Japan; fashion, shopping and trains.

Last night we needed to go out to Shinkuku to do a bit of shopping. Careful planning of the sort which can only be the work of experienced Tokyo travellers (when confidence has exceeded wisdom) saw us venture out in the evening rush hour. The crush of peak travelling time in Tokyo is world famous but it is not until you are in it that you can feel its impact!

The Japanese are a very private people in general and within the densest population figures in humanity, the people of Tokyo have a deep respect for private space. Home is not a castle but your own slice of paradise and Japanese manners, the means by which culture has evolved a survival strategy for those closely packed, are practised in all corners of society except in the carriage of a rush hour tube train.

In these shiny carriages everyone is squashed together, bashed about and thrown around with more physical connectivity than you would find in a Roman orgy. I found myself in extremely close physical union with a young woman last night and whilst for a man of my age such an event would normally be a joy of the soul it proved actually deeply embarrassing.

The more so because no matter how I tried I was pinned so tightly that I could not find a way to disengage our connection. In fact any attempt to act in a chivalrous manner was in great danger as being interpreted as an action of a completely different intention. The young lady in question maintained her gaze towards the floor in patient acceptance of the situation. I believe I just went as red as a beetroot in a blush of deep embarrassment which marked me out visibly as a stranger to this process.

This situation which precipitates the collapse of normal personal space also engenders behaviour modification. Once the train doors open and the crush of humanity gets a chance to breath in once again, all those waiting patiently and politely on the platform then begin to aggressively push their way into the carriage. If you don't push yourself into the carriage you are going nowhere!

Once you actually make it into the frame of the doorway then you have to make sure that you are fully inside lest the doors snaffle you as they try to close. What happens next is the surprise. You know the carriage is full way beyond capacity but unfortunately the other 50 people on the platform queue fervently believe that they can squeeze themselves in.

Suddenly there is a great surge and from the door frame you find yourself pressed into the middle of the carriage in seconds as those on the platform quite literally form a rugby still scrum and push everyone deeper into the compacted morass of commuters.

Various strategies for survival are then adopted. In the image above you can just see my own view of a man watching network television on his mobile:- yes, this is Japan and in Japan, in the depths of the subway, you can get all of the main television channels on your mobile (one of the great things about leaving England and coming to Japan is enjoying life in the 21st Century rather than struggling in the 19th).

 Another strategy is to find a corner and simply go to sleep until your stop arrives.
I do not think it is possible to find another community on the planet which are so able to sleep at the drop of a hat. Many of the commuters, morning and night, sleep their journey out. Yes, I am aware that a few people in the UK do the same but nothing like the numbers or positions on the Tokyo subway network.

Amazingly, though people do get off of the train, with a titanic struggle, more people appear to get on at every stop. As it becomes ever more packed each movement and roll of the train is reflected in surges amongst the passengers. The sway can be extreme and several times I am sure that my feet were literally off of the ground for a few seconds as I was lifted aloft on the crest of this transport tide.

  

Eventually we made it to Shinjuku and were swept out of the carriage in a major disembarkation. Not only a popular destination in itself, Shinjuku is a major transport hub with 20 platforms of trains coming and going all into this one space. The crowd here is a phenomena in its own right but at all times the Japanese quality of patience is observed as people make their way to another train or out into the city night air.

Shinjuku station is a consumer hub like every other station in Japan. This is not in the way that our stations are, exploitative pricing, cheap shoddy wares and precious few facilities, no, Japanese stations make every possible use of space to satisfy the Japanese person's third religion; shopping.

In this religion there are no greater practitioners than young ladies who voraciously hunt out fashion. In predatory packs these girls inundate stores and shops looking for new things to buy. Clothes are top of the list but everything else from mobile phones to purses are fair game in this ruthless hunt.

As you can see in this image, the shopping facilities at Shinjuku station knock our weak offerings into a cocked hat. This is just one of the retail alleys, there are four, which sit below the platforms. The essence of this consumer management is profit as always but here the railway company owns the building, rents out the consumer space and this all impacts on the same balance sheet which includes under income "fares paid".

