Futon

First of all, Sr. Moreno thank you for your comment (July 26). I’ll try to keep on writing stuff that you’ll find interesting, hopefully. Thank you!
I had a look at your blog ... but I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t really understand the Spanish part. Still, I think it’s interesting and nice-looking, too. I like your illustration and how you display photos. And of course, the fashion part interests me a lot.

The weather today is like a bridge connecting yesterday’s sun and tomorrow’s rain. It’s not raining and it’s not sunny, but it is sunny for seconds sometimes, but looks like it’s going to rain at any time. I should have hung my futon outside yesterday... bummer.
Oh, there’s this story about futon. Many Japanese sleep on futon... of course a lot of us sleep on beds as well. Anyway, this friend of mine working at a furniture shop tells me that futon isn’t any good cuz it takes in air right above the floor containing a lot of dust, and also b/c there’s no mattress underneath, it gives your body a tough hard sleep overnight. How is it in reality? In my case, I placed my futon on top of a sofa-bed (which is a bed now) and I suppose a lot of you reading this sleep on beds right?

Yet I believe futon has its own merits.
When I was a kind, my brother and I slept on beds but my parents slept on futon. My house wasn’t a big one so they took out futon at nights to sleep and put them back in the closet in the morning. That gave a lot of space we could make use of during the day, and I think that’s how and why we have had futon for centuries.

Although, I kind of noticed that, from watching movies and TV shows from the West, some people sort of live on beds like reading books, watching TV, talk on the phone and eat sometimes.
Doing the same on futon is called “mannen-doko” (never-made beds) and is a symbol of laziness giving rather negative impression on people who see them.
Hey, wait a sec. Mine’s kind of a mannen-doko now...

Alright, I’ll hang my futon next time we have sun, and I’ll sit on my sofa for the first time in months!
End of cloudy-day report.

Long Time No See

For the first time in weeks we have a blue sky here in Tokyo!! As I commuted this morning, I saw a bunch of people putting their futon mattresses and blankets out in the sun. I wanted to too, but I gave up cuz I know it’ll be all damp absorbing the evening mist even if I did hang it out to let them dry.

Many of the regions in Western Japan are said to escape the rainy season for this year. Can’t tell you how jealous I am. Anyway, I also heard on the weather forecast that the weather for Tokyo in August will be so different from what we have now: days will be way hotter and sunnier and summer might extend a bit into September.

Sadly, however, today seems to be the only day we can enjoy the bright blue sky and the sun and this so summery muggy heat. Sounds like the weekends are going to be back to rainy season... I might as well have a rainy day today and a sunny weekend if I had to have the same amount of rain anyways.

Something caught my attention this morning on the news and it’s about the average life span of Japanese people. The average for Japanese people in 2005 was 78.53 years old for men and 85.49 for women. They say that the number has slightly gone down the previous year for the first time in six years.

The essential reason behind the shortening (well, by sth like 0.10years) of average life span is the increase in deaths due to flu and suicides. Even though Japanese women continue to be the longest living people in the world today (I mean, statistically you know), men dropped from second place (2004) to fourth place (2005) falling from the top 3 for the first time in 32 years. By the way, second place for women was Hong Kong followed by Spain, and for men it was (1) Hong Kong – (2) Iceland – (3) Switzerland.

Even then, the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare claims that although there have been changes in international rankings due to irregular causes (like flu), average life span continues to grow longer in tendency. Well, I guess more people are living longer.

Becoming a country carrying a bunch of grandpas and grandmas itself is not a huge issue, or at least it won’t be only if we had enough younger population to take care of the country. One of the biggest problems this country carries, as some of you may be aware of, is the concurrence of aging and sharp decline in birthrate.

If the current pace continues or worsens, we will lose labor force in a remarkable speed leaving us to expect nothing else but stagnation in economic activities and drop of living standard. The increase in the ratio of producing generation (15-64 years old) to senior population (above 65) makes hard the healthy maintenance and balance of social security services like pension. Not only that, services and products geared towards the young generation such as video games, manga, music CDs etc will also suffer economic stagnation.

In reality, the number of issues of the manga magazines for young men has reached its peak in the mid 1990s and has been dropping, and the CD sales too are weakening in the market since late 1990s. I am very aware that there are other elements that contribute to the drop like the spreading of internet services and free downloads, but anyone can tell that Japan is going to be a country of doddering gramps and grannies.

So, what are the solutions? What should we do to improve the situation?
Okay, the problem is not the aging part but the drop in birthrate. What drops the birthrate? A lot of “losses” – loss of chances to work and make money while pregnancy and delivery (it is very costly to become pregnant and have a baby here), loss of compensation, underdevelopment in the family-friendly environment in simultaneous pursuit of work and home, the increase in the sense of burden in raising a family due to spread of nuclear families, increase in financial burden due to spiraling education cost, loss of comfortable-living environment in urban areas due to overpopulation in big cities, increase in “unofficial employees” caused by the loosening of employment regulations and increase in financially unstable population such as NEET and “freeters” caused by the loose regulations... etc. etc. The list knows no end.

The other day I saw on the news about some prefectures that have relatively high birthrates and introduced how they managed to pull up the birthrate.
For example, this prefecture encouraged companies to help young fathers spend more time at home doing house chores and child rearing. Some permitted them to take them to and from nurseries during office hours, reduced or freed tuition, built homes for young families etc. and tried to prepare an environment in which fathers and mothers can safely and comfortably raise children.

That’s the way to go. It’s always better to have more kids – it’ll be more fun and happy. We have to think and work fast to bring the society back alive.

Japanese Summer

Geez it’s kinda cool again today. It makes me forget what season it is.
But I tell you, it’s going to get super hot one day so suddenly and the gap’s gonna kill me.

Some of the people who’re coming over from outside of Tokyo might be disappointed with the weather... or perhaps, some others might be feeling “great, it’s nice and cool.” I bet no one would really appreciate the rain, though.

I don’t think (more like, hope not) that we’ll enter August like this, but what were those steaming and baking days we had in the end of June and early July? When summer is this cold, I feel sorry for the people who run businesses at beaches and swimming pools. The air is still like “ok! summer’s about to start!!” but I know it’s gonna fly real fast.

I love summer so I get all excited as the days get longer each day (still, sunset is around 19:00 at the latest here in Tokyo). But sadly, because I’m a grown-up working morning to night everyday and don’t have that much of a summer vacation anymore, by the time I get out of office it’s dark and then the night air eventually starts to carry scents of autumn leaving me not enough time to feel like summer was actually here. It’s sad. It’s even sadder that I’ve been having this feeling and reality for the past few years.

So, I have committed to myself that I am going to have a fruitful summer – be it short or whatever – but specifically, what should I do to have a summer that I won’t regret?

Do you guys have summer plans yet?
(Not to forget that some of you reading this may be experiencing freezing winter.)
I googled “Japanese Summer” (nihon no natsu, in Japanese) the top site on the list was hanabi – fireworks. Oh yeah man, bring it on. How can you spend summer in Japan without fireworks?

The next one that came was matsuri, which of course are summer festivals. In fact, I’ve written about a ton of fireworks and summer festivals that’s been and will be going on this summer throughout Japan in the “Blast in Japan Summer 2006” series on JapanMode. I wrote so much that I can say I’m sort of a hanabi&matsuri wiz now.

The third one on the search was somen*...
(*somen... rehydratable noodle made of wheat flour; a traditional summer dish in Japan in which you ice the noodles with cold water and ice cubes after boiling, and eat as you dip in soup based on soy sauce.)
Well... yeah, I mean... somen is something I’d appreciate on an extremely hot summer day, but c’mon, it’s not something that can come in third place following hanabi and matsuri :P

Following somen were several kinds of commercial goods including post cards and all that.

SO according to Teacher Google, spending a Japanesey summer is about “go watch the fireworks, have fun at the festivals and have somen at home.”

Funny thing, it does sound like a typical August day I used to have when I was a kid. I think it combines superbly the key elements of Japanese summer XD
All right, sounds like a day I want to have!!

What’s your summer gonna be like?

Rain Again... and the Rain and the...

When is the rainy season going to go away!?
Well it’s just drizzles and not stormy rain like other parts of Japan, but I think I had more than enough already. It seems like the same front is giving severe damage in southern Japan. On the news it looked like water flooded everywhere above floor level at the best, and in worse cases streets turned into rivers as deep as an adult’s chest level. Some parts suffer from consecutive flash floods and mudslides over and over. And of course, a lot of the farm goods and crops are no good. Nearly the entire country has turned into a flood archipelago.

I’ll have to say that I’m lucky to be in Tokyo. Tokyo has pretty much always been calm in terms of water disasters. In fact, there was a fireworks display close to my house last night (well, not that close but anyways), and although we had a tiny bit of rain I could still enjoy the coming of summer with my eyes and ears.

Going back to rain...
My stories on coral actually have a bit to do with rain. From here beyond are stories I heard from divers plus some research I did on my own.

Say, it rained on Main Island Okinawa for quite a long time, for days. Where does that water go? The sea of course. When the rainwater flows into the sea, it drags a lot of mud and sand. What it does is that 1) the blending of fresh water and sea water changes the water quality, 2) the sand (especially reddish soil) coming from industrial and agricultural districts and also from the American Base mess the water around the coral blocking the healthy growth of zooxanthella, coral’s buddy. The soil of Okinawa is extremely poor in humus layer (black) which functions as the adhesive between layers of soil so the earth is brittle to begin with naturally, and on top of that there are human factors such as ripping off green for industrial use of land.

