The fish market has many forms of transportation; gas shuttles, two tire scooters, three tire scooters and the old fashioned hand cart. A pile of old ones were stacked down an alley.
Of course, old fashioned single speed pedal bikes were everywhere, ready to make a delivery.
And of course, where there is a need there is a supplier. This gentleman was fixing a lot of flat tires.
A friend mentioned that when the family arrives in Tokyo the best thing to do is get out and see the Tsukiji fish market, which seems to make every “things you must do in Tokyo” list. The reasoning; your body clock is going to be a mess and you will be up very early. To get the most out of the market, you should be there for 4:30am to get in line for the great tuna auction.
Sure enough, I was up around 1AM (after an amazing 4 hours sleep) with the whole family was wide awake by 4:30am. We decided that we were not going to rush out for the tuna auction but would still get down there to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the market, leaving the apartment at 6AM (everything is pretty much done by 9am).
When we arrived, it was an absolute hive of activity. The motorized carts, delivery motor and pedal bikes that feed fish to a city of tens of millions, were everywhere. Step the wrong way and you could get run over (although they are immensely careful).
The shuttle carts are an amazing little device. The circle in the middle is a huge wheel that you do not turn but press left and right to steer, with a throttle on the right foot. They accelerate quickly and turn on a dime. They were either loaded with raw fish (note the big tuna head on the right)
or with styrofoam boxes packed with ice and fish for delivery. We happened upon a fishmonger filling the boxes with ice.
The pace is so frantic that they need a police officer to keep it all flowing.
You would think that a large fish market would give off some sort of nasty smell and that it would be messy. Neither was the case, it smelled “fresh” and was very clean. We happened on a indoor alley behind the stalls and were amazed at how clean it was. As we walked past this vendor, the wonderful smell of shrimp wafted down the laneway. Amazing.
Now if we just knew how to read Japanese and figure out what everything was beyond the extremely obvious … This is clearly one spectacular cut of tuna (upper right).
This looks interesting …. and I am game. As we tell the boys, you must try something at least 2 times before you decide that you do not like it.
Well, Tokyo here we come. Reflecting back on work over the last 3 years, I had the opportunity to do a few very interesting things with clients. My top 3:
#3. Play in a pro-am with Louis Oosthuizen at the Mike Weir charity event the day before the Canadian Open pro-am. Capilano is the prettiest golf course I have every played. Ever.
Louis is a great guy, although a little shy. For the record, my least favourite moment was when I picked it clean out of the bunker jumping it onto the next tee and an older woman exclaimed “Oh dear, that isn’t good”. My favourite moment …. outdriving Louis with a 300 yard bomb. I let him hit first (smile).
#2. Joining a SWAT team for a day – rappelling down a building and shooting a fully automatic weapon for the first time. It had been a while since I have shot a gun (other than paintball with the boys) and had never shot full auto (shotguns, hunting rifles, my .22 as a kid), but shooting comes back to you quickly.
And last, but not least, my most interesting client event over the last 3 years.
#1. Playing hockey at a client event at the Bell Center in Montreal. Although wearing Guy Lafleur’s number didn’t help my goal scoring. I suffer some kind of Montreal curse … Multiple games, more than a few heartbreakers, but no goals. Standing at the line in the Bell Center (I keep wanting to call it the forum) when the Canadian anthem played gave me shivers – truly awesome and distinctly Canadian.
That is me on the left and the goalie making an insane save to keep my record at a whole bunch of assists and no goals … The slacker in the number 76 somehow got a bunch of goals (you know who you are) and wouldn’t let me forget it for 2 months. See the goalie lying on his side? The puck is teetering on his shoulder. I flicked it up twice and ….. no joy (And it would have won the game). My shame forever caught in this photo on the jumbotron (smile).
I will miss you Canada. Ciao for now.
Colliders and the “god particle” are all over the news. I always detested physics in school. In fact, first year honours physics is the reason why I changed studies in University; I loved to code, but detested mathematics and physics so I left computer science. Plus, I couldn’t see myself behind a screen coding for the next 40 years.
But I am interested in what they are doing with the large Hadron Collider so I watched a video that does a pretty good job of explaining what is going on. You can watch hit here.
Thank you NASA.
Something I saw a lot of in Spain. We are not globally out of the woods yet.
The theme of this international move has been “the big purge”. Room by room, we eliminated things that we do not use. We also set the goal of “no storage” which means leave nothing behind. We are either going to use it in Tokyo, or it goes. The logic being that the boys are heading off to University in 3 and 4 years (scary) so that provides a simplification/downsize opportunity in the very near future.
