East West Discussion Group : Trains of the World

I have recently starting going to the "East West Discussion Group" in Tokyo. I saw an announcement in the Japan Times about one of the discussions which was of interest to my wife. She went the first time and persuaded me to come to subsequent meetings.

It's a small group of mostly elderly but knowlegable and interesting Japanese Ladies and Gentlemen with some Americans. The weekly meetings take the form of a presentation by one the members on a subject of interest, followed by a discussion on the topic.

On my second visit, when the future meetings were being discussed, I was persuaded to do a presentation. I am a bit of a 'railway enthusiast' so I chose to do a talk about 'Trains of the World'. A rather wide subject area I know! I will be showing some photos of trains from around the world and we will be discussing transport related issues.

The talk is on this Thursday 22nd of May, 2008. If anyone in the Tokyo area would like to come along you will be made most welcome . There is no membership requirement or fees, just pay 500 yen on arrival.

The venue is the Hongo Satellite of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 7th Floor, 2-14-10 Hongo, Bunkyo Ku, Tokyo. It's less than five minutes walk from exit 1 of Hango Sanchome subway station and looks like this when you get there. The meeting starts at 6:30pm, the presentation usually starts at 6:45 and the meeting finishes at 8:30pm.

Korean Blogs Ranking

Phil at London Korea links has started an amusing little series of posts about "who's who" in the world of Korean blogs. The Marmot's Hole was described as "Undoubtedly the original and best general-purpose blog about Korea" which Brian of Jellonam Do had a few issues with. It even prompted Robert to defend himself and explain how over 5 years of blogging have left him jaded and tired of the same old issues.

Mark at Korea Pop Wars was delighted to be listed and has written up his own summary of the blogs he likes. Joe at ZenKimchi has given everyone he knows a blog-juice boost with his own list of over a hundred blogs on Korea.

It's interesting to see Elyse Sewell, an American model who moved to Seoul recently, get such a high rating. Judging by the number of comments her journal gets she attracts a very wide audience for her refreshing and honest look at the working life of a model.

I thought I would complete the project I suggested last time I visited the subject of Top 30 Ranked Korean Websites using data from the site Quantcast. Which offers :

a media measurement service that lets advertisers view audience reports on millions of websites and services. Only Quantcast combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver accurate third-party metrics and easy-to-read profiles on digital media properties

I took all the blogs on my blogroll and searched for their ranking, to come up with list below. Bear in mind that the site is almost totally focused on US data, so I don't want to hear any complaints.

Blog	Rank
www.weirdasianews.com	10,546
popseoul.com	119,095
www.asianoffbeat.com	140,446
www.londonkoreanlinks.net/blog	247,670
www.dramabeans.com	480,187
rokdrop.com	516,780
www.dprkstudies.org	625,425
www.rjkoehler.com	667,267
zenkimchi.com	805,518
koreabeat.com	808,853
freekorea.us	986,470
koreanunification.net	1,983,322
www.nkzone.org	2,734,719

Beer Festival in Tokyo

I am looking forward to the Great Japan Beer Festival. From the Japantimes:

The Great Japan Beer Festival is the biggest beer event of the year in Japan, with more than 120 microbrews and craft beers available to taste.The festival is organized by the Japan Craft Beer Association, and this year the Tokyo event will be held May 5 and 6 at the tail end of the Golden Week holidays.

Hours are from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on May 5 (Mon.), and from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on May 6 (Tue.). Admission is ¥4,800 (¥4,300 for advance tickets), which includes unlimited tastings; food will be sold separately.The venue is the Garden Hall at Ebisu Garden Place, 1-13-2 Mita, Meguro-ku, Tokyo. Tickets are available from Lawson, Pia and other outlets.

Check the Web site at www.beertaster.org for more details or e-mail english [at] beertaster.org

The event moves to Osaka a few weeks later on the weekend of May 31 and June 1, at the Kyocera Dome; check the same Web site for more details. (Listing courtesy of Bento.com)

Videos from Japan

There's been a couple of videos of life in Japan on other blogs that I feel worth a mention.

One from Stafford which shows what I'm like in the morning on a Japanese train trying to read my newspaper. It turns out to be from an improv comedy group in Osaka called Pirates of the Dotombori. I look forward to seeing them in Tokyo some time.

Another one from Annie at Going Underground on how crowded trains used to be back in 1991. I'd like to point out that, while it does get very busy on the trains here, I have never seen it that bad.

And finally, one of Yi So-yeon on her return to earth after a rather hard landing. (H/T RokDrop)

First Korean in Space

Since Mike hasn't blogged about it yet, I thought I would get the word out that his favourite astronaut Yi So-yeon blasted off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan at 11:16 GMT.

I like the way the BBC comment how South Korea paid $20m for the mission.

Update at 12:15 AM:
CNN has the most detailed coverage and notes that she is also the youngest female astronaut.
Yonhap makes Korea the 36th Country to send an astronaut into space and KBS agrees with that count while Korea Times make it the 37th country.

Arirang mentions her plans to introduce her country's traditional food and beverages such as kimchi specially developed and packaged for space to the crew aboard the ISS.
The Joong Ang has not confirmed the launch yet.
The Korea Herald has the story, but it's not easy to give a direct links to the page.
The Chosun Ilbo just has her photo.
The Hankyoreh has a column from a Professor of Sogang University about the subject.
The Dong-A-Ilbo has an editorial proclaiming "Korea needs strong policies to catch up with space powers".

Punchline Comedy Club, Tokyo

The Punchline Comedy club is presenting another line up of three stand up comedians on Friday 18th April.


I'll be going along for sure. Tickets sold out for the previous show in Februrary, so book your tickets soon and don't miss out!

I exchanged emails with John Moorhead, the promoter, about running a show in Seoul and he was definitely interested, but he has no contacts there at the moment. If you are in Seoul and would like to get a chance to see stand-up comedy, please contact John directly from the contact pages on Punchline.com. The greater the response the more likely he is to put on a show.

Akihabara, Mobile Phones and Rabbits

I went to Akihabara this weekend. My original intention had been to visit the transport museum that I had seen direction signs for on a previous visit. Foolishly I had not checked further into this institution, so when I followed the signs I was dismayed to see a large "Closed" sign and an explanation (in English) that the museum had shut in 2006. It has moved to a brand new site in Omiya, and it's the museum I'd already visited!

The day was not wasted as there a street festival on. The main road was blocked off to allow various artistes to perform. Hanger Man was very entertaining juggling on a unicycle and doing tricks with a tennis racket :


I've just discovered he's was at the Seoul Buskers Festival in 2007 and he was popular at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

This gentleman wasn't part of the entertainment, as far as I could tell, but I had to take a second glance to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Man and rabbit moved as one :

It's still not as good as Mike's Lady with an Iguana on her head though.

Akihabara is full of boys and men interested in all the technology available, so what better way of getting their attention than some scantily clad girls:


As you can see they were very popular, but I've got no idea what they were promoting. Does anyone recognise the figure in the middle?

There were a lot of small groups singing and dancing, but in general the quality of the entertainment was not as good as last week in Yoyogi park.