Lonely Planet has by far the most helpful guidebooks in English. Their Tokyo City Guide recommends hopping on the Yamanote train to get an overview of the city. The train goes around central Tokyo in a little more than an hour; when combined with an all-day rail/subway pass (¥1580), it gives you a good overview of the place. Here's the inside (counterclockwise) train pulling into Tokyo Station:
From Shinjuku, I went around to Tokyo Station, and walked over to the Imperial Palace. You can't get near the place, really; there's even a moat around it, in case of siege engines. I did wander the outer garden, dodging bicycles and Japanese tourists, and finding an unusual (for me) number of people doing watercolors:
Back to Tokyo Station for lunch in one of the crowded food courts, where I sampled three different kiosks and only bit into one thing I didn't like. (I must remember to ascertain what part of the chicken is on the teppanyaki stick.)
I decided not to try these, however; $15.50 was just too expensive:
After lunch I continued on the Yamanote train to Shibuya, which everyone who's ever seen a photo of Tokyo has seen. I plan to head back there around sunset to (a) get photos of it at night and (b) eat dinner in one of its thousands of little restaurants. Stand-up sushi, maybe? Itadakimasu!
Sam Harris has a good explanation of rules to live by if attacked:
The primary goal of self-defense is to avoid becoming the victim of violence. The best way to do this is to not be where violence is likely to occur. Of course, that’s not always possible—but without question, it is your first and best line of defense. If you visit dangerous neighborhoods at night, or hike alone and unarmed on trails near a big city, or frequent places where drunken young men gather, you are running some obvious risks.
Whatever your training, you should view any invitation to violence as an opportunity to die—or to be sent to prison for killing another human being. Violence must truly be the last resort. Thus, if someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you should hand it over without hesitation—and run.
This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape—not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.
I've started Krav Maga training mainly to get in shape—but also because Krav Maga teaches the same principles.
Two commemorations today.
First, and most important, this Veterans Day we honor the men and women who have defended our country, while the Commonwealth celebrates Remembrance Day. Specifically, we commemorate the end of the Great War, ninety four years ago today.
Second, we celebrate International Nigel Tufnel Day, who showed us what it means to go to 11.
- Two of my Duke classmates;
- Crystal Bowersox;
- Snow (which, in the last five minutes, has disappeared in favor of crystal clear blue skies); and
- An aggressive batch of chicken soup that, about an hour and a half ago, destroyed my laptop.
Three out of four is, all things considered, a good average.
Singer Kina Grannis has released a new video that used 280,000 Jelly Bellies and took her nearly two years to make:
As a plus, it's a catchy song with not one but two ear-worms in it. (Watch for the second one.)
A British plastic surgeon recently announced his findings after a months-long investigation of a particularly British institution:
It sounds almost like parody – a top consultant plastic surgeon spends three months studying models appearing on Page 3 of a bestselling British red-top newspaper. Later this month he reveals his findings: the mathematical proportions of the perfect breast.
This year [Patrick Mallucci, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at University College London and the Royal Free Hospitals,] conducted a three-month study to pinpoint the exact factors that make a woman’s breasts attractive. Titled Concepts In Aesthetic Breast Dimensions: Analysis Of The Ideal Breast, Mallucci’s study analysed the breasts of 100 topless models.
Thank you, Andrew Sullivan, for bringing this to the fore.
I'm in San Antonio on business. I brought The Rogue with me, and this week's Economist. Unfortunately, I finished both on the flight down.
Worse, I left my Kindle at home.
Fortunately, there's a Barnes & Noble just a short distance away.
Because what I really need right now is more books.
From reader DC, I present...Dog:
And for those who were never children, "Ralph" is the mouse with the motorcycle.
Forty five years ago today, Simon and Garfunkel released Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "The Dangling Conversation," "7 O'Clock News"—you can hear the '60s happening right on your iPod.
Which is, in fact, what I am about to do.