This is no small feat when we are moving from a traditional big North American home to a place in downtown Tokyo and required a lot bid decisions – primarily around furniture. Over the last 8 weeks we set about selling off a few very big items, like our 10 piece, 100 year old mahogany dining room set.
Which brings me to PayPal and Kijiji. I like classified sites, they are very handy. But when you sell an item worth more than $1K it brings out the pond scum. In this case, the PayPal scammers. Here is how it goes … first they respond to your post with almost the same line every time (I had more than 10 of these):
From: sx1ra-373@yahoo.com
Anything to add or ads say it all?
The first time this happened, I threw in a few more pictures and some additional color. Here is the classic response or in one case, this was the opening email to me:
From: marmith2000-p@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 5:12 AM
Subject: Re: Reply to your “Elte Kitchen/Dining Table only 1 year old – as new – paid $5800.” Ad on Kijiji
I appreciate your reply, I’m very interested and I’m willing to pay $2900, The means of payment will be via PayPal and I’ll pay for any charges that may incur. I just relocated to United Kingdom and I’ll be needing the merchandise here. A shipper will come over for the pick up after you receive the payment.
I await pictures(if available) since I won’t be able to see this in person. What’s your paypal email address so that I can send the funds to you asap.
Mary
Which leads to the scam. They will then go into this elaborate scheme which can be broken down into the following steps:
1. They will send you a fake PayPal confirmation email that they have made a payment to you which you will get when they have received delivery with PayPal holding the money in escrow.
2. You must pay for the shipping to get the funds released, but do not worry because PayPal is holding your money plus the shipping fee.
3. You send the money and the whole PayPal email confirmations turn out to be fraud. You lose your money.
The best way to avoid it is in your online ad put at the end “No PayPal payments accepted”. It stopped all fraudulent emails.
In closing, my responses to the fraudsters:
From: sx1ra-148@yahoo.com
Anything to add or ads say it all?
Response:
That I will not take PayPal or ship to another country you pond scum. You should be ashamed of yourself. Just remember: what comes around goes around.
Share with friends. These people deserve nothing. On the plus side, we sold everything with only one item on Kijiji. Everything else simply through word of mouth, emailing a bunch of friends and letting everyone know. A friend tells a friend ….
UPDATE: Don’t tell the scammer to look at this blog post. Play with them. Mess them up. But don’t warn them.
UPDATE 2: If you want to avoid this hassle, simply do what I did when I sold a set of chairs the other day. The last line was this:
No Paypal payments scammers. Cash only.
As is the UK tradition, the flags of a local regiment adorn the church. I always found this a fascinating oddity, to remember the wars in a church. While I understand blessing the troops, these flags are really a form of trophy. I do not know why, but it seems misplaced to me in a house of worship and peace.
These flags are no different than those in the UK, well worn and full of history. I do not know Australian military history well, other than knowing that it is a proud one like Canada. I happened to be reading all about Anzac and their memorials in the paper that weekend, which centers on remembering World War I:
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, originally commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who served and died in military operations for their countries.[1][2] Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Pitcairn, and Tonga. It is no longer observed as a national holiday in Papua New Guinea or Samoa.
It would seem that this church has a proud history of supporting women leading local churches (good on them – perhaps if others were not so militant on the subject they would be in better shape).
From their website – the weekly reflection:
Most gracious and loving God,
who calls us all to embrace our calling
as bearers of your divine image and likeness;
we give thanks and praise for the vocation of women
to ordained ministry in your church,
and for twenty years of glorious work of women
ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Church of Australia.May we continue to strive as women and men together
to bear witness to your boundless love for all creation,
which breathes us into being
and gathers us into one body;
through Jesus the Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Spirit,
one God, mother and father of us all. Amen.
(Collect from the Eucharist celebrating 20 years of Women Priests in Australia, St John’s Cathedral on 13th July 2012)
And as you would expect, beautiful glass work.
Two last photos. The woodworking took a father and son team over 7 years to complete. It is beyond intricate and beautifully done.
A donated sculpture of Jesus on the cross that I found holding my attention.
You can read more here. What a wonderful place.
While on the road over the last couple weeks I had almost no time to enjoy the surroundings, which is the ultimate truth of business travel: it sounds exotic but in reality is just a long commute filled with hotels and office meetings.
