Well it’s been a fun weekend overall, and an extended one for those of us lucky enough to live in Okinawa and my employed by the local government. Yesterday marked the end of the Battle of Okinawa, and therefore was Okinawa Memorial Day, with all public offices and schools closed for the day. So, while many families attended their ancestral tombs and shrines for the day to have picnics and pay homage of some sort, I elected to get into the ocean and pay my respects to Poseidon, Neptune and Darryl Hannah from Splash!

It was actually the 2nd attempt at getting into the water after I had tried on Saturday. Was scheduled to meet a diving student and start an Advanced Open Water course with her. So we met up, got to the dive site and geared up. All was well until we got into the water and about 4m/12ft down when my dive buddy indicated there was a problem and that they wanted to surface. So we went up and my buddy said they were having problems breathing from the regulator. I tried breathing through it and it seemed to be tough to inhale; almost as if the diaphragm inside was sticking. I looked at the alternate second stage and tried breathing through that and encountered the exact same problem. Very strange. If you hit the front of the 2nd stage (near the purge button) it seemed to loosen up for about 20-30 seconds before it started sticking again. As we were planning a deep dive there was no way I was going to take any chances with equipment, so we had to call off the diving. Have sent the regulator off to get checked but I only had it serviced 2-3 weeks ago. Hopefully it is just something that has stuck and needs lubrication or similar. I could have taken the regulator apart and given it a visual inspection, but I would rather give it to someone who has easy access to the parts and who will know straight away what the problem is. So instead on Saturday we decided to snorkel around Maeda Misaki instead. The sun was beating down and the water was about 29C at the surface; it really was beautiful there. We snorkelled around to the “cave” but that was just a huge mass of people colliding into each other, elbowing each other in the face to get past etc, so we didn’t stay in there for long. At one point I had someone just push my head down under the water to give them leverage to get past - not nice. The sun was pretty strong and I could feel the backs of my legs had been burnt a little by the time we had finished.

(more…)

Something very different here for you, and probably not so relavent to my regular readers. But I spent quite a while writing this so I thought I’d put it here. As some of you know, as well as diving, one of my loves in Japan is now my car. This has been a recent thing, and has only really developed in the past 14 months since I got my 1992 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Well I have gone and bought myself something called an alcohol injection kit. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t mean just throwing a bottle of Bacardi Breezer in the petrol tank every now and then! It is actually a system that injects alcohol (usually ehtanol or methanol, although you can use very strong vodka or gin at a push!) and works to cool the air going into your engine, increasing the octane of the petrol, which makes it safer for the engine and increases performance. Here’s a review on my experiences of getting the kit, installing it (well, helping/hindering my friend while he installed it) and some testing/tuning of it. Sorry if I seem to go on quite a bit, but I want to make this review accessible to people who have no knowledge of alcohol injection beforehand. Althoug if you don’t know so much about cars then a few of the terms may confuse you.

First, a couple of words about my setup. I’m still running the small 16G in my Evo I, along with 264 Comp Cams, Punishment Racing manifold, HKS 1.2mm head gasket, ARP head studs, turbo-back exhaust with decat, ported O2 housing, iridium plugs and Bitz Dual SBC Spec S boost controller. Prior to installing the cams I was hitting about 1.47bar of boost but since the cams went in I’ve been limited to about 1.13 bar as going over that was increasing my knock too much and fuelling wasn’t really cutting it out. So I thought I’d go for methanol injection to see if I could get some timing back into the car and up the boost some.

I ordered the Devils Own Universal Stage 2 kit. I should note that if you have an Evo then you’ll want the 3-bar MAP sensor DSM Stage 2 kit. I mistakenly bought the voltage-controlled universal controller kit thinking that the signal from the MAF would trigger the controller. Didn’t realise until it came that the Evo MAF has a Karmann vortex system of Hz to report the airflow and the controller needs a voltage sensor. So I had to order the 3-bar MAP sensor separately. A 3-bar sensor will allow you to control methanol injection for up to 2-bar of boost, which should be enough for most of us running early Evos. Now you can buy a stage 1 kit, which is a bit cheaper. The difference is the controller. The stage 1 kit basically runs like an on/off switch. Either the meth isn’t running or it’s pumping meth in full blast into your intake. This could be fine for many people but the problem could occur in that, at low boost levels and when it first comes on, it could pump too much meth in there, flooding the cylinders and making the engine bog. With the stage 2 kit you get a progressive controller which allows you to control at what level of boost the meth starts to be sprayed in, and at what level of boost it’s at its maximum spraying level. I would say if you have the money then the progressive kit is the better one to have, mainly as it is a bit more configurable.

