Ageing & Tonic

in a ditch...

2009-10-08T10:35:00.009Z

So the running's progressing, though the advice my mum always gave me ("keep looking straight ahead, don't deviate, don't wander" - though in a more succinct and wholly less poetic Polish way) didn't pan out so well for me this time. You see, in my opinion, and this is just me, when you encounter a closed gate on your route, you're not entirely sure if the short cut you know leads anywhere (safe), it's getting dark, you're getting quite tired, and you're in a shadowy, heavily vegetated, poorly-populated area in the murder capital of England, it's best to turn and backtrack along the main paths to where you know there's a permanently open gate than to plough on through your (heavily overgrown) "shortcut" and hope for the best.

Well, I know that now.

After snagging most of my clothing and uncovered legs on brambles and getting enough nettlage along my shins and calves to keep me awake for two-fifths of the night with the sensation of acid running through my veins, not to mention almost scalping myself running blindly, hunched over down a low tunnel through the trees, I got to the narrow river I knew I was alongside and upon losing the path ahead of me to a complete overgrowth of brambles and nettles, I decided that it would be better to jump the river now than later, where it gets wider, forgetting that if I ploughed on I would actually eventually bypass the need to jump it altogether. I won't make it across in one go, but that's fine, the mud I'll hit is at most a couple of inches deep. Ok, 3..2..oh just jump!

*schrwgthschlick* Hmm. Interesting. It's knee-deep. Eeeen-teresting. Right leg...*UP*... no wait, shoe? ok, point toe and g_e_n_t_l_y u_p... place foot on more secure mud and... ok, down again, more squelch. Try upper body strength. It's like getting out of a swimming pool. Of treacle. Can anyone see me? no. good. ok. *Hungrhhhhhhh.....AH!* Whoo! freedom! ok. run, don't look down, ignore looks, get home, take photo, laugh, shower, shower longer, scrub, scrub again, dry, eat, and sleep. sleep? SLEEP. no? ok, put cream on legs and... sleep. sleep? hmm. eye up tiger balm. definitely a bad idea.

And these are white shoes I'm wearing.

So go on, that story's totally worth sponsoring me! http://www.justgiving.com/runninglydia

In other news, I've been to Pinewood studios! whoo! Nick was doing some filming there the weekend before last and I tagged along, wide eyed and bushy-tailed (that's another story). It was amazing. Too cool for words, save to say I saw the giant chess pieces used in Harry Potter discarded alongside a mini statue of liberty (minus flame and head). And frolicked on the set of the new Gulliver's Travels - in Lilliput (see above, Nick's photo). Whoo!

trailer princess?

2009-09-24T07:34:00.004Z

The running is going well, I haven't fully injured myself yet, though I'm starting to get random twinges here and there. I've been hugely spurred on by the wonderful donations I've been receiving here, and by the inspirational teamwork that resulted in a friend completing the Great North Run on Sunday with a time of 3.5 hours, owing to him sticking with his trainng partner who had developed stress fractures and had to walk a large chunk of it. heart-warming. and painful-sounding.

This weekend I will mostly be hanging around Pinewood Studios, as Nick is filming there with Backyard Productions, who are currently doing a trailer shoot for their new project, Cinders. Fun fun fun!

Run woman, run!

2009-09-17T08:59:00.004Z

Isn't Eddie Izzard inspirational?

It's coming up to 9 months since I last ran, what with a knee injury and being a wimp when it comes to running in the heat of summer, but the knee has felt fine for a long time now, the weather is rapidly chilling and I've run out of excuses.

So I've given myself a goal - The Turkey Trot - a half marathon just south of Nottingham on December 13th. An undulating course that scares me. But I won't be alone, I'll be whimpering up the hill behind Helene who also did the only other race I've been in - a 10km race over a year ago, and for that I'm ever-grateful.

I also have another motivator - I'm running this for Cancer Research UK, which makes not doing it not an option. All donations very VERY gratefully received, and you can sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/runninglydia

Started running again on Monday and so far, so ok. I've found my speed limits and am devastated at how rubbish my form has become, and how hard I'm finding it, but I guess it gives me something to improve on... And I'm sure the woman in the park thinks I'm stalking her, having not run around that lake before, suddenly I've passed her in the opposite direction 5 times in 2 days and if I get out of work at a reasonable hour I'll do the same again today. Woot!

dawnlight baking

2008-12-10T22:18:00.007Z

The last couple of months have been a bit relentless at work, but the 7am starts have some fantastic advantages, one being that if (and it's a big IF) I finish my experiment at a reasonable time I actually get out for the last half hour or daylight, but the main one is that I get to see some pretty spectacular sunrises.

Always makes me smile.

A couple of weeks ago saw thanksgiving, something I've been involved with for 5 years now owing to a variety of American friends, and non-Americans who like to eat. This year, as every year, I attempted to contribute in some way to the food, with pie. sweet pie. mmmmmpie.

I've made a few savory pies in my time but not sweet. Apparantly, it turned out ok. Here is is.

mmm, pumpkin pie.

Although I've come to the conclusion that I don't actually like pumpkin pie.

I do, however, like grapefruit marmalade, and after searching some recipes, I had a go at making my own, which was fun, but hasn't come out exactly as I had been hoping. Turns out that leaving the pith on the fruit makes the marmalade quite bitter. I now have 3.5 jars of bitter marmalade. Anyone?

Thought not.

But you're right, all this baking and making stuff can mean only one thing. Other than my usual baking addiction - I have new kitchen equipment! A mini food processor (small unit as opposed to for small food), which, worryingly, some ebay advertisers claim these to be "perfect for babies". As Rachel said, "everyone KNOWS babies go in the meat grinder...". hmm. Maybe not perfect for babies but it does the trick on pastry, as demonstrated by these mince pies...

They keep me happy during my early starts :)

a record breaker!

2008-11-01T15:42:00.005Z

Oh yes, as one of 1227 thriller-dancing zombies, I, at 1700hrs on friday October 31st 2008, helped to break a world record :)

It was lovely. At 2 o'clock in some surprising sunshine, we queued for only about 10 of 15 minutes to be made up lightning speed, and register, before going to eat at pizza hut. Some people were surprised, not quite knowing what was going on, but it's a fact, zombies need feeding too, and brains get a little... samey from time to time.

The atmosphere was wonderful, everyone was friendly and laid-back, the police presence seemed unneccesary, and the warm-up man seemed to take enough verbal abuse from people he pestered in the crowd to keep all the chavs happy. Not that there were that many, it seemed, oddly enough, to be more of a goth/emo gathering.

There were some fantastic (and what must have been fantastically cold) costumes, including a guy dressed in head to toe only in bandages, which while looked amazing, left me worrying slightly as to what would happen should one of his friends, as no doubt they did later in the night, decide to start unravelling him. I'm not entirely sure he was wearing anything underneath.

At 4, a very small lady came on stage (to the verbal cries of "so small") to teach us the moves to Michael Jackson's (well, who else WOULD you emulate at halloween?) "Thriller", and an hour later we had it pegged, and were slightly sick of it. nb, I'll admit I used to like "disturbia" as sung by some random pop princess, but that is no more. Dancing the "Thriller" moves to it 4 or 5 time in an hour filled by craving quota for that one for at least a month.

But it was worth it. Just before half past five the official count came in at 1,227 zombies, smashing the previous record of 1,029 (or 1,124 depending on your source). woot!

So it's been awhile...

2008-10-30T14:43:00.002Z

...what can I say, blogging while trying to do everything else isn't my strong point!

But guess what? Tomorrow I'm taking part in a world-record-breaking attempt - oh yes! Nottingham is trying to break the world record for largest collection of "zombies" (I HOPE I need the apostrophes there), in the market square, from 2pm. The supervisor has given the go-ahead (in a roundabout way, I have a half-day off but I'm not sure she realises nor cares what I'll be doing with it), the friends are in place and ready for a make-over, and the pen is all a-quiver in my hand, waiting for the sign up that will send me into the record books. One of the 101 things to do before you die apparantly. check!

I've never been part of a record breaking attempt before, or an organised mass gathering (I don't count festivals or standing outside paperchase/mcdonalds as the bells strike midnight on new years day as organised mass gatherings) so I don't quite know what to expect. Should I get my elbows at the ready, or would a pokey finger fare me better? Might it even be that a smile and a cool, calm exterior would be the best approach of all? I doubt it, friday of half-term in a chav/goth split town centre. Elbows it is.

I'm drawing to the end of another long, busy week filled with 6am starts that leave me wondering on what critical day I'll oversleep. Well, I need wonder no more, that day was today. But it seems not to have impacted too much on my general "doingness", which makes me wonder more - why do I bother?

Only time will tell.

photo splurge!

2008-03-28T17:15:00.026Z

And here's some of the other amazing stuff we saw...

Munchables of Vienna

2008-03-28T01:18:00.009Z

Two things I was urged to try while in Vienna was the Sachertorte, and the sausages.

The Sachertorte is a cake that was commissioned for some royal and was invented by Mr. Sacher. It's ingredients have remailed a secret but essentially it's a chocolate sponge with a smooth chocolate frosting and an apricot jam filling. The guide books enthuse that is should be the first cake tried in Vienna, and so, purely for quality control purposes, I tried two. One at an uber fancy cafe in the butterfly house, a glasshouse with palm trees, and one at Aida Konditorei, a chain of Austrian coffee equivalents to Cafe Nero, where the cake turnover is bound to be higher and thus the cake fresher.

And much to my surprise I've found that I don't like Sachertorte. It's essentially a dry, flavourless chocolate sponge with a barely-there flavour (but no moistness) of apricot, only around the area of spread jam, and an icing coating that varies from wax-like to a more sugary, crispy coating. Not very inspiring.

I can, however, heartily recommend Mozart cake. A cake, like so many sweet items of an edible nature in Vienna, named after famous people. Like mozart balls (chocolates), Mozart cake is a moist blend of chocolate, marzipan and pistachio, with a thick filling of hazlenut mousse. The Mozart balls aren't as amazing as the cake (if chocolates are your thing I'd recommend the Sissi chocolates, named after Elizabeth of Bavaria, the wife of emperor Franz Jozef, murdered with a stab to the heart with a needle file by an anarchist, in an act of "propaganda of the deed". Her last words were "what happenned to me?". Sissi chocolates are a dark chocolate round filled with a liquor truffle filling), but they are worth it for the amusement value.

For another real treat, pretzels are definitely the way to go. Best served warmed, with mulled wine, from a stall at a german easter market :)

The world over, I have found that Starbucks offers regional and seasonal variations of cakes available, some more successful then others. In Switzerland around autumn time there crops up many chestnut-creme themed cakes, and much to my dismay, at around the same time it becomes impossible to buy any sort of cake item that doesn't have the chestnuts in them, in some form or another.

In Japan, also around autumn, appear succulent doughnut twists topped with a caramel icing that later in the year comfortably chased away the winter blues and themselves were chased away by spring, to be replaced with red bean paste ghastliness.

It is into a Starbucks that here I guiltily (though I have found this the one public space I can comfortably sit back and write in) step in, to find not much that I can consider a regional specialty. The only thing I haven't seen before is a lump chocolate cake that appears to have a massive amount of filling. In fact, the fudge spead between layers of chocolate sponge appears to have taken place of the sponge. A rather sticky headache inducing richness.

Viennese coffee is fairly standard by European coffee standards, though the Viennese do seem to have a misplaced pride in the range of coffee available, supposedly reflecting the very particular nature of the Viennese. In reality I haven't seen anything that isn't a standard option in any average Starbucks, but a close look at the guidebook shows a very perculiar way of taking ones coffee exists here, and that would be with a shot of rum and one egg yolk on the side. Having got chatting with a local in a rather funky bar playing "the Birds" the night before, it transpires that the rum and egg yolk are poured into the coffee and mixed well, but that it is very rarely ever seen to be ordered. Determined to try some, I find that it is very rarely seen at all, I can't see it on any menus and I don't particularly want to ask after it but rest assured, if I don't find it here I'll be trying it in the comfort and secrecy of my own home at some point.

A better recommendation it has to be said, was the sausage. After my late night sliced bratwurst with Rye bread experience, I was eager to try one of the many other types on offer, in a bun. The ultimate in convenience food, a fresh long bread roll like a baguette only shorter and with a much softer (but still crispy) crust is pierced to make a hole the width of a sausage down it's length, avoiding piercing the other end. This is then given a squirting of either mustard of ketchup and then the sausage is slid in. One-hand-edible, no mess food that is flavourfull and in no way healthy.

With smoked sausage options of plain, white, tomato, spicy or cheese, I opted for the spicy, with an accompaniment of mustard. And it was sublime - the perfect level of spice - a good kick but not enough to overwhelm the flavour, and was perfectly enhanced by the soft yet crispy bread, and maintained its flavour right to the last, satisfying mouthful. If I don't get the chance to try another type then I'll be happy knowing that I have had the best. The kiosk outside Schwedenplatz underground station is the place to go.

I guess the last food and drink item I'll venture into is the alcohol. Having started with some rather impressively light yet sweet beer we looked into some of the harder spirits - the schnapps and the liqeurs. Unlike at home, the schnapps are not mixed but rather drunk alone. There exist a great many more flavours than one would consider normal or advisable, including pine come and bluebell (tasting like jagermeister with a touch of listerine, and aloe vera, respectively), Admittedly, one would not drink these commonly, as they are used rather more mecicinally than for pleasure. The liquours are a safer bet, particularly those in the Mozart range, including milk, chocolate, and orange.

Austria is also a producer of fine wines, often finding a place at the top of a connoisseur's list. At 80% white production and 20% red, the emphases is certainly on the generally sweeter of the two colours. A great (and expensive) specialty is ice wine, made from grapes harvested only after they have been hit by frost, concentrating the sugars and resulting in a far more intense, sweeter wine. I opted for a ""half ice wine", wine made from grapes harvested after a spell at a maximum of 7 degrees C (as I understand it), and found it to be amazingly smooth, displaying none of the sharpness that leaves me face-contorting in the way that other wines have been known to. There are a variety of grades of ice wine, depending on age of grape at time of frost, and the temperature their environment plummetted to, and I'm hoping that the UK will have some available for my continued ice wine education. mmm. sweet, sweet ice wine.

And of course, after all the excesses, who wouldn't want to weigh themselves on the street?!!

The Toilets of Vienna

2008-03-27T18:35:00.005Z

The Viennese are into their classical music and especially their opera, bit it did come as a bit of a surprise to find an "Opera Toilet" underground!

With red crushed velvet wall panels bordered with gold something, this public toiled has toilet paper to give the appearance of looking out into the opera house auditorium and has music playing.
Once the fee had been paid however, the inside was just a normal loo. No singing, no wall paper, no red crushed velvet.

Clean and themed on the outside, but dissappointingly normal on the inside... 3/5

Hundertwasser house is a residential building with crazy style. Bedecked outside in mosaics and painted brightly with various colours, it draws visitors in to the area so much so that in 1990 a Hundertwasser village housing a cafe and numerous souvenir shops was built. And the toilet of modern art.

Mimicking the Hundertwasser style, the toilets have a fountain and are tiled in the mosaic style which is maintained well beyond the payment barriers and into the cubicles themselves. Welcoming, wacky and consistent... 5/5

clean snow in jumbo flowers

2008-03-26T00:07:00.010Z

We landed in Vienna a fair bit later than expected, and when the doors were opened we weren't at all surprised to feel how cold it was. In all fairness the weather was actually superb, a crisp sunshine shimmering off the oh-so-clean pavements and buildings.

Immediately it made me think of Switzerland - I think the trains are run by the same company and if not, the colour schemes are. The trains are efficient, quiet, comfortable and clean, and within 30 minutes we're in the centre of Vienna, and thinking about attending the accordion festival.