That being said, I did spend the weekend traveling from Sydney to Brisbane and had flex. It wasn’t quite as “wintery” in Brisbane so I went for a walk, coming across St. John’s Cathedral, the last gothic style church built in the world:
St John’s Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral of Brisbane and the metropolitan cathedral of the ecclesiastical province of Queensland,Australia. The cathedral is situated on the outskirts of the city centre and is the successor to an earlier pro-cathedral on William Street in the heart of the central business district which was predated by All Saints Wickham Terrace (1862), the oldest Anglican church in Brisbane.
I was surprised to see a building of this nature in “the new world”. I love walking through old churches, filled with history and majesty, bringing about an instant sense of reverence. This cathedral was breathtaking and it turns out, just finished:
William Webber – the third Bishop of Brisbane and previously a vicar in London – was instrumental in initiating the Brisbane cathedral project.[1] In 1885-86, he commissioned John Loughborough Pearson to make sketch plans for Brisbane cathedral.[6] The Brisbane cathedral movement began in earnest in 1887 as a celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee – St John’s was to be paid for by public subscription[6] but the construction of the cathedral in one campaign was found to be financially impossible. As a result, the building has been executed in three stages over two centuries between 1906 and 2009.[1]
The church is perched on the top of a small cliff. Construction of a downtown must have lead to the engineers blowing this side of the hill out.
There is so much sandstone, the church had to buy their own quarry. As an aside, one of the few blue sky days I saw in a few weeks (And short lived).
The central cathedral is European in scale. As spectacular as most that we saw during out time in the UK.
End Part I.
It seems like I have read a number of articles on the failing “War on Drugs” lately. There is no doubt that addictive drugs are a huge burden on society and as someone who actively avoided drugs, I am personally fine with the ban.
That being said, I really do wonder if other nations have it right and we have it VERY wrong. Most of the news on the failed war on drugs is in the US (although Canada could probably be substituted – just divide all dollar numbers by 10); the border that does not work, tens of thousands killed in the Mexican drug war and tens of thousands before them in Columbia, the ongoing funding that it provides to terrorists, the $20B+ per year that the US spends on the war on drugs which they could divert to education, medical care or debt payments and of course, the fact that the stats prove that it just is not working.
You know it must be failing when Pat Robertson says it is failing and time to consider decriminalization. I have never agreed with anything that Pat Robertson says, he is a nutter. This would be a first.
And the stats prove it all out – just look at Holland versus the US. The US fails on every metric (Canada would similarly fail).
What prompted this post? An article which created a sickness in the pit of my stomach on how much we spend and how we restrict people’s choice resulting in much higher usage. Human nature revolves around “If I cannot have it, I want it more. Allow me to have it, and I lose interest” and we are driving more people to drugs.
The article: Portugal drug decriminalization policy works (2012). It is not true Holland type decriminalization but a variant that has seen a radical drop in drug usage:
Portugal’s move to decriminalize does not mean people can carry around, use, and sell drugs free from police interference. That would be legalization. Rather, all drugs are "decriminalized," meaning drug possession, distribution, and use is still illegal. While distribution and trafficking is still a criminal offense, possession and use is moved out of criminal courts and into a special court where each offender’s unique situation is judged by legal experts, psychologists, and social workers. Treatment and further action is decided in these courts, where addicts and drug use is treated as a public health service rather than referring it to the justice system (like the U.S.), reports Fox News.
The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following ten years. Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report.
Too bad our a Prime Minster doesn’t have the leadership vision and strength to take this issue on.
You can read the full report on soros.org here. Very sad that our government will not face the facts and stop wasting time, money and people’s lives.
I have heard this term used a lot recently. In the UK I often heard “separated by a common language”.
Recently the “lost in translation” point was used by one team trying to interpret the emails and Chatter posts of another team as they tried to work through an issue electronically – and unsuccessfully. A team member picked up the phone and even with a language barrier they found out that there was no issue – both teams were on the same page.
The phone and video conference. Magic old fashioned devices that solves so many problems so quickly …..
While in Asia the time difference played havoc, meaning that I was usually up at 4am. I enjoyed watching the sun rise over Story Bridge. I snapped a few pics, but wish I had my 5D with me.
Yes. Those are rain clouds. It is winter in Australia.
There are a very active set of ferries into the city core. A unique way to commute.
I have been playing around with WordPress as a colleague told me my site was a little “generic” (He may have said the design is boring (smile)). His is quite intricate.
Over the coming weeks you will see a few updates. I found that Flickr badge generation an interesting way of creating a gallery.