Not only can I use my Pasmo Card (Japanese Oyster Cad) to travel all around Tokyo but I can use it on the wider train system. Last year I completed a journey equivalent of London to Birmingham all under my Pasmo card. As an aside, as that particular train from the provinces came into Tokyo it entered the Tokyo subway system and finished its journey as a subway train! As I currently understand it, we are busy trying to build a west coast high speed line (which will cost four times more than the tax payer is currently being told) and if we manage that we will have a train system equivalent to what Japan has had for the last thirty years! We are so far behind it is shocking to see. Anyway, off the soapbox and back to the shops!

The shops are busy hives of activity but the queen bees are the shop girls. These are the young ladies who dress in the clothes of the store and sell, sell, sell to the hungry shoppers. These are professional girls, these are customer service experts and when it comes to fashion sales they know their market and how to relieve a consumer of the burden of a heavy purse.

From each shop front they cry out the wares and bargains available. When the customers enter they serve them with a bustle of activity and smiles. They are helpful, bright and filled with enthusiasm for the sound of the cash register going off like a fire alarm. I had the feeling that if I got too close to a doorway I could end up coming away with a rather fetching mini skirt or a bra. Maybe not obvious purchases for a man in his fifties but I am confident the sales girls would find a good reason for me to buy!

Tokyo Earthquake: Mariko Rocks

On New Years Day we had a bit of an Earthquake. A Richter 7 at the epicentre, this was a serious quake for Tokyo. I had sort of been expecting it because ever since we have arrived tremors have been rocking the house on a regular basis. Over the years of staying in Tokyo I have become accustomed to these small regular quakes and accepted them as a fact of life here. HMil (Honourable Mother in Law) is so used to them that sometimes when I ask her if she ok after a small shift she responds by asking me why I am concerned. I explain there was an earthquake and she replies "Was there!". She just doesn't notice unless the piano starts moving across the room.

Vulnerable Senior Lady in Earthquake Shocker

 This stoic resistance to nature's forces is not just an individual characteristic of HMiL but as the Montreal News reported:

The tremor struck at 2:28pm with its focus deep at about 370 kilometres, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. The U.S. Geological Survey put the depth at 348 kilometres. Its epicentre was located near Torishima, a northwestern Pacific island about 560 kilometres south of Tokyo.There were no immediate reports of damage or injury and no tsunami warning was issued.

The mid-afternoon quake swayed buildings in Tokyo and surrounding areas but it did not disrupt the final of the Emperor's Cup football tournament under way at the National Stadium. "Some people, who were walking, did not seem to notice the quake," a spokesman for Tokyo Disneyland said, adding business went on as usual at the theme park after some rides were automatically shut down.

What I can never get over is just how powerful these events are. The big one in March 2011 actually moved the whole of Japan 20 metres west. The fact that something 560 kilometres away from me can have the building I am in swaying and vibrating around like a fairground ride is an awesome display of nature's power. Of course, as powerful a display as this is one could argue it pales into almost insignificance compared with the human spirit in the face of such threats.

"When it comes to Tokyo, things get immensely complicated," said Dr Stein. "There seems to be broken pieces of plate that are jammed under Tokyo like a pill that won't go down your throat. And on top of that we have the two different slabs of plates beneath it, so there's really a triple stack of faults beneath Tokyo."

source: BBC

Tokyo is coming to the moment in its history when a truly big event is expected. The last time such an event occurred, in 1923, 100,000 people died. This is because Tokyo sits on the conjunction of three tectonic plates and this for the seismologist Dr Stein produces a minimum of a 30% risk of "the big one" in Tokyo at the moment. The quake in March 2011 was the largest ever recorded earthquake at Richter 9+. This has added tension on the other two plates below Tokyo.

So when the room started shaking on New Years Day I knew this was the biggest quake I had yet felt. Immediately I wondered if this was it, could this be the start of the big one. I rushed to the main room and held onto various items of furniture which were beginning to move around. I called for my Ox Hammer and HMil to come into the main room so we were all together. Everything was really beginning to grind. My honourable wife appeared and came over to my side and we both called out to HMil.

