Aoyama Cemetery , Tokyo

Aoyama cemetery, originally uploaded by jonallen01966.

I recently discovered this quiet oasis while on a bicycle, riding at random around Tokyo. Aoyama Reien is one of the largest cemeteries in Tokyo, just a few minutes from the noise and skyscrapers of Roppongi. And yet, you can hardly hear the traffic, and there are very few people around. Even on a bright Sunday afternoon the place was almost deserted.



What makes this cemetery unusual is not only the size of it, but also the park-like layout. Wide spaces between the graves and trees and bushes make it unlike the majority of Japanese graveyards which are normally small and tightly packed with graves.

First opened in 1872 Aoyama Reien was the first municipal cemetery in Tokyo. Many famous people are buried here include General Nogi Maresuke, a war hero who joined his leader in death by committing suicide when Emperor Meiji died in 1912. Many noted foreigners who came to help modernise Japan in the Meiji era are buried in the small foreign section of the cemetery. A list is maintained at the Foreign Section Trust website, a small group dedicated to preserving the area.



I just missed the Sakura by a week when I was there, you can just see the tail end of the blossoms in some of the photos.

But, if you look closely, this month the native dandelion species Shirobanatanpo are currently in bloom.

The full set of photos is here on flickr.

This is my entry in the Japan Soc Blog Matsuri. Ken at What Japan Thinks is hosting this months carnival on the the theme of Slow Times in Japan. Aoyama Reinen: It does not get much slower than this.

View Aoyama in a larger map

Update: 4 days after writing this post, I opened the Japan Times to see an article describing how an interest in history and literature has recently generated a large increase in visitors to Japanese cemeteries. Books featuring tomb tours have also been published, prompting more people to visit cemeteries.

"Sotai Shimashou" ("Let's Clean Moss"), a book published last March by Shueisha Co., features graves of historical figures and Japanese history. According to an editor, the first edition sold 10,000 copies. . So it may not be such a quiet option for much longer.

J-Bloggers Meetup for Beer

Last month I met up online with some Bloggers on Japan. Last night I met up in person with another group of bloggers and techies in Japan.

Organised by Ken Brady of Genkii.com who runs the Tokyo Beer and Blog website, it was a very social evening with no agenda or presentations. It was mostly an excuse to get together, enjoy a drink at the Hobgoblin Pub in Shibuya and meet other technology enthusiasts.

Andrew Shuttleworth, one of Tokyo's well known social network gurus, was there. He had some electronic "Pokens" for sale at 2,000 Yen each. They were soon snapped up by those of us not already owning one.

Poken is your social business card. Scrap the paper business card! Your Poken card is far more comprehensive. Rather than handing out a piece of paper that shares just your basic contact information such as company, address, phone, and email, with Poken you can include your social network profiles as well. When you associate a social network to your Poken identity that social network's favicon appears on your Poken card. If you are connected to your friend on that social network, then they can click the favicon link to instantly view your social network profile. If you opt not to be connected on that social network, then they will simply see the public-search version of your profile.

We discussed these on the J-bloggers conference and several people were looking forward to getting one. I think they could catch on, but these days with everyone having iphones and mobile phones, where data exchange is already very easy, the extra step of having to register your Poken on their website maybe be one hurdle too many. According to their website they are doing well in Europe.

Some of the many people I met include: Steven Nagata, Ted from TokyoFoodCast.com, Sam Ragnarsson and Matthew Dons who is planning to run a Bar Camp event in Tokyo at the end of May.

Joseph Tame, who has just launched his new podcast site JapanPodShow was there briefly, before having to go to work. In their first podcast: Joseph and George discuss some news items; guest presenter Honor of TokyoTopia has some advice on flying into Tokyo; there's an interview with Ken Brady about Genkii.com's new project Sparkle: The first virtual world for the iphone; the inventor of the Poken talks about how he first thought of the idea and how he met Britney Spears; there's an interview with a musician and a competition to win a Poken too! Go on over to JapanPodCast.com to hear the full story.

One last thing: check out this Web Trends map of the most influential websites arranged in format of the Tokyo Subway map. From Information Architects.
(Hat Tip to Japansoc.com where it is one of the top stories. In fact it should appear in the widget on my sidebar with the subject Websites as Stations on the Yamanote )