The Newmans

OK, so here is where I was sitting in the Internet cafe in the Narita international airport, taking in the warming sunshine and enjoying the view across the airport. It was a pleasant place to pass away a little time whilst waiting for boarding time.

Here’s the keyboard I was talking about. A range of keys were in different locations, particularly the @ and the ‘ characters, and there was an itty-bitty spacebar. The computer also had an annoying habit of flipping from English to Japanese without any input from me, which is not so handy when you don’t keep an eagle eye on the characters on the screen.

After making bold claims about the last post on Japan, that is exactly where I find myself right now, hence the recent pause in blog entries. I have been here in Tokyo for a few days for a conference and I’m currently in the excellent Narita International Airport, awaiting return to Hong Kong and fighting with a Japanese keyboard. I’ll post a pic when I get home.

OK, the last post on Japan, I promise!

One of the on-going problems in Japan is vehicle storage. We saw quite a few car parks where the vehicles were temporarily stored, as opposed to parked, in a space. Vehicles drove onto a movable carriage, turnstile or cradle and then were carried away to a storage location. Take a look at the following few photos for some examples.

Just another example of Japan dealing with it’s space-restricted living style.

On the same street as our hostel in Kyoto we noticed this car under a car cover that seemed to have no way of getting in or out of the space in front of the residence, save for a forklift. Hard bound by fences and trees on either end it would have been totally impossible to get the car in our out of the space on it’s wheels. It was a bizarre place to see a car parked stored.

The next day we noticed that the tree had been cut down and the car was gone!

The following day the car was back!

The things you do in a space constrained society eh?

In Japan I saw some of the cleanest construction sites in my life. There wasn’t a hint of rubbish, dust, rubble or scrap at any of them. It was almost like construction in secret.

Take this example. Everything is neatly fenced, everything is clean, nothing is at risk and life proceeds as normal around the site. It’s as if the rest of the world doesn’t need to be bothered by this construction going on. At the time I recall that almost no sound came from the site, as if they were working deliberately not to disturb anyone in the area. A stark contrast to construction sites in China.

Here’s a few of the more humorous photos from our trip to Japan.

Burn baby, burn baby.

Keeping the hands well fed.

Oh, don’t worry, I think I’ve got this one covered.

So, what’s left then?

Whadaya mean “Don’t ride the stingray”?

A rest? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.