The World is Talking About…

On Vox: Tokyo Design Week - Extraordinary Subway Map

I just got back from the 100% Design Tokyo 2008 show, which I go to every year. This is an exhibition set up inside Meiji Jingu park showcasing the innovative design work of professionals and students in the fields of...

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Gridskipper: Under Tokyo

Oh, this one I know:

Under Tokyo

I'm sure the last thing you'll want to see during your travels is a city's sewer system -- in fact, the less we know about what happens in the dark and wet, the better. But browsing through the this gallery of shots from Tokyo's underground, I think you'll agree there's something pretty interesting going on down there. Looking like a cross between Japanese anime and one of Ken Adam's classic set pieces for the James Bond films, I'm surprised they don't offer tours. Then again, since photos don't transmit smell, maybe there is a reason.

UPDATE: Actually, they do offer tours.

The correspondent gets a big part of it wrong: it's NOT a sewer, it's a flood-control project, with the unlikely English-language monicker of "G-Cans Project". As such, the only smell on offer, I'm sure, is possibly that of cold damp concrete.

It's even been featured in a Land Rover TV commercial (requires Flash: click on "Range Rover Sport" when the page loads to see the Tokyo section) and print ad. And despite what's shown in the commercial, it's actually way up in the northern outskirts of Tokyo (actually, in Saitama prefecture), and nowhere near Shinjuku (where the commercial begins) or Yokohama (where it ends).

Tours are possible, it appears, but since they're conducted only in Japanese, they require you to bring someone to act as a translator (my guess is that they're worried about foreign visitors not understanding the safety rules). If you speak Japanese or know someone who does, call them at 048-747-0281 to make arrangements, which is something I ought to be doing myself someday.

Access from Tokyo:

The nearest train station seems to be Minami-Sakurai station on the Tobu Noda line, and there are a variety of ways to get there:

Method 1: From Tokyo Station, go to platform 3 and catch the Keihin-Tohoku line north to Omiya (25 minutes away). Transfer to the Tobu Noda line eastbound towards Kasukabe, Kashiwa, or Funabashi, and get off at Minami-Sakurai station (11 stations, 28 minutes away). Don't know what the bus lines are, so it's probably simplest to take a taxi from the station rather than walk for 2 kilometers.

Method 2: From Tokyo Station, go to platform 3 or 4 and catch either the Keihin-Tohoku or Yamanote line north to Akihabara (2 stops, 3 minutes). Exit and transfer to the Hibiya subway line going towards Kita-Senju station (6 stations, 12 minutes). Depending on the train you're on, either transfer at Kita-Senju station (if the train terminates there) or simply stay on it (if it continues) to the Tōbu Isesaki Line to Kasukabe (6-19 stations, depending on whether it's a local or express, about 28 minutes). Transfer at Kasukabe to the Tobu Noda line eastbound towards Kashiwa or Funabashi, and get off at Minami-Sakurai station (2 stops, 7 minutes away). Take a taxi.

Method 3: Use this website to figure whichever route works for you to reach Minami-Sakurai station. There, take a taxi.

Map Legend:

南桜井 = Minami-Sakurai station
春日部市= Kasukabe, the name of the city
首都圏外郭放水路 = Official Japanese name for the project

Annotating Gridskipper

Gridskipper.com looks like a very interesting travel site, one which stresses style, design, and good food , but in an accessible, non-snobby way. Its postings includes handy embedded Google Maps, allowing you to see exactly where the places it talks about are.

Well, not exactly.

For its Tokyo entries -- a city where most of the streets don't have names and business cards include maps -- Gridskipper falls down completely. Here, maps are practically mandatory, since the street address system is more of a co-ordinate system, and giving the English names isn't much help when the local street maps are written in kanji. A determined person can eventually ferret out where places are -- phone numbers, being the same in English or Japanese, are a great help -- put someone there needs to get on the ball there.

