Being one year older maybe isn’t the best thing to be cheering about, however I definitely had a great time this Saturday. One of my presents was the Canon G10 camera, so you can expect plenty of photos in the near future. We have spent most of the day in London doing a bit of shopping, finished of with a nice meal. I also got two books: “Darwin’s Island” and “How Not To Write a Novel”… very appropriate indeed.

Surprisingly the trip to London was quite fruitful and I ended up with a new bag and a fancy pair of boots…

There is just one minor problem with the shoes. Until I got home I haven’t realized I have no clue how to clean them - the pattern is made of a soft meshy material. And they come with a label - avoid mud and water… Help!h

I don’t fly often, but on the rare occasions that I do unfortunatelly my airline choice is very limited. My quite common route is London (UK) - Poznań (Poland) and to my despair the choice in basically between Wizzair and Ryanair. There used to be a British Airways direct connection, though it seems it isn’t available anymore, and admittedly it was more pricey than the first two.

There are two reasons for this topic today. Firstly Easter is coming so I had to book my flights recently to not end up with some ridiculous rates. Secondly I found an interesting article on the Guardian’s website about one of the two cheap lines. If it wasn’t so outrageous, it might have actually been funny… here is a quote:

“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.”

This was the official response from Ryanair after a small affair has been started online by the airline’s employee’s inappropriate blog pots comments. Admittedly Ryanair as well as its owner are know to be less than polite on many occasions, and not really fussed about customer service, often using their “strive to have the lowest fares” as a facade for rudeness and lack of comforts and amenities.

Since the whole luggage fees thing started I usually opted for Wizzair over Ryanair even if it meant spending a few more pounds. Because at the end of the day I got a higher baggage limit and their “extra fees” on top of the ticket price have been more reasonable. However as we have found out last Christmas there is one flaw on the route I take - the return flights all depart at 6am…

This means leaving my parents house at 3am, which maybe wouldn’t be such a big thing for my partner and I, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is only possible if my parents drive us there… In the end it means everyone gets no sleep.

So in order to make the journey slightly more reasonable this time we went with Ryanair. And it quickly reminded me why I was choosing Wizzair before. Just to start with the hideous booking process which seems to do everything to discourage you from choosing an optimum date and time. With all the hyped claims of doing everything to lower the prices and cut costs “for the customer” the booking does quite the opposite.

You need quite some willpower and determination to click through the dates one by one to compare prices. In our case we take holiday according to our flights, so we have some flexibility when it comes to what day we will be departing. And very often a day sooner or later can mean significant savings. I always liked Wizzair’s weekly preview, it definitely helps you judge prices easily, no need to memorise all your possible departure and arrival combinations just to make a choice. Not to mention that if you click next or previous day to many times in a row the website will just happily throw an error at you, that most of the time means starting the whole booking process all over again.

However in the end this time with a difference in prices and convenient flight times, I crawled through the booking process on Ryanair’s website. Just to be shocked by the luggage prices! Both cheap lines had these extra costs before, but it was just a couple of quid. This time Ryanair was asking  £14 per bag per passenger. Well, with this surcharge, the tickets would no longer be that cheap especially considering there’s also a Visa charge…

In the end we decided to fly with just hand luggage, however ever since I have been wondering about loads of things, whether we can take them in the bag or not. I might actually need to send Easter presents in the post - not a big deal considering the package cost will be less than the baggage charge…

I didn’t like Ryanair before reading the article, but I think that little bit of unnecessary rudeness is too much for me. Looks like we will be joining the “say no to Ryanair” bunch after our farewell flight during Easter.

After being slightly delayed by the snow (yes, I’m definitely slipping into English habits - even buying cards for every occasion…) I’m finally getting back to the Tokyo Day even in London which I have attended on Saturday, 31st of January 2009.

As both my partner and I are quite keen on Japan and Japanese culture we thought it might be a good opportunity to experience a bit of it first hand and learn a few things on the way. Definitely the mention of robots helped make up our minds… Also considering the admission was free we had nothing to lose.

Japanese Robots

Just as you entered the exhibition you were “greeted” by Mega Robo:

The robot would say a few welcoming words while simultaneously mimicking human natural movement and emotional expressions. Obviously no one would be fooled into thinking it’s a living being, however the efforts were still quite impressive.

Just next was a stand with two very cute iDogs, one with girly pink swirls all over, while the other one just pure white.

Following was something I was most impressed with. The tiny i-Sobot - the world’s smallest humanoid robot. There were two of them on display, with remotes actually available to the audience. Unfortunately the controllers had kids constantly glued to them, so it was nearly impossible to have a go for an adult.

Nevertheless the i-Sobots could perform quite a few tricks like walk, dance and perform martial arts moves, and best of all they could lie down, and then stand up on their own!

The last robot on display was the rolling speaker-ball called Miuro. Personally I found it an interesting concept, though I struggled to find a real life application, other than the first minutes of watching the thing bouncing around the floor…

Information about Japan and the Olympics

Apart from looking at different aspects of Japanese culture you could read quite a lot about many topics like tourism, geography, Tokyo’s public transport, cuisine, city attractions, landmarks worth visiting, and more.

I really liked the way all this information was presented. Big boards hanging on lit walls, illustrated with beautiful photographs. There were plenty of details about the Tokyo’s bid at hosting the Olympics, to quote from the event’s website:

“Tokyo has been chosen as a Candidate City to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This panel exhibition showcases Tokyo’s plan to host the world’s most environmentally friendly and compact Games at the heart of the city, which maximises Japan’s renowned cutting-edge technologies.”

Stage Events

Unfortunately I haven’t seen all of the performances, as we arrived quite late during the day, however what I have seen was interesting and novel to see live, rather than on a tv screen. These included traditional music and dancing, Wadaiko and the dragon dance.

