Happy New Year

I thought I'd end the year with some photos of traditional Japanese New Year decorations.

The Kadomatsu are placed in pairs outside gates to homes and offices starting after Christmas until January 7. They are temporary housing for Kami (ancestral spirits in shinto).



Made of bamboo, pine and sometimes Ume (plum) sticks, the construction is placed on a straw mat and wrapped with woven straw rope. The opening of the bamboo must remain free and open to allow the spirits to enter. The cuts are made at a slant to allow the largest open surface area. Fern leaves and fruit can also be added. More details on building your own here and here.



To the loyal readers of the blog (all 87 of you): I thank you for your continued support and readership throughout the year. I wish you, and all those that you care about, all the very best for 2009 The year of the Ox (or Cow depending on how you translate it.)

Catching the last train home

12;47 from Shibuya The station has never been so empty

Some New Korean Blogs

Long term readers know I've always been a big fan of Alan's Korean Blog List. The site had a bit a problem recently after the hosting company upgraded php on the server, but it's back in business again so I thought I share some links.

I'm probably the last to have noticed, but FatManSeoul is blogging again. Posting in English and Korean they claim We’re committed to searching high and lo, from the poshest cuisine of Kangnam to the most humble, jeong-laden jjigae of the halmoni-jip in the countryside for the best food in the country.

Korea Sparkle the blog, Not to be confused with the KNTO's international marketing campaign, most recently seen here on a Yamanote line train in Tokyo:


has contributions from a number of contributors including well known K-bloggers Mr Dokdo Breeze Stafford, Mr New Design ZenKimchi , Mr Flaming Mad Roboseyo and Mr Obama supporter Metropolitican.

Another multi author blog is Naked In the Sauna who are: Bilingual, multicultural women bloggers in Korea. We're wearing our lamb towel hats and letting it all hang out.

One site in the Korea Blog List that's not a blog but may be of interest is Animal Rescue Korea. It's a website gathering English language information useful for helping animals in South Korea, based around a forum run by Korea resident Karen.

Here are some of the more recent additions to the list that I will be keeping an eye on :

Keep Suwon Weird : Alexi from Texas has landed.

Discovering Korea a very professionall looking site. It is the blog version of "Discovering Korea", a weekly travel and culture show hosted by Matt Kelley and produced by Sophia Hong. You can listen to it Saturdays on KBS World Radio.

When I started writing this post last week George Goes Korean was the very latest blog on the list. He's moving to Busan to teach English next month. I look forward to reading about his adventures. But, now I've finally got round to completing the post, I find another eleven have just been added including : Drifting thru Korea , Seoul Snapper a fellow Brit taking daily photos of life in Korea, and Tim Wilkinson who maybe "Just another waygook living in Seoul" but has already figured out most of the things they didn't tell you before you come.

Subscribe to the site feed here to catch up with all the newest blogs on Korea. Oh, and while you're surfing the current list of 526 blogs, if you spot any broken links or sites that have stopped update do let Alan know so that he can keep the database up to date.

Some blogs I've discovered not from the Korean Blog List include a couple of technology blogs:

Vaiguoren Is well written annonymous blog providing links and extracts from news items regarding Korean technology.

KoreaCrunch by Channy who works for DAUM and has restarted blogging about Korean internet developments.

and finally here's a blog I found on facebook with regular cartoons on life in Korea called ROKetShip. To all K-Bloggers everywhere, keep on blogging.

Jimmy Choo. Shoes from the Exhibition

I don't want to tread on Feet Man Seoul's territory here, but I thought I'd post one photo of the twelve shoes on display today at the Education UK Exhibition.



Jimmy gave a very upbeat talk about what a positive experience he had had as a young shoe maker from Malaysia, coming to London to study shoe design 25 years ago. The college principal was initially reluctant to enroll Jimmy, but once he saw some examples of his work he was persuaded to give Jimmy a chance, inspite of his poor English skills.

For those readers of the blog in Korea: The Education UK Exhibition, run by the British Council will be coming to Seoul on the weekend of November 1st and 2nd.

Saturday 1 November 2008
Time: 1300–1800

Sunday 2 November 2008
Time: 1300–1800

Venue: Seoul Plaza Hotel

And, for anyone interested, the exhibition will also be on in Taiwan on the same weekend.

Jimmy Choo at the Education UK Exhibition Japan

If you are interesting in studying in the UK and live in Japan come to the Education UK Exhibition Japan 2008 this weekend. It's on in Tokyo at the International Forum near Tokyo Station on Saturday and in Osaka on Sunday.