So hence this experiment. I'm going to try to make some maps myself. The one on the right is for a recent item:

Coffee Saloon Kimoto

This morning I went to quite possibly the smallest cafe I've ever seen. Coffee Saloon Kimoto (1-5-1 Yakumo, 03-3717-5687 -- it's just a few minutes walk from Toritsu Daigaku station on the Toyoko line) takes its tiny triangle shape from the its allotted land plot, which was quite literally crammed between two neighboring buildings.

Featured in Japanese architectural firm Atelier Bow-Wow's book it's a perfect example of urban development contributing to the creation of unusual spaces. Coffee Saloon Kimoto is even more than just an instance of innovative architecture, it's a cozy little cafe. And I mean really small -- barely larger than the typical American bathroom -- but it will put a smile on your face as you walk in and are greeted by the owner, Mr. Kimoto, and his wife, and take one of the seven available seats.

Map Legend

都立大学 = Toritsudaigaku station
八雲１丁目５−１= 1-5-1 Yakumo, the address
東急東横線 = Toyoko Line, from Shibuya (渋谷), six stops out and between Gakugeidaigaku and Jiyūgaoka stations.

See the USA...

Inspired by this story on the radio program Weekend America and memories of childhood family road trips in the family station wagon, I thought to myself, what US state parks would you want to spend your family summer vacations at?:

• Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky:
  • Located in in Boone County, on Beaver Road between the communities of Beaverlick and Rabbit Hash. The park's name is a translation of the original Shawnee Indian name, referring to the salt licks which drew mammoths, mastodons, musk oxen, giant sloths, and other Ice Age mammals whose bones were found here. Though the bones that paleontologists and fossil hunters found of the dead giant mammals have been carted off to museums and collectors, you can still find the not-dead-yet mammals of the park's buffalo herd. Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Double Trouble State Park, New Jersey:
  • Located in Ocean County and once the company town for the Double Trouble Company (which produced timber and cranberries), this park is part of New Jersey's Pine Barrens, and features a historic village and sawmill. The name probably comes from the park's dam, after spring rains washed it out twice in one season, or, according the the New Jersey Parks and Forestry Division, may have involved "local muskrats that persisted in gnawing at the dam, which caused frequent leaks. Such leaks gave rise to the alarm 'Here's trouble', upon which workmen would rush to repair the leak. One day two breaks were discovered and one worker overheard the shout 'Here's double trouble'." Whatever the reason, when you please don't cause any, well, you know... Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Gay City State Park, Connecticut:
  • Located in central Connecticut, the 1500-acre (600-ha) park is on the site of the milltown of Gay City, defunct since the Civil War. The original name came from the religious sect that founded the community in 1796. To quote the official website, "The Gays soon comprised the majority of the 25 or more families who then lived in the community. The residents kept strictly to themselves, existing as distinctly separate from the neighboring communities." Nothing remains of the town but building foundations, so modern visitors' gay old time can be had by picnicking, fishing, hiking, and swimming. Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Ha Ha Tonka State Park, Missouri:
  • Located in the rugged hills south of Lake of the Ozarks in Camden County, near such central Missouri communities as Roach, Knobby, Passover, Climax Springs, Wet Glaize, and Hurricane Deck, this park features 15 miles (24 km) of hiking trails, sinkholes, caves, and the ruins of a 4-story turn-of-the-20th century stone mansion sitting atop a 250-foot (80-meter) bluff. The name "Ha Ha Tonka" allegedly comes from the Osage Indian for "Laughing Waters" -- though for all I know that actually translates as "Laughable Toy Truck". Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Hungry Mother State Park, Virginia:
  • This CCC park in southwestern Smyth County offers swimming, camping, cabin rentals, boat rentals, hiking, and -- thank goodness -- a restaurant. A name derived from an anti-Indian legend, wherein supposedly the sole survivor of an Indian massacre, a very small child, was found here, uttering the only words the child could utter Of course, nothing I found could even name the GENDER of said child, so believe it if you will. Also the home of a conference site called Hemlock Haven, which is probably best avoided as bookings for meetings of Greek philosophers.  Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah:
  • Yes, it IS a colorful place in southern Kane County, just east of Bryce Canyon National Park, with 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) of canyons and sandstone chimneys, and no, it's not a modern bit of product placement since a) it was named in 1948 by the National Geographic Society, a heavy customer of the product in question; and b) who uses Kodachrome film these days, anyways? (Well, okay, I do and the National Geographic Society probably does, but then, we're old-fashioned). At least it hasn't yet led to more corporate or vanity park namings.  Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Donald J. Trump State Park, New York:
  • Whoops, spoke too soon. Two parcels totaling 436 acres (176 ha) in the tony 'burbs of New York, comprising land donated last year by some New York City businessman whose name escapes me for the moment. No official website, no facilities, not even any gold-plated Port-a-Potties: all there is at the moment are large signs in front and out at the exits on the Taconic State Parkway trumpeting the "park". - Complaints about the "park" - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Possum Kingdom State Park, Texas:
  • West of Dallas/Fort Worth and on the shores of Possum Kingdom Reservoir, created in 1941 and whose flooding of the Possum Kingdom no doubt ended the world-threatening ambitions of the imperialistic dead-playing marsupials. Activities include camping, picnicking, hiking, biking, nature study, boating, lake swimming, fishing, and water skiing over the drowned opossum civilization. Despite the reservoir having "the clearest, bluest water in the southwest", you can't drink the water in the park, no doubt due to all the dead opossums in it. Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