That’s not all. The heavy rainfall spreads the ocean all kinds of chemical pollution from air and earth. Coral surrounding the islands like the brim of a hat are kept alive by the land. So the efforts to protect only the coral or only the sea most times end up in vain. Additionally, the overuse (over-appreciation, should I say?) of the divers and tourists is another coral-killer factor. When I dived, there was a jerk sitting on top of a table coral thinking it’s rock or something. Ignorance... but not knowing is never a reason good enough to forgive. It’s really sad that not many people acknowledge coral as living beings but stones and rocks.

The “healing” boom in Japan knows nowhere to stop, and from that exaggerated image of resort = healing the number of “immigrants” to Okinawa is increasing one way. To the land of people who respect and appreciate the blessings from the ocean moves in immature people who only take the value as beauty.

All right, the coral reef is worth protecting because it’s pretty. But beauty is only one of the many values of coral.

There are more than one hundred countries in the world that has coral reef, and the coral reef protects the lands of those countries from salt-water invasion. Imagine how much benefits the reefs have brought us in the past thousands of years.

Also, healthy coral reefs are located in the places with highest marine production places in the world – or it may be the other way around – and the amount of marine products mainly fish produced in these regions are estimated to be as much as one tenth of the total marine products all the human beings in the world eat.

Furthermore, coral reefs are the oldest biogeocenos on earth with a history of 500 million years, and are places where sophisticated and fragile organisms concentrate. It is expected that hundreds of unique and special medications can emerge from such reefs.
But natural coral can be broken very easily, and not to forget that a lot of the destruction is due to some kind of human influence.

Currently, efforts are being made in Main Island Okinawa to bring natural coral back to its shores by whelm a special kind of ceramic blocks to the bottom of the ocean so that coral eggs can adhere to them and will eventually grow into great reefs. The eggs flow all the way from the islands I have been talking about for the past few weeks, the Kerama... which means, that if the coral in Kerama dies, there will be no eggs to flow to the main island.

Perhaps the best thing us humans can do is to leave them alone.

If any of you became interested in visiting the Kerama reading this blog, please leave the corals as they are. Or actually, leave everything in the silent nature as they are, not only the coral.

I believe that by doing so (by not doing anything) the nature will heal you. Because you acknowledge it as the most important thing, it will give you something that is truly important.

Umm, sorry, I didn’t meant to make this sound so riddly in the end (sounds like it’s going nowhere)...

I’m planning to go to Kerama again in September, so I’ll try to give you a report. I’ll stop here with the difficult stuff.
I can’t wait to go there again... oooh the beautiful sunrise and seeing deers... I guess I’m gonna have to write them out here!

The Lives of Coral, The life of Sea

Yes it’s been raining softly today in Tokyo and things aren’t too different from yesterday. Nice ’n cool.
Last night I went to bed with an extra sweatshirt so I wasn’t freezing this morning and actually I slept really comfortably. Although, the comfortableness got me to work a bit late.

So, I guess there isn’t anything else to tell you except for Okinawa.

To add a bit more information about coral bleaching, as many of you may know it’s not an issue unique to Okinawa but is a serious problem worldwide approximately 40 places including the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and the Red Sea, and is literally a phenomenon in which corals turn dead white.

There are these 0.01mm big single cell marine microalgae called zooxanthella living inside coral photosynthesizing. But when the sea temperature goes up about 2 degrees celcius, these zooxanthella leave the corals leaving the corals no other way but to die. Corals are originally white, so the colorful corals we usually see or imagine of are actually the colors of the zooxanthella.

So what happens when corals die? How would it affect us?
In short, the coral reef is kind of like a plant that provide oxygen inside the water, so when corals die the sea becomes full of carbon dioxide eventually making it a sea of death.

I can’t go into full details here so I’ll leave that to the experts, but I’ll write here what and how I felt getting to know this fact and see the state.

I had a chance to see both dead and alive coral in the same spot I was diving in, and I tell you the views provided by each of the kind are totally different.

Like I said, because the corals lose color the difference is very clear. There were some that were broken from the roots and some were turned over like a table flipped. No matter how much and how far I look across, and no matter how colorful the others were, the white ghosty corals floating and lying there were never ignorable.

My friend who had known the place for years said it wasn’t this bad the last time he came here, and sadly feared that the view we had there would become the view of the place we were the previous day, few years later from now. When seeing such things, I feel the weakness of myself, like I can’t do anything about it. But even then, I try to come up with things we can do.


I probably wouldn’t have thought the same way if I had only seen the dead corals there at the desert island, cuz the water was still extremely clear and the fish don’t speak to you with hearable voices.

It’s not hypocrisy or anything, but I truly want to do something about it after seeing all the ghosts of the sea. It’s a natural feeling that wells up within me.

So what should be done and what can I do?
Next time I’ll try to get to that point along with some stories the divers have told me.

The Cold Summer and Hot Okinawa

Again, I woke up feeling cold and with a cold this morning.
Like I said yesterday, it was pretty cool yesterday and even cold last night, so I did pull my blankets to my neck and went to sleep but I guess it wasn’t good enough. And now I have a nice cold that keeps me absent-minded and my body sore.

After lunch I went to the drugstore and got some medicine for myself, but then the medicine’s side-effect gets me all sleepy. Woohoo, it’s only Thursday afternoon and I got another day and a half to go before the weekend.

The office’s got its A/C turned on so it is comfortable, but when I’m like this, half-asleep and the other half mindless, it’s not so good to be feeling nice and cozy in office. Well, all I can say and do is to get myself up straight and survive the remainder of this week, and rest during the weekend.

So, I was going to tell you about the rest of Okinawa, right.
After we went to see the noctiluca, we headed to the heliport on the island. Because these islands around here are so small, instead of having established big hospitals they have heliports and helicopters in case of emergency.
We were not there for emergency, but the heliport was one good hidden spot to see the stars cuz it was apart from the lights of houses (the whole island was never so bright during night to begin with). So we had chances to see the twinkles of the sea and then the twinkles of the sky in just a couple of hours. My daily life in Tokyo doesn’t allow me to really see the sky so vastly cuz the air isn’t so clean and the lights never go off, so I was really really moved by how gorgeous the stars were.

But gazing up at the dark sky with an exhausted body did make me get sleepy quickly. I was wondering somewhere in my mind if the ancient people had the same feeling every night, and as I pondered I got back to the inn, and soon fell deep in my sleep.

The following day, I got a great chance to spend half a day on a desert island. It was beautiful, but I felt like something was missing, and I soon realized what it was. It was the corals. There were corals around the island, but the shelves were obviously fewer than the place I was the previous day, and all white, meaning they were dead. A diver who stayed at the same inn told us that there are several causes that kill the corals, like rise in sea temperature and the emergence of a particular kind of starfish. He said the corals have been dying at a remarkable pace in the past several years.

So what happens to the sea when the corals die out? Let’s talk about that tomorrow. It’ll be a worldwide topic, I guess.

All right, off to bed. Ciao.

And it rains again.

This morning I got up with the chilly air. It’s been pouring since last night (actually even two nights ago) and the air temperature has gone down quite a bit, which is nice at times. But how long would we have to survive this crazy weather?

Last week, the weather forecast said we could get rid of the rain front here in Kanto region by the end of last week, but when the time came the weatherman with a straight face, corrected that the rain-front bye-bye will be postponed to next week. Boohoo.

Ooh by the way, this Sunday there’ll be fireworks in Chofu. I’m planning to go see them with my friends, but is it going to rain as well? Well, looks like it, judging from the weather forecast so far.

I gotta get back home to do some laundry today. When it rains, laundry could be a huge pain in the butt cuz I use coin laundry and it’s about 3-4 minutes away from my house by bike. Doesn’t sound so much of a problem, but when it rains all the dry stuff gets kind of damp again on my way back home. So it’s 17:00 and it seems like the rain is soft or even not raining... I dear hope it stays like this or gets better for another several hours.

When it’s this rainy, I feel really blue and tired. If there’s no big news to tell you tomorrow, I guess I’ll get back to my Okinawa stories. Man do I feel good when I think about Okinawa :-)

Long time waiting, Short time passing

So my precious three-day-weekend is now over.
Saturday I stayed home doing nothing really. Just relaxed and took away my weeks worth of fatigue. It was crazily hot from the morning this day, but as hours passed the sky turned dark bringing big loud thunders and lightening along with pouring rain. Although, it was more like a tropical squall which stopped in an hour or so.
I love the feeling I get on a day like this. I just turn on the A/C to dry mode and loaf around watching TV or surf on the Internet... it just makes you feel right to do these things which otherwise (like in good weather) you might think is a waste of time... or at least I would feel like a waste of time.

On the following Sunday, I went out to this place called Misaki with four good friends. Misaki is a fishing port located at the southernmost end of Kanagawa Prefecture (which is right next to Tokyo) and is known for its tuna catches.
The weather wasn’t great, but it was okay meaning we had neither sun nor rain. We could enjoy our ride and we could also have great tuna dishes. In fact, since it was still hot although it wasn’t sunny, I did regret and blamed myself for not bringing my swimming pants when we came to a nice nature park right by the water and all I could do was to feel the breeze. Instead, we happened to come across this summer festival that we didn’t know of and had a blast there.