Origami

The Origami workshop was the one that did not require signing up in advance. Several tables were available with square bits of colourful paper scattered around. Apart from the penguin, which you have already seen in my previous post there were several other patterns available, like for example the Balloon:

… and the Samurai Kabuto Helmet:

… and a Crane:

… and finally something we got a demonstration of, as there was no instructions available, the two colour Ninja Shuriken:

Tea Ceremony & Calligraphy

Unfortunately Calligraphy was so popular we had no chance of getting in. You can just see a snapshot from the Calligraphy corner:

The other available workshop was the Tea Ceremony. And you guessed it, that was all booked too, unfortunately we didn’t even manage to catch a photo.

Arts & Crafts

The exhibition also had an interesting display of art, as per the official website:

“This exhibition features 24 colour woodblock prints selected from four
different series by Hokusai, including the famous 36 Views of Mount
Fuji, as well as vivid sketches from the Hokusai Manga collection. The
prints, skilfully reproduced by contemporary master craftsmen, provide
fascinating insights into the landscapes and lifestyles of old Tokyo
(Edo).”

When it comes to crafts there was a beautiful display of hair ornaments made from material into amazing flower like patterns.

Related Links:

• Flickr photos from the show by Shigatsuhana
• The Real Japan: Tokyo Day 2009: Japan in London
• Official website

When I was a kid I used to enjoy winter quite a lot. I remember snow sometimes started to fall even as early as late November. We used to go to school, have snowball fights in the school’s courtyard during breaks and go sledging or creating snowmen in the afternoons. Depending on the temperature we sometimes were even able to use the lake as a free skating rink (whether we had skates or not…).

You might be starting to get the picture.

The only time in primary school we got a day off in the winter was because only 3 or 5 (can’t remember exactly) kids showed up, with the rest being absent due to some flu outbreak.

Imagine then my bewilderment when during my first winter in England we had a whole day of snow, which resulted in a almost national day off for school kids. Quite strange if you ask me. Although considering snow is such a rare occurrence, especially in the south, well maybe the kids do deserve a couple of hours extra to enjoy real winter weather.

However it is not the schools or kids that are the big shock.

Maybe the snowfall at the beginning of the week was the worst in the last 18 years, however I can quite well recall two years ago the country had a small panic attack as well. It seems like Britain is living in some sort of denial.

The winters are mild and winter tires seem to be a novel concept to English people. Yet, just because there is no snow, it does not mean you can be excused for not being prepared for bad weather.

We had snow on Monday, nice big flakes nearly all day. Admittedly it did pile up a little bit. However it looked nowhere near the disaster it turned into… From my perspective it was just a bit of snow, not much more than we would see in my home country on a very generic snowy winter day.

Not in Britain though… The buses stopped, trains ceased to function, London underground was paralysed. The brave crusaders on the motorway ended up in numerous collisions, or if they were lucky enough snailed their way to work. The panic, the disorganisation, people frantically callying their workplaces. This in turn meant that around ninish in the morining mobile networks got slightly overloaded, and train websites like nationalrail.co.uk just died due to the ‘unforseen’ spike in traffic.

My own workplace ended up in slight chaos. Most people worked from home. The few that came were confronted with the lack of keys, as it just so happened that all keyholders got delayed or stranded by the weather. Just as I was going to leave for work I got a call telling me about the key situation which was the only reason I ended up working from home.

It is so shocking to see a country that sets an example on how to deal with really big catastrophes like the London bombings, fall apart due to a little bit of snow. When those happened a lot of people in countries like mine were shocked, positively mind you, at how quickly and swiftly the order was restored, the situation dealt with and life was back to normal.

It isn’t a fair comparison but it does remind me of an elephant scared of a mouse when it comes to the winter issue. The weather is changing, even if we are not getting daily snow, frost does seem to come and go. The arguments seem to be that the measures needed for situations like this are not worth the cost when it happens every 18 years. But there s fault in such thinking, as firstly you cannot forsee if the next event like this will happen the following year or in the next decade. Secondly maybe it doesn’t get as extreme as this, but this things do seem to be happening even if it is with less severity.

Last Saturday I went to London to see the Tokyo Day exhibition. One of the several available attractions was origami, and considering it was one of the few things you did not need to sign up in advance for I decided to have a go at it. I must say it is quite surprising how relaxing folding pieces of papers can be.

There were several templates available, one of which was a set of instructions on how to do an origami penguin. Some of the steps are simple, and some surprisingly tricky. Apologies for the photo quality in advance - my camera broke down, and the only thing I had was my phone, and as we all know the shots from mobiles are not that great.

Before we begin you will need one thing: a square piece of thin, preferably coloured on one side, paper. If you have thicker paper it is still fine, though you might find folding slightly harder. And as for the colour, well it just give a more dramatic effect if one side is coloured.

Step 1 - The beginning

Lay the piece of paper in front of you the coloured face up and one of the corners pointing towards you.

Step 2 - Create the body

Now fold the paper in two and create a triangle. Do this by picking up the let corner and matching it up with the right corner of the initial diamond figure.

Step 3 -Add Wings

Fold the top piece slightly to create a wing. Repeat it on the other side.

Step 4 - Create the Head

To create the head you need to turn the top corner inside out. It is a bit tricky and you need to be careful not to tear the paper.

Step 5 - Add a Tail

Similarly to the head, the tail is done using an inverted fold. But rather then flipping it inside out, you make a triangle on the inside of the body. To get the right creases you might want to first create a triangle on the outside as shown below.

Once you have the right creases folding it inside should be fairly easy and from behind looks like this:

Step 6 - Finishing of With the Beak

The last detail to be added is the beak. Take the tip of the head and fold it inside, next fold it outside again about half way through. This should leave you with a finished penguin looking something like this: