These Dogs' Lives...

The lives of those cute dogs in Japan may not all be that rosy. There are indeed plenty of adorable looking dogs popping up from some girls' handbags in the metro, or ones peeking out of others' jackets. Like the character Claudia from Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire," these dogs' growth and development seem to have been arrested permanently, leaving them in a perpetual state of cuteness and cuddliness. I often wonder why I had not seen many of these while living in America, but perhaps this recent article from the New York Times may shed light on how and why these dogs came to be.

Click HERE to read the entire article, titled "Japan, Home of the Cute and Inbred Dog," by Martin Fackler (December 28, 2006). Photo above by Masafumi Yamamoto for the New York Times.

Daisuke "DICE-K" Matsuzaka: The 51-Million-Dollar-Boy

When I boarded my NRT-LAX flight on Wednesday, the gate was chock full of photographers and newscasters. Turned out sitting in the same cabin as I was Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Seibu Lions pitcher known for his "Gyroball." Only 26 years old, and the Boston Red Sox paid $51.1 Million just to talk to him. You can read about it HERE.

During disembarkation, I got stuck in the gangway behind Matsuzaka-san, a rather tall figure. A handler was showing him the way through the immigration. Some passengers, upon learning who he was, started asking for his autographs. Many photographers and newcasters were ready outside of the arrival hall. The Boston Red Sox has 30 days to make up their mind about the boy.

Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images

Only in Japan

The picture on the left is of a small booth operating in Shibuya, one of the busiest public transportation hubs in Tokyo. The booth is like a newspaper kiosk where, in this case, only one person could fit into it. Tradition and hygiene dictate this person to remove her shoes before entering that small kiosk. The picture on the right showed her shoes neatly stored together by the door.

Imagine doing this in New York, London, or Jakarta: that person will be surprised to find herself walking home barefoot! Or perhaps she might be luckier and still could find her shoes, but not in the same shape as she had left them. I happened to be in the area and passing this booth a few times today, so I could say that her shoes remained intact throughout the entire day. Who knows? Maybe on other days someone does play a trick on her; or maybe she has a security camera trained on that pair of shoes, or the shoes had a Global Positioning System chip so that she could track the thief down. This is, after all, Japan.

Business Names

An American expatriate friend of mine told me that if he ever needed any dental work done, he would prefer to wait until he returned to the States, because he had heard that Japanese dental work was not good at all. Someone quizzed me one time why a lot of Japanese covered their mouth when they laughed. I said that it was perhaps out of modesty. Wrong, he said; it was because they did not want to expose their teeth. That was horrible, but was he right?

It did not help that the business on the picture above had the name Gross Dental Labor, and the name was repeated, making it look like Gross, Gross! I am sure it is the name of the person behind the business, not a name chosen out at random. Then again, when you go around Tokyo, you would see these mind-boggling company names: there is a bookstore called Book-Off, or this salon pictured below, whose name was Flash Bust-up Salon. WTH???

BNE Has Arrived in Tokyo

On September 17, 2006, New York Times produced an article by Jesse McKinley titled "In San Francisco, a Plague of Stickers Opens a New Front in the Graffiti War." It talked about the proliferation of white stickers with a big black BNE printed on them. Remember those ubiquitous stickers "Obey," the "Giant" (referring to Andre the Giant)? It is similar to that. In the report, it mentioned the possibility of the stickers popping up in Tokyo. Well, guess what? They are definitely here. Above is a couple of stickers that I found at the Shibuya bus terminal.


[Update: January 7, 2007]
The top-most pictures of this blog remain the only remnants of BNE at the Shibuya station. As of January 1, the authority did their annual cleaning and scraped all stickers and repainted walls and columns. No more trace of BNE, but late last night I spotted more graffiti in two different sites in the Shibuya area: one in a dark back road by a river (the two horizontal pictures down below) and one in a busy alley in the heart of Shibuya (the vertical picture on the right). So, who is this BNE?

Means of Collection

Pay up, no matter how they collect 'em. It has been at least a year since phone companies like NTT DoCoMo introduced cell phones that act as debit cards. Working together with East Japan Rail's Suica e-money (JR East's Integrated Circuit card that allowed debit card swiping on an electronic card reader), DoCoMo issued cell phones (called Osaifu-Keitai) that could be swiped over a reader and money debited from them; both were based on a smart-card technology called FeliCa, a contactless IC chip technology that was developed by Sony Corporation.