A quote in one of my diaries read: "If you're comparing one place to another, you've been to too many places", and that's certainly a problem for me here - it all seems so...Swiss. The pristine, impressive and austere buildings, similar in the feelings they invoke to Swiss and Istanbulic buildings, the efficiency of the people so very German, the language - German but not, the bank machines, are the same bank machines. Even the sun shines in that perculiar European crisp air, making a cold sunshine welcoming and inspiring, much like one in the UK is capable of doing, but in a very different way.

Another large similarity is the penchant for public art. Basel has amazing fountains and sculptures scatteres outside theatres, hospitals and pubs. Here, the modern art museum had large-scale models of berries and flowers outside it - look!

The people are genuinely friendly, not just helpful, which is something I'm surprised to see in a city that has become so tourist infused. Though there are exceptions to this, most notably when we decided to seek entertainment in a blues pub in the evening, and walked in to find a small, smoky room packed with German 40-something rockers turn to stare at us, and maintain glaring at us as we stood hopefully at the bar, waiting to be served.

After getting some really very nice beer (Weisenburger beier), the band (Rockingbirds) started playing and it was definitely worth grinning through the staring of the rockers and the obvious killer (denim and a lumber jacket shirt, cowboy boots, chains, a greasy mullet and the most interesting of interesting facial hair arrangements possible) in the crowds to hear. There was a solid repertoire of old blues classics such as "It Ain't", and the drum solos were beyond incredible. At one point she was tapping out a rhythm on an ashtray, and playing on a washboard. It was that impressive. The bar itself reminded me a lot of the pub in the "reverse" episode of reRed Dwarf, the grungy barmad interaction with the perculiarly germanly eclectic mix of burly patrons, drinking a mixture of syrup flavoured beer, plain beer, and coffee.

When I first moved to Japan and started studying the language I had real problems with speaking it - I could think of the nouns and verbs in what I wanted to communicate in the correct language, but all the in between linking stuff that actually makes a communication make sense was coming out in German. I am now finding the same happenning in reverse, easily coming up with the correct German nouns and verbs but the rest in Japanese. I'm not really surprised that "Trinkgeld wa wieviel desu ka?" doesn't really get understood.

The food you buy at 2 in the morning after a night out is always something I look forward to trying out. In Japan it was piping hot bowls of ramen or udon noodles, in the UK we steal other nation's food - kebabs and pizzas on top of our own chips, and here? Sausages! A wide variety of sausages are available with bread, in a bun, with ketchup, or a specific mild mustard that in Polish is knowwn as "Sarepska". Tonight was bratwurst, much like kielbasa. Tomorrow night I may well go for the white sausage or the sausage infused with cheese, and I may well haave it with ketchup in a bun.

While hunting for our evening's entertainment we came across an underground mall filled with the city's scary people - the chavs, the drunks and large amounts of the drugged. We got a few funny looks but came out unscathed. On the whole I've found the people here are more considerate to their surroundings that Brits, there is no litter on the floor, the underground transport ticketing works on a trust system rather than on barriers, and people turn the lights off when they leave pub toilets. The level of friendliness and consideration of the people makes me think of seriously considering moving back to a German - speaking country after my PhD is done, along with the serious considerations about Canada, but then again, isn't this just the honeymoon phase of experiencing a new city, especially as I'm so disgruntled with my current one?

mixing up the driving work...

2008-03-09T22:37:00.002Z

have been mixing again, indeed. and here it is.

Starts off funky, ends funky, goes a bit commercial in the middle. something nice to have on in the background, methinks. Enjoy!

http://www.esnips.com/doc/111a8716-a155-4b27-b3a9-36d7f524ea07/long-mix

ooh, I passed my driving test, by the way :) now to figure out how to afford a car. anyone want to employ a dj?!!

PhD blues?

2008-03-06T16:01:00.001Z

why didn't i do
a more thrilling phd
this is mind numbing

i want to go home
and hammer bits of my bike
hopefully for good.

1 more hour to go
then a thrilling lab meeting
i'll have to endure

but tomorrow brings
not another day of this
something else instead.

should have the day off
in order to drive to wales
but that's not to be

instead i will come
and analyse my data
ready for monday

also need to change
my oxygen cylinder
as it's running low

hopefully i'll be
able to leave by lunchtime
that would be so sweet.

then outside i'll go
and enjoy the warm sunshine
unless it's raining.

then instead i'll go
home and go straight to my room
hide under covers

or go into town
get a photo for license
yes i can drive now!

such freedom it brings
even though i've not a car
in my posession

maybe that will change
sooner rather than later
would be much better

however, it's true,
my finances cannot cope
with such purchase now.

still i can lust for
a small car that's big enough
for me and my bike.

good luck, bad luck and the horror lady

2008-02-24T20:23:00.002Z

This week I have been mostly reading bike part reviews, making purchases, getting shouted at for having purchases delivered to work, and getting job offers. All very bizarre.

Yesterday morning I sauntered into town on a bit of a mission to track down some very specific grease for my bike, or a close equivalent. After chatting with the nice gentleman in the shop regarding why I needed this particular grease, he offered me a job as a bike mechanic. That was inspiring and amusing.

I've always wanted to work in a bike shop but there's no way I know enough about bikes yet to feel it would be fair on them if I took him up on it. Yes more than most girls, but that's why I got the offer. The joys of femality. However, it's comforting to know that when I'm done PhDing I potentially have a future.

In furtherement of my up-and-down luck this year so far (finding £20 on the ground and another £10 3 days later, losing my bank card, having my wheels stolen), last night I had my bag stolen. I started planning the conversation I'd have to have with my bank today:

"Hello? yes, I need to cancel my card and have it re-issued."
"again?"
"yes, again."
"but you did that 2 weeks ago"
"yes i know."
"and we reissued it last week?"
"indeed"
"and you want it cancelled again?"
"yes please"
"ok... but we're bringing the expiry date forward again."

But it was not to be. In a twist of ridiculously good luck the guy who took it not only had the stupidity to leave with it fully visible, be detained and faced towards the CCTV with the bag, but also to return to the club empty-handed a minute later, and so when I noticed it missing and spoke to the door staff, they identified, caught and detained him, frogmarched him to the carpark where he'd ransacked my bag, and brought it back to me, minus £20 he'd already spent. ridiculously lucky. Especially as the tupperware in it was not mine. Fancy that.

In other news I have mixed again (oh yes). It has now been sent to horror film mistress extroadinaire rachel who's going to make a video for it. I'm eagerly awaiting the results :)

frosty bikes

2008-02-19T21:49:00.009Z

The weather has steadily been getting warmer and on a sunny sunday a few weeks ago, after a morning indulging my latest addiction at the indoor climbing centre, we packed some of aldi's finest grapes and cheese, made some baps and headed to wollaton park for a picnic. it's really heartening to see the sun out and the flowers pushing out, even though it's clearly not a good thing in terms of the global issue with warming, and so i made the most of the late afternoon shadows as we pretended we weren't all frozen to the core. daffodils!

Last weekend brought a similar affair weather-wise, when i popped home to collect my new toy - the perfect mountainbike frame! i could wax on about it in great detail but instead, here's a photo proving that a) konas grow on trees and b) it's always sunny in our garden. mine's the red frame at the top.

I like how oxford circus often has something hanging over it. a few months back it was some ominous looking spheres somewhat reminiscent of the killer balloon in "the prisoner", this month it's fairy-light lanterns for chinese new year. happy year of the rat!

The journeys gave me lots of time to write a few chapters of my book - indeed, i'm writing a book! something i decided in the new year would be an interesting project to follow when i came across a horoscope book and was reminded of someone who won the lottery and decided to see if believing every advert for a year and buying whatever they told him to would make him happier. he ended the year owning a multitude of cars and getting fat, but it was ok because he also had many life insurance policies. so i've decided that any desisions involving any sort of date (calendar or otherwise) won't be made until THE BOOK has been consulted. so far it has factored in decisions regarding social dates, dates for tests and will feature heaviliy in my next experiment, winning the lottery. all of this why? because i believe in the moon and the stars? not quite. i guess it's just something to do...

And just as suddenly as the flowers had started pushing out, winter returned! after a few nights in the minuses i walked in today not only to the sound of the factory near campus playing "The A-Team theme tune on what sounds like an ice-cream truck, but to gorgeously frosted cobwebs. where do all the spiders go?

vinyl!

2008-02-15T11:48:00.005Z

So for the past month or so i've been playing with my new toys, 2 turntables and a m...ixer. no microphone for me. finally, having downloaded some audio capture device or other and just about started to get my head around the half-a-second delay my computer processor causes before the noise comes out of the speakers, i've put together a short mix. not my first, or even the second, they were too horrendous to even consider letting loose on the general public. my housemates were subjected to them and i'm not entirely sure i've been forgiven yet.

the video above is a much lower quality (and thus sounds even worse than it should) than the one here: http://youtube.com/user/peabluesky

so go there instead.

enjoy, or try to. it gets a bit messy.

Mossy wildlife

2007-12-30T14:44:00.000Z

Guildford is a large town with many pretty nooks and crannies as well as it's open spaces at cathedrals (officially the ugliest in the country, apparantly), castles and on bike trails. In muddy conditions, though admittedly nowhere near as muddy as a certain event earlier this year in scotland, we headed out along with the rest of Guildfords' population on its once-yearly escape to the fresh air of the downs. Disappointingly, the tea shop was closed, but munching on almonds and sweetened papaya on a hillside was just as pleasant.

The castle sits in some very tailored grounds with stunning moss-covered walls of the richest green imagineable. After much silliness we headed through the university campus to the cathedral at the top of a hill, nicely overlooking not only the town but the university lake where we felt like that boy with the flute who all the animals were attracted to, only we had foody goodness and not a flute.

As the year draws to a definite close I look at the weather forecasts with a lighter heart than last time, seeing that the -4 degree predictions have changed to a +8, allowing a not-so-frozen escape to the big clock for a lot of body-crushing and some fireworks. And the possibility of snow on Thursday! Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Radish piers

2007-12-26T10:12:00.000Z

After an excellent weekend receiving long-eared jerboas (thanks martin!), walking in parks, decorating a tree (that we actually had this year), baking cookies and putting way too much gin into some vague resemblance of mulled wine with my brother...

...I woke up to an extremely cold monday morning, hoiked my bag on my back and ran after the bus to take me to the tube station that would lead me to a train station from whence I could get a train to Brighton. The journey was smooth, and with the frost covering most of southern England, astonishingly pretty. The weather helped, stunningly clear skies and a frosty overtone that was maintained throughout the week, bringing an opportunity to wrap up in hats, gloves and mittens, and a general holiday feel to a much-needed change of scenery. It's not often that I forget how much I love to travel, even rarer the occasion that I'm reminded of the fact whilst not realising I'm in the middle of it. Have I lost you yet? Good, then I'll continue.

Brighton pavillion is something I always thought was an extention of one of the piers, having not realised it was a palace-like building in itself resembling an oriental palace clad in concrete, or as critics have put it, several radishes atop several boxes. Inside it is overwhelmingly lavishly decorated in attempt to belittle and impress, and it works. The dining room contains an astonishingly large dragon-held chandelier above a table longer than my 3-bedroomed flat in a room that's taller than my building, and the walls are covered in intricate designs that wow the visitor in ways that only blood-red walls can.

Our apartment was right on the shore, opposite the now burnt-out west pier. At sunset, the starlings put on an amazing display centering around the metal framework, set against a blazing red sky. Walking further upsore led me to Brighton Pier, with it's mass of arcades and fairground eerily deserted at such a late hour on a winters eve, though it's not hard to imagine how in the relative warmth of the summer it could be packed out and bubbling energy with all the kids on it, reminding me why winter's not such a bad thing afterall.

The conference itself proved enlightening, with some very good speakers, some great career pointers and lots of coffee-drinking opportunities. I may have even managed to get myself onto the societies' committee, but more on that as and when it develops, not wanting to scare a certain housemate more than is absolutely necessary at this point. Advance apologies.

Christmas at home has already provided opportunities for discovering old walks, older viaducts and the joys of sitting at the childrens' table for Wigilia - Christmas Eve meal. Tomorrow I go exploring again, on my favourite bike of all, and so it is with a roast-duck filled belly that I wish you all a very merry christmas and future tiding of joy for the coming closure of a year that has changed so much.

Kitty Kebabs

2007-11-30T13:19:00.000Z

Swiss (the airline), have gone drastically downhill. A flight to Istanbul connecting in Zurich means a lot of time in the air and one knd of expects to be fed at some point. And they did, kind of. Among the multitude of chocolate to the accompaniment of the "just for laughs" prank show, on silent, and a curtain seperating cattle class from business (where they not only get fed proper food, but fed with china and real cutlery), we were handed a calzone (italian origin folded over pizza stodge) in a paper bag, filled with tasteless mozarella and some vague tomato paste. Not even any herbs. But the mountain views over Switzerland were stunning, bringing back many memories and a promise that I will certainly be boarding this winter.

After a paper bag of blandness, the real kebap and stunningly thick turkish coffee we had by the grand bazaar was heaven!

Finding out luxurious hotel (with it's own Turkish bath that we didn't actually manage to experience, stunning chandelier and, disturbingly, fish tank in a picture frame), we were amazed at the views over the nearby mosques from the rooftop restaurant which we then enjoyed with a cheese, olive and helva based breakfast the next 2 days.

We walked around the underground cisterns which once held water for the city and now brought bus load of teenage tourists (groan) as we were leaving, saw the incredible-scaffolding-containing aya sofya mosque and the stunning grounds of the blue mosque, the palace and its harem, and the twon fantastic markets, buying stunning ceramic bowls, masses of apple tea and coffe (and coffee equipment), and various flavoured lokum - turkish delight.

We also ate a mass of kebaps and stunningly tasty baklava-style sweets, but the most bizarre had to be boza, a thick, yellow paste made from fermented grain, water and sugar, and sprinkled with cinnammon. It has a gritty, sweet taste that gets stronger as more is drunk, in an oddly repulsive way. Especially if you think about it too much.

We also tried raki, a heavily alcoholic aniseed liquour which took an age to finish and had to be rounded off with several pints of efes, the local larger.

Istanbul is awash with friendly stray kittens and a smattering of cats. The bar had adopted one particularly cute, scrawny ginger tabby that purred in my lap happily for several hours after watching turkey beat norway, much to the jubilation of all.

All in all I'd say Istanbul was amazing! Very highly recommended but perhaps for longer than a weekend...

Istanbulic driving fish

2007-11-15T11:14:00.000Z

argh!
There's only so much of ones persons ineptitude that I can handle before totally losing it, albeit somewhat restrainedly. Now I am silently seething and stressing over how the careless actions of one person can seriously affect the work of not one, but three (yes, three) totally uninvolved persons.

Enough.

So I had a summer in the lab, it whizzed by and I got stuff done that I am happy with, and am, surprisingly, not even mourning the lack of a summer holiday. The last holiday I went on was a week of sailing and windsurfing with my brother and his friend in Turkey, and bizarrely, I saw one of the instructors I met out there in the student bar last night. Such a small world.

Even though I don't feel lacking on the holiday front, possibly owing to the many weekends in London I've had over the past 2 months, I definitely feel it's high time I went on a short break again.

Cue weekend to Istanbul, oh yes. That's me doing my part to contribute to global warming while it's still affordable to do so. This saturday, for 3 days. Total bliss. Top of my list are the spice/Egyptian markets, and many many hours in the Turkish baths. I've already started having the "missing our flights" nightmares, so all is set.

