In the News

Here are two news stories I read today that seem quite different at first, but are basically about the same thing.

Homeless Woman Lives For a Year In Man's Closet

Uncontacted Tribe Spotted in Amazon

Recent Events

So, I moved from Kashiwa, into a hotel for a few days, and finally into my new place in Yokohama. Actually, I'm out in the suburbs. Yokohama is, I believe, the 3rd largest city in Japan, but where I am feels like a very residential small town. It's quite pleasant...

Last week I was traveling all over the place, doing sample lessons. It was fun, I suppose ... I got to visit a lot of campuses in the Tokyo area, and meet a lot of students. Then last Wednesday, I took the bullet train up to Fukushima for the day, which was also fun.

I had my orientation for the new university on Thursday, and yesterday was the first day of school. It was kind of crazy; we didn't know where we were going, or anything, and I was almost late for my first class, but it ended up being okay. The students are extremely low level, but very enthusiastic and nice.

But just to backtrack a bit, I had a weird experience Thursday night. After the orientation, I went out with some co-workers as it was my last day in the office. After some food and some drinks, we came out of the bar and started heading for the subway. It was about 10 p.m. at this point, and they weren't very many people on the street. We rounded the corner, and I noticed an old man lying on his back in the sidewalk about 20 metres ahead of us. "Crazy old drunk!" I thought; it's rare but not unheard of to see people passed out in the street at night. But this was a very strange place to pass out. As we got closer, I realized from the position of his limbs and the way he was lying, that he wasn't drunk. "This isn't good," I remember saying. I ran up and yelled, "Are you all right?" He obviously wasn't. I felt for a pulse at his neck and at his wrist. There was nothing, and in fact, he was cold to the touch. "He's dead ... you'd better call the police..."

My Japanese co-worker went off to get the police from the local station, and I stayed with the body. The man's eyes were open slightly, and there was a trace of blood around his nose and mouth. He had been wearing a medical-type bracelet on his wrist, but it had fallen off. His clothes were strangely askew. At some point, I realized that he had jumped or fallen out of the high-rise apartment we were standing in front of. It was starting to rain, and I had this feeling that I couldn't just stand there and let him get rained on, so I held my umbrella over his body. A small crowd of people gradually started to accumulate. The sight of me holding my umbrella over a dead body must have made the whole scene doubly strange. Within a few minutes, a pair of young police officers rode up on their bicycles. They felt for a pulse, didn't find one, and then radioed it in. My Japanese co-worker had to stay and answer a few questions, but I was free to go so I left.

On the way home, the train was full, as usual, with all kinds of people: taciturn salary-men, boistrous couples, sleepy high school students, housewives. I couldn't stop looking at their faces. A few people must have wondered what I was staring at.

More Hanami Photos...

As promised, here are some of the photos from the blossom viewing party a few weeks back.





If you want to see more, they are online here.

Moving Day

You would think I'd be pretty used to moving by now. I've moved about 10 times or more in the past couple years, so I've had plenty of practice. I notice a few common things every time I move:

In the week leading up to the move, I look around and think, "I don't have that much stuff. It won't be too hard to pack up." As I'm in the process of packing, I think, "Where did I ever get so much crap? I'm going to have to throw half of it away." When I finally finish, and everything's boxed up, I think, "Is this it? This is the sum total of my belongings in Japan?? 1.5 cubic meters?"

I do the same thing with time. I leave the packing to the last minute, because I think it won't take too long. By the middle of my packing frenzy, I think I'll never get finished in time. But I almost always finish early, and then have to sit around for a couple hours for the courier guys to come get my stuff.

Maybe the worst part about packing up and moving out is that the apartment has to be absolutely empty; you can't even leave a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom or a coat hanger in the closet. So, you have to think "backwards" and pack those things which you might need at the last minute, last. So, working backwards, you want to be sure to throw away (this is backwards, remember...) the last toilet paper roll, the extra garbage bags, the paper towels, the cleaning products, that last can of pop/beer to get you through the afternoon, the cleaning supplies, the hand towel, .... I think you can appreciate how irritating it is when you've already thrown something into the garbage, and then suddenly you realize you need it. "Oh, I have to wash my hands... oops, already threw out the soap." Or, "Hey, I forgot there's a jar of jam and some bread ... oops, I already threw out my cutlery. Maybe I can put the jam on there with my fingers." Which is what I did today.

