tomroyal.com

2010 is, we're told, the year of 3D television, so February 2010 was the month where I travelled to Vienna to see some of the new sets they'll be selling very soon. These are actually quite impressive, with the two caveats that they'll cost a fortune (in the region of £1500-2000) and there's very little to watch on them right now. And, obviously, the effect is somewhat better when you stack nine humongous sets on top of one another, like so:

But with that all dealt with I had three hours or so to see Vienna itself. Fortunately we were put up right in the middle of the city, at the rather posh Do and Co hotel, so I was able to stroll in a kind of circle around the town centre without wasting any time getting there in the first place.

The centre is dominated by the cathedral – huge, covered in scaffolding and with a remarkable roof that appears to have been made out of coloured Lego bricks. Past that, there are the usual shopping streets, stuffed full of horrible Mozart-themed tat shops and guarded by giant bears:

.. but then a block or so further and you hit the rather grand architecture. Incredibly grand buildings are to Vienna as fried chicken shops are to South London – one around every corner, and soon blending into one despite having actually quite different facades.

In fact, there are so many staggering bits of old architecture that people don't really seem to care – somebody was so nonplussed by this building and the statue in front of it that they saw fit to dump a huge ugly industrial generator there.

Note also the piles of snow: it was bitterly cold. Freezing slowly to death I headed further to Parliament and the Museums Quarter, which includes several apparently excellent art galleries placed around one square:

.. but it was cold, empty and desolate, and most of the galleries in the modern art museum were closed for rehanging. Not quite what I was hoping for.

Fortunately, there's one area in which Vienna can be guaranteed to excel: coffee and cake. Three of us took a trip to Café Central, apparently a favourite of Leon Trotsky, and stuffed down some of this:

And then it was time for the rush back to the airport, full of caffeine and cream, and a long time spent circling about London waiting for a landing slot at Heathrow. All in all, an interesting place – but if I ever go back I'll try to do so in summer and with time to check out the palaces properly. More photos here.

About a week ago I wrote to SouthEastern Railway's Public Affairs Manager, asking him two questions that could be answered with a simple yes or no. I didn't get a yes or no answer to either, and when I pushed for a straight answer to one of them the gentleman in question simply stopped replying to my emails. I'll publish the whole lot, names redacted, after the jump – but in summary:

A) SouthEastern Railway receives a huge subsidy from the Government in order to provide a rail service to the public. In January it failed to provide a proper service, slashing trains for three days, but it will not return an appropriate proportion of said subsidy. Nor will it donate the equivalent amount to charity, which is a shame – the DEC could undoubtedly use a few extra hundred thousand pounds right about now.

B) By cutting its service to an emergency timetable before a flake of snow had fallen, it seems* that SouthEastern ensured that its reliability would be measured against this reduced timetable. As this reliability statistic is used to calculate refunds, this gives it a fighting chance of avoiding the need to refund season ticket holders.

The downside, of course, is that many of its customers get left out in the snow, unable to use the train tickets they paid for. Fans of the absurd will note that the company has since published figures claiming 97.5% (Mainline) and 97.3% (Metro) reliability for the December to January period.

Or, to put it another way:

• The taxpayer pays SouthEastern via a £136m subsidy
• We, the customers, pay SouthEastern for our tickets
• SouthEastern decides not to run a service
• Most customers are left stranded
• Neither the taxpayer or the customer gets a refund

And it's important to note here that, under the National Rail Conditions of Carriage and the Passengers' Charter, this is all perfectly legal.

Evidently some kind of political action is required to ensure that this kind of debacle isn't repeated every time the weather forecast looks unpleasant, so I wrote to a few politicians: my MP, my AM and the Transport Minister.

My AM, Len Duvall, didn't reply – I received a response from his assistant promising a "considered response", but none came. My MP, Bridget Prentice, did contact the company on my behalf and put up with a flurry of CC'd emails from me, for which I'm thankful. As for the Transport Minister, like several people I received a response that in parts bore an uncanny similarity to the documents issued by SouthEastern itself. Nonetheless, it also said:

".. we will be conducting a review of the experience of the service that was provided between the 6th and 8th January 2010. This review will cover all aspects of service provision. Where any areas for improvement are identified, we will ensure that proper action is taken to deliver the required improvement.