I've also started taking driving lessons again, having been too naive 7 years ago to see that when my instructor said I wouldn't pass my test because my "left reverse around a corner is perfect only 9 out of 10 times", he just wanted more money. Well boo to him, I didn't book any more anyway. And boo too to me because I didn't take the test and it takes surprisingly longer than I thought it would to all come back to me. I was, however, amused when instead of changing from 1st to 2nd gear I pulled the handbrake up instead. It let me discover that the handbrake on a vauxhall corsa is, in fact, rubbish, and that performing a "hammy" is much harder than just pulling up the break. Yes, I was even turning the corner.

And the new flat is doing well. Yes it's damp, and the security is not the best, and it's in a slightly dodgy area of town, but it's not owned by UPP scum, and it has a sofa, neigh, 2 sofas, and my fish tank looks good in it. I'm stocking it up as we speak, and now houses my siamese fighter (feesh), 2 brown frogs (kaplan and kaplow - emphasised ka-PLAN and ka-PLOW), and a silver dollar (tempau) which I have since discovered (even after specifically asking the attendant at the shop) is incompatible with a siamese fighter on account of it growing to a whopping 15cm, and that it also shouldn't be housed singly but with 3 other dollars. The pet shop in the centre of Nottingham is clearly not a good place to go for advice. Or frogs that aren't suffering from fungal infections.

giant malicious pigeons in the floating lands

2007-05-09T15:41:00.000Z

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Venice was spectacular.

We left the train and headed straight onto a riverboat, going to the furthest point we would that day, the San Marco square. famed in many films and adverts based in venice, this massive square is flanked by beautiful arches on 3 sides, and another impressively decorated church on the fourth. after taking some "jumping up" photos (yes yes, i AM in the middle of the photo above. see me?) with the pigeons, one flew straight in front of me, clipping my eye with it's wing as it went. i think the pigeons in italy are out to get me, having made a comment about them while waiting outside the cathedral in florence only to have one immediately alight its resting point on the shelf-like wall and swoop worryingly low over my head.

We "light lunched" in a cosy restaurant in one of the many narrow, winding back-streets, only we forgot what we were doing (on the "light lunch" side of things) and ended up ordering a large pizza each. followed by a long walk through the winding back streets back to our starting point, enjoying many bridges, the pursuit of a dead end (finally found) and admiring some of the pretty glass jewelery and glass religious icon shops and stalls along the way. we enjoyed a final gelato by the canal, watching boats and lovers passing by, and a glass of latte back at our point of origin.

Venice was truly a beautiful place to visit and i was pleasantly surprised to have managed to get this into a 66 hour trip considering the distance, much thanks has to go to nicks family and especially brother for providing much of the organisation and inspiration to "go with the flow". and i cannot express how great it was to see old friends again :) especially ones that design new ways to sleep on trains without being bothered by ticket conductors:

heaven and hell pizza frescoe

2007-05-09T15:22:00.000Z

After a night of exploring the town and finding more gelato and a free buffet with some very good pesto, we came to "planning noir", a black decor'ed bar serving over-stuffed cocktails, witha pimped-out white-suited chap dancing to some comforting house. this came before a day of queueing.

On monday we met sharon and nick at a stunning apartment by the river, and went to the Catedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the most famous cathedral in italy, the dome of which adorns the vast majority of the souvenir tat available for general purchase throughout the country. the architecture is stunning, with beautifully preserved, stylish outer walls, and surrounded by an excited, busy throng of restaurants, propellor toy sellers, queueing tourists and pickpockets. inside, a 463-step climb through the narrow corridors will take you to view not only the stunning heaven/hell frescoe painted across the entire ceiling of the dome, complete with fire-rod-poking-demons and skeletons gesturing at children, but also to the top of the dome on the outside, offering a birds-eye view of the misty city-scape. the green of the hills contrast stunningly with the uniform orange-ness of all the buildings below.

At lunch-time we head to "yellow", an extremely busy pizzeria in which we sit for 2 1/2 hours while the rains pound the street outside, moving onto a gelato shop for that sweet tooth. by the evening it feels like i've swallowed a baby, and looks like it too when i look down. tasty.

Today we're heading to venice, not the closest of places to go for a day trip on our final day before heading back to the airport with giant pigeons, but one i'm looking forward to nonetheless. the train passes many pretty mountain villages and streams, and i look forward to finding out what the next 3 hours of it will bring, and whether or not we'll be able to get return tickets once in venice. spell-as-you-go scrabble, anyone?

Beery feet and coffee bridges

2007-05-09T14:55:00.000Z

Some very close friends of mine i made whilst in japan (Sharon and Nick) deemed it a good idea to go to italy during golden week, the japanese national holiday that officially lasts 3 days but actually is taken as the entire week. this provided me with an excellent opportunity to go visit them in a part of italy i have not yet seen, a mere 5 days after returning from cyprus, with a house-mate martin to enjoy it with. here's what i thought of it:

29.04.07, Sunday
One of my aims for completion in florence has already been achieved - gelato! the best coffee icecream i've ever tasted, barely any sweetness to it, and real dry roast beans in the mix. the mint-choc-chip was pretty up to standard as well :). we enjoyed our gelatos while strolling up the Ponte Vecchio - the oldest bridge in florence (one that escaped the wrath of WWII) and one of a very small number in europe with shops on it. even with it being relatively low in the season, the throngs were reminiscent of the lincoln christmas markets. only warmer. and ice-creamier. however, gelato wasn't the first purchase in florence, oh no! that honour, i'm pleased to announce, went to the super-tacky plastic crystal multi coloured ring that now sits on my middle finger. it casts pretty rainbow points of light onto the 4th, bought after leaving our amazing hostel that took some serious search-skills to find; the buildings aren't numbered sequentially, what with 47 following 23 following 62. at least our arrival was interesting.

We climbed a nearby hill offering spectacular florentine views in very little time, to find an impressive, giant, naked, green copper statue bearing his bits to the people in the city below, surrounded by a myriad of stalls selling the same tat as the stall next door.

I enjoyed attempting italian with the local postcard sellers, and getting it mixed up with my japanese. Ms Evans, my secondary school italian teacher would, no doubt, be proud.

Right now we sit at the Santo Spirito church, having enjoyed a ham and cheese foccaccia (one of many, many variations of the ham and cheese sandwich i will have this holiday), a bottle of beer, a hippy dragging a cart with his dog, playing 70's rock, and still enjoying the late afternoon sunshine to the backdrop of a red-suited, guitar-playing outdoors wedding singer with a catchy jive being played on a synthesiser for accompaniment. and it's here i discover the best way to strike up conversation with a fellow (topless, swedish) traveller. knock over beer bottle, splash aforementioned semi-nude on foot. commence talking about illustrators fairs.

Cypwus weeeeeeee!

2007-05-09T14:26:00.000Z

After what felt like a day of travelling, martin, colin, rachel and i arrived at our apartment, demolished most of a bottle of sherry and another bar of toblerone, and checked out the rocky beach. the wind blew in from the coast as we admired the stars to drunken musings and frequent bouts of delerious happiness at finally being on holiday.

We enjoyed a day at the waterpark, which having opened a mere 3 days previously was still so empty there was a distinct lack of queues. unfortunately, this meant that not all the slides were open at any one time, so we were effectivey ushered from one set of slides to another at varying timepoints. interspersed with pizza and icecream who's cone disintegrated at the mere mention of the word "sun", it made for a fun day out with plenty of sunshine and careful cream application ensuring a lack of burning.

Most of the rest of the time consisted of precisely nothing other than sleeping on the beach and during the days, and eating halva and enjoying the empty bars and clubs in the evenings, excepting two rather fabulous day excursions. one, an anticipated 2 hour walk to the rocky point in the distance from which we returned 6 hours later, blistered and having not reached the point (but instead, reached some rather spectacular caves just before and enjoyed some rather splendid food at the local restaurant in the middle of nowhere), and two, a car-hire day where i enjoyed navigating for 1 brit and 2 "others" who drive on the wrong side of the road, in a heartfelt effort to see more of the island. we started with a drive into the mountains, where we encountered some freakish weather (heavy cloud at what was now ground level, hail storms and general non-visibilityness), an out of season ski school, military personell, a waterfall, and the remainders of swept aside piles of snow. after lunch we headed towards paphos, a minefield of stunning historical sites that we got to too late to explore, so we wound down to the sunset and enjoyed a dinner by the sea, noticing the pleasant lack of seagulls in cyprus. i had cuttlefish for the first time, and came to the realisation that unless pickled and/or dried, i find fish of the squid/octopus/cuttlefish variety rather bland and rubbery.

An epic overnight journey home was prepared for by spending our final day on the beach until the rains chased us away, then, spending the remainder of our money in a spectacularly good sushi diner we left satisfied and promising ourselves to go for some back home.

And so a much-needed holiday catapulted back into luton for a 5 hour wait for the first train on what ended up being a rather beautiful day. my high-point? without a doubt, that would be winning at (genuine, not spell-as-you-go) scrabble with 148 points! good times!

downhill daffodils

2007-04-05T10:11:00.000Z

Massive silence from me, for those of you that check this site and care, i apologise. It's been a mixture of busy busy days, not wanting to update in the evenings, and packed weekends leaving me unable to do so. and look! it's the lunar eclipse! pretty red moon :)

I guess I last left you with a taste of liverpool and burnt birthday cake, so here's what's happenned since then...

First the biking stuff. :) really excitingly, we went to the manchester velodrome - that track thing where bikes go really fast in an oblong shape on oddly proportioned bikes. might i add with no freewheel - your feet are the brakes and if you stop pedalling, you go falling over at (hopefully) high speeds. it was also my first time in SPDs - clip in shoes so you can't move your feet. definitely safer that flatties (not clip in pedals) in this situation, still quite disorientating at first, but definitely the best situation to learn in, i found. we went round and round and felt the breeze on our faces and then we went home. it was suprisingly, really enjoyable and not as boring as i'm making it sound. i hope to go again someday.

Back to the cross county stuff, the past few months i've technically been "in training" for the BUSA student championships, which were held last weekend in dunkeld, north of edinburgh. by "training" i mean a couple of spinning sessions on the exercise bikes in the gym, a few more weekend rides, and a technical skills training session in the peaks meaning i can now wheelie (though i fell off the back a couple of times i'm just that good), manual (like a wheelie but without pedalling, and no, i can't do a proper one), and trackstand (stand still on the bike) to some extent. all good, fun stuff. dunkeld and camping at -4degrees C proved to be quite, quite cold, but it was a really enjoyable long weekend, and quite an eye opener. i'm really getting into it all but i'm also mostly getting the feeling that i might not be entirely cut out for it, and definitely don't like race situations. to cut a long story short, big long uphill at the start followed by ridiculously slippery, steep and narrow "you're-out-of-your-depth" downhill sections. no problems in practice, but come race pressure and after the track had been nicely churned up (female champs race was after 3 other races) it became very painful and demoralising. i quit 5/6th of the way through the first lap, cried like a baby, then rejoiced in the achievements in our rather fitter male competitors. well done boys say i :) at least now i have something to aim for next year, finishing the course.

Next up, postgrad stuff! with the PGSA, we organised a speed-dating event which surprisingly enough ran very smoothly and quite enjoyably. i'd not seen how they run before but have always been interested in trying it out, so organising one was a bit novel and "enter the unknown" for me. at the moment we're finalising the details for the summer postgrad ball, a seriously classy event with lots of money being thrown at it and lots of bits and pieces needing organising. it's coming together quite well, though i think we'll all heave a huge sigh of relief after the event is over and done with - just 2 months to go!

We visited york for a day, and did the touristy stuff in town, not to mention stopping off to buy 1.5kg wirth of fudge and lots of bakery items (so much for training for the mountainbike champs...). we saw cathedrals and markets and fudge makers, lots of chocolate shops, a hat shop (something totally new for me) and rain. it rained lots. and then some more.

And two of my friends visited! Ewa from london and Ben from switzerland came and entertained me for a few days. i love catching up with old friends. and curries. :)

At the moment i'm mostly excited about my upcoming trip to cyprus with martin, rachel and colin, 3 of my flatmates. it's going to be a very welcomed holiday after finally finishing and handing in my literature review a mere 3 months late, hopefully with copious amounts of sunshine and beachy loveliness. first they changed our flights, meaning we arrive back a whole day later at 3 in the morning (such a joyous, EASY time to travel at...), and then they changed out hotel because "the iphigenia have decided it's not worth their while opening in april". um, ok. no worries though, we've been upgraded to a beach-side location (i've been assured it's still IN accomodation and not just "on the beach"), with many nice amenities. just 2 more weeks to go. oh i can feel the sunshine now as i look out onto the fog-covered ring road. what is it with nottingham and fog?

liverpudlian birthdays

2007-02-16T17:29:00.000Z

Liverpool is a really interesting city with purple bins!

We left nottingham at 7am and halfway through the journey we rode into dense, dense fog on the motorways up north. the freezing journey was made no warmer by the coach's heating system for a long time, as we couldn't figure out how to use it until the last hour, and it certainly was made no easier by the whining, whingeing blonde postgrad who seemed to think not only that i was personally responsible and accountable for the cold, but that i couldn't feel it and was not trying to do anything about it. some people need to be thrown off buses.

The docks at liverpool were also shrouded in fog, adding a gorgeous mood to the day, if making it feel a lot colder than the forecast had predicted and i was prepared for.

Our first destiation was to pose on the anchor and take moody photos of boats, before heading to the tate modern to enjoy modern art and fruit crumpets. tasty. on the way to our next destination we stumbled across a fudge shop and by the end of the day i had eaten 150g of fudge. no wonder i was so sugary-happy.

Of course liverpool is beatles heaven. i like the music, but am not so fussed about finding out everything anyone could possibly ever want to know, so i gave the beatles story (an hour and a half audio tour around a museum) a miss, and went to stock up on japanese food at the chinese supermarket, and to see the cathedral, or what we could from ground level, considering the fog was still much around us.

The cathedral was a truly impressive structure, and we sat awhile listening to the choir practice for the evenings singing, with the choirmaster's accusatory voice carrying well. the stained glass got an obligatory photo shoot, albeit a little surreptitiously as no photos were strictly meant to be taken during a service, which the choir practice counted as one.

Lunch was eaten at what was recommended to melanie as the best chinese restaurant in the UK. it must have changed management. let's leave it there.

And to finish off, we went to the philharmonic pub, an old pub with many rooms and the fanciest urinals in any english pub. yes, women were allowed to see them (with an escort) and take photos and pose. the marble and brass taps were nicely fancy for a pub toilet.

My birthday passed nicely with a trip to nottingham castle and a good view afforded over nottingham. it was eerily similar to standing in the grounds of cabot tower in bristol, other than that the view was a bit more industrialised and lacking in welsh hills. We ate lunch in the first pub of england, "ye olde trip to jerusalem" - pie and nice ale, with a free portion of rather nice chips as the meal was 40 minutes in the making. In the evening we made sushi and made 3 attempts at baking cake and brownies for the next day's "north pole" party. the only thing north pole about it in the end was that we were north of the equator, i am a Pole, and we were wearing coats with hoods. it was fun :)

moody welsh cycles

2007-01-31T11:29:00.000Z

I've been to Wales!

Leaving the lab at 3.30pm on a fine day feels nice. really nice. especially when it's at the end of a week where the starts have been around 8am and the ends around 6pm. it's even nicer when you're leaving to go grab a shower, your bike, and hop in a van to go to wales. the 4 hour drive passed relatively smoothly, the last hour with a different driver who's style is more than a little scary, but by 9.30pm we'd reached our destination, braig gogh bunkhouse in Corris, a small town just outside of Machynlleth. we got to cooking the tuna pasta salad for the lunch the next day with vigour, and after an hour, the water was boiling and ready for pasta. should have done it all in the kettle.