She appeared from the bathroom with her electric toothbrush whirring away as she brushed her teeth. Passing the piano she reached up to her favourite toy, her dancing cat. Pressing its paw activates it and it starts to gyrate and dance to an old rock and roll classic "I want you for life". As the toy started dancing and singing out the tune so too did Mariko take to the centre of the room and give it some slick rock and roll moves, she does go ballroom dancing three times a week, and took her toothbrush out, laughed and said,

"Don't worry, it's only a small one." and laughed again. She danced her way through the quake as we watched in awe. At least I had saved her new 42 inch digital television from toppling to the floor!

Hospital Special from the Tiger's Gate.

As my Ox Hammer is particularly fond of me, god knows why, she likes to use our trips to Japan to have my health checked. She claims that it is best to have the Japanese system do the job because, not to put too fine a point on it, she wouldn't trust an English doctor with a garden snail. She would also rather fly to Japan than enter what she considers to be the unclean territory of an English hospital. As regular readers will know, I have become a big fan of Japanese hospitals and now consider myself a "yellow belt" expert in their administrative systems.

As you will appreciate, the process and administration of a Japanese hospital is not something the tourist is invited to enter and photograph. However, in the interests of science and with a concern to advance the medical profession in the U.K., I was rude enough to obtain some covert snaps which I will share with you now.

Cost is always a factor in health care provision and one of the big costs in the NHS is collecting money it is owed for treatment. This may surprise you all when you believe that the NHS is a free state provision, however, there are procedures and circumstances which need to be paid for, not least our trade in hospital tourism. In Japan the system is a very, very simple one; you pay 30% of the cost. If you are sensible you insure that risk, if you don't want to do that then you rely on family savings. Of course there is social security to cover those in desperate need (I have had to shut the door and type those words "social security" very quietly because HMiL doesn't like them being used in the house) but the exact extent of its provision I am unsure of.

Two things I do know is that I actually like the idea of paying 30% of your medical bill. It seems to me to be a very sensible organisational posture, after all, when things are free people tend to use them liberally but when they have to put their hand in their pocket they tend to be more circumspect and that can only be a good thing. I believe it a very workable position because the charges are very low by comparison to the UK (by that I mean the amount of money the NHS is charged by doctors, drugs companies etc., for their services and goods.) I mean, at the moment a doctor in the UK wont get out of bed for less than the money it costs to fill the Bentley with petrol.

The other thing I know is that as a foreigner using a Japanese hospital I get to pay 100% and there is no negotiation or possibility of claiming a family tie. I am a foreigner therefore I pay full whack, don't like it, then go somewhere else. I also think that is reasonable and ever the more so because the costs are so reasonable. In England, when I want any private treatment, I need to see my financial adviser about a new mortgage on the house before I get anywhere near a doctor. In Japan I walk straight through the front door confident that the service will be great, the administration an example to be lovingly observed and the treatment is first class.

The Torranoman Hospital in Tokyo

The cause of my visit to the hospital was a concern over a couple of lumps which have appeared in my body. As a man of 55 you can start to imagine all sorts of stuff when odd formations appear but generally I am not that concerned as I was pretty certain that these were just "fatty tissue". Nothing to get excited about. But when you add into the mix that my father died in his mid sixties from aggressive lympoma then there are some grounds for a general level of concern. As far as the Ox Hammer was concerned it was a medical emergency.

My visit to my GP ended briefly with him saying "I am not concerned about this at all.". Rather than provide any explanation of the possible condition he decided to then investigate whether I had been actively searching for "lumps". This particular tack was so insulting to me that I just left. I had woken up that morning and, as you do, scratched my chest with an accompanying yawn and found a lump that I hadn't known was there before. So I slipped down to the GP Surgery to get it checked out. What I got was a rather arrogant man with a dismissive attitude suggesting that I might be a hypochondriac . Not a single question about why I might have a concern or an inquiry about family history, no discernible concern for the patient.