Your email has also highlighted the difference between services provided across Sussex and Wessex despite simiar forecasts. We will be seeking understand (sic) from all parties involved the reasons for this. Until this review is complete, I cannot comment on how appropriate Southeastern's response was when compared to the actions taken by other operators."

So there's some hope for the future, and I await the findings of that review with interest. In the meantime, I'm sure our beloved Mayor will sort it out at the Emergency Rail Summit he promised to hold within a few weeks of his election.

* I say "seems to" because when asked whether this is the case the Public Affairs Manager stopped answering my emails. I've waited a week and re-sent the email, but to no avail. If he'd care to get back to me and assure me that this is not the case, I'll be happy to correct this immediately. In the meantime, a parliamentary answer from the 25th of January confirms that, unless SouthEastern should choose otherwise, this is the case.

For the sake of completeness, my full email conversation with SouthEastern is copied after the jump.

(more…)

The fallout from SouthEastern Railway's utter failure to cope with the recent snow continues, and you'll find a good summary of the latest developments here. One thing to add is that, of the three politicans I contacted, one has sent a proper reply.

Bridget Prentice MP (for Lewisham East) confirmed receipt of my letter via email, then sent a full response by post. In it she said:

"…I am very sorry to hear of these concerns and hope they can be addressed in full very soon.

I have written to South Eastern Trains's Public Affairs Manager and have raised with him your concerns. I have asked him to respond to these concerns, and to let me know what South Eastern intends to do in future to ensure that services will not be affected by weather doncitions in the way they have over the past few days. As soon as I have a reply, I will write to you again."

This seems to me more than fair, and I'm grateful for Ms Prentice's intervention. I now look forward to the company's reply – not least to see if it bears many similarities to the less-than-helpful ones received by Bexcentric and published here.

Update: On the 23rd of January I received, via the office of Ms Prentice, a 'Briefing Document' from SouthEastern Trains. It's the same document already sent to Bexcentric, and published here.

In response, I've sent the following back to the company, with Ms Prentice CC'd:

Dear Mr [Contact name]

Thanks for passing on, via Bridget Prentice MP, the SouthEastern Railways briefing document regarding the limited service operated on the 5th to 8th January – I note that this response has also been distributed to others. I do have two further questions, however, which I'd appreciate if you could answer.

Given that:

* According to your document, on the 6th of January SouthEastern ran 665 services rather than 2024 – less than one third of a standard timetable, thus leaving up to two-thirds of customers unable to use the service they pay for

* Southern Railways, which operates the same "third rail" electrification system on infrastructure also provided by Network Rail, attempted to run a full service that day, as it did throughout the period of 6-8 January

* SouthEastern Railways receives a significant subsidy from the taxpayer to operate its services – a subsidy that, in 2009, worked out at over £350,000 per day

* On the 9th of January, despite no improvement in weather conditions, SouthEastern decided that it was suddenly able to provide a full Saturday timetable – with more trains and later running than during the 5th to 8th January.

SouthEastern Railway customers could be forgiven for getting the impression that both:

A) The management of SouthEastern Railway cut its service from Weds 6th to Friday 8th in order to avoid damaging its punctuality and reliability statistics, and thus avoid paying compensation to customers as per its 'Passengers' Charter' rather than out of necessity (after all, on Saturday 9th, when the charter no longer applied, the service immediately recovered), and

B) The management of SouthEastern Railway have no intention of delivering value to the taxpayer in return for its Government subsidy.

So, I have two questions. Both can be answered with a simple yes or no:

1) In order to avoid the appearance of slashing services merely to avoid paying passenger compensation, will SouthEastern mark its own  reliability results down to 32.8% (per your running statistics: 665/2024 = 0.328) over the three day period of 6-8 Jan, thus providing a fair chance of customers receiving reasonable compensation for its limited service over this period?

