Movie “Parasite”

The Korean movie Parasite won the Oscar and attracted a lot of attention world wide and also in Japan.

I do watch Korean movies once in a while, mostly on Korean Air flights, so I am not strange to their style (and quality).

But I feel this move is over-rated, and could not explain to myself why it won the Oscar.

It is a good movie, but I wished it had some more depth in it.

The good:

  1. Social issues: The movie addresses some Korean social issues like importance of education, getting into the right school.
    The social gap between the rich and educated to people who cannot escape the poverty line.
    The cost of failure: Taking loans and the need to go underground to stay alive
  2. Photography, feeling of almost watching a play as most of the movie takes place inside of two houses, the rich and the poor

I wish it had more:

The rich are not that bad. Obviously in one of the last scenes the rich prefer to take care of a child which just fainted rather than handle a stabbing wound. But I wish there was more connection between the rich and the poor. For example, the rich owning lands and forcing the poor out of their home
While the son fantasizes about marrying the rich Daughter, I wish she was more cruel. Just playing with him as a diversion. There was a hint of that in the movie, but I wanted it to be stronger

SmartNews CoronaVirus Tab

SmartNews, an application aggregating news, has now a new tab of Covid-19, or as the tab calls it “New Virus”, which has information on number of infected people worldwide and Japan.

Japan numbers do not include the Cruise Ship.

Hotel Service or why hotels in Israel are expensive

Was on business trip to both Tel Aviv and Osaka in February. I wanted to write I was surprised to notice the differences in service between hotels, but thinking more about it, it is not surprising, just annoying.

Comparing Tel Aviv Herods to Osaka New Otani:

  1. Price – Herods was 50% more expensive than New Otani !!!
  2. Service – Impeccable in New Otani.
    Quite bad in Herods with several examples:
    a. Room was not cleaned on my first night. Called and asked for towels. Someone came over, just gave me the towels without offering any explanation or apology
    b. Extended one night and paid, without getting a receipt for the payment. They were busy and wanted to serve customer behind me
    c. Breakfast was delayed
  3. When passing staff in the Corridor, I was greeted in New Otani while completely ignored in Tel Aviv. In Herods, the service cart was always next to the elevator even when the staff was not there, while in New Otani staff waited for me to pass before opening and entering the service room

As you can understand, I can go on and on to explain the differences, which makes me think again about different cultures, pricing and what I get back for my money .

Hotel New Otani Osaka, Highly Recommended !!!

No tourists

Was on a business trip to Osaka last week.

Although surprisingly the Shinkansen was packed, the lack of tourists was obvious.
Had 30 minutes to walk around Osaka Castle, but could hardly see foreign tourists.

Corona Virus is definitely taking it’s toll on Japanese Economy


My next Camera ? Fujifilm X100V

I have been very happy with Ricoh GR for street photography, carrying it with me all the time.

But as it is aging and new models coming out I considered moving to Ricoh GR3. Tested, compared to previous models, compared to Fujifilm X100f, but then decided to wait for the X100V.

It is out and looks quite impressive, and I want it so much.
Since I am on a business trip, will have to wait till I come back to Japan to test it and then make a final decision, but most chances are that I will buy it.


(Just realized I did not blog about passing JLPT N2 and previous experience of JLPT N1)

I passed JLPT N1.
Maybe I should write “I barely passed”, but it does not really matter.
I passed JLPT N1.

When I passed JLPT N2, I told my friends that I plan to take N1 a few years later without studying as a way to measure my level, and so I did.
Tried once and failed. A few years passed so decided to try again. Had several books at home, but eventually did not study AT ALL.

This time it felt better than previous examination, but I had less confidence in the listening part than the previous time.

Delighted by the achievement. Not happy with the actual score, but have no motivation to do the test again.

Things you see in the train

Thinking more about it, not very surprising, nor strange. But it did intrigue me for a few seconds.

During morning rush, a woman in her 20s entered the train and stood with her back to me. I was obviously not staring at her smartphone, but did notice she opened Tinder, closed it immediately, then moved to the browser and closed most of the open tabs, some of which were well known porn sites.

As if she was “cleaning” her smartphone from last night activities.
I think I was mostly puzzled by the need to clean. Is it because she does not want to be embarrassed while surfing in the train, or is it that she does not want her co-workers, friends notice it. I guess it is the latter, but I will never know.

Cafe Staff

As I love Coffee and work very often in Cafes in Tokyo, it sometimes happens that I recognize and get recognized by Cafe Staff.
Only this morning I went to Tully’s in Tamachi 田町, and was greeted by a woman who works at another Tully’s branch. I recognizer her, and she recognized me as well.

She explained that she came to assist only today as they had personnel storage.

Again, amazing how I bump into people around Tokyo. A small Town

Book Publishing in Japan

Interesting numbers from The Economist about the Top ten countries for Book publishing.

As I believed for a long time, and now clear from the numbers, Japan is by far the biggest in book publishing per Million People. China and Korea are second and third.