Mt Fuji

Twentieth floor, Tokyo, Japan. Morning 5A.M. You get up and you have a view of a lonesome mountain with a flat top covered with snow. Beauty at its best.
Talking about mountains the first thing comes to our mind is the great Himalayas. And if you have visited them, any other mountain you see looks like a hillock. You can appreciate the Alps but whats the hype Japanese have created about a single mountain that too with a flat top….!!! You have to see it to believe it.
Mt. Fuji is not a range of mountains but just a single dormant volcano “hill”. Standing all alone with a vast green pastured land and lakes near it.
The largest/tallest mountain in Nihon. And almost every Japanese climbs it. Its just a daylong trek. They actually have a race every year to climb this 18Km path !!!
This land still entice me….

Jishin !!!

3AM, everything is vibrating, I get up, feels its another earthquake, say “Crap” and get back to sleep. It happens only in Japan :).
Oh my God !! Its shaking again. I am standing on road and the road feels vibrating. I am not sure if its some subway train running underground or another earthquake.
Japan get atleast 1000 earthquakes every year. Though many of them are just noticed by scientists. And anything less than 3 on Richter scale don’t even make it to the news papers.

Japanese have devised the best possible way to construct buildings that can survive earthquakes. Any other country if there is a slightest vibration, people run out of the houses / buildings but here, even if its measured about 4 on Richter scale people don’t even look up, they continue working. Nihonjins are so use to it that in case of a major earthquake instead of running out of the building they will go and try to catch the falling perfume bottles. (Wow !! confidence that building won’t collapse).
I wonder what they will do if they happen to be in a place like Lathur (during an earthquake).

Survey ??

Statistics says this, says that… ever wondered from where these stats comes from ??
I remember reading it in a newspaper that most of the stats are made on the fly…
And over the years I realized it to be true too. Never seen any such data being collected in my country.

But welcome to Nihon !!!
I visited a building today where they were doing a survey on the traffic in the building. There were people sitting on all 11 entry / exits with a ticker machine actually punching in the number of visitors. All visitors were given a card on entry and taken back on exit, this was done from morning 9AM till night 11 (I left the building that time). They had big envelops collecting these cards on hourly basis.
Wow too much of work !!
I wonder what this data will help them ? Traffic in any building changes everyday !!! The difference should be more than 500 people (Come on there are 10s of eat-out there).
Anyways, made me realize that ticker machine are still used :).

"Cool Biz"

First lets talk about the Kyoto Protocol. Which was started by United Nations in December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. A total of 141 countries have ratified the agreement. Notable exceptions include the USA (the country which contributes the most to green house effect).
The idea is that a central authority will grant an allowance for emissions of CO2 and five other greenhouse gases, to countries enrolled based upon a measure of their previous pollution history or on existing emissions of the country. An industrial facility might be granted a license for its current actual emissions. If a given country or facility does not need all of its allowance, it may offer it for sale to another organization that has insufficient allowances for its emission production.
A lot of paper work has been done in last 8 years many conferences, many discussion and the protocol was finally implemeted in Feb, 2005.
Economic analysist argues as to whether the Kyoto Protocol is more expensive than the global warming that it avoids. The rules forced by these protocol are from being practical and won’t have that much effect. Some even argues that these rules are made by developed countries to further more hamper the progress of developing nations by imposing such “limited-gas-emission” rules on the industries. This makes this protocol another UN’s idea which is far from implentation.
While its been surrounded by these discussions and argument, Japan comes up with a new idea which they are calling “Cool Biz”.
They have this new protocol where Japanese will take off their Ties and Jackets in summers. The new dress code, which is not mandatory, is being pushed so thermostats in government offices, trains and other public places can be set at 28 degrees, even in summer. This will reduce electricity use and help reduce carbon dioxide emissions to meet Japan's obligations for the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Though this is not enforced on private organizations but most of the “formal” dressing Japanese have very happily accepted it.
Hail Japan ?