I have no idea how many people have taken advantage of this technology and convenience. I think one of the factors that would comfort me in owning a cell phone "loaded with money" is that I am in Japan, where I can be rather sure that my cell phone would not be targetted for theft. Imagine what a "debit" cell phone may attract outside of Japan. JR East introduced the Suica IC (integrated circuit) card back in November 2001, and since then, 17 million people had taken advantage of the technology.

Buses in Tokyo will soon use a card reader, too. It is slated to start the service early in 2007. In addition to cash and electronic buss pass, one can now have a card swiped over the reader. Since the bus is not owned by JR, I am not quite sure whether the Tokyo Bus system will adopt something similar to the DoCoMo and Suica technology.

On September 27, 2006, JR East, NTT DoCoMo, JCB Co., and bitWallet Inc. announced a platform that would allow different e-payment to be done (Suica, iD, QUICPay, and Edy, respectively). This makes it easier for customers to use their e-money not only on transportation but also at vendors.

For Women Only

This is certainly not new in Tokyo, but it was the first time that I happened to have my camera ready to catch the decals on such special train cars: for WOMEN ONLY. Ladies, you know how it is in public transportations during rush hours: part of your body being groped by mysterious hands and perverts rubbing their crocthes onto your behinds. When you confront them, some have the gall to reason that the bus or the train's movement had caused it to happen.

Well, at least in Tokyo there are special JR (Japan Rail) train cars and Tokyo Metro subway cars designated for "Women Only" during rush-hour and late-night rides. Ladies are guaranteed safe rides during those hours. Outside of that time frame, the cars are co-ed. Pictured here are shots from the Chuo Rapid Line train car, stopping at Shinjuku.

In Japan, the platforms are marked to match where the train doors would be, so that people waiting can actually start lining up at the right spots. As you can see, the picture at the bottom informs the ladies that the Women Only cars' doors would open in these marked spots.

The Agony of the Feet

I just found this interesting set of photos at Flickr by French photographer Claude Estebe. This portfolio had been exhibited in Japan in 2003, but thank goodness you can still view them HERE. For those of you who had lived or had visited Tokyo, this will be a great reminder of how Tokyo girls and women are daring when it comes to decorating their legs. Enjoy!

No to This, but Yes to That!

Junk Mail. You know 'em. In the U.S., supposedly one is able to write to an authority dealing with this issue, somewhere in Colorado, to request that your name and address be withheld from junk mailing; but despite my doing that more than a decade ago, it never seemed to have worked. Even spam filters work better in keeping the junk mail away.

During my stroll in the city today (in Amsterdam, that is), I saw tiny stickers affixed to people's mail slot. On it are two options: the left one states whether or not you want unaddressed advertising, while the right part gives you the option of whether or not you want catalogs. The home owner gets to choose: Yes or No to either part. As you can see in the pictures above, one house decides it does not want unaddressed advertising mail (Nee or No), but welcomes catalogs (Ja or Yes); while the other house wants neither of the mailing (Nee, Nee, or No, No). It only wants personal mails and bills.

Unfortunately I never found out whether or not the system worked. Any Amsterdamers out there who could verify this?

Honor Scanning

Today I accompanied by aunt grocery shopping and learned a new device in the grocery world of Amsterdam: Personal Handheld Scanner. Who gets to use it, and how does that work? Well, the grocery store gets to offer this privilege to old clients and frequent/repeat customers. And here is how this works: when a customer enters the store, she would go to the scanner kiosk, where, after scanning a special card, she would grab a scanner. And off to shop...

When she picks up an item, she scans the barcode of that item, and the item would be registered within the scanner. Change your mind? Then just re-scan and push a "minus" button and the item disappeared from the scanner register. As she picks up more things, she scans more barcodes, and the scanner will hold all the information. For things that need weighing, she would put the fruits (for example) on the scale, scan the specific item, and the scale would produce a barcode sticker. Then she would scan this sticker and put the items on her cart.

