משא מאסותא

שלשום בצהריים הלכנו כמה חברים מהעבודה לאכול ארוחת צהריים במסעדת ג'קו אשר ברחוב הברזל בתל אביב.
צעדנו לאיטנו ברחוב וחלפנו על פני חזיתו של בית חולים אסותא החדש שבשלבי בנייה מתקדמים. מנוף ענק עומד מעל הבניין ומתנשא לגובה רב.
כאשר התקרבנו לזירה המנוף בדיוק הרים איזו מכולה ענקית מלאה בחומרים. התרוממה המכולה ל-10 מטר גובה. טון וחצי חומר בניה התנדנד כמו מטוטלת של שעון מעל הרחוב לרוחבו. אנשים ומכוניות עשו את דרכם בדיוק מתחת. אנחנו נעצרנו וחיכינו שהיא תחזור להתנדנד מעל אתר הבנייה.
לא מעודד. אולי בעצם הם מנסים לדואג ללקוחות עתידיים. אחרת קשה למלא בניין כזה גדול.

--א

intellectual horsepower

We are having the annual employee evaluation period. I had to fill a form in which I am asked for self-evaluation regarding some questions. One of the brilliant question was: From 1 to 5 indicate your intellectual horsepower.
Hm... I know my car used to have around 80-90 horsepowers, but it wasn't so intellectual.
I am just wondering how am I supposed to measure this attribute of mine. I would say 4.57 maybe, but it must be whole number...
BTW do horses wonder?

14-18/11 - Hong Kong

In short. I came over from Tokyo to Hong Kong. I met by brother on the airport. We spent 2-3 days together. Both of us bought a MacBook. This is a most serious stuff. Mine shipped with Leopard, the latest Mac OS 10.5. Very usable interface, of a highly configurable unix-based system. HW and OS developed by Apple, so no bad integrity-related surprises there. The 13.3'' box is white and has an Intel dual-core 2.2GHz processor in it, and a 2 Gb RAM. So cute.
We walked all around the city. Living in Causeway Bay it's easy. 1 minute from the subway station, 2 minutes from the tramway stop on Hennessey Road. On Thursday we had dinner in the Soho of the city on the Midlevels. Today I returned to the Soho, and ate in a excellent restaurant. It was delicious.
Tomorrow I'm having a 12-hour flight to home. My new MacBook will provide the entertainment. I still must get used to couple of new things and concepts.

13/11 - Tokyo

After yesterday's party which ended deep in today I simply couldn't manage to be at the fish market at 6am. Well, there is at least one more reasons why I must come back to Tokyo. Today was my last full-day in Japan. I put the camera in the backpack, and just walk all around several places in the city. At the end I took a water-bus cruise in the Tokyo Bay. Now I am back at the hostel, and will soon start organizing my backpack.
Tomorrow I am heading to Hong Kong to meet my brother :)

12/11 - Tokyo

Today in the morning hours I finally understood that in order to get around in Tokyo, I can use the JR lines, besides the subway. A ride from Ueno station to Shinjuku took around 25 minutes. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it is free, thanks to my JR Pass. Shinjuku is a very famous and crowded neighborhood of Tokyo. It has two parts: east and west. The east part is more like a downtown for young people, many restaurants, pubs, clubs and amusement. The western part of Shinjuku is a most modern business district, with lots of skyscrapers. There I entered an Italian restaurant, where I ate buffet-style pizza, pasta, salads, and other tasty stuff. They tried to speak to me Italian, however I disappointed them when I answered in English.
After Shinjuku I went back to Tokyo Station area, where I explored Hybia Park, and surroundings.
I entered some department stores hoping to find some man-wear stuff. However ALL what they had were suits and socks.
Today I enjoyed the sunshine very much. However I payed attention to the fact that I was almost the only person in the city with a short T-shirt.
Tomorrow I'll try to wake up early to go and see the Tsujiki morning fish market. I supposed to be there at 6am. Well... let's hope.