• Roman Nose Resort Park, Oklahoma:
  • Formerly a Cheyenne winter campground, this state resort is named after a Cheyenne warrior who fought against the white settlers and was killed in 1868. Now visitors can honor his memory at the 650-acre (263-ha) park with activities such as camping, canoeing, horseback riding -- and golfing at the attached 18-hole golf course (par 70, and watch out for the sixth hole). Sure, Roman Nose may have been a brave and fierce warrior, but what kind of handicap did he have, hmm? Official site - Google Maps.

• Worlds End State Park, Pennsylvania:
  
  • When you really have to get away from it all, going about as far away as you can get -- at least according to the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I thought you'd have to go to all the way to China -- or at least Texas -- to do that. This 780-acre (315-ha) slice of the end of the world doesn't have a lookout into The Abyss as you might expect, but does have hiking, sightseeing, and camping. Official site - Wikipedia article - Google Maps.

Brazil and Israel are Talking About...Baseball

Today's sporting news: Baseball isn't just played in North America, Central America, and Japan, though it's received slightly different receptions in other places:

America’s Pastime Is Only a Blip in Soccer-Crazed Brazil

North American sport by way of Japan

By Larry Rohter, New York Times

Ibiúna , São Paulo, Brazil - Baseball and Brazil? That combination is evoked about as often as the Yankees and the samba.

But, yes, Brazil does have a national amateur team, and at its training center here, the squad has been preparing for months for the Pan American Games, which open July 13 in Rio de Janeiro. The team’s hope is that a strong performance in the competition, a sort of Olympics of the Americas, can help put baseball on the map in a country where the most popular sports are soccer, soccer and more soccer.

“This is a rare opportunity for us and our sport, and we want to make sure we take as much advantage of it as we possibly can,” said infielder Ronaldo Ono, 33, the team captain. “It’s a great responsibility playing at home, and that’s what motivates us. We want to win and attract Brazil’s attention, and we think we can. We respect the other teams, but we fear none.”

Though virtually ignored in the news media here, the Brazilian team has shown improvement in recent years. After failing to qualify for the 1995 Games, it finished eighth in 1999 and fifth in 2003, and in other recent tournaments has presented surprisingly strong challenges to Cuba, losing once by one run, and to Puerto Rico, losing a game in the 18th inning.

“Brazilians like rooting for their fellow countrymen, so once we get a Brazilian playing in Major League Baseball, that will help popularize the sport,” said Everaldo Marques, one of the broadcasters for the Brazilian feed of ESPN’s Sunday night game of the week. “Just look what happened with tennis when Gustavo Kuerten was doing well, or with the N.B.A. when Brazilian players like Anderson Varejão, Nenê Hilário and Leandro Barbosa showed up.”

Read more...