2) In order to avoid the appearance of taking a huge subsidy but providing a service only when it sees fit, will SouthEastern return an appropriate percentage of its last subsidy – say 67% (again, per your statistics) of the amount of subsidy received per day, for three days? Alternatively, perhaps an equivalent sum – I make it just under £749,000 – could be donated, as a gesture of goodwill, to the DEC Appeal for Haiti, providing a positive end to this entire debacle.

Many thanks for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best

Tom

Will update when I hear back.

On Tuesday night, with snow forecast for the South East, SouthEastern railways introduced an emergency timetable for Wednesday. As it happens, South Eastern London didn't see that much snow, but with fewer and shorter trains serving the area on Wednesday morning, Hither Green station looked a bit like this:

All the trains were packed, and commuters were stranded. Many gave up entirely and went home. The situation was made worse as SouthEastern proceeded to cancel all metro services that night (lines closed around 8pm) and implement the same severely limited timetable today and, as it stands, tomorrow. You can read far more comprehensive accounts of the failure at Londonist here and 853 here.

Londonist asked SouthEastern what on earth was going on, and received the following:

"The decision to run a revised timetable was made based on the advice from Network Rail, who has responsibility for the track and they decide what service we will be able to provide.

They were out overnight with de-icing trains and we also ran ghost trains around the entire network, not just in London.

To ensure that we were able to provide a reliable service throughout the entire day and have the right staff and rolling stock in place for the evening peak, when the worst of the snow and ice hit London, we needed to run the revised timetable from the morning, as it would have been almost impossible to implement at the last minute for the afternoon. Our trains also come into London from across Kent where they will, of course, also be subject to the snow and icy conditions found there.

We told passengers at the earliest possible moment on Tuesday of the revised timetable through texts, emails, station notices, onboard announcements, station announcements and providing extra staff at stations, as well as advising the media of the plans.

The revised timetable remains in place for today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) and we are asking passengers to check with National Rail Enquiries for services and to check when their last train home tonight will be."

So apparently it's all Network Rail's fault. I asked Network Rail and, for what it's worth, here's the response I've received from the press office:

"Network Rail and the train operators (in this case Southeastern) have agreed contingency plans in place to operate train services in extreme weather conditions.

In severe winter weather running a reduced service allows us to respond to any incidents quicker, with the intention of resolving them before they have a significant knock-on impact on other services.   We do everything we can to reduce the risk of passengers being stranded on trains which can happen quickly when the network is operating at normal levels.  Both Network Rail and the train operators also face the challenges of moving staff to where they need to be to do their job, particularly when the road conditions are as severe as they are at present.

We are working closely with the train operators to run as many trains as possible.  We will continue to review the situation on a frequent basis with a view to resuming a normal service as soon as possible."

I've asked the company – whose press office has, I should add, beem prompt and helpful – why Network Rail and SouthEastern have implemented such drastic cuts while other services in far more snowy areas are carrying on regardless, and will update when I get a reply – hopefully tomorrow.

Quick update: Transport Minister Paul Clark MP has said he'll be writing to SouthEastern to ask for a meeting with management. I've raised the obvious question, but please do pass on any others.

Another update: a reply from National Rail's press office. I'd asked why SouthEastern services were so severely restricted despite minimal snowfall in the SouthEastern metro line area:

"A one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work in these circumstances. The contingency plans in place take into account a wide range of factors specific to each route including the characteristics of the railway infrastructure itself and the type of trains which run on it.

We can assure your readers that Network Rail and Southeastern are working hard to run as many trains as possible and the plans in place aim to achieve this. We will continue to review the effectiveness of the plans and if we identify a way to improve them further, we will do so.

In addition to the volume of snow on some parts of the network, we have also experienced some problems as a result of the prolonged freezing temperatures which have been experienced in Kent. The third rail electrification system used to the south of the capital can be susceptible to this sort of weather, especially when combined with rain or melting snow. Special trains which spray hot de-icer fluid on the tracks/third rail and empty trains, known as 'ghost trains', are run across the network to try and prevent ice forming, however, if ice does form it can interfere with the power systems on the trains and cause significant disruption.

