Tokyo, Japan

Chou Sen Ji in Shibuya II

2009-04-19T23:00:00.003+09:00

The grounds were simple, but exquisitely appointed. Not a piece of trash could be seen anywhere. A few wild cats ran about the temple grounds, but they appeared well fed. The priest, caretaker, or visitors must be feeding them. Approaching one or two, they darted off to the rear, where a large graveyard extends to the JR tracks.

The temple's name is 長泉寺: Chou Sen Ji. It roughly translates as long (water) spring temple.

The entrance is guarded by a single large tree. A sign is carefully placed by Shibuya City (a section of Tokyo) that registers it and restricts cutting and pruning. When I was young, we had a similar tree in our backyard in London. Recently exploring the depths of my new neighborhood, Shimo Kitazawa, inside remaining estates, I have seen trees adorned with similar signs, untouched by the ravages of the last war.

Chou Sen Ji in Shibuya I

2009-04-19T22:40:00.005+09:00

This weekend I went for a walk in Yoyogi Park, one of Tokyo's largest public parks. Along the way, I stumbled across this gem on Meiji Dori (明治通り). The street is packed with Tokyo's hippest shops. Mostly "select" shops where merchandise from a variety of domestic and overseas designers is gathered according to specific theme: skateboarding, hip-hop, punk, etc.

A pale yellow wall proceeded the entrance, buffeted only by the main road. Two elephants carved from granite greeted visitors from atop posts. I was the only person inside the temple. (This is common in the lesser-known ones.) Usually temples are guarded by two lions: one has its mouth open and the other closed. A long driveway paved with pebbles led from the main street to the temple's main building.

This picture is oddly cropped due to the ten story Brutalist apartment block seated to the right.

On either side of the driveway, parking spots have been sold or rented to luxury car owners. This is an oddity of Tokyo temples with land to spare. If they want to generate revenue without selling land, they pave, then rent. Still, this temple had the class to pave with a lighter colored, chunkier gravel. The offset was delicate.

Oshima

2008-09-23T13:12:00.003+09:00

Is it Ohshima or Oshima? Big Island is what the Japanese call it. The Chinese characters are 大島. The first is pronounced as a long "o" sound. Sometimes this is translated as "oh-shima" and other times "o-shima".

This picture is from the pier of Oshima in Tokyo bay. This pink rocket took me from an urban port in Tokyo (Takeshiba) straight to the island in about an hour.

The island has a year round population of less than ten thousand. And thanks to liberal spending by the Japanese government, there is always an airport large enough to handle jet aeroplanes. Ridiculous.

At the center is an expired volcano, so all the beaches are black sands. Sitting on the beach was hell because the sun felt twice as hot. Fortunately, the water was clear and beautiful. Coves around the edge of the island gave ample opportunity for snorkeling and scuba diving. Groups of Japanese divers dotted the black beaches with their shiny air tanks.

Monkey Island Fireworks II

2008-09-23T13:08:00.001+09:00

My friend took this picture. I am in the foreground.

Monkey Island Fireworks I

2008-09-23T12:39:00.002+09:00

Summer fireworks are a tradition in Japan. Districts in and around Tokyo schedule their performances so that residents can see fireworks each weekend for six to eight weeks in the summer.

I went to a few shows this summer. Sarushima (猿島 - Monkey Island) was the most impressive. A private company sold a limited number of boat tickets -- less than 500 -- to a tiny island in the center of Yokosuka bay (横須賀港), the site of a major US military base south of Tokyo.

Barges in front of the island lit an incredible display of fireworks. The night was breezy and cool, and there was plenty of space on the beach. This is a true rarity at Japanese fireworks. Usually, cities cordon off a viewing area too small for the number of visitors. Crammed together in the sweltering humidity of a Tokyo summer can be torturous!

Shinjuku at Night VII

2008-09-22T23:12:00.001+09:00

And then walking away, arm-in-arm.

Shinjuku at Night VI

2008-09-22T23:10:00.004+09:00

At the other end of Golden Gai, I caught this couple, embracing.

Shinjuku at Night V

2008-09-22T00:16:00.003+09:00

One Coin Champion Bar sits on the edge of Golden Gai, one of Tokyo's most famous post-war bar districts. It dates from the 1950s. Tiny buildings house bars with less than ten seats. And to discourage anyone but regulars, seating charges are prominently displayed. According to some guidebooks, locals don't pay the surcharge.

Champion Bar is quite the opposite. Run by a Fillipino lady well-known inside the Tokyo Fillipino community, she runs a open-air karaoke bar. All drinks are one price: 500 yen. This is very cheap given its location in Shinjuku. Inside you will find an eclectic mix of backpackers, English tutors, and curious open-minded Japanese.

Karaoke takes place in front of twenty of your "closest" friends. Price of embarrassment: 100 yen. Fortunately, there are two microphones. A friend can bail you out of the high notes in Mariah Carey's Dreamlover.

Shinjuku at Night IV

2008-09-22T00:02:00.002+09:00

A slight turn to the right gives a great shot of Tokyo's incredible night time scenery. The silhouette of a man waiting at the huge crosswalk, while a taxi approaches, contrasted with the wall of buildings lit with neon signs. Welcome to Kabukicho.

In my previous experiences in New York and San Francisco, I came to love the ground floor shops that dominate shopping districts. The street-level floor in any building in Manhattan or central San Francisco is prime territory. Unless inside a multi-floor store, often a flagship, stores rarely have their entrances off street-level. Restaurants and bars are also similar.

In Japan, many buildings in red-light districts dedicate their street-level space to an array of elevators used to lift customers to restaurants, bars, and clubs high above the streets. Shinjuku has the tallest all-restarutant/bar/club buildings I have seen anywhere in Japan.

This photograph gives an incredible view of these buildings, sometimes ten or twelve stories high. A single neon sign normally runs the height of the building advertising each business and their floor number.

Shinjuku at Night III

2008-09-21T23:49:00.003+09:00

This is the main entrance to Kabukicho, Japan's most famous red-light district. When I first arrived in Japan, I couldn't understand how such a outwardly conservative country could have so many seedy districts. After having lived here for more than two years, I now realise this phenomenon is more complex first impressions might imply.

Firstly, neon, unlike many parts of the United States, does not immediately indicate the neighborhood is sleazy. Somewhere between old downtown Las Vegas (think Golden Nugget) and Times Square, neon came to signify red-light districts. Having seen a few different East Asians cities -- Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, and Hongkong -- there is neon everywhere in business districts. Even innocent family restaurants are often peppers with neon signs. It is no more than an advertisment.

Secondly, a red-light district in the West immediately implies prostitution. This is not necessarily the case in Tokyo. While prostitution exists, it is a tiny part of these neighborhoods. Streetwalkers are rare. Most of the activity centers around eating with a small group of friends -- a pair of mixed pairs is the best from my experiences, and then continuing to karaoke (カラオケ) or a bar.

Shinjuku at Night II

2008-09-21T22:49:00.002+09:00

To walk to Memory Lane from Shinjuku station east exit, you need to walk under the JR tracks. I was lucky this night, as a young man was playing an acoustic guitar and singing. This underpass feels like the transfer passages of the New York City subway. The overhead steel I-beams rumble and shake as each train passes. The walls have been painted, layer over layer, year after year, probably for more than fifty years. The caged florescent lighting casts a jaundiced glow over the walkers and players.

This is the major pedestrian passage to the other side of the train tracks, so an endless variety of people pass through. At one point, when I was taking photographs, a salaryman stopped to have a chat with the musician. From what I can gather, they discussed his repertoire of tunes. The man made a request, then waited and listened, impressed.

Most street musicians create CDs to sell when they play in public. Most are very good on the street, so I try buy the CD. I used to do the same in New York City. Unfortunately, musicians are not allowed to play in the Tokyo subway stations, so they play outside. Some neighborhoods have a regular stream of musicians stopping to play their instruments -- Yurakucho, Ikebukuro, and Shinjuku are three good ones. And I have yet to see the same player twice.

Shinjuku at Night I

2008-09-21T22:33:00.003+09:00

I bought a tripod recently so I can take better pictures in low light. A previous post talked about how cheap you can get a full tripod for just 3,000 yen. I got mine at BIC Camera, one of the mega-electronics chains in Tokyo.

Last Monday was a holiday in Japan, so I went out to Shinjuku thinking it would be calmer than usual. I was wrong; it was packed. Young people were out like it was a Friday night. Restaurants and bars were brimming with packs of twenty- and thirty-somethings. Many were even wearing suits. Who wears a suit on a Sunday? Even in Japan, I am unsure. Sometimes salespeople wear suits on a Saturday. You can see them when riding the subway, but Sunday is quite rare.

If you exit from higashi guchi at Shinjuku station (新宿駅の東口 -- east side exit), you end up on the border of a famous red-light district called Kabukicho. The massive display of neon lights and the mixture of people provides many good photo opportunities.

On the other side of the train tracks is a pair of narrow alleys. One of which was pictured at the very beginning of my blog. It is called Omoide Yokochō (思い出横丁) or "Memory Lane". Many guidebooks feature it as a slice of Old Japan. Its sister alley is less well known, but is still brimming with restaurants and activity.

The featured photo above is from the sister alley, and the wall on the right holds back the roaring JR trains.

A Dog's Life

2008-08-17T22:26:00.002+09:00

I took this picture outside the 24 hour bookstore and cafe (Tsutaya) at the corner of Roppongi Hills. Nothing very Japanese about it, but this is where people in the area come to rest with their dogs. The area is quite wealthy, so there is a huge variety of dogs -- small and large, regular and exotic.

If I could own a dog, this would be it. Big, sedate, and always looks concerned. What is that about aging labrador retrievers? He probably spends his days in a large air-conditioned apartment with a skyline view!

Big Freezer, Big Tuna

2008-08-17T22:07:00.002+09:00

Foreigners visiting Japan never tire of Tsukiji. This is the central market famous for its tuna auctions. Probably more "sushi-quality" tuna is actioned here than anywhere else in the world. Admittedly, I don't visit this place enough. About once a year when someone is visiting, I take them or recommend it. I realise during my visit each time, how much find the trip can be.