And a doubleheader from the Middle East:

Hits and Hot Dogs Under a Lox-Colored Sky

Three hours at a professional Israeli baseball game

By Scott Wilson, Washington Post

Petah Tikva, Israel - "Ladies and gentlemen," the voice over the portable speakers intoned, "please rise for the singing of 'Hatikva.' " About 75 people stood up from plank-board bleachers as Israel's national anthem filled the twilight. Only a few sang the Hebrew words, though, because only a few knew the language.

Minutes later, members of the Raanana Express -- in Oakland A's green and yellow -- sprinted onto their home turf of Yarkon Field. A cheer rippled through the rooting section of American moms and dads here for the summer to watch their sons play in the inaugural 45-game season of Israel's professional baseball league. It was just before 7 p.m.

Over the next three hours on a balmy Mediterranean evening, a crowd of U.S. transplants, Israeli natives, Russian immigrants and proud visiting parents-cum-tourists watched a drama of exported Americana.

Read more...

Baseball Makes Game Try in Israel

Most of the fans are transplanted Americans

By John Murphy, Baltimore Sun

Petah Tikva, Israel -  In this land that is holy for Jews, Muslims and Christians, Benjamin Engelhart is hoping to find believers in America's favorite pastime: baseball.

The 26-year-old switch-hitter from Silver Spring took to the field last month to play in Israel's first professional baseball league

A bold new experiment to export hardball to the United States' closest Middle East ally, the Israel Baseball League is the latest evidence of the steady Americanization of the Jewish state.

But many here wonder whether the often slow-moving game with a complex, almost Talmudic set of rules will gain followers in a country raised on soccer and basketball. Most Israelis would likely have trouble finding first base, let alone know whether a ball is foul or fair.

Read more...

Basra is Talking About...Man-eating Badgers

British blamed for Basra badgers

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area," says UK military

From BBC News

Basra, Iraq - British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.

Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area. We have been told these are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless cornered."

Read more...

Havana is Talking About...TV

Cubans Risk Raids to Get Satellite TV

Police in Havana to close these illegal windows on the world.

By Eloise Quintanilla, Christian Science Monitor

Havana,  Cuba - Before the police raid, the Perez family paid $7.56 per month for a DirecTV window on the world.

Daniel, a literature major at the University of Havana, watched the Chicago White Sox on ESPN. His mom, Marisel, never missed an episode of "La Fea Más Bella" (The Prettiest Ugly Girl), a popular Mexican soap opera on Univision. And Daniel's younger brother was an avid fan of the VH1 music videos.

Now, they are stuck with four Cuban TV channels – and two of those are devoted to educational programming.

"Cuban TV is boring.... There isn't much variation," says Daniel Perez (who fears arrest, so asked that his family's real name be changed). "I like being in the loop, knowing about the newest trends and feeling like I'm in touch with the world."

Having a satellite TV, cellphone, or Internet connection at home is illegal for most Cuban citizens. But that hasn't stopped the spread of such services on the black market.

Read more...

Books about Cuba on my shelf:

• Blue Cuban Nights by Ted Ferguson (2002)
• Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba by Christopher P. Baker (2001)
• Traveling on the Edge: Journeys in the Footsteps of Graham Greene by Julia Llewellyn Smith (2001)
• Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend by Patrick Symmes (2000)

Moscow is Talking About...Gay Rights

Clash of Cultures at a Square in Moscow

Gay rights advocates versus Orthodox Christians in the New Moscow

By Michael Schwirtz and Joshua Yaffa, New York Times

Moscow,  Russia - They came, they said, to clean the square. Every evening for several weeks, a dozen or so Orthodox Christian youths gathered at a chapel monument in a central Moscow park around seven o’clock in the evening, roping off a perimeter and shooing away the people chatting and drinking beer on the chapel steps.

The youths—who call themselves the Georgiyevtsy, after St. George, the patron saint of Moscow — said they were trying to chase away the gay men who cruise the area to meet friends and look for sex.

“They are gathering around a holy place, and engaging in very shocking activities, kissing, and not only,” said Diana Romanovskaya, a 19-year-old organizer of the youth patrol, who said she and others were inspired after advocates for gay issues attempted a demonstration in Moscow in May.