Wales is a stunning place to cycle in, the weather was good, with a mild temperature and moody skies on the first day, cold and slightly rainy on the second, but with a mammoth climb on the second day i wouldn't have wanted it to be any warmer. my technique is coming along too, it tends to do that when you have a mantra consisting of "look ahead and STOP BRAKING!". and i'm definitely getting better at the climbs. let's hope that stays!

Both days involved hilliness and some stunning scenery that comes with it, and both evenings involved pub food which always leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

Now it's back in the lab and back to reading, writing and the odd experiment here and there. it's good to see my project taking off, and i've found a couple of interesting leads that are keeping me occupied for the time being. things with the postgrad students association are moving along too, tonight we have a bar social (the first of 2007 no less), and at the weekend i'm taking 2 coaches and 100 people to see the wonders beholden in liverpool. i am yet to decide whether to do the tourist thing there or just potter around a little in shops and cafe's on my last day before hitting a quarter of a century. i'm sure i'll do a little of both and return exhausted.

And once again, someone tried to steal my bike from outside the hospital last night. i don't like chavs.

foggy fudgy walks in coffee socks

2007-01-25T12:04:00.000Z

And thus passed 2 months without a spare moment. even now, time is a bit of a struggle if i'm honest. bear with me while i update a bit.

As the PhD moves into full swing, i'm presenting at various meetings within the school and at supporting companies, on what it is that my project is on. this is not easy when there is absolutely no data at the moment, and leaves me reviewing what else has been done in the field, why i'm going to do what it is that i'm going to do, and how. the first one went...interestingly, several questions raised issues that i had mis-named several phenomena and got others mixed up, but no worries. the second, at the company, went swimmingly, and questions were successfully fielded. the third is tomorrow. actually i'm quite looking forward to it, or at least i'm not at all bothered by it.

Christmas came and went, with much fog rolling down the hills and over the geese, and with several in-school christmas events, one very dressed up dinner, one dressed up lunch, one postgrad evening social which went very well even if i do say so myself (it was i that organised it), and one messed up cycling all-you-can-eat chinese. and it was all good. 3 kilos gained in the bag for me :)

Christmas itself was enjoyed with family, one nephew not quite being able to recognise me straight off, which i'll put down to my 2 year absence. and while we had no christmas tree we did have polish food. oh the barszcz and the pierogi and the cakes... by the time we were done with the supper i couldn't breathe in fully i was that full. for 3 days!

New years was spent in devon, with the wonders that is the bideford new years fancy dress party, only we didn't go to it. what with the weather being as unpredictable as it was and the house being so warm and inviting we just stayed in. the week passed with much work of the reading and writing variety, some refreshing strolls along the coastline, and much complaining about the smell of the dog :) bleugh. for christmas my parents treated me to a coffee grinder and many stripy socks, and i treated myself to a new set of forks for my bike. oh lovely suspension. the difference it makes is astounding. i'm looking forward to this weekend when i get to really test them out, in frozen solid wales (we have snow in nottingham as of last night!). am thoroughly looking forward to that, if a little scared...

The first postgrad students association "day out" under my guidance was to lincoln, to the christmas markets! armed with a very handy handbook made by melanie, 40-odd of us descended on the markets en masse to see the delights of thousands of stalls and fairground rides and cheeses and fudges. oh the food was good. and there was pie. we stopped in at the cathedral for monce pies and carols, the cathedral used in "the da vinci code". which was nice. i believe a good time was had by all, and i have to say i was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly the whole operation went. now i have the liverpool day out to look forward to, the weekend after next. ticket sales are lready into the coach-load so it may well be a 2-coach event. nerve-wracking though that may be. hmm. liverpool for my birthday. beatles magical tour, anyone?

Last week or the week before was rachel's birthday, and so to the flat below (not hers, for her flatmates kindly leave raw meats out on the dining table there) for a little of the old party. naturally we advertised this in the usual way, a poster inviting all placed on the door by the front entrance, and naturally the powers -that-be came days in advance to warn us we couldn't have it, and on the event itself telling us to stop it. which we fought all the way. now let me state this: in our contract, it states "any party myst be by permission of the hall tutor". we have no hall tutor, unless (s)he lives in the broom-cupboard under the stairs, in which case i insist on being allowed to play with edd the duck, so no problem there. the contract also states "you must inform the neighbours". well, we are the neighbours, so no problem there either. so when mr UPP (the power-that-is) came to tell us that "you can't be having this party" we retorted with "oh yes we can" while holding a big knife (cake knife, admittedly), and then had a good long mini-argument with him. the upshot is that now there are fake party messages going up every day, and the real ones are saved for online advertising. to future nottingham postgrads, cloister house? don't do it. community nice, broadgate park UPP not. but then, what can you do?

And in other news, there has not been a single day this year yet that i've not been coughing or sniffling. having caught a cold right before new years and a new one as i was heading out of the old one. i am now in my 26th day of laboured swallowing. but apparantly my lung capacity is still above average for my stats. which is nice to know.

scruffy sark and pumpkin pie

2006-12-01T03:40:00.000Z

Stuff as social rep with the postgrad students association is moving on, if slowly and not too smoothly but i'm getting there. the study is moving on too, this afternoon i have a bit of a presentation to give regarding what i will be doing, and then the postgrads and postdocs of the biomed sciences school are going for our christmas meal! yep, december 1st, christmas meal season begins.

This one will be bar far the fanciest, i have finally bought a really "black dress" that i am looking forward to wearing, even though my currently being between 2 dress sizes makes wearing one painful and the other worrying. there will be food, and drink, and dancing. what more could i want?

A few weeks back i had another short visit home, a few birthdays and catching up with friends and family, though no massive pile of washing this time. we went to greenwich village, home of the best pie shop in london that had sadly closed down, and the cutty sark. it was a crisp, clear and cool london afternoon, and the sunset blazed off the boat like sunsets are wont to do. i was filled with an inspired feeling, inspired to get back on the tube and to my next destination.

The next week was saw a trip by the cloister house residents to see mr. scruff play, an awesome jazz/funk/house dj. and what a night. never has a club atmosphere been so genuinely friendly as there, and the music was just a true delight to the ears. i thoroughly recommend a mr. scruff night to anyone presented with the opportunity.

Later that week i celebrated my second ever thanksgiving. with 3 turkeys, 5 cakes, many potato's and some seriously large amounts of wine, we residents of cloister house did our best to eat, eat and eat some more. i like thanksgiving and the cooking together it entails. and i now have a new favourite recipe - zucchini (courgette) bread. a heavily cinnamonned cake with gorgeous moisture thanks to the courgette, and a nice crunchy top. yum.

And this week lydia went to karaoke again! oh how i'd missed it. the joys of mama's and pappas, seal and some other band were relived and enjoyed. and it happens every saturday!

dirty food and sparkling jaxx

2006-11-07T16:28:00.000Z

Last week i finally took to the bike and clean it after the wonders of the peak district had assulted it. this involved sticking it in the bath, going over it with a dry brush and inhaling most of the dirt, followed by a variety of cleaning products and 2 hours, wherupon bike was clean and bath was not.

On tuesday the biomed sciences had their international food event, for which i cooked Polish hunters stew (made with real Polish hunters), let it sit for 4 days, stank out the fridge, and fed it to the masses. surprisingly (for them) it was very popular (i of course know the true value of this dish!) and ran out pretty quickly. there was so much food at the event, my favourite being a selection of cakes from wiltshire (mmm, lardy cake!) from amanda, and baklava (syrupy goodness) from sarah. yum! the added bonus is that i associate this dish so heavily with christmas that the smell of cooking it in the flat set me in christmas cheer. twice. oh yes, last night we did the same event for the halls i'm in, and the food from around the world was good.

This was followed by heading into town for my first monday clubbing in years. thankfully halloween fetish-dresser martin was dressed a bit more suavely tonight. he seemed happier with that arrangement. bassment jaxx were playing, well, that's a loose term, one of their singers was there (maybe it was her but who knows?) and she "did" 3 songs. but it was good. very good infact. with very good company and happennings. and bizarre renditions of famous songs on guitars and gravely voices.

The weekend was spent with ben, an old, great friend who was visiting from switzerland, with a mix of time spent between nottingham and leeds. we discovered that going out in town on a friday night is not an option, and that his mum cooks exceedingly good cakes. and that sparklers will never, ever lose their appeal.

blue faces and loving crisps

2006-10-30T12:38:00.000Z

Last wednesday the post grad students association committee for 2006-07 was voted in, and i'm on it! yes, lydia the social sec is now in genuine existence, and this evening we set about putting into action all the events i promised to the masses (about 50 people) at the elections.

Friday saw a trip with the biomedical sciences to "red hot", a thai/italian/indian/chinese all you can eat restaurant in town, with really really good chocolate fudge cake. i doubt i've ever eaten so much and i've certainly never felt so ill from anything ever before. and it was good.

The halloween party was a great night, with our friend martin from flat 1 dressing rather fetish-like and scaring just about everyone who saw him, including himself. my blue smurf face paint took 3 attempts to wash off, but it was all thoroughly worth it, even though it meant i got only 5 hours sleep before mountainbiking the next day in the peaks.

The peaks, funnily enough, are quite hilly. somehow this link hadn't fully made itself understood to me before sunday, and let's put it this way - i'm not good with hills. but it was all worth it, incredible riding, stunning stunning views (i've not been to the peak district before), and i certainly felt that i'd had a good workout by the end of it. small tip - though it may seem like a good idea, mixing cider, hot chocolate and cauliflower soup after a ride (or anytime) is probably a bad idea.

And in other news, WALKERS CRISPS STILL LOVES LONDONERS! my brother adam received this loving crisp in a pack. what flavour?

brains and faces

2006-10-26T10:44:00.000Z

Time i caught up, i think, even though i don't have a new name for the blog, but waiting till i figure that out could leave us (me) waiting for a very long time indeed...

About 4 weeks ago now i was driven up to nottingham with my mountain of stuff by my oldest brother (thanks zyg!), and moved into halls, right next to the hospital i'm based in for the next 3 years, before driving back down to london for a well-anticipated meet-up with friends i made in japan and hadn't seen for anywhere between 4 months and a year. vodka-soaked haribo marshmallows are a beautiful thing.

Since moving to nottingham (the murder capital of the UK, it's ok though, i lived in St. Pauls, Bristol for 2 years and have so far escaped unshot) i have:
bruised and scratched my legs up something royal, trying to keep up with the super-trained mountainbiking lads on forest and hill (eugh) trails
had our bike shed broken into (twice) and bikes stolen (not mine, i don't know whether to be pleased with my security measures or offended at the thieves opinion of my bike)
had "words" with the 9 year old kids down the road who try to break our windows with a football - it's ok, i think i can handle their knives, it's their mothers that scare me...
given my body to medical research - i now know i have; quite a good sense of direction, a brain, and, um, other body parts...
lost my london house keys
found my london house keys
been home to london to do my washing and steal food
met a load of really cool people in societies and in halls
pulled faces at my new friends
been elected social rep for the Post Grad Student Association (6500 students) - directly attributable to pulling faces
read 7 review articles and 15 original papers.

Nottingham at the moment is a very rainy place indeed. and the nights are drawing in, the days are getting colder. other than that it's actually a very pleasant place. the local pub has friendly publicans, and the centre of town isn't TOO impregnated with chavs, and actually has a very lively music scene. and there's the touristy stuff too which so far i haven't partaken in. apparently the first pub in England resides in nottingham, called "ye olde trip to jerusalem"... carved into a rockface, so i look forward to checking that one out.

Tomorrow we go to an all you can eat buffet serving italian, indian and chinese food (yippee!) and lots of icecrean and pick and mix. i shall have to make alterations to my handbag to allow the "falling in" of several hundred grams of sweets :)

And a happy halloween, i look forward to seeing photos from japan of what this weekends activities will bring, having already heard that sharon (last year's winner, dressed as "that guy" from the rocky horror picture show (nope, still haven't seen it)) has made herself a "hotaruika" (firefly squid, something toyama is famous for) costume. in notts we have our own celebration on saturday night, and after trying, unsuccessfully, to find something resembling an "alvin and the chipmunks" costume, medussa, or kermit the frog, i have decided to go as smurfette. oh yes. bring on the face paint. and blue tights. on my arms.

uk ok!

2006-09-09T10:13:00.000Z

The lounge at abu dhabi international airport.

I'm back! and boy does it ever feel good. 3 weeks in and i'm still waking up so very happy that i'm back, more to the point i'm still waking up so very happy that i'm no longer in japan!

The flight home was long. abu dhabi airport did indeed look like a spaceship, and my camera, being dead, left me sad that i could not get any shots. so i stole these from the internet instead.

Since coming back i've been a flurry of sorting things out. for 3 days i turned the house into a bomb-site while i moved everything out of my room, sorted out what i wanted to keep, and put that back in. then the boxes from japan started arriving, but in my fit of saving money and wanting to start a new life i didn't send much home at all, making life on this side a little easier. if without anything to wear. it does amaze me however, how quickly boxes accumulate, especially when you get back into buying stuff off of ebay. oh yes, within a week i had 4 boxes i was moving on a daily basis from my bed to my table overnight, and back from my table to the bed by day. and they weren't small boxes either.

And i now have a laptop that works. how happy i am. i can run cd's (the other was technically capable but practically, well, very far from being so)! i can have skype and my email system open at the same time! i can listen to internet radio without feeling like i'm in the audio equivalent of a strobe-light attack, and without the whole system crashing after 5 minutes! yes, i can do all this and more with my lovely plastic/electronic friend, fred the wonderhorse. at some point i'll get around to sorting out my academic life on this thing so i don't need to lug the 2 hefty boxes of uni notes behind me like a desperately overweight, unnatractive puppy for the rest of my life.

Other than that i've been catching up with friends, including one i knew from japan, lived 2 minutes away from me there, and here in london, and guess what? is going up to nottingham this september too! what a small world. and i am exceedingly pleased to say my brother is back at home too. it's great to see everyone again.

And you can take the girl out of tourist-land but you can't (i don't know why i bother with such cheezy statements. complete this one yourselves). yes, i've been touring london. kind of. i visited a friend working at Kew Gardens and took the opportunity to see the princess of wales glasshouse. it was cool. i took touristy photos. it felt nice. next weekend i'm planning on visiting such london gems like westminster cathedral, the old wall of londinium (roman times), baker street station (would you believe it?) and the PUB.

Oh yes, i almost forgot. i used to pass this sign every day from school. london borough of hounslow's opinion of brentford. clearly.

wat's a sunrise?

2006-08-21T03:07:00.000Z

I had been worried that by the third day in Siem Reap's temple complexes i would have had enough, but the temples were all so interesting, so different from each other and not overwhelmingly big that the 2.5 days spent exploring them was a perfect amount of time for me. on wednesday afternoon we went far out of Siem Reap to a temple that is still relatively unvisited, Beng Mealea. lonely planet hails it as the truly abandoned temple, and it's not wrong. completely overgrown and largely rubbled with massive tree roots intertwined with the stones, there was an indiana jones feel about it. definitely my favourite temple of the lot, climbing over it was so much fun and led to some absolutely stunning views! it's not surprising that this temple has been used in filming!

On thursday morning we rose at 4am to drive to THE famous one - Angkor Wat, for sunrise. as we arrived it was surprisingly deserted, and even as the sun rose there were far fewer people than i had been expecting. of course my camera chose this exact time to be out of battery juice, leaving me in a pretty foul mood myth myself for the rest of the morning. the sunrise was truly spectacular from our perfect location, a cloud hovering above the temple provided an excellent canvas for the morning rays to colour. truly spine-tingling.