The tuna auctions can be hard to find, even for people who speak little Japanese and can read the signs in Japanese (me!). Fortunately, a friendly shop merchant gave a ride on his buggy to some friends and I. Don't be discouraged: Tsukiji is enormous, but each time I go there are more signs to guide tourists. Finally, merchants are realising these so-called "tourist" people come carrying cash.

At this rate, in about twenty years, Tsukiji fish market management will get their heads in order and make a full show of the morning auction. Think: tour buses, entrance fees, interviews, picture taking, and Ye Olde Gift Shoppe.

One tip: The lighting is quite low inside the main freezer where the auctions happen. Using a flash is too intrusive, so bring a tripod, or be prepared to waste many frames getting lucky with a still hand. Any big electronics store in Tokyo has cheap tripods for 3,000 yen or less (about $30). These are also handy for taking photographs at night.

You cannot see it in this picture, but above us are giant chillers trying to keep the room at freezing temperatures. This place felt like a giant meat locker. When I used to shop at Sam's Club in Ohio, they had giant refrigerators for dairy products. Similar effect, but here was much colder.

Free Baby Car Parking

2008-08-17T21:51:00.002+09:00

This picture reminds me of National Geographic magazines. When living in the United States, I was a faithful reader for many years. (Unfortunately, overseas postage rates are quite high, so I no longer subscribe. Not a hint, just a fact.) Often, an interesting photo is featured with an explanation.

This is mine. Where is this and what are those? I went to see a exposition in Tokyo of children's toys at "Tokyo Bigu Saito" (Tokyo Big Sight). You can imagine how many children attended. In this city of eight million, surely ten of thousands visited over the weekend. In the West Hall (See the kanji 西?), one large area was reserved for baby car parking.

From the looks of it, there was no cost to enter, no security guards, and no locks on these cars. Thank you again, Japan, for reminding me how safe it is to live here. If this were New York City, either armed guards from private security firms would demand entrance fees or thieves would fill their trucks!

I didn't plan the blurring effect, even though it looks very National Geographic-ish. It just happened; the lighting in the hall was low enough to cause the shutter on my automatic camera to stay open longer than usual.

Chiyoda Chunnel

2008-08-09T11:33:00.004+09:00

I took this picture at the Meiji Jingu Mae station on the Chiyoda line in Tokyo. It reminds me of pictures I saw of the The Chunnel as a kid. Chiyoda is a subway line built in the 1970s. Period architecture dominates! Even the trains themselves feel dated, like a Gerald Ford suit.

Chiyoda line stations always look faded, even other lines much older. Something about the depth and quality of construction caused many of the walls and tunnels to leak. Tokyo Metro has the odd policy of taping plastic sheets over these leaks. In no time, the water has sprouted a healthy colony of green scum. I have even seen two litre bottles strategically taped to the ceilings of stations to catch drips.

Taman Negara : Riverboat

2008-04-14T22:58:00.002+09:00

I haven't explained the main title of this post series yet. Taman Negara means "national forest" in Malaysian. If you ask the locals about taman negara, they will say, "Which one?" If you ask backpackers, they will say, "The jungle?"

Most of the guidebooks (read: Rough Guide and Lonely Planet) refer to the virgin rainforests of West Malaysia as Taman Negara. This is it.

The tour is organised by two competing companies. They include bus fare from Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown to Jerantut. This is a small Chinese town south of the river junction. At the boat dock, you board small, low, locally-built river boats. My jungle guide would later explain these boats are built from a special tree and its sap is used as waterproof sealant in the joints. Due to strong southern currents, the trip lasts about three hours heading north and two hours south. The seat cushion was so thin my legs were numb by the end!

Side note about the expression "small Chinese town": I thought my guidebooks were being politically incorrect when used it to describe towns. Until I visited them. The landscapes in "small Chinese towns" are dominated by Chinese businesses. In the three that I visited, Chinese signs covered about 75% of the town. In other places, it was 25% or less. Many places have had little migration (in or out) over the last fifty years, so their ethnic make-up has barely changed. Many towns were founded outside mines, as the Chinese were used as laborers. After the British left and the republic was formed, many Chinese stayed and continued their families and businesses. Hence today's term: Chinese town.

About the photograph: It confirms beginner's luck and my strategy of over-photographing! (I usually shoot five to twenty shots, rapid-fire, to be safe about lighting and focus.) I was reviewing my fifteen pictures of the boat docking area to select the best for this entry, when I noticed the sky in this photo. If you have ever watched storm chasing documentaries and wondered where you can find similar cloud formations, they are a regular occurrence in Malaysia. A storm may sweep through and last for thirty minutes or less. The gathering and clearing of clouds before and after the storm is an amazing sight.

Taman Negara : Oil Palm Plantations

2008-04-10T23:47:00.002+09:00

When I was researching remote destinations for backpackers in Malaysia, I spent a lot of time searching on Google maps. From the air, most of West Malaysia appears like a checkerboard. Oil palm plantations dominate -- I repeat: dominate -- the landscape. (Click on the link to see a sample on Google maps.)

I tried many times on my bus trip to Taman Negara to capture these vast fields. And, I tried again on my trip to Kuala Sepating (to see the mangroves). Since I was always traveling at high speed on a highway bus, it was difficult to take steady photographs. Additionally, my view was obstructed by thick, tinted windows.

Of all my oil palm plantation pictures, this is my best. The sheer distance of the path between two rows -- nearly to the horizon -- should help you to understand the magnitude of these plantations. Sometimes I would drive for thirty minutes on a highway bus and see (almost) nothing but oil palm plantations. Small villages would appear for a few seconds, but then be swallowed by more endless rows of oil palms.

The palm is beautiful to me. Not having grown up with palm trees in my childhood, I was amazed when I first visited Los Angeles in high school with my father. California has a landscaping addiction to palms. They make good city dwellers, so they are planted everywhere it is warm enough to grow. Even the chilly bay of San Francisco is lined with fattened palms. That first time, I marveled at their symmetric beauty. At the oil palm ages, it grows in height significantly, up to twenty meters. Past a certain producing age, they are cut down, and new palms are planted. You could see this pattern repeated endlessly in the countryside. One hundred or more rows of mature trees were followed by a clearcut area where new trees one or two meters high were planted.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XVIII

2008-04-10T23:24:00.002+09:00

The cover of my Rough Guide to Malaysia has a photograph of a beautiful spotted butterfly feeding from a flowered vine. I tried to duplicate this same shot at the Kuala Lumpur butterfly park, but I was unable. My camera is too simple to capture butterflies moving so quickly. Either I could not focus correctly, or the butterfly was gone too quickly. And I tried many times.

The vine with red flowers in the background grows hanging from a special palm. The flowers have a cup shaped opening with lots of juicy nectar for butterflies and insects.

To understand the scale of this picture, the leaf in the center is as wide as your hand. The butterfly was about six inches across. Amazing that it sat still so long for me to photograph.

One last thing: How do they make a butterfly park? Put up a giant net, remove the predators, and provide lots of butterfly breeding grounds and food (read: nectar). They even spray sugar water on picked flowers floating in water so that butterflies do not go hungry if nectar is low in the flowering plants. They also work to always have at least some plants flowering in the gardens.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XVII

2008-04-10T23:15:00.002+09:00

Forgive me for the endless photographs of colonial buildings, but Kuala Lumpur has done a very nice job of preserving them. It is also one of the few places I have visited that was not destroyed by a war in the last fifty years. The Japanese ruled Malaysia during the Second World War as a colony, but left most buildings standing.

This one is called the Sultan Abdul Samad building. Unfortunately, it is not open to the public, but it is strung with lights that are switched on each evening. It is an amazing view, seeing the lighted arches pierce the nighttime darkness.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XVI

2008-04-09T23:53:00.003+09:00

On the backside of the grounds surrounding this mosque, I found a banana tree. It looks like the pipes of an organ, the way the bananas have arranged themselves.

Living in California in the early 2000s made me think about my food more than any time in my life previously. Never before had I felt so divorced from its production. Living on my own as an adult (and paying bills) for the first time, I finally saw how odd it was to eat bananas 365 days a year. Where do they come from? I thought. (Wikipedia nugget: "Bananas are grown in at least 107 countries.")

We take for granted the humble banana. It's nice to see real stuff growing. That's something I haven't seen a lot of in my mostly urban life.

Driving through the countryside of Malaysia, I occasionally spotted trees with paper bags tied to the ends of the branches. Only later did I learn, reading a Malaysian memoir, this is common practice to preserve mangoes from bats and insects.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XV

2008-04-09T23:45:00.003+09:00

Visiting Malaysia was the first time I had entered a mosque. I have only seen one or two before this trip. I must confess that I know very little about the required customs for prayer. I learned that people must (at least) remove their shoes and wash their feet prior to entering the prayer floor.

Don't mistake this star-shaped pool for a kiddie pool. The devout used simple, plastic ladles to scoop water and wash their feet. Others poured the water over their feet as they climbed the short steps from the path.

Shoes were neatly aligned around the curved stairways.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XIV

2008-04-09T23:28:00.003+09:00

I promised you that beautiful mosques exist in Kuala Lumpur. Here is Jamek Mosque (or Masjid Jamek to the locals). To quote my Rough Guide to Malaysia, "There's an intimacy here that isn't obvious at the modern, much larger national mosque to the south, and the grounds, bordered by palms, are a pleasant place to sit and rest."

So that we don't all get caught in the "Islam is bad" story, remind yourself that Notre Dame in Paris or Westminter Abbey in London can hardly be called intimate. There is a real intimidation factor to these buildings -- like the national mosque pictured earlier.

This mosque is special for a few reasons. It was designed and built by a British architect who previously served in India, so he brought a different type of design to Malaysia. One thing difficult to capture in photographs (given the lighting and my equipment) is the pink hue of the bricks. The mosque was built at the junction of two rivers that are the very reason for this city's name: Kuala Lumpur. Transliterated into English, it means "muddy confluence". (Click on confluence if you aren't study for your SATs at the moment to remind yourself that it means a joining of two rivers.) The grounds are subtle, but lush and welcoming. You might call it jungle landscaping. Finally, the mosque prayer area is open to the elements, and raised only slightly above the surrounding walkway. All of this makes it feel more like a neighborhood place where locals might gather to pray, rest, and socialise. Not surprisingly, local Muslims do just that.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XIII

2008-04-08T23:35:00.003+09:00

Having lived my entire life in areas covered by deciduous trees and pines, I am unaccustomed to such lush settings. Nothing could prepare me for the urban jungles of Malaysia. (I presume much is the same throughout Southeast Asia.) Consider that Western Malaysia was one giant rainforest until two hundred years ago when the British arrived to plant plantations of oil palms, rubber trees, and coconut trees. Look for yourself on Google maps, or look out the window on any countryside road; most of the land is now covered by oil palms plantations.

