (and fair enough on that score). But as noted above the judiciary in Japan don’t look like they are about to go as far as admitting to anything anytime soon, even when it is pointed out that the basis on which some courts make their decisions are fundamentally incorrect.

The third defense of the government, about things being sorted after the war, is also erroneous, or at least open to attack. Apparently after the end of the pacific war the country was in a bit of a state so when it came to war reparations, mindful of 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles, MacArthur or whoever it was who took these decisions said, effectively, “aw c’mon, these little guys are whacked so no, you can’t have any of their money because right now they haven’t got any”. The important thing here, say prosecutors, is the ‘right now’ bit because, they argue, in 1945 that may well have been the case but in 2007, or even more likely in 1988 before the bubble burst, Japan has money to burn (OK, that happens now with soon-to-be-discovered prefectoral slush funds) and some of it should be going to those who were wringed in the past.

The article I have taken a lot of this from (from the Los Angeles Times section in the Yomiuri (it had to be a foreign newspaper as the Japanese press isn’t going to write anything balanced about this issue c.f. Yasukuni etc)) reckons that Japan will need to do something about this in the not too distant future as it is affecting relations with Asian neighbours and trading partners such as China, Korea and the Philippines, but personally I wouldn’t be holding my breath. Japan has far, far too much of a grip on the ‘Japan was the real victim’ stance with regard to WW2, mainly on account of the atomic bombings of the two cities. Whilst this was indeed a terrible and abhorrent thing, there is a collective, national blindness about what happened in the decade before August 1945 that led to the decision to drop the bombs. Therefore issues like Nanking, Yasukuni and Comfort women will run and run until there is no one left alive to champion them and then they’ll be quietly forgotten.

NB Anyone else feel that the government’s defense #2, the one about happening in occupied countries, is just a bit too close to Bush, extraordinary rendition and the hostages enemy combatants held in Guantanamo Bay for, ahem, comfort...?

But anyway...

Wouldn’t you just know it? Last week a letter arrived for me. It looked very plain and the envelope promised neither that I had won any yen nor that I was being asked to fork any out. And as no birthdays or anniversaries were due, so I was perplexed. On opening the envelope I was somewhat surprised to find an invitation to the Embassy to view cherry blossoms with the outgoing and newly arriving Consuls General (I think that’s the correct plural) on Tuesday 27th March. It was the proper thing, too, mostly printed but name handwritten. And this had come to the flat, not to the office, so it was obviously a personal, rather than a professional invitation (I think). Anyway the bugger is is that I will be flying to the UK on Monday 26th March and will therefore be unable to attend.

I RSVP’d as per the instructions and the women to whom I spoke seemed a little surprised. Then again I did say to her that, assuming that the reason Her Majesty’s government want to meet me was to recruit my services for a spot of cloak-and-dagger, I would be only too happy to visit the MI5 building in London next week instead of meeting my contact at the embassy. At that point she hung up, rather abruptly I thought, so I am still waiting for my ‘drop’ details in London, it will all be very hush-hush so I’ll probably have to wait a week or two until I can write about it, but rest assured I’ll keep everyone informed...

2007-03-14T22:22:00.000+09:00

Happy thoughts

Am reading this book at the moment, as you can see from the sidebar, about the Vietnam War. The basic premise is simple – get a load of the old protagonists together, those responsible for the war rather than the foot soldiers, and get them to chinwag like that should have done 50 years ago and find out if they missed any opportunities to not have a war.

When I started reading this book I thought this was a fascinating premise and got into the book, but on reflection I think they are, to a greater or lesser extent, a bunch of fools. It’s easy not to have a war, you just don’t fight. When you’ve started you just say stop. I don’t know if I’m being too simplistic here, though I think I probably am, but surely it is easier not to have a war than it is to have one, especially if the two protagonists are separated by 5000 miles of ocean.

However the main current of the book is that the knowledge of each side about the other was, essentially, non-existent, and their ability to communicate with each other wasn’t a great deal better. If they’re going to talk about missing opportunities I feel it would be better to do it with wars that are yet possibly not to happen, such as the bellicose rantings of the US against, for example, Iran, rather than an opportunity that has been missed already, as in Vietnam. But perhaps that’s the point and that we should learn from our mistakes – if so I hope someone gives George Bush a copy of this book before it’s all too late.