The same night, we shot off north to the Yokohama Port International Fireworks, and despite the fact we barely made it to the fireworks, we got to see them from the best spot ever. It was not from near the launching sites, but where we were was on this big cable-stayed bridge called Bay Bridge which was close enough to the main site, and it was flippin awesome!! After that we squeezed ourselves through the insane crowd of the Yokohama China Town and had dinner at this place one of my friends recommended.

And on the final day yesterday – which was another super-stormy day – I went to see MI-3 with one of my friends whom I was with the previous day. And then we met up with another friend and went to have kushikatsu.

Kushikatsu is a Japanese dish in which you stick chopped meat and/or fish/clams with also chopped veggies on a fine stick less than a foot long, put deep fry batter on them, sprinkle them with bread crumbs and fry. The place we went to last night had fryers built to each table, and we could make our own favorite kushikatsu by picking out ingredients of our choice and frying them. It’s not just that that makes this place great; it’s an all-you-can-eat place.

Geez, all-you-can-eat-places are nuts. I mean, it was ok when we were young like college students. But the thought that always come to me when I go into one of these places is that if I want to eat more than I paid, I have to eat a lot. Even if I don’t care about getting my money’s worth, when I think that it makes no difference if I eat 10 or 100, I’ll be like “then, why not 100?” and eat a truck load anyway, usually making me super stuffed in the end.
At the table next to us, three young girls were stowing away their kushikatsu and the three of us were like, “yikes, we’ve grown so old...” and left the restaurant soon.

So that was my three-day-weekend. I guess it’s pretty typical as a Japanese.
And my impression on MI-3? Uh, it was ok. Yeah, I could enjoy it. Well, it was more like a spectacular Tom Cruise promotion movie. But because I won’t stop once I start talking about flicks, I won’t go into the movie part this time :P

As Promised, Fresh We Go

So, yesterday I wrote something really muggy and humid and also said I’d go fresh today.

The rain yesterday afternoon wasn’t something that stayed for long. By the time I was finished with this blog it had almost stopped raining. But because of the rain it was really really hot and humid last evening, it was even hard to breathe outside.

The heat hasn’t quite died today: it’s been baking hot today whereas yesterday was more like steaming. The air today wraps and bakes you making you feel like you’re thrown into an oven.
I was like, man, how am I supposed to feel fresh in an environment like this. But then, I found something interesting in a nearby convenience store. This is the thing:






I’m not quite sure how gum is sold in other parts of the world, but this is a typical looking tablet type chewing gum sold anywhere in Tokyo... Except that, as some of you who read Japanese can tell, this one says “otoko-kaoru” which literally means, “men-scented”, and a picture of a rose on the left.

That’s right, this is a magic chewing gum that makes you smell like roses! Wow, what a perfect topic for a nice fresh blog!! ;-)

This is how it works:

This rose-scent-element called geraniol is included in the chewing gum, and when you chew – your body absorbs the scent (geraniol) from your mouth and intestines, and – then the geraniol comes out from your sweat gland along with sweat, enabling you to smell like rose.
Well, dunno how true it is, but it does make me feel like after 2-3 hours of chewing the gum I smell kind of sweet.

People around me tell me that maybe I really do smell kind of sweet.

As probably some of you can guess, this kind of chewing gum originally came out as scented gum for women, but it turned out that men wanted these more than women did so the makers decided to make some specially for men.

Kind of reminds me of some scenes from soap opera where young girls go “Yew dad, you smell bad” and I sometimes hear about similar stories, so if this gum helps the situation in any way, perhaps the daddies might be interested... hmm. Becoming kind of unfresh now :P

So, if anyone’s coming to Japan this summer, it may be interesting to get one as a silly souvenir :P
(and I don’t even know if it’s originally Japanese... or if you guys have similar stuff in your places.)

End of Rainy Season?

It’s kind of gray outside know, but it hasn’t really rained in Tokyo since last Sunday. Plus the temperature is rising higher each day making night sleeps unpleasant and day work tiring.

I think that the Met Office will announce the end of rainy season some time soon.
Next Monday is the Marine Day and its a holiday :-) The first three-day-weekend in a looong time. Can’t wait!

...and as I write, yes of course, it started to rain. I checked the weather forecast just now, and it says rain and clouds for my precious three-day-weekend...!! Does it have to take away all my weekend fun!? Geez the Tokyo sky! It’s getting hot and the Marine Day is coming up and I feel like swimming. But it says that we’ll have rain until next Wednesday... right.

I was gonna write today, alrighty the end of rainy season, and re-start the bright and fresh Okinawa story, but as it turned out, it’s another gloomy passage :-(

Kanji

Those who have visited my web site Japan Mode before may know that I have a feature on it where my team and I convert non-Japanese names into kanji. It’s one of the most popular features on my web site and we receive quite a number of e-mails from viewers requesting to have their names or their family member’s names converted into kanji. The most surprising, yet wonderful one requested us to convert her son’s and daughter’s names into kanji so that she can have them tattooed on her.

When we convert non-Japanese names into kanji, we go through several processes and it takes a bit of time. Most times we start the conversion phonetically, and then semantically. We look through the kanji and choose the ones that look pretty and at the same time create a comprehensive meaning as a complete name. All of us struggle through this process to come up with the best combination possible.

It’s a very careful process to begin with anyway, but when it comes to tattooing, we have to be even more careful cuz it’s something that stays (or, supposedly stays) on that person for his/her whole life, right? I’d have to say I was quite nervous doing these names, but consulted with the client and with great care came up with a couple of combinations.

A few days later, to my great surprise and moreover delight, she sent us a picture of her and the tattoo of her children’s names which we have suggested!!
I knew from the moment I read her first e-mail (request) that this was something big, but when I saw the picture, this great feeling struck through my body.

I realized again that I have gotten engaged with a very important part of her life, and I was deeply moved by it. I also re-felt the attraction of kanji’s meaning and beauty, and I really mean this, we all feel so grateful to her that she decided to use our suggestion as a life-long treasure. Thank you!

Today, I am updating the Japan Mode Kanji with some of the requested names that the clients agreed to have them displayed on the web site. Come have a look! The same name as yours may be on it.

The beauty of the shape, the wonder and fascination of the meanings each kanji holds...
If you are interested in kanji – not only you want your name converted – give us an e-mail anytime :-)

Gazillion Summer Events

Last Saturday I went to take some pictures for Japan Mode Photo Gallery to Asagao Ichi (Morning Glory Fair) in Uguisudani, and last night I went to the Hozuki Ichi (Ground Cherry Fair) in Asakusa also to take some pictures. I was at the morning glory fair in during the day and the hohzuki fair at night, and both were very crowded and made me re-feel the crazy crowd here in Tokyo.

Since both are fairs selling plants, the atmosphere was basically the same. The vendors were energetic and the customers were sort of elegant with their summer yukata on. Because I’m not originally from Tokyo, it was quite fresh and fun seeing how the summer fairs and festivals are like in Tokyo.

For the details of the fairs, give me just a little more time and I’ll post the pics on Japan Mode PHOTO. Keep tuned!

Anyway, I noticed that from July throughout August there are a BUNCH of events going on somewhere everyday. The fireworks start in the end of this month, and it really makes me feel summery. Besides the fireworks, swimming pool and sea. A number of beaches swimming pools at amusement spots have opened at once for the season just recently. There are so many swimming pools in Tokyo where you don’t just swim but play, like water sliders and wavy pools and spas where you can go in with your swimming suit on, so on so forth.

Still, my favorite is the one I went to a lot when I still lived in Osaka, and it’s called Freizeit Bentencho (it’s called Yunokuni Japon now: http://www.eeoyu.com/konamiyu/benten/benten.html ). It’s a dome style swimming pool so you can swim there all year round, and the best part was the one called Sky River. Sky River is a swimming pool built in the air with transparent boards, and because the water and boards are all transparent it makes you feel like you’re swimming in air about 5-6 meters above the floor and it’s really cool. I loved it so much. If any of you reading this live in or near Osaka, I strongly recommend the place.

For those of you who’d rather go to salt water, in Kanto the place would be Kamakura Chigasaki or Kujukurihama in Chiba. If you go a bit further down along the Pacific Coast as far as Izu, then you get more clear water. In my case, if I had to step out of Tokyo anyway, I’d go as far as Okinawa :-D

Dumb-Struck

It happened at the end of the match.
After announcing his retirement from soccer after this Cup, literally the very last match, the final match.
At such “memorable” stage, he decided to work violence against his opponent.

What made him act like that, what actually happened in front of my own eyes, no one – the audience at the stadium, the TV announcers, the analysts, and me in front of the TV – could understand.

He=Zinedine Zidane left his last pitch with a red card.

I suppose every single person watching this game had the question in their minds, WHY?
Why would he do this? He knew most well that this was his last match of his professional soccer life.

Now at this point of writing this blog, nearly 12 hours have passed but the Japanese media hasn’t been able to figure out the true reason for this behavior. All we’ve been told is that he regrets it, but is not so sorry about it.

A gentleman like him, suddenly enraged like that and not feeling sorry – what was it? As far as I can guess, right before he went head-butt he looked like he was exchanging some phrases with Materazzi...

I don’t know if that was the actual trigger, or if there’s something else/more to it.

Like many people know, the result was an Italian victory after PK.

I’m actually surprised at how shocked I am not so much by the result but by my favorite player’s odd acting. It’s really depressing.

But Thank You anyway, Zidane.
I had a marvelous time watching your play over the years. You were the one who turned me into one soccer freak from a baseball boy. You got me to know another element of life that’s more than fun.

I won’t be able to see you play, but I will never forget every movement you made on the pitch with the fantastic and “kind” pass and all that.