The remaining spots of undomesticated lands simply spring to life, growing as they had for millions of years previously. (Taman Negara rainforest is over one hundred million years old.) I was continuously overwhelmed by the effortless beauty of a tree-lined street, or a massive tree jutting out in a pedestrian walkway. A few inches of concrete were no match for the root systems of these hulking trees.

In the countryside, many homes had coconut, mango, and banana trees in their yards. As one native said to me at Silverfish Books, "This is God's country. Throw a few seeds on the ground, and (a few years later) you have a mango tree."

In this picture, I was walking to see the drum circle at Perdana Lake Gardens. This corner is one of the main entrances to the northern section of a large park on the west side of Kuala Lumpur that once held British estates.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XII

2008-04-08T23:26:00.004+09:00

Across the street from the national railways headquarters is the old main railway station -- Kuala Lumpur Station. Also known as KL Station. It was replaced in 2001 by KL Sentral Station which is one stop to the south.

A hotel and restaurant are also contained within this building.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XI

2008-04-08T22:24:00.002+09:00

Fortunately, across the street are two stunning examples of colonial architecture. Viewed across the gardens surrounding the national mosque, this is the national railways company headquarters.

This is one of Kuala Lumpur's best examples of Moorish architecture. It draws upon styles from southern Spain and North Africa.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia X

2008-04-07T22:56:00.001+09:00

Built to intimidate or celebrate? You be the judge. Ask yourself the same about Westminster Abbey in London.

This is the national mosque.

I was intimidated, not by the bad architecture, but by the man at the gate. (Don't worry, other mosques in the city are more beautiful.) An aggressive gatekeeper yelled at me as I tried to enter an area clearly labeled "Tourists" with an inviting arrow.

"CLOSED!"
"Huh?"
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"What?"
"CLOSED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"This sign says I may enter."
"NO! CLOSED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"No. Thank you."

I walked around the man with a puzzled look. He stared at me until I was out of his sight. Nice way to welcome someone to your national mosque.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia IX

2008-04-07T22:52:00.000+09:00

Public toilets are nearly everywhere in Kuala Lumpur, but they are manned -- rather "womanned" -- and require a small sum to use. Twenty Malaysian cents (about six US cents) earns you the right along with a small roll of toilet paper.

This one was outside the national mosque.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia VIII

2008-04-07T22:39:00.000+09:00

When I saw this political flyer advertising a recent election candidate, a few things struck me as noteworthy.

1) The candidate is a woman and wearing a headscarf. Presumably she is a muslim. In many Islamic nations, this is prohibited.

2) Her photograph is featured prominently. In many Islamic nations, this is prohibited.

3) The flyer carries three languages: Bahasa Melayu, Chinese, and Tamil. This is another example of multiculturalism in modern Malaysian culture.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia VII

2008-04-07T22:32:00.001+09:00

Inside the Hindu temple, there were two large monuments built. This one is the smaller of the two, but is clearer in photographs. The detail is easier to see. The peak is built from many smaller, supporting figures. The other monument was twice as tall.

As seen in many of my previous blog photos of temples in Asia, I like the framing of contrast between the rising city against the oasis of preservation. Asian cities are quick to pave and rebuild, except their places of worship.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia VI

2008-04-06T23:39:00.001+09:00

This was my first time to a Hindu temple. People were generally quite welcoming at Hindu temples throughout Kuala Lumpur. The same cannot be said for mosques. On several occasions, I was barked at by angry men at the front gates about what to do and not to do. By the end of my trip, I found myself replying to these "gatekeepers" in elementary school French or Japanese. They were clueless and waived me through. The goal of these men -- yes, I stress the men part here -- was clearly to intimidate foreigners. Congratulations on your success!

Outside each Hindu temple, stalls sold fresh flowers wrapped with twine to form colorful necklaces. These weren't for humans to wear, however. People would buy them and place on statues inside the temple.

Having come this far in my tour, I realized you, the reader, may not know about the ethnic make-up of Malaysia. Indians and Chinese arrived here during the British colonial era, pre-World World II. They were used initially for hard labor. Upon the formation of the Malaysian Republic, all ethnicities were eligible for citizenship. What distinguishes Malaysia from its multicultural neighbors -- Singapore and Indonesia -- is that non-Malay children learn their mother tongue at home and school first, and Bahasa Melayu as a second language. Usually, this is a southern Chinese dialect for the Chinese (Hokkien, Cantonese, or Hakka), and usually Tamil for Indians. As a second or third language, people learn English. Language-specific schools for the Chinese and Indians dot the landscape in Malaysia. Finally, non-Malays were not forced to take Malaysian names, as was the case in Indonesia. I will write more about this mix of cultures and people when relevant later.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia V

2008-04-06T23:31:00.001+09:00

I like this picture of a family restaurant, just outside the Chinese temple, because something about the setting makes me imagine I am in India. Having never been to India, I only know it by photographs, but this is how I imagine it.

Family restaurants in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown were quite similar: an open-air kitchen lay in half the floor and odd seating in the other half. Tables were arranged as necessary by arriving customers and their parties. The whole affair was quite informal. (This was somewhat different for Malaysian and Indian restaurants.)

I also like the contrast between the old street sign, the peeling paint, the tangled wires, and the air-conditioning unit squeezed into the wall just above. On the far left, a man washes some dishes in a plastic bucket with soapy water below an exhaust vent bursting out of the building.

When eating on the street or these small family restaurants, plates and silverware were cleaner than I expected. Oddly, Malaysians -- of all backgrounds (Malay, Chinese, and Indian) -- ate with a fork and a spoon. Knives and chopsticks were a rarity.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia IV

2008-04-06T23:24:00.001+09:00

In the southern part of Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown (really just a few blocks from North to South), lies a Chinese temple. It is classically ornate -- red gateway and gold leafing everywhere -- but the incense burning is unique. Wound into virtual bird cages, these incense sticks were hung one over another with messages written to the dead in Chinese.

The temple was tiny -- no more than 100 sq. m. inside, so the incense burning easily overwhelmed any normal air flow. You can see in this picture the smoky atmosphere. Leaving the temple your clothes carried the fragrance.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia III

2008-04-06T23:00:00.000+09:00

Kuala Lumpur is a bit dirtier than Tokyo, but no dirtier than New York City (Manhattan). The streets have a bit of garbage in the gutters and trash smells strong given the heat. I found the car exhaust the most difficult. When walking through busy areas with trucks and buses (both diesel), I would have pounding headaches that sometimes lasted for hours. These only finally faded when I left the city. At the end of a few days I was dulled to the sensation. I wonder if anyone has studied the effects on children? Some people worked on the streets selling food or goods, or even shining shoes. Idling buses and trucks sat nearby. They appeared fine.

Most public buses in Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia for that matter, were not air-conditioned. Shocking as this may be to some foreigners, locals generally adapt to the hot and humid conditions. It is common for Singaporeans to live most of the year without air-conditioning at their homes. A breeze from open windows is enough. Don't worry: Long distance buses in Malaysia are like refrigerators inside.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia II

2008-04-06T22:53:00.001+09:00

Now that I have traveled to a few countries during my stay in Tokyo -- Singapore, Hongkong, Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia -- I am still surprised by cities each time I land. The airports are nearly uniform everywhere. The only difference is the variety of languages that appear on signs. The difference starts on the journey from the airport into the city. What do the highway signs or the train tickets look like?

Some things are completely domestic to each country. Two things that come to mind are payphones and taxis. Payphones in Kuala Lumpur were predictably dirty. Japan is the one place I would dare use a public phone. Unlike most places I have traveled, they feel more like a home telephone from the 1960s or 1970s. The cord is curly plastic like United States analog phones from the 1980s and 1990s, not metallic like Time Square and these photos.

The taxis were tiny Proton-brand cars with manual transmissions, and the drivers refused most destinations. Many tried to travel without using the meter. (This is most negative point about travel in Kuala Lumpur.)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia I

2008-04-06T22:50:00.000+09:00

The first time I went overseas as an adult, I traveled to Hongkong. I had worked for nine months at my first full-time job and had long dreamed of traveling to Hongkong. I bought the old British colony flag in California as an inspiration; I still hang it wherever I live.

I had no idea what the city would look like on the ground. Tour guides are full of skylines, temples, and festivals. Few include pictures of general city life. I was surprised by Hongkong at ground level. I remember the ticking sound pedestrian signals emit at each intersection. One for wait; another for walk.

So this is Kuala Lumpur. I'll tell you more about life on the ground in the next few posts.

Pacific Sunset

2008-03-30T18:00:00.002+09:00

Call me cheesy for posting so many pictures of sunsets and skylines, but they are easy for amateurs to take. The range of colours in this picture is incredible. As I leaned into my window to snap pictures, the flight attendant stopped to comment. My flight was from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur. Welcome to my Malaya adventure.

Temple in a Garage

2008-02-26T00:04:00.000+09:00

I got sidetracked on my way home Saturday afternoon stumbling across this hidden gem in Roppongi. This temple is less than 500m from the Roppongi Hills complex, and is so hidden its entrance can only be accessed through a parking garage.

Behind me in the photograph is an elaborate second affair clearly built with recent money. The graveyard is huge behind both buildings and probably draws large yearly revenues. (In Japan, it is common for ancestors to pay [large] yearly fees to temples to maintain burial plots.) Numerous expensive European imports were parked in the garage and on temple grounds.

Nonetheless, it remains a quiet and beautiful escape from the bustle of Roppongi Hills.

Coin Locker Rules and Regulations

2008-02-25T23:53:00.000+09:00

The Japanese sometimes wonder why more tourists do not visit their wonderful country. Additionally, both sides frequently observe they cannot understand the other's motives. Signs like this do not help the situation.

This picture is not a joke. They are the instructions for my coin rental locker at Roppongi Hills and include, "but are not limited to", the prohibition to store (3) animals, (7) corpses, and (8) items that emit foul odors.