We apologise for any disruption to passenger's journeys but we have a duty of care to passengers and our staff and it would be irresponsible to ignore the severity of the forecast and how the icy conditions can result in trains being stranded. We'll continue to do what we can to run the best possible rail service in the circumstances – it is in nobody's interest to do anything other than this."

The Brunnen der Internationalen Freundschaft, photographed in 2006. Last time I went back this area was being redeveloped; not sure if the fountain survived.

It's been a while since we returned from Japan. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what it was like – just go, see, enjoy – but I did think I'd jot down a few tips for anyone planning a similarly short visit to Tokyo. And so here's the ten things that I'd absolutely recommend seeing.

1) Tsujiki

Yes, the fish market. Every guidebook will tell you to go here, and the good ones will tell you to go early in the morning while you're still suffering from the kind of jetlag that makes a 4am start seem natural rather than ungodly. Get there at 5am and fight straight through to the tuna auctions at the back, then take a walk around while trying not to get killed by the motorised carts that whiz around. The size of the market and the variety of fish on offer is genuinely breathtaking – although that may also have something to do with the heady stench of dead fish and petrol fumes.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Tokyo's subway lines don't actually start up early enough to get you here by 5am. We managed to get there by 5.30 and caught some of the tuna auctions, but if I were to do it again I'd get a cab there a bit earlier.

Photos: lots, here.

2) Shinjuku

Thanks in part to a certain massively overrated movie, Shibuya has come to signify the neon heart of Tokyo for many westerners. While it is all very impressive and worth seeing, given the choice between spending two hours wandering around Shibuya at night gawking at neon or doing the same in Shinjuku, I'd pick the latter in a heartbeat. Surrounding the frankly enormous Shinjuku Station, it sprawls out in every direction in a maze of neon signs, electronics stores, bookstores, department stores, tiny restaurants, pachinko, arcades and general chaos. The effect of walking around for a few hours after dark is a bit like being bludgeoned around the head with the world biggest, sparlkiest, loudest novelty Pokemon hammer (that is to say, brilliant).

With Shinjuku station connecting the JR lines (including the Yamanote), Tokyo Metro subways, Toei subways (Oedo line) and even the private Odakyu lines, it's also a great place to stay. We stayed in the Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku – a chain hotel that was cheapish, scrupulously clean and generally nice.

What the guidebook won't tell you: A good guidebook should mention that, with so many commuters passing through the Shinjuku area every evening, there are loads of cheap restaurants serving the usual counter-style food (katsu, don, curry, etc etc). This makes it a good place to eat for just a few hundred yen. What they don't mention is that the many ticket restaurants, where you order and pay at a machine, make life easy even for the kanji-illiterate. Oh, and there are some excellent ramen places, too.

It's also worth mentioning that Shinjuku has to be one of the biggest, most sprawling and confusing stations in the world, with about a million floors and exits, so don't ever make plans that require navigating it quickly.

Photos: a few by day, and lots by night.

3) Meiji Jingu Gyoen

The biggest and most important temple in Tokyo is probably the Yasukuni Shrine, but Yasukuni is also politically contentious – partly due to its enshrinement of over 1,000 convicted war criminals, and partly due to the Yushukan, a museum that presents a revisionist interpretation of the second world war. Both are the subject of fierce controversy within Japan. If neither dissuades you from visiting I hear it's impressive, but I decided not to attend.

Whether or not you visit Yasukini, however, the Meiji Jingu is well worth a visit. It's dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, and contains everything you'd expect from a Shinto temple on a massive scale, with unfeasibly huge and particularly beautiful Torri. On your way in, however, keep an eye to the left..

What the guidebook won't tell you: .. because otherwise you might not notice the entrance to the Gyoen. This formal garden, apparently "constructed according to the design of Emperor Meiji himself in order to give recreation to Empress Shoken", is beautiful and almost impossibly calm considering it's only a few miles from Harajuku JR station. Huge swathes are dedicated to special iris gardens, sadly not in bloom when I attended. It costs 100Y or so to enter.

Photos: here.

