Welcome!

This blog details the life and thoughts of James Simpson, an English language teacher living in Kanagawa, Japan. James has previously blogged at Abduction Politics and I, Shingen. Here you will find commentary on his travels, his thoughts about books, games or movies, as well as his commentary on political or social events. You can read more about James here and you can view his photographs at Picasa, here.

Kinkakuji

Type:
Religious site, Popular attraction, UNESCO World Heritage site

Location:
Kita-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto Prefecture

How to get there:
Take the Number 101 or 205 bus from Kyoto Station;
Take the Number 12, 59 or 205 from Shijo Kawaramachi Bus Stop, on the intersection near the Hankyu and Takashimaya department stores;
Number 12 bus from Gion Bus Stop, outside the entrance to Yasaka Shrine in Higashiyama on Shijo.

Entry:
400 Yen

Time needed:
30 mins – 1 hour (depending on how much/fast you walk)

Summary:
Kinkakuji is famous for the Golden Pavilion from which it derives its name. The Pavilion sits by a pond (Kyokochi, Mirror Pond) and is picturesque meter of the seasons: brilliant in summer, surrounded by earthy tones in autumn, and occasionally covered in snow in the winter. The pavilion was originally built in 1397 as a relics hall (shariden) in the grounds of the private retirement villa of Yoshimitsu, the third Ashikaga shogun.  It continues to display Buddhist relics, although many have been extensively restored following arson in 1950. The pavilion, reconstructed in 1955, stands at the entry point to the grounds, throughout which are several smaller shrines and historical sites which unfortunately seem unimpressive by comparison.

Highlights:
Having your picture taken across the water from the pavilion. Ask another person to take your photograph and reciprocate. If you can find a nice spot, try to take a tiled panorama to stitch together later so that you can properly capture the breadth of the view.

Watch out for:
Anmintaku (Tranquility Pond), the small pond further up the hill with a stone pagoda at its centre. It exudes a serene air that is difficult to avoid, but also difficult to capture on film.

Food and Drink:
There is a teahouse within the compound at which you can have whipped green tea (matcha) and a sweet (500 Yen), and lots of stands giving away free bits of yatsuhashi (a crepe-like rice cake). Near the bus stop, there are some more cafes catering to the tourist traffic.

Visited:
24rd October 2009, 2:00 p.m.

Busy?:
Always. If you are visiting in autumn and winter, expect an horrifically crowded bus during your long journey. If you can walk away from the main thoroughfares and catch a different bus, you might have a more pleasant journey.

See also:
Official Website: Kinkaku-ji – Guide

Gallery:

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Type:
Religious site, hiking

Location:
Fushimi-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto Prefecture

How to get there:
Inari Station is two stops from Kyoto on the JR Nara Line.

Entry:
Free

Time needed:
2 – 6 hours (depending on how much/fast you walk)

Summary:
This is a famous shrine complex in Kyoto’s hills. It is shrine to Inari, the god of business and foxes. In Japanese mythology, the fox is a crafty, sly and greedy spirit known for playing tricks on its worshippers. Tourists and worshippers walk along long forested paths lined by tori-i gates. The gates were donated by local businesses as a tribute towards their further success in the future. Those hoping for similar success should take great care to visit every shrine along the way. There is also a shrine for entrance exam-takers.

Highlights:
The endless tori-i gates are like nothing I’ve seen before. The cool mountain air and huge scope of the complex make it an easy way to spend a day hiking. The various fox statues make for interesting viewing too.

Watch out for:
Fox-face ema boards at one of the shrines.

Food and Drink:
Fushimi is the second largest sake brewing area in Japan. As a tribute, one ramen shop in the area, Genya Ramen, sells a special sake kasu ramen using leftovers from the brewery process. For more information, see KyotoFoodie.

Visited:
23rd October 2009, 7:00 a.m.

Busy?:
Empty except for joggers

Gallery:

Kyoto: A Retrospective

For many people, Kyoto is the best place to go in Japan, a wonderful land of shrines, traditional architecture and geisha. There is no denying that everyone who comes to Japan, especially those living here, should see Kyoto. However, once you go beyond tourism, life perhaps isn’t so great.

With some days off and little else to do, Keiko and I made our way down to Kyoto, a second time for both of us. I had spent a month in Kyoto back in the summer of 2006, and Keiko had been sightseeing there sometime before that. We’d thus seen most of what we need to see, and only had to stay for a short time. After only two days there, I came to appreciate the differences between Kanto (the region around Tokyo) and Kansai (around Osaka), and my opinion of Kyoto has become far more complex.

Last week, I felt that Kyoto was a quaint place, rather convenient but ultimately lacked urban planning and effective conservation efforts. I believed that Kyoto’s highly developed bus system was an excellent means of getting about, and that it was nice to be in a city where you could walk home within two hours at worst. The hyper-locality of its shops and stores, and its wealth of independent businesses, worked in the city’s favour. Also, it was close to other major cities: Osaka (less than an hour away), Nagoya and Kobe (both about two hours away). Much of this still holds true in my mind, but whereas I once believed that I could easily live in a place like Kyoto (after all, is it so much different to much of the UK’s towns and cities?), now I can barely imagine it.

Take the buses, for instance. You might need to walk 5 minutes to your nearest bus stop. Then you may have to ride the bus for an hour just to get to the station or some other destination. Particularly on the tourist routes to places like Gion or Kinkakuji, the bus can be as crowded as any Tokyo train, and much less comfortable. In Kyoto, you enter the bus from the centre and exit from the front. This means that people in the back have to push their way through a 4 metre-long crowded aisle in other to get out of a packed bus. Kyoto buses, at least around the central wards, are flat-rate, ¥220 for an adult. You pay this at the front of the bus as you exit, in contrast to my local Kawasaki buses, which are also flat-rate (and ¥20 cheaper) where you pay on entry at the front and exit through the central door. This gives the driver more control over how many people squeeze into the bus, as well as making it easier for people to exit.

At one point, on the way to Kinkakuji on an unbelievably packed bus, a man somewhere behind me told me to ’sit down’. The reason being that there was a priority seat right in front of me, and if I sat down it would give people some more space. I knew for a fact however, that there were some older people around me, and thus I was reluctant to do so, instead hoping that such a person would take it. Indeed, unable to turn around and offer it to anyone, a middle-aged woman beside me tugged on the shoulder of an old lady and invited her to take the seat. I couldn’t help but think that if that guy wanted to sit down, he should have done so himself instead of ordering me around. Keiko told me that that is just the way people from Kansai are (although Kanto vs Kansai is a rather big rivalry, people from Hokkaido are supposedly very intolerant of Kansai manners). I am inclined to agree, I cannot think of a time I have been on a cramped train when I heard people calling out for others to move forwards (even though they couldn’t move at all): on the whole, people in Kanto are far more impersonal and business-like with strangers. They may be rude, but they aren’t overtly angry for the most part.

