People

Just another small example of what a crowd is...



This picture was taken in Osaka some Sunday in the afternoon. Ok, this area is a commercial area, but I find it a lot of people... What do you think?

Koya-san

Some weekends ago (I've been quite busy lately), I went with some other Spaniards to Koya-san, which is an area in the mountains, where you can find hundreds of temples. It is historically very important, as it is here where the Zen sect of Buddhism began. Apart from that, Koya-san offers you some temples where you can sleep, enjoying both the life (and food) in the temples and the calmness before the arrival and departure of the tourists.

Quiet trip

Just in case, someone is wondering: I am in Tokyo.

The flight was more pleasant than I expected. Even though the plane was full (I suspected that when I checked in online), there was almost one hour delay from Frankfurt, and we had to take a bus to the plane instead of accessing via a finger (it is quite impressive to be standing under a 747), I think this was the best long flight ever. I managed to have some deep sleep for many hours (my poor japanese seat neighbour had to literally jump over me to go to the toilet - I saw him when I opened one eye for a few seconds), and I had some nice talk with a bunch of Spaniards coming to a trade fair to Tokyo.



Furthermore, when I picked my bag up, I had a small present. A cute pink tiger panther, with a biiig heart, and very very dirty. It seemed it had suffered a lot. I thought it was a joke and I looked around to see if there was a hidden camera... But nobody came to confirm my suspect. As I had to claim because my bag got broken at some point of my trip, I also gave that back... This time, I didn't give any contact information to keep it if the owner doesn't appear. :-)

Vending machines

Japan is probably the place in the world with the greatest number of vending machines per square meter. You find them in every corner, and in some places, you can even find ten of them.


And what can you buy here? Almost any drink. From water to coffee, both cold... and hot! Yes, these machines provide both hot and cold stuff...


One of my guests pointed out something interesting about this... "Hot and cold? So many lights? 24 hours a day? That means a lot of energy." Completely right, but so it is...

Volare

Today is one of those days one would skip from the calendar. I will spend the whole day in airports and airplanes, back to Tokyo. I will probably have no nice seat neighbour to share some talk with, so I will focus in sleeping (I will use some help for this for first time) in the extremely noisy 747, as well as watching some movies and reading my book... Funny, isn't it?

Relax

Flying to Spain

In this moment, if I am not suffering a big delay in my flight, I should be flying to Europe for an express visit for some paperwork, meeting family, friends, colleagues, and even attending a wedding!

I'll be back.

Kamakura

Kamakura has more than just a big Buddha... You can find many other interesting spots in many of the temples it has. I enjoyed the visit a lot.

Lost and Found

Last weekend we found a Channel bag with some jewels inside, which had been forgotten by someone after buying a train ticket in the machine. We took it and waited for a while to check if someone would come to pick it... but nobody arrived.
So, we wrote a note and went to the closest police station to give the bag and its valuable content to them, assuming that whoever lost it would go to the police to check if someone had found it. The japanese police stations are called Koban, and there are lots of them everywhere. They have a reduced number of policemen there (typically 3) and they do almost nothing, as criminality is not a big issue in this country.

So, when we arrived to the Koban, we immediately had three policemen attending to our explanations (although only one could understand some English). We explained him that we had found that bag, and he immediately took out a form (one day I will write about Japan and the forms) and said "I will call an interpreter". I thought the interpreter would come physically, but fortunately she just needed to be on call. So, she said to me:

- We want to thank you for having brought the lost object to us.
- You are welcome
- We want to ask you if you want a reward for this?
- What????
- Yes, do you want a reward for the object?
No, thank you, there is no need for that.

After that, she talked to the policeman, and then again to me:

- Do you allow us to give your contact details (phone) if the owner of this object appears?
- Yes, why not?

And then, it was time for the form. This time I suggested the policeman to fill it in, as it normally takes me a long time to understand the different fields in the . After that, he gave me a copy of the form, and told me that if in 3 months I haven't got any news from them, that would mean that the owner of the bag hadn't appeared, and according to the Japanese Law, the bag would belong to us...
So, this was a nice experience for many reasons. I could check "in situ" that people in the kobans have nothing to do. I got also surprised by the option of asking for a reward (I found it, and if you want it back, please reward me), although I still do regret of not having answered yes to that question... Now, I would not wonder about how and who can fix the amount for the reward. And of course, I have realized that they have a perfect process to make the finder get the object if no one claims it.

I will update you in less than three months. :)

If you run a little...

... you arrive earlier. To be more exact, 2 minutes earlier.



I love this precision. :)

Great Buddha

Japan has an interesting mix of religions, mainly Shintoist and Buddhist and all their sects. Whoever has been here knows Temples are everywhere, and one can even get tired of them... But some of them have something special, like this one in Kamakura, a small coast town, holding a huge Buddha...