(more…)

Bits of news are still coming out of the Japanese news feeds about Tomohiro Kato, the man who murdered 7 people and injured 10 others in the centre of Akihabara on Sunday. He is reported as having told police he was unhappy with working conditions and the fact there had been personnel cuts at the car factory in Shizuoka where he was working. Apparently the decision to downsize the firm from 200 to 50 workers is sufficient to make a temporary worker go over the edge and decide to try and kill anyone within reach. It has also been revealed that Kato changed job a number of times after leaving college.

I’m sorry, but the sooner people realise the economic bubble in Japan burst about 15 years ago, the better. We no longer live in an age where you have job security for life, great conditions and working hours for workers, a salary that allows you to go to a hostess bar every night and a wife who is doesn’t do anything about the fact that you do. Well, maybe the latter is still here in Japan, but that’s a subject for another topic altogether. You have to put in hours of work these days, and lots of people don’t really like their jobs. Many Japanese companies still believe that the way back to success is to make workers to “voluntary” overtime until 9 or 10pm each night, but the fact of the matter is that productivity is going down like a lead balloon. And any temporary worker knows that they will be the first to leave a company when cutbacks are made. The word “temporary” can act as a slight giveaway to some. But it seems in Japan some people are still not realising the reality of it all.

And it was a sad sight yesterday to see Kato’s parents apologising and bowing deeply on the news, apologising for their son’s actions. I’m sure Tomohiro has made mummy and daddy very proud of him now. But as the cameras flashed, it is hard not to feel sympathy for the parents. It’s not as if Kato junior was 10 years old and the parents had bought the knives for him. There is only so much responsibility that parents can take over a child before it goes over to them to act like an adult.

Kato said he bought 6 knives the day before the attack, which was confirmed by shopping receipts. But he also said he gave one knife to a colleague, and police only recovered 5 knives from the scene of the attack. Now that could mean a couple of things. Did Kato have an accomplice, who was supposed to join him in the killing frenzied attack, but who then backed out? Did the colleague know about the attack beforehand, and if so why didn’t he contact the authorities? If not, why did he accept a knife given to him; did he not think to question why he was being given a blade?

(more…)

..as news of another knife attack (this time attempted) has made the top story here in Japan. Yup, the copycat people are out now, and we know how Japanese people like to follow the trends. Once again, Kyodo News with the story.

16-year-old boy arrested for barging into ex-girlfriend’s high school with knife in Kitakyushu
Tuesday 10th June, 10:35 AM JST

KITAKYUSHU - A 16-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday for trespassing in his ex-girlfriendfs high school and threatening staff with a knife in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Monday afternoon. Police said 20 officers were mobilized but nobody was injured.

According to police, the boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, entered the high school, brandishing a knife around 4 p.m. He told staff that he wanted to see his ex-girlfriend who is a student at the school. The boy became agitated and started waving the knife, a teacher said. Staff called police who took the boy into custody.

***********************************************

Get the boy named says I. Get him named & shamed and put away rather than concealing his identity as he’s a child and doesn’t know any better. Anyway, just thought I’d throw that one in. No doubt there will be a further attack in the net hour or 2. If not, i might have to get a fruit peeler from the kitchen area at work and go crazy!!! (For those of you lacking a sense of humour, that was a joke).

Another day, another knife attack here in beautiful Japan. This time the victim was a schoolgirl and the attacker wasn’t known. This, from Kyodo News:

Man slashes schoolgirl with knife in Nagoya
Monday 09th June, 04:28 PM JST

NAGOYA - A man on Sunday night assaulted a schoolgirl on a street in Kita-Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, police said Monday. According to police, the girl, 13, was walking home after finishing softball around 8 p.m. when the suspect came up behind her. The girl told police the man grabbed a softball she was carrying and threw it at her.

