Accentuate the negative

Last year marked the 400th anniversary of the completion of Kumamoto castle, and 2008 sees the opening of the ‘Lord’s Inner Palace’ (本丸御殿 - Hon Maru Goten), a “new face of the castle”.  It’s unfortunate then that this new face is so sour.

Billions of yen have been spent on the restoration of this new ‘wing’ of Kumamoto castle, and it was opened amid much fanfare at the beginning of Golden Week when the crowds were queuing for up to two hours to get in and have a peek.

A fair proportion of that money appears to have been spent on signs prohibiting visitors from doing much else other than looking and leaving.

Everywhere you turn there is a sign saying “DON’T…”  Perhaps one of the most interesting parts is the enormous kitchen with its high ceiling.  But visitors are permitted only a glimpse from one corner of the room, where there is a wooden fence preventing access, and if you didn’t get the point, red signs declaring “NO ADMITTANCE”.

When you can approach something, for instance where there are a few (very few, in honesty) informative displays detailing building methods or materials, across the front of all but one of the displays in large lettering is “DON’T TOUCH”.  To back up the signs, there is a team of men in blue commissionaire suits dotted around the place, ready to pounce on people, like me, who look like they might be about to touch something, and bark in not terribly polite terms, “Don’t touch that!”

Last is the nonsensical ban on photography.  And we’re not talking about flash photography, we’re talking any photographs whatsoever.  Throughout the building, and in every room, there are signs displaying a camera in the prohibitive red circle with a thick red line through it.  If you don’t get it, there’s text in Japanese, Korean and English making it clear “DON’T TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS”.  Some of the interior restoration is grand indeed.  To ban people from taking pictures of it is astonishing, unless the goal is to prevent people from sharing photos with their friends, who should instead visit (and more importantly, pay) themselves to see it, in which case it’s no longer astonishing, but extremely cynical.

(There are some ‘official’ photos available on the ‘Kumamoto Castle Official Site’.)

Aside from anything else, the photography ban is inconsistent with the rest of the Kumamoto castle site, where you have always been free to take photographs both outside and inside the other buildings.  Ask for an explanation of the ban, and unsurprisingly what you’ll get is not a clarification, just a repetition.  The Rules, as you should already know, are to be obeyed, not questioned.

The net effect of all this stern authority is to put a barrier between the visitor and the exhibit.  You are at once invited to interact with it, and at the same time prevented from doing so.  To underline this fact, just inside the entrance (before a succession of rooms that you’re prohibited from entering) is a room with a bank of computer screens where you can experience the Lord’s Inner Palace in - wait for it - virtual reality!  Yes, you’ve got off the sofa, made the journey to the castle, and then the closest you can get to see most of it is on a computer screen.

After the years of build-up, and the billions of yen spent on the new building, the experience of seeing it for the first time was a huge disappointment.  Aside from constantly being told what NOT to do, the visitor sees very little of what is an enormous building.  There appears to have been a confused vision as to what part this new face in the city should play.  The restoration team went to extraordinary lengths to recreate it as authentically as possible.  And while it’s open to the public, it appears to be begrudgingly so, lest the public sully the fine restoration work.  Whilst it’s beautiful, it’s worth remembering that it isn’t 400 years old, it’s less than a year old.  Nothing original or irreplaceable would be lost if people were allowed to fully appreciate it.

Monkey business

We don’t usually travel too much during Golden Week, but we hit the road this week (on a non-holiday) with a trip to Oita. Part of our trip was to Umitamago (lit. “sea egg” - it’s the name of the aquarium there). Pictures coming soon.

The latter half of the day was spent on the sunny slopes of Mount Takasaki, famous for its colony of 1500 monkeys. Tourists can venture as far as the old temple partway up the hill (monorail available for those who’ve already put in some hard tourist hours!).

The colony is actually split into three groups of roughly the same size, and the groups come down to the tourist accessible area (because it’s also their feeding area) at different times of the day, for a few hours.

