Archive for Tokyo
ceremonial matcha [Takayama, 11/03/2025]
Posted in pictures, Travel, Wines with tags antibiotics, Gifu, Honshu, Japan, Takayama, tea ceremony, Tokyo, Uji matcha, unami, vacations on July 20, 2025 by xi'an
a journal of the chaos and hail year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags Aomori, BBC, Black Plague, book reviews, Brandon Sanderson, buckwheat, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Edward Tufte, France Inter, green peas, hail, Jorge Luis Borges, Journal of the Plague Year, JR East, Paris, Roger Caillois, Russian invasion, Shinkansen, Stand Up To Trump, The Wheel of Time, Three Versions of Judas, Tokyo, Ukraine, USA, Venezia on May 27, 2025 by xi'an 
Read Ponce Pilate, a 1961 (!) short novel by the French writer Roger Caillois, that got (very positively) reviewed by Le Monde at the time. This is an uchrony that follows Pontius Pilate’s train (chariot?!) of thoughts as he considers the request by the Sanhedrin to crucify Jesus. Thanks to the book being mentioned with a morning press survey on France Inter, I went through this alternative history where Pilate dismiss the request and let Jesus free, who then dies of old age, with obvious consequences on the long-term future of Christian sects. The style is very pleasant and the revamping of Pilate as a weak stoic philosopher who eventually shows some (heavy) mettle most enjoyable. The reflection is mostly anachronic in the humanism, religious scepticism, and rationality of the character. There is also very little historical support for this vision of the man (whose end is unknown), but I did enjoy this celebration of free will and the refusal to commit a crime for the “greater good”. Some passages reminded me of Jorge Luis Borgès, whose Three Versions of Judas, published in 1944, presumably inspired Caillois, who also wrote a book on him. Maybe the essay was the final shove that made me give up on Stormlight Archives, by Brandon Sanderson, midway of the 1264 pages of Oathbringer, after I realised the trilogy was in fact a pentalogy! But also because finding myself more and more perturbed by a form of glorification of mass murder in the name of the “greater good”…
Made more “basic” salads with the growing offer from the local market. As well as stir fries of green peas while they last. And planted tomatoes and peppers, just before an hail storm tores through Paris (as shown by the huge volume of green leaves on the bike paths the next day). Fortunately, the storm skipped town and garden. Further dangers may still come to fruition before the plantations deliver, though. Same worry for the 20m² of buckwheat that have started to grow. (Just like last year, when they did not survive my fortnight in Venezia.)
Watched a silly movie around the Shinkansen, The Bullet Train Explosion, on a ride from Shin-Aomori to Tokyo, with a bomb threat that must be handled before arrival. Unrelentingly implausible, with the only appeal being the reproduction of the (antiquated?) General Control Center room. And the equally antiquated (but Tuftesque) timetables.
impressions, soleil levant
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Gifu, hojicha, Japanese tea, matcha, Michelin guide, Shiragawa-go, Takayama, tea ceremony, Tokyo, Ueno Park, Uji matcha on April 18, 2025 by xi'an
As “usual”, visiting Japan is a culture choc (in a most positive sense!), and this time as my first visit to Tokyo was no exception. Despite a rather heavy travel schedule to the Japanese (pre)-Alps, and five different housings!, everything took place as planed, albeit sometimes stressful. (To the point I fainted in a ramen restaurant the first day, presumably due to a combination of no sleep and no food for the past 24h. The ramen were fabulous, by the way!) One striking feature, related to the above, is the overall efficiency in daily life organisation, reflected a myriad of little details, as discovered in rental places. (With the correlated drawback of an abuse of plastic layers (bags-within-bags) and very limited recycling (despite the mottainai culture).)
Unsurprisingly, I had fantastic food throughout, mostly in backstreet tiny places with a few seats and a limited menu for much less than a duh meal in Paris (as last Saturday near Luxembourg!), e.g., fresh soba noodles in Takayama! (an almost empty place spotted by the Michelin guide and with no cell phone reception as an extra incentive to savour the instant), many more kinds of tofu than I knew existed—including a tofu okonomiyaki—, another opportunity to taste a kuzu dessert (above), limitless hojicha as default tea, a tea ceremony that involved a long chat with the tea shop owners in Takayama despite the language barrier, two traditional meals in traditional (gossen) farm in Shiragawa-go—where I went running by -6⁰ on clean roads with snow pile-ups higher than me on in side, before rerunning in Ueno park with morning joggers and the promise of cherry blossoms the following week!—, as well as drinking massive amounts of (non-traditional) matcha late (!) [despite the shortage of Uji matcha] and a few Japanese style coffees.
We also (re)experienced the efficiency of transportation, from the fabulous Tokyo metro network to the Shinkansen, whose far-from-new interior reminded me that they were introduced twenty years before the French TGVs (but updated to get USB connections on every seat), with the Snowpiercer feeling of rushing at high speed between row of high-rises (and managing to catch it literally at the last minute in Nagoya, due to a late (!!) connection from the mountain line from Takayama. And enjoying the limitless offer of meal boxes at Tokyo Central.
The flights between Paris and Tokyo were a bit lengthy, due to the Russian flight exclusion zone, meaning our inward plane followed the Russian border through all central Asia former USSR republics on the way to Tokyo, and the outward plane continued East to cross the Behring strait, with great views of Northern Alaska and Greenland. Which partly made up for the length!
imperial Edo [jatp]
Posted in Books, pictures, Travel with tags Asano Naganori, Chiyoda, Edo, Edo Castle, imperial palace, Japan, jatp, Kōkyo, Matsu no Ōrōka, Meiji era, the 47 rônins, the Akō incident, Tokyo, Tōkei on March 27, 2025 by xi'an
off to Tokyo
Posted in Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Bayesian decision theory, Bayesian privacy, Chūbu, conference, Honshu, Institute of Statistical Mathematics, invitation, Japan, Japan Statistical Society, Japanese Alps, JSS 2025 Spring Meeting, Tokyo on March 6, 2025 by xi'an