Now there’s one less expectation in my life, but I’ll keep on being a fanatic supporter for France in terms of soccer. Because you played.

And Thank You All-French. Thank You World Cup. Thank You Soccer.

Last but not least, sorry for writing so much not only about plain soccer but about France (not Japan). I’ll get back to the normal Japan essays tomorrow (hopefully).

Tanabata

I’ve been so busy these days that I didn’t even realize that it’s been a week since we entered July.
In Japan, July 7th is a festival day for Tanabata, and we write our wishes on a slip of paper and hang them on bamboo branches (leaves?). Usually, the rainy season clears soon after this Tanabata day, but I’m not really sure about this year.

The weather of Tokyo today, by the way, is cloudy and the front doesn’t look like it’s going to move away any time soon. Plus I hear a typhoon is nearing Kyushu, so I guess I’m going to have to spend a few more weekends inside my house :-(

Well I suppose it’s a good chance to rest my ragged body cuz I am exhausted this week more than the previous several weeks. And then there’s the championship match of the FIFA World Cup of course on early Monday morning (that’s before the break of dawn) so yeah, I think I can manage staying home, but I am sick of rain.
And it’s the clearance season! Bargain here bargain there... the whole city’s like a mess of cheapened stuff and people swarming. I did get the cargo pants I’ve wanted for a long time, but half because of the rain I’ve hadn’t had much chance to go see my other favorite shops.

So, I know I’d been skipping writing a bunch I want to write about. The latter part of my Okinawa stories and the North Korea’s missiles’ story, and by the time I write here on Monday the World Cup’ll be over too... that’s kinda sad. I’ll miss the big games and Zidane, too! Anyway, I hope to write about a bunch of things that’s been on my mind for days.

Okie-doke, I’m off writing my wish on the Tanabata paper... “I want to see a big wide smile on Zidane’s face” :-)

The Japanese Sense of Crisis 2

Part of the military training, right.
North Korea officially admitted the fact of launching seven ballistic missiles but their claim is that its for the strengthening of its national defense.

As far as I could see from the news today, the topic seems to be already fading to some extent. So is the whole country like, “here they go again”? And while we’re like this, North Korea made clear that they are going to continue on this...

Sooo... is this something that can be “okay-ed”? What do you guys from outside Japan think about the whole issue? I’m really curious to know how the other parts of the world consider this problem.

I suppose the people here wouldn’t really realize how big the issue is until some damage is done, and then they (or we) are going to accuse the Japanese government for not taking considerate enough care.

I feel like there are many (and I mean many) aspects in Japan where the Japanese people show this vague “so-what” kind of attitude... hard to describe, but this character of leaving things alone until some serious problem comes up. Religion, too. I guess sometimes it’s good that people aren’t so strict about holding one and only ideas, but sometimes I think it could be the downside. Maybe I’ll write down my thoughts on that sometime later.

Well the biggest thing I want to say right now is about the match this morning (of course the one between France and Portugal!!) and that it was really scary. Portugal was being quite aggressive (in sports term) and France did manage to protect the goal... and Henry got this super chance of PK and Zidane beautifully made it! But Portugal didn’t weaken in the latter half and, whoa, this one really made me tired. This time I didn’t dance with joy but instead kind of fell to the floor with relief rather than excitement.

So next, Italians! This is really going to be a marvelous game, I know it! ...except that the match is going to be on late Sunday night...

The Japanese Sense of Crisis

This morning all that was in my mind was, “damn it I couldn’t get up for Germany – Italy, which won?” and then I turned on the TV to see the results of the match. But what I saw on every channel were the usually cheery gossip show personalities and newscasters having this really grave expressions on their faces. I thought for a moment, “what happened?” but as I watched the show I found out that North Korea had launched out 6 consecutive missiles including ballistic ones in five hours from around 3:30-8:30am. All of them went down in to Japan Sea few hundred kilometers away from the west coast of Japan but I heard that one of the six could be Tepodon, a ballistic missile with range of 3,500-6,000 kilometers...

The Japanese government showed strong condemnation against the acts of North Korea, and decided to ban the entrance of cargo-passenger boat into Japan for 6 months starting today as well as to remonstrating.

Is that all? was my honest opinion... I mean, we could have had 6 missile attacks and all we do is to stop the boat? Isn’t that a bit too easy on them?
Okay, it’s true that our daily lives haven’t changed a bit by the attacks – we do talk about it but everything is smooth and is functioning on time and all that – and we don’t really sense any realistic danger despite being potentially targeted. But what do you guys think if 6 missiles dropped near your country?

...and as I write like this right now, here comes the seventh one. It’s just too bad that this is like the only thing they’re spending their scarce money on and knowing how they are going to be reacted.

True none of them actually hit Japan, but this is getting a bit too much and I don’t think it’s the smartest decision they can make.

Sorry I haven’t got much time, I gotta go now so this’ll continue to tomorrow (which makes Okinawa stories go on even further). Alrighty, France and Portugal tomorrow dawn! Hehe, I guess I’m also one of those that lack sense of life-threatening danger.

Caught up with reality

Umm, life is getting kind of messy and now I’m so overwhelmed with work that maybe it’s not time for me to be (spiritwise) carried away World Cup soccer and at the same time dream and be nostalgic about those fantastic days in Okinawa!

I know being busy is better than having no jobs and tasks in your hands, but I’m sorry to tell you that I might not have enough time to spare for this blog. Well, it’s not like this is a blog with a million access a day and hardly anyone’s gonna miss it :p lol

By the way, you write “to lose (lose as in die) your heart/mind)” as the kanji for “busy-ness”.

When the situation is like this, it makes me want to go to Okinawa so much more cuz its so relaxing over there... so we start from the noctiluca today.

Noctiluca – that was the first time for me to hear the word, and because I’m never really happy with anything that has to do with bugs and insects frankly I wasn’t so keen on the idea of going out to see bugs. But my friend insisted that they are not like the “bugs” I had in mind, and also said that we might not be able to see it anymore, so I said yeah why not and we went out.

Until we did so I was assuming that we were going to head towards the mountain but it turned out that he went straight for the beach. It took me seconds to learn that these noctiluca are out in the ocean.
I was still imagining that because of the sound “yakouchu” (night – light – bug/insect) it would look something like fireflies. But even when we got to the waterfront we couldn’t see anything but the black ocean and the starry sky and nothing was really glowing or flashing except for the stars above.
Then, my friend suddenly when splash splash into the water without any hesitation. And then, the water surface glowed around his feet. That was good enough to get draw me into the water. So I did, and as I did I noticed that when I moved my feet in the water something – something fluorescent – glowed around my feet, too. But it wasn’t reflection or anything of that kind. My feet were obviously hitting something in the water.

I learned later that “noctilucae” are a kind of tiny tiny protistica and they glow when something stimulates them. Well, if you say that’s that scientifically it is nothing more than protist but when you actually see it with your own eyes it’s something more illusionary and fantastic. It was fun, too, cuz they moved around along with every move I made. My friend told me that when he was here before he could see a whole lot more, but the number seems to be shrinking rather rapidly. Coral reefs, too.

So for next time, the story of the rest of the night and the coral crisis.

The “Bleu” Weekend

And here they go again!!
Who saw the match!? Hooray Le Bleu!! That’s the way to go!!
They’ve won the ticket to the semifinals… from the champion of champions Brazil! How more excited can I be!? We have all the matches beyond quarterfinals on ground wave so I could see the match of fate from the beginning all the way to the very end, and I did not miss one second of it. Because I didn’t have many chances to see France’s previous matches on ground wave during this World Cup, I was already too excited just to be able to watch one.
Just like any quarterfinal match this too was a match of high skills and strategy, so although it seemed to me that France led the match more than Brazil did, I could never rest my feelings cuz you just never know when Brazil’s strikes would explode!! I was so nervous during the match that after the first half ended 0-0 I couldn’t sit still and ended up going out for a short walk.

The flow from Zidane’s FK to Henry’s shot in the latter half was just excellent. It was absolutely beautiful. How could Henry jump out unmarked? What was Brazil’s DF doing? It was really amazing.
In the end Brazil had Cafu as their captain but my view is that one of the reasons for Brazil’s defeat was the inability to set one or two players as the real core of the match. I think that they did a good job against lower ranked teams with their individual high techniques, but even those skills and techniques weren’t as good as the Frenchmen’s unity of the world’s best DF players. In that sense, the match could have looked similar if they played against Italy. Well, too many talents in one team, I think.

On the other hand, Zidane was captain and center of the match, quite easy right? This way the ones with experiences on top of skills could move around making their strategy effective and didn’t leave space for the Brazilians to show their individualistic plays. That’s the way I see it, now that I’m a bit more settled excitement-wise. All I could do while the match was going on – especially the last ten minutes – was to have my eyes glued to the TV monitor and pray for the victory of France at the same time I danced with excitement and joy.

Actually, I can’t even remember the moment of victory cuz I was way too excited. After a while I suddenly realized that I had made a mess in my room with uniforms and all that :p

Coming next, Portugal! Quite energetic and most of all the great man Figo! Just the perfect team to play against. And who can miss Italy versus Germany!? Is Germany going to show its power as the host country? Or is Italy going to stand in front of them with their favorite catenaccio? The matches from now on are all going to be broadcasted from 4:00 in the morning… can I watch all of them!? And would I still be able to come to work!? And when is the Okinawa thing going to end? Keep your eyes on my scribbling here!

