Tokyo Spring 2013

2013/05/07 - Breakfast

So I'm travelling for business to Tokyo, Japan for two weeks.

Flight was Virgin Atlantic - paid an extra GBP30 for the legroom upgrade.

I got here and was told that my room was not open for two hours, so I went for a nap in a local park like a tramp. Full of families enjoying the flower festival (too late for the blossom, unfortunately). Walked barefoot in the fountain with the kids, laptop case in hand, much to the amusement of the locals.

I bought Sushi from a local fishmonger - different from UK sushi, but very nice. What wasn't nice was the "not apple juice" that I bought to wash it down - I think it was bamboo juice - yick. Wrote Haikus. Read a book.

Communications are tricky. Everything is via sign language so far :-) Sign language for "Yes, I can see that you have a room key, but you must get a breakfast ticket from reception every morning and place it in this basket. I have called reception and they have charged your room this time, but please get a ticket tomorrow." is possible, but involved.

Eating a fully English breakfast with chopsticks is also possible, as it turns out.

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2013/05/08 - Second day in the office

First experience of the Tokyo metro today - actually a very pleasant experience.  Buying a proximity-based card for the Metro was a bit tricky - it's not clear that you have to use a PINK terminal, not a blue terminal for that.  Once done, though, the tube was efficient, packed, but fast.  Two stops down and I'm 300 yards from the office.

Here's one stroke of genius from the Japanese for you Boris...  Instead of having noisy gates slamming open and closed the whole time to grant access to the Metro, they have gates that are permanently open, only closing if you don't place your pass down.  Less noisy, faster and psychologically far less stressful than the London tube.

I got to the office and in true karōshi style worked from 9am to 8pm before going home in time for meetings between 9:30pm and 1am.  Awesome!  But wouldn't want to do that every day for even two weeks.  Ah, wait.

Today? More of the same.

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2013/05/09 - Third day at the office

Wow, they work some long hours here!   Good progress being made on the project and here's the view from the office...

In there evening, went for an Indian - very nice.  Saw an arcade, so played some Pachinko (only 100 Yen's worth) and watched a man do this...

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2013/05/10 - Fourth day at the office

More of the same - very, very tired now...  Time for some Zeds...

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2013/05/11 - Sleepy day

Woke up at midday and decided that I was too exhausted to go on the planned tour of Tokyo today.  Will try again tomorrow...

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2013/05/12 - Tokyo!

So today's the grand tour...  Got on the train - much better now it's the weekend there are no men shoving me into the carriage!

Took the blue line to the centre of Tokyo, then used my feet for the rest of the day..  I got off one stop before the central station, so didn't see the inside, but the outside is very smart...

Tokyo central train station

I didn't get invited inside the Imperial Palace, but the gardens just outside are great to wander around.

Gardens near the Imperial Palace

It's a stark contrast to the high-rise city behind.

Backdrop of high-rise buildings

The Imperial Palace is surrounded by a moat.

Outer walls of the Eastern Garden to the Imperial Palace

Cheeky the monkey always travels with me when I'm away from home.  Here he is in front of the palace.

Cheeky came along to see the sights!

More greenery, looking like bonsai in front of the enormous building behind.

Beautiful greens in front of gleaming buildings

Even the moat supports a good deal of chlorophyll.

The bridge leading to the Imperial Palace

Wandering south, I stumbled upon Hibiya Park.

Hibiya Park

Hibiya Park steps up a small hill

View from the top of the hill in Hibiya Park

...and the Japan Tree Climbing Championships!

The Japan Tree Climbing Championships

The national champion

Further south through some dark and rather seedy alleys and you arrive at the Shiodome area with all its gleaming glass and steel.

Tokyo Media Building

Beyond which, Hamarikyu Gardens

Hamarikyu Gardens

Hamarikyu Park Tea House

A heron in Hamarikyu Gardens

Which way to go???

They used to hunt ducks here.  It's somewhat involved...

How to hunt ducks...

Hamarikyu Shrine

A brilliant drainpipe I found...

It's... a drainpipe!

Flowers in the gardens

More from the gardens...

OK, so this is a slightly photochopped picture, but MOST of it comes from a single photo.  An exercise to the reader then - where did I take this picture?

Suddenly... OH NOES!

Shrew Soft VPN Client 2.2.0 Released!

Huge props and thanks to Shrew soft for all the hard work that has gone into the new VPN Client release!  Loads of good stuff in there...

More information at https://www.shrew.net/ .

Midori Splice

This can only end badly...

BBC News can predict the future!

The BBC News department are nothing more than a government mouthpiece and it sucks HARD.

In this ridiculous piece, the UK prime minister "is expected to say" a lot of things with remarkable precision.

In other words, the BBC have been given his speech in advance. This is not news, this is the BBC being told what to say. This is not journalism, it's propaganda and the BBC should be ashamed.

