Plenty of time on my Japan visit to watch tv because of the too-hot-to-do-anything weather and it's reminded me how I'd love to read a comparative study on Japanese vs. English language tv. Commercials in any English speaking country I've been to more often than not show you a lifestyle and then associate their product with it. In Japan it so often seems like they concentrate on showing the product, and sometimes they don't even do that - just a bunch of kids in costumes (giant fruit or anthropomorphised characters) singing and dancing a jingle - very fast with usually with a a micro jingle at the end. In some ways if feels more wholesome or at least less cynical and insidious. Maybe it's related to how short the individual commercials are. Beer is advertised as a thirst quencher - always the actor drinking giant gulps at a time - the gulping sound itself seems vital, just as vital as the large head on the beer. Even whiskey is advertised with the gulping, refreshing sound, and by young women instead of grizzled old Hemminway types.

Summer holidays this year were a quick trip to Japan to show off the newest member of the family. The flight over was as trying as I'd feared - absolutely impossible to watch a movie or sleep when there's a crying child nearby, and especially when that crying child is yours. Air France didn't help though - rubbish service to go along with their rubbish food. The cold indifference of airport security staff was worse than all of them though. In Japan, despite being the so-called "rainy season" it was actually an even 35 degrees the entire time and really humid. The kind of weather where you just sit on the ground staring into space, sweating. It was too hot to do anything much other than loiter in convenience stores, abusing their air conditioning and looking for new exciting Pepsi flavours or Happoshu brands. I did get to have a look at the now tallest skyscraper in Japan (not including the sky tree) and had a quick trip to a Kyoto shrine, thankfully cool under the maple leaves).

For most of 2012 I was commuting to work into Waterloo station, apparently the busiest station in London (and busy enough during rush hour, making that the busiest station in the UK. And that should be pretty busy, given how packed the train and tube network are. So it was pretty revealing to see that there was no UK station in this list of top 51 busiest train stations in the world. As an example, somewhere I'm more than familiar with, Osaka Umeda, gets an annual 820,000,000 passengers per year and it's 4th on the list. First of all, holy crap that's a huge number of people. But compare that with the comparatively puny 82,000,000 per year in Waterloo (according to the Transport for London website). Even my old commuting spot of Sannomiya in Kobe (a city less that a quarter of the size of London) is high on the list at 16 with 240,000,000. It really goes to show how the Japanese train network is on a whole other level to that of practically anywhere in Europe. The highest ranking station in Europe is Paris Gare-du-Nord at 190,000,000. And all but six of the stations on the list are in Japan - number one is Shinjuku, Tokyo with a whopping 1.2 billion passengers a year. Link via Digg.com Update: So there was a further post here with a full list of the busiest 100 stations and Waterloo makes it in at 91. 91!

While we were in Japan before Christmas we took the chance to buy a couple of slightly higher quality items (well at least more than 100yen) that usually we don't have the chance to buy. In a narrow old shopping arcade near Namba, Doguya-suji, full of shops selling restaurant and kitchen equipment, we bought a traditional Santoku hōchō (3 uses) knife made in Sakai city. This city (now swallowed up by Osaka proper) was famous for samurai swords back in the day (that day being 500 years ago) and famous now for kitchen knives more than anything else. Anyway, a local knife here would be better than any heavy and expensive block of knives from elsewhere. And really, why do you need lots of kitchen knives when one sharp one will do the trick. It's really light and super sharp (though I haven't tried dropping a hair onto it to see if it splits in two) and I've accidentally cut up sponges just by trying to wash it. Unfortunately even after little usage now it's covered in stains thanks to the British hard water.

We've arrived in Japan in time for a spot of Koyo, when all the Japanese maples turn every shade of red and people go to view them as a national past time. Like its springtime counterpart for cherry blossoms, it can get pretty crowed. Especially on this public holiday, when everyone seemed to have the same idea as us to go to Arashiyama in Kyoto. On another weekend in Kyoto with some friends we did a spot more, going up into the hills behind the city to Kurama. It also afforded us a proper look around that I never really got before. With its universities and tourist attractions it's immediately a more accessible feeling city and also fairly flat, making it easy on the foot or bicycle. Though it looks from a distance as oppressively concrete encased as any other Japanese city, there are tonnes of tiny out of the way places that make up for it, and you could spend all day just taking photos of evocative restaurant entrances.