The girl said that as she turned to run away, the man came at her with a knife and slashed her pants. Police said she wasnft injured because her wallet in the left back pocket of her jeans protected her from the blade.

The suspect fled on a bicycle, mumbling to himself, the girl was quoted as saying. According to the girlfs description, he was in his 40s and was wearing a white cap and black clothes.

*********************************

OK, as much as this is providing fodder for my blog, I could really do without all these knife attacks to report. The situation is getting crazy here. What the hell would provoke a man to throw a softball (for those of you who don’t know what they are like, they are bigger than baseballs and their name is deceiving) at a 13 year old school girl and then try to slash the girl, before escaping on a bicycle? And then 2 of the other headlines here in Japan read “64-year old man arrested for strangling lover’s husband in Saitama” (yup, it’s in Saitama once again!) and “55-year old woman arrested for strangling 80-year old mother in Tokyo”. According to the woman, the excuse for the latter case was that “It is impossible for me to take care of her forever because she will never get better. I thought it would be bad for my husband, too”. Taking care of your old mother would be bad because she is going to die anyway, so why waste good time and money when we could kill her instead, it should read.

Oh, and if anyone has lost their left leg then please let police in Kumamoto know, as they have found a left leg severed below the thigh floating in a river in that area!

A couple of people have sent me emails recently, telling me that they are having problems commenting on my blog. The problem seems to be with the authentication code that you are supposed to type in not appearing on the screen when you try to leave a message. This problem only seems to be happening the 2nd time a user leaves a message (presumably something to do with the computer remembering your details or a glitch in the space/time continuum or something like that!). Well the news is that I am working on a solution and have tried a couple of things to maybe sort it out. “Jan” left me 2 messages on the site last night which gives me hope that maybe the problem has been resolved, but if you have a minute or 2, please try posting a couple of comments on my stories. If you have any issues, use the contact me link at the top of the page to let me know.

Thanks.

Another slight personal update today (as you might be able to tell, I have quite a bit of free time on Mondays!). June is the time of year when student teachers come to various schools throughout Japan for a few weeks of teaching experience, both watching and then later taking part in lessons. The student teachers are university teachers and will be 21 years old, give or take a year. They always come looking exactly the same: same hairstyle (differing ever so slightly between males and females), black suits, white shirts/blouses and darkish coloured tie for men. This seems to be the case for anyone newly entering a workplace in Japan. But this year was a little different as I walked into the school staffroom and suddenly realised that I knew 3 of the students! Now comes the more scary thing from my point of view: I know them because I have taught them! In my first year here in Okinawa, these three were 3 of my favourite English students. And now I’m going to be teaching a class with at least one of them and maybe two of them. It will feel a little strange and makes me feel very old; I shouldn’t be teaching WITH my students! But it should be a good few weeks as we learn from each other and I get the chance to catch up with a few people from my past.

A couple of weeks ago you may recall I posted an article about suicide in Japan, why it has been rising and what is being done/can be done in order to bring it down. I gave a few examples, and included that of a singer called Kago Ai (pictured below), who was in a group called Morning Musume. In that entry I made comment about the Up-Front Agency, who managed Ai at the time, and who offered her little support when the media was just using her for easy target practice. Well, it seems like the Up-Front Agency, were actually doing something to Kago Ai to rehabilitate her after the first incident. It seems that they had her placed under house arrest so that she could cause no more scandals for them. I kid you note, and here is a translated press release that was distrubuted by the Up-Front Agency:

To whom it may concern:

Regarding our client Kago Ai and the article in the weekly magazine that went on sale on March 26th, the information in the article has been verified with Kago herself, to our regret.

One year ago, when Kago was 17 and the smoking problem happened, we still considered her future in this company, and as punishment, she was imposed to house arrest in her parents’ home. Seeing how she had progressed over that year, it was decided to start from scratch and start preparing for a comeback by bringing her to Tokyo and having her do clerical and other office duties, starting on January 23rd. Although this worked out well for two months, there was another incident and the comeback plan was abandoned. After consulting with the family, as she is a minor, it has been confirmed, and she has been released from her contract.

We’re very sorry that it has come to this, and accept full responsibility.

We feel a renewed sense of responsibility for the future, especially when it comes to minors.