At the end of the grocery shopping, she would go to a separate counter (thus, avoiding the long queue elsewhere) and surrender the scanner to a staff, along with cash or a debit card. The staff would then run the debit card through a machine and deduct the proper amount, and hand back the card plus some shopping bags (but the environmentally conscious Amsterdamers always bring their own canvas grocery bags from home). No muss, no fuss.

This is all done on one's honor. The store does random spot checks (just like they do in buses and trams). If one gets caught "stealing" (not scanning the product), then the person loses privileges. There is no such thing as "Oh, I forgot to scan that." No excuse.

[UPDATE: Jul 10, 2006]
During my recent trip to the U.S., I saw that the same scanning method has been applied to select Target customers. I am surprised that a city like Tokyo with their super-honest citizens has not had any of these floating around, unless I have not been privileged to have the opportunity to use it.

Koninginnedag

Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day, is celebrated in Amsterdam every April 30. This year the celebration took place on Friday, April 28 night (Eve of the Queen's Day) and on Saturday, April 29. The weather was extremely agreeable: sunny but cool. The entire downtown area was blanketed with people donning anything orange: hats, wigs, clothes, and jewelries. The color came from the name of the first king, Willem van Oranje (Dutch for Orange). Nothing weird in having Orange as one's name (think of similar surnames such as: Black, White and Brown).

The current queen, Beatrix, whose birthday falls on January, decided it best to keep her mother's birthday as the formal Queen's Day date as it falls on a much more agreeable Springtime weather. During that day, she usually goes to a small town somewhere in the Netherlands to make an appearance. She normally does not show up in Amsterdam during this celebration (she does not reside in Amsterdam).

The Eve of the Queen's Day is also a time when people would mark places in downtown for the following day's Flea Market. This year, Vondelpark (Amsterdam's version of Central Park) reserves the area for kids 16 and under to earn money either from merchandise sales or from staging a performance.

The celebration is not confined to land but spills onto canals as well, where revelers can be found on boats. I learn that it was not unusual for drunken people to fall off the boat during such festivities. The canals do not have any protective measures to prevent people from falling off the road either.

The picture above was taken from a pastry shop, where the day's offering contained anything orange (not necessarily the orange taste, but for sure the orange color). More pictures from this celebration is available here.

Airing Dirty Laundry

Seen somewhere in downtown Amsterdam during the Queen's Day celebration. The "I am" is taken from a current Amsterdam citywide campaign for tourism, called "I AMsterdam"

More pictures of the Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) celebration is available here

Jet Towels: the Ones that Really Work!

Hand-dryers in the restrooms of the world always leave a messy puddle underneath the devices and hands are not necessarily dried at the end of the timed session. Not until I arrived in Japan did I finally encounter these effective hand dryers. The Mitsubishi models (on the lower pictures, they are the first two pictures on the left) are more ubiquitous than the more recent Toto model (both at the upper and at the lower pictures, they are the ones on the right).

The device is usually attached to a wall, at the waist level (usually Japanese people's waist level). One activates the unit by inserting both hands downward into the mouth of the device, with the palm and back parallel to the unit. The machine turns on, and gusts of wind come from both directions of the hand. As one slowly pulls back the hands, s/he will find them dry.

And what happens to the water? It all dripped onto the bottom of the device and contained within it. No mess. Another advantage: there is no contact between the device and your hands (unless you have a huge-sized hands), which means minimal or zero chance of germ transmission.

For more information:
Mitsubishi Hand Dryer

What's This? An Umbrella Dryer, Of Course!

While I have seen, during rainy days, in many Tokyo department stores devices into which one could stick in a wet umbrella and take it out to have the umbrella having its own sheath, tonight I found this device where one could put in a wet umbrella and a gust of wind would blow it dry, much like the ubiquitous hand-dryers found in restrooms.

Stores generously supply such devices to make sure that water does not drip anywhere inside (to avoid messiness and to avoid slipping).

In Singapore last month, I bought an umbrella that had its own portable plastic sheath. Have you ever seen those novelty cups that could collapse into a flat rings of cylinders? Well, the concept was the same. The umbrella had this clear plastic cup-like top part. After one got out of the rain and into a building, one would just pull the succession of rings and create a protective wall around the long umbrella. This way, the water was contained and drip all the way to the top of the umbrella (which would be at the bottom when one was not using it). Later on, at home, one could just unscrew the top, and all the excess water would be released. Then one would replace the cap and store the umbrella as usual.

