Estonian, Baruto (Kaido Höövelson; left, blue mawashi), won his first sumo tournament. He is the new kid on the block, an has ascended the ranks of sumo quite fast whilst gathering many fans in Japan. He was undefeated until today when he faced top-ranked wrestler Hakuho (who defeated him), but still Baruto had enough wins to secure the tournament and the Emperor’s Cup. His mother flew from Estonia to sit with his wife in the crowd to see him claim the tournament. Upto this point, everything about Baruto’s win today mirror’s Bulgarian Koto-oshu and Mongolian Harumafuji’s ascents. However, Koto-oshu and Harumafuji have only won one Emperor’s Cup, and haven’t returned to the fiery form they displayed ahead of their first (and only) tournament wins.
Below is a selection images taken at the 17th annual Nagoya Motor Show. It was interesting to see the European and American makers were in one building, and the Japanese were in the other. There were no Korean makers present, and the Americans were represented by Ford, Chevrolet, and Teslar, though they were in with the Europeans, their exhibits were mainly fillers, making the viewers have to walk past to see the next European display. The European makers were displaying what they already have available in Japan with an eye to make sales, rather than showing new stuff. Maserati and the Mercedes SLS AMG got a lot of keen attention, but the most serious attention went to Audi and Jaguar (and perhaps BMW, I didn’t notice them).
Of the Japanese contingent, Honda, Nissan, Suzuki, and Subaru were keen to show their new concepts that caught the interest of the crowds. Especially, Honda which was near the entrance that got the crowds as they first walked in, but Nissan got the crowd staying and waiting to see more of the Pivo3 (pictured in the slideshow below). The model who drove the Pivo3 in figure of 8′s in the small space had a look of novel enjoyment on her face as she drove and demonstrated an elegant, lady-like way of entering and exiting the Pivo3. I suppose she knew that she could see herself on YouTube that night, if she hadn’t done so the night before. The Nissan ES Flow was drooled over, whilst the current Nissan models, especially the Leaf were keenly sat in and caressed. Suzuki wowed the crowd with the Regina, which has more than a passing resemblance to an angry cartoon character (pictured in the slideshow below). The model introducing the Suzuki display appeared to be on remote control. She said a few lines, paused, and when a bell rang she then announced the next few lines. I didn’t see the audio book she was reading from, so she was either hypnotised or a convincing human-like robot (also pictured below).
The Toyota corner was pretty easy to walk around as the crowds came, saw, and then returned to the Suzuki and Nissan displays. Nagoya is the hometown of Toyota, and to see Toyota show only cars that are already available for sale, is disappointing. The new Lexus looks like the designers took inspiration from both Audi and BMW, whilst the new Toyota 86 sports coupe looks like it was designed by someone who owns or loves Aston Martins. Subaru was also thick with crowds, but because of the crowds and my low interest, I didn’t bother rubbing shoulders with everyone there. Daihatsu was devoid of people, and their non-operating concept vehicles caught no imaginations at all. Furthermore, their concept vehicles looks like they are two generations behind Nissan and Suzuki.
The Nissan Pivo3 does a figure of 8 demonstrating its remarkable turning circle in a small exhibit space. At the Nagoya Motor Show, Nissan’s exhibit with cars like this was by far more popular with the crowds than Toyota’s lonely corner. This electric Pivo3 concept includes self parking, where the driver leaves the car in front of a venue and the car locates a vacant parking spot through a central computer system then parks itself. The car park would also include an automatic recharge plate to be located under the car. The owner would then press a button on his or her phone and the car would drive itself to the closest convenient location to where ever the owner’s phone is located. However, you need to hope that your car can find a parking spot and recharge point before the the batteries run too low. Nissan also wishes to emphasis the ease of getting in and out of the car, where you don’t need to put one leg in, park your butt, and then the other. With this car, you simply walk in.
Nissan is emphasising that it is developing a total interconnected system for the home and cars, where the home can use the power stored in the car, and the car can be recharged from the home. The crowds were interested in the Nissan Leaf which is already on sale, and a new sports car that looks far more exciting than the Toyota 86.
I had time to stroll around Sydney and Darling Harbour for just one afternoon, and completely by chance this group were holding a demonstration. They chanted “Julia” as ‘Joooliaa’, and there were other chants, too. Julia Gillard is the current Prime Minister in Australia. On the evening news I learnt that the Labour Party were holding their annual conference and on that same day it seems that Ms Gillard had submitted to pressure and allowed Labour Party members to choose to support a bill which would allow same sex marriage. That is to say, she herself does not support the bill, but she is not publicly, or explicitly going to block it.
Here’s one for the Mac fans. This is a photo of the Nagoya Apple Store in the trendy shopping suburb Sakae. This was taken in the early evening of Saturday the 15th October.
