Woken by a Quake

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This morning, for the first time in a while, I was woken by the house shaking as a quake hit. The kind of shaking where you know this one is close – and it was – probably 45 Km away from us, but this time towards Mt. Fuji in the West. There were actually three sizeable (M5+) quakes within about 10 minutes.  USGS has their summary and I note Japan is still heading up the league of 5+ earthquakes at the moment. Let’s hope this isn’t a warm up for a bigger event just days after I poo poo’d the claim that an M7+ quake for Kanto was 70% likely within 4 years – that more being a reflection of my lack of faith in ‘earthquake prediction’ than my belief a 7+ will come – it’s Japan, quakes will always come.

New Header Photo: View from the Skyline

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I’m trying to keep to a new header photo every quarter, and for once, I was torn between some of the photos from the New Year’s Day morning, but I thought that was a bit obvious, so I decided to go with one which had been post processed in a Path filter, and in black and white, because that has to make it look more atmospheric, right? It was taken from the Izu Skyline road, looking south east over the bay at Odawara.

Out in the Hills – Jan. 2012

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As it was a national holiday here in Japan (Coming of Age Day I believe), a few of us headed up into the hills of Izu and Hakone and spent a few hours riding the twisty roads and taking in the sights. I have to say it was quite cold up there, especially on the bike and when out of the sun, but it was a good ride with clear skies, and not many people on the road. A great day out, and I clocked up 187Km door to door, which is not too bad for the first run of the year.

Ready for the Off

Black and White Mountains

Quake preparedness – the lost page!

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I was doing a periodic clean out of Evernote (which is a generally fantastic app) when I found my notes from April 2011 which I was intending to turn into a page on the site for earthquake preparedness, and somehow, I’d forgotten about it. Anyway, it’s now been tidied up a little and posted. I’m really keen to add links and tips from people.

Nanikore’s Quake Preparedness Tips

The 2011 Nutshell

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I’ve never been one for massive reviews of the year just gone by – it always seemed somewhat redundant if not impossible to squeeze 365 days into a post – but here’s a few observations of 2011, and some things I’m hoping to look into in 2012.

Obviously 2011 was dominated as far as events go by the massive earthquake of March 11th, and the thousands which followed it and the social questions it triggered. Right now it seems we’re back to ‘normal’ levels of earthquakes. It was all quite surreal. For me, the trip to Iwate to help in some of the tsunami clean up re-enforced how resilient people can be in the face of true tragedy, even the though the continued leaking from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor captured the news headlines.

On a smaller, but also personal note, our family car was written off in July by some person running a red light, but thankfully no one was injured in either vehicle. It also seemed odd that in 2011, hospital staff were complimenting us on having our kids fastened into the appropriate child and baby seat, but it brings home the fact that still in Japan, children are either held by parents (or more usually, grand-parents), or are allowed to wander around the vehicles whilst in motion.

But enough about me.

One thing I have been following was my meagre 25USD Kiva investment, which is now 91% paid back by the Mật Sơn 1- Đông Vệ Group, who I loaned the money to as part of a larger group loan to help their manufacturing business. I’m now going to re-invest that amount into another group, and add another 50USD to my fund and support another group. Right now I’m looking at fishing as well as manufacturing in Asia. I think microloan groups are a worthy investment to help communities grow and support themselves, and since I live in Japan, any money would accrue such tiny interest it’s hardly worth it anyway.

This blog actually hasn’t done too badly this year, going from ~150 to 450 views per month, but it’s a personal thing, so thanks to those people who visit it. Every now and then I think I should spend more time on it, or concentrate on a single vertical, but in truth, I’m interested in a lot of things, so it’s unlikely I could ever settle on one thing. WordPress does let me pull out the five most popular posts of 2011 though, so here they are!