11/11 - Tokyo

Today in the morning hours I took the subway to Ueno, and entered the National Museum of Sciences. This is a huge museum, which has a permanent exhibition, and extras as well. I began my route on the extra exhibition which deals with robotics. It has explained the history of robots from the Japanese traditional mechanical puppets until Honda's Asimo, which is a human like robot. It looks and acts like a human in its way of moving. It goes,runs, serves coffee, etc... I saw an amazing 20 minute show. At the end of the show Asimo demanded a round of applause. He even played football a little bit. The permanent exhibition introduced a couple of topics: space exploration, life on Earth, and huge dinosaur skeletons.
After buying another umbrella the rain finally stopped. I knew it deters. Whom? The rain from falling on me.
Then I made a great walk on Shibuya, which is one of the most central parts of Tokyo. Many young people flow on the street. I saw the statue of a famous dog (long story, exceeds this blog). I found a museum of tobacco and salt. Missing sufficient English explanation I just gawked at the boxes of tobacco, and the detailed explanation in Japanese how they gained salt from the sea water. (There is no salt to mine in Japan).
Late afternoon I arrived at the neighborhood of Roppongi Hills. I was lifted up to the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower. There I found a breath-taking, almost 360 degrees panoramic view of the city. In the middle I saw the Mori Modern Art exhibition. A couple of interesting items I found there. Video games projected on the floor, when both players have drums, and beating the drum navigates the racket.
After the exhibition there was already dark outside, so I saw the city view also at night.
Now I'm back at the hostel, waiting others to return, we go to karaoke today, yeah. That will be really funny.

Asimo:

10/11 - Tokyo

I came back to Tokyo today. I've hardly found the hostel I stay, but finally I found my way with the 15 kg backpack in the pouring rain. Then I made laundry, the dryer took about two hours to partly dry my stuff. Anyway.
During a long walk in Ginza I finally discovered that Tokyo is a really expensive city. (Well, so is Tel-Aviv, but Ginza is considered as an extra)
This is a real youth hostel, people meet here from all over the world. I've met some good people from Britain; one from Scotland (Alain), and two from England (Simon and the other guy's name I don't remember).
We went to eat some food in the evening, then we bought beers, and came back to the hostel to drink and eat. This was tempered by occasional political, religious, and CS related academic discussions. We had fun, I won in pool game (!). The table was not balanced, so the game was more like a gravity-ball. The balls moved by themselves on the table. Miracle, they really have their own life.
Tomorrow we all hope for a better weather.
The forecast says: "clear / showers". WTF? Clean OR showers? Eh? Uh? Which one? We can't have both in the very same time! Anyway. Yep, forecasts...
Bed time now - I think. Especially after 3 beers. :)

Pictures

In order to see the album, double click on the slideshow.

9/11 Matsushima Bay

Matsushima Bay is near Sendai on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. This is one of the most beautyful sites I have seen in Japan, and whatsoever. The bay consists of over 260 islands clad with evergreen pine trees. Each island has its own name relating to a Japanese legend. On the shore of the bay a vary nice town is located, namely Matsushima - surprisingly. Temples, shrines, museum, aquarium, and a port. The nearby islands are connected with bridges. Fukuura island for example is connected with a 252 meter long red bridge. Their oyster - a kind of speciality of the place - tastes delicious indeed. Afternoon I took the sight-seeing ferry between the islands. It was very impressive to see those spreaded islands.
Lonely Planet has a list of recommended restaurants for every city. It never disappoints. I didn't miss the sushi recommendation of Sendai this evening. :)

8/11 Tokyo - Sendai

In the early morning hours we said our good-byes with Shimon, who returned home as planned. He was a really excellent mate for this trip. I made a walk in Ueno, Tokyo to see the small streets and the people of the neighborhood in the morning hours. Another walk I took in Shibuya, which is one of the centers in Tokyo. They I headed to Tokyo Station in an overcrowded metro car. In the crowdy hours they remove the sears from the cars, and people only stand - hardly. Absolutely no need to hold on to anything, there is no place to fall. From Tokyo Station I took the Shinkansen to Sendai. Senday is in the north Honshu region of Myagi-ken. This 'town' has 1M citizens. During the day I explored the city center, and some department stores. I didn't buy anything, but I saw a couple of of cool cellphones and cameras.

