Monday, January 4, 2010

1月4日(ichigatsu yokka): January 4

Today is the first working day of the year for most companies. It is called kankocho goyo hajime (官公庁御用始め) or shigoto hajime (仕事始め). Kankocho means public offices, goyo means business, shigoto means work, and hajime means start. Since 1873 it has been decided that the public offices are closed from December 29 to January 3 by law.
The first session of the new year at the Stock Exchange is called daihakkai (大発会). As a custom young ladies wear beautiful kimono on this day. From today new system was totally reformed at Tokyo Stock Exchange, and it dramatically improved. One transaction time will take 5/1000 seconds, within one blink 200 orders will be handled. This is 500 times quicker than ever.
As a world news I am interested in the completion of the world's highest tower "Buri Dubai." About 820 meters high! The Taipei 101 which was used to be the highest is 508 meters high. There are 160 floors, 57 elevators, and an observatory deck on the 124th floor. It took about 5 years and at its peak time there were 12,000 workers. The total construction cost was about $1,500,000,000. I hope to visit there someday.

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