Ox Hammer's verdict: "I will get you checked by proper doctors when we are in Japan."

So at 08.45 a.m. (regular readers will remember that on entering a hospital in Japan I make detailed notes) we entered the lobby as shown above. This is the reception area and differs from the English hospital experience immediately. As you can see above there are a range of counters in the entrance but these are just the inquiry desks. The reception itself is around the corner to the immediate left of this image. There I counted 7 reception staff at the counter dealing with people as they come in. Maximum waiting time about 6 minutes if there is a queue. They take details, provide relevant form, co-ordinate a file which is colour coded and filled with the information before being passed to one of the fifteen staff sitting behind the counter working on computer terminals.

As I stood at the counter observing the process I noticed one key point, nobody appeared to be having a private conversation. Everyone was working away at the task in hand. Within 9 minutes of my un-announced arrival at the hospital I was on my way to see a doctor and before I left reception my notes were slipped into the transport system and were sent to that department.

I don't want to go on too much about the process here because I have written about it before, suffice it to say, within two hours I had seen a doctor and had two medical procedures including an ultrasound scan. The doctor had pronounced all to be ok but only after he had explained in detail what the situation was. He then also said that I should be referred to another department just to make sure all was ok.

We returned to the reception, a further appointment was made and we then proceeded to leave. Now, for my medical friends who I know have a keen interest in these stories, now we get to the crux of this tale from Tokyo. before you leave you pay for your treatment. Once again the photos here are blurry and shot on the sly but I did want to show you a level of organisation which is just the finest example of sensible management I can think of.

As you can see in the image above there is a "Fees" counter which is in the entrance/exit lobby. My visual calculation was that there were about 1500 people receiving walk in services that morning (150 doctors on duty and 10 people in each queue). As you can see in the image above there were three people at the counter but if you peer you will see the heads and screens behind them. Obviously I made the head count and there were twelve desks with computer terminals and ten of them were manned. As the counter staff take the record provided by the reception as you leave or book further treatment, they then provide you with a ticket number and pass the record back for processing at one of the desks.

You then walk across the lobby to where a row of ten machines await to take your payment. A big screen has the ticket numbers flashing when the account is ready to be paid. We waited less than two minutes before our number flashed on the screen and we walked forward to the machine where the Ox Hammer presented the hospital card issued in my name.

This slips into the machine and up on the screen comes the details of the treatment and a breakdown of the cost.

Then all you have to do is select whether you want to pay cash or credit card. So there you have it, comprehensive attention to detail, superb customer service, friendly faces, genuine respect for the incoming patient, speed of service and an holistic prevention based approach all capped off with a management of the finances to ensure payment is swift. Imagine, in well under three hours from just walking in, hospital reception, two medical procedures, doctor meeting, book further investigation and payment made into hospital bank account. Well just like any English hospital I suppose, except for a few points, ahem!

And the cost, well it was 7000 yen, about £49 and that was the 100% rate.

Finally, the point I love to make across the blog is about Japanese customer service. I am back here again and in every interaction I have as a customer I am left open mouthed at some of the small instances of care and concern. here, as I have said before, the customer is king, back in the UK the customer is just the cattle herd of the consumer slaughter yard, where the merciless stripping to the bone of the customer is managed for the sake of the shareholder.

Happy New Year: Next up, the trip to the Fox Temple ( a real treat for the true follower of this blog).

Me and My Ox Hammer

I love wandering around Tokyo with my Ox Hammer (see above) and do try to speak as much Japanese as my fluency level permits. Of course my cockney accent is a bonus as it helps with with some of the technicalities of this relatively easy language to pick up. True, the fact it uses three different sets of characters, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, rather than one simple alphabet does provide a bit of a challenge but for a seasoned man of culture like myself this presents no obvious challenge.

A seasoned man of culture in Mushashi Koyama

Take for example the word for wife, 奥さん ; okusan, which when used with the more formal ending sama produces the appropriate word oxhammer with cockney pronunciation. I often wonder if this word is the finest example of the subtlety of Japanese humour or actually a statement of their literalism! There are other ways of saying "wife" such as 妻 ; tsuma but I have a preference for 山の悪魔 ; yama no kami, which refers to the fact that your wife will grow horns if you make her angry!