These incidents with the buses, and the amount of time I spent standing up on them, made me realise just how inconvenient a place it is. From my house in Kawasaki, I can walk to the station in 10 minutes and reach Shibuya in 20 minutes, Yokohama in 35, and Tachikawa in 40. I can catch a bus to the next station down from me and be there in 10 minutes, I can walk to the next station up from me in about 30 minutes. The buses don’t stop until after 11, and even then, there are special late buses until 1 am. If you were to work in Tokyo and finish at 9pm, you could get back home by about 10:30 no matter where you lived in this area. By contrast, if someone worked in Osaka and went home to Kyoto, they’d be stuck with either an expensive taxi ride, long bike ride, or a longer walk if they lived in the north or south of the city. This is one of the key benefits of living in one of Kanagawa’s station towns, a suburban area full of commuters which exists simply because there is a station nearby, but it is one that holds true for much of Kanagawa, Tokyo, Chiba and Saitama.

In terms of trains, Kyoto has a pretty large number. In its both hideously empty but amazingly modern-looking station, Kyoto plays host to several JR lines, and a small subway system. From the basement of the Hankyu department store in Kawaramachi Shijo, a good 15 minute bus ride from the main station, you can catch the Hankyu Kyoto Line to Osaka, about an hour away. Finally, around Shijo, you can take the Randen tram service up into Arashiyama. There seems to be lots of variety, but in fact given how dispersed they are and how you’ll have to jump from operator to operator, getting around in Kyoto without a scooter or bike quickly adds up. One such example of poor integration can be found in the payment system. In Kansai they use ICOCA, an electronic payment system similar to Oyster, instead of JR East’s Suica, or PASMO (used by non-JR companies in Kanto). However, while tourists can use their PASMO or SUICA on Kyoto’s JR lines, I was surprised to have it rejected when trying to get on the subway.

If you like the arty and independent culture that Kyoto offers, with its trendy and expensive areas, then you’d be okay to live there. It’s a place for students and small-businesses, not for the big business culture you see in the Tokyo region. Kyoto is more isolated and dependent on personal transport than a place like this, and that might be fine if you work in the city’s booming tourist industry or at one of its distinguished universities, but as a man accustomed to travelling around to different schools on different days, much further than any Kyoto bus journey, I can’t help but feel that the decentralised business in which I work would be unable to sustain itself in so small and so isolated a city. If it could, then I really wouldn’t want to be working there, where if the bus is full, you can’t get on. Rush hour would be hellish, and the tourist season worse.

Going back to Kyoto has simply highlighted what it is that I like about where I live. Yes, Kyoto has history and green spaces, but the Kamogawa (along which I used to love walking) is full of midges and is nothing compared to the great Tamagawa a stone’s throw from my house. Whether there is a major difference between the people here or there, or not, at least this feels like home. Kyoto, on the other hand, will only ever feel like a maddening tourist destination with little new to offer me.

Losing Your Phone in Japan

Losing your phone always sucks. You lose your contacts, pictures and, most depressingly, money. Losing your mobile phone in Japan is doubly depressing: you are typically locked into a 2-year contract with few options and mobile phone insurance appears to be unheard of. I know this because I dropped my phone somewhere on my way home a few Fridays ago.

My job contract obliges me to keep a mobile on my person at all times, mainly because if a train line shuts down due to an accident or if I forge about work, then they need to shout at me or arrange emergency cover. So after losing my phone, I didn’t really have much time to wait. I needed one as soon as possible.

Of course, the first thing I did once I realised it was not in the house or my bag was call Docomo’s customer services. They have the ability to triangulate your phone’s position, although they couldn’t do it in my case (perhaps because I didn’t subscribe to it, or because it wasn’t available for my phone: a Nokia). So, while we waited for the results of the trace (which we didn’t realise wouldn’t work), we blocked the SIMM card and set up a call diversion system to Keiko’s mobile. If we were able to find it, we would be able to reactivate the card with a PIN and begin using it again. However, it didn’t show up by the next afternoon.

As a Docomo customer, I had two choices: finish my contract and start a new contract with a new phone, or the same but with a different network. If I had my old phone, then I could have saved on some charges for creating a new contract (in the former case) and transferred my contacts, but without my SIMM card, that was impossible. That left me with a difficult choice to make before I entered the NTT Docomo store.

I had originally joined Docomo because I could be on a family plan with Keiko and have unlimited free calls to her mobile. They have excellent customer service, and perhaps due to the family plan and my low usage, my bill was always minuscule. However, my biggest grievance with Docomo is their selection of handsets: they are over-complicated, poorly designed, and don’t have the features I wanted. If I were to stay with Docomo, they would have needed to have offered me a decent deal on a new phone contract and handset. I thought I was in luck as they had a free handset campaign at that time, but of course it was only available to new customers. As an existing customer I would have to pay nearly ¥10,000 to break the contract, and then another ¥7000 to make a new one. Although I would be able to reclaim that cost if I were to find my phone, I had no idea if it would turn up. It seemed pretty pricey and so I was exploring my second option.

My previous phone was the epitome of European mobile phone design. In Japan, the clamshell rules. Phones are bulky, heavy and a complicated by useless features. My phone was simple and small, with a clear interface and no extraneous features. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well-adapted to the Japanese market: no QR code reader, I couldn’t use i-Mode apps, and the camera was pretty terrible. I had learnt a number of things by owning my Nokia NM705i, and the experience had made me much more fussy as a consumer.

Before losing my phone, I had already begun to think about changing my handset. The one thing I really wanted was GPS which has become very common in the past year. Two really caught my eye. The first was from KDDI’s au, Sharp’s Sportio, which offers the exercise-based GPS system that I wanted, as well as being a fully integrated phone in terms of its functions and the standard feature set of Japanese handsets. It was different and easy enough to use to catch my eye, and perfect for taking out on my runs, which meant I could carry a phone with me when I run (I always wondered: ‘What if I get injured?’).

The second handset was Apple’s iPhone 3Gs from Softbank. As a iPod Touch user, the switch would be super easy. It had a decent camera, GPS, and it would also let me take just my phone when I went running. On the downside, I really don’t like the lack of tactile feedback with the iPhone/iPod Touch, but that problem (caused by over-use of the touch screen) was also apparent in the Sportio. The iPhone made a lot of sense to me. I’m a low-volume caller (maybe less than 10 minutes a month, if I don’t speak to Keiko), but a wannabe high-volume mobile internet user, possible thanks to Softbank’s flat rate data package and the iPhone’s use of standard websites (instead of mobile counterparts).