And while there, they spend their time grooming, playing, and sleeping.

MORE pics from that trip available here.

What a dilemma

Yes, I got up at three thirty yesterday morning. It was pouring with rain, which continued throughout the day. Which was about right.

Many had said before the Champions League semi-final, “Would it be harsher to lose to Chelsea in the semi, or to Man Utd in the final?” Man Utd in the final, without a second thought. And that’s about the only vaguely positive-ish thought I can muster.

And what’s more, now I have to come to terms with the fact that either Chelsea or Man Utd are going to win the European Cup. Obviously I can’t support either of them. Or wish any goodwill on them whatsoever. I shall just have to hold on to the dream that it’ll be cancelled before the final gets played.

I can perhaps deal with Utd being European Champions, because I’ve dealt with it before. But Roman Abramovich will be dying to take his team home to Russia and beat the mighty Man Utd in front of his countrymen. And nobody really wants to see that.

Hanami of a different hue

If you thought that hanami season finished when the last of the cherry blossoms fell, think again.  Even though Japan’s most famous blossoms are gone for another year, there are still chances to enjoy a hanami picnic before the sultry heat of summer kicks in.

Following signs off the beaten track to the Hiyoshi shrine in Tamana, Kumamoto prefecture, we found the Yamada wisteria (山田藤).  The many vines, some of them reputedly over 200 years old, form a canopy over the shrine’s grounds - a pergola in purple.

Golden Week is a perfect time to see it, occuring as it does right around the start of wisteria’s flowering season, and I’d imagine that that has contributed to the Yamada wisteria’s huge popularity.

The lawns under the fragrant flowers were packed with picnicking folk, enjoying an al fresco lunch on blue sheets.

Prepare for petrol price perplexity

One thing that Japanese politicians are always hoping to avoid, but are always causing, is ‘confusion’. And with Golden Week and the end of April approaching, Japanese motorists are getting reading for some ‘major confusion’.

Except of course, there is no confusion in the literal sense. It’s an absolute certainty that petrol prices are going to go up. And by more than a little.

The government are working to reinstate the so-called temporary petrol tax that ‘ran out’ at the end of March, leading to a drop in pump prices of ¥20-25. If they succeed, it’s likely to be slapped back on at the beginning of May. The beginning of May also coincides with Golden Week, when Japan goes on holiday en masse, and traditionally gets shafted by a pre-Golden Week price hike at petrol stations anyway.

When the ¥25 tax was removed at the beginning of April, prices round here fell, at the very most, by ¥20, and consumers waited for 3-5 days to see the benefit, as retailers waited to ‘finish stocks of petrol bought at the higher, taxed price’. Even so, there were grumbles from petrol retailers about projected losses.

With the start of Golden Week, the Japanese consumer can expect to get a three-way shafting - the now traditional ¥4-5 Golden Week hike, the continuing rise of global crude prices, and the reinstatement of the tax.  And when the tax comes back, will it be (as cynics like me suspect) at a full ¥25 even at stations that only reduced prices by ¥20 or less? There’s potential for the added confusion of when retailers choose to readjust the tax/price - selling petrol that they bought at the lower price, will they maintain the lower price while they still have stock (just as they maintained the higher prices until they’d sold all their higher priced stock a month ago), or will that tax go back on the second it can?

Assorted media are mentioning prices of ¥160 or higher.  For comparison, my nearest petrol station is currently selling at ¥122, so we’re talking about a rise of over 30%.

Will all this be enough to enrage the traditionally docile Japanese consumer? The pre-Golden Week price hike is the most interesting part of the equation. Just as everyone prepares get in their cars and go off on holiday, the petrol prices are raised. Every year, like clockwork, the captive audience gets shafted. And does little more than quietly grumble, and acquiesce and pay up.  After all, what’s the alternative - vote for change, or something equally mad?

Why footballers shouldn’t be allowed to speak

What, really, is the point of the post-match interview, eh? Has anyone ever said anything enlightening? Surprising, even?