Ah, Japan in winter - that heady aroma of a million bakeries and udon noodles on the air. This time I'm here slightly earlier in the year, early enough to see the maple leaves change colour and early enough not toast my legs under a kotatsu while the rest of my body freezes. Of course I've also arrived months after one of the strongest earthquakes in Japanese history, and with the nuclear situation in Fukushima, posters are everywhere encouraging people to save electricity. But despite huge natural disasters and next to no economic growth, there's still stuff going on. Since being here last time the huge train station complex of JR Osaka in Umeda has had what looks like an airline terminal built on top of it. I went out to to Den-den down to see all second had video games and music shops and still busy game arcades with huge Gundam pods to step into and strange multi player online games with cards. There was even Christmas Gundam.. I went out to my old neighbourhood in Kobe of course to see what else had changed - plenty of places closed down, new towers in their place, and Harbourland looking pretty empty. Just as in Sydney at this time of year, Christmas lights were up everywhere but the background music featured many more explicitly Christian Christmas songs, presumably because no one listening can understand the lyrics. I've made sure to enjoy some proper ramen and also tried some cheap (but by far the highest quality I've had in ages) conveyor belt sushi, ordered from touch screen tv's at our table. The coffee is crap, but you can sit down in a big comfy chair in a chain cafe and fall asleep for a few hours without looking out of place!

The phone that this commercial is advertising is a lot less impressive looking than the commercial itself (wooden phone, really?) Managing to chain together hundreds of wooden steps to play classical music is quite impressive. Reminds me slightly of the Rube Goldberg style Honda commercial from a few years ago. Timing the fall of the ball to the notes in the music its not bad, not bad at all. via Tokyomango

I'm not really sure I believe what I'm seeing in this video. Because it really does just look like a piece of plastic pushing against a spill. And I can't figure out how the hell its picking everything up! Maybe it has more to do with the surface it's on. I'd like to see it work its magic on a carpet.. via pinktentacle

There are some amazing photos and footage to have come out of Japan since the earthquake/tsunami. That's probably the main difference between this disaster and previous ones like the Asian 2004 tsunami - the amount of video take while it was occurring, particularly all those live shots taken from helicopters as the waves crashed in. Then all the videos taken by local news crew or crazy video camera owners who watched as the waves swamped around their feet. That photo shows a house having floated out to sea.. The level of destruction to north-east Japan means the blanket coverage of the Nuclear power plant is something of a distraction (at least at the moment). But what hasn't been mentioned so much in relation to the power plants is the huge strain on Japan's power generating capacity that this disaster has caused. Spike Japan gives a great run down of the implications - the prospect of continuous power cuts throughout Japan's main island for years to come.

Sydney seems to be one of the locations for the official FIFA outdoor big screens thingy to watch the world cup. We went down there on Saturday night to watch Japan v. Netherlands in the bitter (by Sydney standards) cold. Unfortunately, the Japanese just don't do crazy in terms of football fans, but at least there were a few Dutch who put in the effort. The place filled up quickly but I think it was mostly Aussies getting in early for the 4am game between Australia and Ghana.

Took the chance to visit my old neighbourhood today. Mostly the same but the Korean International goodwill centre had been replaced by an apartment building and there was a Ramen place that I remembered opening next to my old apartment had also just shut down. Seeing As I'd missed out on viewing the huge Gundam statue in Tokyo, the next best thing was to visit the giant statue of Tetsujin 28 Go..aka Gigantor..in Kobe. The original animator was from here and by the looks of things it's been put up in one of the most earthquake devastated areas of the city as part of a regeneration project. And in order to promote the whole thing subway trains and vending machines and plenty of other places have gigantor crap plastered all over them.

On our last day in Tokyo we went we went looking for a particular Izakaya that I'd seen recommended. It was a perfect lesson in the strange way Japanese addresses are constructed. We only had the address which I'd quickly jotted down in very bad Japanese and we didn't have a chance to find a map on the internet in the hotel thanks to its expense. Wikipedia gives a fuller explanation but suffice it to say that it's more or less described using smaller and smaller boxes, starting from the Prefecture name down. Street names are rarely used and you're lucky if you have a building number. We had a small Shibuya area tourist map and the address, trying to use landmarks like department stores and train stations to find our way. It was freezing cold and after about 20 minutes we were ready to completely give up when we amazingly stumbled upon the basement entrance down one of a million side streets, under a million neon signs, all with guys outside holding menus. The place was pretty cool, even though most of the staff looked like they were young enough to still be in school. And they even gave us a free souvenir when we left. The next day we got the Shinkansen to Osaka and were to pass by Mt. Fuji during a clear winter afternoon. We got a great view from the train. Osaka was almost how I remembered it - except a whole load of buildings had been torn down and rebuilt, perhaps twice.