It’s the last 25 minutes of September for 2011, and the only thing on my mind is radiation in Japan. The last week on the newly opened Google+ has been amazing. On it I’ve come across people who’ve posted bilingually articles about the on-going radiation crisis happening in Tohoku (special thanks to sai, ありがとう). Here in central Japan the nuclear accident feels like a distant memory, something that happened far, far away, and whilst concerning, isn’t going to drive us nuts. The opposite should be true. Articles posted by people on Google+ suggest that the Japanese government is doing everything possible to avoid hysteria in Tokyo and other places (ABC). The British nuclear expert, Professor Christopher Busby, describes the Fukushima situation as, “…probably the greatest catastrophe in the whole of human history” (ZDF). Within weeks of the crisis beginning, mustard spinach grown in Tokyo was found to have been contaminated with radiation (Apr 2011). There are areas outside of the 30km exclusion zone that have been contaminated with plutonium (NHK 29 Sep 2011). Apparently, after Chernobyl, the north sea saw a radiation contamination peak at 1,000 Becquerels, but off Fukushima was over 100,000 (NYTimes). In addition to this, at the height of the crisis, a lot of people were ready and waiting to be told to take iodine pills to protect us against radiated iodine exposure. These pills saturate the thyroid so that any ingestion of radioactive iodine cannot accumulate and is immediately flushed out of the body. However, despite the advice, the national government never ordered the administration of these (Wall Street Journal), which also would have triggered embassies in Tokyo to distribute them to their nationals, too. Furthermore, local governments did not have the nous to act in the absence of direction. The oceans have been massively contaminated (ScienceBlogs.Com), affecting fish, a staple of Japanese diet.
Finally, still in Tokyo, there were elevated levels of radiation in Tokyo itself as late as July. The map below comes from SafeCast.Org. Also see the government map dated 29th Sept, 2011 (METI). The government announced the thirty kilometre exclusion zone, and declared everywhere else safe. The map plainly shows that this is not the case. Foreign governments have advised their residents within 80kms to move away, and this seems to be why. The final morbid fact I’ll pass on is that there are residents who believe they can return to their homes within a year or so, and there are politicians who say they are working towards that goal. The reality is that even after 30 years, there are no plans to re-populate the Chernobyl township.
Fukushima and Tokyo affected by the nuclear crisis.
Typhoon Roke has finally made it here. It will pass directly over Nagoya and then Tokyo. The wind doesn’t seem as strong as the previous typhoon, Talas. Rain associated with Roke has caused flooding in Nagoya where authorities issued evacuation orders for 1 million of the 2 million residents of Nagoya. It sounds desperate, but it is not. Most of the residents Nagoya live in multi-story condominium buildings or multi-story apartments. Only householders near the Shonai River are indeed flooded. Affected areas are mainly Moriyama and Tempaku. NHK, the national broadcaster, showed pictures of city residents taking refuge in emergency shelters last night, ahead of additional or continued flooding, and ahead of the approach of the typhoon.
Yesterday many workers and students attending their first days of the new semester were stranded at train stations as underground services were flooded, or high risks due to the winds. The stranding of commuters was the probable cause of mobile phone services working only intermittently. Despite learning that stranded passengers in Tokyo was a huge problem after the March-eleven quake, Nagoya seemed unprepared.
Below are photos from Typhoon Talas. I’m not leaving my area until I’m sure that my home and neighbourhood is safe, then I might venture out. My area has a warning of high risk of storm surge causing inundation. My pictures, below, show the storm surge and tsunami protection, however, not all parts of the dyke is as strong and reinforced as those shown.
Typhoon Roke is still coming, and at the time of writing, the storm zone is still not over Nagoya (my city). Strangely, we’ve had a large amount of rain, but not a massive amount, but parts of Nagoya have been flooded. I would never have thought this, as the rain was not intense enough for long enough, consequently I never thought to even bother go around the town to take a look. 79,000 people in Nagoya have been told to evacuate, and they are apart of the 1.2 million having to move, too. Currently there is no wind, and the storm zone isn’t over Nagoya, yet. The rain is merely associated with the typhoon.
It appears that mobile phone services are operating in some areas intermittently, perhaps as many stranded commuters are calling home saying that their train services are closed or the underground stations flooded.
For the latest information see the Japan Weather Agency website. I’m afraid I don’t know of any other informational services in languages other than Japanese. Currently, it seems the worst of the storm should have past Nagoya by 6pm Wednesday (local time), but Tokyo would still be affected. Companies often stipulate that if there is a Gale Warming (red) then workers are not required to attend. Most companies are not concerned about the other warnings (including flood, rain, and risks of landslides).
Over 100 people have died, and a hydro-electric dam was destroyed by mud slides, and portions of villages have been buried. Hokkaido has so far been battered by two typhoons since Thursday and without break in between. Water supplies and electricity has been cut off in some areas, and the Japan Self Defence Force (army) are overwhelmed and under equipped. Some villages have no communication out of their mountainous areas. Local governments are unable to assess the full extent of damage as some communities have been completely cut of with roads and communications destroyed. Some villages have created SOS signs for aircraft to see. In some places after mud slides dams were created creating fragile walls and holding a lot of muddy water, threatening more villages in isolated parts of Japan.
It seems that so far, 2011 is the year that Japan would rather forget, but could never.
Typhoon Talas, the 12th typhoon of 2011, has moved so slowly that the storm zone entered parts of mainland Japan on Thursday, and is still expected to depart Monday. At times it was claimed to have been travelling at 15km/h, and other times less than 10km/h. At such speeds, many parts of Japan has experienced excessive rain falls since Thursday, and is expected to continue into Monday. This brings floods, loosening of ground leading to landslides, disintegration of some dykes, swelling of rivers which has already lead a lady who was evacuating to an emergency shelter to be washed away.
At the time of writing, drainage canal water levels continue to rise as heavy rain continues to fall unabated. Below is a photo of an emergency flood and marine alert automated station.
