I haven’t disappeared. I am just “enjoying” a really busy week in Stockholm… π Third year in a row I am here in the beginning of march, and first time it is really winter here, with a frozen lake and snow and so on. I took some pictures on Sunday, but I have no time to make a proper selection for the blog right now… So, you’ll have to wait until I get some free time (in Spain, I guess).
Today, I’ve been the whole day at home. Half of it sleeping, recovering from the tough week with the guests; and the other half preparing a trip I am going to do in Christmas… and suffering some allergy. π Therefore, I have not been out tonight in spite of being Saturday night.
But I did something else. I decided to walk from home towards a place I had never been and look for some place to have dinner in. If you remember what I wrote a couple of months ago, Tokyo neighbourhoods vary a lot from the area close to the stations to further places. I live relative far from my station, and today I decided to walk towards another station which, I realized today, is almost as close as “mine”.
Anyway, when I arrived to the next station’s area, I started finding lots of shops, restaurants and some more people than earlier. It is a pity that I did not bring this time the camera with me, as I saw some interesting things. I saw two hairdressers, with all the personnel training with dummies (Saturday at around 9 pm!) and a Spanish restaurant with a big flag, and no Spaniard in it (it seems every neigbourhood in Tokyo needs to have at least one spanish restaurant).
Finally, I went into a small sushi place, the only restaurant in a non-main street… It is normal that they looked surprised when they saw a western face sitting there. They understood quickly that I do not speak a word in Japanese and they (owners and all customers) did their best to communicate and did not wait long until they started asking me where I come from, how long I have been in Japan, why I am in Japan, where I work, how old I am, if I am single or not,… From all these questions, they are showed special interest in the company I work for. This makes a point, and you can realize how they use it when they talk one to each other about you… I had read about the importance of this in the japanese society, but today I experienced it.
After that, I walked back to my place, but using a different path. I was not in a hurry, so I could spend some time trying out new ways. And in a small corner, next to the tracks, I saw a small bar, from outside seemed very noisy and with lots of people. It reminded me to the atmosphere in some bars in Seville, so I looked in through the window, and found out a couple of paella pans next to the window… What…? I could not see anything else due to some curtains, but I decided to go to the door, and check why those paellas were there… And I checked that they were not the only spanish element of the bar: the name is “Barrera” (remember: it is placed next to the tracks), there are tapas and vinos in the menu, spanish pottery, bull fighting and sevillanas posters, a Spain’s map, … It was the first spanish bar (not restaurant) I have seen in Tokyo. When I was standing at the door, someone opened it, and I just went in… It was full of japanese people, and also an italian guy living for some years in Tokyo was hanging out with a friend. Just two people in the bar apart from him spoke English, and those who did, surprisingly could also say a few words of Spanish… Guess what they asked me, and what was then repeated to everybody… Yes, the same questions as in the sushi place, and special attention to the professional activity…
And now that I am reflecting about this, I remember another example, when we visited Yokohama. We asked a couple to take a picture from us, and it happened to be a spanish guy with his japanese wife. We talked for a while with him, and we did not talk about work… But his wife, suddenly, asked us what we do for work. The guy was visibly a bit embarrassed, as he knew it is not that common in Spain to ask that in the first two minutes of conversation…
But in Japan it is. So, be ready for that.
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.
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.
– 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. π
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 (ιεΊ¦, 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.