The most painful part: The management company dutifully posted the same instructions in Japanese on the left (not pictured).

Tokyo Tower II

2008-02-25T23:40:00.000+09:00

One of the first photographs I ever posted on my blog was Tokyo Tower at night. This weekend I went to the top of Roppongi Hills to see the new UBS Corporate Art Collection exhibit was "Art is for the Spirit". As part of the entrance ticket, you may also enter the 53rd floor observatory.

Unlike New York City, Tokyo is mostly a low rise city. Unbounded by water on three sides, it has endlessly expanded for the last fifty years. Only the very center in Otemachi and Marunouchi has a collection of high rise buildings like American cities. Most tall buildings are built as separate complexes with many adjacent smaller buildings, shops, restaurants, residences, parks, and museums. Each is virtually a small scale city at completion. This style of construction began to dominate Tokyo in the 1990s and has continued since. The peak of this style was Roppongi Hills. Stretched over a vast area, it encompasses many, many activities in a single interconnected complex.

I took this photograph shortly after the sun set, so my long exposure captured the sky as royal blue. The observatory has a ledge next to the windows so it is easy to steady cameras for long exposures required at night. Some of the more enthusiastic photographers brought their own elaborate equipment including external (digital) screens and large tripods. It was a typical Japanese touring affair.

Winter Citrus

2008-02-23T17:04:00.000+09:00

Fruits are amazing in Japan. There are two ways the fruit is so perfect when it arrives at your local supermarket: lots of pesticides or most used as animal feed. Probably, it is a combination of both.

Winter citrus is in high season right now. Unlike the United States, fruits are strictly seasonal in Japan. They import very few fruits from (nearby) tropical countries. This results in waves of fruits throughout the different seasons. Giant grapes arrive in the summer, apples in the fall, oranges in the winter, and finally strawberries as spring approaches.

These oranges were part of my breakfast this morning.

Nozawa Onsen VI

2008-02-23T16:58:00.000+09:00

This is a picture of the town center, less than one hundred meters from our hotel. Some kind of festival must have happened the week before to hang the red lanterns.

Everywhere on this street were small shops selling omiyage (お土産). These are small traditional Japanese snacks to bring back to friends and coworkers from holidays.

Nozawa Onsen V

2008-02-23T16:52:00.000+09:00

The snow started just after we arrived on Saturday morning and continued for the entire weekend. They had also incredible snowfall the week before.

The second day on the slopes, so much snow had fallen overnight that expert-level slopes were near impossible to finish. Snowboarders and skiers alike had to dig themselves out from powder snow up to their waists.

In the bottom right of this picture is a barely recognizable "mini" minivan. It is the same model as the car on the left.

Nozawa Onsen IV

2008-02-23T16:45:00.000+09:00

Just across the street from our hotel was a hotel built in Scandinavian style.

Check out the snow!

Nozawa Onsen III

2008-02-23T16:39:00.000+09:00

Since our group was so large, they set aside a special room for our dinner with a long table. The men sat at one end and the ladies came shortly after.

You can see the many dishes laid for each setting. This is traditional eating at its best in Japan. Instead of a single plate with a few items, many tiny plates and bowls are -- what seems -- endlessly brought by an attentive staff.

Pickles, sashimi (raw fish), meats (grilled on your own personal mini-grill), vegetables, and rice. By the end, you are stuffed!

Nozawa Onsen II

2008-02-23T16:32:00.000+09:00

The snow in Nozawa Onsen was incredible. I have never seen so much. I'm talking about feet of snow. Sometimes I laughed out loud seeing cars and buildings so swamped with snow.

Special snow removing machines run on the roads to literally cut a path through the snow. They can't plow like New York City; there is too much snow. They use giant snow blowers attached to the front of dump trucks to carve the roadway.

I opened the window in my hotel room to get this shot.

Nozawa Onsen I

2008-02-23T16:12:00.000+09:00

I traveled to Nozawa Onsen (野沢温泉) last weekend in a group of ten people for some skiing and onsen'ing. (An onsen is a bath fed by spring water heated deep in the earth.) Our hotel was right around the corner from the town's public bath. Inside was little more than wooden shelves for placing your shoes and clothes. Strip down and jump in. There are few other rules.

One of the Japanese guys managed to convinced one in our group to drink the onsen water! It was pale green and had bits floating around. (Each onsen source in Japan has different properties -- particles, dissolved or not.) After he took a few sips from what looked like a teacup, they cheered.

Of course, our hotel (旅館：ryokan) had its own onsen, but it is part of the village experience to hop in with the locals. The baths were divided between men and women, and further by hot and scalding water. You can imagine the foreigners were mostly in the hot bath, and the older Japanese men were camped in the scalding bath. One with the scalding onsen? Ask me in forty years if I still live here.

Yakisoba Sandwich

2008-02-23T15:53:00.000+09:00

Here it is: The big yakisoba sandwich. One of my coworkers says this is a good snack if you are looking to "carbo-load". Think of it as spaghetti on a roll.

If all you ever hear is Japanese people eat sushi and live forever, you might be inclined to believe junk food is virtually banned. Not so. Pimply faced schoolchildren flock to these snacks, as in any country. (India has a mess of fried snacks that I will conquer on a holiday one day soon.)

Not only is the sandwich a mere 126 yen, but it comes with this unappealing saran wrap, clearly showing the grossness of the whole affair. The day old mayonnaise (マヨネーズ) is pressed against the wrapping, eagerly awaiting a hungry schoolboy with poor complexion. Snacks like this keep dermatologists in business in Japan.

Yakisoba is a snack food sold at festivals and beaches; both specialise in carnival-like street food. It consists of thin noodles fried with soy sauce. To be honest, the taste was okay, and the bun wasn't too soggy -- no small miracle of Japanese food science.

My New Jacket II

2008-02-20T22:46:00.000+09:00

Admittedly, a post like this might get me in trouble one day. If a hedge fund blows up under my management, or I am caught tapping my foot in an airport bathroom stall... CNN will be looping this video for a week.

This is my first experiment with short video clips. My camera can shoot five frames in rapid succession. (Newer ones sound like a machine guns the lense operates so quickly.) I frequently shoot five or ten shots and pick the best later.

Showing this clip on Blogger.com was unusally difficult. I first needed to create an animated GIF image using GIMP. Then, I stored the file on PhotoBucket.com because Blogger.com does not supported animated GIFs. Finally, I can link to the shared image.

Enough shop talk: This is my new jacket, dammit. The previous post explains the shop. I'm also showing off my new shades from Top Shop. I was recently introduced by a friend to the Top Shop boutique in Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Mae (明治神宮前) between Omotesando (表参道) and Harajuku (原宿). Top Shop always held the coveted inside cover advertisement for i-D Magazine when I was a faithful reader in San Francisco and New York. A touch of Michael Jackson circa 1985 coming soon...

My New Jacket I

2008-02-20T22:34:00.001+09:00

I finally found a store I could love in Tokyo. Most clothing stores in Tokyo are from American and European designers. Sometimes, Chinese and Hongkong designers make a bigger splash than home grown ones. Living in San Francisco and New York, I always thought it strange the lack of Japanese designer boutiques. Brands exist, but they don't shine like American and European ones. And oddly, even in Tokyo, the American and European ones continue to dominate Japanese brands.

Admittedly, I am partial to the Tokyo-style of boutiques for American and European designers. The layout of stores and space available for men's clothes is better to me than San Francisco or New York. I wonder if Japanese feel the same about shopping in San Francisco and New York?

The store -- or rather brand -- is called The Suit Company. They have stores throughout Japan, and they embody the young, fresh Japanese salary boy. That's right -- you heard it here first: salary boy. Forget about the tired and worn salary man (サラリー・マン) and office lady (OL). The new generation isn't afraid to spike hair, wear pointy shoes, and viscously clash stripes and colours. They have taken the uniform from a previous generation one notch up.

Tighter waists, smaller shoulders, and slimmer fits are the style. They are barely out of the tanning salon in Shibuya (渋谷), running to the steel towers gracing Tokyo's growing skyline. If Otemachi (大手町), Marunouchi (丸の内), and Shimbashi (新橋) were for the salary man, Minato-ku's (港区) Akasaka (赤阪), Toranomon (虎ノ門), and Roppongi (六本木) are for the salary boys and girls.

Final Reflection

2007-12-18T00:15:00.000+09:00

These towers are actually larger than the two behind me in this photograph. The wall of towers featured in the previous blog post cannot compare to the bulk of this pair. Each side contains enough windows and balconies for at least seven apartments, and the buildings are about fifty stories high.

The only comparison I can draw is the Pan Am building in Midtown Manhattan. This may be Brutalist architecture's greatest example in Tokyo. Why they elected to build these two monstrosities so close is beyond me.

Fortunately, they make for a beautiful reflection in this tidal pond. The bridge in the center leads to a tea house (off the picture, to the right).

Towering Gardens

2007-12-17T23:47:00.001+09:00

This photograph and next are two of the best I have taken during my stay in Asia. The modern apartment towers reflect perfectly upon the tidal pond on a crystal clear autumn day.

The center of the pond is a tea house. Bridges from either side of the pond connect to the house. To grasp the scale of the buildings, take note of the tiny Japanese pine trees in the center of the photograph. One of these is featured in an earlier blog post. (They alone are twice my height.)

Man and Mountain

2007-12-17T23:30:00.000+09:00

A truly serene picture: A man on the mountain in the gardens. (Seriously, these hills had names throughout the gardens that used the character yama for mountain.) The park had so few people that nearly each could have their own bench, lawn, or hill to sit upon, undisturbed.

He was enjoying the surroundings when I snapped this picture. His lap carried a bento box for lunch.

The buildings prominently featured in this photograph and ones that follow are part of the redevelopment that occurred when Japan Railways was privatized. In the Nineteen Eighties, this area was covered with rail tracks for storing freight trains. I'm not sure when these trains are stored today, but the entire area was rebuilt.

Weathering A Winter

2007-12-17T23:16:00.000+09:00

The sign next to this pine tree explained that trees were once wrapped in winters to protect their branches during heavy snowfall. From a distance, it appears to be strings of Christmas tree lights. I'm surprised they don't keep the parks open during the holiday season with lights. This might attract more visitors during the winter months.

