I guess we all have to start somewhere, i suggest this young fella starts with a few more bowls or Ramen.
Picture from Japan Sugoi
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From the monthly archives:
February 2008
Last week i came up with the idea to visit all 29 stops on the JR Yamanote Line. After a false start with a flat battery in my Canon Camera this week i returned to Akihabara, the first pitstop on the Amazing Race, well not so amazing and not a race at all, just a massive fan of the show so i couldn’t resist throwing a reference in.
On the weekends in Akihabara the main drag is closed to traffic and the streets swell with interesting sights, sounds and smells.
As a Gaijin in Japan, Akihabara is the place to go for English versions of Software, it’s also the place anyone with the slightest interest in Anime and Cosplay. Although i’m sure there are many other facets to Akihabara, it’s best known for it’s vast Electric Town. I’m not going to uncover massive amounts of traditional culture in Akihabara, that’s not what most people are looking for when they come here and it’s not what they get.
Akihabara (秋葉原) (”Field of Autumn Leaves”), also known as Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原電気街 Akihabara Denki Gai) Its name is frequently shortened to Akiba in Japan. While there is an official locality named Akihabara nearby, part of Taitō-ku, the area known to most people as Akihabara (including the railway station of the same name) is actually Soto-Kanda, a part of Chiyoda-ku.
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This weeks theme in The Photo Hunt is Wooden or Mokusei (もくせい) in Japanese.
Prior to living in Japan i would have said this seat was divided in two so that seperate parties can share the same seat without feeling like they’re imposing on the other. Now i live here i can safely say it’s to stop homeless people sleeping on it at night, or anytime for that matter.
Being homeless in Tokyo is quite different than many other places in the world.
Nojuko – people sleeping in the open air – is one of the most conspicuous hangovers of Japan’s burst bubble economy. The fabled salarymen of post war Japan have, in contemporary parlance, been “cut loose”, and along with their jobs has gone their livelihood.
While official estimates vary, the current rate of homelessness is almost twice as high as five years ago, and anyone who has lived long in the city will have noticed emergent colonies of blue tarp tents spreading across Tokyo’s parks and train stations. With unemployment at and all-time hign, an aging population and few government measures to tackle the problem, the numbers will continue to spiral. According to figures released by Tokyo Metropolitan Government last March, 70 percent of homeless people in Tokyo are able-bodied, and often skilled, men who lost their jobs through corporate restructuring and a decline in the day-laborer market. Eighty percent of homeless people want to find work. (Source – Metropolis)
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