#79 Japan: It's the small things

This is a list of interesting things that I noticed/happened to me in the four months while I was living in Tokyo. I gradually added to it while I was there, meant to do something with it, and forgot. I've just read through it, and just over a year later, I'd forgotten quite a few of them! So here you are: some of my unedited musings.

• I saw a weasel the other day climbing on a telephone wire

• I saw a granny on a moped

• I saw a man holding his daughters hand and walking her halfway to the school gate, then her walking backwards waving to him until she got to the front door.

• The cars don't stop for the green man they just keep going. . .

• First day as a teacher in Junior High School and I'm asked do I have a boyfriend

• I'm not saying they push you out of the way to get off the train. . but they kinda do

• The supermarket fish section. . .so much fish. . .lots of fish with heads on, lots of octopus and squid (both tentacles and the whole thing) lots of whole shrimp and prawns. . .not for the faint hearted (or the vegan)

• Book off has 100 yen manga books. 98% of these contain porno. One series had 35 books in all. Each book had sexual position diagrams halfway through.

• I've seen children aged 5 at most walking home from school alone

• They shout things at you both outside and inside the shop

• Some elementary schools had unicycles for the students

• Japanese girls love cats. It is a country that applauds crazy cat ladies

• Japanese dogs are awesome. No mongrel or labrador in sight. More like poodles (both toy and regular) chihuahuas, pomeranians, and akitas.

• Japanese insects make a lot of noise. It can be deafening outside at first.

• You will probably not get groped on a train. Or have your underwear stolen

• In summer, you will get really sweaty. You'll think "It's not even that hot today" and you will be sweating from your forehead, back of your neck, back, stomach etc. Basically everywhere

• Some dude came up to me on the street, told me he spoke English, said he was single and went in to kiss me

• I saw a guys head get caught in the doors of a train

• They all have their phones on the trains, a lot read too but they all have covers on their books so you don't know what they're reading

• The trains all play funky little tunes before the doors close, each station has a different tune

• The subway has barriers and gates up around it, presumably so you cant fall down. The trains don't have this

• They all wear masks to prevent spread of infection

• They don't tend to wear raincoats, instead they just use umbrellas

• They love crocs

• They pour water or something where their dogs pee on the street. And they pick up the poo!

• Businessmen eat really fast at lunch

• A high percentage of manga (comics) are just porn

• There is often very little discipline in Japanese junior high schools

• Cat cafes are a real thing

• I ate a fish (including the head) as part of school lunch the other day

• The Japanese aren't so good at simplifying - you either speak fluent Japanese or no Japanese.

• They're too polite - I went in a shop and I thought it closed at 9pm, but at 9.05pm the staff were still walking around greeting people so I assumed it was open longer - it wasn't - they were too polite to mention it was closing. Then at 9.10pm there's an awkward encounter when they try politely explain "it's a little late" or something along those lines

• Japan is great!

A very rare picture of me, in my apartment, in Japan

#78 Weather Forecasts

When you are travelling anywhere the weather is imperative. Not only does it affect what activities you engage in, or what sights you see, it also means feeling miserable when you are either wet/cold/sunburnt. Plus your pictures will almost certainly turn out awful, grey skies make even the nicest view look dull, and you'll probably not be in picture perfect mode either.

Of course it's unavoidable and unfortunate if it happens to be raining or in the middle of a heatwave when you arrive at your target destination - but planning is also vital. For some countries, the weather can be anticipated depending on what season you go. So for example, if travelling to Sweden in Winter you can assume it will be snowing and very cold, or if you go to Japan in the Summer, you can expect it to be very, very hot. But for some countries, like Ireland, the weather can be hard to predict regardless of season.

Out of habit, the national weather services are always where I would go to for the most accurate and trustworthy weather information on a country. I am wary of the internet and it's vast amounts of wisdom, and I guess that the national website will probably be the most detailed and reliable.

However, in Ireland The Irish Meteorological Service (Met Eireann) website is something that has been annoying me for quite a while. While many national weather service websites are helpful and detailed, this website provides you with as little information as possible. It is irritatingly vague in comparison to many other websites of this kind.

For example, if I go to the Met Eireann website and look at forecasts for the Dublin area, it will tell me that today it will be raining, and the same for tomorrow.

Photo: Vague information on the Met.ie website

If you type the words 'Dublin forecast' or something similar into Google, you get a combined result from different weather websites. This gives you a much more detailed breakdown of the expected temperature, wind and rain for 3 hour intervals.

Photo: Detailed weather breakdown from Google

Comparing the Met.ie website versus the information from Google, you see quite a difference. Met has told us that it will be raining today. If you go to Google though, it tells us that there is only a 10% chance of rain for late afternoon, and 0% chance of rain for the night.

Wondering what the weather is like in Stockholm? Let's check the SMHI, Sweden's Meteorological service: 

From this you can see the website is available in both English and Swedish - and is also quite detailed - giving you information for every few hours. 

Similarly, the JMA, Japan's Meteorological service, has detailed information in both Japanese and English about the weather, as well as earthquake and tsunami information.

JMA website

Met Eireann give more detailed weather information after the 9pm news on our national tv station, RTÉ. I can't see why this information can't be put on the website too. When I was in Sweden I had no TV, and I couldn't figure how to make mine work properly in Japan. Providing weather information once a day via television is simply not a feasible idea, and Met Eireann have to update their website in keeping with the needs of both the Irish people and visitors to Ireland.