Anyway, I've moved out of my place, and I'm now in a hotel on the west side of Tokyo for a few days. It's funny; I've never been out here before, and it's so strange, I feel as though I could be on Mars. I don't know the trains, or how to read the station names, or anything, which is baffling. If you know where you're going, maps are so simple as to be trivial, but when you actually need to look at a map for information, they become pretty confusing. Most place names, for example, have some kind of non-standard reading. I was staring at a train map for a good 5 minutes today, and finally gave up and asked the guy where to catch my train. The reason I couldn't figure out which train to get on was because almost all the trains go to my destination (except one). Sure enough, I almost got on that one wrong train, but my nervous nature stopped me, and I finally figured it out.

I think most foreigners have a pretty low opinion of signs and maps in Japan. I don't know who designs them, or what kind of qualifications they have, but there seem to be a lot of really dumb mistakes. For example, those signs that say, "You are here" but the orientation of the sign is exactly opposite the way you're actually standing in relation to the real world, so you think you have to go straight ahead, but really you need to turn around first. Or signs that use 35 different colours to try to indicate 35 slightly different kinds of information, but the difference in colour is so subtle that you need to get paint chips to match up the map colours with the legend. Or, (like what happened to me today) the sign for the train says, "Bound for Karakida" and no matter how long you stare at the map, you just can't find Karakida, so you don't even know if that train is going in the right direction. God forbid they maybe put Karakida (and the other various final stops) in bold or something so you can find them easily.

Anyway, if Tokyo gets the Olympics (are they still in the running?) then maybe there will be a signage revolution. Until then, I make sure to carry my compass with me at all times - even in downtown Tokyo.

Blossom Viewing

I think hanami, or blossom viewing, season in Japan is, in its own way, the closest thing the Japanese have to our Christmas. The reasons for the celebrations are totally different, the approach is different, the activities are different, but it's a special season that creeps up on you every year, when you sit back and take a minute to reflect on the good things in life, and how lucky you are, and how quickly time goes by. For us, Christmas has heavy religious meanings, but it's also the festival of lights, a time when we really appreciate the beauty of a silent landscape shrouded in snow. For the Japanese, hanami is a time to appreciate the beauty of the cherry blossoms, which come quickly and fade just as fast. Cherry blossoms symbolize the brevity of life; the tree is the most beautiful just as its petals begin to fall off; just as the flowers start to die.

Anyway, it's also a time to get together with friends, get a tarp and some food and lots of booze, and then go and sit in a park and get totally shitfaced. Because Japan is such an extraordinarily peaceful place, there's rarely any trouble or rowdiness. So it's really a very pleasant time, actually, especially if you're 'faced yourself.

My friends and I got together on Sunday for a hanami party. Actually, two of them planned it and took the extraordinary step of going to the park at 9:30 am to secure a good spot on the lawn. That meant that, by the time I got there at noon, they were already wankered, or whatever those damn Brits and Aussies say.

Apparently, a helicopter from the Asahi Newspaper was flying by taking a photograph just as I got there. That photo above is of me, (plus a whole bunch of other onlookers). It was on the front page of the Asahi Daily News this morning. Quite a nice souvenir of hanami this year, I must say.

Note: I had planned to zoom in and show you exactly where I am, but the photo I stole from the Asahi website seems to be really low quality or something. I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, you can speculate as to which one's me. Hint: tall, balding, pale.

Tsukiji Fish Market

I haven't updated this thing in quite a while. I moved, and started working, and have been doing some martial arts occasionally, but that's about it. So there wasn't much to report on, but last weekend I finally got out of the house and did something.