... and it's only the second biggest in Japan.

Accidents

What happens when there is an accident (*) in the train?

In the station (see the normal situation here):



And in the train:



(*) Accidents are very common in the trains in Tokyo. At least, that is the word they use in those cases... But the truth, is that those accidents have a lot to do with the high rate of suicides... So far, I have suffered the consequences of two accidents. And I do not use one of the "famous" lines. O_o

Yokohama

Yokohama is the second biggest city in Japan, but you do not notice it, as it is next to Tokyo. In fact, I work in Yokohama, but I live in Tokyo. The main touristic area is the harbour and surroundings, called Minato Mirai.




And as it is usual in Japan, you can find the contrast of an old sailing boat, next to the most modern buildings you can imagine.

Autumn

Japan is getting more and more red. Autumn is here. One of the nicest seasons in Japan.

Bubbles

Sometimes we only need small things to behave like children again...

Earthquake!

Finally, after more than 2 months in this earthquake country, I finally managed to feel one earthquake. It was a small one, just a couple of seconds, enough to realize everything is moving (laterally), then everybody makes a couple of comments ("It was pretty big", "Not really", "First earthquake, then?") and back to work.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has a complete website with weather and typhoon forecast, earthquake information, etc. So, after feeling one, you can check how big it was, where the epicentre was, etc. The one I felt is this one.




My office is very near from one of the "3" spots. So, I felt an earthquake of magnitude 3, according to the japanese seismic intensity scale, which use the shindo as a unit.

The Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale is a measure used in Japan and Taiwan to indicate the strength of earthquakes. It is measured in units of shindo (??, shindo? seismic intensity, literally "degree of shaking"). Unlike the Richter magnitude scale (which measures the total magnitude of the earthquake, and represents the size of the earthquake with a single number) the JMA scale describes the degree of shaking at a point on the Earth's surface. As a result, the measure of the earthquake varies from place to place, and a given quake may be described as "shindo 4 in Tokyo, shindo 3 in Yokohama, shindo 2 in Shizuoka".

From Wikipedia.

Looking forward to feeling the next one... A bit more is ok, as long as it is not the Big One everybody is expecting here... Even the JMA.

Odaiba

This is the artificial island of Odaiba. It's in the bay of Tokyo and it is like a trip to the future.



It's full of modern buildings, and you can find there from Euro Disney to the Statue of Liberty. Nice trip with the floating train, and nice views.


Do you like these futuristic buildings?

Sumo (2)

In sumo, apart from fighting there are lots of symbolic gestures that come from ancestral times. This is in what they spend most of the time, and not fighting at all. The funny thing is that each gesture is done going back from the initial position in the center of the "ring" to the respective corner... Some of these things are done "by default", but some other times, they go back to the corner by their own initiative, in what japanese explain as "mind game".

In each corner, the sumo wrestlers have a box with salt and some transparent liquid (maybe water, maybe sake,... O_o).


One of these gestures is taking grab some salt with the hand...

...and throw it to the ring.


They also drink the liquid... whatever it is...


And of course, they show how athletic and flexible they are.


Quite interesting spectacle, but quite slow for my taste...

People love it, though. Although, the situation of sumo in Japan, is quite similar to the Bull Fighting in Spain. Yes, it is a popular event, but not many people like it. Specially, not many young people, which is what happens here.

They also have sponsors which suddenly show their names on the ring... and people scream excited because of that! (I don't get yet where the excitement for this comes from).


But, of course, there are some people who cannot be full-time focused in the sume and also keep track of what is happening in other fields... Like this one, following the horse races in his mobile phone, while the sumo guys do the show pre-combat.

Sumo (1)

As you all know, sumo is a traditional japanese sport. It basically consists in two extremely "big" guys wrestling. It was really impressive to see so many people watching this (a full big arena) with a lot of media coverage around the sumo players, which are very high located in the hierarchical japanese society.

The tournament lasts for two weeks, and everyday everybody competes once. It is a kind of league, with different categories. We arrived at 14.00 and left at 18.00, and we saw around 4 divisions... and they had been competing since early in the morning!

Each combat is quite short. Since they actually start fighting (hugging one to each other), until the combat ends normally takes less than 1 minute. Typically, less than 30 seconds.



More about sumo in future posts.

Japanese Politics

I am not going to bore you talking about politics... Specially because I do not have a clue about this in Japan. But anyway, thanks to some friends' contacts, we could visit the parliament of Japan. The Diet is a huge building near the Imperial Palace, holding both the parliament and the senate, which seems (once more in Japan) very practical, isn't it?




Next to the parliament (again, very good idea), we could see the Prime Minister's Residence. There was a lot of movement those days, as he had resigned, and the new one was about to be elected.

Tom

Childhood memories... :)