March, 2011
On Sunday I go out to the street to walk around the city. 80% of subway lines in Tokyo are already running and we can move with certain liberty. I can see how the Shinkansen service to the south-west of Japan is running smoothly: Bullet train coming out of Tokyo Station on Sunday morning. There [...]
I receive e-mails from colleagues and friends that can’t go home, others say that they have been walking for seven hours, almost 30km. Hotels in downtown Tokyo are full. News from the situation in the north continue to arrive and the number of victims starts to grow. I have to sleep next to a backpack [...]
More and more people come to the park. I sit down in a rock next to some bushes with flowers, but just after sitting down I feel how the rock starts to vibrate. Trees and lamp posts around the park shake following the aftershocks that arrive every 10-20 minutes. We are still trying to use [...]
We calm down as the tremors of the earthquake start to decrease. The water in the fish tank is running through the floor approaching our feet. I feel very dizzy, my hands and my jaw are shaking out of control. My colleague Wada-san is the first one to stand up, even though we are still [...]
I work in the 11th floor of a 12-floor building built by Shimizu Corporation in 2009; the building is supposed to withstand very powerful earthquakes. Shimizu Corporation is one of the world leaders in earthquake-resistant construction technologies. I was working in the 11th floor of this building. We were in a meeting room in the [...]
Japanese people love flowers. Japanese language is very rich in vocabulary related to flowers and they have many hobbies like ikebana (flower arrangement) dedicated to the world of flowers. There are many parks and gardens that have sections exclusively dedicated to flower cultivation. Last week I went to one of the largest ones in Tokyo, [...]
The Tokyo Marathon, one of the most popular marathons in the world, was held some days ago in Tokyo, more than 30,000 runners participated in it. Some people was not happy enough only by running the 42 km, they wanted to do it with a costume! There is fabulous compilation of pictures in Un Gato [...]
Some days ago a 26 year old Japanese guy bought 33 million yen (290,000 EUR/400,000 USD) of oil futures and 3 days later he had 322 million yen (4 million USD/2,85 million EUR) in his pocket thanks to the abrupt rise of oil prices caused by the Libyan crisis. A little bit of luck that [...]