If I were to change my network, I would get charged about ¥10,000 by Docomo for breaking the contract, and then I would be charged the cost of creating a new contract with a new handset on a new network. Luckily for me, Softbank have a great deal on iPhones at the moment called ‘iPhone for Everybody’. This campaign saw a discount that effectively cut the cost of the handset by two-thirds over the course of two years (¥980/month) and gave me a sliding scale flat-rate data package where I would never pay more than ¥4410 per month (even after the 24 month campaign period). We wouldn’t have to pay anything on the day, and the average bill would be less than my gym membership (which I cancelled on the same day).

For the features I wanted, the iPhone made sense, so we headed over to Softbank for some grooming by the sales staff. Like all mobile phone salesmen, they were pushy and scant on details, but I had a pretty good understanding of the necessary payments before going in. Even so, as I read through the contracts, I was cautious, checking each and every little thing to make sure I wouldn’t be walking into something I’d later regret. The best thing about Softbank is its popularity among foreigners, which has given it the motivation to develop English language paperwork and English-speaking staff (although I didn’t see one). This meant I could deal with the staff on my own instead of relying on Keiko. Also, calls among Softbank users are free, so this meant that while I lost free calls to Keiko, I gained free calls to my colleagues.

During our time in the store, we were talked into taking home an Acer Aspire One netbook. The netbook was free, but to get it we had to subscribe to a USB-based mobile internet provider. Like the iPhone’s data plan, this too was a sliding scale. Keiko and I have very little need to use the internet on the go in that fashion, so I calculated that based on the minimum payment per month (less than ¥2000 all told), we would be getting the netbook at a pretty good price, so we took it, or rather Keiko did (she was angry at me for losing my phone, so it’s the least I could do).

A few things you should take note of before running out to get an iPhone in Japan (or any mobile phone):

• To get a mobile phone, you will need two forms of identification: either your passport and alien registration card or your alien registration card and a Japanese credit card. I happen to have a credit card (which can be difficult to get for foreigners) – perhaps because of my spouse visa – and so I used it with my alien registration card. Without a credit card, you might be restricted to only a one-year contract with some networks/stores. The only problem with that is that until you show your passport, your payments will have to come out of said credit card.
• While everything is written in English, you should probably take someone with you who can ask questions and receive (and translate) detailed answers. You are entering a 2-year contract with some pretty nuanced and complicated wording. This is not something you should take lightly. Changing mid-contract is not as easy as in the UK or other countries.
• If your iPhone breaks, you will need to contact Apple, not Softbank. I recommend you get an AppleCare Protection Plan while you’re in-store. If you can, find phone insurance as soon as possible (I’m still casually looking).
• If you get a 2-year contract, you will be unlikely to have to pay anything in-store. Instead, it will be charged with your first bill.
• Inter-network calls are expensive, particularly with Softbank. I have to pay ¥21 per half-minute. If you are married or call someone regularly, you might want to explore family plans on the same network instead of switching.
• iPhone customers are signed up for a number of small services (things like voicemail) which may or may not have been set up on your phone. Ask about these services in-store. You must subscribe to them for at least the first month, but you should be able to cancel them after your first bill.

So now I am a proud owner of an iPhone 3Gs, which has not been without its surprises. As the iPhone is somewhat different to most mobile phones due to its data-hungry preferred mode of usage (namely as a ultra-mobile browser with image-intensive applications), it took a while to sink in that just because I was on Softbank’s network, it didn’t mean I was on the same playing field as my colleagues.

Softbank customers are able to access their current billing status through dialling 157 (quickly press 8 if you want English). I was unaware of this, perhaps for good reason, as I found out on Tuesday. When I listened to the current size of my bill, I was gobsmacked: ¥70,000? That’s about £500! I felt sick to my stomach. How could I tell Keiko about that? It’s almost a month’s rent. I started wondering how I could hide it from her. Could I afford it on my own? Maybe… But then I started to wonder why it was that price. Did they not explain it properly? If they didn’t, would I have any legal recourse?

After a good twenty minutes, the shock started to wear thin. I was still pacing around, but I began to wonder about the sentence that followed that hefty price: “Discounts are not included in this figure” (I paraphrase). I couldn’t stand the worry and uncertainty, so I called up Softbank’s operator (Live Support, also accessed through 157) and talked to them. They automatically speak in English if you transfer from the English version of 157, although they have very strong Japanese accents which might be difficult to understand. Anyway, I explained my predicament and they reassured me that the data package (¥4410 per month) would be applied at the end of the billing month so the figure I heard over the phone would not apply. Phew…!

For me, the mobile phone market back home is pretty complicated, and that’s the one that I’m most familiar with. Unfortunately, due to unfamiliarity and the inevitable language gap, Japan’s system is all the more confusing. Keep your wits about you if you have the misfortune to lose your phone, or even if you’re just looking for a phone in general. You’re wading through a minefield.

Silver Week: Odawara and Hakone

This week started with ‘Silver Week’, a very long weekend formed by the co-incidence of several holidays within the same week. Under Japanese law, any day preceded and followed by a regular national holiday must also a holiday. This week, Monday and Wednesday were both holidays, thus Tuesday was too. Silver Week’s name comes from two sources: first, by being the smaller cousin of May’s Golden Week, but also because one of the holidays is Respect the Aged Day.

So Keiko and I had several days off together, but apart from attending a friend’s wedding (with the preparatory shopping), he had no plans going into the week. We eventually decided to visit Odawara,  which we should have done while living in Sagamihara when we were a lot closer, but as serial procrastinators we never
made it.So on Wednesday morning, we found ourselves on a train with no idea what to expect besides a castle and a long ride.

We took the JR Tokaido line for over an hour, and I sat beside an old guy chatting with a young couple on the other side. When they got off in Yokohama, he began to talk to another couple, then later an older lady until just before Hiratsuka, he started talking across me and to Keiko, interrupting my Scribblenauts frustrations (some of those puzzles are hard!).

At 86 years old, he was making the journey from Kawasaki to four hillside ancestral graves to make offering of fruits and vegetables. The holiday, which celebrates the Vernal Equinox, is traditionally spent visiting family graves and regardless of how heavy his produce-laden bag and how high he’d have to climb, this gentleman was going to continue the tradition.

A child of Kanagawa, born in Zama, he told us he was born after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and jokingly warning us to watch out for the 20XX Tokai Earthquake after he dies. He reminisced about the various stops along the line, told us about the rivers and swimming spots, and fondly remembered boat trips in Sagami Bay. It was a bit awkward but he was a lovely guy. Still, I was relieved when the train terminated in Odawara.

