Wow it has been a while since I last wrote here, like 4 months or so. And it would have been another 4, if it wasn’t for my marvelous adventures in the world of where everything begins with a lowercase “i”.

So there I was, couple of days ago, minding my own business, when out of nowhere I got a text from my mobile carrier company (SoftBank … yeah!???). I was about to disregard and forget it forever as any other spam they send my way, however some cosmic force forced me to take a second glance. Reading in Japanese is not one of my strong points, but anyone that has studied kanji can tell you, that you don’t need to be able to read everything in order to get the main idea of a text. (also there was a lot of イングリシゥ)
I read it 3 times in order to understand it, then another 3 to confirm my findings and to remove any kind of randomly generated error. The contents of this message gave the seed of very bad and homicidal thoughts towards SoftBank. How arrogant,… how retarded! For some god knows reasons they were letting me know that if I want to keep using their services, I should upgrade my iPhones software to 4.2 or higher!

To 99% of you that actually posses this demonic device, this doesn’t seem like a big deal. And what I am going to explain bellow will bring no meaning to those same people. For those people the iPhone is the perfect solution ( I will explain why some other time).

But for ME that is a big deal, cause you see my dear friends, my iPhone is jailbroken!!! with 4.0.1.
Therefore, for the past 3 hours I have been backing up, upgrading and jailbreaking firmware and syncing with the excuse of a program – iTunes. Out of those 3h, I spend 1.5 reading which method should I chose and how to perform it, 30 min to actually do it and another whole hour “syncing” my phone. And I have to spend one more painful and agonizing hour with the software created in the 9th level of Hell by a programmer that died from asphyxiation during masturbation - iTunes

Again some of you may say – what’s the big deal, its only 3 hours of your boring life that you would have spend starring at a bright screen anyway. Well my friends, the immediate problem that arises when performing such complicated maneuvers as jailbreaking ones phone, is that you lose some of your data. And I’m not talking here about cheesy text with air headed bimbos or phone contacts or emails (I have those on the Cloud(R), without texts of course). I’m talking about application settings, and applications themselves.

On top of everything I have just noticed that I can not connect to my carrier. The irony!!!!

“East Japan Railway says its Shinkansen bullet trains were able to put on their emergency brakes seconds before the March 11th earthquake, thanks to its early detection system.

It’s not known at what speed the trains were moving when the biggest tremor hit, but they had apparently slowed down enough to avoid derailing

Tuesday, April 05, 2011″

Source: NHK

I just love how advance is the automation system of the shinkansen. They hardly have “drivers”, or more appropriate term will be “pilot“, the shinkansen is going to fast for any human to react in a case of danger. The operators’ job is just to supervise and look good in a uniform.

Anyway, this article convinced me that the shinkansen is safer than an airplane、and scores another point for the Japanese ingenuity.

Update: March 22. I’m glad to say that the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is gradually improving. However I would like to turn your attention to this. Even though there is no (or very low) radioactive particles in the air, and as long as you don’t live in the 30 km quarantine zone, you can feel save to walk the streets. However if enough radioactive particles enter your systems, they may have long term effects and/or cause cancer. Unfortunately I can’t give you any specific number, but the less exposure the better.
I myself will refrain from drinking tap water and fresh vegetables, fruits, fish and milk that are made in Japan. I will concentrate on frozen goods, cans, meat and Chinese vegetables, I will also take some Iodine rich food supplements until the radiation levels have returned back to normal.

Tokyo radiation levels  hourly data.

Update: March 18 14:05. The radiation levels reported by NHK were WRONG. The latest value is 271 μSv (microSieverts) not milli~. Here is a screenshot of the report. This is very good news. It means that the radiation is 1000 lower then we previously thought. Also the radiation levels are dropping after the cooling operations, which still continue.

Update: March 18 05:00. Radiation levels at the power plant continue to fall down, to 279 mSv. Source NHK.

Update: March 17 23:00. Radiation levels at the power plant have lowered after the water spraying operations, to 289 mSv/h. Source NHK.

Update March 17 13:00. Maximum radiation levels 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi is 0.17 mSv/h. 60 km away the levels drop down to 0.0011 mSv/h. Still no danger for your health. Source NHK.

Update: March 17 10:00. Radiation levels in Ibaraki prefecture are detected to be 5.8 millisieverts/hour. This is a relatively big increase, but still bellow the danger zone. Source:NHK

Update: March 16. The radiations levels at 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi Plant are around 0.33 millisieverts/hour – this is an extremely low value, not dangerous for your health.  Source

There has been a huge misunderstanding about the radiation measured around Japan after the Fukushima Nuclear Accident. I will try to explain to the best of my abilities why you shouldn’t worry.