Unfortunately, despite my attempt at bringing that umbrella back to Tokyo, I left it at the Spa at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Curses! I have not even photographed the umbrella to show it here. Drat!

IKFA? What is that?

The picture on the top right says IKFA, but it actually is IKEA. Yes, the company of Ingvar Kamprad Elmtarryd Agunnaryd (of the Elmtarryd farm in the town of Agunnaryd in Smaaland, Sweden) is invading Japan. Again; but this time, the President of IKEA hopes, it is older and wiser. The company apparently had opened before (1974-1986) but to a lesser success than it had hoped. Back then, it did not have "the needed support to adapt products and respond to requests from the Japanese side." But really, all those 12 years???

I thought I had graduated long ago from IKEA-land, but something was pulling me back. That something turned out to be an invitation that my partner and I got from a Japanese friend who had started working for the company a few months ago, in preparation for the public opening on Monday, April 24, 2006. The invitation-only "soft-opening" happened tonight, Thursday, April 20.

The trip from Tokyo to Minami-Funabashi in the Chiba prefecture was quite challenging. First of all, the Tokyo station was sooooo humongous that it had areas I never knew existed. Two plus years of living here but I was extremely ignorant of Tokyo's heart of all stations. Second, the Keiyo and Musashino lines shared the same four tracks, and the signs were rather confusing on where to stand. All four platforms said that they would host the trains going to the same direction; we were not sure until we found out that Tokyo station was the terminus. There were also different speeds (local, rapid, express), which was not news to us, but to exacerbate the situation, all trains were late this evening, and there were platform changes. This meant that the platform for the rapid train (mid-speed) became the one for the local train (the slowest), and so on. We had to run up and down the escalators to reach the platform across our original platform when we realized of the platform change (it did not help that we saw our train pulling in while we were in the wrong platform!!!). We made it and even got seats in that sardine-can of a car.

When we arrived, my partner was intent on doing one thing and one thing only: the IKEA Swedish meatballs. He missed that combination of mini meatballs smothered in gravy, accompanied by boiled potatoes and a dollop of lingonberry sauce. The spanking new cafeteria had 700 seats, the biggest IKEA café, according to the President. The layout reminded me of the one in Emeryville (near Berkeley, CA). Once that was satisfied, we breezed through the showrooms on the second floor (where the café was, too) and down to the Market Hall on the ground floor. We made it out rather quickly, carrying only a much needed floor lamp and inexpensive tea candles. Thank goodness that this was only a soft-opening. We would never have gone had this been a public grand opening, where there would probably be way too many visitors.

Going home, we the town idiots got on the train heading in the wrong direction. Somehow when we just got through the turnstile and saw a train on the platform, we ran inside and checked quickly if we were on the right one. Tonight, both of us were just too tired to do so and checked only after we had passed two stations. Two wrong stations. On the third one, we stepped out and waited for the train going the opposite direction. Fortunately the fair and cool weather was agreeable with us. We told each other that we had done this journey to support our friend who had found his much-sought employment, especially since he had been jobless for some time.


IKEA Funabashi
2-3-20 Hamacho
Funabashi-shi, Chiba-ken 273-0012
Japan
Tel: 047-436-1111
7 days a week: 10:00 - 20:00

Nearest station: Minami-Funabashi (Keiyo and Musashino lines)

O-Hanami, O-Hanami

O-Hanami, O-Hanami...how lovely are your blossoms...

It is that time of the year again when the already ubiquitous never-stay-at-home Tokyoites come in droves to view the magnificent Cherry Blossoms. I am just happy to have made it back in town in time for this annual flower viewing. The marvel of it has gone down a notch, mainly because we went to the same spot (the Chidorigafuchi and the notorius Yasukuni Shrine). A friend of ours invited us for a picnic at the Shinjuku Park, another popular spot for Cherry Blossoms viewing, but the invitation came as we were already on our way meeting another friend at the Chidorigafuchi site.

