Japan IS for real.

Dear Diary, 

I have so many pictures to show and stories to tell that i don't know where to start! My second time in Japan was a lot more risque compared to last June when i went with single friends. The kinkiest the last time round were the used underwear for sale for SGD 15 a pop. This time, i not only saw the blow-up dolls, i even experienced a role play cafe! Oh the irony that i went with the parental units this time.

Hakodate in Hokkaido is like a dead town. We pretty much didn't see anyone in sight. This is the birth place of Royce and the Rum & Raisin was especially juicy and alcoholic. It's meant to be summer, yet the weather was freezing. First we went up to Mt Hakodate which is supposedly the world's third most beautiful night view. You can only advance up the hill after 10pm in your own car, otherwise you have to pay $15 for the ropeway (cable car). The view didn't take my breath away.

                                              

Next we checked out the infamous Hakodate morning market. Hokkaido is famous for its squid, crabs, bears and milk.

                                  

The crab is bigger than my head and we couldn't afford to eat one but tried the samples store keepers gave along the way. 

                                    

The cheapest  rock melon costs SGD 45, a slice cost $3. We also tried the FREE samples along the way. We're proud to be Singaporeans ;p

                                                      

                                          

Then like typical Singaporeans, we went for the cheap (but expensive in Singapore) sea urchins. We ate them raw while it's still bleeding and pricks still moving.

                              

                                

It's my mum's favourite seafood as you can tell from her expression. My brother couldn't stomach it.

                              

It was creamy and eggy, with an overwhelming fishy taste.

                              

So, hotels in Japan is infamously for being small. The toilets are as big as the airplane's. I get claustrophobic after living with my 4 family members in super close proximity after 12 days. When my friend knew i was going to Japan, he asked if i wanted to borrow his spy cam detector. He explained he bought that over the Internet for USD 200 because he was visiting Japan with his girlfriend and he didn't want them caught on tape. Can't be too sure with Japanese's fetishes. I applaud that man for being meticulous and protective of his girlfriend. He's a good man, albeit maybe a foolish one for spending so much on that device that i am not even sure if it works.

                                        

You look through the view finder, press a button that emits a red light. This supposedly causes the spy cam to reflect back. Thus detecting spy cams.

                                        

Obviously, i didn't detect any.

                                         

He is such an awesome boyfriend that for his maiden trip, he planned everything so meticulously that he even got this phrase book that comes in handy. Language is a problem and most Japanese can't speak English. Most of the time we needed alot of hand actions and sound effects to get our message across. Not all restaurants have English menus too so it was quite a pain ordering food. 

I remember my last trip, i saw a yummy pictures of bean sprouts with meat. Thinking it was beef, i ordered. Only to find out it was PIG'S LIVER. Wasted my $8.  

                                      

                                          

The phrase book also teaches you how to hook up and make out. Apparently in Singapore, to book a Japanese girl for a night costs SGD 1500. There's no wild hot sex with a Japanese girl i hear. It's gentle, submissive and POLITE. You don't tear each other's clothes up in throes of passion. Instead she neatly folds your clothes including underwear and socks in squares and places them at the corner of the bed. Maybe you can strew your clothes everywhere in YOUR OWN heated moment and watch the magic unfold as she go around the room picking them up and neatly folding and placing them at the corner. Mess it up again and see her repeat. 

Then she will sponge you gently as you sit in the bath tub. Finally, she lies on the bed for you to complete the deed.

Driving in Hokkaido is expensive. We spent in total about $400+ on petrol, parking and tolls. Expressways are not free, do note. We take the longer route (double time) most of the time to save. But the best thing about self drive holidays? You can venture anywhere at your own time. 

But everything is so far away, we drove from one end to another. We pretty much sleep at midnight every night and wake up as early as 5am to set off. My eyebags get pretty bad after nights of doing that. But it was all worthwhile although i wonder if i am really on holiday or on a military-like school trip.

Matsume Castle is one of the last traditional Japanese castles standing around. It was an hour drive away from Hakodate. I was stoked about seeing the last Samurai castle but we were disappointed. We had to pay $5 to go in but the castle only stops at looking like one. Inside was a museum of boring artifacts from the Edo period. However i believe in summer the area will be more exciting with festivities going on and there's a theme park near by where they mimic the real samurai village.

                                          

I love my elder brother. So much fun with him around, because he doesn't grow up. Hahaha.