Our one day trip while in Tokyo was to Kamakura, a town famous for its giant bronze Buddha, which I'd never managed to visit despite it being one of the biggest tourist draws in Japan (excluding Disneyland obviously). It was an hour on a local suburban train from Tokyo. At least a suburban train by Japanese standards - it stopped only a few times to drop off commuters and sped through to Yokohama at break neck speed. As well as being famous for its giant Buddha, it was also the capital of Japan at one stage and is full of enough temples and shrines to reflect its heritage. Thanks to the power of the intertubes we knew in advance which one to visit, complete which atmospheric bamboo garden.. We also had lunch at a BBQ eel place which was pretty tasty..

Today we did a shuttlestop tour around Shinjuku, Shibuya and Odaiba and saw Tokyo Tower up close for the first time. We've voluntarily given ourselves a tight budget, meaning every meal we've had so far has been eaten alongside all the dour and over-burdened "salarymen" in train station basements. That sounds worse than it is though - train station vending machine places are cheap and very cheerful, even if by the end of the day my lips felt like I'd swallowed a weeks worth of salt. Every train we took everywhere was busy, at all times of the day. The train at 11.30 tonight was full of people who were just leaving work - or at least work drinks. We popped into a Big Camera electronics shop to eye up all the super flat, high resolution screened (and now solar powered) mobile phones. Surprised at how many iPhones i saw on the trains. I saw less half a dozen foreign faces like my own for the whole day. In the evening we went to see the Christmas/Winter lights in Roppongi and Tokyo Midtown. Christmas may not mean much here, but they certainly know how to put on a light display. Its hard to explain to someone back home what the point of Christmas here is though. There's Christmas music playing everywhere, there's Christmas lights up in a lot of places - and in most cases a lot nicer than back home - but that's about the extent of it. And its a couples thing rather than having any family focus. We went to the observation deck on top of Mori tower which offered a very nice (and very expensive) view of the Tokyo skyline.

Well we're back in Tokyo. My first time here in five years. We landed late at Narita airport and it took over an hour on the express train to the city so we didn't actually get to collapse into our hotel until pretty late. Yet despite dragging our suitcases through the cold to the hotel (being in Sydney I'd almost forgot what real winter was) before the day was up I'd bought myself a weird Japanese Pepsi, ate a pork rice bowl at a fast food counter place (while the surrounding Japanese gave me double-takes every time they noticed the foreigner sitting on a neighbouring stool) and bought a few convenience store onigiri. The hotel we're staying at is this huge wonderfully dated place - fit for a James bond villian perhaps. Outside each room is a personal metal gate, painted cream to match the fading floral walls. Inside there's a cheesy Chandelier, blindingly patterned wallpaper and curtains, and wafer thin walls.

Ignore that Japanese commentary and just look at the video. This is a guy jumping off a 10 metre tower and landing in an inflatable pool with 30mm of water. Say hello to Professor Spash: I particularly like the multiple replay effect, reminds me of those old Van Damme movies.. via Kirainet.com

Very cool tilt-shift style video of Tokyo .. .. which is surprisingly not connected to this Uniqlo calendar website thingy: via tokyomango.com

Celebrity tv talent/boy band member found in park, naked and drunk!! That piece of scandal might get someone plastered on the front of some tabloid newspapers in the UK or Ireland and, depending on the celebrity, either increased popularity or increased hounding. But why waste a golden opportunity like that! In Japan they give this kind of story a full and thorough sober analysis, complete with wall map, scale model of the scene and earnest expert. Pool ol' Kusanagi-kun, he's in so many commercials and tv shows that they've now had to cancel, the channels are in danger of running out of things to show.. via japanprobe

We had a very special guest star staying with us last week...an honoured Japanese dignitary, Mrs. Okaasan. And as ambassadors for our adopted land we showed her most of Sydney's sights, took in some nice restaurants with harbour views, and nearly got attacked by a huge group of cockatoo's in the park. One of restaurants we went to was the really nice Taiwanese dumpling chain Din Tai Fung. We'd gone there once before and this time, on a Sunday afternoon, it was just as busy as before. You can see all the chefs making the dumplings in a glass enclosed kitchen and the dumplings, and the xiaolongbao were delish..

Interesting Japanese government video via Pruned describing the future of food in Japan and what people should be thinking about. I'm not really sure the solution is for Japan to eat more fish, but its still pretty cool. Judging by the animation in the video, it looks like it was done by the same crowd who did the Royksopp video and that Areva energy commercial.