3) Odaiba

This man-made island is culturally about as far from the Meiji Jingu Gyoen as you can get. Guidebooks don't make much of it, and you can see why – there's a Disney-ish air to the place, all artificiality and crass commercialism – but it is, in many respects, fascinating. Go to take a look around huge, themed shopping malls such as Aqua City, then see the Statue of Liberty or even the (temporary, huge) giant Gundam robot. Odaiba also provides a great view across the bay.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Aqua City holds both the Sega Joypolis – an arcade of mindboggling size that's worth seeing even if you do have to pay to enter – and a smaller arcade dedicated to old arcade games (Namco, Taito etc) that's a must for video game geeks. Manga/anime fans should also look out for the Jump Shop.

Photos: many, including giant robots, here.

5) The Ghibli Museum, Mikata

Those who have not heard of Studio Ghibli should click here, buy a lot of DVDs, watch them, then return here. If you have seen the films, you'll want to visit this museum, located in Mikata, in the western suburbs – and in which case you'll need to buy a ticket months in advance (see below).

The museum itself is an entirely Japanese-only affair save for a single leaflet in English, but as it's targeted at kids this isn't really a problem – even if you can't read a word, there's lots to enjoy. As well as the exhibits on the making of Ghibli animations (all very hands-on, with flipbooks etc) and the reference material used (photos of European towns taken when designing the look of Kiki's Delivery Service, for example) there's a bookshop, a cafe and, best of all, a giant (as in life-sized) cat bus for small kids to play on while their older siblings and adults watch enviously. The grounds and the museum building are beautiful, and each visitor also gets to see a Ghibli film created solely for the museum in its own cinema – there are a few, and what you see is random, but ours was really rather charming.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Fortunately some friends warned us that tickets sell out months in advance, and with a very limited number released at any one time. To buy tickets in the UK, visit the My Bus travel agency – it's in the basement of the Mitsukoshi department store on Regent Street (tel 020 7976 1191). Passports are needed to prove that you're not a Japanese citizen attempting to jump the queue for tickets released in Japan. We purchased ours three months in advance. Also, the museum has a limited capacity and no timed-ticket system for international tickets – so show up early to save having to wait around outside.

Photos: are not allowed inside the museum, but a few of the outside are here.

6) Meguro

An odd one, this, but stick with me: one afternoon I found myself in Ebisu outside an annoyingly closed beer museum, so with two hours to kill I took a walk. I got totally, utterly lost, ended up in Meguro and was thoroughly glad I did.

Meguro isn't at all touristy, although it does play home to a castle-shaped love hotel, the biggest and scariest wedding shop you've ever seen, a rather beautiful shrine dedicated to the victims of a great fire and, apparently, the Curl Up Cafe cat cafe (didn't see this myself). It's worth visiting for an hour or so, though, to see a bit of everyday Tokyo life outside the neon-craziness of Shinjuku and the other central areas – it's full of coffee shops, pachinko parlours and people just getting on with stuff. Be prepared to be stared at a little more than usual.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Pretty much anything at all. I think mine mentioned the Meguro Gajoen, which is indeed worth seeing.

Photos: a few here.

7) The Shinkansen

If you go to Japan, get a Shinkansen at some point. If you have the time, I'd say Kyoto would be a good destination – we didn't, so we went to Hakone for the Onsen (see #8) – but the journey is, in this case, as important as the destination. Why so good? Well:

1. They are as fast as bloody hell. Or possibly much faster. When the really fast services fly past in bad weather you can actually see a shockwave push the rain out of the way in front of them. Zwoosh.
2. Despite this, the train runs so smoothly it could be gliding on ice.
3. They are so punctual that the average deviation from the timetable, averaged over 160,000 trips, is around six seconds. Six fucking seconds. In a country that gets regularly whunked by earthquakes.
4. People don't talk on the sodding mobile phone on Japanese trains.

Or to put it another way: ride a Shinkansen and the utter shitness of all other trains, everywhere in the world, becomes abundantly clear. This is how rail transport should work.

