Panasonic’s 3D Television

I have so much to write about but I just can’t find enough time to organize stuff to post on here. Facebook makes one lazy, I think, by encouraging “1 picture, 1 sentence” style posts. Anywho, I will post something here as well :)

I was walking around Kichijoji last week and I came across a crowd in front of the Yodobashi Camera. It turns out Panasonic had a demo set up for their new 3D Viera TVs. I knew about a new 3D format coming for the Blu-Ray but I had no idea the players were already produced, discs published, and DVR units built to handle the 3D data (as well as the TVs to display them of course). The 3 minute demo was actually pretty impressive. I think one of the reasons is that the glasses they use (yes you still need glasses which I can’t say I will ever get used to). The glasses are actually “active” – they are synced to the TV which supposedly makes for a more natural and less headache-inducing (which of course I was not able to check within 3 minutes).

Demonstration in Harajuku against child trafficking

I was out in Harajuku today which was as crowded as usual given it’s a weekend day. Sometimes it still surprises me how many non-Japanese people seem to frequent the area.  Granted, the sheer number of people walking on the street is so high that one would expect to see “foreigners” here and there but the number of non-Japanese people was easily around 10%. That’s not what I am writing about today though – I came across an interesting demonstration which I think is worth mentioning here.

As far as I can tell “child trafficking” is not a particularly big problem for Japan, definitely not anywhere near certain East Asian countries. It was nice to see people getting together even for issues which may not be affecting their own country as much as the neighbors.  By the way, this picture was taken from the top of the Gucci building…

Catching the last days of the cherry blossoms

This season of cherry blossoms was a bit weird in Tokyo – well, maybe unfortunate is a better word. First weekend it was all rainy and gloomy for the most part. The following weekend, with the cherry blossoms already starting to shed some of the flowers, I was at the hospital. Well, this weekend was different. I spent a decent part of my Saturday walking around the Tokyo Station, the emperor’s palace and Yotsuya. I also managed to get lost and walk from Yotsuya to Tokyo station in the process but I also had tons of fun and saw amazing scenery.

My ultra-hectic schedule continues so unfortunately I cannot comment much more. Instead I will just put some of the pictures I took on here – one picture, a thousand words I hope :)

Around Yotsuya station

Cherry blossoms flying in the air

Castle moat

Another part of the moat

Couples in boats

Cherry blossoms are out but no blue skies…

I am supposed to write about Sapporo but that will take quite a bit of time to plan and while I was going to do al that planning today, I could not. See, it is the cherry blossom season and this weekend is the best time to go check those out.  After all cherry blossoms are only around for two, or at most three weeks a year. Since that corresponds to only 4 – 6 weekend days you can tell how important each one of those days become if one wants to go check out the cherry blossoms.

Today and yesterday were supposed to be the days I go to check out cherry blossoms. According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, yesterday would have been the day that the blossoms reach their full bloom. It unfortunately was not to be… First, I had to spend  most of yesterday at the hospital and today, I was mostly at home. Both days had overcast skies as well, in my humble opinion taking away from the experience.

I am hoping next week will be better and there will still be cherry blossoms to check out. Last year there were still a few trees left even 2 weeks after the peak date around Ueno Zoo. Meanwhile, I snapped this picture close to my apartment. Hey, better than nothing, right?

Trip to Sapporo and Otaru

Ever since coming to Japan, I wanted to visit Hokkaido, the northernmost part of mainland Japan. The snow festival in February (雪祭り/Yuki Matsuri), the mountains and hills full of beautiful flowers in the spring time are just two of the biggest attractions in the region. This past weekend, unfortunately, was not the right time to experience either one of the two but the region has plenty to offer all year around!

This past Monday was a national holiday – the observation of Spring Equinox (moved to the 22nd as the original date, the 21st, fell on a weekend) and after I took Friday off as a paid-holiday, I had 3 full days to enjoy Sapporo and get back to Tokyo on Monday. Contrary to the time of Yuki Matsuri the tickets were quite reasonable too so it was quite a treat! I got to visit many places in Sapporo and even made a day trip to the famous Asahiyama Zoo (旭山動物園).

I am going to try to cover each day separately, starting this weekend. Unfortunately these days I am so amazingly busy busy busy…

A quick visit to Hitotsubashi University campus

Last weekend I decided to try something different. Instead of going towards Shinjuku and ending up somewhere in central Tokyo like Roppongi or Shibuya, I went the opposite direction on Chuo Line (JR中央線)– towards Tachikawa.

Tachikawa is a relatively big city, about 15 minutes from Mitaka and it is usually possible to cut the time by a few minutes if one catches a special rapid going towards Ome or Mt. Takao. Today I won’t write about Tachikawa though, I will write about Kunitachi (国立) which is a stop before Tachikawa which is usually referred to as a university town. The main road leading off from the station is flanked on both sides by cherry blossom trees which unfortunately are not in bloom yet - I suspect it will be two weeks or so before that happens at which point I will try to go back to snap some pictures of that.

One nice surprise for me was the campus of the Hitotsubashi University. Following a western architecture, the buildings seem almost out of place in Japan. The campus is green and many people (that is to say, non-students) can be seen walking around it, enjoying the scenery. The logo of the school is pretty interesting too (see the picture I snapped above) with a decisive emphasis on medicine. I heard that the school is actually one of the best in Tokyo in terms of social sciences. The entrance examination, while not as hard as University of Tokyo or Keio, is also one of the hardest.

 

Of course wherever there is a university, there are students and wherever there are students, there are bicycles – at least in Asia, based on what I saw in Taiwan, Korea, and here. There were tons of bicycles parked in front of the university campus which itself is pretty close to the train station so my guess is that some students actually leave the bicycles locked here and walk to the train station, using the bicycle to get around the campus during the day or to go somewhere further.

Rain and gray skies for Tokyo

The days before things warm up and Spring is fully here always bring rain to Tokyo and these few days are no exception. It does get sunny once every few days and it actually feels better than Summer since Summers are humid, hazy and therefore uncomfortable and sticky affairs. However, this week the sunny day was Friday and for the last two days it has been raining, drizzling actually – just enough wetness to complement the low temperature. One thing the rain let me do though was to grab this picture of the little puddle on my balcony. At least Sunday was not a complete loss I guess…