The Timeless Island 5

The weather looks pretty shaky but it’s holding on at the moment. I hope it stays this way (at least) until I safely get back. Last day of June… crazy hot.

Since last week we have started this new seasonal topic titled BLAST IN JAPAN SUMMER 2006 and it features summer festivals and fireworks going on all across Japan during summer vacation (namely July and August). We haven’t really covered the whole of Japan yet cuz we only have Kanto region (the periphery of Tokyo) and Kansai region (periphery of Osaka & Kyoto), but we are going to introduce our visitors the exciting events in Japan for July and August in advance to summer break (and we’d better rush cuz vacation’s nearing!). So those of you living in Japan or considering of traveling to Japan some time soon, do come have a look!! :-) Oh, and if you have any suggestions on what you would like to know or want us to search for you, suggest us here or give me an e-mail via Japan Mode! I wish I had some efficient and effective way of doing marketing.

But this blog is not a place to do market research as much as it’s a place for me to write about Okinawa’s islands… and so the story goes on.


All of us staying at the little B&B had dinner together at the terrace on the top of the inn building.
The food in Okinawa is a bit different from food elsewhere in Japan in many aspects, and I guess the most different point that I noticed was the color. One of the reasons for this is because the colors of the fish are different… it’s not very usual for me to see fish in vivid green and blue spread out on the table. The other thing is that they use a lot of pork. It is even said in Okinawa “eat everything but a pig’s hoofs and oink” and they really do so by cooking from its head to the very tips of its feet. And last but not least, Champloo, some stir-fried vegetables with rather hard Okinawan tofu.

There was nothing to complain about. I mean, the food was wonderful itself but with the marvelous sunset and cheery people around you… how better could it be?

The other guests at the B&B at this time of year (and this was in mid-May) coming all the way to this tiny isolated island were mostly divers, and they told me stories after stories how wonderful the sea of Kerara is. What I noticed is that because they go deeper than my 4 meters, the inside seascape they see is so much different from what I learned that day. It sounded like they know a totally different world under the calm sea. I have never experienced real diving yet, but I feel like I would feel more comfortable without wearing anything heavy in that sea. Although, I’m pretty sure I’d be like “This is awesome!” when I really go diving down to deeper level, lol.

I guess it’s so different… like perhaps the difference is as big as comparing curry and ramen :p I can’t choose either one, I have to have both. Don’t you have that kind of food in your culture?

Anyway, because of the hunger that came from playing around in the water all day long I ate so much more than my limit, so as soon as I got back to my room I lied down and a strangely comfortable kind of fatigue covered my body.
I was tired but felt really good… it was the kind of tiredness that you get after you do something meaningful and I felt as though my body was melting away into the floor.

After a while, my friend suggested we go out to see some noctiluca. Have any of you seen noctiluca before? It’s written in Japanese, night – light – bugs.

Next week I will tell you about the amazing night in the isolated island that makes you feel eternity.
But I don’t know… maybe I’ll get back to soccer again cuz there’s France against Brazil… :-D

The Timeless Island 4

The weather has been more than nice these couple of days. It’s good we have some sun, but the sun obviously brought some heat. Now the outside temperature is suddenly above 30C (86F) for two days in a row, and it can be so tomorrow. I’m not very sure about the weather forecast… at one place I hear the sun is going to hide again but somewhere else says tomorrow will be just like today. Well, if it’s going away, I’ll surely miss it.

When it gets this hot and humid, the body temperature of other people around you on the train gets really annoying. If it’s going to be hot anyway, I’d prefer the baking hot to steaming hot. My mind is completely away from the craziness of Tokyo and making trips to Okinawa these days. Writing about it makes me want to go there more, and because I want to go I keep writing… vicious circle.

I feel like in the islands where you can’t see the end of the sky, sunset goes much slower. The sky gets dark even before I see the sunset in this skyscraper-crowded city of Tokyo. So, back to Okinawa.

As we rested our tired bodies under the shade around sunset, we heard the B&B’s daughters voice calling out to us, “Are you there?” We shouted back “Yeah we’re here” and headed towards her voice.
Like on the way to the beach, we got on the back of the pick-up truck so it didn’t matter if we were drenched or were covered with sand. Maybe that’s why she brought us there with a pick-up truck.

“I was thinking it’s about time you’re worn out.”
The daughter said. She came at the right time, I mean, if we decided the time earlier then we wouldn’t have had enough fun and if we had set the time later we would have had to wait for long. Her guess was truly impressive. I think if I were to set the time for her to pick me up, I would’ve done the latter and would’ve been exhausted. Even then, I think we swam for about 6 hours all together :P

After we got back to the B&B we took some time to rest. Even though we were resting I was over-excited and kept talking about the marvels of the sea that I had encountered during the day, and he listened to me with a favorite yet kind smile. It was true, there was an Okinawa I didn’t know.

We were informed that we still had 2 hours till dinner, so we decided to go out for a walk in the never-sinking sunset. Of course there wasn’t a convenience store, but the island was so small even to have its own supermarket so we bought some juice in a little store and enjoyed the timeless atmosphere of the tiny island.

Before I knew I was humming to myself. I had a strange feeling of wanting to sing… the slow flow of time and the relaxed happiness made me want to sing so much. Strange, but very comfortable. I was filled with a warm feeling.

Soon we started to smell something good from the nearby houses and my stomach was growling.
“Let’s go back, I’m getting hungry.”

Isn’t this great? Nothing binds you and you’re just free to move around and do things as you feel.
I‘m starting to feel a bit sentimental now as I write this, even sad. Why, cuz I’m getting hungry but I can’t go home :-(

That’s it for today. We have just a bit more to go.

The Timeless Island 4

The very first word that was given to me this morning as I entered the office was “congrats!” from one of my seniors. Yes, thank you thank you woohoo All-French!

Like I told you yesterday, because there was no ground wave broadcasting of that match in Japan I couldn’t watch it, but I was too excited to be asleep and I got up at 5:00am… it’s something that rarely happens to me.
So I was like, ok I think the god of soccer wants me to keep my eyes on this match, so I turned on my PC and “watched” live on FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 official web site cuz they have this nice live written reports.
When I started “watching” it was at the end of the second half and was a 1-1 draw so I thought it was going to go into extra time, but then suddenly Vieira scores! Geez, I have never in my life been so excited staring at words and sentences, lol. But soon after that, a yellow card was given to my favorite Zidane, but right after that it said “Goal Zidane”.

??????

I couldn’t comprehend what was going on but I did understand that he threw in another score for France, which at this point was a definitive score for France to proceed to the quarterfinals… and so I screamed even though it was early in the morning.
Then my cell phone suddenly gave a loud ring. Who is this at this time of day?
I wondered for a moment and looked at the display which showed my younger brother’s name. Excitement came back as I got the phone thinking “maybe…”, and just like I thought he shouted at the phone “Oh my god that was risky! Zidane did an awesome job!”

Apparently he had cable so he watched the match live, and all he told me was cries of excitement after excitement. He went, “Holy, I couldn’t sit still on that one!!” and we shared the joy of victory over the phone (fyi my brother is a big fan of Italy) but gradually I grew jealous that he could watch it where I couldn’t so I was like, “hey, didn’t you ever think that your brother might have been asleep?” but he replied “oh that never matters”.

Well I can keep on going forever with France vs. Spain. Like brother like younger brother, huh?

So the All-French are going to play against the champion of champions Brazil next match… but all I can remember is that stunning heading of Zidane’s that lead France to champion in World Cup 1998. I just know it’s going to happen again!!

Okay, let’s go back to the timeless island tomorrow, m(__)m

The Timless Island 3

After so many days of rain and thick clouds, the sun is peeking out in Tokyo day. After all, there is nothing better than the sun. I checked the weather forecast and it says that it won’t rain for a couple of days… but that also means that it will rain the following days :-( Many clothing brands are starting summer clearance this weekend and I was looking forward to them… too bad. Although, maybe, I’ll have some chances of going around the stores smoother than on sunny days cuz people might not want to come out of their houses…!

OK, back to the exciting island story :-)
Being wrapped by the Okinawa seawater… if I exaggerate that feeling, it was as though the mother earth was hugging me.

I wasn’t sure if it was because the fish were fearless or if they were accustomed to being fed from mal-mannered divers, dozens of fish in brilliant colors came to me like we were friends. Yellow, blue, white solid ones, white and black striped ones, big ones tiny ones… many swam around me. And right in front of my eyes were clown fish like Nemo and the huge yellow sweetlips.

I popped my head out to breathe fresh air, dived and breathed and dived so many times enjoying the sea. There were times when I swam as fast as I could to get away from a sea serpent, and also times when I was drawn to the charm of the crabs with bonbons in their claws (they’re actually seaweed).

And the Sata Andagi… man, they were so good after swimming! Even though I had my snorkels on, my mouth was salty anyway. Well the mild sweet taste of the brown sugar of the doughnut created a marvelous balance with the salt, and the sugar just soothed down the fatigue.
Together with the doughnuts I had this tea called Sampin Tea. It’s jasmine tea and is the most common tea you can get anywhere in Okinawa. If you leave your juice and soda out even in the shade, it gets luke warm and kind of nasty to drink but the warmness of the tea and moreover the fragrance of the tea was very relaxing.

As we relaxed we could tell that the sun was ready to go down… but I think I’ll stop here for today.

Tonight we have the World Cup match between France and Spain!! But I can’t watch it cuz it won’t be on terrestrial TV :-( You can imagine what tomorrow’s blog is gonna be like!