What the guidebook won't tell you: This isn't Shinkansen related, but it is to do with trains: when you arrive at Narita, buy the N'EX and Suica special deal. This gets you the fast service into Tokyo, plus an Oyster-style card that works on all JR and subway (Toei and Tokyo Metro) lines in the city, at a discount.

Photos: see inside the Shinkansen here and here.

8) Onsen

I don't have a photo of this one, for reasons that will become obvious: onsen are Japanese hot spring baths. In order to partake of a traditional one you'll have to leave Tokyo; we headed to Hakone, near Mt Fuji. Some can be used for a fee, while many are reserved for the guests of a particular hotel or ryokan (traditional inn). We stayed in a ryokan with its own onsen – I'd recommend this, although it is very expensive by budget-travel standards. Look for outdoor onsen with a view if the weather's good.

However you get to an onsen, though, you'll come out feeling either invigorated, broiled or both. I was sceptical, but it's absolutely worth trying: cooking slowly in a hot pond while looking out over the mountains and forests of Japan at 7am is a fantastic way to start the day.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Onsen etiquette is pretty complicated. At the end of the day, however, it boils down to something like this: make sure you go in the right onsen (learn the kanji for Male and Female, or just ask someone), get completely naked leaving your clothes in the ante-chamber, wash yourself thoroughly while sitting on a bucket type thing that'll be provided, then get in the bath and cook. I've heard that "modesty towels" are a must, but I didn't see a single person bothering with this – instead small towels were used solely for brow-mopping.

Photos: of the onsen? Er, no. Photos of the ryokan and beautiful Hakone are here.

9) Eat until your body complains, and then some more

If you don't like Japanese food then Tokyo is, funnily enough, not a good place to visit. If you do, then it's obviously time to get stuck in. We ate one formal dinner at the ryokan (above), then largely concentrated on the "great cheap food" variety: sushi, katsu, don, noodles of every shape and size, gyoza, yakitori and so on. Oh, and ramen. You can buy passable ramen in London, but nothing I've had anywhere else compares with the real stuff in Tokyo. And the grilled fish is also great. And there's good beer. And shochu.

What the guidebook won't tell you: Ordering can be tricky when menus are in kanji, but knowing the words for one, two, this one and that one can get you a very long way on most menus, especially when many cheaper restaurants include images of set meals. Also, try giru – cold soba noodles that you slurp through a small container of soy-ish broth. I'd never heard of them before, and they're great.

Photos: Not really, no. I was too busy stuffing my face.

10) Fuji-San

No trip to Japan would be complete without seeing the iconic Mr Fuji, right? Er, probably – except we failed on this count. Part of the reason for heading out to Hakone was to see Fuji from one of the many viewing points in the area, but sadly we were foiled by thick clouds at every turn. Hope you have better luck.

What the guidebook won't tell you: That even in the middle of summer it gets incredibly cloudy up in the mountains around Owakudani. Although, to be fair, we should have guessed.

Photos: fail.

And that's it. It's not a complete account by any means, but I hope this might prove at least vaguely useful to somebody. We'll be going back as soon as possible – next time to hopefully include Kyoto and a glimpse of that mountain – and I'll update this with any new information as and when I can.

Entire set of photos here, or broken down by location here.

I've been scrawling that over and over again, lately.

A few years ago, and about five years after finishing my degree, I decided that I wanted to learn something again. I figured a language would be more useful than anything else and working in technology there were only really two useful choices: some sort of Chinese, most likely Mandarin, and Japanese. Knowing nothing much about China or Chinese culture, and being an avid consumer of Japanese books (a lot of Haruki Murakami, at the time) and video games (yes, I am a walking stereotype) I picked the latter. I signed up for a one year "Beginner's Japanese" course at SOAS with two hours of tuition per week.

I followed the course for a year, and it taught me a decent amount of (largely business-like) Japanese, along with how to read and write hiragana and katakana – the two alphabet-like kana scripts, rather than the pictographic kanji. I also learned a few other things, though, such as that I couldn't really stretch to £300-plus-per-term courses on my salary at the time and that after working an eight hour day in the office my brain is pretty much incapable of writing English, let alone any other language. So, I passed the first year and then dropped out. Yay me.