After seeing off the old man at the top of the escalator, we made our way to the castle. He had told us that the castle was 30 minutes away on foot, so we should get a bus. He also said we wouldn’t be able to see the castle from the station, but we glimpsed it from the overpass and decided to set off on foot. It took no more than 10 minutes to the foot of the castle. Perhaps subsidence has moved it closer over time, or perhaps the old man’s memory is not as good as it used to be.

We wandered around the old lower bailey but, with no surrounding walls, it was difficult to notice. There was a street music festival and a car boot-like area of stalls hawking crap, unwinnable games and mediocre Japanese festival treats – takoyaki, yakisoba, shaved ice, etc. The music wasn’t all that bad. The band were belting out great classic rock music (Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones) but the singer’s warbling was really letting down the side. There were some rowing boats in the moat too, but Keiko was getting dangerously hungry and with no restaurants around I made the executive decision (as husband and whiner-in-chief) to climb up to the castle and look for something there. I really should have learnt what to expect by now.

The path up to the main bailey was flanked by traditional walls, but it was rather unremarkable. There was a zoo at the top, but halfway up we read that the Indian elephant there had died.  Around its now-empty enclosure were flowers and people signing a memorial book. Without an elephant, the zoo was simply a cage full of monkeys – uninteresting ones at that.

That left only the motte to keep us happy. The price of admission was ¥1200, and there were five floors of exhibits, which seemed pricey. There were a few pieces of art, several weapons and sets of armour, and the typical collection of pots and lacquerware. No Japanese museum would be complete without models, and this castle doesn’t disappoint. What has always struck me about Japanese museums is that there are far too many replicas and models. I don’t really care to pay to see replicas of letters, claywork, or other such minutiae. One floor had photos of castles around Japan, one small photo of each: very skippable, very disappointing. The top of the castle had the standard observation deck. A handful of signs pointed out features in the distance, but while I could see the sea, maybe even as far as Chigasaki or Fujisawa, with Izu in the distance, it was all rather dull.

Perhaps I’m just jaded, but the preservation and display of history in Japan has always struck me as half-hearted: concrete replaces wood, gravel replaces dirt, classics are lost and are replaced by Meiji Period replicas instead. There are very few original castles as, made of wood, they were lost to fire during Japan’s many disturbances and wars. Preservation has given way to reconstruction. I would love to see more of the style of display seen at Warwick Castle or Nijo Castle in Kyoto: rooms laid out and decorated as one would have seen in their original condition. That, however, is unlikely at this stage. Shamefully, most castles have been hollowed out and made into generic galleries for relics and replicas alike.

After a break for donuts, we tried to decide what we would do next. There was little in Odawara to see, so I suggested we head to Hakone-Yumoto for a look around. Hakone is a mountainous region in Kanagawa’s western mountains. It is famous for its onsen resorts. Scattered throughout the mountains are hot springs that have been used to cleanse and heal the body for centuries. However, due to a lack of time planning, we didn’t have chance to bath. Instead we got to enjoy the region’s fresh, cool mountain air as we walked around.

We stopped at Hakone-Yumoto, the terminal of the Odakyu line, and bought tickets for a Romancecar (EXE6) ride home. Odakyu’s Romancecars are limited express trains. They can take you from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto with only a couple of stops. They are reasonably priced (from Hakone-Yumoto to Machida cost us only ¥600 on top of the standard ¥870 fare), and save a great deal of time (we shaved off 20 minutes). You get a seat and a trolley service, which might be typical back home but is rare here. Compared to the usual train ride, a Romancecar feels like business class.

It was a national holiday and the main street of Yumoto was crowded with Japanese and foreigners alike. Most of the attractions can be found at Gora, slightly further up the Hakone-Tozan Line (an extension of the Odakyu line), so we contented ourselves with a walk along the town’s river. I hoped to see the Tamadare Falls, a waterfall not far from the station, but there was construction work on the bridge to cross over to it and there didn’t seem to be any other way across, so we walked on by.

We spent 3 hours walking in and around Hakone-Yumoto, but there was really little point going if we wouldn’t have a bath. Next time though, we’ll head straight over to Gora and stay overnight, the way you’re meant to do it, but for now, at least we know it’s a nice respite from the Tokyo heat. Plus, next time we can skip Odawara and its cage of monkeys.

Geotagging Your DSLR Photos Using an iPhone

Living in a foreign country, I find myself reaching for my camera quite often as we step out for sightseeing, picnics or drinks. In addition to my Canon DSLR, I always have my iPhone with me. Being somewhat of a perfectionist in managing my collections, whether it’s filling out all that extra information for my mp3s in iTunes, or tagging all those people in Facebook, I started to wonder how I might use my iPhone’s GPS function to geo-tag the photos I take with my standard camera. It turns out there are many solutions, but I will highlight my way.

What is Geo-tagging?

Geo-tagging is the process of adding GPS-derived location information to media. It allows you to mash together your photo albums with Google Earth, and it also allows other people to find the best places to visit and the best methods to get there. If you are a professional, it’ll give you an exact position to go back to in order to retake shots.

What do you need?

1. An iPhone 3G
2. A camera of any kind
3. Everytrail – iPhone App
4. Internet connection
5. GPicSync – A multi-platform programme for geotagging
6. Google Earth or Picasa 3.5 – to see the results

How do I do it?

1. Install Everytrail on your iPhone. You will need to set up an account during the process, both the app and account are free. To improve the quality of its data recording, go to Settings > GPS and pull the sliders over to the right.
2. Grab your camera and your iPhone and get outside.
3. When you are near the location where you will start shooting, fire up Everytrail and click start for it to start logging your journey. For the best results, you’ll need to be outside.
4. Holster your iPhone and start walking. Take photos of whatever and wherever takes your fancy.
5. When you’re done with your photos, stop Everytrail and save the results as a draft and head home.
6. Using a wi-fi or 3G connection, upload your results to the Everytrail server from your iPhone.
7. Everytrail will email you a link to your results, open it through your home computer and scroll down to ‘Export this Trip’. Click on ‘Download GPX for your GPS’ and save the .gpx file in a place you can access later.
8. Upload your pictures from your camera to your computer.
9. Open up GPicSync. Click on ‘Pictures’ and select the folder you just uploaded your photos to. Click on ‘GPS file’ and select the .gpx file you just downloaded from Everytrail. After that, click on ‘Synchronise’ and let the programme do its wonders. GPicSync can tag RAW files as well as the usual JPGs, PNGs, etc. No need to convert all those RAWs just yet.
10. When the synchronisation is complete, GPicSync will leave a .kml in your picture folder. You can open this in Google Earth to view your photos (although RAWs will not render). Alternatively you can fire up Picasa and use its brand new ‘Places’ option to see your photos on a map.

Issues

My trial run saw a rather disappointing bunching up of photos. Everytrail only recorded a few locations and so a number of photos are recorded for one location. However, with a tweak of a settings, the process should become more accurate. For similar results, try any GPS app on the iPhone with a uploading/exporting function.