The nascent signs of gay activism in Russia — including protests and an increasing presence on the Internet — have produced a social and political reaction, encouraged by prominent political leaders like Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov

The patrol around the chapel, which also serves as a memorial to soldiers killed in the 19th-century war between Russia and Turkey, has also attracted members of various nationalist groups, who have melded the antigay demonstration with their own battle against migrants from the Caucasus, who, they claim, similarly threaten Russia’s traditions and culture.

Read more...

Books about Russia on my shelf:

• Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (2005)
• Metro Stop Dostoevsky: Travels in Russian Time by Ingrid Bengis (2003)
• Open Lands: Travels Through Russia's Once Forbidden Places by Mark Taplin (1999)
• The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz (1955)
• A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck and Robert Capa (1948)

 

Kazakhstan is Talking About...the Return of the Sea

Aral Sea's Return Revives Withered Villages

Dam Begins to Diminish Ecological Disaster of Soviet-Era Irrigation

By Peter Finn, Washington Post Foreign Service

Tastupek, Kazakhstan - In the cool of one recent evening, after tending to his herd of 19 camels, Puzblay Seytpembetov and four companions pushed his small single-engine boat out onto the placid waters of the Aral Sea to lay fishnets. In the morning, he predicted, he would haul in flapping carp and pikeperch.

It is a daily task that until recently had seemed forever lost to the folly of humankind.

The Aral Sea, its sustaining rivers diverted to the irrigation of cotton fields, was for decades on an irrevocable course to death and desert. One of the 20th century's worst ecological disasters consumed more than half the sea's surface area and three-quarters of its volume, creating 13,000 square miles of dried-up wasteland. The shriveling sea bequeathed poisonous sandstorms, chronic health problems, dead fishing grounds and unemployment to this part of southern Kazakhstan.

But now the sea, or at least a rump part of it, is coming back, retracing its destructive retreat and offering villagers such as Seytpembetov nothing less than renewed life.

"It's good to be back on the water. I'm happy for that," said the weather-beaten fisherman, who turned to camel herding when the shoreline withdrew. "I'm happy for that. But it's not the sea it used to be. That's the truth."

Read more...

Zouerate is Talking About...Train travel

Note: Author and travel show presenter Michael Palin rides this train in his TV series and book, Sahara.

Tough Commute on a Train Not Meant for People

Sahara ride rough, but everyone gets window seat

By Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times

Nouadhibou, Mauritania - One might ask why any sane person would ride 419 miles through the Sahara in a railroad hopper, scorched by a blazing sun, surrounded by goats, fated to pass 17 hours watching desperate companions relieve themselves over the side of the car.

For one, it is free. And two, it is virtually the only way to get to Zouerate.

“Take a car and try to drive, you will be scared to death,” said Mohamed Vall Ould Cheikh, who has been hopping the train for 12 years. “You will be driving in the middle of nowhere, no road, no water and no restaurant. If your car breaks down, you are dead.”

One might also ask why any sane person would go to Zouerate (pronounced zoo-WARE-ate), a spot in remote northwest Mauritania whose only feature is a gargantuan open-pit hematite mine. Yet on any given day in Nouadhibou (pronounced noh-AH-dee-boo), a rough-hewn town of 90,000 on the shores of the luminescent green Atlantic, maybe 100 people are bound and determined to make it to Zouerate — or at least to Choum, a dusty outpost of 5,000 about two-thirds of the way.

Nouadhibou is the western terminus for one of the world’s longest, heaviest trains, a 220-car, mile-and-a-half colossus that ferries iron ore from Zouerate to ships waiting in Nouadhibou’s cluttered harbor. It is not meant for passengers, although it pulls one or two token, ramshackle passenger cars at the end.

But for Mauritanians, who have to get from one place to another in northern Mauritania without paved roads or planes, the train is the closest facsimile to a mass transit system, even if most of what passes for seating is in 10-foot high, open-air iron hoppers.