I figured I'd continue to study on my own, but this never really happened. For two reasons, I suppose: a lack of willpower and a problem with textbooks. SOAS uses a course called Minna no Nihongo, which is largely concerned with business situations and very focused on instruction in Japanese only – great with a teacher, but on your own it's hard to work out which audio clips or exercises are which, let alone what you're meant to be listening for or writing. So, that was pretty much the end of my experiment with Japanese. Until last week.

Last week Helen and I decided that, having not had a long holiday for three years, it was time to take more than two days away from work. I was briefed to look for relaxing beach holidays. I found myself looking at flights to Tokyo. Helen liked the idea. We're going later this summer. Which leaves me a month or two to pick up the language again. No pressure.

And, pleasantly, it's been going surprisingly well. I was amazed to find that most hiragana characters had stuck somewhere in the back of my brain, and after a few days of practicing on the train I can now read and write both it and katakana again. I've also picked up a different textbook – Genki, which is apparently more modern, easier for English-speakers and less business-focused – to replace Minna no Nihongo, and I've found some PC-based flashcards that are quite good. And unlike the final months of my last course, where I felt like the daft kid at the back of the class who hadn't done his homework (usually on press week), I'm enjoying the whole process of learning again.

Of course, despite all this I'll probably get to Tokyo and find that I can't read, comprehend or say anything of use. But who knows – it's worth a try.

I went, I saw, I nearly concussed myself by walking into a signpost (top tip: if trying to compare a map in one hand with an email on your phone in the other, do so while stationary), but I escaped Cebit. And here's what I learned, in pictoral form.

First, the show. It's as large as everyone says: around 30 halls, each about so big:

.. so you walk for miles and miles each day back and forth. Inside each hall there are around 200 booths. Finding the one you need is a nightmare – often it pays to get a view from above, if possible:

.. and work-wise, the show went well. Everyone's there, and once you get inside the booths and out of public view there's some fantastic new stuff planned for the next year or so, some of it secret for the time being. Outside it's a deranged mix of exhibitors (many), businesses (many), press (a few) and the public (amazingly, loads – not entirely sure why). So, the Cebit show scores 8/10. No holiday, but it does what it's there to do.

And what of Hannover? Well, it's quite nice: fairly small, but with a nice central district and some beautiful places in the old town. Get away from the "Irish" pubs, for example, and you can find little places like this:

Sadly I can't even vaguely remember what that bar's called, but you'll find it a stone's throw from the old church. Hannover itself picks up 7/10: if going as a tourist them head to Berlin instead, but it's quite nice.

So, what went wrong? Well, apart from nearly decapitating myself, the one key thing I learned is this: if going to Hannover, first purchase a map. And, preferably, a car to go with it, as the transit system is totally, utterly baffling. We spent hours standing on train platforms, in the cold, waiting for a train with that sinking feeling that comes from being entirely unsure whether it's even going to take you in the right direction:

In fact, during three days in Hannover we managed to get on the wrong train entirely (some stations, we found, had no maps, and the platforms do not list intermediate stops), the right train only to find that it was turned around and sent back the way we'd come (I was shamefully pleased that we weren't the only people caught out by this), a train that turned out to be a tram and then went underground (WTF?) and trains that, for some reason, were not covered by our tickets (not an ICE train – we knew about those, at least).

And all this on top of at least 2 hours of train travel per day because we had to come in the (reasonably nearby) town of Celle, which was similarly devoid of rail maps. Compare this to Berlin, for example, where the complicated transport system (S-Bahn, U-Bahn, trams and buses all overlapping) is cheap and easy to navigate. Hannover scores 2/10 in the "getting around without a car" category.

So all in all, last week was a mixed bag. Good show, nice city, godawful trains – oh, and really, really bad coffee. Still after four days, it was time to leave:

.. and I can't tell you how good it is to be back in London. I may not complain about SouthEastern Railways ever again.

Went to Brighton today to be beside the seaside and see Si. More photos here, slideshow here.