Aftermath of the Japanese 2009 General Election

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

This week, Yukio Hatoyama became Japan’s Prime Minister. The government has changed hands, as was widely predicted, in a landslide. The Democratic Party, Minshuto, received 308 votes to the Liberal Democratic Party’s, Jiminto’s, 119. On the day of the election, I wrote that the election was to be a landmark For democracy in Japan, and sure enough with Jiminto out of power, the election was historic. However, the reasons for Jiminto’s catastrophic defeat demonstrate mundane causes.

Working in a job that allows me to probe other people’s lives for the sake of their studies, I have been able to gauge how and why my students votes. That insight gave me only one solid reason for Jiminto’s defeat: dissatisfaction.

Many of my students voted Minshuto, a few voted Jiminto, but a noticeable number voted for the Communist Party, Kyosanto, or the independent Minnanoto, ‘Your Party’. These are representatives of the urban middle classes, and no one was ‘happy’ with Minshuto’s victory. Only a handful would admit to being ’satisfied’.

Many voted not for a party, but instead simply voted against Jiminto. After governments derailed by scandals, it is no surprise that many were dissatisfied with their leadership, and for many people punishing this long-ruling party was a top priority. Most students complained that Minshuto did not offer a viable alternative, hence their rather pessimistic unease over the results: they lacked concrete details over the changes they seek, and seemed to be offering unbalanced accounts of how they would supply all the cash handouts they have planned. Indeed, even with the recent important announcement regarding curbing climate change, Hatoyama’s nascent cabinet have few concrete details. Theirs was a hollow victory, but Jiminto’s defeat was total.

As a gauge of how the people voted, it is interesting to look at how some of Jiminto’s recent cabinet ministers fared, particularly those embroiled in scandals. On election night, a few names stood out for me.

The Gaffe-Makers Fumio Kyuma Hakuo Yanagisawa Bunmei Ibuki Shoichi Nakagawa	The Potential Leaders Kaoru Yosano Yuriko Koike Seiko Noda
Komeito’s Leadership Postscript: Jiminto’s Winners

The Gaffe-Makers

Since Jun’ichiro Koizumi’s exit from the Kantei, Japanese politics has become, more so than ever, a catalogue of people who should think before they speak. Insulting their constituents, whole swathes of the population, or the international community, they stand out for seeming amateurish and incompetent.

Jiminto Candidate		Minshuto Candidate
Name	Number of Votes	Number of Votes	Name
Fumio Kyuma	106,206	120,672	Eriko Fukuda
Hakuo Yanagisawa	109,120	154,035	Nobuhiro Koyama
Bunmei Ibuki	81,913	105,818	Tomoyuki Taira
Shoichi Nakagawa	89,818	118,655	Tomohiro Ishikawa

Fumio Kyuma

Fumio Kyuma

Fumio Kyuma, 68, of Nagasaki Prefecture’s 2nd District, was Director-General and Minister of Defence under Shinzo Abe. He was outspoken with regards to the US-Japan alliance, the bedrock of Japanese security, and that made him prone to ‘Foot-in-Mouth Disease’, as I discussed back in 2007.

• “The United States doesn’t understand [the importance of] spadework.”

• “I think President Bush launched the war in the belief there were nuclear weapons, but I think that decision was wrong.”

• “I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy.”

Eriko Fukuda

While Kyuma may not have been wrong in saying these things, it showed great insensitivity to the victims of Nagasaki (which in many ways could have been avoided), the Japanese people, and Japan’s ally.

However this was aeons ago in political time, while I have no definite idea as to why Nagasaki voters ousted Kyuma in the 2009 election, I would like to think that it had something to do with an ‘assassin’ sent by Ichiro Ozawa’s (Minshuto’s political mastermind): Eriko Fukuda, 28.

Fukuda was the public face of lawsuits by about 170 people against the government in a major health scandal in 2002 and 2003. When she was 20, she discovered she had contracted Hepatitis C through a blood transfusion as a baby. One of the few to publicise her name during the suit, Fukuda wrote a book and blogged about the victims’ struggle for the truth, and when the Health Ministry admitted in October 2007 that it had had a list of victims but had sat on it, ostensibly to protect the companies involved, she was at the forefront of the public response.

She represents the youth of Minshuto’s ranks, and she is by all means a heroine in her role in publicising the scandal. Hand-picked by Ozawa to stand against Kyuma, after proving that she was about more than just her disease through a series of weekly public meetings, Kyuma didn’t stand a chance.　However, the polls bear out a close fight.

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Hakuo Yanagisawa

Hakuo Yanagisawa

Nobuhiro Koyama

Next on the list is another gaffe-maker. Hakuo Yanagisawa, 74, of Shizuoka Prefecture’s 3rd District, famously insulted the women of Japan with this comment in 2007:

“The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can do is ask them to do their best per head … although it may not be so appropriate to call them machines.”

He was right about that last part. While I believe he was simply trying to explain a complex issue using the language of economics and production, he nevertheless did so in such an insensitive way that he was forced to resign.

Yanagisawa, in what was described by Tobias Harris of Observing Japan as “the LDP’s most secure seat”, lost to Nobuhiro Koyama, 33, who previously worked for the central bank of agricultural, forestry and fishery cooperatives, Norinchukin. A newcomer and unknown quantity, it is surprising that he secured his victory by 45,000 votes and thus managed to thrash Yanagisawa.

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Bunmei Ibuki

Bunmei Ibuki

The last of the Abe cabinet gaffe-makers to be ousted from his seat, Bunmei Ibuki, 71, served as Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology during the Abe administration, and briefly as Yasuo Fukuda’s Minister of Finance, and is a previous holder of the prized Secretary-General position within Jiminto. His two most memorable gaffes occurred during his time as Abe’s Education Minister.

• “Japan has been historically governed by the Yamato (Japanese) race. Japan is an extremely homogenous country. In its long, multifaceted history, Japan has been governed by the Japanese all the way.”

• “If you just eat nothing but butter every day, then you will develop metabolic syndrome. Human rights are important, but if you eat too much of it, then Japanese society will develop “human rights metabolic syndrome.”

Tomoyuki Taira

Many inferred that the latter statement’s use of butter as a metaphor for human rights was calculated to highlight their foreign origins. Dairy products did not figure into the Japanese diet prior to Japan’s opening by Commodore Perry. Once, if something was said to ‘reek of butter’, that meant that it had a foreign feel to it, in a derogatory sense.

These statements hint at underlying culturalist values that leech from those studies of Japanese uniqueness – Nihonjinron. This is not particularly strange, many Japanese hold themselves and their country to be unique. In an afternoon class of ladies, I asked what they thought was special about Japan, several mentioned its having four seasons… Such ideas of uniqueness is prevalent not just on the international level, but casting down into prefectural and urban differences too.

