Tokyo Rasu's Day Off

Monday was a public holiday.

Thanks to some tips from the crazy park rats at the Burton shop, I had a plan.

First problem, 05.30 - who is gonna win, the plan, or the mattress?

06.01 - rolling - the plan wins!

Tokyo central station. Looks like we need the 06.32 to Gala...

Yep, bullet train, or in Nihongo; Shinkansen... fast!

09.03 - Gala station, Yuzawa prefecture. The gondola up the mountain comes right out of the train station. It's like living in the future.

Video 1 - Train leaving Tokyo station (22 sec)
Video 2 - Train arriving Gala Yuzawa (33 sec)

This is taken from top of the gondola looking at the first chairlift.

Nice views!




I clearly got a lot more AIR than this guy....



Nice weather, not too busy, nice people, nice slopes...

Some good options for lunch. I went for hamburger patty with curry sauce on rice and a beer.

Good times.

Spongebob snow camp, all rights reserved, copyright Viacom, cheers dudes!

And home by 6pm! how nice is that. Sore feet, bit of a rest, no worries.

Facebook Kamakaze

I have written about this before.

Something interesting happened this week. To save you reading the BBC article if you haven’t, basically, a tiny not-for-profit organization of programmers from the Netherlands (they always are aren’t they, or Sweden or something), with a SINGLE BLOODY LINUX SERVER have seriously upset the most powerful force in social marketing on the planet.

The only web page to get MORE hits than Google, one day of last year (Christmas day).

That’s right, the internet behemoth that is the friendly Facebook. Stalkbook. The FB.

You know Facebook has 350 million users. Half of those roughly are active every single day. They spend an average, average, or 55 minutes on the site each time. Holy shit.

That’s like 100 x times the population of New Zealand on the site.

That’s like the viewing figures of 9x finals of Strictly Come Dancing EVERY SINGLE DAY on your website. Every one of those viewers provide all their demographic information in advance, age, marital status, location. Come on guys, smell the pizza.

It should come as no surprise that advertising on this medium, when TV is in decline, is of a lot of commercial interest. Big companies are the customers of Facebook, not us. The site is expressly set up to exploit our private and personal networks for others’ financial gain. If that sounds like a conspiracy theory, it’s just a fact.

So why do we participate? Same reason we eat takeaways and watch telly. We like it. I think Web2.0 is the new great time waster. TV is old hat. Early web was kind of fun but this social networking, presence aware, augmented reality shit, it is right up there. And it’s only just getting started.

Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, these guys are all building infrastructure now like what BT and AT&T do. I have seen it. And those old school companies are shitting themselves. Because they cant do the web thing.

So the point of the blog was, Web2.0SuicideMachine, has looked at the structure of Facebook, and realized that parts of a relational database can’t just be deleted. You can go and deactivate and “delete” your account, but the connections and everything you’ve ever said to everyone will still be there. In the shadows, but still there, recorded in a relational database and connected to everything else. If they started to delete your bits, it would screw everything else up. So they actually can’t!

So they have a better plan. Log on SuicideMachine, it will go onto Facebook, and in 1/10 of the time it would take you, it will delete every friend connection you ever had, change your name and password, and then forget your password! You’ll be left there, a zombie on the site with no friends. But because your connections are gone, in time the caching should, should, make it very hard for someone to unpick what you said about so-and-so in 15 years time.

Facebook have come down on these guys like a tonne of bricks. The kind of suing they usually reserve for paedophiles, tyrannical dictators and Bernie Madoff. You will find them gone from search engines, caches deleted, their site restricted, news articles gone.

Ah yes but I have nothing to hide I hear you say. Come on, it’s just a bit of fun, right? True, that’s the other viewpoint, nothing is secret anyway, so better yet, live by your principles, and try not to say anything too stupid in public. The internet is PUBLIC.

And no, I don’t want to join your mafia war, I’m not interested in an old TV ad from 1987 (ooh look its so funny), or making a collage of my freaking Facebook statuses from 2009! Like, WTF?

Here's a funny video on the subject.

A New Decade

When this song was popular I would tell people that I liked The Verve when they were still just called "Verve". Childish but maybe you understand what I mean if you recognise this cover.