2007/3/26 Kawaguchi Yuukichi, Representative Director, Up Front Agency

So one recorded incident of her smoking had her placed under house arrest, all of her singing and showbiz career coming to an abrupt halt, and made to become an office lady as she is re-educated on how she “should” behave. And then when she was seen with an older man, it was decided the re-education wouldn’t work and that she was a lost cause and should be dropped. The “accept full responsibility” is a joke, as if they had done this then they would try and help & support her if they thought it was their fault. But saying that would save face, which is what it’s all about here. When something like that happens, you can imagine where she’s coming from in thinking about taking her own life.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, the support for people here is shocking, and until this gets addressed and people are seen as more than financial commodities, this will not change.

A chilling story for you here, which most of you have probably read about by now so I will try and give you a different slant and opinion on it. The news event I am talking about is the one which happened in the Akihabara district of Tokyo yesterday, in which a man went on what I believe constitutes a “spree”, killing 7 people and injuring 10 others.

For those that have yet to read the story, here is a brief summary. This guy, 25-year old Tomohiro Kato rented a truck in Shizuoka Prefecture, on the way to Tokyo. Once he got to the Japanese capital he headed to the Akihabara district. This is a popular area of Tokyo with both Japanese and foreigners. It is the electronics district of Tokyo and on Sundays some of the main roads are pedestrianised. Arriving in Akihabara at 12:30pm, this man proceeded to ram his truck into a bunch of people. He then got out and started stabbing wildly with a 13cm-bladed survival knife, aiming first for the people he had hit with the truck (slower targets) and then anyone he could get to, as he headed into the labyrinth of alleys in Akihabara. The police acted quickly (and deserve commendation for their actions), restrained & arrested the man, and seized his knife. Kato told police, “I came to Akihabara to kill people… I am tired of the world… Anyone was OK. I came alone”. At the time of arrest he was only charged with attempted murder as none of the suspects had died, but since then 6 men and 1 woman between the ages of 19 and 74 have died. The deceased have been confirmed as Mai Muto (21), Kazuhiro Koiwa (47), Katsuhiko Nakamura (74), Mitsuru Matsui (33), Kazunori Fujino (19), Naoki Miyamoto (31), and Takahiro Kawaguchi (19).

(more…)

It has been a long time coming, but I have a bit of diving news to report. The water is warming up, and so on Saturday I arranged an Open Water pool session that has been put off since the water started getting cold back in November. The day was a success on the whole and am now looking forward to getting into the water with those students at the start of July.

The day didn’t start too well, with rain scything down and strong winds on the west side of Okinawa. It was a good job we weren’t planning on getting into the ocean as there is no way we would have done it. Things didn’t improve when I got to the meeting spot and 5 minutes before we were all due to meet up one of my dive students called after being involved in a traffic collision. Not sure what happened exactly, but the main thing was she was physically OK. The car didn’t sound too good, with one of the front wheels not pointing the way it should, but cars can be repaired with money. So from 3 students we went down to 2, and those other two arrived promptly. We got gear and then headed off to the pool at Island Message in Sunabe.

Although we had done some of the skills before, I decided to run the course pretty much from scratch again as it had been a while since we’d done anything underwater. I was really pleased and, I have to admit, a little surprised at how well they did. Neither of them had any real problems, even when it came to the mask skills. The mask skills (filling it with water then clearing it, and removing the mask and putting it back on) are always the ones that could be tough for students. That skill is all psychological too: people often get worked up about water going in their nose and them inhaling it, that when they finally come down to doing the skill, they are so worked up that it happens just like that. The key with that skill is visualization; you have to picture yourself taking the mask off, the feeling of water touching your nose but not entering your nose, you keeping calm about it all etc. If you can picture yourself doing it, then you’ll do it without any problems. And I am happy to report both students did the mask removal first time, without any worries whatsoever. You could see the relief in their faces when they’d done it, along with the realization that it wasn’t nearly as tough as they’d built it up to be.

Once the mask skills are done, the rest of the session usually proves to be a breeze, and this one was no different. Smooth and methodical was the order of the day, and it worked well for both of them. So now I think we all look forward to the start of July (the next time we are all free) and a chance for us all to get into the ocean and see what diving is all about!