The difference this year came with the presence of so many ducks floating on the river, competing for attention with the romanticists who were rowing their boats nearby. We were also treated to an outdoor dance performance that took place right by the Shrine. Men and women of all ages participated in the music and merry making of this festival.

While the emergence of the blossoms varies each year because it is dependent on the weather, we are glad that this year the blossoms have not made a mockery of us in this April's Fool's Day.

For more pictures, click here.

Innovative Ramp

At the Esplanade, the not-so-long-ago opened Singapore Theatres on the Bay, I saw this innovative walkway that is functional for both types of users: straight steps for the regular walkers and zigzagging ramp for wheelchair-users.

Singapore Musea

On Sunday we went to the Asian Civilization Museum on Armenian Street, but when we got there, it was closed for renovation until 2008. My guidebook was printed prior to the beginning of this year, which was when the Museum closed its door for a couple of years. Further reading revealed that this museum would reopen as a full-fledged Peranakan Museum (Peranakan is a term used to describe the assimilative Chinese culture to the Indigenous one.)

My friend and I decided to walk a few blocks to another museum, the Singapore Art Museum. The Museum celebrated the native sons and daughters, as well as those from neighboring South-East Asian nations. It is housed in what used to be the Catholic all-boys school, the St. Joseph's Institution. The current museum opened in 1996.

As I mentioned before, going to Singapore back in the 70s and 80s was synonymous with going shopping, not visiting galleries and museums. It was not for the lack of want, but back then, the focus of this city-state was its economy, and the government probably ushered foreigners from the airport right onto Orchard Road. Although there were educational outlets cum natural showcases, such as the Bird Park and Botanical Gardens, or entertainment for the masses such as the Sentosa Island, museums were not aggressively marketed. The Singapore Art Museum, for example, only opened in 1996. Like in Indonesia, the arts and the artists have always existed, but never appreciated and recognized the way they are now.

This Singapore Art Museum is quite young, which is apparent from its collection, but its 13 galleries with over 4000 works of art have made the museum the biggest collector of South-East Asian contemporary art in the region. One special exhibition, titled the Beneath the Pavement: Discovering the City, had a twist in the title. An image conjured up from such title of an exhibition was of the infra-structure of a city, or perhaps the sewage system, but in actuality, it referred to the basic element of a city: its people.

The layout of the temporary exhibitions could have been better planned and executed; the way some exhibit was arranged looked like an afterthought. The former open-air corridors of the building are now glassed in, but there does not seem to be any thought about shielding the work of art from the direct exposure to the sun.

***

On Monday we visited the "other" Asian Civilization Museum at the Empress Place. The one we visited on Sunday (the same one that was closed for the renovation) was Phase I. This museum, Phase II, is housed in the Empress Place (named after Queen Victoria, Empress of India) and has opened since February of 2003. More than a hundred of grade school to junior-year students happened to choose the same day to visit the museum. As a result, there was no studying any relics without hearing within an earshot some giggles or gossiping nearby. I limited my visits to the South-East Asia and China departments. The guidebook mentioned the conspicuous absence of Japan. I suppose in keeping with the non-confrontational attitude that is Singapore, it is better to keep potentially controversial and debate-arousing presence of Japan off the museum floor. Somebody has done a real life Photoshop!

Click here for more pictures.

When in Singapore...

I suppose my friend and I had become truly Japanese. We flew all the way to Singapore to go to Takashimaya, Isetan, and the Kinokuniya Bookstores. Well, what do you expect? Prior to landing, Japan Airlines (JAL) put up a short instructional video of the Immigration and Custom procedures. When this technical part was over, it was followed by a short program on Singapore. Both my friend and I watched intently at the cultural hot spots that the program might feature as its recommendation. To our bewilderment, the show featured Japanese shops and restaurants. There was nary a mention of the famous Singapore car park food vendors, or a suggestion to eat the Hainanese Chicken Rice, pepper Crab, or Roti Prata. Why even bother going to Singapore?