After sunrise i explored only a little bit before we rushed off to breakfast and another famous temple - Bayon. Bayon is the temple of 216 faces - one on each of the 4 sides of every tower. strange and very, very interesting. at this point my stomach decided it had been travelling long enough without any troubles so i broke away from the group to hunt down some toilets before rejoining them in the burning 11am sun by a 350m terrace of elephants and a statue of the leper king. by this time i was too exhausted to cope with any more and thankfully we weren't expected to. a break back at the hotel gave me the opportunity of swimming a few lengths of the pool before snoozing next to it.

For sunset we visited another temple with glorious sandstone that would have had an incredible golden glow to it in it's day, and while the sunset was unspectacular it did lend a nice round-up to the day.

In the evenings we saw the other face of Siem Reap as we went into town, traipsing through the markets and enjoying cocktails before i decided i wanted to see sunrise at Angkor Wat again the next day and was therefore going to be old and go to bed early. sunrise came around again and this time i was armed with Ania (from switzerland)'s camera, and took many shots of the cloud-filled stunning red sky, the Angkor Wat silhouette, and their reflection in the pools, before beating the crowd (with a stick!) to have a further explore of the inside of it. the temple consists of 4 tall towers surrounding the main, larger, central tower, and the stairs leading up the tower were unrailed, about 10cm long and 20-25cm high, making climbing the 40 odd stairs a bit of a challenge, and descending them again a true panic-inducing fest. the idea was that the complex of towers represented nirvana, and so getting there mustn't be easy. i can imagine it wasn't easy back in its heyday as people would have been shorter than now, and it wasn't easy now, what with the erosion of the stairs making the vertigo-inducing path not only uneven, but with only 5cm of space between oneself and a very big, scary drop in some places.
the tower complex has several buddha statues that are still in use today with worshippers bringing offerings and lighting incense. i love that Angkor Wat isn't just some old monument but that it has been painstakingly restored and is still alive. the views of the surrounding areas from the top were breathtaking, and with the surprising lack of crowds it was still a good place for a spot of reflection and inspiration.

I met with the group again at 9am when we headed off to Banteay Srei - a pink sandstone temple with some beautifully impressive carvings that's still in good condition today, Ta Prohm - another jungle covered temple with trees growing out of the brickwork and used in the filming of "tombraider" and "two brothers", and another temple that with all the jewels that would have originally been there, would have glittered away like some pirates treasure cove. then we went back to Angkor Wat for the official tour.

And so ended our temple time in Siem Reap. a truly marvellous 3 days capped off by a trip on the lake to see the floating houses and houses built on stilts to allow for the 2-3m rise in water level of this enormous body of water every year.

Saturday was wasted with 12 hours (including 2.5 hours of standing at the border crossing in the midday sun) of a road journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok. the 5 hours on the cambodian side to cover the 150km to the border were quite an exercise in coping with bumpiness, while the 3.5 hours of a heavy-in-speed 250km journey on the thai side was as smooth as that crushed velvet that every kid loves.

And so we all said our farewells at dinner in bangkok before a final drink at the top of our hotel and a stunning 24th floor view over the city. i've been to bangkok once before - a little over 6 months ago as part of my christmas and new years thailand trip. we had been based in the area around the backpacker-y Khao San road, and the impression i had then of bangkok was that it was a very dusty market town, vibrant but relatively small. boy was i ever wrong. it's so much more - it's like a slightly more haphazard version of tokyo with its skyscrapers and ultra modern, ultra massive shopping malls interspersed with it's stunning temples and palaces, i already feel that i love this place and look forward to a time where i'm not just passing through. so far this time i've checked out the massive MBK mall - 7 huge floors of everything you could possibly want, and the weekend market - a whopping 15,000 stalls and 200,000 visitors daily where i focused only on one very small section before i couldn't handle anymore.

Today my plans involve finally sending the postcards i got around to writing last night, hunting for some more shopping bargains and checking out the temples and the palace before starting my trek home via Abu Dhabi. i look forward to seeing its spaceship-like airport. london on tuesday!

same same tuk tuk but different location

2006-08-15T12:26:00.000Z

The group leader, Hunter (first name) looks a bit like edward norton (american history x / fight club etc.) is well versed in cambodian history and very passionate about Angkor Wat. i'm glad i got to listen to 2 hours of a history lesson without which i would still feel uncultured and uneducated. i was always such a bad history student.

For dinner we ate at another restaurant that acts to raise money for its main venture, a charity to keep kids off the street, in schools and fed. we were treated to a stunning display of traditional cambodian dance and music by the children, ranging from about age 7 to 17 or 18. the dance techniques were well versed, and right down to the expression in the face the children were into their performance heart and soul. next week they travel to japan to perform and raise money, i hope that their japanese counterparts will sit up and take note that dance is not just about learning a set routine, but rather that is requires a confident, flamboyant execution of these movements in order to be something enjoyable to watch. cambodian children are absolutely beautiful. the kids were bundles of smiles and carried themselves so well that with the make-up it was very easy to imagine them as being physically small fully developed adults. there's something vert unsettling about that.

Later on i seperated from the group to catch up with some internet time and when the time came to return home the heavens opened up, leaving me less than willing to walk back. i hopped into a tuk tuk (motorbike with a carriage pulled behind it that you sit in), showed him the hotel card and agrees on the price of $1. the journey home is a straight one along the main strip by the river we are already on, so when the driver veered left i naturally drew his attention again to the hotel name and an emphatic gesture that "THAT ROAD" is where we should be going. he nodded and continued to go his own way. as the lit streets receeded behind me and i realised that with the twists and turns i no could no longer rely on my sense of direction, i started to think of how i could get out of any hairy situation that could arise should my driver turn out to be of less than legitimate character. at this speed a jump would be unwise so i'd have to wait for a corner, and even then the chances of escape in the dark rain, wearing my flip flops seemed unlikely. i didn't have the group leaders' phone number with me so even if i managed to find a hotel / bar i couldn't contact him, and there are no other tuk tuks around here to hop into to get away from my could-be-crazy driver. that left one option - never underestimate the power of the scream.

As we wound deeper into the darkness i called again to the driver - "whoa whoa, stop stop stop!", and stop he did, which was encouraging, for if he truly was untoward then i don't imagine he would stop on command like that. again i showed him the hotel card and again he nodded and waved in the general direction we were headed, before stepping back on the gas. at this point i realise it's either that he's decided his route is better or that he thinks i'm going somewhere else, either way i'm in no immediate danger and am unable to communicate the correct location to him until he takes me to where he thinks i'm going, so i sit back. after a few more minutes he slows down in what appears to be a backpacker area and starts glancing back at me, waiting for some verbal intervention for the location, which of course doesn't come. after awhile he stops entirely and i fish the hotel card out of my bag again and hand it to him, with a clear "NOT HERE!" and a smile. he stops some of the locals to ask for directions and soon were off again, backtracking the last 2 minutes. when we finally arrive at the hotel i have him the dollar and walk away, straining my ears and sure enough, there it is - "madam - 2 dollar! 2 dollar!" no chance matey.

Breakfast today consisted of the usual buffet items - fruits, jams, omlets, fried noodles, but what made it special was that to get there we had to pass through a casino first, where a few of the machines were already being stocked up and a couple were reserved.

We went to see the genocide museum (the old prison) and the killing fields, the group falling into a silence as our guide, 6 years old at the time of the khmer rouge rule, led us around. thousands of victims worth of bones were exhumed in the 1980's and many crushed bones, teeth and fragments of garments remain depressed in the mud. there was a certain kind of unreality to it.

After lunch i saw the national museum, with it's vast collection of angkor wat-ian statues and many ceramics, with a stunning garden enveloped in what seems to be all the rain in SE Asia. cambodia so far has a much cooler climate than i experienced in vietnam.

Walking the streets i feel more confronted here than in vietnam. even along the dreaded tourist strip i feel somewhat threatened and certainly, sadly, would not feel safe walking deeper into the city. we were told that cambodia is more impoverished than vietnam and therefore is more likely to instill a sense of culture shock, but i wasn't expecting it to feel this hostile.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Siem Reap for several days of angkor wat fun!

the first rains of cambodia

2006-08-14T11:07:00.000Z

We met the new group on sunday morning, 6 from our vietnam trip, 6 from a similar (but slightly shorter) trip made up almost entirely of teachers. the group is friendly and one member is a researcher working on bowel diseases. it's a small world.

We left Saigon (HCMC) and drove the whole day making 2 river crossings, to arrive at Chau Doc, a nothing of a border town with a lively market. the architecture here is totally different to what i've seen elsewhere, houses live on stilts as the mekong floods often, and our hotel, similar to many buildings here, resides half on the road and half over the river.

Our first river crossing resulted in a rather uncomfortable encounter with the locals, when 2 group members were accused of not paying for good thay had actually purchades at twice their balue. the store owner hounded us until we left on the ferry, when he then informed the locals of his version of events so we were subjected to menacing stares for the entire crossing. i was relieved to get off on the otherside and back on the bus without any real incident.

The rest of the day and night passed with sleep punctuated by mosquitos, geckos, bats and other general flying things, while breakfast brought my last delicious cup of rich and perfectly sweet vietnamese drip coffee, and boarding a boat to make use of one of 2 entry points into cambodia on this side, via the mekong delta. this river is truly massive, flowing from the tibetan mountains. the width of the section we are on spand over 250m in width, resembling a vast plain of mud bath strangely void of boats. suddenly the scenery breaks and gives way to cast planes of fields either naked or covered in drying wheat crops on one side, corrugated white iron houses with bluish
white boats on the other. i feel like i've stepped into a pencil sketch of a strangely immaculate and new aluminium shanty town devoid of colour.

After this we come to the border and disembark with our bags for x-ray, while children swarm us offering food, drink and money exchange. we disembark again further up the triver for a second passport check and official entry into cambodia, immigration resembling a sunny outdoor tourist resort complete with volleyball court. the heat is stifling, the air unmoving and i appreciate boarding the boat again to enjoy the cooling spray and rishing wind. i watch as children play with cows in the muddy waters.

Monsoon rains hit and the boat is tossed in the winds as i get soaked through again. cambodia, riverside, is a lush green tree-lined country with sunny and cloudy skies at the same time. for the time being i sit in a cafe with our group leader drinking coffee that is sub-vietnamese standard, full or tourists, but for now this is fine. i have some cambodian history i need to learn about before visiting the killing fields and all sorts of torture museums tomorrow morning.

the final rains of vietnam

2006-08-12T10:23:00.000Z

Saturday was an interesting day. we rode for 2 hours to Cu Chi, an area where some of the 200km vast underground tunnels built by the vietnamese during the war for living and fighting in are open to tourists. the largest of the tunnels can only be passed through by walking bent over with hands on the ground, wheras the majority can only be passed on ones back. we walked theough 20m of the largest spaced tunnels which left several people shaking from the claustrophobia. i was positioned at the back of the group so had a much easier time of it, knowing that at any point i could easily turn back and get out that way.

There were even kitchens underground with chimneys cleverly engineered such that the smoke filtered out slowly, at ground level, horizontally, and did not rise, looking just like mist and keeping the tunnels secret. ventilation was disguised by structures resembling termite mounds, and when the tunnels were discovered and flooding attempted, the clay walls absorbed the water, keeping the inhabitants safe. very clever engineering indeed.

Back on the bus and 2 hours later we arribved at the Mekong Delta - a very big river indeed. we ate lunch involving some very skillfully made fresh spring rolls and watched rice paper and cocomut sweets being made. for rice paper, a milky rice liquid is ladled and spread on an iron place heated by coals, before being transferred by a thick cylindrical bundle of cloth to some woven drying racks, before being dried in the sun. the paper is so thin that many of them break apart in the transfers. these are clearly the ones made by the tourists passing through.
Coconut sweets are an all natural product made by shredding the coconut meat before pressing it to squeeze out the water/milk. this is then boiled with malt (by the fire power of dried coconut shells) until condensed to a fudge like consistencty. it is then poured out into long tracks about half an inch deep by 1 inch wide, and sliced into 1 inch pieces before being wrapped in rice paper, then wrapping. tasty warm but not so much when cold, and has a tendency to stick your mouth shut for several hours at a time.

Before heading back we try some local honey and some small citrus fruit squeezed into tea, the honey produced by extremely local bees. and something totally unexpected, i shouldered a good 7kg or so of live python. mmm. nice.

During the paddle in the longboats back to our main boat, the skies opened up and what started as a heavy drizzle of a brief shower turned into a fullscale monsoon downpour halfway into the crossing. 3 minutes of barely covered boat and i was genuinely soaked through, my white(ish) underweat and legs turning a thai-pants shade of blue. a 3 hour cold bus ride back and $16 later i decided the trip had been nice, but unable to decide whether it had been worth 6-7 hours in transport, especially as how as a result we now had a rush transfer to another hotel for those of us continuing on the Cambodia leg of the trip, before going out for one last farewell dinner with the vietnam group and our fearless vietnamese leader, Lam.

Lam has been an excellent leader. full of passion for and information about vietnam, well organised and friendly, and his guidance together with the group composition made this trip one to remember. my experiences on a group tour in thailand left me vowing never to undergo tours again, and this one has changed my mind. hopefully the atmosphere on the cambodia leg will be similar, we start in the morning.

cleaning mud

2006-08-10T16:06:00.000Z

On thursday afternoon we took another motorcycle tour of Nha Trang, with some bizzare yet interesting stops along the way. first a bakery, where we peeked at bread being loaded into the ovens before loading up on a couple of loaves at 7p each, then a dusty shack filled with kittens where matresses were being woven, before finally stopping at some place where the locals were making cement. neither we nor the locals could fathom why it was that the motorcycle guides had brought us here so we left fairly quickly and headed to what we were all really looking forward to - the mud baths and massage!

As we entered the outdoor spa complex we were faced with a swarm of tourists in a general reception area. after battling through lines for towel tickets, lockers and towels we dazedly changed and locked away our things several times before we actually hit upon the correct combination of tickets and accessories to keep vs those to lock away.

First off a footstep activated hot mineral shower with about 30 other people, then 10 of us watched as our one pool was filled with a warm, smooth and sloppy brown water, before we got in and commenced with pouring mud on each other and getting our photos taken. bathing in mud with 9 other people was a surprisingly pleasant experience, the group had bonded so well it was like sitting with old friends. after the mud came a bake in the sun before another 30 people communal rinse off and a walk through a narrrow corridor-like structure with horizontal sharp showers shooting across. this was followed by another soak, this time in hot, clear mineral water, much like the japanese onsen experience but with bathing suits, before a photo opportunity under a waterfall and a brief paffle in a 36 degrees C swimming pool of water. suitably clean, hot and soft-skinned we stripped off in individual rooms for massages, this one far less firm than needed to be beneficial, even with the walking on the back and the neck cracking. but it was very relaxing.

For dinner we stuffed ourselves silly with some beautifully cooked italian food at a vietnamese restaurant run by a swiss man, before heading to the station to start a 5 hour journey to our final destination - Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC - Saigon), via the night train. i slept surprisingly well, and when we arrived at 5am we jumped in a bus, and then back into bed for a few hours at 4 to a room. nice.

The afternoon brought about a walk, lunch at a noodle restaurant formerly patroned by Bill Clinton (complete with photos to prove this), and a cyclo tour of the city. HCMC is a very built up, car-heavy, huge city. the street markets have strung up frogs, ready for cooking but still alive, as well as a hefty selection of t-shirts, jewelry, shoes, bags and chopsticks.