Interestingly, in the Vietnam War, so the book says, the ‘intelligence’ community apparently were the ones to get it right, by basically saying, from a very early point, that the US was never going to win the war, not even close, their military strategies were doomed to failure and that they were fighting a completely different war than they thought they were. But the military were blind and deaf to this and kept shouting at various presidents to increase troop numbers until they had enough materiel to defeat the ‘enemy’ (though even knowing who the enemy was was quite tricky). I’m not sure about you, but this does sound suspiciously like what has happened for the last few years since 9/11 to me i.e. intelligence being twisted to be ‘fit for a purpose’ then the military going in, doing a job and then being totally unprepared for the aftermath, and then just shouting at everyone to provide more troops for a war that is increasingly unpopular at home. But, and this is big but, Iraq is not the new Vietnam, right...?

2007-03-05T22:38:00.000+09:00

Rich Pickings

So, had a tricky week at work last week, hence no posting, but must admit the creative juices not flowing to freely either, which doesn’t help.

This week also there hasn’t been much going on to write home about, as it were. The results of the question posed in the last post, about Silent Shinzo’s apparent fall from grace were published in the Yomiuri, but such were the responses that I can’t really remember what they were on about (which isn’t good reportage, I realize, but there you go). Anyway from what I remember there were things like ‘he hasn’t had enough time yet so give him a chance’, also at least a couple of ‘well, what has he done?’ which kind of reflects what I was banging on about in the post, whilst I’m sure there was one ‘I just don’t like his ugly mug’, of which I heartily agree. Of course Silent Shinzo’s response to this was a furious verbal broadside against the print media in general and the Yomiuri in particular, where he savaged the inanity of the questioning and questioned the reliability and validity of the research undertaken. Or maybe not, but it is nice to speculate what he might have thought.

What we did you, yesterday, was go strawberry picking. The reason we did this was, ostensibly, to show the little ‘un that strawberries do not grow in plastic trays in supermarkets but are, in fact, part of living things called plants. So off we trooped to Konosu at 715 on Sunday morning. Now Konosu, for regular readers on this blog, might sound familiar, as indeed it should as it is the place where yours truly has been to get/renew my driving license (see here if you’re bored). I am beginning to think that Konosu may well be the centre of the universe as far as Saitama Prefecture is concerned, or at least the centre of Saitama. So anyway we get there at about 845am and go to this suspiciously small plastic greenhouse and ask a startled looking chap if we are in time. The reason we have to do this is this is a strange place – they only give out 40 tickets for fruit pickers and don’t take bookings, so if you get there and all tickets are gone then you are out of luck, bye! You may think this odd – me too, but don’t worry, it get odder.

We were in luck and safely procured three tickets but then, as the picking didn’t start until 10am, we had bugger all to do. Now luckily there was a playground thing and so the youngster could spend an hour clambering over, under, through and around things, mostly avoiding other bigger kids running amok, but not always. At the appointed hour we re-presented ourselves to startled looking chap, his visage hadn’t changed, at which point he asked us, and others, if we wouldn’t mind getting in number order according to the tickets. OK, this wouldn’t be too tricky unless he had given out random numbers, ah. So as we had 27, 29 and 32, this meant the youngster would be on his own in between random punters, but then, after a moment of milling, everybody ignored startled bloke anyway. And I thought these Japanese were meant to take rules seriously?

Now the picking could begin. But this was no ordinary picking, rather it was a strawberry eating experience. You went into the greenhouse, picked a strawberry off an obliging plant and then ate it. You had a small punnet in which to catch the strawberries as you cut them off the plant and also a small dish containing condensed milk, which you often eat with strawberries here, and that was it, off you go and eat for 30 minutes whilst, of course, paying for the pleasure. There was none of this collecting strawberries and taking them home to make a nice pie or, indeed, tart. Now I don’t know about you, but I have a threshold of how many strawberries with condensed milk I can eat at 10am on a Sunday morning, standing in an overly warm greenhouse in Konosu and it does not, I can confirm, take 30 minutes to reach that threshold. More like 10 minutes, and that was pushing it. The Guru also, I must add, felt likewise. The only person who might have wanted to stay and consume even more (but without the condensed milk) was the youngster. I don’t know if he came to realize that strawberries grow on plants, but he definitely did find out that all he had to do was follow a parent around and he would be given lots and lots of them to eat.

