Garden after a fortnight of holiday

I've spent an hour first thing this morning tidying up the garden a bit. We returned to find our lawn has grown like mad and gone to seed! 

Our pumpkins have flowered which I hadn't expected! They're still in small pots! I have lots of male flowers pictured and a couple of female flowers appear to be beginning to grow too. Below are two male flowers. 

Very excited that my first beef tomato is growing - tiny it may be right now but hopefully it will grow into a lovely juicy beefsteak tomato! 

The begonias are looking good too. 

As are my pansies. 

I was most surprised that my hanging basket was looking good too! 

Kitchen town, temple and shady park

Today we did many things. We visited Kapabashi street in "Kitchen Town" where you can buy anything you could possibly want for your kitchen from cookie cutters to impressive Japanese knives, to pottery bowls and kettles. They also sell to the Tokyo restaurant trade so there are shops selling chairs, no smoking and reserved table signs and of course the famous plastic food which many restaurants have outside advertising their menu, and many a foreign tourist is grateful for. Below is a picture of some plastic fruit and veg. 

I bought myself a cat cookie cutter and one shaped like a tea pot and another like the face of Rilakkuma bear. 

After our walk up and down Kappabashi street we went to Senso ji temple at Asakusa. Jase hadn't been here before - I visited it alone a couple of years ago when Jase was working and I was amusing myself. It's a temple dedicated to the goddess Kannon (closely linked to Guanyin) the goddess of mercy. 

Below is a photo of people wafting incense on to them selves for good luck. I had a go too. 

At the side of the temple are smaller gardens and statues like this one of the Buddha. 

There is also a stream with Coi

And a waterfall. 

After grabbing a snack from one of the many stalls that line the roads to the temple we popped back to Akahibara and then to Kyu Shiba Rikyu Garden. It was a lovely peaceful garden of greens and pinks with a lake in the middle.  

I love all the greenery in the heart of Tokyo. This park is flanked by both a train line and an express way! 

It was a lovely spot to explore this afternoon as it got very hot. 

Back at the hotel we started our evening with a cocktail. I had a mango mojito which was very refreshing. 

Shopping in Tokyo Station

If yesterday was all about Buddhist temples, nestling in the tree covered hills of Kamakura leading down to the Pacific Ocean, then today was about a different side of Japan. It was about shopping. We chose today as a shopping day as it rained over night and first thing,  we woke this morning to a lovely cloud swept sky, pictured below. We decided to go shopping at Tokyo Station. 

The last time we were in Tokyo, the revamped Tokyo train station had just been completed. It has been restored to its original plans from 1914. During the devastating fire bombing of Tokyo in 1945, which killed more Japanese people than the atomic bombs, yet is relatively rarely reported on, Tokyo Station's roof and third floor were destroyed. The station was patched together temporarily and that restructuring lasted 60 years! But it was decided the station should be restored to its original design and now the roof has domes on top of it as it originally did 101 years ago. We saw it from above today in a glass lift. It was too crowded for me to get a photo. 

The shopping mall however is below the station. We sought out the kitkat shop on arriving. The Japanese love kitkats, the name sounds like the expression for wishing good luck in Japanese so kitkats are given as good luck gifts before exams or tests or even before journeys. They also come in a myriad of flavours from green tea to rum and raisin to wasabi to strawberry cheesecake. Today we bought ginger, apricot, chilli and raspberry flavour ones. They are exquisitely wrapped - not at all like the Kitkats back home. Below is a photo of a kitkat display. 

Part of the shopping mall is called character street comprising of shops of children's and TV characters like Hello Kitty, Snoopy and the Moomins. There was a shop dedicated to the bear rilakkuma - it means relaxed bear - that my niece Lucia loves. 

Another thing I love about Japan is the exquisite fruit, often given as gifts and you'll see why in a moment. I took the photo below of 15 identical strawberries, identical in size, shape and colour. They are carefully displayed in a box, each one protected from being bruised. They smelt amazing but at the equivalent of £10 for the box of 15 they are mega expensive! 