1. Home page
2. Dog Day (犬の日)
3. The Baker and the Bromate
4. Volunteering in Iwate Prefecture
5. New Header Photo: Heads
6. Quakebook

OK, so the home page doesn’t really count I suppose, hence the #6 in there. The Dog Day post I noticed a while ago constantly gets a few views per week, which has convinced me to do a few more articles on perhaps lesser known Japanese cultural traditions. ‘The Baker and the Bromate’ was probably the most researched post I’ve ever done, and I was quite pleased with it; the ‘Volunteering in Iwate’ pretty much wrote itself, and I was pleased to receive a few emails to say it’d helped people prep for their own work there. The new header photo post making the top 5 is probably more of a tribute to Jaume Plensa and his sculpture work – thanks Jaume! Bringing up the top five then was my review of the crowd sourced ‘Quakebook’ which was put together after the quake to get some peoples stories out, and help raise fund for survivors of the tsunami.

I was also quite surprised that two of my posts were mentioned in podcasts – the ‘Baker and the Bromate’ post was on JapanTalk #228, and the slightly more whimsical post about the “City of Ghosts” story was mention by John C. Dvorak on the No Agenda podcast.

Towards the end of the year I decided to give the National Novel Writing Month a go – writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. I’ve written short stories and such over the last five years, but this was a whole new scale of things. As you see from some of the posts, it somewhat took over my life for the month, but I was actually really pleased with what came out, and over the next year I’m hoping to revise it a little bit to make it at least readable and understandable to a third party.

Right at the end of 2011 I stepped in to update the tokyotoyrun.com website at the last minute to upload info for one of our large toy runs, which was the first web coding I’ve done in a very long time – at least it seemed to render OK and no one complained. I think in 2012 I’ll spend a bit more time on the overarching site we’re looking to put these toy runs under, reviewing some old HTML, CSS and JS knowledge, and see how it goes.

So on the whole, 2011 ended a bit more on the upbeat than it was looking at the beginning, but a reminder that the people of Tohoku are going to need support for a very long time, and I hope the Japanese government stop squabbling and mucking about, and actually deals with the issues.

2012 then, should be a good challenge, and I’m looking into new professional qualifications, language tests and whatever else is of interest after the family time and work!

Tokyo Toy Run 2011

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Last Sunday – December 11th – I joined in the third annual Tokyo Toy Run, where a group of bikers meet up in Tokyo and Ride out in convoy and in groups down into Kanagawa prefecture to deliver toys and other gifts to a couple of children’s homes, and then spend some time with the kids.

This year I thought I’d have some of my own drama the night before when I had to announce my 5.5 year old battery to be dead, and so I headed out to NAPS in the car at 6.30pm to pick up a new one, and give it a test run. The next morning I was up at 5.30am tying on bits of tinsel and such onto the bike, taking care again to make sure nothing was going to sit on the hotter parts of the engine but still look festive. I’d also managed to obtain a Santa suit from Don Quixote which actually fit not just me, but also go over the leather jacket and the Draggin Jeans. It’s still a mystery that many nations see Santa/Father Christmas as a jolly, large fellow, and yet most Santa suits are for people who weight 60-70Kg. Indeed. I decided to attach the white beard set to my helmet, which worked much better than I expected.

Xmas Bike 2011

Xmas Bike 2011

I met up with a couple of riders locally at 6.30, and we were running in towards the meeting space in Odaiba. It’s a beautiful urban ride in, going past the docks and cranes and factories on the expressway as the sun comes up, and see the planes taking off from Haneda airport as we go under much of it, and then over the rivers on the bridges, getting another great view. Once again, the weather was great – we’ve always been so lucky for the weather on these runs.

We all met up with the other riders at the RicoLand Carpark, and it wasn’t a bad turn out with plenty of bikers, bikes, decorations and a couple of vans to fill with gifts. We then went through a quick run through of the plan, including the one stop we’d be making en route, and the groups we’d split into from there to go on to the two children’s homes. The runs are always great, and each year it seems to get smoother getting through the ETC toll booths, the gents in the booths seem that little less freaked out at a group of (largely gaijin) bikers, many dressed as Santa, trying to get on the expressway. It also reminds me how happy I am to have invested the outrageous sum into getting ETC fitted to my bike a few years ago.