The picture is of Sampin Tea. I think it just came out in this area for the first time this year. They kind of sell it in bottles like this outside of Okinawa this time of year, and it really makes me want to go back to Okinawa again. Well, I guess that’s what they want!

The Timeless Island 2

YYYEEESSSS!!!!!!
France goes to tournament, France goes to tournament!!
Whoh my god, I can’t tell you how nervous I was during the first half of the match! But as a result, all of the players concentrated very well for the goal and scored two precious points. Geez, I was sooo happy Saturday, I must have had this odd grin on my face all day long…

But can’t be happy forever! This is only the beginning of the tournament, and the first enemy of the Frenchmen is the Gran Armada!! This is going to be another match that keeps your heart pounding for 90 minutes. Imagine it, we might be able to see the genius MF duel between Zidane and Xavi…!


Hold it, me, this is going to be another soccer blog :P
I MUST tell you the beauty of the isolated island in the south.

Last Friday I gave my blog the title “The Timless Island” but I realized I hadn’t written anything about time in the sentences. Messed up the structure… soccer…, lol.

Anyway, so we cut through the thick green in the center of the island… and oh my god, I don’t know how to describe the sensation then! Everything I could see, everything that came into my sight was in a zillion shade of gorgeous blue and white. The water, the sky… Gee, I was truly shaken!

The shoreline was so long that I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if somebody told me that this was half of the 12.3-km-perimeter of this island of merely 300 residents.

As I was stunned and lost in words, the daughter of the B&B who brought us to the beach called to us “I’ll be back before sunset” and drove off on the pick-up truck.

For a moment I thought, “What time is sunset?” but it was washed away from my mind by the glamorous waves of the sea that spread in front of me.

I ran across the baking hot sand and splashed into the water. The stinging cold water suddenly wrapped every inch of my skin, and the unique saltiness of the seawater penetrated my body to the bones. By the time I get this deep but comfortable “this is sea” feeling, the heat of the sun piercing through the water takes away the chilliness from me.

What striked me the most was the clarity of the water. It looked clear enough from a distance, from above, but I didn’t know how so clear it was until I dived into it. The clarity almost filled me with awe, and the underwater world that spread below me was vivid with the colors of the coral reef.

Only then I knew why the sea looked like jelly… the same white of the beach continued underneath the water, and that porcelain white bed of sea stretched forever with flowers of coral.

I’m just so sorry that I can’t depict the marvel of this sea with my writing ability… I can’t even express here 1/10 of its beauty.

“Why do you come all the way to Australia whereas you have Kerama in Japan?”

This was a word said by an Aussie to a Japanese who went to Australia to dive, and I got to know this story later but it tells us how famous the beauty of Kerama is worldwide.

When I was swimming in the water off the main island Okinawa, I had fins simply to swim there and not to dive, but this time I was so emotionally moved and was tempted to put on my fins and actually dive to have a closer look at the deeper parts of the sea.

My ears kept popping and I couldn’t breathe in much air in my lungs, but I was coming closer to the white shiny bottom for sure.

I reached the bottom which was about 4 meters deep, flipped around and lied down facing the water surface… and this really strong sense of liberation and strange illusionary feeling hit me right through.

What is this!?

I will never forget that feeling.

I have never in my life felt so close to the nature… it was as though I was inside my mother’s womb again and was feeling that subconsciously. It was a very strange feeling.

I didn’t feel like myself, yet I felt like there was nothing else but me and my individuality, and I felt very warm like someone was wrapping me softly, but again I felt very free.

So, it goes on and on. Are you tired of it?
BTW, the weather today is of course, rain. We have had so much rain since April so it feels like a very long rainy season we’re having this year. Now the front is running wild in Kyushu and it’s like the repetition of Okinawa again all over. I hope it goes away soon…

The Timeless Island

Whoa! Brazil is definitely the champion! I’ve got nothing to complain about regarding the JPN-BRA match. I even feel refreshed when the opponent is just too strong.
Until the last match Japan only had one goal which wasn’t exactly a shot-like-shot of Nakamura’s, but Tamada’s shot against the Brazilians was surely a beautiful one.
This is only the third time for Japan to come to the World Cup stages. We’re still newbies right?

What matters more is France. It’s last match in the first stage, against Togo starts late tonight. France was the champion of World Cup 1998, and has good players like Zidane and Henry! What is the problem if the fact that France still struggling through first stage isn’t a problem!?

God I can’t sleep tonight. I simply cannot close my eyes tonight.
Next Monday when I come back to this blog, will I be smiling or crying…? It’s all up to the French!


Okay, let’s get back to my little story of Okinawa.
I, with a new item, am heading to the isolated island of Okinawa.

Okinawa contains several isolated islands. The largest one is Ishigaki Island located further south from main island Okinawa, and is actually big enough to hold an airport of its own. Ishigaki has peripheral small isolated islands. When you hear of an “isolated islands tour” it’s most likely a cruise around these islands.

The island we headed for was not one of the Ishigaki islands. We took a jet boat from Naha Port for about an hour to the Kerama Islands.

Soon after we left the port on the jet boat, we were surrounded by the stunning beauty of the sea blue. The sea around main island Okinawa too is pretty enough, but the island holds a fair sized population, has some factories and boats come and go so the corals are actually dying around in the area. So even though it’s pretty there, the prettiness isn’t as breathtaking as the sea that was surrounding us.

This was the first thing that shocked me.

I grew up near an sea which was quite clear but the water around Okinawa main island was clearer. I guess that before I realized I was assuming that this was the clearest sea. The water away from the main island was like pure and clear jelly, and I could hardly believe it was the sea. It was that beautiful.

By then my eyes had forgotten to blink being so drawn into the awe of the sea, and of course I had completely forgotten to turn on the 8mm video recorder I brought in my heavy luggage.

I forgot to tell you that I have a passion in filming, especially using 8mm cameras. I like its unique touch and taste that no others have, so I bring it with me on whatever trips that I feel to be important or memorable. Maybe I’ll talk about it on another occasion.

The boat sped to a little island called Akashima in the Kerama Islands. My friend didn’t work on this island but on another neighboring island Zamamito, but he wanted me to see the sea of Akashima so that’s how we decided to stay here for the night.

We were welcomed at the port by the daughter of the little B&B we decided to stay. After leaving our luggage at the B&B and greeting the innkeepers we headed straight to the sea. The daughter chuckled at our over excitement and handed us some Sata Andagi (deep-fried doughnuts) saying, “It’s especially good after coming out from the sea.”

The blue spread right in front of the B&B but we had to make a short trip to get to the main beach, so even though it was a tiny island the B&B owner took us on the back of his pick-up truck to the beach. This too was the first time for me to sit in the back of a truck so I was already pretty fascinated by the “wild” experience, plus because there was no ceiling above me it felt really free.

This is getting long again (well I don’t even know how long this is going to go on) so I’ll stop here, but are any of you actually enjoying my Okinawa story? At least I thought it’d be better reporting the weather of Tokyo which is more or less the same everyday :P

I don’t know if I’ll keep on going, but I suppose there’ll be a blank cuz I would probably be writing about France in World Cup.
Have a great weekend guys!

A Whole Lot More to Come, OKINAWA!

“The real Okinawa? What do you mean?”
To my wonder my friend replied with a far gaze.
“If you want to know it, see it. I’ll take you.”
He once used to work in one of the isolated islands of Okinawa, and wanted to take me there. So comes my third trip to Okinawa.

I didn’t know what made his eyes twinkle so much with confidence and admiration, and I had no idea how his Okinawa was different from mine, but I was somehow attracted to his words and confidence.

I was born and raised in the countryside of Shikoku, an island which is also a chunk of four prefectures. My house was right by the sea so naturally I learned to play in the water since I was little and I loved doing so. When my friend said he would take me to Okinawa, it has been quite a while since my last visit and plus because it was about a year since I came out to this gigalopolis Tokyo and I was getting sick of this place, it might have been the right time to go back to some ocean.

But let me say just one thing.
The excitement that stirred inside myself then was fate. I was bound to set foot again on the soil of Okinawa.

And so the next month, May, we flew to Okinawa.

Because we took an unbelievably cheap tour ticket to Okinawa – 3 nights 4 days, with accommodation for one night, rent-a-car plus round-trip plane ticket all for 30,000 yen – we had to stay at this designated hotel on the main island, disabling us from staying on the isolated island on the second day.

The first day of the trip was an ordinary sightseeing course with the car we rented. We sped from Naha to the northern shores, but we couldn’t close our eyes from the cobalt blue water on our way, so we stopped the car, took off our clothes and dived into the beautiful water.

May is season-wise right before the rainy season so there weren’t many people swimming then, but the air was hot enough for us to really have fun in the ocean so we had a blast as though the place was a private beach.

Suddenly my friend asked me, “Did you bring your fins?” and I was like, “No.” Then he dashed to the car and brought a pair saying excitedly, “You have to have them. It’ll be so much different.”

So I wore them right away and put on my snorkel and paddled into the water again.

Whoooom!

I can’t describe the excitement then. I was like, I am swimming!! Every kick gave me a strong push deeper into the water and it felt sooo good. I couldn’t believe I could swim without fins before.

When I came out from the water and trampled the sandy shore, my friend gave me a wide grin.
“Told you.”
Thanks buddy. I went to get my own immediately.

So now, I with a new toy am about to continue my exploration to an isolated island.

…to be continued.

End of Rainy Season!!