The Hat that Keeps the Horns In

The hat of the traditional wedding dress of Japan also makes a cautionary point of naming itself appropriately. Japanese language is for me, a wonderful journey of discovery. What it is I am actually discovering though is anyone's guess!

Poster on the wall

For example, this poster on the wall in the tube (metro) caught my eye today. The graphic style is just so Japanese and carries a really charming naive quality but tells it like it is. If you see a little green man jump onto the track and turn orange with bubbles coming out of his head as he lays before an oncoming train then scream and press the emergency button. One could wonder why it is we don't have such buttons every three meters (like they do in Tokyo) on the London Underground. Such an obvious and useful aid to civilised life, you would have thought, would be an essential of station safety furniture. No doubt there is a good reason for their absence!

Boris to ban yobs on grounds of intellectual copyright

Next up from Tokyo will be a journey around the Fox Shrine and some more hospital adventures with dramatic photographic evidence. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas. J & A

Japan, Nagano and Honourable Mother in Law

Compensation is a very strange idea when you get to think about it. Essentially it is about an idea of one thing which gets replaced by something else and thereby satisfies a sense of loss. For example, my house burns down and the whole of my extensive collection of 20th century antique toothpicks, some hardly used, are destroyed. After a certain amount of strife and argument with the insurance company, who fail to understand the value to history of my collection, I am given a lump of cash, not a big lump, more of a bump actually, but it is my compensation for my loss. The toothpicks were my idea of an important historic collection and they were replaced by an electronic transfer to my bank account and thereby one idea is replaced by something else and I am compensated. Hmmmm.

We have just returned from the very, very best ryokan onsen  I know of. Yep, I have provided a link there but it is only to distract the unworthy. In order to get to this ryokan, just north of Nagano, you can go by train, a very good choice, or you can drive from Tokyo. I have the privilege and honour of being able to drive Honourable Mother in Law (HMiL) and on this occasion was fortunate enough to be joined by her brother, Honourable Uncle in Law (HUiL). This addition to the entourage was very welcome for two reasons, firstly that I was driving his car rather than hiring one and secondly because he served as a distraction for HMiL. This latter point is actually crucial.

You see, my wonderful wife, for all her superb qualities, couldn't navigate her way out of a paper bag. HMiL also has a certain difficulty with geographic location. My wife has a habit of lacking to plan ahead when she sits in the passenger seat and directs as an acre of map is tussled with. What this means in practice is that I can arrive in the right hand lane at a set of traffic lights, the first car on the grid so to speak, and as we are sitting waiting for the lights to change she will say, "We need to turn left here.". I have sort of got used to this over the years and so don't even bother to stress when faced with such dilemmas. Well that is not always true because my wife has one other problem, when she says left she can actually mean right and vice versa. She does tend to confuse these two complex philosophical notions.

I put this down to the fact that being Japanese she has no real concept of left such as "left field" or "left wing" or, in the case of food, "left overs". Japanese people really tend to like things that are right, both in fact and in nature. Everything else to them is really wrong and that just wont do, so when my wife says left she probably means right, but not always. Consequently, driving in rush hour Tokyo can prove somewhat challenging.

The challenge is enhanced when HMil is in the car as well. As mother and daughter the pair of them disagree as a matter of course. The reason for this disagreement is that in reality it is only the ability to conflict which separates them from each other, any worthy study of character and behaviour may well conclude that they are the same person disconnected by some weird temporal flux. Obviously they disagree in Japanese, they disagree with rising voices and they can even start to get really snappy with each other. Honourable wife will tell me to turn right when she means left, HMiL will disagree and say I need to turn left when she means right and the map will be waving around across the windscreen as lorries and buses are thundering either side of me down a three carriageway road.

Sometimes I find this a bit stressful. But there are compensations!