Great Buddha of Kamakura

I love Kamakura it's a proper seaside town awash with ice cream sellers, tourist shops, snack vendors, surfers and of course the worlds largest outdoor Buddha: The Daibutsu or Great Buddha. It's 8 years since I first visited Kamakura and things haven't changed. I get the feeling things haven't changed there much in the 800 years since the great Buddha was built. Back then Kamakura was the capital of Japan (for a hundred years or so anyway until the capital moved to Kyoto and then Edo or Tokyo.)  in 1250 it's estimated that Kamakura was the 4th most populous city in the world. So it isn't really a surprise that the extraordinarily large Buddha was built. Back then he wasn't outdoors but was within a wooden hall which was swept away during a storm and tsunami in the 13th century and not replaced. 

Me standing in front of the Great Buddha 

The Daibutsu depicts a celestial Buddha described as the Buddha of immeasurable life and light, which I think is a lovely image. 

The temple where the Great Buddha rests is a very popular tourist attraction and there were a lot school parties there too. In the picture above you can see a group of school boys by the Buddha. Jason and I must have been stopped a dozen times by school children wanting to ask us in English why we were visiting Japan, where we were from and what our favourite Japanese food was! They wrote down our answers studiously! 

It wasn't just school children and tourists we also saw a group of monks posing for a group photo. 

After visiting the temple we walked to the beach. I was surprised by the number of surfers who were enjoying the warm weather but choppy ocean. 

We saw some Hawks hovering over the beach - we saw the birds of prey last time we visited - this time we also saw a sign warning  people to be aware of the hawks. And we worry about seagulls back home! 

All in all it was a lovely day out by the seaside. 

Dinner plans changed

So we intended to eat at the Dubliners pub only to arrive and find there was some function on and it was closed to the public. We ended up trying a Thai restaurant having fish cakes then red and green curry. It was really lovely. 

Godzilla, Dino robots and jumping sauce

Just a few quick photos as I need to do my hair before we pop out to an "Irish Pub" it's actually part of a chain of pubs in Tokyo we like called Ginza Lion but this one has an Irish theme and is called The Dubliners. I'll tell you about it later! 

But today we went to Akahibara or Electric Town.  We spent a lot of time in the giant Yodobashi Camera shop - it doesn't just sell cameras but everything electrical. Though I bought a cute small camera bag and a deep pink coloured micro usb cable there. I also bought a brush for cleaning my computer keyboard. They have all the colours of computer cleaning equipment as you can see here! 

Near the top of Yodobashi Camera is the games and film section so I got my photo taken with Godzilla who was advertising his film. 

We then went to look at some of the more hardcore electronics shops or market stalls which sell electronics components. We also went to the robot shop that sells small robots and the stuff you need to build your own robots. I liked Helo! Dino a robot dinosaur and the box robot pictured below. 

We also had lunch in a "Family Restaurant." We both had steaks brought to us sizzling on a hot plate with a sauce to pour over them. They plates were surrounded by a paper hat type thing with the English written on them as "Please Note the Jumping of the Sauce!" 

The steaks were delicious and the sauce did indeed jump or spit when I poured it on! 

Shopping in Ikebukuro

There are so many things to blog about today! We went shopping and I appear to have bought all the things! 

We went to Ikebukuro as I fancied going to the cat house at the top of the DIY  and home shop Tokyu Hands. I wish Homebase was like Tokyu Hands and not just because of the cats. This was my favourite cat. His markings were spectacular and I love his bandana. 

But Tokyu Hands is more than cats and DIY. You can equip yourself with a whole chemistry lab. 

I didn't buy any chemistry gear :-) I did buy a load of washi tape and some notelets. It's lovely that there is still a culture of writing by hand in Japan. 

We also went to Bic Camera and I bought myself some hair straighteners. They're pink they have dual voltage so work anywhere in the world, which will be handy for my trips to Paris, New York and San Fransisco over the next 11 months!  They have loads of accessories and a carry case. They were a bargain at £17 - in the U.S. they cost $70 which I think is about £40! 

I can't wait to try them out tomorrow! 

While we were in Sunshine City Shopping and entertainment centre in Ikebukuro there was a J-Pop girl band performing. I took a picture from above the performance as we were looking for something to eat. 

We had a lunch of curry at an Indian restaurant. The waiter seemed to be pleased to talk to us in English. I had a delicious Japanese style chicken and vegetable curry. 