While these statements have been long since forgotten, and have very little bearing on the election results, they do highlight the relative lack of media savvy these Jiminto candidates have displayed. In Kyoto, Minshuto recruited minor radio personality, Tomoyuki Taira, 50, a head of a policy think-tank, to face off against Ibuki. He seemed to have done the trick.

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Shoichi Nakagawa

Shoichi Nakagawa

Tomohiro Ishikawa

Shoichi Nakagawa, 56, will forever be remembered as an example of politics at their most embarrassing. Nakagawa was a important thinker among Jiminto’s forward-thinking defence-policy nationalists and he held some important positions within the party, including Chairman of the Policy Research Council. He offered true potential for leadership, but squandered it at a G7 meeting in Rome in February 2009. There, whether under the influence of alcohol or just cold medicine, he slurred and napped his way through a press conference before being the worst possible visitor to the Vatican Museums as he tripped alarms and touched exhibits. This incident led him to be immortalised in a mobile phone game.

At the start of his campaign in Hokkaido’s 11th district, he renounced alcohol, but the image of him drifting off in Rome is just too fresh to save him. After inheriting his district from his father, Ichiro Nakagawa, Shoichi Nakagawa would lose it to Tomohiro Ishikawa, 36, a former aide to Ichiro Ozawa and PR representative.

Ishikawa was questioned during the scandal that erupted over Ozawa’s fundraising which resulted in the arrest of his chief secretary earlier in the year. He had run in the 2003 and 2005 elections, but was beaten by Nakagawa albeit narrowly in 2005. He faced having to prove himself against Nakagawa’s proven pork-barrel projects, but in the end, he was clearly successful.

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The Potential Leaders

Three Jiminto candidates stood out for their potential to rise to the top of the party. They represent some of the best and brightest of the party, and luckily for them, all three have been thrown a lifeline: they will remain in the Diet through the proportional representation system, through which voters vote twice: once for a local candidate and once for a party. However, none have formally entered the race to replace Taro Aso as leader of Jiminto.

Jiminto Candidate		Minshuto Candidate
Name	Number of Votes	Number of Votes	Name
Kaoru Yosano	130,030	141,742	Banri Kaieda
Yuriko Koike	96,739	105,512	Takako Ebata
Seiko Noda	99,500	111,987	Masanao Shibahashi

Kaoru Yosano

Kaoru Yosano

Banri Kaieda

Kaoru Yosano, 71, was Abe’s Chief Cabinet Secretary for one month and Aso’s second Minister of Finance since February 2009. Following Fukuda’s resignation in 2008, Yosano ran in the leadership contest to become President of Jiminto, but lost to Aso who received a staggering 351 of the 527 votes available.

Yosano is a fiscal conservative who has put his expert knowledge of taxes to good use by arguing for the need to increase consumption tax to recover the government debt and the take the strain of Japan’s ageing society.

He is an avid and gifted Go player, and claims to have taught the game to Ichiro Ozawa, the mastermind of Minshuto’s election strategy and its former leader (although some claim he is still pulling the strings). Running in the political heart of Tokyo, its 1st district, Yosano faced Banri Kaieda, 68, and would put his former Go student to the test.

The two men share a history. Yosano had lost to Kaieda in 2000 and 2003, reclaiming his seat in 2005 during Koizumi’s landslide victory. A survivor of cancer of the pharynx, on the first day of the official campaign, on August 18th, Yosano collapsed at a rally in Shinjuku, which saw him sitting out of a later G7 meeting. Regardless of this, and no doubt wanting to prove himself to be a strong campaigner against the odds, Yosano fought on and became a loud, if not ironic, advocate of a need for Jiminto to survive as a strong opposition party.

Kaieda, for his part, has been the key economic policy-maker within Minshuto despite having no seat in the Lower House. Prior to finding his home in Minshuto, he was a member of Nihon Shinto (New Japan Party) before joining the ultra-local Tokyo Shimin 21 (Tokyo Citizens 21).

They campaigned on similar grounds, but Kaieda had the advantage of a population that was looking to shed Jiminto’s blood.

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Yuriko Koike

Yuriko Koike

Takako Ebata

Yuriko Koike, 57,replaced Fumio Kyuma as Minister of Defence under Abe but remained in the job for only a month before she resigned. She also ran for Jiminto top spot, but came third behind Aso and Yosano.

Koike, originally from Hyogo Prefecture but running in Tokyo’s 10th District, had a successful TV career before entering politics. Somewhat of a free agent, Koike has been a member of several small parties (mostly because they were coalescing into the big parties we seen now, but what is clear is that in 2000 Koike switched from the moderately liberal Jiyuuto (Liberal Party) to the firmly rightist Hoshu Shinto (New Conservative Party). When that party was absorbed by Jiminto, she simply stuck around.

A successful woman who knows how to play up to a feminist audience (coining the term ‘iron ceiling’ in contrast to the ‘glass ceiling’ preventing women from reaching top positions in other countries), she has also addressed environmental issues (she was instrumental in two famous Koizumi campaigns: Cool Biz and Mottainai), as well as a worshipper at the controversial Japanese shrine and a constitutional revisionist. An Arabist by trade, due to the influence of her father who saw potential energy security in good relations with the Arab states, she has something a little different to most Jiminto politicians… so what went wrong?

The Minshuto candidate was also a woman, Takako Ebata. Successful and very well educated, she holds an MBA from MIT, she was an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, considered Japan’s best, and yet she seemed more down-to-earth as ran with the clear support of her family. This is in contrast to the divorced and childless Koike, who seems to epitomise less desirable traits for career women. Couple this with the dissatisfaction of the public with Jiminto, and Ebata’s victory looked promising. Even though Koike brought out her popular former colleague, former Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi to lend some support, she couldn’t hold off the swell for change.

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Seiko Noda

Seiko Noda

Masanao Shibahashi

In 1998, Seiko Noda, then 37, set the record as she became Obuchi’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, the youngest post-war cabinet minister. She was the first woman to become Programme Director of Jiminto’s House Steering Committee and served as State Minister for Consumer Affairs under Fukuda and Aso.

Noda, now 49, is an active feminist within the Diet, advocating women’s rights to keep their maiden name after marriage (which is not currently an available option for Japanese women), as well as helping bring about much needed legislation to curb child pornography, and video games that promote sexual violence. She has also been a powerful voice for the creation of equal opportunities for disabled people too.

