With Tokyo being the world's tenth largest city (officially clocking in at 8,130,408 - but that would be living here, not coming in to work from the bed towns of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa) it can appear that the only nature inhabiting this sprawling concrete jungle are the few trees in the city's parks, the evil looking crows and the multiple instantiations of salarymen. I have been here a couple of years now, and I have seen a lot of carp, the odd turtle, a giant toad, some rats and a diverse range of insects.


So it was nice to pick up Nature in Tokyo by American naturalist Kevin
Short. He writes with humor, and insight, as he explores the explores the intricacies of Japan's ecosystems with  a keen eye for details. He reveals an abundance of plant life and some intriguing animal species - many of which are unknown in the West outside of zoos and botanical gardens.


Highlights include the unique breeding habits of the indigenous Japanese fire-bellied newt, the nocturnal mischief of Japan's raccoon dog, the mating rituals of the red dragonfly, and the lush swirl of life on Tokyo's tidal flats and coastal marshes.


A good read if you want to find more in the way of nature in Tokyo -
beyond that cockroach crawling through your kitchen.


Nature In Tokyo
Kevin Short

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha
  International (JPN) (February 1, 2001)
• ISBN: 4770025351

My friend 'Igor' has just announced that his band Kurva is breaking up with three of the four members leaving Hanoi in the next wee while. I assume they were better than Weaverbrae (terrible mid 90's 'metal' band from CHCH)...

Igor's site The Good Life is brought to you by the letter 'p' and those good folks at the VietNamNet Bridge and is well worth checking out if you have an inkling.

Favourite quote:

Goat is a culinary delight in many countries, but in Vietnam, where fine rice wine is infused with the animal’s balls, you’re assured of an evening of goatish chaos.

Forgot to mention yesterday that we also went to the Tobacco & Salt Museum, which is located between Shibuya Station (take the Hachiko exit) and Yoyogi Park. Combined with the NHK Studios in Yoyogi Park and a prowl around the streets of Shibuya this makes for a very interesting, and cheap afternoon out in Tokyo.

Admission is only 100 yen for adults and 50 yen for kids (although thinking about that, taking kids to a tobacco museum does sound kind of sick unless they are someone elses). You start your tour on the fourth floor which is an exhibition space for touring works - currently there is an extensive range of Japanese prints depicting scenes from the Tokkaido Road (North Sea Coast). Interestingly, one can compare works by various artists treating the same themes.

The third floor houses the Japanese Salt and Foreign Salt display. Probably the most boring part of the whole museum - but you can look at the kaleidoscopic salt crystals. And use the buttons which light up sections of the displays to create your own light show.

On the second floor there is a display of an old tobacco merchant and, what I found the most interesting, a collection of cigarette packets through the history of the industry in Japan. It is quite fascinating to see how the designs have changed over the years. The highlight for me were the 1920's packets.

Image showing a 19th century pipe and tobacco set.

On the mezzanine floor there is a wide range of pipes. One wonders if some of these were actually used to smoke tobacco or not.

The museum itself is non-smoking (???) but there is a smoking area on the first floor - complete with vending machine.

Well, blizzardboy is back up. We changed the software package - from a content management system known as mambo, over to a blogging system. Both are open source, but the blogging software will hopefully meet our needs a little more closely when we are on the road.

よく、blizzardboy バックアップはである。私達は- mambo 、blogging システムへの余分として知られていた満足な管理システムからの…ソフトウエアパッケージを変えた。両方ともオープンソースであるが、私達が道にあるとき blogging ソフトウェアはうまく行けば私達の必要性を少し密接に満たす。

In January the Kyoto Prefectural Government introduced a service
which they have called "Charisma Navigation". This service is available free for the first three months. It enables
visitors to Kyoto to borrow a PDA-like device to help them see the
sights of Japans most renowned tourist destination. The service is
available in Korean and English. A similar service is scheduled to
start early this year in Tokyo.

You can apply online before you arrive.
The English site is here.
And the Korean site is here.

From the Charisma Navigation site:

Kyoto, Japan’s prime tourist destination.
Annually, 67 million people visit Kyoto, but only 800 000 are from
overseas. Language is an obstacle for many foreign tourists, limiting
their ability to get information or access destinations. Guidebooks and
maps provide only limited information, and are inconvenient to use
while en route.

To solve this inconvenience for foreign visitors, the Kyoto Prefecture
Government has developed “Charisma Navigation,” a mobile navigation
system for tourism that provides you with various information and
functions, such as Charisma’s recommended courses with specific theme,
searching tourism database, navigating to the destination by bus,
subway and on foot with help of GPS, so that you can easily get
authentic but local tourism contents in Kyoto and Nara.

Well what a day! Earth Day (Japanese site here) 2005 at Yoyogikoen in Shibuya, Tokyo was the main event on the calendar. A beautiful day in Tokyo, with barely a cloud in the sky, perfect t-shirt weather. A good couple of thousand people turned out for the event with wide variety of stalls, from second hand clothing, books, ethnic gear and food adding to the spice.

Sadly though, as we arrived a couple of our friends were dashing off in their car to a local vets - one of their dogs had attacked another of our friends dogs, and, as we found out later, had killed it. Poor little pup. Our thoughts go out to Shacho.

Afterwards we thought we would go and get some pasta. There is a chain of Italian restaurants in Japan called Capricciosa (Japanese only) who have great inexpensive Italian food, and a fair amount of choice for vegetarians. Their original restaurant is in Shibuya, and as we have been to quite a few throughout Japan we thought we would check it out. Another mishap there, as they were closed - but it turned out ok as we found an even better place on the way.

Shibuya Underpass Society also turned out to be a chain store, but don't let that put you off. If you can make it within the next week that is, as they are closing on the 30th of April. The local Tokyu Railway
line is heading underground so the space which the cafe has occupied for the last 3 and a half years will disappear. The company which operates the Shibuya Underpass Society also has a number of other restaurants which we will do our best to check out in our remaining few months in Tokyo. They had good healthy food, with things like falafel and quesadillas and a nice selection of beer (no Macs though:( ).

Another weekend over, another week about to begin. Only a four day week though, what with Golden Week coming up.

And thats why we called it Arse Day...

The River Ki by Sawako Ariyoshi

This enchanting book traces the life of Hana, respectable eldest daughter of the Matani family through her marriage into the Kimoto family and the growth of her family. The concept of marrying into another family is still strong in Japan and historically speaking this is a key point to understanding the traditional role of women in society. This, and the relationship of Hana to her mother-in-law and her quest to gain acceptance as a Matani provide the main drive of the novel. Her relationship with her grandmother, and of her daughter with her are telling in terms of the shifts in the way of thinking that occurred within certain sections of society during this period. At the same time, historical and political events drum an incisive counterpoint to her life.

Hana was educated at Wakayama Girls High School during a period when it would have been rare for a woman, even from a wealthy, well-connected family to receive an education; particularly an education outside of the sphere of the Buddhist temple system.
Starting out during the Meiji period, this novel deals with the changes that take place in Japanese society up till just after the second world war.

I would heartily recommend this novel, for the historical insight it gives into pre-WWII Japanese life, but more importantly as a great read.

# Paperback: 243 pages
# Publisher: Kodansha America (July 30, 2004)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 4770030002