Asian Dust

Asian Dust │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/250, RAW

Not really a pretty picture, but something I wanted to document. This last week, Japan's been sujected to a huge Asian Dust storm, which, quite unsurprisingly, has been plastered all over the news. Of course, Japan and China have such a great history, that the Japanese news is effectively blaming China, and trying to whip up yet more criticism of pollution from China.

Interestingly enough, my current job is to measure pollution. I have either personally installed, or am responsible for, no fewer than 10 different instruments throughout Asia, which measure Black Carbon (BC). It's a rather popular topic at the moment, and it's not hard to find someone with an opinion on the matter. If you're interested, the measurement sites are here:

As a research scientist, I [remotely] collect and [locally] analyse data from these sites, almost every day. That's one of the roles of my job. Anyway, with all this action in the news, and Japanese media blaming China for pollution in Japan, I wonder where their Japanese Toyota or Nissan car was made. China? How about their shiny MacBook Pro? Made in China? Their iPhone? Assembled in China? Hmm..

Anyway, this is the oojamaflip which measures BC. It's called COSMOS, which is quite cute. COSMOS stands for Continuous Soot Monitoring System, which is less cute.

If you want to know more about it, or see some data, I hope to be writing a paper on the subject very soon. No pretty pictures though :(

Tuk-tuk travel in Thailand

Tuk-tuk │ NEX-7 & SEL18200LE │ 21mm, ISO 160, f/6.3, RAW Why is it that after a nice, relaxing holiday fuelled with great food, drink and sun, that within 10 minutes of being back in the office... we dream of another holiday? Well, not quite, but you get the point. After a lovely 10 days in Thailand, we're back in Tokyo. Arriving back on the Sunday after around 18 hours of continuous travel (more on that in another post), waking up to squeeze into a commuter train at 7:30am in Tokyo wasn't exactly the most appealing prospect.

Had I still been in Bangkok, I'd have taken a tuk-tuk to the office. This is the nickname for the simply beautiful, loud (both in colour and sound) automatic rickshaws littered throughout Bangkok.  They're great way to get around, especially between 10am and 3pm, when the sun is simply relentless. The process is a simple one. Being a 6ft2 white male, I was never more than 2m from a tuk-tuk driver pestering beckoning me to ride. You said "how much to _____ ...[points at map]" and he replies with "200 [baht]". You then say "no no, too much. 50." This continues until one of you give up (don't fight over 20 Baht - €0.50). Basically, don't pay more than 200 and don't ask to go more than a few km. Get a taxi for that. Our very old driver had no teeth (and probably no licence), but neither were a concern as he tore through Bangkok at about 40mph in between all the taxis, tuk-tuks, goat, cows, foreigners, durian fruit, and all local people eating. Awesome stuff.