The picture above shows you exactly where I was at 09.30 this morning. High up in the mountains north of Nagano, in an old a venerable ryokan, a Japanese style hotel, and sitting in one of the outside onsen baths, a stone lined pool of volcanic hot water filled with minerals which soften the skin and mellow the soul. I am going to guide you around this little piece of heaven and tell you all about it from my own perspective. If ever you are in Japan, if you are a traveller who seeks culture rather than familiarity, then this is one of humanity's special places and a visit is strongly advised.

Understanding Japan and Japanese people is in itself an art form for us from our grubby western "civilisations". Remember what Gandhi said when asked what he thought about western civilisation. He responded that he thought it would be a good idea.  The picture you see above is the starting point for breakfast in the Sekiya Ryokan, a study of this picture (you can click on it to enlarge) will reveal a standard of presentation which is crafted from within a deep love of food. The chef at this Ryokan supplemented his Japanese cuisine by also training in Italy and so the table at this heavenly palace has the most subtle undertones of a European style but only as a brush stroke of mastery rather than a palette.

Perhaps we need to look at our own standard offering, the Full English, as a comparison to begin to understand where it is we are slacking somewhat!

You can of course also click on this picture to enlarge it but I would suggest that it is probably best not to. These two images begin to demonstrate the gulf in not only our understanding of food but our appreciation of it and before any of you food lovely middle class neo gourmets start tossing off a few radishes in my direction I have a culinary tip for you: get stuffed. Maybe the Full English as shown is the lowest common denominator and there are Japanese equivalents of junk food but the point is that food in England is a business, at all levels, whereas in Japan it is a cultural obsession. That is something an English foodie wouldn't understand unless they read it in an article in a quality newspaper's lifestyle magazine right next to the adverts for very expensive restaurants. No, in Japan food ranks equally with Buddhism,  Shintoism and money as being an essential element of a healthy cultural life.

The cultural experience of Japan is what the Ryokan is all about, it is a traditional Japanese hotel wherein there is precious little accommodation, if any, for European standards. If such provision is made then it would usually cost a hefty premium and really underlines how stupid such people are that would search out the genuine Japanese experience and then ask for it to be adapted to their needs. The picture above is of the "cleaning stations" where you sit on your stool and thoroughly clean yourself before you enter the pool of volcanic hot spring water. There is something really strange about this practice when you come to it as a European. Bizarre if you are English and used to soaking in your own dirt and calling it a "bath". Personally I find this process of cleaning almost akin to spiritual cleansing. Sitting on that small stool, all the necessary soaps, shampoos, conditioners etc., at arms reach, hot water pumping out of the shower, do you know, getting really clean is just such a pleasure before you have the luxury of bathing.

 

This picture is of one of the indoor onsen pools. That water is beautifully hot and the minerals it brings forth from the earth as it bubbles up directly into the Ryokan makes the skin soft and warm. On the wall you will find a notice advising that it is very dangerous to enter the onsen if drunk. The problem here is that if you spend more than fifteen minutes in the water you can actually start to loose consciousness. The rest I can leave for you to work out. There is something in the onsen experience which is deeply spiritual, it is a moment of calm in the rush of life, and this point being understood then it is natural for the Japanese to ensure detail in the experience:

One of the two outside terrace onsen pools at  Sekiya Ryokan and is that not just a picture of delight.

The above picture is of the tub, one of my favourites, as it looks out over the mountain side. Laying back in this really does make you think that it is possible to feel at one with the world and leave all the little troubles of life behind.

But should you feel the need for a more completely private moment then you can always slip into your own private onsen bath set just against the verandah of your room. Now really, isn't that just a peach?

And, of course, the rooms in the Ryokan are rich in the simplicity, an oxymoron I know but when you experience it you will know what I mean, of the traditional Japanese architecture. Here, Honourable Uncle in Law, Jiro-san, takes a cup of green tea as we sit enjoying being there.