Noda is also a politician who seems to stand by her convictions, not only on equal rights, but also more generally. After opposing Koizumi’s postal  privatisation bill, she lost recognition from Jiminto in the 2005 election. With no small amount of guts she continued into the election as an independent (albeit with Komeito’s backing), and faced off against Yukari Sato, the ‘assassin’ appointed to stop Noda from winning her seat in Gifu Prefecture’s 1st District. Noda won the seat by about 10,000 votes, a figure quite common in the elections results above too. Sato won a seat through the proportional representation system (the same system that would bring Yosano, Koike and Noda herself back this year). Sato also lost her seat in the 2009 election.

Minshuto’s man in 2005, Masanao Shibahashi, now 30, faced Noda in the 2009 election. A former bank clerk, Shibahashi is young and ultimately benefited from dissatisfaction with Jiminto, just like his colleagues.

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Komeito’s Leadership

While Jiminto were certainly had more seats than any other party after the 2005 election, they did not govern alone. Jiminto had a coalition partner, Komeito, which suffered heavily at the hands of the voters this year. It is a political front for Soka Gakkai, the international Buddhist new religion, and some might say cult.

Komeito Candidate		Minshuto Candidate
Name	Number of Votes	Number of Votes	Name
Akihiro Ota	108,679	118,753	Ai Aoki
Kazuo Kitagawa	84,883	100,548	Hiroyuki Moriyama

Akihiro Ota

Ai Aoki

Akihiro Ota, 63, became Komeito’s Chief Representative in 2006, succeeding Takenori Kanzaki. He has been with Komeito since 1971, starting first as a reporter for the party’s newspaper. A former university sumo wrestler, he has primarily concerned himself with issues of the constitution and structural reform making him the ideal partner for the 2005-2009 string of Jiminto leaders.

Early in the run-up to the election, it appeared that Ichiro Ozawa himself would go head to head with Ota in Tokyo’s 12th District, but Ozawa apparently had a change of heart and instead registered in Iwate, where he was born. His proxy was Ai Aoki, 44, a former singer and TV reporter who had won a seat in Chiba in the 2007 Upper House Election by proportional representation. Aoki’s victory decapitated Komeito until they elected Natsuo Yamaguchi to replace him on 8th September.

Ota wasn’t the only Komeito honcho to suffer. Most notably Kazuo Kitagawa, the party’s 56-year old Secretary-General, lost in Osaka’s 16th District. His opponent, Hiroyuki Moriyama, a 38-year old former Osaka assemblyman had a strong victory when viewed in relation to the more closely contested seats in the other sections above.

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Postscript – Jiminto’s Winners

Jiminto suffered a heavy blow at the hands of the electorate, and perhaps as a result of the canny election strategy put forward by Minshuto’s Ichiro Ozawa, who put younger and often female candidates against the stuffy Jiminto politicians of old. This energy added to the calls for change that was the rallying cry of the Minshuto candidates. At the same time, Komeito suffered a massive blow, unable to secure any single seat constituencies. However, it was not all tears and gloom for Jiminto, there were a number of notable successes too.

Jiminto Candidate		Minshuto Candidate
Name	Number of Votes	Number of Votes	Name
Shinjiro Koizumi	150,893	96,631	Katsuhito Yokokume
Kunio Hatoyama	138,327	119,481	Issei Koga
Taro Aso	165,327	96,327	Kousei Yamamoto
Yasuo Fukuda	103,852	91,904	Yukiko Miyake
Shinzo Abe	121,365	58,795	Takako Tokura

Kunio Hatoyama

Shinjiro Koizumi

Shinjiro Koizumi, former Prime Minister Koizumi’s 28-year old son, took over his father’s seat in Kanagawa Prefecture’s 11th District. He scored a stunning victory against Minshuto’s Katsuhito Yokokume, 27. A fourth-generation politician, he seems, like his father, destined to being against the grain of traditional Jiminto. He researched the US-Japan relationship at the renowned Center for Strategic and International Studies in America in 2006-07. Some of his work from his time at CSIS can be accessed [here].

There was good news too for 60-year old Kunio Hatoyama, Jiminto candidate for Fukuoka Prefecture’s 6th District, and brother of the new Prime Minister. He beat his Minshuto opponent, Issei Koga, 62, by a significant margin. Hatoyama was dubbed ‘the Grim Reaper’ for the speed with which he signed off on death penalties as Abe and Fukuda’s Justice Minister. In June 2009, he resigned as Aso’s Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications over a disagreement regarding replacing Japan Post Agency head, Yoshifumi Nishikawa. This incident reflected poorly on Aso’s leadership and only contributed to his rapid decline.

Finally, it should be noted that all three post-Koizumi Prime Ministers kept their seats. Outgoing Prime Minister Taro Aso, 68, kept his seat in Fukuoka’s 8th District against Kousei Yamamoto, 37. Yasuo Fukuda, 73, held his seat in Gunma’s 4th District against Yukiko Miyake, 44. Lastly, Shinzo Abe, 54, held his seat in Yamaguchi’s 4th District against Takako Tokura, 50.

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Taking it Outside

Summer is winding down across Japan. After a short rainy season and a surprisingly bearable summer, I am eager to see the temperatures plummeting. At several times in the past few weeks, the humidity and air temperature have been at almost spring-like levels. That means it’s time to turn off the air conditioner and venture out of the house for some waning sun and relaxation. I have taken a two-pronged approach.

On Sunday, after Keiko finished a half-day at work, we went for a picnic on the banks of the Tamagawa. My tarp was a bit sandy because I forgot to clean it after getting back from Katsuura, plus we had no parasol or anything, so we were sandy and burning, but it was nice to just get out, lie down and relax.

The river has always been a favourite place of mine, no matter where I’ve lived. The difference with the Tamagawa (at least where we live) is that you can’t really see the river all that much, yet still, it has grass and fresh-feeling air, which is a lot more than can be said for the rest of the country. Elementary school kids were playing baseball up-river, people were gardening in their allotments not far from our position, and a whole wealth of people were playing more informal games with their kids, or insect-catching (a popular pastime for Japanese kids). There was also a sizeable male contingent running, cycling, walking, stretching and sunbathing topless… It was ’shirtless Sunday’ after all.

After a few sandwiches and a couple of bottles of water for me, Keiko got down to the heavy business of reading, and I started studying. In the past few weeks, I’ve really tried to get my study cap back on. A year has passed since I arrived in Japan, and 2 months have passed since my last Japanese lesson. Wanting to change the tide, I bought Genki II in July and started to do what I could to keep my skills up, if  not improving. Every day I try to fit in at least 30 minutes, but sometimes it’s not possible. Yet still, my notebook has become filled with Japanese text and my handwriting and particularly my kanji are improving significantly. As I write this, I’ve just applied for another trial lesson with a private teacher. I hope to get the show on the road soon.