Some of my co-workers planned a trip to Tsukiji, the fish market which handles most of the incoming fish to Japan. It's the largest fish market in the world, and is a bustling place full of activity that starts early in the morning and is mostly finished by noon. For some reason, it appears in almost every tourist guidebook to Tokyo as a great place to visit, which has always struck me as a bit strange. For one thing, maybe it IS the biggest fish market in the world, but honestly ... who cares? For another thing, it is primarily a workplace, and I always figured that tourists would just be in the way. It seems a very tourist-y thing to do to just barge in and watch someone (who would prefer that you weren't there at all) go about their livelihood. I can't imagine that tourists would want to visit the stockyards in Chicago, even though (maybe) it is the largest beef slaughterhouse in the world. Nor would they be welcome.

But anyway, I decided it might be interesting, and I really wanted to eat the sushi there, so I woke up early on Saturday morning and met my co-workers. 9 of us showed up, and off we went to check out the market.


As I said, it's really not an appropriate place for tourists. There is nowhere to stand, and everywhere you go you are in the way. If you try to stand in the parking lot, within 20 seconds, a truck wants to park where you are standing. If you stand in the aisles of the market itself, you are blocking traffic of these little one-man motorized carts that zoom around everywhere. Even if you just stand in front of a stall, if you're not buying anything, you will be shooed away with a call of, "Sorry, but this is a place of business!"

There was a lot of interesting stuff, to see though. This is where dealers auction off their tuna. A single tuna fish can go for a lot of money, as tuna is probably the most prized fish for sushi, particularly if it has a lot of fat on it. Personally, I don't like fatty tuna; I tend to prefer the cheap stuff.

The market itself is enormous, and stretches farther than the eye can see in every direction. Ironically, it doesn't really smell like fish. I guess it's because all the fish is so fresh that it isn't given any time at all to spoil. This is the best reason for coming to Tsukiji - eating the freshest possible sushi. (I will always assert that I ate even fresher sushi when I was living in Ikitsuki - fish caught within the hour, brought 50 metres from the boats directly to an expert sushi chef, and served on top of new rice, harvested right on the island, with connoisseur-grade soy sauce, also made special on the island. But I don't expect any Tokyoites to believe that better sushi can be obtained elsewhere!)


All kinds of fish and shellfish are one display. A lot of the clams and oysters are huge, and there are lots of varieties that I've never seen before, let alone know the English name of.


The orange stuff above is urchin, or "uni". To be more precise, it is the ovaries of a sea urchin. A lot of the urchin eaten in Japan is actually harvested in Canada, since we don't eat the vile stuff. You can also find little red squid about as big as your thumb...

And bushels and bushels of little white minnows, which are either served on top of rice or put in soups, I gather.


After the fish market, it was time for some sushi for breakfast. By this time it was about 9:30, so a beer also seemed appropriate.

The sushi was very, very good, and very fresh, but had a bit too much wasabi.

After breakfast, since it was such a beautiful day, we went to nearby Hamarikyu park. It was built by the Shogun centuries ago and was the private park for his own enjoyment. One wonders what he would think of the construction surrounding the park now.


The plum blossoms were in full bloom, which was wonderful. The Japanese really go crazy for cherry blossoms, but I think plums are almost as nice.



Just beside the park there is a very famous building designed in the 60's by a leading Japanese architect, (now deceased) named Kisho Kurokawa. All the modules are self-contained and are bolted to each other with only a couple fixed bolts. Each module is designed to be removable. Unfortunately, despite being a famous and historically-important building, the structure itself has fallen into disrepair and badly needs to be cleaned up.


I dunno much about architecture (especially not modern architecture) but I know what I like. Godzilla! Now we're talking. This statue was in Ginza somewhere...


I killed a couple of hours in Ginza, and then went to see "No Country For Old Men" which had just opened here. It was awesome! I guess Javier Bardem, who plays the inhumanly cold killer Anton Chigurh in the film, had been in Tokyo last week to do some publicity for the movie, and signed this life-size standup which was in the lobby. Pretty cool.


So anyway, weeks of activity and then, suddenly, a very busy day out of the blue. I managed to get a sunburn in mid-March, which really sucked, but it was fun anyway. I was glad I went; even if we weren't really welcome in Tsukiji, it was good to see a bit of history before it gets dismantled and moved. The plan is to move it somewhere else next year (?). Even so, at the rate the Japanese are over-fishing the oceans, the whole thing might disappear in a few decades...