On the road as a bike convoy is always fun, we just have to be careful to make sure we’re not stopping people getting on and off the freeway – sometimes not as easy as it sounds. One point of having this many bikes in one place is that the tunnels are deafening – the only way you know your engine is on is to look at your revs.  We stopped at Daikokufuto, which is a service area in the centre of doughnut upon doughnut of roads, to meet up with a few more people, get our photos taken with a lot of very curious people who themselves were on trips – including with small dogs with santa coats…

Daikokufuto
From there we split into two groups, and again I went with the group for the Chigasaki Farm children’s home, and whilst we may have taken a wrong turn, we did get to the venue not too far behind schedule, after a run through historic Kamakura, and along route 134 along the beach which was fantastic – riding along looking at Enoshima to your left, and Mt. Fuji in the distance to your right: fantastic.

Xmas Tree

Xmas Tree

The venues, the children’s homes are really where the days start – rolling in as a group, all bikes and vans and filling up the small parking areas, then meeting the kids, playing sports and really getting to know them. As I’d been here twice before (the Toy Run last year, and a BBQ we did this last Summer) it was was great to see some familiar faces and catch up with what was going on – some were even getting jobs and going out into the world, which is great.

For once I missed the sports, but chatted with a lot of the kids, had photos taken with the smaller kids with the rest of the Santas, and once the pizza we ordered for the event arrived, sat around for a while talking, playing Uno and enjoying some of the gifts we’d brought. I should say, Chigasaki Farm made a fantastic soup for us, which, after a few hours on a bike in winter felt so much better than that pizza! A lot of the kids were playing volleyball, and throwing American footballs and just spending a good afternoon outside on a nice day – even if the resident dog did destroy a couple of the balls!

Once people had eaten the food, played a lot of games and energy levels were dropping, we all sat around one of the patio areas and played a couple of rounds of bingo, before having more photos taken with the kids, this time on the bikes (now that they’d cooled), and finally, somewhat reluctantly, got back on the bikes and headed off home as the sun was beginning to set.

It’s amazing how fast the time goes on the toy run, from that early start to getting to the kids over 120Km later for me, to doing some games and sitting and talking, to leaving feels like just a couple of hours – not essentially a whole day.

OK, so what are the benefits? Well for one, the kids get to spend a day with people they don’t usually meet and just talk and have fun – this is what we often hear from the staff and volunteers at the homes – they love the gifts and the toys, but what they like is that these often funny and a bit whacky bunch of bikers are happy to come in dressed as Santa and just talk, throw a frisbee, be chased, have reindeer tails pulled and just relax with them. I know one thing debated on the forums after the event is always that of who got the better deal, us or the kids! In the last three years I haven’t seen a single biker, even the tough military ones, who aren’t putting the smaller three- and four year old kids on their shoulders and running them around the yards, and for those of us with similar aged kids, feeling that concern that these kids will be OK. The truth is, I think most of them will be, they’re fun and smiles, they’re resilient, cheeky and witty and easy to get on with, but the places also need the odd day of distraction.

2011 has obviously been a tough year on Japan, and it’s going to be for a while to come, and it’s fair to say that for some of those outside of the mainstream society who rely on government support and volunteers, things are very tough, and its rewarding to know that it’s actually quite simple even for a relatively small group of people to pick a day, pool some money and really help out some kids who themselves are going through a lot as it is – we should all do it more often.

(NB/ There’s one more Toy Run in Yamanashi next Saturday – Dec. 17th!)

Tokyo Toy Run 2011 – December 11th!

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Just a rather late note that this year’s Tokyo Toy Run will be on December 11th – that’s next Sunday – so grab your motorbike, some gifts for the kids, and meet at 8am at the Tokyo Bay Ricoland bike shop.

If you want some background, check my posts of the 2009 event, and the 2010 events. Essentially it’s a group of bikers (usually 100+) who ride from Tokyo out to two children’s homes in Kanagawa, give out a pile of gifts and spend the day doing sports and games with the kids, so everyone wins.

Tokyo Toy Run 2011

If you have a bike then, check out the route and rules on TokyoToyRun.com and join us all next Sunday, and follow @tokyotoyrun on Twitter.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Winner!

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Well, after 28 days of solid writing, thinking, more writing, less thinking and then more writing, I was able to submit my novel to the NaNoWriMo servers, and just as Scrivener had told me, I was clocked in just under 51,000 words, so I’m a winner!