My feedback to them:

"
Wow! You can predict the future! All these things that David Cameron "is expected to say" today! And with what precision!

Seriously BBC News PLEASE stop printing what the government tells you to print. It's not journalism, it's laziness at best and propaganda at worst.

How about taking a stance and only printing things that HAVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED?
"

Snowboarding 2013

2013/03/02

So it's March and that means the annual snowboarding holiday! Woohoo! This year, it Mark Goldring and me - hitting the slopes on a last minute holiday with Crystal in Meribel Monterrat.

Flight from Luton with Easyjet to Grenoble. An early start (3:45) but a short, clear drive to the airport and Luton is a nice little airport. Mid-term car park is easy to get to and only a few quid more than the long term.

Easyjet was a nice flight - loads of legroom and the aircon being a little warm helped me sleep for an hour of a 1:30 flight.

Grenoble airport is just a series of sheds. We were left waiting around outside for ages while they found someone to inspect our passports, but no biggie... Luggage was there waiting for us on the belt.

So, expecting data roaming to still be stupid pricing, I had mine switched off. When I switched out of flight mode, though, O2 SMSed me to say that on the "Travel" plan, data (up to 25Mb / day) is only £2. Yeah - I can cope with that. So data roaming is now switched on - much better!

The Meribel iPhone app shows clear, blue skies on the webcams... All aboard the coach for a short 1.5 hour transfer.

€260 for a 6 day lift pass o_O and hire on top of that..

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Check-in took 3 hours! Accommodation basic at best, but alcohol and pizza inside so time for bed.
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2013/03/03

Hire shop yields "girly" white boots, awesome board (regular setup) and hert.

Step off doorstep: SNOW!

First run and lift:

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10:30

Woohoo! The Meribel iPhone app has a GPS speedometer/altimeter!

NEW HIGH SCORE: 51kph :-)

Great Scott!

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12:30 Utterly awesome - completely empty! Have been off-piste down into St. Martin and then all over the St Martin slopes :-)

Off to meet Mark for lunch...


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2013/03/04

Epic night out last night - we crashed the Skiworld pub crawl and .. well dancing like a loon by the end so who could ask for more.

Eventually woke up and Cheeky and I are on the lift going to the top - weather's still hot and the snow is lovely. Going to try the Meribel app for today - see if the battery lasts...

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1:30

Meribel app is great - no real difference in battery life and tracks your every move - NEW HIGHSCORE - 56kph!

There is a lift right outside the apartments that I didn't try yesterday that (via a short run down) takes you up to the very to where Area 43 is the biggest funpark I've ever seen. There's an "experts only" halfpipe, loads of jumps and rails and an airbag. Cheeky and I bought a ticket to do five ENORMOUS jumps onto the airbag and a photographer got a load of pictures of us flying through the air :-)

The snow is just perfect up that side of the mountain, but it will go into shade soon so I'm going to the west-facing slopes this afternoon.

I forgot how much more fun the long, fast greens are - more of that this afternoon!

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2013/03/04

Aaaand - the photos are in! Check them out here: BigActionPhoto.com. You can't miss me... I'm the one with the monkey strapped to my head!

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2013/03/05

11:30 Everything's shut!

Strong wind means that most of the lifts are shut :-(. The queues in Meribel are very, very long!

(Picture coming)

So the zen kicks in and the soundtrack of choice becomes the whole Hitchhikers Guide from start to finish :-)

13:15 - last run before lunch

The wind has died down and THHGTTG is my favourite!

The wind has blown snow onto the pistes meaning that they're much easier and more comfortable. Lots of long runs later, I'm skiing on high art.

NEW HIGHSCORE - 79kph! OK - that was scary... Not going to try anymore...

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2013/03/06

Lots of pinball for €4 then back to a scuba diving group's chalet for a game of "boarder or skiier". Very late nights among a very late start today. Lots of runs got in though!

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2013/03/07

More pinball last night - the Dark Knight batman one - very good!

It's 9:30 now, so shower and up... Off to the next valley today :-)

Vatican impervious to irony of its own press release

According to the BBC today:

'The Vatican's chief spokesperson has criticised the media for reporting "misinformation" about the Church.'

I wonder how this pedophile-protecting, gold-encrusted, religious organisation that takes from the poor to give to the rich came to the conclusion that it's core message had become somehow corrupted?

Finally Facebook Free!

What with the recent revelations on tax avoidance, the general privacy issue and a refusal to adhere to UK law, I've finally lost it with Facebook and deactivated my account.

Some things are too big to fail, but they don't include services that are built on mutual trust and respect.

So fuck you Facebook.  Fuck you.

To deactivate your Facebook account, follow these simple-to-follow instructions today: http://www.facebook.com/help/214376678584711/ .