Today we actually went to the Kinokuniya bookstore so that my friend could get his own guidebook, something that he did not get to do before arriving here. Although in Tokyo we have our own Kinokuniya, the branch here was humongous. It almost felt like we were in one of those boxy mega stores of Wal-Mart or Target. The layout of the store at first glance was difficult to grasp, but for this trip, I had no plan to tackle the blueprint of this floor anyway…

The staff, unfortunately, was not as courteous as their counterparts in Tokyo. Within less than 30 minutes, three people had given me either the evil-eye, finger-talk, or the lazy-butt. Upon entering and not knowing where things were, we consulted a self-help computer at a kiosk. When that did not work, we summoned a nearby staff, Ms. Evil Eye, who approached us with an air of contempt, perhaps thinking that we were as useless as tits on a boar pig. That was, until she realized she stumbled on the same problem. Another instant, I asked Ms. Finger Point, who did not even lift her head to make eye contact, but instead used her digits to point at things. For a fleeting moment I wanted to be Hannibal the Cannibal and nibble on one of those digits, accompanied with a glass of Chianti… slurp slurp…The last one was Mr. Lazy Bums, whose behind were glued to his stool. From the low point of where he was sitting, it was rather difficult to see what landmark or reference point at which he was pointing. And may I remind you how humongous the bookstore was? Even Borders employees in the U.S. are much more helpful in finding things in the computer and actually guide you to the spot until you find the book! Perhaps it is time that Mr. Lee Kwan Yew’s son, Lee Hsien Loong, should start the second wave campaign of Mr. Groovy!

Click here for more pictures

Singapore, Revisited

Singapore…, boy, has this city changed since my last visit in 1991!

I am here to accompany a friend who had been wanting to come here for a while. This would be his first time ever. We flew in from Tokyo on a direct flight from Narita, arriving in the early evening, rush-hour Friday traffic. The interior of Chang-I Airport has not changed much at all, but the convenience was extremely remarkable: the path from disembarkation to the immigration hall to the luggage concourse to the taxi stand was the most straightforward route I had ever taken in my entire travel experiences (the opposite being Narita and Heathrow, among others).

My first trip abroad in the 70s was Singapore; in December 1975 to be exact, around Christmas time and shortly before our trip to Australia. Back then, Singapore was the affordable luxury for Indonesians residing in Jakarta: a weekend shopping trip, or a week-long wallet-walking. Well, that seemed to be the one and only reason to go to Singapore during that time: to shop, shop, and shop, and perhaps take a break and eat at the ubiquitous car park food fair in the evening. Most I knew never made it past Orchard Road, the famous stores-lined street.

Thank goodness my parents were not obsessed with shopping (although each and every member of our family has a weakness for any good bookstores). They took us to the satellite city of Jurong to see the Jurong Bird Park; the Tiger Balm Gardens (now the Haw Par Villa) and a trip to the Sentosa Island. The Tiger Balm Gardens, as one may suspect, was built by the Asian analgesic balm king, Aw Boon Haw, as an entertainment venue that featured Chinese legends and mythology.

Singaporean English was the first English with a local dialect that I have ever heard. When we were learning English, it was the formal British English, where rubber really meant eraser, and not the protective means that you put in your penis before a sexual intercourse. Our intonation was purely English, but to hear the locals speak English was quite entertaining, not too mention confusing at times. One evening, for example, we were trying to go back to the hotel, so my father told the taxi driver, “Hilton Hotel.” The driver kept looking at him quizzically. He kept on pronouncing the word with slightly different accents, but to no avail. Being the former Boy Scout that he was, he took out the hotel’s business card and handed it to the driver, who studied it seriously before a loud “A-HA!” “New-Toong Hotel!” said he. We were looking at each other and thought, “What?”

My father asked him to pronounce it again. He must have thought that this was how local pronounced the hotel’s name. So, the next time he told another taxi driver to go to “New Toong Hotel” and voilà, the driver understood it immediately. My father was beaming that he could speak like the locals; that was, until we were delivered to a hotel with the name Newton or something like that. Then the pronunciation game started all over again.

For me, that first time abroad to a country known for its discipline and hard working people opened my eyes to what a city-state could look like: the sidewalks were always swept clean, the store fronts spotless, and the people honest. Lee Kwan Yew, the Prime Minister at the time, was having a campaign where he wanted the people of Singapore to smile more frequently. In most department stores I went, I encountered employees spotting a fried-egg-sized bright yellow button of with a smiley face we came to know as “Mr. Groovy.”

Click here for more pictures