Lunch on high

Sunday was easily the most beautiful day of the year so far. The weather was perfect and it made the calamities of late seem a whole world away. I had some shopping to do in Ginza, so I stopped for lunch on the 42nd floor of a skyscraper in Shiodome, the next neighbourhood over.


As it was completely unplanned, I had to go Nigel No-mates, bit it would certainly be a great place to go back with friends. It's a bit swanky,

but the lunchtime buffet is not at all exxy and the view cannot be beat.






You can see here how much progess has been made on the Tokyo Sky Tree. It should be finished very soon.


I couldn't capture a good photo, but this helicopter came really close.


Some women beside me even gasped. I guess we're all still a bit on edge.

The coolest thing was that I could see my apartment.


It took me a few minutes to get my bearings, but once I could find the river, it wasn't hard. As an anti-stalker measure, I won't tell you exactly where it is, but you can see my building in the lower left-hand quadrant of the photo.

Kyoto cleanse

I was in Kyoto for work last weekend. Unusually, there was enough time in the schedule for me to get up early and do a little sightseeing. To be honest, I haven't been a big fan of Kyoto for many years: it holds bad associations for me - fights, forced smiles in photos, bitter silences... But I think the bad juju must be gone, because I really enjoyed myself walking through the narrow streets under a clear blue sky .

We Japanese love our towers. This a the candle-like one beside the station.


Most of the shrines and temples are spread out throughout the city, at least a bus-ride away. I only had time to walk to Higashi Honganji near my hotel. But it was colourfully serene.







In the courtyard, I spied the last of Kyoto's cherry blossoms. They have to give way to the fresh green leaves.


I even made it to the renowned original shop of the Inoda Coffee House chain. This is a Kyoto institution. (Irish readers, think Bewleys back when it was a bit classy.) It's all dark corners, mirrored elegance and eccentric, bow-tied wait staff - they don't always let you order what you want, and sometimes tell you it'd be too filling or that you look like you'd be more in the mood for something else! And, of course, they serve great coffee.

Bloomin' Marvellous

I know I said I wouldn't do blossom watch this year because it made me feel the passing of time too much. Well, you know what, with the recent disaster I feel very privileged to be having time still pass for me at all, so get ready for a cherry petal overload.

The blossom season turned out to be a pretty brilliant one in Tokyo. They stayed out for almost two weeks. And the poor flowers really didn't have it easy - they got battered by gales, rained on a couple of times, endured a fair dose of radiation, and got shaken by hundreds of aftershocks. Yet they pulled out all the stops to give us a bit of cheer.







For Japanese people, cherry blossom is all about rolling out the plastic mats, sitting under some big ol' trees and getting drunk with some friends. There's a lot to be said for that as a national custom.



Taking a boat out a lake is another popular way to get a good view of the trees.




I'm lucky enough to have a 10-minute walk from work along a road called 'Sakura-dori'. It makes the daily trudge a lot more pleasant.



This is a little cherry-unrelated, but it just struck me as a particularly Japanese scene.





I enjoyed hanging out with some friends, making good conversation, drinking a cool beer and eating some nice food as cherry blossoms fell gently around us. But I also really enjoyed getting up really early to take some walks around the city's famous viewing spots before most other people were up.












Getting up early to do some blossom watching before the crowds is a great chance to see some fellow eccentrics at their best. To wit: some grannies stretching for some serious power walking. (We are right in the centre of the city here, not at the foot of Mount Everest???)


Or this kind woman who didn't want to disturb her neighbours as she learned to play the trombone. Squeaky scales was an unusual accompaniment to my early-morning walk, but not that bad.

You can enjoy cherry blossom viewing as much in the late night as in the early morning. By evening, people are usually pretty wasted so the night time tends to be quite a different vibe. This year, though, the power saving means the trees weren't lit up. We had to really on the moon instead. It made it all much more atmospheric.

A working weekend

It's no rest for the wicked for me at the moment. I'm on duty as MC of our domestic recruitment events today and tomorrow (Saturday and Sunday).

I find these things nerve racking at the best of times - I'm not given naturally to public speaking (and my brother would probably tell you I'm not particularly given to speaking) - but the anxiety factor has been kicked up a notch in that we are gathering 100 people on the 24th floor of a skyscraper in the midst of seemingly endless earthquakes. We had to come up with emergency plans and I had to add a section to my introduction explaining what we'd all do in the case of an earthquake (scream???). Would you believe we had TWO flipping quakes before the event and one of them was quite a shaker. Luckily we were left in peace for the event itself.

It really is starting to feel like the ground will never be solid again. But we're battling on. And we're going to have to focus on domestic hires because international recruitment is up the spout - we've already had our first prospective employee break their contract and cancel their plans to come to Japan. I totally understand their situation, but it meant about 100 hours of my work from last year (many after business hours) were flushed down the toilet.

Oh well, I'm off to Kyoto for our event there. Maybe a day in the west will give me a bit of relief from earthquake stress.

iPhoneから送信

Zoink!

I totally stole this from my brother. I just think it's lovely. I want to have some nice things about Japan out there in the blogosphere to counteract all the grim.

Plus Minus Equals

Signs that things are back to normal:

1. Bottled water is starting to reappear on shelves.

2. People (myself included) are bitching and moaning about stupid, pointless stuff again.

3. I went for a run tonight just bringing keys and my phone; no emergency water, no food, no radio, no torch. (Though the torch would actually have been kind of handy...)

Signs that things are still far from normal:

1. People are talking excitedly about finding sliced white bread in their local supermarket.

2. There are rumours going around that the power saving measures and rolling blackouts will have to continue for two years!!!

3. Companies like mine are having serious, long meetings about how to deal with working in Tokyo in summer with no air conditioning. You guys in Ireland might not be able to imagine, but it's a serious health and safety problem. Our office will easily break a humid 40 degrees in the height of summer, what with all the computers and human heat. Suggestions are on the table that I never thought I'd hear from a conservative company like mine: teleworking (blasphemy!); late-to-night shifts for office work (I like this one as I work late anyway and would get the mornings off!); and even temporarily moving offices. (So not a fan...I pay exorbitant rent to live near work and have no commute!)

Overall, I think it's fair to say that things remain abnormally normal.