Over 60 UK universities and colleges be at the fair, part of the Education UK initiative led by the British government.

World-famous shoe designer Professor Jimmy Choo (Professor Emeritus, University of the Arts London) will give a talk show about "UK Creativity", as well as exhibiting 12 pairs of shoes designed specially for this event. There will also be several other presenters who have been influenced by UK creativity, including Anne Suzuki, an actress who studied in the UK.

I will be at there on Saturday on the stand of my Alma Mater Southampton University.

Dates, times and venues:

Tokyo: Saturday 18 October 11:00 - 17:00
Tokyo International Forum (Yurakucho)
Entrance is free

Osaka: Sunday 19 October 13:00 - 18:00
Umeda Sky Building 10F Aura Hall
Entrance is free

If you've thought of studying in the UK, come to exhibition to meet people who can tell you what it's like, and what's on offer from the wide variety of institutions that will be there.

Or, if you just like shoes, come and hear Jimmy Choo talk at 1pm.

Yoga Weekend with Nirmal at Alishan

Nirmal and Naresh, originally uploaded by jonallen01966.

We just got back from a yoga weekend with Nirmal.

We stayed at Alishan which is an organic cafe and food shop run by Jack Bayles and his wife Fay. They have an 'Event space' which was our base for the weekend.

Here is Nirmal, demonstrating Yogic Massage on his assistant Naresh.

We also enjoyed Laughing Yoga, which with a small group of Japanese young ladies, was very amusing.

Yakatabuna

Boat cruise round Tokyo bay.
An interesting way to see the sights at night and enjoy a meal.

We went with a company called funasei. Their package includes an excellent tempura meal with non stop drinks and a karaoke machine. Address : 1-16-8 北品川, 品川区, 東京140-0001. 1-16-8 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 140-0001. 15 mins walk from Shinagawa station.

Feet Man Seoul in Japan Times

A quick shout out for Mike Hurt AKA The Metropolitician AKA Feet Man Seoul. Not only is he appearing on Arirang TV these days, but I was delighted to see his fashion photos this morning in the Japan Times.

On my way to work I spotted the half page spread by Shawn Despres entitled "Spicy Food, sexy idols and now fashion." including no less than five photos all from FeetManSeoul.com. Some quotes include:

"A few years ago, any self-respecting Japanese young woman would have died of shame rather than be caught in the same outfit her Korean cousin was flaunting in Myeongdong. Now, vacationing Japanese populate those shopping corridors on clothing hunts."

"Until very recently, suits or other formal wear were requirements for men, as were dresses, high heels and makeup for women," explains Michael Hurt, the editor in chief of Feet Man Seoul, South Korea's first street-fashion magazine.

"As any Korean knows, a man walking the streets in the '90s in shorts and sandals would be stared at, or a woman without makeup in an office situation would be thought of as rude or lazy."

Korean Olympic Athletes had Secret Weapon

South Korea won a very respectable 13 gold medals in the recent Olympics. But did they partake in any special performance enhancing chemicals? Was Kimchi perhaps the secret of their success or did Bosingtang give them the stamina to last the race? No the truth behind their strong performance is unveiled:

The state-run Korea Ginseng Corp admitted to AFP that Archers and weightlifters received a regular supply of Korean red ginseng.

The herb known as "the root of life" has been cultivated in Korea for 1,500 years and is steadily adding to its fan club overseas.

While it is especially popular among athletes, Koreans in general attribute a variety of powers including stress relief, anti-ageing and even better sexual performance to its light yellow-coloured fleshy roots.


I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Should the Koreans be stripped of their medals? or left to their own delusions.

Geronimo Roppongi

Drink 15 different shots in one night to get a plaque on the wall of fame and also receive a free t-shirt. Ask your bartender for details.

It's been a rough old day. This was how we celebrated this evening.

For those that would like to try the challenge more details www.geronimoshotbar.com
Location: 7-14-10, Roppongi, Minato-ku. Tokyo, 106-0032, Japan.

Right outside Roppongi Subway exit 5.

And, if you are on facebook there's an "I did the 15 shot challenge at Geronimos" group.

42: Life the Universe and Everything

My blog does not usually contain many personal details, but for a change I thought I'd share with you the celebration of my 42nd birthday today.

One year ago I had just arrived in Japan. Everything was new and different and I did not mark the event. Two years ago I was in Korea eating Bosintang (A search term that still brings a number of visitors to the blog) on my 40th birthday.