7/11 Takayama - Tokyo

In the morning we took the train (the slow one) to Nagoya, and from Nagoya the Shinkansen took us to Tokyo station. A guy sitting next to me got off the train at one of the stations, left all his lagguage on it, and got back again after less than a minute with a box of seafood, which he bought in the platform kiosk.
In Tokyo we made a walk at nearby the station in north Ginza, and through the Asakusa market we reached the hotel.

Japan in general. Adventures, thoughts.

After almost two weeks that I am in Japan I can share some of my expreriences with the reader. In the first week I had the feeling, that I am not on Earth. This is another planet. It is so different.
Japan is a very clear counrty. However there are no rubbish-bins on the streets at all. An everyday task can be to figure out how can you get rid of the small piece of napkin which is left back form your icecream. The streets are clean, noone throws away anything.
Japan is a very traditional country. They keep the religion(s), the traditions and they are very proud of it. They love their country as well. They tour around all the time, and take photographs of every single object on their way. A funny habbit is making group-photos. If there are three people or more, this is a must to be photographed in a group-photo in every site they go. Accordingly there are group-photographer masters next to every site. They take their place for the photo with a very high discipline.
They also find western style people very interesting. Some young didn't miss the opportunity to get photographed with us.
Language: funny for us. Mostly they do not understand English, but the fact that I don't speak Japanese doesn't disturb them in speaking their language to me. Magically we never had a single language-related misunderstanding.
Another phenomenon is the English-menu effect. English menu is actually a Japanese menu with an English title, and subtitles. However the individual items are in Japanese... ;) The effect is that once you see an English menu you might enter that restaurant, but once you did it, you will not leave just because they don't really have a real English menu.
The same with information. A huge board: INFORMATION is the title. But below... everything is in Japanese. Very informative indeed.
Habbits: One very bold habbit is making a deep bow to each other. This is ritualized tradition and it must be done more than one time. In the subway one person asks the time from someone. After getting very polite answer, the bowing ceremony begins. Both of them make deep bows to the other. This can take even an entire minute or so.
High-tech: This country is highly developed in terms of technology. Their superannuated GSM cell-system is dead, they have only a newer technology and all phones are 3g. Also no room without high-quality LCD television.
Railways, subways are on the highest level I have ever seen. The Shinkansen scuds with at least 300km/h, you sit inside, and don't even feel it. In the trains and subways all the information is also in English. They are very accurate. On a three-hours ride the Shinkansen arrives exactly on time, not even one minute later.
Food is essential on the train, everybody eat, so do we. In every station they sell prepacked dishes, which they heat in a microwave in about 20 seconds. This box contains fishes, rice, and vegetables. It is super-fresh and tasty. To eat on the Shinkansen is an unintended reflex.
It is a little hard to get used to IE and blogspot.com in Japanese, the luck is that I remember which button links where.
ATMs are rarely used in Japan, so are credit cards. Cash is the best thing that a tourist can bring with him.
All these are just a small taste. Picures will come sometime...

5-6/11 Kyoto - Takayama

In the morning after a short breakfast we went to the silver temple. This temple has a stone garden and a plant garden as well. The stone garden is a creature out of very small stones which are organized in a way that it draws interesting patterns. Pictures hopefully tomorrow. Then we took a short walk in Gion, took our hand-lagguage, and made our way to Takayama.
Takayama is a small town in the Japaneese alps. The ride for the train from Nagoya took about two and a half hours. Incredible mountins, huge forests, and small rivers with waterfalls on the way. We found our minshuku (traditional japaneese hosting) easily in the chilly weather.