Take Frank Lampard, for instance. Now, he’s as gifted a public speaker as his cousin, Jamie “Frank’s a top, top player” Redknapp. It’s not entirely fair to mock either of them for that. But here’s honest Frank’s assessment of last night’s European Cup semi-final first leg at Anfield that finished 1-1.

I think we deserved definitely to get the draw at the end. They had chances and we had chances. It was a battle and we carried on to the end. This is not an easy place to come and we kept at it. We kept going, we created chances and we were persistent. There were times when they were on top and there were times when we were on top.

Pure poetry.

Confused Machimura ‘defends’ capital punishment

Whatever your views are on capital punishment, I would imagine they’re a little clearer than those of Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.

In a press conference yesterday, Machimura was asked “whether he thinks the execution of death row inmates, which totals 10 under Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, goes against international calls for a moratorium on executions.”

Machimura effectively pooh-poohed international influence and rolled out the “That is a domestic matter” excuse so beloved of Chinese policitians, saying it was “up to each country to decide on its capital punishment system based on domestic circumstances.”

But he went on to say (regarding the recent increase in judges handing down death sentences), ‘‘Atrocious crimes are increasing to a great extent and I believe the death penalty has the implication of serving as a kind of deterrent.’’

So… you’re saying,
death penalty = effective deterrent
AND
atrocious crimes = increasing sharply
are you?

Quick, call the Logic Ambulance, there’s been an accident!

Hanami; pt 2

I’d rather forgotten there was supposed to be a part two. But here it is. These pictures are from the town of Matsubase, south of Kumamoto, last Sunday as we basked in temperatures in the low 20s and the blossoms were out in full.

We spotted a few cherry trees on a hill nearby, and headed for it. A bendy road curved up the hill, lined all the way by pink blossoms, to a park at the top. Past a baseball ground, we found a playground that was surrounded by sakura.

So we sat on the bank for a while, watching the kids flitting from climbing frame to slide, and watching the bees flitting from flower to flower.

The “Videos on Flickr” debate

So Flickr proudly rolled out its new function yesterday - video capability.  So where did that come from?  And was there any demand for it?

I spend quite a lot of time reading comments and group discussions on Flickr, and don’t remember once reading anything that would suggest any demand for video.

I can look at a page of thumbnails and decide instantly if any are aesthetically pleasing and click on them.  With a video, you don’t know if it’s any good until you’ve watched the whole thing.  It’s not what I want from Flickr, or what I thought I was paying for, and I don’t want to get involved, but there currently isn’t any option to opt out.

Imagine you go to your favourite club, that plays your favourite kind of music, and is in your opinion the best such club out there.  You turn up one time, and suddenly the DJ’s started playing a completely different genre of music that you’ve no interest in, and can’t dance to.  And it’s not being played in another room, that you could simpy ignore.  It’s being played in between all the dance tunes.  The dancers would vote with their feet, and not in a good way.

Why would an enterprise want to dilute its prestige in such a way?  Why be willing to throw away what its paying users had created without any consultation or warning?

There are many things Flickr could’ve done to make improvements to the Flickr experience.  But adding video isn’t one of them.

So we’re off to Chelsea again

One of the advantages, if there can be said to be one, of nagging back pain, is that it makes it rather easier to drag yourself from what wasn’t a very restful slumber anyway just before 4 in the morning. Not much of an advantage at the best of times, I’ll grant you. But on European Cup nights, when 1945BST translates into 0345 my time, quite handy.

With Liverpool having met Arsenal twice already in the last 6 days, and playing out 1-1 draws that I could’ve and should’ve put a tenner on weeks ago, probably more than a few were expecting more of the same, particularly at half time, when the score was just that.

But four more goals in the second half, and one moment Liverpool were about to go through, then it was Arsenal, then seconds later Liverpool again.

By the end of it, I had the sort of headache you only get from forgetting to blink for 45 minutes. The cat, who normally enjoys these early morning parties, had long since departed in search of more restful company. And my bad back had cleared up a treat, too.