Woohoo! I’d been telling you all the time about rain and soccer, but the rainy season is finally over!!!

…Only in Okinawa, though.
Tokyo is raining today as usual. This is so upsetting.

The news (or maybe the Met office?) announced that this tsuyu front that’s been bringing rain across the country passed through Okinawa quicker than the past years. They say that the temperature in Okinawa’s prefectural capital Naha City was as high as 30.2 degrees Celsius (let’s see, that’s about 86F?) at 10:30am on Tuesday June 20th.

Oh my beloved Okinawa…
Now that the rain is all gone, it’s the best time of year to spend time there.
In the past essay I told you that Okinawa’s suffering severe damage from rain, and even though the rainy season was shorter than the usual years the total rainfall in the end was twice as much of that than usual. At least it passed away faster… I wouldn’t even want to imagine how worse the situation could become if the rain lasted longer.

Maybe I should tell you my little story about my encounter with Okinawa since I tell you so often how much I love the place.

My first visit to Okinawa was rather late and it was when I was 20 years old. Despite my obsession with Okinawa now, the first visit was somewhat automatic and did not happen because I had a long desire to go there. It just happened to be the location for a summer camp of a university club that I belonged to (“camp” is just nominal, it was like any student group trip).

The places I visited then were tourist spots all on Okinawa main island like Naha and Nago, but the unique Ryukyu culture and atmosphere, the beauty if the water and marine resorts, and marine sports like canoeing and banana boats (kind of like tubing except that the tube is shaped like a banana) soon captured my heart.
The following year when I had the authority to decide where to have that year’s summer camp, I went for Okinawa right away.

Nonetheless, I did not know that my decision without deep consideration was a failure as a result.

Summer camps include quite a number of people and planning this out was not too different from choosing a package tour from the travel agency. I was extremely excited about the trip, but in the end it turned out to be pretty much the same as the previous year. And you know, when you’re about the age of 20 you’re constantly looking for new excitement, so that year I was already bored of Okinawa.

I did not have any chances or intentions to visit Okinawa for some time since then.

About two years ago, I was talking to my friend about my experiences in Okinawa and my impression just in a light conversation. His reaction was not something I had expected at all. With a serious face he told me that, “You don’t know the real Okinawa. You’re really losing out on this.”

“The real Okinawa?”

It was this same year that I got to know the true beauty of the islands.That’s all for today. Look forward to the following story :-)

Japan Dragging Down Japan

Like I’ve got nothing else to talk about, I’m going to talk about the World Cup again.
This is all because I want you to read the following, the fact that’s been bugging me ever since the Cup started.

I have written here I assume you know that Japan had lost to Australia on the first match and managed to end it a draw against Croatia. But I haven’t really told you that there is a common factor to both these matches, and that’s the hours of the match.

Among all the matches of Group F (that’s where Japan belongs) there are precisely two matches that start at 15:00 German time and those two are both matches of Japan. This would be 22:00 in Japan time.

Don’t you think this says something quite obviously, perhaps something like “it’s the easiest to get high audience rate at this time”?

I know you’re probably like, “So what? Isn’t that better cuz you don’t have to worry about the match while you work and you don’t have to stay up late at night?”

It is indeed good for us, but maybe not for the players. From what I see in the previous matches, 15:00 in Germany this time of year looks like it’s baking hot and Japanese players aren’t that tough to begin with. It’s definitely not the best time of day for them to run around and concentrate for 90 minutes.

That doesn’t mean though that I deny the lack of Japan’s decisiveness and the ability to control the match, but what made me aware of this “3 o’clock matter” was manager Zico’s interview after the match.

“Japan’s strength can’t come out under the scorching heat. Two matches under such condition was definitely not a preferable thing for Japan, but as long as the media wants it, it can’t be helped.”

He said this with a very stern expression.

With regard to World Cup Soccer, an advertising company called Dentsu dominates the broadcasting rights. If Dentsu forced the matches to be carried out at this time for the sake of audience rate… I understand that the other team (Australia and Croatia) had to play under the same condition and even that alone makes me feel unhappy, but Japan had to do this twice in a row…
I think that if my (and Zico’s) assumption is true, it’s not too much to say that all was for the benefits for the ad company and media’s money business and maybe Zico wanted to tell that too.

http://germany2006.nikkansports.com/japan/jp051210-0068.html (Japanese)
This article from last year clearly states that the hours for the two matches were intentionally changed for TV broadcasting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/japan/5044540.stm (English)
And this article from BBC clearly shows Zico’s upset.

It’s not always a wrong thing to adjust the time so that people back in their home countries can enjoy the excitement real time.
But if the team loses because of the time adjustment… that’s what you call tail wagging the dog, huh?

GAMBARE NIPPON
(GO FOR IT JAPAN)

After hearing Zico’s comments, I don’t think I can readily accept this phrase repeatedly appearing on TV.

P.S.
None of the Japanese media really make remarks of this topic and Zico’s interview translated into Japanese is “toned down” to something blurrier.

Hmm, I know I’m supposed to introduce good sides of Japan but this isn’t really impressive. Is this something that can happen in other countries too?

Ghost Town

It is so disappointing that the rain just doesn’t stop these days. It’s even more upsetting that my precious weekends have to be rain all the time.
Even the day before yesterday which was a gorgeously sunny and hot Saturday, showered in the evening so I – having been out since noon – had to buy another umbrella to add to my ridiculously big collection of plastic umbrellas at home :-(

Yesterday too was another drizzly Sunday continuing from the night before, but because I was out in a car with a friend I didn’t suffer too much from this rain.

Well of course, rain is not exactly what I want to write about today.
What I want to talk about is no doubt the World Cup from yesterday, furthermore not so much about the matches but about the Cup’s influence to people here.
Yesterday Japan was playing against Croatia. Both my friend and I wanted to watch the match so we got on our way back home well in advance of the match but the traffic was pretty bad and it was already past kick off when he dropped me off near my house.

I was desperate to watch the match but at the same time I had some errands I had to run so I first went to the bookstore. This place is usually packed with people reading books, comics and magazines all the time, but last night it was empty. The emptiness was so weird that it was like in a comic book, and the staff also looked pretty hollow staring into space.

So this is the World Cup, I thought.

Well the match last night had crucial significance cuz both Japan and Croatia couldn’t offer a loss in order to make it through the 1st stage. Of course I wanted to watch it, but after seeing such an unusual state of the bookstore, I was thinking maybe I want to take advantage (well, more like “enjoy”) of this unusualness of the neighborhood.

An empty town where people have suddenly disappeared… isn’t that exciting like in a movie!?
I was like, ok, the workers and I are the only beings left in this town (I know it’s ridiculous) and so then I went into the convenience store.

The convenience store greeted me with the live coverage of the JPN-CRO match on radio. This place usually has pop music but apparently switched to soccer in this emergency situation. Hoho, isn’t this fun. I could almost feel the anxiety and boredom of the staff in a store where the customers have disappeared.

Even though the other people are gone, I have to throw something into my stomach to survive (and to live for those who disappeared!) and so I get food for myself.

I felt that the staff was sort of kinder than usual, cuz he asked me “This one is good as it is, but would you like to have it heated?” where he would normally ask, “Would you like it heated?”!!! I kindly asked not to but maybe he missed having people around. Well, he did warm up my heart!

I leave the convenience store and as I thought, there was not a single person around on the streets.
Where have they gone? Have they disappeared? Why am I alive? It was a situation that made me feel that way.

Then that I was building up my imagination, I suddenly heard a scream.

“AAAAHHHHHH!!”

So there’s someone out! And what does that scream suppose to mean!?


……


Yes of course, soccer. Japan must have been in a huge pinch.
Okay, time to run home.
So I get back home and discovered that the scream was from when Japan accidentally gave Croatia a PK :P

The match ended with an exhausted 0-0 draw. Hope is not lost, but the chances are the slimmest cuz the next match is against world champion Brazil. Brazil had made its way out of the preliminary already beating Croatia and Australia, but would not give us an easy match anyway.
If there is a chance of winning (and I emphasize the “if”), it would be the members Brazil chooses for the next match. If the champion is considering of preserving the stronger players for the tournament, maybe they will bring forward the other players, but what are the chances?
All I can tell is that the day of the next match will have another ghost towning phenomenon, lol.
Personally, the 1-1 draw between France and S.Korea shocked me more than the draw of Japan and Croatia. Come on France! You have to make it to the tournament!

The Rainy Season Dismal

I have written about the rainy season so many times in this blog and on Japan Mode. And again, I write here about it to tell you the misery Okinawa is experiencing because of the heavy rainfall right now.

Okinawa is a prefecture located southernmost of Japan and is consisted of a number of islands. See Japan Mode for information on Okinawa itself. Ever since my very first visit there I fell in love with it: it is the only and last place in Japan where amazing nature and unique atmosphere (it used to be a different country many many years ago) remains today. It is absolutely stunning.

Very sadly, my most favorite place on earth is suffering devastating landslides the heavy rain had caused.
I heard on the TV news that an apartment building built on top of a hill is about to collapse because of severe landslide, and that its parking lot has already sunk due to land sinking. In the same news they also said that the land is literally sliding 14mm (slightly shorter than 1/2 inch) in one day. That’s only 1.4cm, it’s like the width of your fingernail. But according to specialists in architecture, even 1cm could do serious harm to houses.