Cyclos are tall bikes with a seat on two wheels attached to the front, much like a backward tricycle. after many motorbike tours i kept expecting the cyclo to shift up a gear and for us to gain to something more than a walking pace in the face of oncoming traffic, but it wasn't to be.
We were dropped off at the war remnants (formerly war crimes) museum for one hour, which gave a detailed, one-sided account of the vietnam war, complete with guns, photos and captions such as "an american soldier laughs triumphantly as he carries the remains of a vietnamese fighter".

A bit of an eye opener.

trains and trains

2006-08-10T03:54:00.000Z

The final evening in cultural heritage town Hoi An coincided with the full moon festival. in vietnam at this time the souls of the departed are offered gifts of paper money, fruit and other commodities that may be useful to them in the aterworld, so that the souls may bring good luck to those still living who have taken care of them. the town was packed with people, bikes and lanterns, with stalls of burning insence and fruit offerings. earlier on a boat cruise and bike ride we watched thousands of sheets of paper, various fruits, milk and other gift-worthy items being thrown out to the river, and offering for the dead fishermen. i fought the instinct to dive in after all the fruit at is floated down the river.

The next day we got on the 10.30 train at 12.15 and travelled south to nha trang, a very beachy resort with spas and a plethora of diving schools. the 8 hour journey took 12 hours and so at midnight we went to an italian restaurant, run by a swiss man, for dinner.

Yesterday we woke up to the first day of what i consider to be perfect summer weather, hot and sunny, blue skies, low humidity. we set out by boat to one of the many islands off the coast, to a fishing village to see how it was run, which involved an aquarium built in interesting taste - to resemble a pirate ship. sea turtles are my new favourite sea animal.

Snorkelling in sandy waters led to my first physical encounter with jellyfish. a couple of small insignificant stings and then just as i was getting ready to leave the waters an electric shock passed up my arm and it stayed stinging for a good hour afterward. well at least now i know what they feel like.

I also overcame my fear of jumping off tall things into water, caused by a badly-angled jump off a cliff in japan that resulted in 2 months of blue thighness. jumping off of boat roofs into warm jellyfish waters is fun.

This afternoon we have another 3 hour motorbike ride to various sites, followed by 3 hours of mud baths, spas and massages, followed by the night train and a 4.30am (or thereabouts) arrival in saigon.

Bring...it...on...

pwetty shoooos!

2006-08-07T10:43:00.000Z

Ah, lazy days.

I've discovered the joys of shopping. after my expedition with getting a jacket made i decided to get some cute shoes tailored. yes, they really can tailor shoes here, in 24 hours or less, for not a lot of dong (money). i'll be picking them up soon, some fun green flat things with flowers appliqued on them. nothing but the classiest for me, yes sir (!)

Other than that it's been a lazy day for me, i would have spent most of it in the pool but it was a very funny shade of green today and smelled of algae. tomorrow we see the nearby port town (3rd largest) of Danang, for a short while, before getting on a train for the day to travel down to Nha Trang. i'm looking forward to Nha Trang for 2 reasons:

*they have mud baths and spas, which will be a totally new experience for me,
*my friend nicola (nic) and her brand new fiance will be there.

Nic is of the nic, tess and michelle trio from japan, my first year sanity savers (hello guys!) whom, other than tess for a brief dinner and drink in the midsts of my interviews at home in may, i haven't seen since last august. i'm really looking forward to it :)

Time to collect my shoes...

the heart of the dragon

2006-08-06T05:02:00.000Z

The last few days have been really excellent.

I got on the night train or 12 hours to travel south to Hue, in the middle of the country. it's known as the heart of the dragon because of it's location if you look at vietnam as being a dragon shape, which i can't see but there you go. we wandered for 2 hours around an old citadel on a guided tour which i didn't enjoy so much, it was too hot and too long. and the whole place (or so it seemed) was under renovation so it was just a big building site. in the evening we went to a traditional restaurant and dressed up in old royal costumes and had a banquet while people sang and played music. the experience was an interesting one, the clothes were really heavy, made of that really popluar (in the uk) embroidered silk that sits heavily, and a hat made of the same fabric that looked like an angels halo and was way too small for my head. we took many photos of people looking silly. and we sang karaoke as it was our tour leaders birthday. it made me realise just how excellent the english selection in japan was!

The next day, friday, we went on an all morning motorcycle tour of the surrounding area, which was incredible. it's so cool to ride on the back of a bike! and the smells... on one bridge i noticed the smell of cinammon, another smelled like waffles (that made me hungry) and one town smelled just like tesco's.

The views were stunning too, with gorgeously maturing fields of rice against a backdrop of mountains - i know, i know, it's exactly the same view i had in japan for 2 years but it's still a stunning one. so i took many photos that will end up looking exactly like the last 2 years of my life :)

We stopped several times and saw buddhist chanting, the old palace/home of the king (another hour long unwanted tour in the heat and hunger), americal bunker hill - a hill used by the amerians as, yep you guessed it, a bunker, during the war (that had absolutely stunning views over the whole of the city, the river and the mountains), a school where the kids and we kept a ditance from each other and after awhile it kind of had the feeling of looking at monkeys at the zoo - nothing was happenning but we were staring at them, grinning, and they were doing the same. we stopped and had lunch at a convent before taking a siesta for half an hour. i now know i posess the useful ability of sleeping on a marble floor. good to know i think.

After the bike tour we took a boat tour along the perfume river - so named because back in the good old days the rushes and grasses on the banks exuded a fantastic smell that the king clearly liked. nowadays you'd be forgiven for naming it "fairly average smelling river" but that wouldn't be as exciting i guess. and then i went for another blind person massage (like i did in shanghai when i thought the woman was trying to break my neck). the aim was mostly to retain the looseness the previous session had given to my neck and to compare blind masseurs in vietnam and shanghai. well it was still painful, excessively so, i like the percussive stuff but not on the arms and legs, and i've discovered that i bruise easily. i am now sporting 4 new bruises on my arm and 3 on my leg. and at some point i was worried she would poke my eyes out at the same time as my hair. lesson: no more masseuse for me in vietnam. they are evil.

Yesterday we travelled 4 hours by bus along mountain passes (more stunning beach / mountain / town scenery), passing my first herd of buffalo along the way, and stopped at china beach - a 30 km stetch of soft sand beach used by the americans for R&R back in the day. a really beautiful beach with warm waters and aproximately 5 minutes of allocated appreciation time.

Now we're in Hoi An, an old town that is under the protection of UNESCO world heritage site scheme thingy, and seemingly under construction. the whole town is having preservtion work done with mass road excavation going on. i'm impressed it seems that something newly built can be declared world heritage, i used to think it was ony for old things (!)

This place is shoppers mecca. i wasn't going to have anything tailored but then i saw some beautiful winter coats and so now i'm getting a beautiful black winter wool jacket with a big big funnel-like collar with red trim it's very cute and oh-so-cheap, but i'll reserve overly excited judgement till i see the complete product later today. i have a good feeling about it though.

At the moment there a japan/vietnam culture exchange going on - just my luck - so i had a chat with some of the japanese and they showed us how to make daifuku (the sweet red bean paste wrapped in rice dough that i love so much), which was nice. then i ran away screaming.

Our hotel here is incredible. i wasn't expecting 3 star with a pool, and it makes me wonder how much cheaper it could have been. but we're here for 2 days before moving on, and a nice relaxing break by the beach and pool before more sightseeing towns is coming highly appreciated.

Some cute little thing i noticed:

*big vehicles here, like in japan, play a reversing song to let other traffic (and the driver) know that's what they're doing. clearly reverse lights just aren't enough in S.E. Asia.

*garbage trucks play the arabian nights tune to signal they're coming. it's really loud so people all over town know it's time to get their rubbish out :)

dancing puppets in the water

2006-08-02T10:57:00.000Z

Finally started the tour with the group. there's 12 of us, they're cool, no problems (yet?!)

We went to halong bay, a bay area about 4 hours drive from hanoi, and an overnight boat trip. its basically a load (what seems like hundreds) of tiny but tall islands formed by volcanic activity thousands of years ago. it was incredible to see, these lush green peaks out of the water, under a moody, cloudy sky. overnight we were treated to a fairly spectacular lightning show.

Last night we went to the theatre, to see vietnamese water puppetry. the stage is set in about 4 feet of water and they use dragon puppets that spray fireworks, and other puppets not so much to tell a story but more to show you what skill they have. no story line but an awesome sight anyway, and some incredible music to go with it.

Tonight we're going by train (the unification express) to Hoi An overnight, where we see the former imperial capital and get to go on another boat. a dragon boat. ooh. can't wait!

poison meat

2006-07-30T04:09:00.000Z

And last night i remembered why i set a 3pm time limit awhile ago on caffeine intake. let alone 2, strongly brewed, vietnamese drip coffees.

After an interrupted night's sleep i ventured this morning to the memorial house, a house preserved in the old style (still used up till about 1999) of living in vietnam. very cute. everything was wooden including the bed, which was rather fancy, and there was a pretty litle courtyard on the second floor.

A trip to the market led me to be faced with mountains of dried shrimp, and mounds upon mounds of dried mushrooms. i seriously had no idea so many dried mushrooms existed in the world but there they were. when there are so many people selling so much of the same thing it makes you wonder how any of them can possibly make enough business to stay in business, but i guess they must.

For lunch i ate a new first - frog! so cute :) frog is kind of chewy, and being a white meat, has a hint of chicken about it. the legs when fried have the same feel to eating chicken wing, with a surprisingly decent chunk of meat attached considering that, well, it's a frog. it was good. i can't decide whether my lips are now numb from:
a) eating frog (you know the poisonous skin kind)
b) the amount of oil it was coated in now coating my mouth or
c) the beer i drank with it.

I think it's probably safe to say it's the beer i drank with it.

beef coffee torture

2006-07-29T14:19:00.000Z

Today started with rain and further downpours. i sampled beef noodle soup, a staple of the vietnamese diet. it's fairly simple, fairly tasty yet somewhat bland. the broth is water which is either barely seasoned or not at all, perhaps the beef was cooked in it and it takes on a somewhat mild flavour of that, and salt. the noodles are a soft white noodle about 1mm thick by 4mm white, like some type of japanese udon noodle. also fairly tasteless. the beef if pre-boiled as whole chunk (my brain's not working well enough at the moment to access the proper word), and sliced into the broth as demand takes it.

I had the same for lunch/dinner later on when i stumbled into the most expensive part of town with very little money at exatly the same time as a later downpour started and i got a hunger pang so strong that if not immediately satisfied i would pass out or throw up or both.

In between beef noodle soups i visited the prison museum, a prison built in 1890something by the french, for the vietnamese revolutionaries and later american pilot prisoners of war. that was a cheerful experience, seeing my first guillotine(s).

The traffic here is crazy. not difficult to get used to but crazy. red lights are more guidelines for cars than rules, and less than guidelines for motorbikes. the tip lonely planet gives for crossing roads is to walk slowly rather than run across, to let vehicles see you and swerve around. certainly a good tip, and swerve they do, while bleeping loudly and continuously.

Vietnamese coffee is extraordinarily good. it's dripped, strong and comes optionally with a condensed milk that settles on the bottom in a gelatinous mass and lends the coffee and excellent sweetness and creaminess. they also have ginger icecream here. that is definitely something worth having.

And that was my day, essentially. very wet, caffeinated and beef-noodle-souped, with a sprinkling of torture education. tonight will be an early saturday night, hopefully tomorrow the worst of this fluey thing will have passed and i'll meet the group feeling vaguely normal.

my kingdom for a stapler

2006-07-28T13:07:00.000Z

Ok, deal with the lack of photos for awhile, i'm on my summer vacation travels and let's say i didn't bring my camera cord with me on this one.

Check out this message from my successor in this teaching in japan thing:

"hey, sorry if this seems trivial, just doing some late deciding on what to pack, and i was wondering if you had some basic stationery at the apartment, whether or not i should bring my stapler."

Stapler? that's what you're worried about? i seriously worry about the sanity of many people on the jet program. none so much as this one.

Vietnam airlines planes are not so comfortable, and for better legroom on any flight always choose an aisle over a window seat. window seats have these crazily annoying things by the feet. and you have to wake upthe aisle person many times with your weak bladder and malaria pill affected stomach.

R.e. not feeling particularly sad about leaving japan - i'm hoping i've not entered an emotionally numb stage. i never really got excited about my trip to shanghai, or this one, or leaving japan. i am excited to be going back to uni, so maybe that means my life for the last 2 years has been non-stop travel and now settling down for awhile seems more like the holiday i'm chasing after. i hope it's that. that or because there's so much to think about organising in such a small amount of time that the excitement is normality. i think i'll miss japan and my life in toyama, in some ways. i'll definitely miss some of the people and the living in asia, but it just seems that there's so many more pros than cons to moving back and getting on with life again. this is definitely a good time to move then.

Of course i'm not discounting the value of the last 2 years though. right now the most valuable thing i feel i've gained from it is learning how to learn, taking a long break from official studies and realising that actually i can learn new languages and am interested in them. i'm really looking forward to getting stuck into the university course, in a way that i don't think i would have been if i'd not taken such a long break. i sometimes wonder if i should regret not already being at the end of the 2nd year of the course and settling down in the UK, i know there's many excellent experiences i've missed out on but i'm definitely glad of the way things have worked out so far. no regrets.

Which reminds me. i'll be keeping a blog throught the phd years in nottingham (home of robin hood), but under a different title. any suggestions for an interesting word play name? see, with "gaijin and tonic" (courtosey of ben in switzerland) we have not only the name of a very nice drink but the nuance of a bitter yet refreshing experience (cheese!) and the word gaijin or "foreigner" thrown in for good measure. the only think i can come up with so far is "noting ham" which, lets face it, is rubbish, or "made my reon" (maid marrion) which is worse because reon isn't an actual word. so i open the competition of "come up with a name for the phd (in nottingham) years blog". winner gets... um... the honour of me using the name. and a brief thank you note from yours truly.

So. shanghai and the final days in japan. actually the final day wasn't so much fun, i only got 3 hours sleep what with the cleaning of the apartment for the inspection, and i still have to pay about 170 GBP for proper cleaning of my ex-matchbox living space but no matter, it can't be helped. also, cancelling a mobile phone takes more effort than it should, when the clerk is an airhead who insists on using highest polite form japanese in the clearly incomprehending face of a foreigner. my post office trip was more successful, if longer, and it appears that insuring packages isn't done very often as they had real problems and confusions over the entire process. which actually is quite reassuring in some ways. the end of the day left the rash i've been secretly harbouring on my chest for about 4 years now seriously pink, and spreading. a rare sight. i think i'll have that looked at when i get home.

Shanghai was somewhat odd. i'm glad i went again before leaving this part of the world and it was great to see jeremy, roy and eve again, but i've discovered that i really am not a people person. shanghai made me realise that i keep more of a false exterior than i thought i did when meeting new people - big groups of new people tire me and my "cheerful disposition" out. this is because i've become far too cynical and bitter over the last 2 years for my liking so starting with this trip i'm working to getting back to the way it was, something i think i really need to succeed in before getting back to uni. 2 months. no problem - leaving japan has already elevated my mood ten fold.

In shanghai we went to an excellent masseuse - blind - who i swore was punishing me for my links with japan. she worked on my tender (and never before pummelled) neck solidly, for a good 15 minutes (before thankfully moving on to other areas). the pain was so intense and the force so strong that i physically could not produce the words; "for the love of all that is humane, STOP!", either with or without insane amounts of uncontrollable dribble, while tears streamed from my eyes and my consciousness prepared to be lost at any moment. the next day i felt like i'd been in a car accident. kind of warm, fuzzy and loose (and seriously bruised) in the neck region.