This afternoon I got off early from work with strict instructions from my wife : "No snacking". Here's the dining room setting that greeted me on getting home:



Here's the starter, two large crustaceans, in the steamer.



Starting with a glass of Bollinger.



On to the main course, chicken in white wine sauce, my favourite.



The fruit course.



The cheese course.



The first dessert, a tiramisu, made from fresh ingredients.



The second dessert, a delicious chocolate mousse.



There's plenty of that left. I'll be taking it to the office tomorrow.

Today I am celebrating 42 years on the planet, and as a friend pointed out, a lot of people regard "42" as "The Answer to Life the Universe and Everything" (Douglas Adams). By coincidence, today is also the day when the biggest physics experiment in the world is starting. Scientists at the LHC in Geneva are recreating events immediately after the "Big Bang", looking at the behaviour of the fundamental universal particles. It seems to me we already have the answer. It's 42 !

This blog has been a little thin recently. My hope is that I will continue, I have plenty of ideas that would make interesting posts but I don't make time to write them up. I make no promises as to what I post but I hope you will stay with me for the next 42 years.

Nikko.

See no evil.Hear no evil. Speak no evil.Carving on sacred stable for the sacred horse. Toshogu shrine Nikko.

Google Street View of Tokyo

This is just amazing. Check out a street level view of thousands of streets in Tokyo from Google Maps.

It's hard to know where to start. Here's a random example of the Tokyo International Forum building near Tokyo station.



The interface allows you to rotate the viewpoint for a full 360 degree view of the street. Click on the arrows to continue along the road.

Judging by the state of one building site very near my office, some of the photos are very new and have been taken in the past month or two. However some streeets are lined with cheery blossom from the springtime. It's a shame they don't put the date on them because in a few years so much will have changed.

This is the famous Shibuya crossing. The station is behind you in this view.

Where's your favorite place in Tokyo?

Update: Google are going to redo all the street view images with the camera at a reduced height to counter privacy complaints from people with low walls.

Tama River

Tama River, originally uploaded by jonallen01966.

View of the misty Tama river.

Japanese Squirrel

Japanese Squirrel, originally uploaded by jonallen01966.

We went to the Inokashira park at the weekend. Most of the park is given over to a small zoo. There is a squirrel enclosure where hundreds of these cute little creatures are free to run around. There were record high temperatures and it was just too hot for this one!

Hokkaido Photos

I finally got around to uploading some higher quality photos from our holiday in Hokkaido.
This one, of the open road sums it up quite nicely.

This is Mt Rausu on the Shiretoko peninsula



Oshinkoshin waterfall on the Shiretoko peninsula


This is one of several very beautiful butterflies we saw


And this was the huge octopus we saw when diving off the coast of Shiretoko, Sea of Ohkotsk.

(My thanks to our very able instructor for taking the photo of us)

If you'd like to pop over to Flickr you can see some more of the photos we took.

It was quite a shock to come back to Tokyo and see more people on the subway on the way back from the airport than we had seen for the whole two weeks previously.

Seoul Ranks 9th in Centres of Commerce Index

I've just got back from holiday and I've read that MasterCard have rated Seoul 9th in their index of Worldwide Centres of Commerce published earlier this month.

London, New York and Tokyo take the top three slots, Singapore Chicago and Hong Kong follow them and Seoul rates just behind Frankfurt and Paris. The survey, prepared by a panel of experts, rates 75 cities on seven categories: Legal and political framework, Economic stability, Ease of doing business, Financial flow, Business centre, Knowledge creation and information flow, Livability.

Surprisingly Seoul ranks 4th in the Financial flow category, ahead of Tokyo, based on the number of transactions in Banking, Insurance, Financial services, Equity, Derivatives and Commodities. That could be related to the fact that Seoul is the major city in South Korea, while in Japan, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo and Fukuoka have stock exchanges which were counted separately from Tokyo.

One thing they do not seem to have taken into account are the laws relating to the location of computers for processing banking transactions. These must be physically located in South Korea, which for a multinational bank can be a bit of a hindrance. Switzerland used to have similar laws, but these were relaxed about five years ago. It's another reason Seoul will continue to rank behind the main three centres in Asia and struggle to stay ahead of the burgeoning cities of China and India.

Nakashibetsu Airport

Returned the hire car, back to Tokyo,Haneda airport.

Kushiro National Park

Wetland area.

Mount Iouzan

Steaming sulphurous hillside.