I have been meaning to blog about construction in Tokyo and last weeks “event” prompted me to write.

Construction in Japan is very different than in Canada and probably everywhere else in the world. When we first moved here I noticed a few things; security guards with glowing light sticks at every construction site, well constructed enclosures around each site and crazy levels of cleanliness.

It seems that Japanese construction starts with the enclosure. When a building is set to be demolished the building is scaffolded and enclosed so you cannot see anything. The building comes down piece by piece and parts of the scaffolding remain.

The above photo from my iPhone has 2 interesting elements to it. The first is the wet pavement. As every single vehicle leaves the site, a group of workmen hose down the truck so that it comes out as clean as if it went into a carwash. They then clean and sweep the street (multiple times a day).

The other interesting element is the LED screen on the left.

A decibel meter to measure site noise. I have yet to hear a lot of noise out of one of these sites. They could use a few of these at some of the vacation resorts I have been too.

But it doesn’t always go right. Near our home the “demolition screen” went up a week ago and they started tearing down a building. One of the boys sent me a text that there had been an accident …. demolitions are tricky stuff. After getting home I grabbed my camera and had a look.

Whoops. That is a big wall.

There were a lot of guys with brooms (smile). Luckily, no one was hurt.