On our way home we stopped by the food hall in Shinagawa station. It has some amazing food stalls and restaurants including the oddly named bakery Buzzsearch. This bakery specialises in cakes, usually bought when travelling to share or give as gifts. I've always wanted to try one of the fruit rolls. They're a bit like Swiss rolls. An outer layer of sponge filled with creme pat and fruit or other sweet things. I couldn't resist today and bought a fruit roll pictured below. We didn't have a knife at the hotel room so it didn't cut very elegantly with a spoon. It tasted amazing! We have a lot more left for later too. The fruit inside is banana, kiwi, strawberry, orange and peach. 

Of course it being Japan the cake comes in a beautiful box with packs of ice beneath it and the cake beautifully wrapped in celephane. 

I also bought myself some nail varnish from the local chemist. 4 bottles for under a tenner. It is not true that Japan is expensive! 

So it's been a successful day of shopping! 

Tokyo - the longest day!

As I write this I will have been awake for over  25 hours. It's beginning to take its toll. I feel faint and quite giddy. But the good news is we got to Tokyo safely at 7:10 this morning. The flight wasn't too bad. I watched two films both of which made me cry: Paddington made me cry with laughter and The Theory of Everything for being a bloomin' good film. 

We flew into Tokyo Haneda which is a smaller business type airport - a bit like City Airport in London. It's only 20 minutes from Haneda to where we're staying in Shinigawa. One of the first things we did on getting through security and customs was to by some green tea from a vending machine. Here's a picture of me clutching my vending machine green tea. 

We got to our hotel not long after 9 AM. Here's the view from the hotel lobby's ladies toilet. Yes the hotel starts on the 26th floor. Below it are offices. 

We have then spent our day exploring near to the hotel, there are lots of cafes and restaurants, a linear style park and Jason's office in Tokyo. We visited the coffee shop at Jason's work. 

Here's a couple of picture of the park. 

In the park smokers are forced to smoke in designated caged areas. Something I think we should introduce in the UK. 

We then went to Shibuya (pictured below) for lunch and a look round a couple of shops. 

The Shops in Japan are always full of great stuff like shelves upon shelves of post cards including these ones of cats, dogs and then food! 

Or there's the shelf of fish shaped scowerers in every colour you could want! 

We had lunch in Ginza Lion and then came back to the hotel. I am trying everything humanly possible not to fall asleep as I type this. So apologies for all the typos! 

Visit to Tokyo

I am incredibly lucky that this year I will be visiting some of the world's finest cities for holidays and work. This week we fly to Tokyo for a 2 week holiday. (I'm also having a work meeting when I'm over there but more of that later) then I'll be delivering training in Paris in June / July and grabbing a couple of days holiday there too. Then in September we go to New York for 10 days. Finally next April we're going to San Fransisco! 

As I mentioned above when we're in Tokyo I will be visiting Tsukuba University to discuss making reasonable adjustments for disabled students with academics there. They have invited me to spend a whole day with them being given a guided tour of the uni and city. Then we'll discuss how the university is making progress providing reasonable adjustments after ratifying the UN Convention on the rights of disabled people. 

Q&A with Ed Miliband in Bedford

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a Q&A with Ed Miliband in Bedford. I am so pleased that I went a long, and not just because I got a selfie with Ed or that the BBC ran footage of me getting that selfie on their rolling news! I'm glad I went because it has made me even more certain that I did the right thing in joining the Labour party again.

There's me getting my selfie

I joined Labour the first time round as a student in the early 90s. I let my membership lapse a few years later when I became a bit more disenchanted with Tony Blair but mainly I let it lapse because I didn't really think I needed to be a member of a political party. I was working in the disability and equality field by then. first working for Ken Livingstone and then the Disability Rights Commission. I could see progress was being made and I did enough campaigning in my day job; I didn't want to get involved in politics in my spare time.

But I joined Labour again a month ago, and I wish I had done it sooner. I still work in the disability and equality field and over the last 5 years I have watched that progress, I helped in a small way to build, be steadily eroded. Whether it's restricting legal aid and judicial reviews, or slashing vital support for disabled and older people, the last 5 years have brought real misery to many people. I want to stand up to the ideology of the Tory party, that says everyone should stand on their own two feet and help themselves, which in real terms has meant that the rich have helped themselves to more wealth whilst the poorest are relying on food banks and charity. That's not a society I want to live in. It is also not the inevitable outcome of the financial crisis as some may have you believe. You see we don't have an equal society, no where near that, which means it's a lot easier for some to help themselves than it is for others. Until we have equal opportunities for all, we can't expect the most disadvantaged to compete with the most advantaged. 

