I am in a coffee shop and I have just stopped shaking...

It has been quite an unusual hour. So I was walking along the street
when I see an old man up ahead kind of teetering to the side. "Another
old guy drunk on the way home from an afternoon with his mates," I
thought. Seeing old guys falling down drunk on the streets of this
city is a commoner sight than you might imagine.

But just as I walk by, I hear a kind of a groan out of him. I hesitate
like a half a second, and in that time all that emergency response
training goes right out of my head. Nonetheless, I quickly turn back
and once I'd made that decision it's like it all kicked in: his lips
and hands were purple and he had beads of hison his top lip. Not good
signs. Admittedly, there's this whole spiel - about saying you're a
trained emergency responder and asking for permission to help in case
you get sued - that I totally forgot about.

But apart from that slip I knew enough to get him sitting down and
talking. I started asking him simple questions to see if he was
making sense. All the while I was monitoring his breathing and trying
to see his pulse. But i couldn't count right cause he was telling me
that he was 84 and that he had stomach cancer and that he had had most
of his stomach removed and that he lived nearby and that he didn't
want an ambulance and that he just wanted to go home. I don't know how
the tv doctors on er and the like do it.

At this stage I was still on my own on the street and thinking that I
should just call an ambulance whether he liked it or not. Then a few
metres away a lady comes into view and I call over to her and say,
"This man doesn't feel well and lives near here. Do you know him?"

Man, were the gods every smiling down on me. She comes over and says,
"No I don't know him, but I am a nurse!"

You wouldn't credit it - there I was on a quiet street feeling alone
and out of my depth when they very first person I see to ask for help
is a district nurse on her way back from a home visit.

She was fabulous; so calm and firm and efficient, yet completely
kind. She had everything - a blood pressure pump, a thermometer, a
pad a pen to take down his vitals - everything that is except a mobile
phone. And that's where I came in. At least that was one practical
piece of aid I could give to the poor man.

We got through to the man's wife in my phone and got her to come meet
us where we were before sending them both off to the hospital armed
with a written report from my angel nurse.

And just like that, the mini drama was over. I never even got the
nurse's name, nor she mine. But I am forever grateful to her for
walking by when she did. And 84 year old Mr Okamura with no stomach, I
really do hope and pray you are well.

It was funny, I felt grand for the twenty minutes or so that I was
with the old man. But as soon as I walked away I started to shake and
shake and shake. I guess it was an adrenaline come-down or some mild
shock, or something. It could also have been the realization that
throuhout this whole fairly serious event I was wearing the most
ridiculous wooly bobble hat and padded down jacket. I mean I looked
like I'd just hiked down a mountain in Peru - and it wasn't even that
cold today. The poor man probably now thinks he hallucinated me.

Everyone reading this, please go take a first aid course if you
haven't already. You never know when you might need it. If nothing
else, my little bit of emergency response training meant that I
didn't just walk on by and that I wasn't afraid to ask for help. I
mean, like I said, you never know - you might be a jammy dodger like
me and find that the first person you call to in your one and only
emergency is a trained medical professional!

iPhoneから送信

How did I make a post on architecture about poo and food poisoning?

I have been obsessed with the TV program Grand Designs of late. It is affecting the way I see everything. I now see parallels even between the buildings in the garden of the Imperial Palace and the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You see, I have learned from watching the show that this guy is famous for saying that God - and not the Devil - is in the details. His idea of modernism was that you pare everything down to quite simple, plain lines and structures, and then glory in the craft and quality of the detailing and finish. This is exactly what strikes me about the traditional architecture in the palace.

I mean, look at this simple wooden bridge.


And then see the beauty of the decorative metalwork.




And maybe it's because the buildings are deceptively plain, that the roof dragons dive down at you through the pines or that the chrysanthemums - the Imperial family's insignia - shine on the slate eaves.












While on the subject of architecture, I think I have found the inspiration for the golden poo that I blogged about a few weeks ago. I mean look at this - the architect in Asakusa must surely have been echoing this famous 60s landmark.




L'il bro, do you recognize the building? Hint - think of tiny wrestlers flying through the air. That's right, it's the Nippon Budokan (日本武道館) where we went to see the wrestling when you were over.

