Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Team Bonding - Forget paintballs, think food

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Apparently, sending your team to paintball battles for team building is all a bit outdated. The latest way to boost team spirit is through cooking, says The Guardian.

Four thousand business people have been through the doors in two years, paying £120 per head for a half-day team bonding culinary session. I think this new team building activity definitely has some advantages over paintballing: 1) More civilised and less dangerous — in case someone takes the war game too seriously; 2) subsequently, insurance becomes less of a problem unless someone is particularly rubbish with knives (like myself); 3) I wonder if anyone has ever sued their company for any damage caused while paintballing on a company jolly?

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A bus trip from London to Sydney

Saturday, September 29th, 2007
  • 15,000 miles
  • 20 countries
  • 12 weeks
  • 1 bus

Anita Sethi embarked on her 3-month bus trip from the UK to Australia two weeks ago and kicks off her regular column in The Guardian today.

A totally eco-friendly choice to travel across the world and on the way, she’s made 39 new friends and had loads of fun. A wonderful experience to read but I wonder how many people would have the time and energy to follow suit?

Posted in News, Travel | 1 Comment »

Regular tenants at 24-hour Internet cafes

Friday, September 28th, 2007

An interesting article written by Justin McCurry in The Guardian today called Tokyo dreaming. I was shocked by the estimated number of people regualrly sleeping in Japan’s 24-hour cafés — 25,000 to 40,000 is quite a depressing figure.

Expenses:

Meal
a plate of chips, sausages, a burger, fried fish, rice and shredded cabbage for 830 yen (£3.60); soft drinks are free of charge.
Rent
a cubicle (not much bigger than a toilet cubicle) with a reclining chair, a desk, a PC with Internet connection and a lamp for 1000 yen per night (£4.30)

Less than £8 for a night’s accommodation and dinner is obviously a bargain especially for an expensive city like Tokyo.

As I continued reading, I was surprised by the fact that many of the ‘café refugees’ are in their 50s and 60s, although a quarter of them are only in their 20s.

Living on 100,000 yen (£430) a month in Tokyo is tough but at least they don’t have to live on the filthy, dangerous streets like the homeless of London.

Posted in Japan, News | 1 Comment »