Kurt Johnson

These photos are amazing. 

• http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20041223_1.htm
• http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20041224_1.htm
• http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20041226_1.htm

 I don't know who took them except that they have been floating around bulletin boards in China for at least a couple of years.

Every year the Wharton and Law students put on a charity "fight night" for volunteer student boxers.  It's one of the best attended charity events of the year and gives students a chance to get in shape, learn to box, or just be rowdy in support of their classmates.

Full albums (password required):

• Match 1
• Match 2
• Match 3
• Match 4
• Match 5

Susanne and I spent last week in Japan with a large group from Wharton.  Japan is probably the most interesting place I've visited from a cultural perspective.  While it's not overtly attractive to tourists in the same way as Paris' aesthetic beauty and cafes, spending a few days observing how people interact with each other is mind blowing.  In general we experienced a level of safety, cleanliness, and courtesy that would be difficult to imagine seeing anywhere outside Japan.

Some highlights:

• Visiting Toyota's final assembly plant in Motomachi.  Probably the most impressive manufacturing facility I've ever seen; cars take less than 20 hours from stamping rolled steel to final vehicle testing, and a car rolls off the line about every two minutes.  In particular, watching the robot line perform ~4,000 spot welds to assemble the unibody was pretty impressive, as was watching the process where components are basically cross docked from supplier trucks to a parts cart that rides down the assembly line with each vehicle (1 cart per vehicle with the exact parts needed for that vehicle's option configuration).  The plant was clean and quiet with very little clutter and fast moving employees.  Only 2-4 hours of inventory is kept at the plant for each assembly station, so obviously they've got the whole process running like clockwork.  All in all it's easy to see why they've had to throttle back a bit to avoid completely running over the US big 3 (i.e., not competing aggressively for US market share)
• Riding the Tokyo subways.  Although I'd heard the stories about rush hour in Tokyo, we found the subways to be very easy to navigate, quiet, and ridiculously clean.  There isn't even dirt down in the track area (where Philadelphia's system usually presents a mixed pool of water, toxins, trash, and rats)
• Convenience store food that was extremely varied, fresh, and tasty (not to mention the ubiquitous vending machines - 400,000 in Tokyo alone - that sold both hot canned coffee drinks and traditional cold beverages)
• Cab drivers that were honest, provided white glove service (literally), didn't accept tips, and were so stinking considerate that at night when we stopped behind other cars at intersections they turned their headlights off until we got a green light (to avoid blinding the driver in front of us)
• Seeing wholesale activity at the Tsukiji fish market; starting at ~4am tons of fresh and frozen fish are brought in, auctioned, butchered, and sold.  Nothing too impressive per se (unless you've never seen how big Tuna are) but really cool for the frenetic atmosphere and variety of products on display.  We had Sushi for breakfast around the corner - for $10 each it compared very favorably to the high end fish we'd had the night before
• In general, thinking about how resilient the culture has been after so much destruction in 1944-45.  In particular it was strange to visit the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima and think about how normal everything seemed - i.e., a thriving a city of 1+ million people that had been completely destroyed not too long ago

• Kyoto
• Hiroshima
• Toyota City and Atami
• Tokyo

Mountains and a flowing glacier as seen from 35,000 feet.