Some HDR Experiments

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and it's a type of photography where you take 3 or more exposures of a scene, (one underexposed, one normal, and one overexposed) and then feed the images into a computer which correlates the images and optimizes the contrast and colour. You can play around with the results to get really artistic if you want, (see below - boosting colours, getting almost surrealistic effects) but even the basic output is a picture which has a much higher dynamic range than most photos and so comes closer to capturing an image the way our eye sees it (keep in mind that the brain does a tremendous amount of image processing and enhancement of the limited signals it gets from the eye).

Anyway, I downloaded a trial version of Photomatix, and have taken a few HDR shots just for fun. Since it's a trial version, it leaves a watermark on the photo, but beggars can't be choosers.

Here are a few shots I've done recently. Some of them worked better than others. Since I don't really know what I'm doing, using the program is kind of unpredictable, and it's really not 100% What-you-see-is-what-you-get. Also, I didn't use a tripod with any of them, so they're a bit blurry up close, but overall I was pretty pleased with the results.

Here's a shot of Beppu tower. I like the way this one turned out. The clouds look really nice.

Even a plain old street scene like this looks warmer and more vibrant. (Also Beppu.)

I was a bit disappointed with the way this one worked out. I thought I could make the rainbow
really stand out somehow. Anyway, it captured the way the sky looked that day, despite introducing some
weird edge effects (the sky seems to "pucker" around the wires somehow).

I shot this one from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Government offices today.

This one looked much better on my computer screen before I generated the JPEG output, but
it's not so bad. I like the sky and the glow from the street signs, which is what I was going for.
This one is just a shot from Minami Kashiwa station.

If you want to see more (and better) HDR photos of Tokyo, click here. Keep in mind that they're photos ... some of them look like purely computer-generated images!

Moved

Hi! I've moved, and now I'm living in Kashiwa. Is it stupid to publish my address on here? Probably, but here goes:

202 Leopalace TSD Minami Kashiwa,
41-1 Imayakami-cho, Kashiwa
Chiba 277-0074 Japan

It was really sad to say goodbye to my friends in Beppu, but I hope that I'll be back there soon.

In the meantime, it is good/weird to be back in Kashiwa, where I lived 3 years ago. Good because I am getting to revisit some places I used to know, but a little bit weird because I never expected to live here again!

My apartment is okay, but one of the older Leopalaces. I'm pretty familiar with all the various Leopalace configurations, and I must say they are getting more liveable as they go along. In other words, newer is better! Unfortunately, being in an older apartment means that I am living in a large "box" with almost no shelf space or furniture. This means that I'm going to have to waste some money on buying furniture, which I am going to have to either throw out, or pack up and move in a couple months (depending on how much I want to keep it, how expensive it was, and how hard it is to move). I'm currently looking for a desk and chair of the "easy to assemble/dissemble Ikea variety". I'm also looking for a bookshelf, I think. I was lucky to find some super-cheap ones from the home store when I was in Beppu before.

I also have to go through the frustrating experience of re-starting iaido and jodo training with teachers who teach the same "basic" thing but in a slightly different way. This happens every time I move and start with a diffrerent teacher. It's not that what they are teaching is really that different, just that everyone has a particular way of teaching, and set of things they think are important. The outcome, however, is that they will almost certainly look at me and say, "You're doing [this] wrong" whereas my old teacher wouldn't have much of a problem with it.

I start work tomorrow (today, Monday, was a national holiday) so I'm looking forward to that. One of the nice things about teaching is the human interraction, but one of the real downsides is that everything is a performance. It doesn't matter whether you're feeling happy, healthy and motivated, or not - you still have to get up and teach a class full of people. But working in the office, at least, is pretty low pressure. You just go in, get your instructions, and plug away at it. Kind of boring, compared to teaching, but a nice break, at least for a couple months. By April, I'm sure I'll be looking forward to getting back in the classroom!

Anyway, now you have my new address, so I will be expecting the presents to start rolling in soon. Or how about e-mails, at least?