The day after (today) we got a japaneese-style breakfast. This means that we sat on pillows on the floor. On the table each of us had: salmon, rice, egg, tea, missu soup, vegetables, and a candle-heated system on which a leaf with a mix of souce, onion,and other stuff on it. According to the explanation we heated this stuff, put it on the rice, and ate. We also got some nuri with which we ate another kind of fish. That was a nice experience, hopefully pictures come tomorrow, or the day after.
During the day we toured the town all around. It has some neighborhoods of preserved private and merchant houses. Shrines and temples all around and beatyful coloured trees and leafes falling. We also saw a puppet show. These puppets are mechanical. They are contolled with ropes and they make funny movements. One of them even can write letters on a paper, and perform such kind of tasks.
Now we are back to the minshuku starting to think on dinner.

4/11 Hiroshima, Miyajima

In the morning we took the city tram to get to Miyajima-guchi, from where we ferried over to Miyajima, a island next to Hiroshima.
We saw the most famous gate in the sea, the old city, and many nice pagodas. A festival took place, where young and older danced and played music in the traditional manner.
After Miyajima we saw the rememberance Peace Park in Hiroshima, where the A-bomb dome stands.
In the evening we came back to Kyoto and did not miss the sushi of Tomi.

3/11 - Himeji - Hiroshima

We took the morning Shinkansen superexpress to Himeji. This half million citizen city has a wonderfull castel in it - the Himeji castel.
In its center stands a huge six stored pagoda, where we climed up. Around the castle we saw many beautiful houses belonging to the complex.
Nice gardens in between. We have entered one of them, the most beautiful japaneese garden we saw up until now. Small waterfalls, golden fishes, and bridges puzzeled the view.
In the evening we arrived at Hiroshima and made a short walk.

2/11 - Nara, Kyoto

We took the morning train to Nara, which used to be the capital of Nippon.
We visited two significant shrines and temples. In the Todayo-ji we saw the huge Buddha statue.
The garden of the other shrine included a three- and a five-stored pagoda.
We also saw the treasure house where about 1000 Buddha statues are exhibited.
The old city of Nara impressed both of us very much.
(private reminder: bockets of water in each house entrance)
In the evening we saw a traditional performance show in the Gion corner theater including tea-ceremony, puppet-show, flower arrangement, comic theater performance.
After this performance we went back to Tomi-sushi bar to eat dinner.
We met a very nice couple japaneese couple, who sat next to us. Both spoke very good English.
After a short conversation it turned out that the guy (Yoshi) manages the Kyoto center of IBM.
They thaught us the correct way of eating with chopsticks, to eat missu-soup at the end of the meal,
and also a little secret: no problem to eat sushi with our hands.
They have ordered for us special types of sushi, which do not appear on the English menu.
After the delicious dinner they have invited us to come with them to a pub. We accepted the invitation. We run to catch a taxi, which took us to a japaneese-western style
high-class pub. The house once belonged to artists, and later it was bought by someone who turned it to an exclusive pub.
Paitings on the walls, japaneese style doors and walls, but western-style bar.
The third place that evening was a traditional japaneese bar, where after leaving our shooes outside we entered a floor sitting private room. We talked a lot, and drunk excellent french wine called Ego.
Around midnight we said our goodbye to these very nice people. This evening was without doubt the most interesting evening of the tour up until now.

1/11 - Kyoto

We have visited the Imperial Palace in Kyoto; huge gardens, beautiful palace.
Afternoon: Kyoto National Museum. In the permanent exhibition we got a taste from the ancient japaneese culture, religion and tradition.
Evening walk in the wonderful neighborhood of Gion. Traditional old japaneese houses, small streets, and lots of restaurants and pubs all around. We ate dinner in a traditional japaneese restaurant, where we sat on the floor, and traditionally costumed waiters served us.

Some pictures -finally

Poor me... ;) Hakone - Fuji area:

Kyoto - traditional tea ceremony:

Gion - Kyoto:

Gion - Kyoto street:

Nara - old city:

Nara - Todayo-ji

Japaneese garden - Kyoto:

Fuji mountain area - from Hakone cablecar:

Imperial palace - Nikko:

Buddha statues - Nikko:

Nikko - bridge:

Ueno - Tokyo:

Ginza intersection - Tokyo:

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