Tokyo rarely receives snow these days, so I don't think the tree is actually wrapped with a protective cloth. This process is more for decoration today. (If I see one wrapped later this winter, I will post a picture.)

When Japanese pine trees (matsu) mature, they often grow into twisted shapes. Unable to support the weight of their own branches, special supports are built that look like giant crutches. I'm not sure if Japanese pines grow this way unadulterated or due to damage from lightening strikes and fires that follow.

A Bridge Runs To It

2007-12-16T22:41:00.000+09:00

Welcome to Tokyo's Hama-rikyu Teien. My Google Maps entry says it best: "Finally: A Tokyo park that you actually want to visit!" This is the park system that I have missed in Tokyo for the last year and a half. Ueno Park is pathetic compared to this wonder.

Ueno Park has nearly every inch dedicated to paved walkways, national art museums, and a dreadful zoo. These gardens are old, well kept, and nearly empty. People sat alone enjoying the view with a bento box. Walking on the grass is permitted in certain areas, so it is perfect for picnics.

Buffeted on all sides by water (a canal and Tokyo bay), it captures what Seoul, Korea's urban temples do so well: traditional versus modern. Glimmering towers grace the edge of the gardens, providing magical reflections in the duck hunting brackish, tidal pond. (No joke about the duck hunting part, although maybe no longer.)

Accessing the entrance proved difficult, even on a bicycle. A garish six lane elevated highway over a six lane urban throughway makes for a uninviting start. Fortunately, carefully planted trees at the park's edge help to block out the noise. And, the gardens are large enough to nearly lose the city.

Gotenyama Falls

2007-12-16T22:15:00.000+09:00

Riding my bicycle home from Hara Museum in Shinagawa, I found this incredible garden next to Gotenyama Hills. Like Shiroyama Hills, it has an accompanying garden for office workers. In a city as overbuilt (and paved-over) as Tokyo, where did they (Mori Trust) find this land after the 1980s land bubble? The building feels 1990s'ish, so perhaps they tore down an Old Town area to plant this garden.

Part of it is a set of man-made waterfalls. Photographed at night provides the enchanting effect of water in motion. Professionals with better equipment probably need to slow down their lens to replicate this effect. Fortunately, my simple point-and-shoot accomplishes the same without effort.

To the left, over a tiny one lane road lies one of the largest (and loudest) train stations in Tokyo. Fortunately, the roar of the falls easily overwhelms the noise of the nearby tracks. There is a walkway at the top of the falls with benches, and a path at the base also with benches. When the weather improves, I will certainly return with a bento box for some peace and noise.

Your Phone Looks Different

2007-12-16T22:00:00.000+09:00

For all of Japan and Tokyo's modernity, there are still fragments of the Old State. NTT -- Nippon Telegraph and Telephone -- is the prime example. How they possibly found buyers for this recently privitised government monopoly amazes me. (How can it grow?) They still maintain a wealth of bizarre old public telephones throughout the country, including a set on each shinkansen (bullet train). In my one and half years in Japan, I have only seen their public phones in use on a handful of occasions. And they are everywhere in central Tokyo. In New York, they have simply become conduits for advertising. The city tightly regulates and taxes this revenue accordingly.

This pink one here is a particular gem. Its color instantly signifies to any Japanese person that it is only for domestic telephone calls. The greens ones have handsets that look military-issued, accept cards, and can dial internationally.

This telephone appears outside the Hara Museum. Perhaps it is an ironic joke to have this beautiful, but nearly useless telephone, stationed outside the museum entrance.

Hara Museum II

2007-12-16T21:27:00.000+09:00

For its proximity to Shinagawa station (akin in size to Tokyo and Shinjuku), the gardens are beautiful and expansive. The lawn is some odd breed of grass that might be found on a golf course. I overexposed these photographs to the sunlight to emphasize the day. It was a crystal clear fall day when I made these photographs. In Japanese, one might say aozora which means blue sky.

Finding it from Shinagawa station can be a little tricky. Try this map.

Hara Museum I

2007-12-16T21:10:00.000+09:00

I found this tiny modern art museum in Tokyo recently. Surprisingly, it is walking distance from the mega-train station Shinagawa. At the far southern end is an office park development, Gotenyama Hills, that mirrors my current one, Shiroyama Hills. (Scarily, the logo is written the same font on the outside of the complex.)

Hidden behind this development -- you can see it in the background -- is a private modern museum of art called the Hara Museum. Housed in a former private home designed by the same architect who later developed the National Art Museum in Ueno, Tokyo.

The work was thrillingly abstract, but limited. The space only allows for about eight full installations. (Everything featured was installation art.) Much of the lower floor is dedicated to a museum cafe and shop. Take note: Where many other museums lack in Tokyo, this one takes the cake for quality of goods in the shop. Compared to the organised efforts of museums in the West to pawn off hipster goods to patrons, most Tokyo museums miss the mark. Why are they missing everything you really wanted to buy? Finally, a private one gets it right.

Behind the building is a small park that features golf course-like grass and a spacious sculpture garden. Nothing out of this world, but the grounds are impressively sized for central Tokyo. Also, because this museum is off the beaten track, the crowds are kept to a minimum.

Isle of Dogs

2007-12-15T18:02:00.000+09:00

I caught this sunset from Isle of Dogs in London from the 45th floor of One Canary Wharf building. My company has their London offices here.

I had not returned to London for twenty years until this year. I was surprised to see that very little has been built. Buildings have been continuously restored, but there are very few skyscrapers in the City of London.

One recent exception: Just to the right of the setting sun is The Gherkin.

(Reviewing this entry today made me realise there is some strange ghosting in this photograph. I had to take the picture by placing my camera against the office building window, so you can see the fluorescent lights and computer screen reflections.)

Bansky at Chalk Farm

2007-12-06T00:26:00.000+09:00

I recognized this graffiti outside the Chalk Farm tube station as being from Bansky. Hunting for an explanation, I found other photographs of this graffiti in various states of disrepair. Other taggers had written their names over it.

Does he return to repair his own work?

Chalcot Square

2007-12-06T00:08:00.000+09:00

This is a picture of the small park, Chalcot Square, near my childhood home in London. Searching the Internet, I discovered that Sylvia Plath was once a resident on this square. The hulking chestnut trees used to drop spiky green balls. They looked like miniature water mines from World War II.

When I went to visit on this day, the park was locked. Perhaps it is private now, or is only open certain hours. The fence was low enough to serve as a mild deterrent; I was tempted to jump it.

The painted Victorian townhouses instantly reminded me of San Francisco. The brilliant colors were a refreshing change from the relentless, dull red brick in London.

Seven Fitzroy Road

2007-12-05T23:24:00.000+09:00

This is one of my childhood homes in the Primrose Hill section of London. Call it my inspiration for living overseas again, now in Japan. My parents lived in the middle floor with giant windows. I remember summer afternoons when the windows were wide open, yellow light painting their white carpeted floor.

My brother still remembers our telephone number.

We had a nice backyard with a large tree. According to my father there were a many regulations for this tree. Trimming, for example, was tightly controlled by City of London. Apparently, trees this size in private backyards were rare.

Behind the gates you can see the edge of another window. This was the fourth floor and our TV room. Oddly, I don't remember anything about the first floor and very little about the top floor. But, I do remember watching LiveAID and donating a few pounds to the cause.

British Museum II

2007-12-05T23:18:00.000+09:00

Upon entering The British Museum's main hallway, you are greeted with an amazing ceiling. Slightly hypnotic, it attempts to blend two hundred years of architecture in one fell swoop.

British Museum I: Stolen Goods Available for Touching

2007-12-05T23:00:00.000+09:00

One thing the British and Taiwanese got right: They knew what to steal! I visited The British Museum for the first time as an adult recently on a business trip. The Egyptian section is incredible. Statues appear to have been carved just a few years ago. I never believed my father when he said this about the Rosetta Stona. The stone used in carvings from ancient Egypt must be very hard because there is little sign of wear.

This statue is massive and fortunately far from the crowds below. I would guess this section is about two meters tall. Many large carvings are available for the general public to touch. Only some are encased in glass. Even though signs announce touching is not allowed, it is a common sight. The guards hardly seemed to care. I imagine the stones are cleaned regularly. Still, many of the bases were stained with oil from peoples hands.

Hatsujima III

2007-12-03T23:10:00.000+09:00

Given that some may view this blog with teeny screens, I apologize in advance for the camouflage. Forcing my auto-zoom camera to focus correctly on these giant spiders was difficult. You could walk down a path and nearly march into the large web woven on an adjacent bush.

The spiders on Hatsujima were at least one inch (two inches in some cases), and ferocious observing their leftovers spun into the web. Having grown up in relatively developed suburbs, we didn't have snakes or scary insects. This is the closest I have been to a spider in the wild this size.

No joke: Just looking at them too long made me short of breath.

Hatsujima II

2007-12-03T23:02:00.000+09:00

The island is fully developed with two large resorts. Most Japanese today opt for the resort experience rather than their parents' choice: the minshuku. Both are garish, featuring a helicopter landing pad -- (a) it isn't that far from the mainland and (b) it isn't that big an island -- and a go-cart track. My friend traveling with me explained the go-cart track with: "Well, if you were designing a resort, you want to include activities that your potential guests might enjoy." New Jersey, anyone?

It wasn't that bad, but there were a few guys on the boat with bleach blond mullets that were at least fifteen years older than their girlfriends. And people fed potato chips to the seagulls chasing the boat on the way back to the mainland. You catch my drift.

At least one of the resorts featured "camping" as an alternative to the megaplex hotel. This is a picture of the campsite, complete with air conditioning units in each tent; albeit, tent is stretching it here, and, frankly, so is camping.

The surroundings were beautiful, if a little dangerous. (See next post.) I was there at the peak of the summer in August, and many trees, flowers, and shrubs were in bloom.

Hatsujima I

2007-12-03T00:42:00.000+09:00

This summer I traveled to a tiny island off the coast of Izu Hanto (peninsula). It was small enough to walk around the perimeter in little more than an hour. See the Google map here. (It is amazing what they will map in Japan.)

The name of the island is Hatsujima. I haven't the faintest clue of its meaning, other than jima means island. My Linux laptop doesn't allow me to type Japanese after many efforts to do so. *Sigh* When I discover, I shall update this post.