I like to think that modern architects do make reference to older buildings in the same city. Of course, Kevin McCloud would talk of this as a common language of construction. And when you compare the old parts of Tokyo with the new parts, like this view taken from Ebisu,


you can see how important these repeated references become to giving some feeling of coherence to the place. Tokyo certainly doesn't have any very striking identity like other big cities like New York, Paris or Sydney. So maybe these golden poos are the glue that keeps an idea of Tokyo-ness together. Not sure the tourist board will be adopting my argument as an advertising campaign any time soon, though.

On to other business.

Let's have a blossom watch update. You can see that the plum blossoms are picking up the pace. This makes my heart sing as I am well ready to be done with winter.








As I've said many times before, following the progress of the flowering trees is serious business over here. I am certainly not the only one to be arranging my weekends around a trip to a park, a riverside or a mountain. However - while people taking photos of the blooms are a common sight, it's not that often that you see someone out sketching. I love how the woman's body has become one with the trunk of the tree. You'd almost miss her.


And the final item on the agenda this week - work! So for those of you keeping a tally of my ratio of tough weeks to easy ones, this was another toughie, I'm afraid.

In addition to it being busy, I managed to go and get myself food poisoned. This was definitely divine retribution. Only on Tuesday I was on the phone to my sister saying how I thought most cases of food poisoning are in peoples' minds and that our stomachs are much stronger than we think. And then THE VERY NEXT DAY, I ate a pasta salad for dinner and thought, 'hum, this mayonnaise tastes a bit cheesy - I wonder what they've put in here.' It didn't taste bad, but nor did it taste normal, and I shouldn't have persevered. Cut to a sleepless night of knives in the gut and wondering if I'd make it into work the next morning.

Now I take turning up for work very seriously. I haven't taken a sick day from work since 1999, and even at that I have only ever had one sick day in my entire career. I think this ethic probably arises from the guilt I feel at all the sickies I pulled in my academic life. In school, the slightest sniffle and I'd be at home under the covers. Moreover, I guess I have been influenced by the attitude in my adopted country to not shirking one's work responsibilities. For your reference, this classic Simpsons scene:

Homer has just ordered a 'Juice Loosener' and we see the machine getting packed in the factory in Osaka.


Worker A says, Please don't tell the supervisor I have the flu.'
Worker B answers laughing, 'I've been working with a shattered pelvis now for three weeks.'

And the thing to remember is that the joke is not a million miles from the truth. Remember I've chosen to make my career in a land that actually has a word for death from overwork （過労死 karoushi). I mean, you'd hope the notion wouldn't be so prevalent that it would need its own word. But there you go. I survived, I got my work done, and I was back in fighting form 24 hours later (vowing never to touch pasta salad again).

A short animation

Mam, watch this short animation when you get a chance. It's by a Danish animator, Tobias Gundorff Boesen and is called 'Out of a Forest'. It's only a few minutes long. It reminded me of the Japanese music video I showed you years ago (http://digitalsocks.blogspot.com/2007/05/multimedia-madness.html) - super cute with a dark twist. Enjoy! And persevere; it ends well...

Out Of A Forest from Tobias Gundorff Boesen on Vimeo.

Stress and the City

It was another stressful week at work: my boss dropped a bombshell on me on Friday at 7pm - on the 23rd of this month, I have to present my strategic vision for the group for the next five years to the company president.

I have two problems with this:

One, I think it is really unfair to throw something like that out there just before the weekend. How do you put it out of your mind and relax and enjoy two days off work?

And two, I don't really have any more vision left in me. Two fairly major ideas of mine got implemented over the last year and I don't really have any more ideas to bring to the table. Plus more ideas just mean more work and I'm flat out at the minute.

Anyway, I'm not complaining - I know I'm lucky to be working, and, in any event, these things usually go fine in the end whether you worry a lot about them or not.

I think we might be going to a very swanky location at the top of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower. The last time I was there was for a Chamber of Commerce event. The food was nothing spectacular, and the decor is a bit cheesy.






But everyone goes there for the view. It looks like something out of Blade Runner.



And you feel right on top of Tokyo Tower.



I have two main ways of dealing with stress. One is to pound the pavement. I walked out of the office on Friday and just started walking. I covered some ground, probably not a great idea in work shoes, to which my poor mangled feet can attest. The ginza nightime neon always lifts my mood. These pics were taken with the camera on my phone. To be quite honest, I don't really rate the camera, despite my great love for my phone overall. However, the light distortion comes out really well here.