The lyrics dont mean a whole lot to me but the guitar riff still sticks in my head.

Youtube: A New Decade The Verve Hammersmith 1997 (3min)

Anyway, very quiet here today. Here are some shots. Next few days will be even quieter, fresh air, no cars, no ATM's working, just like in prehistoric times. City of 35 million all to ourselves.

Quiet city...


Quiet city...

There, now I have more than 1 post in December.. what a good blogger.

Friendship, Time Management, and British Transport

I have not written anything for a while. Better than writing for the sake of it.

So I thought I would copy someone else's work, an article on being a foreigner from the Economist Christmas Double Issue!

But I cant even find the work I was going to plagiarise.

I've just got back from a week in London, week and a half. Last night I quickly, for my own interest, jotted down who I saw and what I did each day. I was kind of astounded at how much I did, like some overweight person who writes down everything they've eaten for a week. Probably explains why I slept all the way on the plane home. Plus a good chunk of the afternoon after I got home. And all night.

The good news is that I was not jet lagged despite the day being the night. I reckon you cant get jet lagged if you don't have any normal sleep patterns to begin with.

So I thought I could write something on time management (doing the important things, not just doing everything faster), or on friendship, or on London transport and snow and the media, or reflections on being back in Tokyo.

Sod it.

Here are some pictures of the what I ate for dinner. Picked up from the 7-11 on the way home from the gym. Lazy, but I got to say it was pretty darn tasty!

I thought this was maybe pork but it's actually strips of side bacon with a creamy sauce and lots of fresh rice underneath. If you want to be really grossed out I cracked a raw egg into it before chucking it in the microwave. It was good.
I am always attracted to broccoli for some reason so this was going to be a winner.
2 cans of beer, because I deserve it for working a 10 hour day on jet lag and then getting to the gym!

Today was a good day

Was it Ice Cube who said "Today I didn't even have to use my A.K., I got to say it was a good day"

The picture above is not Ice Cube it's New Model Army, about the financial collapse. Because it shattered our illusions it was a good day. I like the cover.

Anyway... here is my day.... all done on foot!

Sunday in Tokyo. Better served by perhaps Lou Reed.

Wake up.

Rub eyes, New Zealand qualified for the world cup yesterday. Too much sake at a ramshackle little bar in Golden Gai that could fit no more than 6 people. Must have been good quality because I have no hangover.

Coffee. Shibuya crossing, pay respects at the shrine of Hachiko, the faithful Akita dog who waited in that same spot every evening for 9 years. The Japanese love loyalty.

Bought a couple of 80's Japanese punk rock CD's, as reccomended by bar manager in Golden Gai...

Breakfast in an arts centre cafe: rice, hot tea, pork and potato. Delicous.

NHK Centre at Yoyogi, outdoor stage at the Tokyo Dance Music Festival. Completely free. It is sunny, crystal clear, 20 degrees. A perfect day weather-wise.


Walk on, Yoyogi park, check out the random people: dancers, musicians, actors, dog trainers, walk about and soak it up.

Meiji shrine, one of the most revered spots in Japan, where did all the tourists come from? yikes!

Home, nap, then ..... 13km run around the circumference of the Imperial Palace. Visually stunning after dark.

Shower, down the local for dinner. Nothing too heavy. 3 beers. Great service. Take away cake for dessert.

Home, serious leisure mode now... DVD! In Bruges. Bloody excellent. Highly reccomend.


Work Monday, people were like "why are you grinning, you look like you've had the best weekend!"

Well, maybe ...

Typhoon!

Vietnam was hit by a typhoon last week. Mum wrote a really good letter to us about the impact and to let us know she was ok.

I think people don't often get the whole "my mother lives in vietnam" thing, maybe a picture (and a letter) paints a thousand words. So for a bit of a change....

Firstly here is a link to the typhoon path

These are videos etc on YouTube of the flooding

************************

Hi there
In a particularly active year in the West Pacific the weather people have counted 25 typhoons so far this year. Many of them have hit the Phillipines and then veered north, but this week we had one come right across Quy Nhon.