On the bus from shanghai to the airport some guy was throwing up all the way, and the turbulence in the first 30 minutes of flight was so intense i did a couple of times wonder idly if we were going to make it through. i did and i look forward to welcoming the shanghai three (plus the cats) anytime in europe, england and/or ireland, to which i have not yet been.

What's left to be updated of japan? nagoya. until the sumo at nagoya (the weekend before shanghai), i thought that i'd come to dislike the whole of japan. i'm glad i went to nagoya because it made me realise that there are very cool parts to the country. nagoya is one of them. the whole city felt far more laid-back and foreigner-open, and there's a lot to see, do and be entertained by. i'd consider living in japan again if it were in a place like nagoya. a long time from now.

Nagoya has good music. i did some mixing in a bar, and managed to beat-match 5 tracks in a row - something i've been unsuccessfully attempting the last 3 years and couldn't do again the next weekend in shanghai. we also went out and heard an excellent DJ the likes of which i haven't heard in japan since ELEKTRAGLIDE (darren emerson, prodigy etc.) in tokyo some 18months previously. i like nagoya. a good time was had by all. except sharon who for details best left undetailed will never be drinking absinthe again.

Back to the present. Hanoi. on the way from the airport to the hotel i noticed many buildings that seem proportionally wrong - too tall for the width they've been allocated. it makes sense, it's cheaper to build up than across, but it's odd because on the outskirts of town these buildings are not only detached but seemingly well-spaced from other buildings. the style is interesting too, i would describe it as "theme park mexico". very cheerful, as though trying to improve the general grit of the area by colour, yet all in a state of heavy disrepair. cheerful shanty, if you will.

The weather is heavily overcast, monsoon season. it's humid but not too hot; 25-27 degrees. seeing the city under clouds makes me realise in a roundabout way that no matter where one lives, it will never be a good place if you don't enjoy what you are doing and who you are with. i could teach english here no sooner than i would be prepared to go back to japan to do the same. i.e. job satisfaction and home life happiness truly is the holy grail - for me at least.

Went for a wander. seems that a lot of the interesting things in hanoi are in the old quarter, where i'm based for 2 days before the tour starts (i really need to find the hotel that's the trips joining point, it's not in the lonely planet or on my hotel map). travelling alone sucks though. sure there's lots of time for contemplation but then there's no-one to share these thoughts with! tomorrow i'll definitely bring the notebook with me and a book to read. i always thought lone travellers had a seriously big ego, being all contemplative and meditative and writing - always with the writing - all the time. now i discover they're/we're just lonely.

There is, unsurprisingly, much street-vending going on. the fruit is carried by women on 2 baskets hooked over a long pole slung over the shoulder, much like a pair of old balance scales like the ones the statue of liberty is holding. some of these baskets are so weighed down it's a wonder the pole doesn't snap. today's wander took me around the closeby lake. there are a lot of scattered monuments, mostly to do with the legend of a heros sword eing thrown into the lake by enemies, but being recovered by tortoises living in the lake. in the jade mountain temple (no jade that i saw) there's a maddive tortoise from the lake embalmed behind a glass case. a good 2m by 1m and weighing in at 250kg. monster! they've given it some weird eyes though.

Tomorrow i need to change some money and i'll visit a couple of interesting looking museums. and chill out with a coffee, a book, my notebook and some contemplation worthy of snooty-nosed lone-traveller status. and my last day of loneliness. hopefully.

And i look forward to hearing your suggestions for the new blog name. get to it!

crack wine

2006-07-27T10:18:00.000Z

Tsuji senseis family invited me several times for dinner. he's a cool guy but i don't know what he teaches at my school. the kids are insanely cute and the parents get drunk really quickly. this is us after 3/4ths of a bottle of red. they will be missed.

Leaving toyama was easier than i thought it would be. a light rain fell to cool the air, and for what i believe is the first time in my life, i left for somewhere with plenty of time to spare. running after the garbage truck and lobbing in the remainder of a packet of blueberries and half a solidified block of frozen peas i had forgotten to clear from the freezer earlier was about all the exercise i'll be getting today. another first was that the pastry i bought at the bakery while waiting with bunny for my train didn't dissappoint. a sure sign that in the 2 years i've been here my perception of an acceptable standard of quality has dropped.

Tsuji's kids came to see me off, a big surprise. i comptletely forgopt to call last night as had been asked of me, and when i called (2 hours) later there had been no answer. they were laden with a gift for me - letters i look forward to reading once my japanese focus returns (yesterdays sore throat had become the full blown version of whatever it was jeremy had in shanghai over the weekend) and some furoshiki - cloths to wrap a lunchbox up in. totally useless but a nice that well appreciated.

On the platform, Sakai, Maeda (erroneous thesaurus) and Kawakami (supervisor) senseis were waiting. thanks to the handiwork of sakai's mother a good luck charm now hangs from my daypack. i'm so glad they came, the teachers i really liked teaching with, it was nice to see them one last time and get some funky photos on top of the leavers party photos i have - at which i was presented with 2 huge boquets (sp?) of flowers that made cycling home seriously not-easy.

The train pulled out into the toyama gloom and still no tears, only waves and a plethora of thank you's. 10 minutes later and the carriage is mercilessly engulfed in sunshine. ah, the eternal localised gloom of inner city toyama...

short skirt monkeys

2006-06-08T13:21:00.000Z

Every year around this time, the third years who will graduate come april, have their photos taken with the clubs that they have (forcibly) been members of during their "high school era". the same goes for the barely existing english club with it's laughably called "leaders" who should really be in any club but this one. but there you go.

The photographer came and i overheard a conversation between the girls and he, with the girls' request that he doesn't photograph their exposed legs because they're shy. nevermind the fact that the only reason their legs are exposed to such an extent is becuse they rolled their skirts up so far (YES this happens in every country in the world, but seriously, none so much as in japan. when climbing up stairs girls have to clamp their hands to their asses to prevent people behind from being able to see their knickers. as it is i regularly get an eyefull of buttock. not really something i consider being a vital part of my cultural experience here but an integral one nonetheless). when i pointed this out to them they were somewhat dumbfounded and proceeded to explain that it's different in a photo. right, because then they can't see the perverts leering over them.

The JET programme sends it's first years who are recontracting to kobe (massive earthquake in the 90's) or tokyo for 3 days of conferences, and this year i helped out so i too, got 3 days out of dreartown and into "bright lights! big city!". for the weekend preceeding it we ventured to nikko, a stunning mountain town with some of the most stunning temples/heritage sites in japan, and originator of the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys. with the weekend in the clouds we visited important bridges, stunning gardens, beautiful waterfalls with incredible rockfaces. we floated on a lake in the clouds in a swan boat, sat for hours on end and relaxed for the first time in a very long time in coffee shops, ate astounding amounts of sesame seed paste filled sweet buns (yum YUM!) and generally had a very, very good time. we even got sidetracked into a cemetary along the way.

Tokyo brought it's usual laughs and thrills, starting off with this extraordinary engrish and leading on to the nomimal amount of real work buffeted by incredible food, visits to gorgeous parks with stunning flower displays, surprising temples tucked away behind the busiest of central tokyo's streets, and some great nights of good music and good dancing. and so fared my final time in tokyo, and it was good.

Happy anniversary mum and dad!

fushiki festival feesh

2006-05-22T12:21:00.000Z

In my time here i've noticed that japan, moreso than switzerland, is a land in love with it's festivals. every month guarantees on average 1 festival going on in the same prefecture, often 2 or 3. last month, among other festivals, was a festival for goodness knows what that involved the ramming of two twenty foot high floats adorned with many lights and a dancing puppet, in a fight scenario. the floats charge each other and "make contact" as the crowd cheers and watches the puppeteers and light-taker-carer-ofers inside the float getting thrown about. to the beat of the crazy drum. great fun, interesting food and pets. oh yes.

I decided that seeing as how i've now had rodney for 10 months without incident, despite my most appalling motherhoodness of him, it was probably safe to get him some friends. so when i passed the festival petfish stall i stopped and "won" 2 friends for rodney. edward, and black feesh. taking them home i decided it would probably be a good idea to leave them out of the tank for awhile to be sure of their health so as not to jeapordise rodney, and so i did. after cleaning out the tank for rodney and isolating the newbies for awhile, introductions were made. at first they did not get on. rodney is fairly old and over the years has gained an increasingly disheviled appearance to do with his fins. in the animal world, soch appearances signal to other animals a state of weakened constitution, and therefore makes for an easy target. for a few days edward insisted on pestering rodney, biting at his fins and generally being a nuisance while black chilled out in the corner, watching. i tried aversion therapy and would knock sharply on the glass everytime he did this, and soon enough, he stopped.

After awhile i decided edward looked a little ill and decided to put him in an isolation tank until i figured out what was wrong with him, only when i went to remove him from the head tank i also noticed rodney had gained red streaks around his gills, mouth and on his fins. this, i am sure, was not a good sign. after searching online i discovered the problem was a high ammonia level in the tank brought on by the sudden introduction of (relatively) many new fish causing a destabilisation of the environment. for the next few days i changed 50% of the water every day and just when i thought it was getting better, edward popped off. followed by black the next morning. poor rodney, alone again. not for long. sad to say that rodney, also finally passed to the big pond in the sky. i blame the festival feesh.

The moral of the story? after 8 or 9 carcasses i now know never ever ever to get festival fish. i sure hope theyre not trapped in the pipe somewhere. the japanese authorities might disapprove.

not japan

2006-05-09T06:54:00.000Z

Kansai airport in osaka is an airport that's much easier to get to than tokyo's narita airport. unless you're carrying 30 kilograms of luggage that is.

At stupid o'clock (I believe it was about 6.30 or 7am) we waited on the platform with bags and more bags for our express train to arrive. when it finally did, we scampered on in a hobbly sort of fashion to search hurreidly for some seats we could occupy for the next 3 hours, before transferring onto the airport train in osaka itself. another hour and we were at the airport, arguing with japanese nationals who were rudely attempting to push infront of us silly, ignorant, quiet little foreigners. at least those people will think again before trying such a silly stunt again. or maybe they won't. another 2 hours and we'd landed in shanghai to be greeted by cheryl and jeremy, with a taxi van for the transfer. and so truly began the time in not-japan. the open windows pulled in the expressway air, the sort of humid pollution concoction i associate with travel to far-flung and exotic places. the sweat was breezed dry, eyes were squinted and the hair was pulled and constantly re-pulled against the constand barrage of multi-directional air, and i smiled. not-toyama. not-japan. holiday. ho-li-day. happy.

After unpacking and controlling the explosions that had happenned in my luggage, we had a nice meal in an italian restaurant. not what i came to shanghai for at all but hey, i had no say in the matter.

Sunday morning was spent at jade buddha temple, a wonderful complex with some astonishing sculptures of buddhas and boddhistavas, and glorius sunshine. we folded gold paper boats and burned them in honour of deceased relatives, a tradition cheryl introduced us to, and is basically the sending of money to deceased relatives so that their afterlife may be a comfortable one.

After the temple we headed to peoples square to marvel at and feed white pigeons, soak up some more scalding sunshine, and hide in the shopping centre till lunchtime. in searching for a place to eat (which eventually was a scrummy lunch of many soups and dumplings in garlic and chilli vinegar sauce) we were accosted by scam artists trying to egt us to come to a private gallery viewing, and, having made the mistake of not immediately ignoring/scolding the scammer away we were subjected to his insistent rantings for a fair time afterward. sharon and i made a break for it by switching to basic japanese which on afterthought was probably a bad idea as most tourists in shanghai actually ARE japanese, and physically pushing the scammer aside when he attempted to intercept once again. that worked for a limited amount of time. and then we vowed never to return to the area again. after lunch of course. yum.

Monday rolled around, and early in the morning i taxiied to the airport to start a long and complicated immigration process to return home for a few days. this week was also a national holiday for china and even though i arrived at the airport 2.5 hours early for my flight, by the time i got to my gate it was time to board. the sheer volume of people was astounding, never has security on leaving a country taken me over an hour and a half to go through!

Landing in the UK i was reminded that this too, was a bank holiday and i was in for a long struggle in getting home. but the sun was shining, i understood what was going on and i had family to see. that was a shock i was not expecting. arriving to my brother and nieces birthday gathering with most of my close family (about 25-30 people) present was a bit overwhelming. fighting jetlag and taking in a mass of familiar and new faces (ooh, babies are born and babies grow up. another thing i hadn't thought about), i found myself several times stood in the centre of the room, quite clearly in the way, unable to decide where i should stand to be as unobtrusive as possible. i eventually chose the garden and spent some time on the trampoline. what? i AM a kid! it was great to see everyone again and a huge relief to discover i do actually love the uk as much as i thought i did. it was also interesting to see that people all over the world are poor observers of what's going on around them (aimless walkers take note), not just the japanese.

Tuesday. interview day. this is what i came home for. so to nottingham i trained, pleased with my free instant coffee (though sad to say i entirely neglected to have a cup of mum's tea while at home - doh!), and took a look around the universities facilities, had my interview and spent 2 hours or so in the city checking out the shops and sights and imagining what it would be like to live there, then back on a train with my cherry bakewell tart (which though genuine was sadly dissappointing - i'm more used to mass-manufactured tesco's ones than bakery hand-made ones). in london again i met up with dear patty-di and tess, both of whom it was great to see and catch up with, and made me want to move back for good as soon as possible rather than toughing out the last 2.5 months back there. but i promised some people i wouldn't break contract, and, more importantly, i haven't taken my last onsen (public bath), eaten at my last genuine revolving sushi restaurant or finished with my south-east asia travels. i like nottingham.

Wednesday. time to get my tooth drilled and re-filled (no anaesthietic, i'm so glad i had a root canal to the tooth in question a few years ago) after battling through massive traffic jams, and then onto interview 2. kings colege london. i also liked KCL but there were a few drawbacks vs the possibility of nottingham, mostly revolving around the fact that i would be living in london for the next 3-4 years. not something i was looking forward to. wednesday was also a day of massive shopping, stocking up on chocolate and gravy to last the last 2 months. think i overdid it there.

Thursday. time to fly back to shanghai and mull over things i noticed about the UK whilst back there.
1. diet cherry coke is now in existence. :)
2. worcestershire sauce flavoured walkers crisps appear to have fallen off the face of the planet :(
3. creme eggs now come in a bar form :)
4. curly wurleys and bacon are still readily available :)
5. one of the things i miss the most about the UK is the snackfood.

I arrived at heathrow, again about 2.5 hours early. glorious lack of traffic on yet another glorious sunshiney london day. in fact i am yet to have a day of bad weather on this trip. the flight was ludicrously underbooked, and i bumped into (though i had been informed beforehand that this would probably happen) jeremy's boss and wife from shanghai, returning on the same flight and able to give me a lift rather than have to take a bus back to the city. so far so good. and then it got better. having planned on a dreadful flight and aquired some melatonin (the body's natural "fall asleep" signaller) pills, i was informed that due to the low number of passengers we were free to move around the cabin as we wished. so i switched to a better seat - well, 4 seats, drank 3 glasses of wine with my dinner, took the 2 pills and went to sleep. for a full 5 hours and then the last 3 hours in bits. but hey, 8 hours sleep, a full night, on a plane! happily and very awakedly landing in shangai was something i wasn't expecting. made better by checking my email upon return to the city and finding a phd offer from both nottingham and kcl waiting for me! so it's off to nottingham i go, come september :)

Friday was spent at city gods temple and yu gardens, a temple complex with truly beautiful gardens with ponds and fish and fish i ponds and ponds with fish in them. and trees, stunning architecture and hundreds or japanese tourists. stunning weather yet again, a bit of rain started falling but it was just enough to cool off the heat before calming down again. after getting our fair share of walking around, eating much soup and many dumplings, and chatting in coffee shops, we returned home.

