Author: ageekinjapan

Health

Swine flu fear in Tokyo

Last week the first cases of swine flu were confirmed in Kobe and days later in Tokyo. Japanese people are taking many precautions against it and have started buying tons of surgical masks. In the area of Kobe and Osaka more than 4.000 schools have closed and kids are supposed to be studying at home. During the last days I can see much more people than usual wearing surgical masks and it looks like it is very difficult to be able to buy new surgical masks since they are sold out everywhere. Some people have thought of it as an opportunity and during the last days there are tons of surgical masks at Yahoo Auctions being sold at high prices.

Swine

Some are trying to make money, and some others are trying to create new fashion trends 🙂 But I thinkmexicans are better at this 😉

Swine

Various

Barbecue with panoramic views

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date May 21, 2009
7 Comments on Barbecue with panoramic views

I while ago I was in a barbecue somewhere around east Tokyo and the most impressive thing were the “super nice romantic views” we could enjoy eating and drinking:

It fascinates me how Japanese are able to elevate highways everywhere, sometimes it helps a lot to ease traffic in Tokyo and Osaka. But there are some extremes that I don’t really like, some exaggerations, like when they put highways on top of rivers to save space! This is what happened for example at Nihonbashi, where they build a highway on top of a beautiful river with a beautiful bridge and now it looks like…. after many years it seems they want to get rid of the highway and put it underground, we will see. These are some more pictures I took during the barbecue:

barbacoa autopista

barbacoa autopista
Did you notice the Dragon Ball girl in the video at the beginning of this post?

Signs

Lanes for pedestrians

In some of the most crowed areas in Tokyo and Osaka sometimes you can find yourself in a “human lane”. It is nice to have everyone walking in order but in summer it can be hard 🙂

Carriles
In which lane am I walking? 😉

In Shinjuku there are even some sidewalks with rules concerning pedestrian traffic. For example, this sign is indicating that on the right lane from 9 in the morning until 6 in the afternoon it is a one way lane. But on the left lane the direction changes depending on the time. These “extreme” rules are needed only in districts like Shinjuku where more than three million people commute by everyday.

carriles