One of the characteristics of Japan is the clear differentiated seasons it has. Spring is said to be impressive, but I have experienced the colours of Autumn in a small trip we did a few weeks ago to Takaragawa… Just take a look to the picture, and enjoy…
Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in the world, and therefore it is normal some of the biggest “whatever”… In this case, due to the special importance of fish in this country, it is not strange that we find the biggest fish market in the world.
Its name is Tsukiji, and is also one of the attractions of this incredible city. You should go around 4.00 a.m. to see the fish auction… But I haven’t seen this yet, as we arrived with the first metro after 5.00 and most of the auctions (specially those of big fishes) had finished.
Anyway, it was worth to walk around and see the variety of fishes they had there and how they prepare them to be sold… The most impressive ones are the big tun fishes, lying on “operation tables” like in a hospital…
… being taken care by the specialized surgeons with professional tools …
But it’s not only about tun fishes. There are many other impressive fishes you may be used to see… or not, like eels, or huge octopus, or …
And after this, tasting an excellent fresh sushi for breakfast… Isn’t it a good plan?
Polls were right for this time and Obama won. It seems for the first time American and the rest of the world agree on something… I am not going to comment any advantage/disadvantage about this election, but I want to share with you this video.
It is quite long, and he does not really say anything he had not said before. But, I want to point something out. Look at the people there. I have read that they expected one million people, in a city with “just” 8 million seems a lot of people to be out on a tuesday night… So, that is a lot of people. And look at those people: they are just there because they want to be part of the historical moment and because of him, not just because he is a democrat. They are there not to only to celebrate the victory, they want to listen to what he says: they do not interrupt him more than twice in 18 minutes! Most of them listen to him and are about to cry… Quite impressive. These American make everything “King Size”, like the burgers…
These have been the first US elections I am not sleeping while they recount the votes (advantages of being time-shifted). So, I have paid more attention to the way they have to count the votes for the president… Each state has a number of “Electoral votes” (that is familiar to me, in Spain we have a number of representatives per province), and the one who has more votes (people voting him)… is the one who gets all the electoral votes!! So, if Obama wins 51% – 49% in a state, he gets like if he had won 100%-0%. That means that Obama was supported by a 52% of the voters, but he got a 63% of the electoral votes. Quite an important difference and in other not so clear cases it will probably lead to some injustice (from my point of view)…
That’s all for now about Obama, US, elections, etc. Now, back to Japan.
Coming back from Koya-san, I spent a couple of hours in Osaka to do some sightseeing. It was more than enough, as Osaka is just another megalopolis in Japan, with very few tourist spots. Here you have a couple of pictures showing one of the musts in Osaka, its castle…
All big cities in Japan are the same. Some very old buildings (most of the reconstructed, though), with amazing new buildings, and most of the times, very close one to each other.
This is going to be a strange week.
* Yesterday: it all started by meeting David Hasselhoff in Shibuya. Yes, we met Michael Knight or Mitch Buchannan in one of the biggest cities in the world during a walk.
* Today: is one of those bank holidays you only find in Japan: Culture Day. 🙂 So it is going to be a short week. 🙂