We ate so much soft serve, as many as two cones a day!

                                               

I regretted not drinking milk when i was in Hokkaido as that is what they're famous for. Oh, and you must drink Yuzu on JAL. It's a nice citrusy pomelo drink.

I'm not so much of a scenery person. Scenery bores me and Hokkaido has alot of that. So i was pretty stoked about visiting Edo Wonderland (Noboribetsu Date Jidai Mura) . A "theme park" (no rides) that mimics the Edo Period. We had the entire place to ourselves being the few visitors there. We wandered through the grounds, went in theatres where they had plays like samurai dramas. They were all in Japanese though. They had 5 plays in total. It was SO COMICAL when we were the ONLY audience in one of the plays. And they knew we couldn't understand Japanese, still..the show MUST GO ON. 

This one was the best play. Complete with fighting scenes, showing how traps are laid around the hiding place of a secret map. The main actor is VERY HANDSOME! Like Wang Lee Hom *drools*

They even showed us a pleasure quarter. Where Oirans (flowers of the night) who are courtesans who excelled at various arts including poetry, calligraphy, tea ceremony and music. They were of such high class, that only the samurai and the rich could afford their charms. They chose a Korean dude from a tour group to participate in the show. He seem to enjoy himself very much role playing that they jokingly asked for 10,000 Yen as payment, he willingly gave. Later on when the show was over, i saw them returning him his money but he nonchalantly waved it away asking them to keep as tips. That's SGD 150! Guess he really was mesmerized with the Oirans.


The Geishas speak in a sing song voice that i found it irritating and amusing why she was speaking funny. But after awhile, i admit i AM hypnotized by her. Even though she was all covered up, i find her gentleness and her movement very sensual. And only showing the white powdered nape does hint alot more sexuality than baring all.

So, the Edo Period is between 1603 and 1867. Then, Japan's government passed into the hands of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established a military shogunate which was to last for an unprecedented 264 years. As the warrior class broke away from the imperial court, the center of government was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. During this period, Japan was closed to the rest of the world, but internally its culture and economy flourished. Only theme parks can make me learn and remember history. In this park, we play out exactly like in the Edo Period, that includes wrapping a coin in paper and tipping the performers after their play.

                                        

Stepping into Edo Wonderland is a step back in time to the glorious days of the Edo period. This theme park is a timeless world where we relived Japanese history through entertainment. We were supposed to be strolling the streets along with samurais and townspeople but alas it was such a dead town, i suppose they were trying to cut cost and save man power.

                                        

                                          

                                          
The Ninjas were mysterious figures, whose basic function was to carry out covert operations for their feudal lords. They serve as spies and as fighters capable of great stealth. Although skillful at combat, they emphasized escape rather than fighting which led the to develop many secret evasion techniques. Which is REALLY FUNNY!

Quail Hiding Technique: Bury yourself and pretend to be A ROCK.

Raccoon Dog Hiding Technique: Climb the tree, STICK TO THE TRUNK AND HIDE.

                                                   

Kan-non Hiding Technique: Stick to the wall, hold your breath, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DISAPPEAR (by throwing a smoke bomb perhaps?)

Leaf Hiding Technique: Hide under fallen leaves and grasses to GO OUT OF SIGHT.

Don't quite sound like heros do they? More like 缩头乌龟！(tortoise)

                                     

                                      

                                   

There're many fun houses around too. We especially like the Ninja Maze. Where we were challenged to be a Ninj and escape from a maze full of tricks and traps. Then there is the House of Ghost and Monsters where dsplays of figures and tricks showcase Japan's oldest and scariest ghouls.

                           

I'm not quite sure if the mascot is cute but we swear it was skiving earlier!

                            

                              

yeah, let's upsize!

                                      

Toilet sign.

                               

It's a good thing we can read mandarin so we can read warning signs like this about bear appearances. It helps with the menus too, so long as we spot a 鸡，we know its chicken. A 肉, we know its meat. My parents will aim for 野菜. Their English on the other hand tickles us, but still appreciated as every bit of translation helps.

                             

                                            

To be Continued....

Gudang grosir baju anak murah - harga pabrik !!
www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: hakodate, hokkaido, japan, things to do

Babies And Bathwater

It's rather important to recognise the difference

The BBC and the Grun aside, everyone agrees that spending must be cut. Now the question is what spending?

