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One of the oldest, if not the oldest, structure in Tokyo, Gokokuji was one of not many buildings that made it through World War II. Gokokuji was built more than 330 years ago.
If you happen to be in Tokyo in the near future, they have a flower festival at Gokokuji on the first or second Sunday of April.
I’m not a conspiracy theory type of guy, but CNN continues to do things that seem more than a little odd. From the outset of their coverage on Japan’s nuclear situation they have been exceedingly alarmist as I have mentioned before. Immediately after their gloom and doom predictions of nuclear holocaust, Fukushima being worse than Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, yada, yada, yada, they would feature ads for “America’s Natural Gas Alliance.” The ads talked about how clean and safe natural gas is. The timing seemed most unusual.
Now, the very same CNN is reporting that Natural Gas Rallies as Nuclear Falls Out of Favor. Does anyone know if the owners of CNN (Time Warner) also own a stake in natural gas? Or maybe they are just doing what they are doing for the natural gas advertising dollars? In any event, this seems like a conflict of interest that should be disclosed to those watching supposedly objective news reporting.
I played more bingo during our year in Japan than I had in the prior 10 years, maybe 20, in the USA. None of the bingo playing was intentional really. Bingo just seemed to be something that happened when we were at parties, touring places, or on any occasion when prizes were given out. Today’s photo is from a hanami (cherry blossom viewing party) last April. Bingo in Japan means prizes, lots and lots of them–not just for the winner, although the winner tends to get something really cool. Ryan came home with a big bag full of prizes one time from a bingo win while we were touring an energy facility in Tokyo.
One interesting aspect of Japanese bingo is the リーチ (riichi) which I had never heard of before. It’s the situation when you are one away from achieving a bingo. When you have リーチ you usually have to raise a hand, stand up, or call it out–sort of like saying uno when you are playing uno.
Apparently I’m not the only one recognizing the media’s butchery of current events in Japan for the past week…
Journalism Wall of Shame about the Japan quake and the aftermath
Nikko, Japan is about halfway between Tokyo and Fukushima (home of the now infamous nuclear power plant). I’ve already mentioned how radiation levels in Tokyo haven’t changed much since March’s earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Sendai. But what about Nikko?
Nikko is in Tochigi Prefecture which borders Fukushima Prefecture. Tochigi Prefecture has seven Geiger counters set up with frequent updates of radiation counts. You can find them here. As of April 26, 2011, the top reading is .19 microsievert per hour and the average of the seven readings around the prefecture is .08 microsievert per hour. So is that good news or bad news? I guess that depends on who you are. If you are the media trying to scare people, it is very bad news indeed. Perhaps that’s why the media isn’t mentioning actual radiation readings in Japan.
You’ll get more radiation in most places in the USA (especially if you live at a high altitude, which is still quite a safe thing to do) than you will traveling in Japan right now, even to places fairly close to Fukushima. (In the USA, the average for Americans is more than 3X this number. Due to large amounts of thorium in the soil, places in Brazil and India can average more than 3 microsieverts an hour.)
Today’s photo is Toshogu in Nikko. If it wasn’t for all the radiation I would get by flying on a jet to Japan, I’d go back to Nikko for spring break. Just kidding. It wouldn’t be the radiation from flying (which would be far more than the radiation I would get on the ground in Japan) that would keep me from visiting Japan. I actually checked flight prices and they weren’t good. The foreigners “escaping” Japan are keeping round-trip ticket prices high right now. Ironically, people leaving Japan are taking on more radiation on those flights out of Japan than they would be by staying.
I forgot to wear green today so I’m making up for it by posting this very green picture from the Mt. Kuratake hike I took last May.