And that was about it. We went, we ate, we returned. They were very nice strawberries though.

2007-02-20T22:37:00.000+09:00

The Abe issue

The Daily Yomiuri has, once a month, a readers’ write-in thing where they propose a theme and your average punter can write in and let loose their thoughts. Recently they have had such things as ‘what more can Japan do to encourage eco-friendliness in others so we don’t have to?’; ‘Just how many nukes should we drop on Krazy Kim’s People Mart?’; and a personal favourite ‘What avenues of whining should Japan now explore in an attempt to get a permanent seat on the UNSC?’. This month’s question is a little different, however. If memory served it is something like ‘Why has new-ish PM Shinzo Abe’s popularity gone down the tubes?’

Now I have thought long and hard about this over the past few minutes and I must admit to being at something of a loss. This might strike you as strange, but it is so. The reason I am at a loss might, however, also be the reason his popularity has gone down the tubes, as I can’t think of anything that Shizo has done since he became PM, so much so that I still can’t think of a decent, or indeed any, nickname for him, which I find just a little bit depressing.

So, he came to power after the Kool Kid Koizumi collected his P45 in September last year and, as far as I can remember, really hasn’t done anything. It almost seems as if Japan has gone to sleep with him at the helm. Reading through the archives of this blog, as I am wont to do on occasion when bored, I have come across posts about Krazy Kim, about dodgy architects, scandals a-plenty, succession issues, Yasukuni, takeovers and makeovers and all sorts of other things that happened with, to and by the Kid (read back, you’ll find them all in there (somewhere)), but since the autumn I really can’t think of too much that has gone on. OK, there was the cabinet minister that said women were essentially ‘birthing machines’ and that they were failing in their duty – he threatened to resign but Abe wouldn’t let him. That was interesting for about a day, but that’s about it.

It’s almost as if John Major has decided that being the most dull and boring politico in Britain wasn’t enough so he thought he’d branch out and give another legislature a go. But maybe, and here possibly is the point of all this, the Kool Kid has actually done what all politicians want to do but generally fail in the attempt: he changed the game (here in Japan), changed the political landscape. Recast the mindset of ‘the people’ (whoever we/they are). Redefined what it is to be a politico in Japan. Reinvented. Shifted. No longer are ‘the people’ going to be happy with a faceless, humourless, unmemorable grey suit. Now, because of the Kid, perhaps people want politicos who try and do stuff, who have opinions, who try to change the way things work (or don’t work), who say things like ‘oops, might have bungled that one a tad’ and who have, (shudder) some passion for the job.

The thing with the Kid was that he polarized opinion, he really was, it seems to me, either loved or hated. Now that might seem strange if you are reading this in the UK or US (or elsewhere, but I don’t know much about the politics of that country) as political parties, and political issues, often have the effect of polarizing opinion, but here in Japan consensus has often been the order of the day. This is perhaps because Japan has essentially had one political party in power since 1945 (the good ‘ole Liberal Democratic party, who are neither liberal nor democratic, natch) and also because harmony is/was paramount – in this sense harmony means collusion between big business and big politics to ensure people are told what to do and then do it, sort of like Stalin or Hitler’s command economy but with smiles, nicer cars and no gulags. But the Kid, with acts like going postal (privatizing the postal savings system), being principled (kicking out the dissenters in the party) and having the balls to fight (his back me or sack me the country at the last election, and they backed him), maybe something changed in Japanese politics which has, perhaps quite unexpectedly, changed something in the electorate.

So when Silent Shinzo (how about that one?) comes along, expecting everyone to slip back into their late-90s political acquiescence, he may be feeling just a tad miffed that people are asking him questions and expecting (as if?!) answers and action. I think there may be a lot of head scratching going on the Strip OL Shabu-shabu joints of Shinjuku as the old guard, the ones who breathed a sigh of relief when the Kid was as good as his word and retired in September, try and figure out how they can run a damned country with a lame duck PM and an increasingly irritating tendency from ‘the people’ to ask questions they shouldn’t and expect something approaching a reasonable, or at least reasonably believable but not necessarily true, answer.

Or I might be wrong, maybe they just don’t like his ugly mug, but I’d like to think that there’s a bit more to it than that.