The entire island probably has less than 1,000 year-round residents and less than 2,000 in the summer. I never saw a supermarket. Where do they buy food? Maybe the locals take the forty-five minute ferry to the mainland nearby to shop. The fish is certainly local.

We stayed at a tiny Japanese home that is built as a hotel. They are called minshuku. It is like a pension, but the style is Japanese. Think: tatami (straw mats) and shoji (sliding rice-paper doors). The food was delicious. Seating, of course, was on the floor. This photograph features the main village. Many of the homes here are minshuku, where the owners live within, offering lodging services.

I traveled with a Japanese friend. Never once did the owner (a woman in her eighties!) make eye contact with me. Was it easier to imagine I was not present? Even during an extended conversation between the owner and my friend, she never acknowledged my presence. I wonder if she has had foreigner visitors before? Hatsujima, while small, is relatively close to the mainland, so it has a regular stream of summer travelers. Surely, foreigners must have visited at some point.

Piece of Crap (Car)

2007-09-24T18:10:00.000+09:00

For all of its obsession with new, the Japanese have an occasional hiccup. Witness this piece of crap (car). Adam Sandler once sang about fine automobiles like this one.

A couple of special touches here: (1) Clear packing tape holds the side mirrors in place. (2) Old dirty T-shirts cover the (presumably dirty) seat backs.

The model is so old I have never seen it before. It looks a bit like a knock-off for an American muscle car in the Seventies. Doubtless, it is a product of the oil shocks. Have you ever seen the first Honda advertisements in the United States? The Accord today is a different species. In my high school art class, when we collage using old National Geographic magazines, invariably the insider covers would contain Honda advertisements bragging about "space age" features, not limited to fuel injection and airbags.

Bright Blue on a Rainy Day

2007-08-26T16:55:00.000+09:00

When my parents came to visit for two weeks this summer, it rained most of the days. Mostly light, but some days heavier than others. On this particular day, we went to Omotesando and Meiji Shrine.

My favorite time to visit shrines is when it rains. Usually, tourists stay inside. A jacket and an umbrella is all I need to enjoy a rainy afternoon at a temple.

Venturing out to the center of the main shrine, my parents snapped some photographs of me with a bright blue umbrella. This shrine is beautiful for its simplicity. Many attempt to overwhelm the visitors with a wealth of detail crammed into a small space. Meiji Shrine is different; structures are grand, but simple in design. The spaces are wide-open.

THX 1138

2007-08-26T16:40:00.000+09:00

Part of George Lucas' THX 1138 used the unfinished San Francisco BART Transbay Tunnel. This station reminds of the film settings. During the end of the bubble in Tokyo, the metropolitan government began construction of an inner loop subway line. Today, it is called the Toei Oedo line.

Nearly every station in the loop has a connection with another line. Since it was built so late, it is built very deep underground. Stations are normally ten flights of stairs or more under the streets. The cars are tiny and screech around tight corners.

The stations are very modern and each has a designer feel. Artwork adorns many station walls, and each is distinct. This is a photograph of the Shiodome station. It is a large commercial development on the east side of Shimbashi, one of the oldest transit centers just south of Tokyo (main) station.

Shiroyama Hills Amphibians

2007-08-26T16:33:00.000+09:00

During the month of August, I have seen a few large toads in the pathway behind my office building next to the Swedish embassy. My guess is they live in the artificial stream built in the surrounding gardens. Even in Tokyo...

Walking home one night, I was startled, having almost stepping on this large toad. It was as large my clenched fist and sat frozen as I snapped this photograph.

Deep Nikko: Italian Embassy, Summer Home

2007-08-26T16:25:00.000+09:00

The Italian embassy has a summer home that was recently rebuilt by an American architect. It was converted to a museum for visitors. Set in Deep Nikko on the lake, it is a peaceful, nearly silent getaway about three hours from Tokyo.

Overall, I wasn't as impressed with Deep Nikko as the temple area in Nikko city. The lake isn't as accommodating as I imagined or the guidebooks described. Regardless, the summer home was nice nugget.

The weather was random -- alternating between cold and cloudy to sunny and warm -- so it was difficult to dress accordingly. As the afternoon wore on, the clouds broken open as the sun was settling. This is a nice parting shot.

Chiba Clouds

2007-08-26T16:04:00.000+09:00

The longer you live in a place, the more local your concerns become. At least, that seems to be my pattern. When I first arrived in California, I was interested in large trends moving the entire state or famous places; later, I was interested in community-level planning for new developments. In particular, with the expansion of mass transit, its impacts on communities were studied closely and written about extensively.

During August, I spent a weekend in Tateyama, Chiba. It is a town in the prefecture east of Tokyo. I stayed in a tiny pension which is a family run bed and breakfast. Sometime these places are called ryokan, but I don't really know the difference. Mine was called Nanohana.

The walk to the beach was about five hundred meters. Along the way, I passed other pensions and some small farms. What impressed me the most was the sky. On the other side of Tokyo bay, the development is much less intense. As a result, the sky is less polluted, and at night, stars can been easily seen.

Kasai Rinkai Park Sunset II

2007-08-26T15:48:00.000+09:00

I promised a pair of pictures; here is the second. Just when I though the sun would hide for the remainder of its sunset, it burst through an opening for its finale. Enjoy.

Kasai Rinkai Park Sunset I

2007-08-26T15:25:00.000+09:00

I wrote about Kasai Rinkai Park in previous posts about a year ago. With the sunsets being so incredible this August, I decided to return again. I rode the giant Ferris Wheel. It is so large, you can easily see it from Google satellite maps here.

I timed my ride so that I left the ground about twenty minutes before sunset. Miraculously, there was no queue. This is incredibly rare in Japan, let alone during a beautiful summer evening.

The views of central Tokyo were amazing, complemented by the colorful sunset. Here is the first of two pictures from my ride. The pictures remind me of sunsets in Los Angeles. The refracting polluted air provides for intense and colorful sunsets.

Toranomon Sunset

2007-08-26T15:17:00.000+09:00

The sunsets have been stunning during the month of August in Tokyo. One afternoon at the office, the whole sky was gray except for one brilliant explosion captured here.

A co-worker commented that it reminded him of a classic European oil painter. (I cannot recall the name.)

This photograph was taken from the twenty-second floor of my office building, Shiroyama Trust Tower, part of the Shiroyama Hills complex.

Lovely Hotel

2007-08-13T22:47:00.001+09:00

Yokosuka is to Tokyo as New Jersey is to Manhattan. Imagine all the bad haircuts and two seasons out-of-date styles crammed into one military city dominated by one liter sodas sold at the American military base McDonald's branch. Far, far down in my blog is a ridiculous picture of the most ferocious mullet I have ever laid eyes upon. It defines business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back.

(Read about it on English Wiki or Japanese Wiki.)

I was out in Yokosuka under the guise of watching fireworks. In truth, I was there to ensure my style was at least three months ahead of all locals. Hairstyles included. The gigantic American military base is opened to the public once or twice a year. This day was to allow for better viewing of the hanabi (fireworks).

Upon entering the base, I was stopped and questioned by a Japanese guard in halting English. "May I see some identification, sir?" Startled, I rummaged through my bag to find my passport. Without even realizing it, I spoke in, albeit baby, Japanese to the guard. "One moment." (Chotto matte.) "Are you military?" "No."

Once inside the main gates, I was instantly transported back to the United States. Everywhere, military mothers could be seen with haircuts last seen when Kim Zmeskal was still an Olympic gold hopeful. (Call it the "high pressure parent" haircut -- a close relative to the Church Lady style.) Their husbands could be seen wearing shockingly white cross trainers with knee-length shorts and three-button polos. And one liter sodas were featured at the local McDonald's branch. (Japanese children were using both hands.)

In the grilling section... wait, all the food was grilled, except the plethora of American fast food chains... chicken legs were sold to Japanese tourists that were literally larger than the receiving arms. The shoulder was the size of a softball. Instead of selling slices of pizza, they only sold entire pies. Groups of Japanese tourists failed to finish these pies.

What about this entry's picture? Prior to the base entrance, there is a prominent love hotel featuring a reproduction Statue of Liberty. Inquiring, I was told it is a trademark of this chain of love hotels. Lovely.

Torii Gate Family

2007-07-23T23:12:00.000+09:00

Whenever my father sees a picture of the Spanish Steps in Rome he says: "Hey, there's a McDonald's [restaurant] right behind you!"

And for this lovely photograph, we are bordering a neighborhood of Love Hotels. Only in Japan could them manage to merge the two peacefully. Less than fifty meters behind me is an entrance to one.

Regardless, this is a very nice photograph of my parents looking fresh after a very long flight! This is the same temple as the paper mache sculpture formed from paper wishes.

On a more serious note, torii gates are quite popular at Japanese shrines. The root tori (with only one letter i here) actually means chicken or bird. It is supposed to a play on words for the bars that chicken roost upon at farms. They added one more horizontal bar and decided it would demarcate shrines.

Bad Tourist

2007-07-23T23:01:00.000+09:00

This picture was the beginning of our week long discussion about bad tourists. As a joke, I always say that Southern Europeans, especially Spaniards and Italians, take the cake. Seriously, Americans win by a mile.

This "structure" is a new twist on the tradition at shrines to write a peaceful and/or wishful message for friends and family members and tie it to a designated post. Many places have small basal wood-like plaques you can buy for 300-500 yen to write messages. This shrine decided to create a giant outdoor sculpture by having everyone glue their paper wish to a carved stone structure.

I couldn't help myself but to crawl inside. My parents snapped a few pictures when no one was looking. It was late, and it wasn't a very touristy part of town. I don't know the name of the shrine except the kanji from Takashimaya (no taka) is the main character.

Ugly Beauty

2007-07-23T22:49:00.000+09:00

In newer developments and major arteries with subways running beneath, utility lines have been buried. But in tiny back streets where municipal redevelopment projects are rare, utility lines remain on poles.

In most places I would call them ugly, but the Japanese manage to make an art of them. Firstly, they are not covered with black tar that seeps from North American poles made from trees. They almost always use concrete, aluminum, and steel. Secondly, there are very few, if any, posters. While this makes for cool urban art is some American cities, it is more often a location for exotic diets and a place to earn college diplomas in six months.

