While the sight of temples and shrines has now firmly lost the exciting appeal it had after first arriving in Japan (after all there is only so much you can take in before going a bit meh, kinda like churches in Europe), there is one thing I still thoroughly enjoy the sight of day in, day out: Japanese architecture. Though that might be a bit of a far reaching term, considering the architectural mish mash that actually consitutes most of Tokyo and the Japanese knack for knocking down old buildings and replacing them with crappy new ones (oh yeah and the earthquakes). Still I’ve always been a sucker for architecture in a way, not in a deep sense but just cos I like the shapes of buildings and just looking at streets and areas that are either old and quaint, or new and nice looking, or just weird looking like say Tokyo, or even Soho in London.

There’s also something about traditional Japanese houses, I don’t know what, but they do it for me. I think it’s the roofs, I really like them. The roofs are actually the only parts of temples I can still look at with any real interest as well. So it was lucky that we went to Kawagoe on our holiday this week, about 40 mins outside of Tokyo and nicknamed Little Edo (Edo is the old name of Tokyo), as it still holds traditional buildings and houses from the Edo period. Most of these seem to be clustered in one part of the town, which has now become a big shopping street (nice tactic there), and they make for a fascinating day out - not just because they’re old and traditional, but because you’ll find them alongside a variety of modern buildings, including red brick walls, fancy architectural nonsense and European buildings. All of which makes for a refreshing sight. And actually the shopping isn’t bad either, and the area is really nice.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, pictures, Random, travelling

In what seems to be a week of people and things going down, I’ve just found out that it seems Nova has declared bankruptcy, as of this morning. Nova is the McDonald’s of the English Conversation industry in Japan - the biggest of the big dogs, and pretty soon it may well be something of the past. Nova’s problems have been ongoing for quite a while, but this year it seems to have all come to a head with teachers and staff being unpaid, the government ruling against them in a case dealing with students and fees, and work places being repossessed after rent has gone unpaid (as well as teachers’ accommodation). This has led to teachers walking out, strikes, and school closures in recent months. More recently some senior members resigned, and the president went into hiding.

Most of which is pretty dark for the people involved - staff and students. And I guess some management. But by and large those at the top have probably known it was gonna go pear shape for a while, and they’re the ones who really have to answer for the collapse of what seemed to be an unmovable corporate giant for a long time. Thing is the business world is a cruel one. The president hasn’t made things easier, having been trying to worm his way out of any responbility since it all kicked off this year. Though that seems to have finally stopped if the claims of bankruptcy filed this morning are correct.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, Teaching