Long time no see! Here’s a little video about my fieldwork in danchi that I forgot to share together with the news about defending my thesis (was too tired and happy). Hope you like it! https://youtu.be/pbIlpfq7VgA
YouTube
Dissecting the Danchi
"We cannot change anything here, so it's better to just get used to it".
A short introduction of the fieldwork done in 2019 in Ibaraki prefecture to research the current state of Japanese social housing built in the 1960s. Designed as highly desirable bright…
A short introduction of the fieldwork done in 2019 in Ibaraki prefecture to research the current state of Japanese social housing built in the 1960s. Designed as highly desirable bright…
I was lucky to visit Sanaa’s new Bocconi Campus in Milan last month. The curtain facade solution looks very similar to their 2012 Vitra factory building in Germany, but this time it’s much more transparent. It’s a pity the internal courtyard is closed to the general public.
Quarantine Day 0
Yesterday I took a direct flight from Moscow to Tokyo and enjoyed a few hours of sleep by spreading myself over 4 seats in the middle row. There were only 60 people in the airplane that could fit more than 300 so we all kept perfect social distancing even if we didn’t mean to. Normally I wouldn’t be able to afford a fancy direct post-pandemic flight like this but luckily my university was forced to pay for it, because the first non-direct cheapo flight they reserved for me in October was cancelled with no other alternatives left.
We landed in Haneda airport at 13:50 JST and were asked to walk through multiple corridors into another terminal following the signs held by Japanese ladies in uniforms at every intersection. We encountered at least six or seven of them until we reached the testing hall. Imagine being paid a decent salary for standing in one position all day long, holding a piece of paper and waving your hand in one direction. Good thing they don’t have to smile politely anymore with the masks conveniently covering their faces now.
The testing hall had six or seven more polite ladies in masks behind different tables. First they take the papers you were supposed to fill out before landing, sign it and stick a label onto it. At another table they give you a flask and plastic crater that will help you collect your saliva more efficiently. Then you are escorted to an individual saliva-collecting booth where you face a detailed instruction (see photo) and above it two pictures of a lemon and a karaage (Japanese-style deep fried chicken), supposedly to ease your.. salivation. I don’t think they ever thought that some foreigners might have no idea what these lumps of brown fried flour have inside. In Narita airport they decided to put up pics of grapefruit and umeboshi (pickled plum) instead, but again - do all of you know how pickled plums taste like? Anyway, when you close your flask and hand it to staff at the last table, they put one of the labels from your documents on it, send the flask to a lab located in a temporary tent in the same hall and send you out. In another room there are yet more tables with polite ladies to check your quarantine location details, making sure you have arranged a private transport to arrive there from the airport. Then you go into a waiting hall (actually a repurposed departure area with closed shops and gates, looks pretty sad) and wait an hour or so for your number to appear on the monitor to pick up the paper with your results. I got my “negative” ticket, cleared passport control where they didn’t even look too hard into my pre-arrival PCR certificate (I had two, because the first one wasn’t approved by Japanese embassy, but the guy checked the wrong one and it was still fine) and went out at around 15:45. An extra fancy private driver in a suit with white gloves was waiting with my name on a paper in front of the exit, what a sight. I think the travel agency my university delegated my travel to forced them to buy some expensive add-on options; it’s common for contractors to take advantage of big institutions in Japan like that, because no one really questions the prices of "smaller" products in the package. The limousine-like shiny black car with curtains and wifi took me to my “quarantine facility” - a humble hotel in Kanagawa, located between central Tokyo and Haneda airport. “Humble” is a literal quote from google maps - the rooms are old and small, most of them are facing a wall of another building a few meters apart and are therefore very gloomy all day long. After I submitted my personal info and checked my temperature with another set of very polite ladies in uniform at the reception, I was shown to a room number 513 (it was Friday 13th, by the way), that was facing not even a simple wall, but a wall full of air conditioning units. With hospital-quality fluorescent lighting on the ceiling and shabby/scratched furniture the whole scene started to look truly terrifying when I remembered I had to stay here locked for 14 days and 15 nights.
Yesterday I took a direct flight from Moscow to Tokyo and enjoyed a few hours of sleep by spreading myself over 4 seats in the middle row. There were only 60 people in the airplane that could fit more than 300 so we all kept perfect social distancing even if we didn’t mean to. Normally I wouldn’t be able to afford a fancy direct post-pandemic flight like this but luckily my university was forced to pay for it, because the first non-direct cheapo flight they reserved for me in October was cancelled with no other alternatives left.
We landed in Haneda airport at 13:50 JST and were asked to walk through multiple corridors into another terminal following the signs held by Japanese ladies in uniforms at every intersection. We encountered at least six or seven of them until we reached the testing hall. Imagine being paid a decent salary for standing in one position all day long, holding a piece of paper and waving your hand in one direction. Good thing they don’t have to smile politely anymore with the masks conveniently covering their faces now.
The testing hall had six or seven more polite ladies in masks behind different tables. First they take the papers you were supposed to fill out before landing, sign it and stick a label onto it. At another table they give you a flask and plastic crater that will help you collect your saliva more efficiently. Then you are escorted to an individual saliva-collecting booth where you face a detailed instruction (see photo) and above it two pictures of a lemon and a karaage (Japanese-style deep fried chicken), supposedly to ease your.. salivation. I don’t think they ever thought that some foreigners might have no idea what these lumps of brown fried flour have inside. In Narita airport they decided to put up pics of grapefruit and umeboshi (pickled plum) instead, but again - do all of you know how pickled plums taste like? Anyway, when you close your flask and hand it to staff at the last table, they put one of the labels from your documents on it, send the flask to a lab located in a temporary tent in the same hall and send you out. In another room there are yet more tables with polite ladies to check your quarantine location details, making sure you have arranged a private transport to arrive there from the airport. Then you go into a waiting hall (actually a repurposed departure area with closed shops and gates, looks pretty sad) and wait an hour or so for your number to appear on the monitor to pick up the paper with your results. I got my “negative” ticket, cleared passport control where they didn’t even look too hard into my pre-arrival PCR certificate (I had two, because the first one wasn’t approved by Japanese embassy, but the guy checked the wrong one and it was still fine) and went out at around 15:45. An extra fancy private driver in a suit with white gloves was waiting with my name on a paper in front of the exit, what a sight. I think the travel agency my university delegated my travel to forced them to buy some expensive add-on options; it’s common for contractors to take advantage of big institutions in Japan like that, because no one really questions the prices of "smaller" products in the package. The limousine-like shiny black car with curtains and wifi took me to my “quarantine facility” - a humble hotel in Kanagawa, located between central Tokyo and Haneda airport. “Humble” is a literal quote from google maps - the rooms are old and small, most of them are facing a wall of another building a few meters apart and are therefore very gloomy all day long. After I submitted my personal info and checked my temperature with another set of very polite ladies in uniform at the reception, I was shown to a room number 513 (it was Friday 13th, by the way), that was facing not even a simple wall, but a wall full of air conditioning units. With hospital-quality fluorescent lighting on the ceiling and shabby/scratched furniture the whole scene started to look truly terrifying when I remembered I had to stay here locked for 14 days and 15 nights.