Keiko checked through my notebook and gave me a few corrections, and while she didn’t seem overly impressed, I am at least content that she wasn’t horrified. After passing me back my book, she collapsed into nap mode while I got to work, my iPod quietly keeping me company.

The sun eventually beat us into a retreat, but at least it was a nice relaxing afternoon, which is in stark contrast to my other outdoor activities.

Despite enjoying going to the gym, it has become increasingly difficult to find the time to do so given both my work schedule and social life (bah!). We no longer live a couple of stops from a gym, and I only work near one twice a week now. So I’m trying to wean myself away, and soon enough we’ll cancel our subscriptions. Currently, at the gym, my workout consists of a warm-up, stretches and 5 km run, all of which I can do outside. So I’ve started running along the river at night (when it’s cooler).

I’m actually enjoying it. I have a neat rout worked out which is somewhere between 4.5 and 5.0 km, but I have no real way to know. My Nike+ device, which syncs my running data to my iPod, is not so accurate off the treadmill as a result of constantly changing speeds and shorter strides (to help me calibrate the device frequently, I’m looking to get GPS on my phone when I’m able to change contract, but that’s a while off yet).

Enjoyment aside, my big problem has been adapting to the different running surface. A treadmill provides a flat surface that is very easy to run on, but the real world is textured with bumps and littered with rocks, and as someone who hasn’t jogged outside since secondary school, it has been beating me into submission. On my third run, which took place on Monday, my left leg ached consistently throughout. When I got home, it still ached. A quick Google has led me to believe I’ve got a shin splint, so I’m currently letting it cool off before heading out again. It’s just a reminder to me of how important it is to warm up and stretch first, and I’m definitely going to have to take more care in that area.

On the whole, however, the nights are cooler and its an excellent time to get out and about. The riverside is filled with cyclists and runners, and being able to chase other joggers is its own reward. I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can before winter sets in.

The Start of a Historic Day?

Today Japan will vote for the future of its democracy. That may sound lofty, but the story of Japanese history has been one of conservative unity versus weak opposition parties in which the Liberal Democratic Party, Jiminto, held over the reins of power.

With America’s urging, Jiminto was forged in 1955 from two conservative parties: the Liberal Party, Jiyuuto, and the Democratic Party, Minshuto. The Japanese conservatives and the United States were concerned about the influence of socialism in Japan, given the country’s strategically important position which blocks access to the Pacific Ocean from the Russian Far East and China. The Communist Party, Kyosanto, remains a continual presence even today. It is more vocal here than in other countries; just the other day Keiko’s company’s health insurance urged her to vote for Kyosanto this weekend.

At the time of the conservative merger, Jiyuuto was led by the father of Japanese postwar political, economic and defence strategy, Shigeru Yoshida, current Prime Minister Taro Aso’s grandfather. Minshuto, on the other hand, was led by then Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama. Minshuto split from Jiyuuto in 1954, and Hatoyama was behind Yoshida’s loss of power in the party. The merger of the two parties, instigated by Hatoyama, began what has since been called the 1955 System: a monopoly over the controls to Japan’s democracy, most notably in the relationship with its bureaucrats.

In his seminal book, The Enigma of Japanese Power, Karel van Wolferen described the complex and reliant system by which the civil servants of the central government maintained social cohesion, disrupted opposition, and generally maintained the conditions which kept Jiminto in power. By the regulation of unions and its wooing of the agriculture and construction industries, Jiminto was given an unrivalled power-base. As the only credible governing party, Jiminto had a secure place at the head of the government, but it was by no means monolithic. Indeed, it is a meta-party comprised of numerous fluid factions and groupings, zoku, which fight for power in the party and thus for the use of the voter’s mandate.

However, this stable and rather depressing system has been corroding for years. In 1993, after a series of scandals, the LDP lost power to an unlikely coalition led by the Renewal Party, Shinseito. The coalition quickly fell apart with the defection of the Socialist Party, Shakai Minshuto, and Shinto Sakigake. The LDP came back as strong as ever, but has been growingly challenged in the Diet and on the streets by the new Minshuto, which was formed in 1998. That party has grown in strength thanks to politically savvy leaders, Jiminto’s scandals, and Jun’nichiro Koizumi’s blow to Jiminto from within.

Japan has had three Jiminto prime ministers in three years, and no election since 2005. The rapid turnover in leaders has been caused by poor leadership and further scandals, and certainly, Taro Aso’s decision to delay the general election, if the polls hold true, has seriously damaged Jiminto’s strength. As a more activist and credible opposition which has survived a serious scandal of its own (involving then party leader, Ichiro Ozawa), Minshuto is more ready than ever to step into the Kantei.

So today the Japanese electorate are being given the chance to change their political lot. They can continue to support Jiminto, with its tried and tested control over the bureaucrats in Kasumigaseki, or they can give real pluralism a chance and embrace the challenge presented by Minshuto as led by Yukio Hatoyama (Ichiro Hatoyama’s grandson). It is by no means a simple choice: Minshuto has been criticised for its idealistic manifesto, which is lacking in the details (primarily as a result of Jiminto’s control over the organs of governance). However, the time is ripe for change… When the votes are in, we could be looking at a new mandate for Jiminto, or more likely, the first opposition party in power since 1955 without the formation of a coalition.

Gundam By Night

So, after an interesting experience at the GLAY concert (which was a little too reminiscent of an event in Pyongyang to be comfortable for me), I returned to work almost as tired as when I started my holiday. It had been pretty busy on the whole, but I still wasn’t done. Come Thursday, my day off, I was back in Odaiba for a birthday celebration for Keiko’s incoming boss from Hawaii, and that meant seeing the Gundam at night.

Odaiba has a truly breathtaking quality at night: Tokyo Bay is light up with the capital’s light pollution and the buildings take on a more ethereal charm. Just taking a stroll through Shiokaze Park becomes a awesome display of Man’s battle against darkness, and it is clear that in Tokyo, Mankind is winning the war.

As if in testament to this fact, the Gundam was the subject of a special event. While no means ordinary itself, this event was a light show accompanied (live? – I couldn’t see) by subsequent theme tunes from the various series. Having never been a Gundam fan, someone else had to point out the theme to Gundam Wing for me.

The lights were bright and twirly, inducing Star Trek-levels of lens flare with every picture. The machine’s head moved without any real sense of timing, almost lost between the blinding flashes of blue and green.

My photos had to be taken from a public rest area, outside the Gundam event (it was ticketed and probably rather expensive – we didn’t arrive until near the end either) as my camera perched precariously on a rather narrow tripod set-up, shooting between heads and shoulders. At any rate, I came up with a few relatively decent shots, and I’ve indeed once more warmed up to my camera after I left it sat on my desk for far too long. Maybe it’s about time I started getting out and seeing things again… This is the year where I pull my finger out.