And therein lies a considerable risk. The risk is that because we're all in this together, the cuts will be shared out across spending departments pro rata, pretty well irrespective of merit and irrespective of the consequences.

Today's announcement by Ken Clarke that prison no longer works - and by implication prison spending can be cut - is a dismal case in point.

As regular readers will know, we have long been fans of locking up more criminals. As we pointed out in our very first blog on the Cost of Crime, the Home Office has estimated that 100,000 persistent criminals are responsible for half of all our crime. But of that 100,000, only 80,000 are inside at any one time - the rest are out and about creating mayhem. With 80,000 more prison places (ie doubling the existing number of places), we could keep them all inside permanently and halve our crime rate. And the £3-4bn pa costs of the places would be far less than the £80bn odd estimated cost of crime.

According to Ken, prison doesn't work because it can't cure criminals either of their drug habits or their tendency to commit further crime after release. And he certainly has a point. Nothing we've ever seen says anyone knows how to do that with any degree of confidence.

But the idea that community sentences would be a good alternative is pure wishful thinking. In reality, our £1bn pa Probation Services is staffed by Mr Barrowclough's soppy brothers - they're barely capable of tying their own shoelaces let alone supervising a bunch of villains picking up litter (eg this blog). And frankly, we don't believe anyone could do the job successfully.

Our plan is simple - three strikes and you're out (see this blog). If you've already been sentenced to jail twice, on the third offence you're out permanently. Why? Because the stats show that once someone has been sentenced for crime three times, he's more than 50% likely to reoffend:

So prison is most definitely not something we would cut. The first duty of the state - the thing we really do pay our taxes for - is to protect the honest law-abiding citizen. It is unacceptable that cuts should fall there, while aid for space-race India remains untouched.

Which is not to say we couldn't improve the cost efficiency of the prison service. We agree with Ken that £38 grand pa seems like a lot to pay for a year inside. And when you look at the costs of individual prisons you find a huge range. The most expensive cost three times as much per prisoner as the cheapest, and while differing security levels undoubtedly account for some of that, it does suggest some prisons are much more efficient than others.

Actually, I've just been listening to Ken on R4 Today, and the words "back" and "peddling" spring to mind. So we'll see.

As we all understand, these spending cuts are going to be very difficult. But we do expect the government to exercise proper judgement. Sharing the pain is all very well, but we taxpayers have some clear priorities, and we need to see them reflected in the budget allocations. We do not want to find the bath empty of both bathwater and baby.

Gudang grosir baju anak murah - harga pabrik !!
www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: Criminal Justice, cuts

What Exactly Is The National Debt?

The official definition is easy... and misleading

Question - what exactly is the National Debt?

It sounds like a straightforward question and Tyler's Oxford English Dictionary gives a nice straightforward answer - "money owed by State because of loans made to it".

Good. Very clear.

But just out of interest, how does the OED define a loan to the State? "Money contribution from individuals or public bodies to State expenses that is acknowledged as debt".

Hmmm.

So the National Debt comprises contributions to State expenses that are acknowleged as debt. Just as an aardvark comprises an animal acknowledged as an aardvark.

See, when it comes to debt, governments have got this chronic tendency to avoid acknowledging anything as debt if they can possibly acknowledge it as something else instead. Like an aardvark, say.

As regular BOM readers will know, we've blogged the real national debt many times - ie the official government debt plus various aardvark/Enron items like PFI, unfunded public sector pensions, Network Rail, and nuclear decommissioning. These are all items that place on taxpayers a clear contractural commitment to make payments at some future date.

Most recently we estimated this real national debt totalled around £2.25 trillion, over 160% of GDP, and getting on for £100 grand for every household in the land.

That's scary enough, but the bad news is that our real debt is even higher.

That's because of our nationalised banks (highlighted by TomTom in comments on yesterday's post). In case you'd somehow forgotten, we taxpayers own 84% of RBS and 41% of Lloyds. And because that means we are now in a position directly to control what they do (hah), both are now officially categorised as being in the public sector. They have been nationalised, and their liabilities are now ours.

When last sighted (end-2009), those liabilities totalled £2.6 trillion (Lloyds on £1trn and RBS on £1.6trn). That's a stomach lurching 180% of GDP.

Can we really be on the hook for all of that?