Futons on a tatami mat floor, if you have never slept this way then you are missing something special. On the right are the cupboards in which the sleeping equipment is stored. In the evening, you go to dinner and when you come back your futons are all laid out and the tables moved into the ante room. When you go to breakfast you return to your room to find the futons all packed away and the tables back in place. There is a quiet magic in the way it all works, it is so easy, so seamless and you, as the honoured guest, are undisturbed by the necessities of the day, for you there is only the purpose of relaxation and comfort. Should you have any stress whatsoever then the massage chair is there for you to sit in and enjoy a thorough and detailed massage. But now I am going to return to the subject of food.

We are called to dinner and shown to our own private dining room. Each of the Ryokan's rooms has its own private dining room, this is just the standard set by Sekiya Ryokan and it is not a standard which rests solely with architecture. Most impressive is the absolute courtesy, good manners and genuine politeness of all of the staff, they make you feel as though you are in a space where you are the centre of all attention. This is of course a great skill but they exceed because you are left in no doubt that their concern for your well being is absolutely genuine. These are people with a gift in hospitality.

So sit tight whilst I take you through the evening meal. Our Japanese friends who read this blog will not enjoy what is to follow. Currently most of them are trapped in a land where the concept of "fresh fish" is not known and food is presented as a slosh on a plate by surly staff. For them the pictures which follow are torture. For us, they are a memory of the last two days and for some of you they are a future you have yet to meet.

Parma Ham, smoked salmon and a selection of vegetables.

Sashumi of an unknown river fish

Seafood soup

Red Mullet with vegetables

A croquette of prawn with lentils and a wasabi mooni mash

Two scallops with a raddish and potato mash

Oh yes and the dishes keep coming and can't you just see that genuine hospitality

A fishcake and vegetable clear soup, rice and pickled vegetables

This desert was just bliss, a pear mousse with a peach ice cream 

And here we see the example of what hospitality means in Japanese. I am not showing you anything particular to this Ryokan just an artefact of culture, an artefact of generosity. You see, to fill a glass properly, without skimping, so that your good nature and spirit of hospitality is plain to see, you need to fill it to the brim. And just so there is absolutely no doubt it is only right and proper to place the glass in a small wooden box which can then catch the overflow of your hospitality and bear witness to the honour you do your guest. This allows the guest to fill his glass again from the surplus in the box. Tell me, where else in the world is the bounty of the host manifested in such an artefact.

As I said at the start of this article, there are compensations. On the way home this afternoon we managed to get lost in the Tokyo traffic. Mother said left, My Honourable wife said right, the traffic thundered by but I remained calm, at ease and slowly brought us home. After all, what exactly was there to stress about?

Watching the paint dry.

Well there are just four more days left until we get on the plane and fly out to Haneda. After the year Takayama and I have had we are both yearning for our first onsen (volcanic hot water bath). We will be in our favourite Riokan by the 15th December and no doubt I will report to you regarding the stresses and strains of having to soak for days in steaming water whilst looking out over the verandah at the most amazing mountain views.

What is also exciting my "pen" is the idea that we are flying with British Airways. Now you can call me a cynic if you like but I just know that we are going to have a hell of a time with surly staff and shortage of supplies. Still, they would have to go some to beat the disaster which Virgin Atlantic have become. Our last flight with them, and I do mean my last flight, we were informed one hour into a twelve hour flight that they had run out of tins of beer. The explanation for this shocking failure of customer service was that the flight out from London had drunk all of the beer for the return journey and as they don't stock up in Tokyo that was that.

Thankfully we will arrive in the land of customer service where the comfort and security of the paying client is the first and foremost concern. I will be assuming the position of the eager, hungry and thirsty customer keen on being served and kept satisfied. All the time I will watch and learn and then communicate to you the small humble insights into this culture on the edge of the world. In the meantime, I am sitting here watching the paint dry.

And finally, why am I so excited to be flying into Haneda? Well from our balcony we can see the planes climb into the sky and when the get about 20 seconds above the ground after take off they have to bank a severe right turn and spin around to face out to sea. I can't wait for that on our return. Other than that, as the map below shows, we are about 25 minutes by taxi from the airport and that is just brilliant.

Escaping the madness?