The reactors in Fukushima are of the second most popular type in the world: Boiling Water Reactor. You must understand that there is no more Nuclear Chain Reaction taking place inside the reactors. However a nuclear reactor is not an electric appliance that you can just unplug. After the chain reaction stops, some elements inside the reactor start decaying, some decay fast (like seconds), others – slower. It is important to note that many of these fission products produce heat while decaying. This means that gradually they will cool down after the stop decaying. For more information on reactor physics, read here.

The radiation measured around Fukushima is those slowly decaying elements, like cesium and iodine.

Iodine

Or Iodine-131 is a major fission product. It decays with a half-life of 8.02 days. This means that8 days after its produced, 50% of it has decayed; 16 days: 75% decay: 24 days 88%, etc.

The most dangerous aspect of Iodine is that the thyroid gland, actively accumulates iodine, which it uses to produce thyroid hormones required for normal body function.

A common treatment method for preventing iodine-131 exposure is by saturating the thyroid with regular, non-radioactive iodine-127. This prevents the thyroid from absorbing the radioactive iodine-131, thereby avoiding the damage caused by radiation to the body. This treatment method is most commonly accomplished by administering potassium iodide to those at risk.

In such cases the advised daily dosage for a grown up is 130mg Potassium Iodide. For more information on dosages see here.

Please don’t make the mistake of taking regular Iodide (aka Tincture of iodine). This is a disinfectant that is moderately toxic when ingested in amounts larger than those required to disinfect water. Tincture of iodine is sold labeled “for external use only,” and used primarily as a disinfectant.

Let’s summarize everything until now. The radiation detected is mainly Iodine-131 which decays in several days. Its effects can be countered by taking Potassium Iodide.

Radiation Levels

There has been a lot of talk about the radiation levels across Japan. This is what you should know:

It is measured in sievert (micro or millisieverts) or sieverts per hour (or year). Just sitting in your home on a sunny weekend, exposes you to 0.01 mSv a day. Which is several times bellow the danger zone. Here is a Symptom Benchmarks:

Effects to humans of acute radiation (within one day):

• 0–0.25 Sv: None
• 0.25–1 Sv: Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged.
• 1–3 Sv: Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow, lymph node, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.
• 3–6 Sv: Severe nausea, loss of appetite; hemorrhaging, infection, diarrhea, skin peels, sterility; death if untreated.
• 6–10 Sv: Above symptoms plus central nervous system impairment; death expected.
• Above 10 Sv: Incapacitation and death.

!NOTE: The values above are in sievert (Sv). The values they mention on TV are in mSv (millisieverts). 1 Sv = 1000 mSv (millisieverts) = 1,000,000 μSv (microsieverts).

Let’s do some math. The radiation in Tokyo (as of 15 March) is 0.8μSv which is around 19μSv per day, which is equal to taking an X-ray. People get freaked out because they heard that it is several times larger than the normal, but people fail to understand that there is a huge gap between normal and dangerous. And the size of that gap is more than 2500 times.

The radiation (as of 15 March) between the No. 2 and the number-three reactors is about 30 millisieverts, 400 millisieverts near No. 3 and 100 millisieverts near No. 4. So you can see that the radiation levels change a lot in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. This means that the dangerous levels are at the plant itself. The only people in slight danger are those still working there. So there is no reason for worry at this point.

In the unlikely event of high radiation levels, like those in the 20/30 km radius around the Fukushima Daiichi Plant this is what you must do:

Radiation Safety

Even though the sources of the radiation are relatively fast decaying elements, it is still best to avoid exposure. If the radiation in your area starts to increase:

• Stay indoors and don’t go outside. Have plenty of food.
• Close and seal all windows, doors, air vents, etc. Limit the air flow as much as possible. Turn off the AC too.
• You can use wet towels to block air from coming in from small openings in doors and windows.

If you go go outside during high radiation levels:

• Cover your skin as much as possible. Wear cloves, hat and mask.
• Tie a wet towel around your face, so that you don’t inhale any radioactive particles.
• Limit your exposure as much as possible.

After going back inside:

• Take off ALL of your clothes and put them in a plastic bag and seal the bag.
• Take a shower and rub yourself with soap.

Also stay informed and calm. If you try to escape there is a high probability that you will get stranded in an open area (traffic jam, train station) and you will be exposed to several times more radiation in comparison to staying indoors. The best thing to do is to stay home and wait for the radiation to decipitate.

Watch this video

If wish you can read this. It’s a big long but explains a lot of things.

Please don’t be scared by what is written here. I strongly believe that such precautions will not be necessary. I have written what I have be thought in school. Back home we used to have disaster prevention classes every 5 years or so. This is a knowledge that you MUST know and hope that you never have to use.

“Hope for the best and prepare for the worst”

Conclusion

Keep watching the news. Pay attention to the radiation levels in the areas near you. Make preparations. Have an emergency bag with food, clothes, etc.