The Last Week

As you can see from the last week stats below, taken from the NaNoWriMo site I was [finally] getting ahead of the game on word count and really it was because the story was just flowing out and everything seemed to be falling into place. I added a few more secondary characters which I think added a bit more texture to some of parts of the story and helped the plot line, but still, the issue was getting to the end of the story, and so I had to simplify some of the subplots, and one arc which I’d decided in week two I was going to have to miss out never made it back in.

Writing Stats

Writing Stats

I’ve been really pleased actually with the writing rate and that I was having to decide what to take out, rather than trying to come up with new things to put in to fill space, though paradoxically, new things were creeping in just because they seemed to fit what was going on.

So what did it end up being about? Set in an alternate steam technology based version of Japan’s opening up to more external influence and trade in the mid nineteenth century, there is a stand-off between the three regions left from the recent civil war, and it tells the story of how various groups are attempting to gain technology and power in order to take on the others.

The narrative is driven by three main protagonists trying to find out who or what is is pushing events forwards following the murder of a trader outside Yokohama, but draws on rogue British delegates, Royal Societies, a splintered Japanese samurai class and just normal Japanese people trying to decide what they want now that there seems to be so many new opportunities.

One interesting thing which happened which I wasn’t expecting or intending, is that the story, characters and scenario actually lend themselves to a second story which would largely need to take place in Britain (though not in London like many steampunk novels) and Hong Kong instead of Japan.

On Winning

I have to say I felt a real sense of accomplishment upon seeing that I’d topped 50,000 words, after what had become a habit, and almost a compulsion over the last four weeks, going from feeling like it was a grind, through to a feeling of obligation, and then in the second half of the month of actually being keen to sit down and get on with writing. As you can see from some of the posts, word count does become a obsession at the beginning, I suppose because you’re left with the impression that you’re behind schedule, and then that disappears when 2,000 words a day just flow out. I’ll admit that since ‘winning’ I’ve had that sense of ‘what now’?

Working Method

Broadly speaking, the vast majority of my writing was done in one of two scenarios – either on my MacMini, at the desk on a full size keyboard, or on my aging MacBook at the dinner table, and it all seemed to work well. I definitely recommend Scrivener - even though I’ve used it for a few years for short stories and such, I really found why it’s such a good writing tool this last month, making it simple and quick to jump between writing, character info, story research all within the one app and quickly able to find things, without interrupting the flow.

That concept of flow was essential – as I learned early on, to stop to check and correct grammar and sometimes even spelling is a massive mistake and to just keep going as NaNoWriMo is about getting a novel first draft done, not the finished article.

Somehow I thought I’d have developed a ‘soundtrack’ during the writing, but it never really happened; as I look through the list of recently played tracks in iTunes it’s a selection of certain songs, and I think by hour I probably wrote mostly without music. The tracks I did listen to though were quite interesting – some were tracks I hadn’t listened to in years – and seemed to fit certain chapters of the book – I listened to Jean Michel Jarre’s “Revolutions” [1988] which fit some of the steam punk parts, and also the soundtrack to the classic “Akira” by Geinoh Yamashirogumi which has a mix of more traditional elements and modern styles.

One rather sad thing is that I still don’t have a title with my NaNoWriMo dashboard recording it as “Japan Steampunk Novel”.

So What’s Next?

My plan right now for the novel is to let it sit for a few weeks, and then start a second draft. Yes, I’m going to see this one through to some kind of ‘finished’ version, something I struggled with on my only previous attempt at a full length novel. I’m keen to add in a couple of story arcs in which never made it into this initial draft – the main one being the arms dealers supplying one of the main factions which was to be set in my home town in the UK (Grimsby) which in the timeframe of the story was ramping up as a major port. This makes one subplot (the factions within the British Government and Royal Societies) a bit clearer and shows that the main story is just another part of a larger political policy being executed.

As for NaNoWriMo, will I be doing it again next year? I honestly don’t know. It required a lot of time and and patience from the family, and November is quite a busy time of the year for us with other events, so I really don’t know, though certainly the next time I do NaNoWriMo, I wont be as worried about word count.

That said, it has been a lot of fun, and I would definitely encourage people to give it a try next year – or any month really – and just crank out 50,000 words.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Winner

NaNoWriMo 2011 Winner