It seems that Galleries are harder to set up than they should be in WordPress if you are not self hosted. A few tidbits were found in the official support site and the “unofficial” site.
I am on a quest of creating a photo stream across the header of my site, it seems to be harder than it should be …..
My first. In Sydney, Australia – taken with my G12.
It may have been pretty, but it didn’t change the fact that it was 30C in Toronto and cold, wet and wintery in Sydney. So odd being in a cold climate in July.
I came across what might be the world’s smallest barbershop while in Brisbane earlier in the week. Although his prices are not the smallest at $24 a cut.
I noticed while popping around Sydney last week that the front seat of the cabs were set back. It made it uncomfortable to sit in the back due to the narrow leg room.
So I decided to jump in the front seat (something you just do not do in North America) and ask “Do your customers sit in the front or backseat in a taxi?”
His first answer was noncommittal, “Wherever you like”
I asked again “Where do most people sit?”
He smiled and said “The self important ones sit in the back seat”
I am not sure what this means. I have heard of free range chicken … Perhaps like the word “organic”, open for interpretation.
We decided to go on an international assignment many, many months ago and having done this once before we took the opportunity to really look at our house and our “stuff”. The first time around, it happened very fast and we had young boys which meant we had lots of toys and in the end, put lots of “stuff” into storage.
This time is different. We went on the grand purge as the boys are older and we want to simplify. A simple rule was put in place, if you have not used it in a couple years it is gone. The result:
Enforcing the 2 year rule was not easy. But Narda and I were both strong for the other. When that common “Wow, I forgot I had that and am glad that I found it” instinct kicked in, the other would ask “Really? You have not used it for 5 years, will you really use it?” with 9 times out of 10 resulting in the item going to the staging area.
It is very refreshing. The Globe has a great article on why people cannot get rid of stuff and of course, there are reality shows on the topic. But I would council that it is a very, very rewarding process. Now, we only have what we need and after digitize a bunch of school memorabilia, we will be 2 additional boxes lighter .. but that is for a rainy day.
We will go through one final purge as they pack, and then our household will be the lightest it has been in years.
The use of “I’m sorry” in Japanese culture is very different from Canada. In Canada, it is an apology – for making a mistake. In Japan, “I’m sorry” is not an apology, it is more like “excuse me”.
For example, in Japan someone might say “I’m sorry, but that is not what I was meaning”.
In the Harvard article When Sorry Doesn’t Translate they noted the following statistics:
Their view:
Our own work found that a core issue is differing perceptions of culpability: Americans see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing, whereas Japanese see it as an expression of eagerness to repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability necessarily implied. And this difference, we discovered, affects how much traction an apology gains.
I would suggest a minor tweak – it seems to me that “I am sorry” in Japan isn’t just about repairing a relationship, it is also used to ensure maintenance of a relationship.
The complexity of language.
My first full week in Tokyo was quite the week, starting with a bout of food poisoning that put me behind the 8 ball for the entire week (Thank-you for offering me 20% off my next flight un-named Canadian airline). It also meant that I did not get out and about.
That being said, it was my first introduction to the culture and island; an adventure begins……
One of the things I love doing in new countries is read a local paper. A few headlines that caught my eye from the Japan Times:
The government worked out a fresh anticancer program Friday that calls for reducing the rate of smoking among adults to 12 percent by fiscal 2022, down from 19.5 percent in 2010, officials say…. It sets a target to reduce the rate of those exposed to smoke every day at homes to 3 percent in fiscal 2022 from 10.7 percent in 2010 and also to make sure work sites are free from passive exposure by calendar 2020.
NOTE: I personally did not find the smoking invasive, although it did remind me of England as we moved there just as they started banning it from restaurants. At the restaurant we were at, we received a notice that they would allow smoking at a certain time. What I didn’t realize is that Japan’s smoking rate isn’t that far off Canada’s – which is 17% (2010). Our rigorous laws are not having as big an impact as I would have thought.
Whether it be your neighbourhood toban garbage duty or picking over the big gomi left out on the curb for Big Garbage Day, a fondness of garbage is a sure sign of the aged. Just being in the proximity of amassed garbage will age you by 20 years. If you find yourself attracted to garbage, saying things like “But that’s a perfectly good vacuum cleaner!” and taking it back home, then add another five years. Only old people see the value in these things. Young people buy new, crappy stuff that breaks down in a week.