And most importantly: BE CALM! The situation is not so bad. If you live in Nagoya (like me) or somewhere further form Fukushima, there is even less to be worried about. Nagoya is about 450 km away from the Fukushima Plant and in the very unlikely event of something bad happening, we will have enough time to react. I am personally more worried about the economical consequences that this disasters have brought to Japan.

I hope this article helped you to better understand the problem and that you will remain calm.

For more updates Twitter: @ivanpaparaka and Facebook

This is what I thought when I first saw a Japanese toilet. At first I couldn’t accept that there are so many buttons just for washing your ass, so I came up with a more plausible application for all those controls.
For homework: write in the comments, what was YOUR first encounter with the Transformers Toilet.

It looks good, but I can bet it tastes horrible.

Yesterday (Feb 15 2011), I had the “privilege” to attend one of the most controversial Japanese festivals. Hadaka Matsuri or “Naked Festival” is a huge event, where drunken Japanese man wearing diapers chase a completely naked guy. Apparently Shintoists believe that naked man absorb the bad things.
If you would like to read more, here is a link to Wikipedia on subject.
I on the other hand will tell what I saw with my own eyes and that’s something they have missed in Wikipedia.

First and foremost I have to note that it was very, very cold that day and despite the nice sunshine, the wind was freezing. I also had two friends who arranged to join a group of half naked guys. They tried on several occasions to get me to join but I gladly refused, and with time this decision proved to be life saving. For those who don’t know me, I should state that I hate cold and despise winter, so taking off my clothes at around 6°C is about 20 degrees colder than what I’m used to.

So now that we have established the working conditions, let’s turn to variables. The first deal of business, after getting “dressed”, is to start drinking in order to get warm. Then they take a bamboo tree and they wrap it in cloth that has something written on it. Then they start caring it towards the temple. In the midway they would lift the bamboo and some guys would climb on it. At the temple they ram the bamboo inside along with some other things that I couldn’t identify.
On their way back, they give pieces of cloth to random people, which end up being tied up on single spot near the temple.
When all the bamboo missiles are over, the already very drunk men gather at a single place and get covered by cold water, which on top of being extremely unpleasant, creates a lot of mud in their feet. So when they start chasing the naked guy, the slippery mud is one of the main reasons for the many injuries. I personally witnessed a guy being crushed in front of me and the police had to go in and get him out. Apparently touching the naked guy is considered to bring you good health. And I’m sure that after that day a lot of participants that suffered from hypothermia are going to need it.

There were a few very interesting things a noticed that day: There were a lot of tattooed guys, including the yakuza type. Also the weirdest thing was that it was full of old grannies, no taller than 1’40, feeling up the drunken half naked men. And as with any other BIG Japanese festival, people just stopped being polite and were pushing really hard to get closer to the action. The worst part is when you are in the middle of one group pushing forward and the opposite side being pushed back by the police.

On the bright side, I got to eat some really good food, that I have not seen on any other matsuri. Also please take a look at my video (first time editing) and pictures below.

Warning: If you are Japanese, you are advised NOT to read this article (読まないで下さい), as it may cause you great sorrow due to the harsh truth involved. If you chose to disregard this friendly warning, then please note that this article is supposed to be humorous (some people called it very dark and grotesque, but still its sole purpose is to enlighten in an entertaining ways), it was not intended to offend anyone. If you however feel offended in anyway, please stop reading it and go cry to your mommy. You have been warned!

I got my visa and airplane ticket reservation from the embassy of Japan.

The 20 (or something) journey will start at 6:30 on 1st of April  from Sofia and will end at 10:00 in Chibu International.

The visa itself is very “fashionable”. It has my picture in monochrome, shaped in an ellipse.  It gave me the chills since this kind of portrait is usually used on gravestones (at least in Bulgaria).

But in contrast to that, in order to make it more cheerful, there are several pink sakura flowers, one of them, as bigger than the picture itself.

I am sorry that I can’t scan it and paste it here (after blurring almost every personal information and even more).

I am heading back to packing and hopefully my next post will be from Japan.

This is the first post of my new blog, which will be only in English and will follow my adventures in Japan. Since I haven’t arrived there yet, there will be not much to see here until April 2010.

The purpose of this blog is to both keep my friends up to date and also to educate people that are interested in Japan. When I started researching what was I to expect when I get to Japan, I found out that such blogs as mine are very helpful and interesting. I have already added two such blogs under the “Blogroll” category.

The idea for the name “Ivan & Japanese people” came from a very old Japanese video lessons “Let’s Learn Japanese”, where the main story is titled “Yan And The Japanese People”. Another inspiration is Matt Harding, you can see his website for more info.

I’m running dry here and there isn’t more to say now, just hope to get some visitors in time. In the mean time keep checking the blog!