The Spooks

Some weeks ago, as I got off the bus I walked by the most curious thing. There was about 14 men dressed in black. They were in smart black polo necks with black jeans, well built and trim. All they were doing was sweeping the sidewalk.

Now, why does it take 14 people to sweep 10 meters of sidewalk? About 3 of them were sweeping. 1 was on the phone, 3 were discussing something. Incredibly inefficient, why were these smartly dressed people doing a such a menial task, not very well at that and not trying to pretend to do it. It didn't seem like sweeping the sidewalk was their main intention. Hmmm.

About 10 minutes later I walked past the same spot as I went to pick Nathan up from school. They had 'finished' what they were doing and were entering the Institute of Medical Study school which is also a thoroughfare to the train station. Who were they? The Japanese equivalent of MI6? the police? Spies???

I saw them a few days later, again, too many people for that one task. What were they up to? Again, they were just sweeping the sidewalk - all there is to sweep is leaves, and it isn't autumn yet. Not all were concentrating on the task. Few were in conference, talking on the phone, just walking around.

One day I was walking along with my cleaner, Shelly, and we saw them and wondered who they were. She suggested they looked like the military. Perhaps? Her husband had recently been deported back to the Philipines, she said the immigration police dressed in plain clothes. You'd never know..

Yesterday, I was on a SLOOOWWWW walk with the dogs and Nathan.. who takes SUCH a long time to get anywhere. I then realised I was amongst these men in black. There was one just next to me and then Enzo got interested in him. I didnt know how friendly they were and was watching his reaction to Enzo. Enzo approached him and he JUMPED 3 feet in the air away from him.

I pulled Enzo back immediately, they didnt make contact at all.

I noticed he was mentally handicapped. Thats what they all were. Dressed smartly for the job and doing something within their collective means. I dont know anything about their circumstance, and this was Platina (um) dori (Road) an upmarket street that should be maintained well. All around Blue Point Cafe, just THE place to have coffee on the street.

TV

You would have gathered by now, my main source of Japanese culture is the TV. N woke up early so we watched Children's TV during breakfast. It is quite different from Playschool. Anyway, the toddlers programs was followed by school age programs. This one was about snails.

It was fascinating, both Nathan and I was transfixed. For 1/2 an hour we watched a snail close up. We could see each segment on its skin. We saw how it ate while it moved around, watched how its mouth moving and muscles keep moving. How it came out of its shell - it seemed like it turned itself inside out when it retreated. How the snail wakes at night to continue foraging. How a small baby snail with a translucent shell could move from one leaf to the other, stretching itself and feeling for the next leaf with its feelers. How it wrapped its body around a stick as it climbed upward. How it shat. I was getting educated myself.

Nathan said "its not scary" - and he was right. After getting to know the snail, I wasn't squirmish about them.

Teien Art Museum

The Teien Art Museum had a special exhibition on Old Noritake porcelain. This museum is almost next door to our house. We do live right next door to another museum, the Matsuoka Museum, that we haven't visited yet. The Teien Art is Museum round 2 corners. This photo is of the sculpture in their gardens.

The exhibition itself had a good selection of their porcelain. The introduction explains the Japanese desire to enter the European porcelain market but failed to gain any share initially till the Art Deco era when the traditional bone china companies couldn't supply the demand for porcelain, esp with the expansion of the United States. Noritake was sold as the cheaper porcelain for the same quality china.

Noritake and that type of porcelain was not popular in Japan. Not till the Art Deco era when the Japanese were encouraged to embrace the western culture. At this time Art Deco was what they embraced. The house this museum is in was the residence to Prince Asaka which was built completely in an Art Deco style. The main interior was created y French designer Henri Rapin while Rene Lalique assited in the interior design.

The house was something more impressive than the porcelain. The study in the house, a small round wood panelled room with 2 floor to ceiling windows surrounded by bookcases. In the centre was a round Art Deco styled desk on a geometric patterned carpet. I could picture Poirrot utterly impressed with this room. It had the black and white tiled solariums, balconies - a must visit. The Noritake exhibition allowed us to meander through the house, as a secondary exhibition. The house is surrounded by beautiful lawned gardens with a pond.

Behind this house and gardens is the Insititute of Nature Study, a really different part of Tokyo.

The museum leads you to a cafe where Jon, Suzi, Stephen and I met for coffee. The coffee is served in Japanese wooden bowls and tastes great. The sweet we had with it - almond brulee with strawberries was well received.

Shinkansen

Even before we arrived in Tokyo, Nathan was fascinated by shin kan sen, though mostly the toy shin kan sen.

Today we took the Nozomi N700 from Shinagawa to Shin Yokohama to go to Ikea. It was an extremely short ride; by the time we took out the drink, the peanuts, ate 5 of them we had to get off. But what a ride! awesome! - it was fast, efficient (it only stops for 2 minutes at each station) gets you from A to B with no fuss. It just zooms in, picks you up, and zooms out. This is how travel should be. If the passengers are alert and prepared, the service can be fast and efficient. Wow.

I want to live in Shin Yokohama just to be able to take the shinkansen to work in Marunouchi!



As for Ikea - its ikea: the same in every country. Cheap products, expensive delivery.

Scars and stripes

By Karen J Greenberg
Published: May 30 2008 21:08 Last updated: May 30 2008 21:08

In April 2004, the American TV news exposé 60 Minutes aired a now infamous set of photographs depicting torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Images of US servicemen and women taunting prisoners with leashes and dogs, and of a hooded man connected to electrodes, overnight brought the word torture into present-day consciousness.
Weeks later, a US Department of Defense paper, the Taguba Report, catalogued countless instances of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib. The photos, it seemed, hinted at just a small part of a larger policy of coercive interrogation.

Since then, investigations and rebuttals have created two battling narratives over this issue, between law and action. The law is clear. In the US torture – defined as an act intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering – is illegal. Under international law it is also illegal. Yet the Bush administration continues to defend itself in words and legislation. And while laws have been passed to accommodate the administration – the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act – the US Supreme Court refuses to support circumventing international law.

How has the world’s leading democracy, a model for the ideal that power and decency reinforce one another, become the place where torture is debated rather than outlawed? How is it that a religiously devout president has justified torture by American hands?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/60a7754e-2de6-11dd-b92a-000077b07658,s01=1.html