Harajuku

Let's continue with what I was telling you yesterday. Well, after I had spent some time in Roppongi, I went to Harajuku to meet another of Naoko's friends, in this case, Satoko. I got out of the metro at Meiji Jingu Mae station and waited for her there. I had time to take some photos and videos in the area and to realize there were people with crazy clothes around.

When Satoko arrived, we went to take some ramen in a famous place just in front of the station and then we walked around and visit Takeshita dori, a new commercial centre in the area and finally Meiji Jingu.

This is one of the largest shrines in Tokyo and that day there was a lot going on: weddings, bonsai exhibition, many tourists...

At the entrance of the park closest to the metro station, there is a bridge which is very famous as being a meeting places for people wearing strange clothes, like visual kei, lolita, gothic... or like this guy wearing a Pikachu outfit in my photograph below...

That's all for today!

Roppongi

It is amazing how fast time goes away... As time passes by, you don't really notice how fast it is. When you really notice is when you head your memory back into the past and think how long it is since you did something which is really fresh in your mind...

Well, all this wishful thinking was just coz this weekend last year it was the second time I went to Tokyo. Naoko had organized a nice weekend for me and I was meeting some of her friends on Friday and some others on Saturday. Additionally, that night was the first match of the football world championship. To begin with, I met Kayochan, Take and Yamachan in Roppongi, one of the several city centres in Tokyo. This place is especially known for the unusual quantity of foreigners in the restaurants and clubs. I had already been here with Mic, Paolo and Havard the first weekend in Japan, but now, with local people everything looked different and they actually knew where to go and where the nice places were!

We started the night meeting up in the Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi and going to an izakaya (traditional Japanese bar) for dinner. We were there for quite a long time and then moved to a club to watch football. That night I learnt several things:
1. Going with friends to an izakaya can be so much fun!
2. Japan is much safer than Europe. Yamachan dropped his mobile phone in a bar, went to look for it one hour later and came back with it!! If I drop mine in any country in Europe, do you think people I don't know would keep it for me until I come back? Definitely not.


That night we went to some other pubs and I went to sleep to a manga cafe... also my first time in something which would become so usual in the future ;-) Next day, on Saturday, I went around to walk the streets of the area and try to grasp the esence of Roppongi. Later I moved to Harajuku by metro to meet another of Naoko's friend there. I will tell you tomorrow about that!

To wrap this post up, some pictures of Roppongi (I think Akasaka area can also appear here) I took with Naoko from floor 37th of ANA hotel in Roppongi last christmas.

Human Tetris

Check this out! I just watched it before going to bed... Good night!

Dutch Commercials

Today, some Dutch commercials so you can get to know what Dutch humour is all about...

The 3 Wise Monkeys

You have possibly seen these 3 monkeys covering their ears, mouth and eyes... what do they represent? Where do they come from?

Before going to Japan, I had seen these 3 monkeys sometimes, but never wondered about their origin. I think I had seen them in some key holder or in some cartoon...

Last Summer in Japan, Professor Ito invited me, Paolo and Mic to go to Nikko, a nice city around 150 km North of Tokyo, in the middle of the mountains and which houses some temples, incluiding the mausoleum of one Shogun, Ieyasu, and his grandson Iemitsu. Once there, I found out one of the most famous things in Nikko where the 3 wise monkeys! They are just 3 tiny monkeys carved in the wood at the entrance of a small house... I was surprised something so small in size can be so meaningful, so I looked a bit into the topic.

Now, let's get down to the history behind. The three actions performed by the monkeys (don't see, don't hear, don't speak) in Japanese are Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru. The word "saru" 猿 means monkey. This play on words materialized in the 3 carved monkeys in Nikko. Like this, additionally, the monkey has become a symbol of negation in Japan.

The philosophy behind is as follows:

To become wise, don't see anything evil, don't listen to anything evil and don't say anything evil.

This explanation sounds good to me... if you have some comments or if you find some flaw in it, please tell me!!

Books

Well, with this post I will try to make this more interactive. Basically, I will tell you the last books I have read and my plans for the future and you will tell me yours (if you feel like that XD).

Well, let's go...

My last books:

- 1984, George Orwell (English). I read this book some months ago and it is one of the best I have ever read. Who is Big Brother? What would our world be like if World War II had ended up differently? This book gives a possible scary possibility... Great Classic!! Strongly recommended!!

- La Tregua, Mario Benedetti (Spanish). Impressive novel by one of the best writers in Spanish of the last half century.

- El Guardian entre el Centeno, J.D. Salinger (Spanish). The original name is The Catcher in the Rye. I re-read this classic last January. I read it at once... so addictive!

- An English Guide to History of Japan (English). This book was useful to learn more about Japanese history. I think the history we are taught at school is very western biased. Therefore, I wanted to know more about Asian history (Japanese history in concrete)

- Japanese Children's Favorite Stories (English). This one has been good to get some background on Japanese culture. Did you know Japanese kids think there is a rabbit on the Moon?