Tokyo has officially become the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, overtaking the Angolan capital of Luana, while Osaka has moved up to third place. … while a cup of coffee including service averages $8.15 (Y650), the survey showed. (Thank-goodness for my new Jura)
So much to enjoy and learn.
I have started to tell this joke regularly, when connecting with old Microsoft friends:
Q: What is the first thing a Microsoftie does after leaving Microsoft?
A: Buy an iPhone.
Shockingly accurate.
Another overdue Grand Cayman post. As previously mentioned there isn’t a lot to do on Grand Cayman, but there are a few places to see including the Turtle Farm.
We took the “full tour” which includes access to all parts of the sanctuary/farm and the ability to swim in their interactive pool – which is a small winding man-made lake with a few turtles and fish in it. I will admit that after touring the place we were about to leave disappointed because we didn’t really understand it. That is when we bumped into the head keeper who asked us if we had questions. We had a lot – and he was very open to answering and giving us greater insight into why the farm exists.
He started to explain their conservation focus, how they are hand raising sea turtles, marking and tracking them and freeing thousands back into the wild (31,000 to date). They are doing some fantastic conservation and research work, which made the price worthwhile. In fact, the government is running it at a loss to keep up the work – the tourism angle simply offsets some costs and reduces the loss.
The turtles themselves are beautiful creatures. The first exhibit to greet you is the mature turtle pond. This picture does not provide scale, but these are HUGE sea turtles. They must be 3 feet long and there are a lot of them. In speaking with the keeper, their ages range and it is difficult for them to know exactly how old some are, but a few are in their 70’s.
Throughout the facility they have holding tanks for turtles at different sizes. At this set of tanks you are allowed to pick the turtles up (if you can catch them, they are very fast).
All over the farm you will find different wildlife running around or in the aviary, relaxing.
And of course, more than a few iguanas.
In the end, a worthwhile trip if you find someone to talk to.
Over the last couple months I have become a big Skype user. Not the free version, but the paid “call any landline in the world” version. I use it on my iPhone via Wi-Fi in hotel rooms and on my laptop when traveling.
The world of voice calls was very unaffordable for the traveler only a few years ago. I cannot imagine being without it now. $13 a month is a small price to pay to be able to call home wherever I am for as long as I want.
Before we head out to Japan I upgraded our wireless networking, grabbing the fastest/strongest wireless router I could find – the ASUS RT-N66U.
However, even with the increased range and range extending antennas on the router, when you are upstairs (3 floors from the router) the signal isn’t as fast as it needs to be. So I took my old D-LINK router and created a second wireless network in the office called “Upstairs”. It took some time to figure out how to do that, I simply repost these instructions to help others (and in case I need to do it again):
If you are connecting the D-Link router to another router to use as a wireless access point and/or switch, you will have to do the following before connecting the router to your network:
Disable UPnPT
Disable DHCP
Change the LAN IP address to an available address on your network. The LAN ports on the router cannot accept a DHCP address from your other router.
To connect to another router, please follow the steps below:
1. Plug the power into the router. Connect one of your computers to the router (LAN port) using an Ethernet cable. Make sure your IP address on the computer is 192.168.0.xxx (where xxx is between 2 and 254). Please see the Networking Basics section for more information. If you need to change the settings, write down your existing settings before making any changes. In most cases, your computer should be set to receive an IP address automatically in which case you will not have to do anything to your computer.
2. Open a web browser and enter http://192.168.0.1 and press Enter. When the login window appears, set the user name to Admin and leave the password box empty. Click Log In to continue.
3. Click on Advanced and then click Advanced Network. Uncheck the Enable UPnP checkbox. Click Save Settings to continue.
4. Click Setup and then click Network Settings. Uncheck the Enable DHCP Server server checkbox. Click Save Settings to continue.
5. Under Router Settings, enter an available IP address and the subnet mask of your network. Click Save Settings to save your settings. Use this new IP address to access the configuration utility of the router in the future. Close the browser and change your computer’s IP settings back to the original values as in Step 1.
Connect to Another Router
6. Disconnect the Ethernet cable from the router and reconnect your computer to your network.
7. Connect an Ethernet cable in one of the LAN ports of the router and connect it to your other router. Do not plug anything into the Internet port of the D-Link router.
8. You may now use the other 3 LAN ports to connect other Ethernet devices and computers. To configure your wireless network, open a web browser and enter the IP address you assigned to the router. Refer to the Configuration and Wireless Security sections for more information on setting up your wireless network.
Works well.
Michael Weening: a few pictures 