Well, there are no formal blanket guarantees, so if the balloon went up, in theory, HMG could still walk away. But in reality, walking away from the liabilities of a bank that was 84% state-owned would nuke HMG's credit standing for decades to come. Ex-Armageddon, walking away is inconceivable. Whatever the small print may say, in reality, we are on the hook.

The only comfort is that these £2.6 trillion of liabilities are backed by £2.6 trillion of assets (actually slightly more, once you take account of the banks' equity capital). So with a very favourable wind, we might not end up losing anything at all.

But the liabilities still have to go on HMG's balance sheet, because these banks are now our responsibility.

And in fairness to the Office for National Statistics they are attempting to do precisely that. In fact, they have been working on it for the last 18 months (see articles here). They long ago included the liabilities of Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley in the official published figures for government debt (although they continue to publish an alternative debt series excluding them). And they hope soon to include the two big ones.

Why the hold-up? It's because the two banks in question are not keen on having their balance-sheet details paraded around in public, and are arguing commercial confidentiality (to which you might say they should have thought of that before they went bust and came crawling to us for a bail-out).

Anyway, the ONS say they expect the banks' inclusion will increase our official national debt, but "only" by up to £1.5 trillion. That's less than the £2.6 trillion total for the banks' gross liabilities because national debt accounting conventions allow governments to net off holdings of liquid assets, of which Lloyds and RBS have quite a few. Why are governments allowed to net off liquid assets when the banks aren't allowed to do so themselves? Search me - those are just the rules (as devised by government officials).

But on top of these bank liabilities there are some other chunky items we ought to consider.

Like what about state pensions? They're a specific state liability in the sense that most of us have contributed to them through National Insurance - or to put it another way, we've lent money to the government through our working lives against a promise of a state pension in old age. And the coalition's new "triple lock" uprating guarantee makes that promise even more water-tight. So depending on the exact assumptions used, that's another £3-7 trillion of debt to add on.

And what about all those big IT contracts we hear so much about (eg the NHS supercomputer)? Many of them commit us to payments far into the future.

Or what about those big defence procurement contracts (such as tranche 3b of the Eurofighter)? They too contain commitments to substantial future payments.

Or what about all the various financial guaranteees (explicit and implicit) we've given to the UK banks which have not been nationalised? Yes, they're only contingent liabilities, but surely our National Debt stats should not ignore them altogether.

The fact is there is a spectrum of liabilities ranging from sure and certain financial debt such as gilts, through specific contracts for future goods and services such as the supercomputer, to contingent liabilities such as bank guarantees. And what we need more than anything is more information on how that spectrum is made up.

The good news is that post-Gordo it does seem that the ONS are moving towards greater disclosure. They have distinguished the following broad types of debt:

• Direct liability: a present obligation arising from past events, the settlement of which is expected to result in an outflow of resources - eg gilts
• Explicit commitment: the government’s responsibility for a future liability based on an existing contractual agreement which does not yet give rise to a present obligation. This is because no exchange has yet taken place, and the obligation, and therefore the liability, normally arises on delivery of the goods or services - eg defence procurement contracts
• Provision: a liability of uncertain timing or amount, which is recognised in the main accounts since payment is probable and a reasonable estimate of the amount can be made - eg expected losses on the past bank bailouts
• Contingent liability: an obligation activated by a discrete event that may or may not occur - eg possible losses on future bank bailouts 
• Implicit liability: a moral or expected obligation on the part of the government that is not mandated by law, but rather based on public expectations, political pressures, or the role of the state as understood by the corresponding societies - eg commitment to pay state pension

They also say:

"ONS has a key role to play in presenting the data necessary for assessment of fiscal burden and risk, and as such needs to understand user requirements beyond the National Accounts boundary. The liabilities in this category which will attract the most attention are; future expenditure under PFI, unfunded pension schemes and government guarantees.

While estimates of these liabilities are disclosed as memorandum items or notes in departmental resource accounts, they are not systematically presented in aggregate (whole of government) form.

ONS should consider its role in presenting a wider range of data on government and public sector liabilities, as is the case in other countries."

So to sum up, here's our updated table of the real national debt including the nationalised banks, but excluding contingent liabilities, all commercial contracts except PFI, and implicit liabilities such as state pensions. In other words, it is a conservative estimate:

So that's just £200 grand per household.

We'd better pray those assets sitting in the vaults of Lloyds and RBS are worth something close to what they claim.

Gudang grosir baju anak murah - harga pabrik !!
www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: debt