The other day I was on the tube amidst the rush hour madness of London...yes, I know but it couldn't be helped. What struck me about this experience was the amazing insensitivity and rudeness of youth in the capital. No doubt the product of a single parent family, no doubt a rioter of some sort, no sooner had I struggled onto the train than some sallow faced youth with his trousers around his ankles and music rapping out of his headphones accosted me with the offer of a seat. The impudence of it all! I know my beard is grey and that my years are advancing, I also realise that I was struggling a bit with my luggage but really, to be assumed old enough to merit such bald faced cheek is just an insult. The worst of it all is that this was not the first time ill mannered youths have offered me a seat on the train in recent weeks.

As most of you will be aware we have not had a summer trip to Japan because of the stresses of a house move so we are looking forward to our forthcomning journey to the sanity of Tokyo. At least there I can feel a man again as gereatric old ladies shove past me when the train doors open, elbow me in the ribs and race towards any available seat. The well mannered youth of Japan would never think to offer me a seat no matter how grey my beard, after all I am a foreigner.

Consequently you can imagine my great happiness to know that we will be flying, for the first time, into Haneda airport which is just five kilometres from Honourable Mother in Law's (HMiL) home (rather than the two hours away from Narita). We arrive at 4 a.m. because all the best arrival times are snagged by Japanese airlines and their American overlords. We also have to travel on B.A. which is never a pleasant prospect. However, the chance to land at Haneda cannot be passed over and I intend to be in a volcanic hot spring bath in Mushash Koyami by midday.

This will no doubt give me something to write about!

How to Make a Fortune from the Japanese Tsunami

by
Felix Columbidae
author, poet, journalist, entrepreneur, businessman, humanitarian.

The regular readers will know that my main contention about Japanese National Psychology (JNP) is that it is based upon pragmatism. Therefore I have full faith in the belief that my Japanese friends will understand that ever since the Tsunami struck I have been very busy trying to make money from the results of natural disasters.

On my five screens I have had Bloomberg monitoring the movement of company stock, I have had CNN reporting every blip in the market, I have been watching NHK reporting on the human cost, I have been desperately monitoring the opinions of experts regarding the aesthetic values of friction on frozen water and, most importantly, I have been transfixed by the BBC's Damien Grammaticus's arms waving like windmills as he describes a disaster for which, no doubt, he deserves a media award.

Crass though it may seem, I am focused on how to make a lot of money out of this. Obviously the play here is about the problems facing the Nuclear Industry. Thousands of people have lost their lives, many thousands, and the world has been turned upside down but the BBC seems to have identified the real issue; the failure of the Japanese Atomic Energy Programme.

After all, once we have been swept away with the initial news item the 29 year old producers from Cambridge halls have to find the "new angle". They are diligent enough to scrabble around and find that real issue.

As befits the intellects from the hothouse, they would never make the comparison between British Nuclear Engineering and our Eastern counterparts. If such an event had happened anywhere near a British Reactor (Engineered by Oxford and Cambridge people) then we would all be fluorescent by now. Thankfully our media is quick to point out that in the event of one of the most awesome displays of nature's power, and our hopeless inadequacy, the Japanese Nuclear Programme has failed disastrously.

Facts have never spoilt a good media story in Britain, especially for the BBC. Whilst it may well look like an impending nuclear calamity the fact is that predominantly the Japanese design has worked well and never before have nuclear installations been tested by a 9.0 Richter scale quake right beneath them.

So as the stock price of Japanese Steel, Jtekt and others have been driven down, we have been busy buying them up in the sure and certain knowledge that there is no better Nuclear Technology than that which can survive a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake and Tsunami capable of killing 40,000 human beings. That is the sort of test standards we free market capitalists love to see and whilst we are at it we will sink some cash into any food exports going Japan's way. There is certainly a profit in that trade.

No doubt we will make a lot of money out of this but I do wonder what happened to our friend who lived in the area where the tsunami smashed home. We still don't know if she survived but at least we have the film we made with her in Tufnell Park. Hey, perhaps we can make money out of that?