Since utility poles do not necessarily carry all lines in the United States (some are buried under existing poles), they seem less wired than Japan. Here, utility poles are bursting with wires. It is hard to believe they stand during windstorms and earthquakes. Something must be right.

I wonder if the Japanese fear broken underground pipes more than falling electrical lines in a natural disaster. Given the current state of infrastructure spending (ridiculously high), they will likely continue to bury these lines in Japan.

Buddhist Temple Flowers

2007-07-23T22:38:00.000+09:00

This photograph is from the grounds of Kiyomizu-dera, but the specific location matters little. This type of flowering bush appears at many temples. I don't know the name. (Forgive me; I am still trying to figure out the differences between temples and shrines.)

Regardless, the bushes are well kept and generally old, so the flowering bunches are huge. This is one after a day of drizzle.

Shinjuku Station from the Sky

2007-07-22T23:15:00.000+09:00

Before I moved to Tokyo, I asked Bart what does Tokyo look and feel like compared to North American and European cities. It is difficult to compare the density of urban construction in Japanese cities.

This is a view from the sky of Japan's busiest train station, Shinjuku. To the left you can see the beginning of the skyscraper district. The buildings are about fifty stories tall. The swath in the middle of the photograph are the train tracks for the station. There are about sixteen across. This is comparable to Los Angeles and Orange County's I-405 or I-5 running at street level through the middle of Manhattan. (These two freeways are amoungst the nation's widest at twelve to sixteen lanes depending on the merging conditions.)

Some might compare it to Grand Central in Manhattan, except that most train tracks in Manhattan are buried below 96th Street. I am curious why Japan Railways (JR) has not sunken these tracks and sold the land above. This pattern is beginning to emerge in American cities. Boston, for example, is selling some of the land above the Massachusetts Turnpike for the construction of high rise apartment blocks.

Pseudo Tokyo Map

2007-07-22T23:08:00.000+09:00

I randomly found this image on the Website for 東京国道事務所. I think this is the Tokyo Municipal Transport Department, but I am not 100% sure about the kanji.

It provides a nice view of Tokyo, even if the map isn't very accurate. The twenty-three ku's (cities or wards) of central Tokyo are roughly laid-out in this fashion. It is easy to forget living here that Tokyo lies on the ocean. Minato-ku actually means Harbour City, but only a small part lies on the water today. Most is an endless crawl of six to ten story buidlings that make-up the central three ku's of Tokyo: Minato-ku, Chuo-ku, and Chiyoda-ku.

Where were you Shinjuku?

2007-07-22T22:55:00.000+09:00

Just outside the Shinjuku Gyoen (National Garden) there is a vague municipal department building labeled something like "Tokyo Roads and Transportation Department". I was unable to discern its true meaning given the building was too small for anything Tokyo transportation related.

There is a campaign to bring back some memories from the Summer of 1962 in Shinjuku. They have painted huge billboards enclosing the parking lot advertising the Website -- http://www.shinjuku-ss.jp. Unfortunately, the Website is currently out-of-order.

Nostalgia for the Nineteen Sixties is pretty limited in Tokyo, probably because it was still largely under development. Regardless, I am curious about the clothing styles and popular trends of the time. There wasn't nearly then the level of cultural excess that exists now so perhaps popular culture was fairly limited. (This, of course, is speculation.)

Even the gasoline lines of the Nineteen Seventies oil crises in the United States can be considered popular culture. What was it like for Tokyo? I never here anything about this. If I could read Japanese media this would be a different story.

Cranes II

2007-07-22T22:38:00.000+09:00

The cranes and buildings just don't stop in Azabu Juban. My neighborhood is considered by many Tokyoites to be a premiere central location. It possesses the rare combination of convenience and preservation. Translation: Everything isn't soulless, ten story, bathroom-tiled buildings -- yet. Yes, I live in one of those.

But, they are working hard to transform Azabu Juban into such a neighborhood. As oldsters sell their prized family homes for insane prices, towers are built in less than one year. Here is a picture of one such building. The perspective is lovely. Tokyo does an amazing job of miniturizing construction equipment to fit the installation. Azabu Juban is filled with tiny cramped streets and yet they find a way to peacefully build a fifteen story apartment block. Try that in New York City.

More than a few things are different in Tokyo than New York City when construction occurs. For all the worrying about earthquakes, you never hear pile driving. This is constant at construction sites in New York. They appear to use slurrying techniques here to liquefy soil with huge water tanks slowing screwing pillars into place. Also, construction sites turning into gigantic, if subtle, advertising sites as contracting firms encase new towers with nylon mesh embossed with their logos to reduce dust and noise.

While my post may indicate, I am not of the BANANA party -- build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. This is the California-enhanced version of NIMBY -- not in my backyard. Azabu Juban will probably still maintain its peace and quiet even after most older buildings are razed for rebuilding purposes. So little new retail space is being added, oddly, in these new buildings that I don't expect foot traffic to greatly increase.

Besides, Azabu Juban, san-chome especially, is frequently busier at two and three AM (when hostesses are returning from work) than during daylight hours. Hostesses bars generally pay their fare home. Ni-chome is normally bustling with foreigners galore.

Passport V

2007-05-27T22:43:00.000+09:00

"How was your stay in Singapore?" asked the guard at the Singapore Airport, prior to entering customs. Surprised by the question, I answered from the gut, "Amazing." He smiled honestly. "That's great to hear." He inspected my passport briefly, and said, "Have a nice day."

"You too."

Manufactured politeness should be an export in Singapore. Except, it might not be fake. There are all kinds of people -- overseas Chinese, Malays, and Indians -- who are living in a virtual state of paradise. If they were ever to return to their own home countries, they would return to incredible poverty. And, they know it.

They appreciate the strong hand of the government that allows all to co-exist in a strange, forced peace. In a region filled with authoritarian governments, Singapore is but another. But is it the same as others? It seems more a benevolent dictatorship to me. More than a few have concluded similarly.

My taxi driver to the airport ranted for the twenty minute drive how wonder life was in Singapore. His parents had immigrated the prior generation and the government had always shielded him from outright racism. They cannot prevent subtle racism, but outright expressions they can, and do. This is a rarity among minorities in Southeast Asia. And, the locals appreciate it tremendously.

The other page has my mainland China permit. I never used it; I was supposed to travel to Beijing to install some risk analysis software for my job, but it never panned out. Politics (local, not national) intervened. The back office is fighting with front office. To maintain profits on the Bank of China account, we are delaying the installation of this software in the back office for fear that it may reduce sales!

Regardless, the stamp is beautiful. And weirdly, it continues the Asia trend of English language everywhere. Doesn't this anger the nationalists? It must. There are few countries that have resisted the Roman characters as intensely as the mainland Chinese government, but even they use them liberally on my visa.

Passport IV

2007-05-27T22:35:00.000+09:00

Pages twelve and thirteen are a bit boring, so I'll skip to fourteen and fifteen. On the right hand page (fourteen), you can see my work permit. In most countries, you need to change from your current status to a permitted worker. In Japan, this requireds your passport to be surrendered for about one month.

Notice that I am admitted as an "Engineer". Perhaps this is a generic title they give to skilled office workers. Additionally, my permit lasts for three years. I relish the day I will have the opportunity to renew this permit.

Permanence at a foreign branch as a foreigner has many benefits that are not immediately apparent from a distance, nor upon arrival. Institutional knowledge is valuable in developing, remote locations, such as Japan. Prior to my arrival, my department had once tried an expansion in Japan only to fail. Only time will tell if our current approach will work in the long run.

Our Tokyo branch, like other banks, is struggling to balance North American business culture with the local one. Locals cannot believe their jobs secure if they are unwilling to compromise. The same is true of transplants.

Passport III

2007-05-27T22:23:00.000+09:00

This pair of pages has another pair of entrances to Japan. Only when you travel to and from Japan do you realise how organised the immigration system is. Instead of traditional stamps, printed stickers are used that can be machine scanned. Don't forget: Most of Japan is trying to keep you out!

On page eleven, you can see my enter and exit stamps for Korea. Prior to traveling to Korea, person after person (both Western and Japanese) told me not to travel to Korea because is was the "same" as Japan. Boy were they ever wrong! Korea is a totally different country than Japan.

My earlier blog posts have detailed accounts of my travels there.

This page also has my business trip to Hongkong. Fortunately, I traveled at the same time as Richard Robinson from work. He is always a blast to go out with after work. Even though we were stationed on different floors in the Citibank building, each night we met for dinner. Richard is an endless explorer, so we managed to find some interesting restaurants ourselves in both Kowloon and Hongkong Island with the help of natives.

I highly recommend traveling to Hongkong on business and for pleasure. I would not recommend it for living for two reasons: pollution and mixing with the locals. Contrary to Tokyo, little mixing occurs between the locals and foreigners in Hongkong. Part of this may be due to its fractured past with Britain acting as its ruler for 150 years. I cannot blame the Cantonese locals for isolating substantial parts of their culture from the Britons and other foreigners. Even to this day, there are neighborhoods on Hongkong Island that are primarily foreign. I wondered sometimes if I was still in Hongkong!

Passport II

2007-05-20T20:43:00.000+09:00

Passports have a funny way of disorganising themselves. The first page of stamps is actually out of order. Later pages contain my first stamps when arriving in Hongkong as a tourist.

On the left page:
The top left box is a square stamp issued by the Japanese authorities when leaving the country. This was the first time I left Japan. I had arrived on the admittance stamp the neighboring cell slightly less than ninety days earlier. They sent me back to New York for "fixed income training". Little did I know that it would serve as an opportunity to mix with my new Japanese co-workers. They sent all new Tokyo hires back to New York for (new) standard fixed income training. Bart and I did our best to welcome them to New York City. Oddly, the relationships I forged then lasted about six months, then largely faded. As the Japanese wedged themselves into the local Tokyo branch, all broke away from the group -- albeit one by one. This was difficult at first because I was under the impression these would be lasting relationships. At the most, I still have regular contact with only one. This is not to say that future groups don't deserve the same kind of "red carpet" treatment that Bart and I sought to offer. Other classes may result in stronger relationships.