We had been watching the progress of the storm on an internet site I have boookmarked, as it approached the coast and noted that it was forecast to upgrade from a "tropical Depression" to a Level 1 typhoon just before the eye reached the coast.

The high winds and squally showers started in the middle of the day on Monday 2nd Nov and increased steadily all day and through the night. I understand the eye of the storm passed through or near to Quy Nhon during the night and the high winds and heavy rain continued until the following morning decreasing only slowly during the day.

I was alerted to some of the damage when I fielded a phone call from an expat on a train at our Dieu Tri Station, late on Tuesday. She said the group of cyclists she was travelling with were on a train at Dieu Tri Station and had been stopped there since 5.30am - about 12 hours at that point - with no information about when or if they might be able to continue. There was very little information available from anywhere at that stage, though we knew the emergency rescue squads would be out assessing the situation as the day went on. The universal answer to enquiries I was making here was "we won't know anything until tomorrow morning". Most of our guests were resigned to waiting it out when we told them what we knew and were able to help them alter travel plans etc. By the evening I was greeting people with "so where are you not going to, today?"

By Wednesday morning the storm had moved inland, through neighbouring Phu Yen Province and expected to end up in Cambodia. Reports now revealed that there was a big landslide affecting both road and rail to the south of Quy Nhon in Phu Yen Province. And the two big rivers that water the Tuy Phuoc area adjacent and to the north and east of Quy Nhon, had both breached their banks with severe and large scale flooding.

The little stream that normally flows under the bridge on the the road from QN to Phu Tai junction had turned into a torrent that flooded Tran Hung Dau St from the area of the Twin Towers (Thap Doi) out, and prevented road access from the city to Route 1. Houses ibordering Tran hUng Daoa Street in that area were flooded to a height of more than a meter.

Our Dieu Tri train station was completely surrounded by flood waters and not accessible by road at all. All the villages in the flood plane of the Tuy Phuoc rivers were underwater and we saw on TV survivors being rescued from rooves of houses, with small children having to slide down into the arms of rescuers waiting in a boat below.

In the afternoon we were able to confirm that access to the south from Quy Nhon was blocked by a large landslide in the next Province to the south (Phu Yen), affecting both road and rail routes.

We saw a couple of helicopters overhead circling overhead, assessing the damage in the surrounding area and by the evening we saw the first scenes on the local TV of survivors being rescued by boat: a woman wading to the rescue boat through flood waters up to her chin, whole families perched on the highset point of their roof, with the waters lapping at their feet. They would have been there for a couple of days by that point.
On Wednesday as the waters receded the first train left for the north in 2 days and some buses were starting to move. However, the rail route to the south remains blocked and is not expected to be cleared today (Thursday) The railways are offering a road service down to Tuy Hoa and connection to one train a day from there.

Reports are still coming in as to the extent of damage in rural areas and it is expected that there will have been a significant loss of life. One causalty that has affected us directly is the father of one of our staff who go up on to the roof to repair leaks after the storm had passed, apparently slipped and split his head open on the concrete path. Very sad, a lovely man who was the chief care giver for his under school age grand children, allowing their mothers to work without worrying about them.

regards
Barbara

*********************

Body Language

To add to the long list of things, that "just don't work like they should here". Alongside my keyboard, phone networks, ATM machines, electricity, taxi drivers, and so on.

Body language is great, right? I mean, you can go into a petrol station in the Tuscan countryside, ask for directions in English off a guy who doesn't speak a word of English, listen and watch as he explains, thank him, and then get to your destination. Without body language this type of thing would be near on impossible.

James said to me before I came, that "your normal reflexes don't work here". It's more than that.

I'm sitting in a cafe getting ready to go and the waitress is filling my glass of water. It's OK, I'm gesticulating, we are leaving, I don't need water, no we're going, it's OK, more hand waving. She smiles and nods and fills up the water. Doesn't help of course that they don't really have a word for 'no'.

It just doesn't work. All the things you've learned about how to communicate, and all the non verbal cues, 90% of it is simply turned off. It's like even with the language you still have to re-learn the body language piece. Massive blind spot! Who knows what cultural faux pas I am committing on a daily basis.

Go with the flow I guess, and keep learning.