Currently being read:

- For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (English). I am about to finish this book and I am quite happy I chose it. A great story within a milicia in the Spanish Civil War.

- The Undutchables (English). To learn a bit more and in a funny way about this strange people called Dutch ;-)

Future Projects (already in my bedroom):
- Ensayo sobre la Lucidez, Jose Saramago (Spanish)
- Tokio Blues, Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami (Spanish)
- Nieve de Primavera, El Mar de la Fertilidad(I), Yukio Mishima (Spanish)

As you can notice, I have been reading too much in English and now I feel like reading some books in Spanish for a change ;-)

Now it is your turn! Thanx!

Dutch Windmills

Once of the most well-known symbols from the Netherlands are windmills. Wherever you go you find windmills. They look pretty different from the Spanish ones Don Quijote fought against. In Spain, they are normally cylindrical and white coloured, whilst Dutch are conically or box shaped and brown... Check the difference. The first picture is from Castilla-La Mancha and represent the typical Spanish style. The second one is Kinderdijk, a place famous in Holland for having many windmills.



Sometimes, when the weather is good, it is nice to take your bike and go to take some photographs of the landscape here. As there are many windmills all around, I have taken photographs of most of them near Leiden downtown. I like them quite a lot and I think you can get and idea of what they look like.

Windmill De Valk. Main windmill in Leiden. Near the train station

Windmill De Put/ Some people call this one Rembrandt's windmill
because is near Rembrandt's birthplace.

Windmill at the end of Noordeinde

Summer is here!

Today, as the last weekends in Leiden, the weather is terrific! This morning I went to make the typical weekly shopping and I found many people enjoying in street terraces, boats in the canals...



Just now, there is kind of a party in front of my house, in Rappenburg. They've brought a medium sized boat in front of a house, put a lot of chairs and tables and they are now playing some music... These Dutch people know how to enjoy life in their country.

These sunny and nice days make you forget a bit about the crude winter in this land... So, my recommendation is that if you plan to travel to the Netherlands, do it from April to July, especially in April when Keukenhoff is open.

Global Peace Index Rankings

"Peace is not merely the absence of war

but the presence of justice, of law, of order - in short, of government."

Albert Einstein

Today I came accross an interesting study. It is about the peace index of the countries of the world. For this ranking, many elements have been considered ranging from internal security to military expenditure, relationship with neighbouring countries or respect to human rights. Besides, the education levels, welfare, democracy and transparency have also been taken into account. The complete report can be found here. These are the first 25 countries in terms of peace:

As expected, the first positions are occupied by the Scandinavian countries (led by Norway), New Zealand and Japan. Ireland (to my surprise) is in the 4th position... in spite of traditional IRA terrorism... The Netherlands and Spain are around the 20th position, which means I don't have nothing to complain about. Both countries are peaceful and safe. Spanish cultural note: Ademas estamos por delante de los gabachos, que se jodan y sigan quemando coches... jeje...

It is also interesting to notice some "civilized" countries such as the US and the UK appear in the 96th and 49th position respectively. This clearly shows that economical superiority doesn't translate into inhabitants' welfare.

Solar System exploration

Have you been checking the last Solar System photographs published by NASA? They are impressive... For an engineer working at ESA it is hard to say but they are so much advanced in technology! I am working in a project to try to do what was done by JPL many years ago... kinda frustrating...

Anyway, it is very nice to watch the pictures of Jupiter, Saturn or Mars published by them.

Jupiter was visited in the early ages of space exploration by the Voyager and Pioneer missions. However, the first really breathtaking images of the planet were provided by the NASA/ESA Cassini Huygens mission in 2000. This mission was bounded for Saturn but was also useful to study Jupiter and its system (Europa, Io...). Some nice shots now:




They are so beautiful than look more like a drawing than like the real pictures they are! (even though they must be colour compositions...)

Jupiter has been recently visited by the New Horizons probe on its way to Pluto. This probe has oriented its cameras towards this planet and its moons and taken breathtaking images... Have a look at this one. It is a volcanic eruption on Io. Beautiful!



The Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn and its moons in 2004 and will be working there until at least 2009. From time to time, some nice pictures of the system are published and some nice news are released. For example, last March, NASA made public that liquid water might have been found on Enceladus, one of Saturn moons. More pictures... Saturn and its rings now...

However, the most outstanding missions have been the ones to Mars, with all these nice landers and rovers developed by JPL; Mars Pathfinder in 97 and Spirit and Opportunity in 2004. Have a look at this nice sunset or sunrise in Mars... Cool...

Now the interest is in orbiters such as ESA Mars Express or NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter... Maybe to look for places for an eventual manned mission landing on Mars in 20-25 years...