And you might need to click on this one to get more of the detail, but you can see the Imperial Palace is an ancient island of dark in a sea of neon.






So, the other way I have of dealing with stress is to stuff my face. It is genetic - I come from a family of comfort-eaters. As my brother says, my parents are classic feeders. Japanese restaurants do desserts really well. Admittedly, the portions might be a bit small, but they are never too sickly sweet and they get the presentation just right every time.





I know fellow diners get a bit irked by me whippin' out the camera over meals, but how else can I do show-and-tell and check if my sister remembers the restaurant? Big sis, I'll give you a hint - it's in Marunouchi.

I got some comments about the whole moon / Fievel thing I was talking about last time. Don't any of you (except my siblings, of course) remember 'An American Tail' from when you were young? That ' Somewhere Out There' song was huge as I remember it.



Anyway, here are more of the moon pics.

Back from the snow

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm finally back home after my time up in the snow. I've included a picture of the tiny train station near our research centre and factory to show you how snowy it was up in Iwate.

You can't even see the tracks and yet the little two-carriage train chugged its way in and out of each station on schedule - just like clockwork. Local governments of Ireland please take note!



By the way, I am pointing to the main road that had just disappeared under a fresh fall of snow. And yet there was a woman out jogging - they build them tough up here in the North of Japan.

This was the first training course that I organised alone with no real input from my colleagues. It was a lot of stress, especially because we have been so busy with other more serious matters in work. I hadn't been able to give it much attention in advance. Thankfully it all went really smoothly - without a hitch - and the feedback from the people that took the course was extremely positive.

It was blooming cold, though. Minus fifteen at one point. I tried to appreciate the beauty - the glitter of the freshly fallen powder, the crunch of the snow underfoot - but really I mostly wanted to be going to the factory dressed in this.



Kind of knocks the old American "slanket" (Tina Fey!) right out of the water, eh!

Japanese people can be so kind. I tend to forget this living in the big, anonymous city. But while up on the training course, the owners of the ski lodge where we always stay decided to hold a calligraphy lesson. No charge or anything; they just took a few hours out of their hectic high-season schedule to share a bit of culture. I decided to write 志 (kokorozashi). It's one of my favourite words in Japanese and it means something like aspiration, vision, or sense of purpose. That's what I'm all about these days.



I'll teach you another few words that have been coming up a lot with colleagues:

One is 甘塩っぱい (amajoppai) and it is really a fashionable word in Japan at the moment. It means sweet and salty and is used especially for the flood of new snack foods on the market - salty caramel, chocolate with sea salt and, of course, Royce's chocolate covered potato chips, which I have raved about at length before (http://digitalsocks.blogspot.com/2007/02/so-wrong-but-yet-so-right.html).

The other word is 親父ギャグ (oyajigyagu). I am the king of these. It means a rubbish joke that makes you groan. It's the kind a dad (oyaji) tells his children thinking it makes him cool. They go down like a lead balloon and are along the lines of the rotten puns and that that you find in a Christmas cracker. The other day I was having lunch with my colleague and she was struggling to decide what to order. She said how she liked tempura but how it can be really hard for the cook to get the batter right . This was the perfect set up for my mother of all oyajigyagus; "oh yes, you have to watch the batter, it can be very tempura mental!" Boom boom! and very much wakka wakka! as my heroes Basil Brush and Fozzie Bear would say.

I was speaking to my mother on the phone the other day and apparently my family (minus my Dad who was too truculent to get up off the couch) were moon-gazing - a favourite hobby of mine. A few hours earlier I had been doing the very same thing. I thought the moon was so beautiful last month that I braved the cold of my balcony to snap these pictures of it in its full, milky glory.






I still can't quite get my head around the fact that I was enjoying this view practically a whole day ahead of my family. The idea has that whole Fivel sings 'Somewhere out there' quality to it which kind of breaks my heart.

Oh, and I also wanted to keep you apace of progress with the new Tokyo Tower. As you can see, we're up to 281 metres and counting. I love the detailing on the structure - I think it's going to be mega.







And for the heck of it I'll throw in some more weird roadside plants. Can anyone tell me what it is?



And check out the pretty covers they wrap trees in to protect them from the snow.