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  11.03.02
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Did you know that Tokyo has very stringent
recycling laws and complex waste disposal
systems?
As you might imagine, a city of 30 million
people, one that's pinched in between the
mountains and the sea like Tokyo is, would
have to take its garbage seriously.
You have to separate your glass, tin cans,
newspaper, cardboard, and (optionally) your
pet (plastic drink) bottles to be recycled.
People dutifully use string to tie their
old manga comics, newspapers, and flattened cardboard
boxes into stacks.
Household waste is usually separated in to
four categories: Raw, burnable, non-burnable,
and over-sized.
Raw garbage is food waste. Because of the
heat, food waste can get stinky really fast.
Consequently, raw garbage, or nama gomi as it's called in Japanese, is disposed
of very regularly.
Burnable garbage is comprised of things like
pieces of paper, old clothes, and cut hair.
This garbage is destined for the giant incinerators
that ring the city, so basically anything
that you wouldn't mind putting into a garbage
fire in your own back-yard you can put into
the burnable garbage pile.
Non-burnable garbage consists of things like
plastic cleaning bottles, pens, rubber items,
and anything else of noxious industrial origin.
This garbage is bound for land-fills and
ocean dumps.
Finally, there's over-sized garbage. This
category is for anything larger than a toaster.
In order to get rid of your over-sized items,
such as furniture, you have to buy special
stickers (quite expensive), stick them on
your garbage, and then you have to call the
special garbage collection people and tell
them that they can come and pick it up. I
don't know what happens to the over-sized
garbage after it gets taken away, I suppose
most of it ends up in landfills.
So there you have it. If you're ever
in Japan,
you'll know exactly what to do with
your
garbage.
 11.01.02
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Here I am, yet again, on my way home from
work on the Yamanote train and composing
my Hunkabutta post. No matter how many times
I do it, I am still awe inspired by the combination
of mobile writing and near instant global
publication via the net.
It's like you're right here with me as I
key these very words. I can almost feel your
hot breath as you all press in upon me, like
a crowd of deaf and blind ghosts waiting
for me to tell you what there is to see and
to hear.
I'll tell you what I can see.
Standing in front of me, reading a newspaper
and hanging on to the handrail is a classic
salaryman. Lets take a closer look at him,
shall we.
He's about five foot eight inches (160 cm)
tall, in his mid 50's, and weighs approximately
160 lbs. He's standing with his feet slightly
apart and his shoulders hunched, he's reading
his newspaper, which he has folded into quarters,
and is hanging onto the safety loop with
his left hand.
His hair is mostly black with some white
mixed in, it's short and combed forward with
no part.
His face is round and tanned, and he has
exceptionally large earlobes, you might even
describe them as 'pendulous.' He's wearing
rimless eyeglasses of average thickness.
His suit is a dark gray with blue undertones,
his shirt white,and his tie blue with a red
and yellow diamond pattern. The buttons on
his suit jacket are made of stainless steel,
and are embossed with the image of a lion's
head.
On his feet are black slip-on dress shoes,
the kind with two little tassels that don't
seem to have any function.
Can you see him now? I hope so.
That's all you get. I'm not going to show
you anymore. Go back to New York, to Sweden,
to Vancouver, to where ever it is that you
come from.
This voyeuristic trip is over.
 10.29.02
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It's getting lonely here with Karen and Jack
still in Canada.
After returning to Tokyo alone, I enjoyed
my newfound free time and privacy for
a few
days, but then, suddenly the bed started
to get bigger and colder, and the apartment
started to seem quieter and dirtier,
if you
know what I'm getting at.
I'm looking forward to their return
in November.
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I was surprised at the amount of interest
shown in yesterday's picture of a salaryman
vomiting in the street, and the comparative
lack of interest in the picture of a homeless
man picking meat out of an enormous tuna
head in the garbage.
I guess the vomiting thing is kind
of funny.
Today's pictures are all quirky, socially
awkward moments.
10.27.02
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I took the pictures that you see on Hunkabutta
today in Ueno last night.
Ueno is a scruffy entertainment district
on the north side of Tokyo. It's like an
old man with a shiny gold tooth; ragged on
the edges but with a hint of the spectacular
underneath. Its brothels and massage parlors
find their roots in the 'pleasure quarter'
days of the Yoshiwara in old Edo.
If you want glitz, go to Ginza. If you want
fashion, go to Shibuya. But if you want sleaze,
the kind of sleaze that sticks to your shoes,
the kind that makes you breath in deeply
through your nostrils, then Ueno is the only
place to be.
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