Read more, with picture gallery

Alberta is Talking About...Oil

Black Gold's Tarnish Seen in Canada

Cash and jobs flow bountifully from Alberta's oil sands, but they come at a cost to the environment and native peoples.

By Tim Reiterman, Los Angeles Times

Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada - The Aurora Mine exudes the odor of petroleum and the look of untapped riches.

The open pit mine plunges 250 feet deep and ranges over a couple of square miles, carved out of pine and spruce forest by gigantic machines that operate 24/7, even in the dark of winter at 40 below zero

This is the heart of Alberta's oil sands, a remote Florida-sized region where moose, bears and beavers inhabit watery woodlands atop the world's largest proven petroleum reserves outside Saudi Arabia.

Almost half of Canada's oil production comes from the oil sands — and the energy industry estimates that enough oil can be economically extracted to fill the country's needs for three centuries.

The benefits may be great, but the toll on other natural resources is also enormous.

With development expected to triple, or even quintuple, in the next few decades, producers and government officials puzzle over how to harness the oil sands' potential with less cost to the climate, land, water and the well-being of native peoples who fear that cancer cases in a downstream community may be a sign of lethal industrial pollution.

Read more...

La Viñuela is Talking About...Blind Dates

Cupid's arrow hits Spain's heartland

62 City Women Agree: The Farmer Needs a Wife

By Victoria Burnett, New York Times

La Viñuela, Málaga, Spain - Ramón Sánchez is not a great believer in the powers of Cupid. But when Mr. Sánchez, a wiry 54-year-old bachelor, heard that dozens of women would be coming to this quiet village for a blind date with the local men, he happily signed up.

Mr. Sánchez, who lives 13 miles out of town on a farm with no telephone and with only sheep and cattle for company, said he had come along in the hope of meeting somebody with whom he could spend his old age.

“It would be nice to have a woman to share things with,” he said, his dark skin polished by wind and sun. “Really, what I want is someone to take care of the house. Not so much me. I’ve been doing that all my life.”

At lunchtime on a recent Saturday, Mr. Sánchez stood with a throng of single men and other villagers awaiting a bus that would bring 62 women from Madrid for an evening of dinner, dancing and — all involved hoped — a little romance.

A migration of young people from rural areas to cities in the 1960s and 1970s led to a scarcity of potential spouses for the men — now middle aged — who stayed behind to farm in Spain’s rural areas, several villagers said. Women, drawn to the cities by the lure of nonagricultural jobs, left in larger numbers than the men...

Read more...

Books about Spain on my shelf:

• Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain by Chris Stewart (1999)
• Spanish Lessons: Beginning a New Life in Spain by Derek Lambert (2000)

 

On Vox: Hey, Caryn, it's the one with the dome...

This morning's International Herald Tribune had an article by Caryn James from the New York Times, "Willis is back, fighting terror of a great cyber disconnect", with the following sentence:Yet amid all that havoc in Live Free or Die Hard,...

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Uganda is Talking About...Trash

Why Uganda Hates The Plastic Bag

Uganda joins the growing number of East African countries which have banned the plastic bag in an attempt to clean up cities and prevent environmental damage including blocked drains.

By Mark Whitaker, BBC News

Kampala, Uganda - efore your eyes become accustomed to the sight and the stench, the Chitezi municipal dump - which serves the Ugandan capital, Kampala - is like a scene from a painting by Bosch, a premonition of the Apocalypse, or a vision of Hell.

High in the sky, great birds wheel around on the thermals. At first glance, they look like giant vultures, casting ominous shadows on the ragged human scavengers strewn around below.

But as they touch down on the grey, stinking moonscape, they seem to take on a ghastly sub-human form themselves. Like cowled priests bent over the rotting piles.

With their moth-eaten plumage, grotesque "alopecia-ed" heads, and sinister reptilian eyes, these are Africa's nightmare birds - marabou storks - fencing with their murderous bills over the carcass of a plastic sack they have ripped apart.

Flocking here in their hundreds, the ravenous birds are making a feast of Kampala's refuse, squabbling with their human competitors over the richest pickings.

Read more...