The round symbol on this same page is a stamp for my arrival in New York City. Without fail, the JFK airport customs is a terribly frightening experience for Americans as well as foreigners. Bart once told me a story about a Japanese couple on a honeymoon that filled their forms using Japanese characters instead of roman ones. The officer screamed at them "English please!" Bart was fortunate to stand behind them and translate. If civility begins at customs, this couple was in for a rude awakening for the so-called "American experience".

On the alternate page, there is my Hongkong stamp for 7-May-2005. I can remember how scared I was to arrive at the airport. Hongkong is a long and lonely flight to take by yourself. I was flying on a specially modified Airbus planes that could make the journey from JFK to Hongkong in one leg. Sixteen hours in the air was enough to time to consider how crazy and scary my decision was to travel alone halfway around the world. I spent more than a few afternoons in my hotel curled up in a ball trying to sleep away the depression and weird sleep cycle. I had not considered the time change before I left the United States. Twenty years of living in the United States had truly demented my sense of global position and its time.

In the end, every second in Hongkong was worth it. I was so damn proud to be turned away from a traditional Buddhist burial ground in Hongkong when a women informed me that I was looking for another nearby temple. I profusely apologised and walked 100 meters next door to the temple of 10,000 Buddhas. It was rainy, I was lonely, and far from home, but the hot vegetarian meal waiting at the top made the trip worth it.

During my trip to Hongkong, I took a trip to Macau. It is the Tijuana of Hongkong. If you have ever been Tijuana in Mexico, you realise immediately it is a Sin City where everything is for sale -- women, booze, drugs. The day that I went to the Macau ferry port on Hongkong Island, I frantically searched for my passport unable to find it. Enraged at my stupidity I rode the subway back to my hotel across the harbor in Kowloon. I turned over my room twice only to realise my passport was in my shoulder bag the entire time. I rushed back to the ferry port to make it to Macau by early afternoon. What a waste!

That trip was "worth" an exit and entrance stamp from Hongkong and an arrival and exit stamp in Macau. The experience was more than worth the one thousand dollars I spent for the flight from New York to Hongkong. The return flight left such a impression that I remember my aeroplane meal for more than a year. I spent the next eighteen months searching for the sweet tofu that I had for breakfast. Only when I was searching for breakfast in a convenience with Richard was he able to tell me that it was called anin tofu (sweet tofu).

Passport I

2007-05-20T16:21:00.000+09:00

As a romantic for all things Nineteen Sixties -- JFK, Vietnam, the foreign service, jet aeroplanes, civil rights -- I am naturally held by The Passport. Possessing one is like a storybook in every carrier's pocket.

We have a photocopy machine at work that is capable of scanning documents. I like it because the results are always a little grainy. And, they are black and white. I've taken the liberty of scanning pages in my passport with stamp of interest. In the posts that follow, I'll tell the story of pages and stamps and share a few memories.

To start, how did I come across this passport? Ages ago in California, before I traveled to Baha Mexico for a week with some roommates, I was going to apply for a passport. I must have retrieved and filled the application three times in my small room, but I never did mail it. I because discouraged when I realised they don't stamp it at the border anymore. Even more, all you need is a driver's license. So much for romance.

It wasn't until I decided to travel to Hongkong for my first big trip after getting my first job -- at Bear, Stearns, where I still work. It was Hongkong or Singapore, but I settled on Hongkong for romance of the British empire. Of course, not for all the terrible things they forced upon natives, but for what is left. Since living in San Jose in California, I always had a replica flag of what I termed "the old Hongkong flag". When I wanted to escape the misery of school, I would browse the Web and read books about its history and current state of affairs. Much later, the film 2046 only drove my obsession further.

I'm rambling. Back to the original point: my trip to Hongkong. I needed a passport to visit East Asia. I acquired the application at Grand Central branch of the United States Postal Service -- of all places. After much fretting, like the first few times, I finally got all my ducks in a row. When I went for my photograph, I planned in advance to give myself the most severe Wall Street kind of look possible. I wore a sharp suit and tie and slicked my hair back. My eyes were too wide open, but the effect is clear. I'll live with this photograph for the next ten years. (I used nearly the same pose for my New York driver's license.) The best part about my application: I used my baby passport from the Netherlands as proof of a former passport.

The lady behind the special passport desk in the Grand Central branch looked at my old passport with amusement, reviewing all my required documents, and said, "Hmm. Cute. It really looks like you." The application said it could take up to eight weeks to receive it. Within three is was on my desk in New York City. I'll tell the story of my Hongkong trip another time.

The top half of this image has my Foreigner's Card for Japan. Most foreigners in Tokyo refer to it as their Gaijin Card. Gaijin is a shorter version of gaikokujin.

Odaiba Sunken Park

2007-03-11T23:34:00.000+09:00

Two weeks ago the weather was stunning on a Saturday, so skipped the office and went exploring. I had never been over the Rainbow Bridge or to Odaiba, so I took a trip. Up close, the Rainbow Bridge is much less spectacular than afar. It pales in comparison to the bridges in the Bay Area -- Oakland and Golden Gate bridges.

I was inspired by my previous subway pass that had a picture of this park. It is a very old landfill park in the middle of the Tokyo bay. When Odaiba was built in the late Eighties, this park was reconnected. The foot of the Rainbow Bridge is no more than a few hundred metres from the park's edge.

Oddly built, it has the remnants of a military installation. The outside is walled like the imperial palace, but the inside is actually dug-out to create a sunken area. The bottom of the park must be nearly at water level. I don't know how the water is kept from flooding the center.

Regardless, it was a glorified dog run when I was visiting. Nearly every dog owner had a chihuahua or dachshund, and many had more than one. For all of this dog activity, they were very well-behaved.

Bank of China Building

2007-03-11T23:22:00.000+09:00

As I was leaving our Hongkong building (Citigroup Tower) when on a recent business trip, the fog had rolled off the harbour. Neon lights on the side of the Bank of China building were alit. I took this photograph standing only feet away from the base.

Unlike most other giant buildings in Hongkong, this one has no restaurants or stores in the base. It is purely a corporate headquarters building. Not all floors are occupied by Bank of China. Many other large buildings have malls incorporated into their base.

Next to this building is another equally tall -- seventy stories. It is called the Cheung Kong building. Goldman Sachs leases the highest available floors in the building. Li Ka Shing (Hongkong richest man and majority stake owner in Cheung Kong properties) is rumored to own the top floor as a private residence.

Like the Bank of China building, it also has no retail space or restaurants. Local lore has it that he did not want people to begrduge him for being associated with the wrong brands. Thus, he forbid retail space from the building altogether. Regardless, as much as the Bank of China building is praised for its beauty and size on the Hongkong skyline, the Cheung Kong building is literally less than one hundred meters away. It is a boxy, glassy, reflective, and uninspiring structure. Regardless, numerous foreign corporations have their Asia headquarters and operations in this well-located building.

Azabu Juban Fresh Fish

2007-03-11T23:14:00.000+09:00

One Saturday afternoon I was walking through my neighborhood to the subway station. Along the way I passed a local sushi bar. Outside was this motorised scooter with a delivery of fresh fish.

I don't know the type of fish... or whatever it is. I only know that is was uncovered -- completely exposed to the elements -- and no one was watching the bike. The delivery person was no where to be found. I stopped to take a few photos, and a pedestrian smirked as he walked by me.

The obsession with fresh fish continues in Tokyo.

Minato-ku Sunset

2007-03-11T23:11:00.000+09:00

My father asked me the other day what the skyline in Tokyo looks like. The city is too large to have a single skyline. It is more like Los Angeles that has a separate skyline for each city in the surrounding county. There was a beautiful sunset this evening at the office, so I took a few photographs.

This is one part of the skyline for Minato-ku (港区). The word ku (区) means city or ward in Japanese, so Minato-ku, Minato City, or Minato Ward are fine. The other character, 港, mean harbour. Oddly, it is the second Chinese character for the city Hongkong. The first means fragrant. (No joke.)

Tokyo is an old place by Japanese standards. While the city was only formed completely in the 1940s, the area already had twenty three cities. These were combined to create a supercity along with western suburbs. Years later, tiny islands far to the south -- hundreds of miles -- were also added. The twenty-three kus of Tokyo has about eight million people, and the remaining metropolitan area contains about four million people. These central wards have a population density roughly half Manhattan (13,000/km2 vs. 25,000/km2).

In Tokyo, a forty story building is considered very tall. There are none with more than sixty. Most building are six to ten stories. With the exclusion of the temple in the foreground of this photograph, very little of Tokyo is open space. (I have written extensively about this in prior posts.) This, along with its scattered, poorly planned architecture, gives its a distinctively industrial feel. Few foreigners would come to Tokyo and declare it an architecturally beautiful city.

French Bob Dylan

2007-03-04T22:19:00.000+09:00

I couldn't help but snap a picture of our French Bob Dylan look-a-like from the office. Apologies, Adrien.

Bart Cradles

2007-03-04T22:16:00.000+09:00

Bart recently had twin boys: Kaleb and Joshua. Congratulations! They are happy and healthy.

I don't know which one he holds here, but the child is barely one month old.

Sashimi Log

2007-03-04T22:06:00.000+09:00

Richard sometimes takes us to a delicious and very cheap izakaya in 本郷三丁目 (hongo-san-chome). This is a photograph of the sashimi "log" they serve. Sashimi is raw fish without rice. It is generally smeared with a small amount of wasabi (a hot green paste), and more rarely wrapped in a shiso leaf that has a mint-like flavor.

This is the only restaurant where I have been served abalone and raw rock shrimp as part of a standard sashimi set.

One question about the log: Do they have a storehouse of these logs spare in the back? (In Japan, the answer is: likely!) It is rather ornamental and is only, as I have seen, used to serve sashimi.

Bart Eats

2007-03-04T22:04:00.000+09:00

Fuji-san (Mount Fuji)

2007-03-04T21:55:00.000+09:00

One very clear day before Roy Huang left Tokyo office for New York he took this picture of Fuji-san (Mount Fuji) from our offices on the twenty-second floor. The building on the left is Roppongi Hills Tower.

Fuji-san is Japan's tallest mountain and generally revered by all Japanese. However, few natives ever climb it; this is generally reserved for tourists and foreigners. The hike is regarded as difficult and the surroundings unspectacular.

Fuji-san's primary beauty is its setting. Surrounded by no other substantial peaks, it stands alone on the horizon.