I was looking forward to seeing Ed Miliband yesterday but I did kind of expect it to be like a lot of political events I've been to in the past or even helped organise. I have been lucky enough to work in Westminster (for the Lib Dems back in the late 90s) and to have worked with government ministers and MPs through out my career. Some of the politicians I have met and worked with have been nice, I have deeply admired some of them, others are the kind of people you'd like to have a drink with down the pub. Some of them have been rather vain and not interested in what others have had to say, whilst a very small minority I've met have been hideous to deal with, rude and arrogant. 

I whole heartedly expected Ed Miliband to be one of the nice but perhaps aloof politicians. So I wasn't expecting to be confronted by someone who seems so genuinely to care. Ed Miliband came across to me as one of the most sensitive and thoughtful politicians I've met. He also struck me as honest. Yes I know, but he did. I think the reason why this doesn't readily come across on TV is that even with our 24 hour rolling news, for all the time they have to fill, the media still just pick sound bites and snippets to use. From spending an hour at the Q&A and seeing and listening to all the ground that was covered I was disappointed that the BBC reduced the whole thing to one 20 second bit about coalitions. What didn't come across and what I was most impressed with, was how Ed Miliband linked issues and policies together, looking at a bigger picture and considering how solving one problem can in fact solve many more. 

In the hour of the Q&A the questions asked ranged from NHS in all it's many services including, mental health, ambulance services, fertility treatment, nursing shortages and integrating social care to questions about  early years education, free schools and school place shortages, and private education, it covered housing for young  people, support for single mothers, the armed forces cuts and what to do about Trident, my questions on disability and employment as well as questions about supporting those made redundant and what Labour will do for those fairly well off middle earners who worry about their children not having the same opportunities they have, as well as supporting young people into work and education, and voting and democracy. But the news just shows you 20 seconds about possible coalition negotiations.

So what did I ask Ed. Well I asked him what labour would do to help disabled people, not just scrapping the bedroom tax but more broadly. I gave him the example of a friend who has a first degree but can't get a job in social work. He had already tackled questions about the shortages of social workers. How did he respond? Well first of all he acknowledged that my question was an important one he said that current legislation was a good start but disability equality needed to go further. He said the work capability assessment needed to be reformed but most importantly the assessment should be about what support people needed to get into work and what support employers needed. He said it was vital that employers were supported to employ disabled people. He said labour would work to improve disability equality to look at how the disability discrimination act and equality act could be taken further so disabled people can contribute and take part in all areas of life. 

I have a kind of radar that goes off when a politician or manager of some sort is uncomfortable talking about disability equality. It must be from all the years training and working in this field. But that radar didn't go off when Ed spoke. He meant it. He wasn't just saying warm words. I wish now my question had been to ask him to commit to a new disability task force. He committed to it in all but name I think. 

What I found most refreshing was to hear a politician speak for over an hour, on many topics and for me to agree with them and not be left feeling angry or exasperated. Believe me politicians of all parties do have that exasperation effect on me often. But not Ed. I disagreed with some of his points, on Trident for example but he acknowledged others felt differently to him and he was respectful of their views. 

I also appreciate that his message was a positive one, a message of hope, of creating a fairer society of supporting the vulnerable and caring about the NHS, its staff and patients. Of course there was criticism of the coalition government but it was criticism of policies not personalities. At one point he explained why he had met with Russell Brand and he explained that although he completely disagreed with Brand's stance on not voting, he was not dismissive of Brand's view nor those of his many followers on YouTube. He linked it to a question about disenchantment with politics, he said you could just ignore those people switched off by politics or dismiss them as jokes or you could engage with them and start a dialogue and try to move forward with a better understanding of each other. It was that message of understanding, co-operation and wishing to include not exclude which is at the heart of so many of labours policies that impressed me deeply. 

Here's my selfie with Ed Miliband