If you think about it, well yes, a relatively small piece of land is bearing enormous pressure of a building quite tall, so it’s not a huge surprise to know that 1cm can kill an apartment (although we call them ‘mansion’ here). But one centimeter…

The long rain during this season is not like typhoon with wind that has great power and speed. But by raining quietly little by little for many days it can become a huge threat to our daily lives. Power of nature, huh?

So the story about elevators yesterday, today’s rain, and many other unhappy news… where has Japan’s “safety myth” gone???

It’s been raining since last night here in Tokyo. It seems like it has temporarily stopped at the moment, but I hear this weekend is going to be rainy and next week, too. Can’t tell you how jealous I am to see Germany on TV so sunny and dry!

What Makes Life Safe?

The first thing that comes on TV news these days is most definitely the big scandal of Schindler Elevator.

For those who don’t know about this news, let me briefly explain what the issue is all about. There was a fatal accident in one of the apartment buildings that have elevators made by Schindler. It happened when a high school boy tried to carry his bike on the elevator. He was fine until the doors opened at the floor he was getting off at, but things went wrong when the elevator didn’t stop going up - while the doors were still open. The boy, who was just about to set his foot out of the elevator, couldn’t get himself completely out when the elevator started to rise, got his chest caught and was crushed to death.

This happened on the 3rd of June. Now, the happening - and moreover Schindler’s post accident comment - has turned into a huge social problem.

The accident happened not because of the structure and design of the elevator, but is due to the maintenance’s error by oversight.

This comment given right after the accident, before making any disclosure at all, before conducting thorough investigation, seemed nothing but an excuse for the elevator maker, claiming they have no fault and all is to be blamed on those in charge of maintenance.

Of course, the maintenance side has its own say, not only against Schindler and this particular accident, but also against the elevator industry as a whole. For the elevator maker who wants to do maintenance on their own and make profit out of it, the maintenance operators who specialize only in maintenance are in a word business competitors. What happens is that the makers take a perfunctory attitude towards the maintenance side not providing the guideline or parts requested. When things come to the worst, they don’t even do the business transfer sufficiently.

Well, what do you say? No wonder there are accidents, huh?

Nearly TEN days after the fatal accident had occurred, the CEO of Schindler came out over to Japan and held a presentation (explanatory) meeting. SO slow. That should have been done nine days earlier.
The slow care and the buck-passing, the absence of the highest authority (and responsibility) at the meeting held for the residents of that particular apartment… all of these made the issue a vicious snowball and a controversy.

I never even gave a thought about checking the elevator producer and maintenance company when I use the elevators, but today when I took one I had a close look. There were the names of the elevator maker and maintenance company and they were different names.

I don’t know if the accident has something to do with it or not, but this morning I saw the maintenance people come over and check the elevators.

Anyhow, since elevators are something many of us use more than once a day, I do hope the makers and the maintenance companies sort out the troubles going on between them and pay more attention to what happens to the people who use them. I do believe where the responsibility lies is a significant point, but people engaged in business like this, I hope they look further ahead and each acknowledge the responsibility they bear to users.

Another Wacky Building in Harajuku

This morning I went out to Aoyama for a different job from Japan Mode.

Although I hadn’t been there recently, the townscape seems to have not lost its unique atmosphere with the designed modern buildings of name brands especially Prada and Cartier.

I was with a couple of other colleagues and by the time we finished that job for the morning it was past noon so we decided to find a place to have lunch. And suddenly, we found this bizarre building.

This is it.



I’ve always thought that the Prada and other buildings in this neighborhood are weird, but this one was truly bizarre. I was just stunned to have found this.

Because only the brand new building was there and it seemed like no stores have filled in the empty spaces so it is actually kind of exciting to see what kinds of brands and stores and possibly restaurants and cafés are going to be there.

There are a bunch of Japanese brands geared toward young Japanese women around, so perhaps this building is going to be another fashion building. You never know.

Speaking about “you never know”, I did watch the FIFA World Cup match between France and Switzerland although it started from 1:00am Japan time. And I think some of you already know, the match ended with a draw :-( Attacks not strong enough, I guess. This may not be the right place to write about soccer soccer and soccer, but I sure hope my most favorite player Zinedine Zidan (who by the way announced his retirement right after the World Cup) will show us a lot of plays so splendid that some depict them as his dance with the soccer ball.

FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 - Japan 1st Match

Woohoo, the worldly festival FIFA World Cup 2006 has finally begun!
I don’t know how big of an event it is in other countries, but I’m sure for those living in cultures where soccer is a national obsession you can’t concentrate on studies and works for the next several weeks! Soccer is becoming bigger and bigger in Japan and I am one of those soccer freaks.

So Japan had its first match yesterday (June 12) against Australia and the result was… just devastating. We were winning for the first 84 minutes by 1-0 but wow, how could Australia just throw in THREE points in the last TEN minutes!? Well the only successful shot by Japan was no means magnificent… it appeared rather like a lucky accident to me which NAKAMURA’s supposedly a pass kind of rolled across the goal line. There weren’t many shots attempted in the first place and most of them lacked decisive power…not to mention the fact that Japan never really had enough strong decisiveness :P

What surprised me the most was the audience share of the match last night (it was on air 22:00-24:00). It was aired on NHK (kind of like a national broadcasting center) and they say that the average share was 49%, with the highest going above 62%! So I guess that means 2/3 of the Japanese people had their TVs switched on NHK at one point and more or less half of the population was watching the match on average.
And these rates only reflect those of terrestrial broadcasting which means that if you count satellite and cable, the percentage goes higher!
Surprising it is, although it’s not the highest. The average viewership for Japan - Russia in the last World Cup Korea Japan 4 years back went beyond 60%. I wonder what it’s going to be like for the following matches against Croatia and Brazil :-)

Of course I was one of those glued to the TV screen last night, but as a matter of fact, I’m more of a fan for France rather than Japan so I’m more excited about the match today between France and Switzerland!! I sure hope they won’t fall off the preliminaries like the last time…Go for it France!
And congrats to the Aussies for the first ever win in FIFA WC :-D

Oops, almost forgot that my essays are supposed to focus on Japan :P

So, I’m back to the regular routine!

SAM, sorry about the “what day is today” thing. I had tough schedule and projects to finish up but then at the same time I wanted to put up something everyday, so. Well…enough of excuses. I’m really happy to know that there are people like you who tell me they like what I write :-) Thanx a ton! I’ll try to keep up writing good stuff, so pls check back.

Anyway, Tokyo region “officially” entered the rainy season (what we call TSUYU here) last Friday, and so we had a very rainy Sunday yesterday. I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain so much.

Rainy season for me is really more than enough nuisance. Really brings me down.
I used to live on the second floor (“second” in the Japanese sense which I think “first” in many European cultures? I’m not too sure) before and the rainy season wasn’t that big of an event at that time, but now I live on the first floor (ground floor) and for the first time I realized how much difference it can make. Since it’s solid ground underneath the flooring of my room, I can actually feel the moisture from beneath.

Besides I can feel the wetness in the air with my skin, I can see adverse influences in other aspects.
First of all, a lot of things get moldy. This was really shocked when I first realized this.
Come to think of it, I never really knew humidity before I came to Tokyo. Like I said just before, I lived on a breezy second floor before I came here, and I’m originally from Kagawa, the prefecture with the least rainfall in the country where the dam dries up literally every summer.
And what’s this!? I left a piece of bread out for a day and it’s got mold!

The worst part is that, like I wrote, the humidity comes from beneath, from the smallest gap of the house. It rises from the floor and sneaks in from beneath the doors and windows. Closing the windows on rainy days hardly makes life better this season. My room gets stuffy and moldy anyway. Ugh.

Well, for this humidity Japanese people from the ancient days have squeezed their brains and invented all kinds of things and ways to live through this season. For instance, the architectural materials used for many of the old Japanese houses are kinds like clay wall and plaster in which at humid times absorb moisture and release moisture at dry days. The roof tiles were placed so that there were gaps in between each tile to release moisture outside naturally.
Japanese houses are the crown of knowledge, technique and labor of Japan to live in Japan.

But sadly, the day I’ll have such house seems pretty far from now.
I guess I’ll have to live with the small and enclosed cement compartment…

Next time I move, I know I’m not moving into a room on the first floor.

The picture is of hydrangea, a flower you’ll see across Japan this time of year.
One of the very few pleasures of this season, huh?

Perhaps the next volume of origami on Japan Mode would be this flower, ajisai :-)

What day is today? 6/9

June 9 The Rock Day
ROKKU-no-hi
from the word play, "ROKU(6)-KU(9)"

What day is today? 6/8

June 8
School Security Day, Children's Safety Day:
because this day in 2001 happened the cruel incident of Osaka schoolchildren murder and wound.

What day is today? 6/7

June 7
Mothers Competition Anniversary: the day the competition was held in 1955 under the slogan of,"Mothers who bring life to this world wishes to raise and protect the life."

What day is today? 6/6

June 6
Day of Ikebana, Day of Culture Lessons
It is said in Japan that people who start cultural lessons on June 6th of your 6th year of life will mark great proficiency

What day is today? 6/5

June 5
Environment Day
Not a Japanese special day but a worldly one. The day Declaration of Human Environment was made and UNEP was established in Stockholm, 1972.

What day is today? 6/2

June 2
Yokohama Port and Nagasaki Port Opening Anniversary

Both ports were opened in 1859 in accordance to the
conclusion of the US - Japan Treaty of Friendship and Commerce

What day is today? 6/1

June 1
Radio Wave Day
Radio Wave became available to the public this day in 1950.