Saturday was a day of massage. i went to the hairdressers for a hairwash and a legendary head massage and 2 hours later i walked out with straight hair. not permanently, mind, but it was fun to have for awhile. the dressers were clearly baffled by my curling mass and had a tough time getting it to straighten out in a smooth and silky sort of way rather than a crazy hedge sort of way. and the head massage thing. definitely recommended! we were going to go up the tallest tower in china this day (3rd tallest in the world) but it was truly too hazy for such antics.

Another dinner then time to wind down, pack up and prepare for a hellish journey back to the nether regions of japan. it was a wonderful and productive holiday, and could i still be on it, i would.

blooming trams and naughty darts

2006-04-09T08:43:00.000Z

For 'twas the day of cherry blossoming and first time tramming!

Japan knows things pertaining to the weather. in particular, it has an acute understanding of exactly when there will be days of good weather in advance. these are termed "good weather days" and there are 4 of them every year. the date is unchanging. and you know what? they're always right, it always is good weather on those days even if the days surrounding them were utter rubbish.

It also knows when it's blossoms will bloom. over a month ago i saw a massive commotion in the news when the "day of blossoming" had been decided by toyama's know-it-alls, and set to april 7th. and you know what? they were right. i went out and saw... cherry blossoms!

Japan is also not one to pass up the chance to set up some stalls and make anything into a festival. which i heartlily like. and look! kids, you too can win porn and guns just by playing darts!

April 7th also marked the day when the new tramroad and tram(s?) got their first testing. again, the news stations were besides themselvesand today on my cycle i spotted not 1 but 4 genuine tramspotters with their cameras. here was my thought process:
What are they taking photos of?
Oh, the intec building.
i guess it is the tallest building in toyama.
But then that would mean they're tourists.
In toyama?
Why? no-one comes here...hmm.
*looks left*
OOH. TRAM! Yay! tramspotters! tee hee hee This'll look great, get a photo of tramspotters for my blog. only i forgot my camera. ooh, phone camera!
Yarg. too bright to take a photo of people not so close to me. oh well, let's get a photo of the tram!
Oh great. now i've become a tramspotter. doh!

The tracks are set nicely in the road unlike the tram on the south of the station which around the shopping district has rails surrounded by such poorly kept surfaces you fear the earth will swallow you whole, and this tram is one of those brand-spanking new-style ones that swish and glide quietly, like the swiss have in basel (route 8, not route 1 mind), only this one is only 2 cars long. oh, and it doesn't go anywhere useful. but what a feat of achievement in toyaman engineering it is! makes me proud. i just wish they'd finish re-surfacing the road so a bike ride doesn't ride like a buckingbronco.

And in other news, in 3 weeks i'll be home! oh yes. i was due to go to shanghai for golden week (3 consecutive national holidays in thefirst week of may, take monday and tuesday off and give yourself a 9 day holiday type of thing), when i got an interview invitation for a PhD at nottingham university, and then one for kings college london too. thank god finally someone wants to speak to me - true, it was after much begging and some backhand bribes but shh. so i booked some flights from shanghai to london, meaning i have a good 2 weekends in shanghai and 3 days in the uk. not exactly what i would call a relaxing break but exciting as an exciting thing on a stick. hmm yes, i assure you.

harassing hiroshima

2006-03-30T05:34:00.000Z

Osaka wasn't our only destination during spring vacation. it would be odd to have lived in japan 2 years and not seen hiroshima, so to hiroshima we went. turns out that there is no way i could possibly ever recommend the hiroshima youth hostel to anyone, having a 10pm curfew and being a bus-ride out of town, which might not have been such a problem were it not for the fact that other than the obvious, there's really nothing to do in hiroshima during the day, let alone enough to occupy 3 days. so we did lots of purikura - print club. also known as taking photos and then graffitiing all over them. great fun.

So we did the obvious, that being visiting the A-bomb dome, peace park and the adjoining uber-depressing memorial museum. after 2 hours in there i was about ready to go and die for all the western world's sins. the dome itself is a lot smaller than it appears in most photographs, in the photo above its the shell of a building in the middle, visible through the peace memorial (which was vandalised in the latter stages of 2004 by a japanese dude who got part way to removing the engraved inscription "let all the souls here rest in peace as we will never repeat this mistake.", stating japan had done nothing wrong. but i digress) archway. i'm definitely glad i've seen it, it was truly moving. but beyond that, hiroshima seemed another toyama.

That is, until we found an irish pub serving these! irish flags. mint liqeur, baileys and grand marnier. very sweet. very very yummy. highly alcomaholic. yum. but only till 9.30 when you have a 10pm curfew...

Hiroshima is also good for its proximity to the island of miyajima, and this thing, another of the most photographed sites in japan, the "floating gate". at high tide it really does look like it's floating, but sadly we were there at low tide. as you can see by the barnacle/muscle pickers in front of it in their wellies. the weather was stunning and we went up the ropeway so see some stunning views and many monkeys at the top of the hill. i discovered i still hate mountain climbing but love tall places, and that i appear to have somehow deleted all the photos i got from the top of the hill. most odd. and somewhat sad. there was a really good one looking through binoculars at this shrine from a great height. it was awesome.

This thing is the official temple for the floating gate, a mass of orange-becolumned walkways that look stunning of the photos i've seen in high tide. fairly impressive in low tide too.

And so passed the spring vacation. from hiroshima to toyama we stopped one night again at osaka to make the 13 hour journey two 6 hour ones, and sufferred train delays on the osaka-toyama stretch, but no-one really cares about that anyway.

I got back to school to find none of the english teachers i work with had left the school (a mixed blessing, mostly good as it means i don't have to change my teaching style in the closing months and can use last year's lesson plans), but that one of the four people i share an office with at my care school has been replaced with a guy who talks incessantly throughout the day and who, in the same day as i met him, managed to be labelled "mr. sexual harassment" (sekuhara-san) in my book of people i know. it's all fun and games where i am.

spring shark sumo. a new sushi?

2006-03-27T13:02:00.000Z

April brings many changes in japan. after gradution comes the start of a new year and, true to form, it happenned this time as well. at this time many many teachers get moved around too, to different schools. there is a maximum time a teacher usually "serves" at one school before the powers-that-be at the all-seeing toyama board of edumacation decide that it's high time they got shuffled. a curious coincidence is that, as far as i'm aware, exceptionally bad teachers get shuffled more often than not-bad teachers. but alas, good teachers go too. and so it was that this year we entered into spring vacation still unaware of who would suffer the stick of fate this year, which made it all the more exciting. one position that does have job security is that of me. the lowly assistant language teacher. the most they can do is add some schools and i'd already been told that wouldn't happen. instead, my successor will spend not only tuesday but also wednesday away from the "base school" - where i am actually contracted, but unlike me, (s)he won't be spending it at the care school but the farming school instead. ha ha ha ha. my supervisor agreed. curiously, this gives me a day of no-teaching, like happenned last year at this time, for timetabling reasons. this makes me happy.

Anyway, onto SPRING VACATION! woohoo!

The "seishun juuhachi" (young (?) 18) ticket is a ticket that allows unlimited japan train travel on 5 days, for not a lot of money, but only on local trains (i.e. no super-fast or bullet trains). so sharon, bunny and i decided to go see osaka and hiroshima, and get the hell out of toyama for a week.

So we travelled to osaka. it took 7 hours. on heated seats, by the end of which my backside was thoroughly cooked. nice. we did see some interesting sleeping positions though, and interesting conversations were overheard from drunken office workers (salarymen):

salaryman (sm) 1: hey. that seat is only for old people.
sm2: old people?
sm1: mmyah. it says so.
sm2: so it does. hey. i AM old!
sm1: haha! you're old!
sm2: haha! i'm old!
...

Eventually we got to osaka and found our hostel (a very homely place with writing on the walls and only 10 beds in one room), and fell asleep. on a bed that was so crooked i fell out of it in the night. change of beds for the next night then.

What's there to do in osaka? osaka is another of japan's major cities a huge industry and trading area, and area of general fun-ness. we went up in a big ferris wheel. then we went to see amerika-mura - american village, where all the kids try to be american, and seem to succeed, if only america was still trapped in the 80s. good to see and some nice little oddity shops to look around.

Then there's the aquarium, i saw my first shark and my new favourite fish, the manta ray. those things are awesome. and a very good jellyfish display, but by that time i was so tired, having spent a good 1.5 hours in the aquarium, i don't think i truly appreciated them fully. however i do know that they would make a very cool display indeed in a house. as well as some truly massive crabs.

But the highlight, and in fact point of our travelling to osaka was to see the sumo! awesome. watching fat men in nappies fighting while eating sandwiches and drinking alcohol. what more could a girl want? the finals no less, so we watched a good 15 or so fights. there was much pillow throwing from the audience at an unexpected outcome in the first bout of the final stretch when asashoryuu (the long-time champion and mongolian) was actually beaten in a surprise move, but in the end the champion did win again and may many trophies he did recieve.

One of the trophies was almost as big as the guy presenting it. poor boy needed help handing it over! there were some impressive displays of wrestling skills and one very exciting injury where the wrestlers grappled steadily till one lost his footing, the other took advantage and not only sent him flying of the podium into the judges, but proceeded to (accidentally) follow him and sit on his face (or so it looked from my angle). excellent!

Oh and look mum, i got a tattoo! only kidding, it's bunny's, of her own design. looks good. and painful.

tall pancakes, knives and coffee

2006-03-23T02:39:00.000Z

Japan has many national holidays, and when it means you get a tuesday off work it's sometimes mighty nice to take the monday, and the preceeding friday, and go on holiday somewhere for awhile. which we did. to korea.

After a night bus a flight and getting mildly lost in seoul (admittedly due to my arguing with the principal map holder), we found ourself in a nice little hostel in the towel district (it seems that for the purpose of commerce, seoul shopping is divided into distinct areas. you won't just find a shop in which you may buy a towel, you find a district of shops that sell nothing but towels, whose owners are surprised that you want only one) which, while was nothing like the internet photos showed, was still nice nonetheless. after a fifteen minute strain with the landlady who seemingly knew nothing of running a hostel or simple checkin procedures, we dumped our bags and took a wander into the nearby market for some lunch.

And wow, korean stallfood is incredible. tasty tasty pancakes made with much garlic and packed with bean sprouts and pork before being shallow fried was our first taste of the day. the locals loved how touristy we were, taking photos and oohing and aahing, so much so that they gave us free food, till we wrenched ourselves away to see the rest of the market and toddle off to the temple across the road.

The temple was set in a wide expanse of some forest-like ground, but most interesting for me was the garden area directly infront of the complex, where local men gathered to sell things, play reversi, sing karaoke... all sorts of public spirited happennings. this is in great contrast to what i've seen of important japanese gardens, where even the locals have to pay to go in, often on a tour, and always to "view" the garden like some museum piece or sculpture, never to have a picnic or play catch or publicly enjoy it.

The next day we walked to another temple complex which also housed the botanical gardens, a time capsule and seoul tower, the tallest point in seoul (not the tallest building, but the tallest point at about 350m above sea level due to its standing on a giant hill). time capsule? oh yes. at the turn of the millennium the south korean government buried many things from this day and age such to be opened up in 500 years or so. many political leaders from around the world came and engraved a sweet little message onto a stone commemorative thingy and it was all very nice.

The views from seoul tower were superb, i've decided that i really do like tall things very much, and tacky little signs on the windows that proclaim "london, 8852kms" and other such niceities. after that there was more walking, marketing and eating of the delicious korean barbecue - much in the way of pork steaks. yum yum.

The de-militarised zone, or DMZ, is a space 2kms on either side of the north-south divide that is unoccupied by military personnell from either side, instead it is occupied by "peace keeping troops" from the US and retired koreans who farm and don't pay taxes. going close to the DMZ (for you are not allowed in the DMZ) on a tour is a sort of unwritten law for all travellers to seoul, so off we went. our tour guide managed to speak her way through an entire 5 hours without pausing for breath, finishing a sentence or giving any sort of useful information. we visited the final train station in south korea that non-authorised personnell can travel to, at which is a small commemmorative area for the families divided by te country divide, where ribbons are tied for every person feared missing and you can appreciate the devastation from the comfort of the swinging pirate ship in the fairground. after this we visited one n many tunnels that south korea discovered north korea were digging to attack the south with, but they claimed it was a mining tunnell and painted the walls black to... um... look like coal. it was really interesting to walk through, if a bit painful what with having to tilt ones head to the side permanently.

The guards are really tetchy about taking photos in this area, and so the photo above is the only one one could get of the DMZ itself, not that it seems that there's anything to see but i guess thats the entire point of allowing us only to take photos from that distance and obscuring the view with a very high wall and far too many binocular stands.

In the afternoon we wandered around town and discovered Japan were playing south korea in a semi-final of some important world baseball tournament. we fell into literally hundreds of koreans gathered at the town square watching the game on giant screens, chanting and banging blue air-filled high-pressure bangy things together in some sort of ritualistic chant. around town wherever we went we saw big screens and korean faces glued to them. in front of the american embassy the guards were all facing in the same direction, and it wasn't forwards. sadly korea lost and japan went on to beat cuba in the finals, so there was much gleeful japaneseness when we landed back in japan a few days later.

Solidifying my enjoyment of tall things was a building we went to for a drink in the sky bar, on the 72nd storey. never has an irish coffee tasted so good or cost so much. marvellous.

And so our escape from japan ended with a trip to the theatre. oh yes! nanta cooking is famous throughout asia, a similar fame to "cats" in the west. running for a multitude of decades and winning numerous awards it is loved by visitors all over the world and praised for the achievement of actually containing no dialogue. it's a production based around the work of a chef, and is a rhythmic feat of clanging knives, pots and cabbages to produce some awesomely awesome percussion. i give it my highest recommendations!

The rest of the photos and some explanations are up on the photo site, go to the links on the right and put my email address in the search box on the site. aii!

misty matrices

2006-03-12T14:47:00.000Z

Last weekend yielded a trip to neighbouring prefecture niigata, for some sun and snowy frolics. a day of stunning weather was capped by an inflight movie - oh yes, the car we went in had it's own tv and the matrix was the way to go. safe? who knows.

But alas it's time to hang up my dancing shoes and get ready for spring... and by dancing shoes i mean snowboard boots. with the blasts of warm weather i have to admit that winter is most definitely coming to a close in toyama, and with that, my final snow has been boarded on. it's been a good season, with awesome weather from the new year onwards and even the slushy snow at the end gave a great opportunity of learning a few spins and tricks, rather than just being plain rubbish. hopefully next year will not be boarderless for me in the european quarters.

The official date of the start of sakura (cherry blossom) season has been announceed, in toyama we are to expect the first of the blossoms (or full blossom - i can't be sure which) on the 7th of april. while i'll miss the snow i'm looking forward to not getting up at 5am every saturday for boarding, having a little extra space in my apartment as i banish the board and winter clothes, and not shivering myself into a convulsion every waking minute of every day. and i'm back to cycling to school. spring can't be far away...

in poor taste

2006-03-11T04:31:00.000Z

Burberry is a defining feature of japan. it's everywhere. i have ongoing games with bunneh and sharon as to how many pieces of burbery you can spot while travelling, and what random pieces you can spot in daily life which just defy fairness and righteousness by the very fact of their existence. on one day in tokyo no fewer than 32 items were spotted, ranging from the scarves that all schoolkids seem to be wearing, to bags, umbrellas, trenchcoats... ugh. and i thought i got away from all that nonsense. oh well. the odes, in a haiku 5-7-5 style, were born. joint credit with bunneh:

Pukey yellow and
black & white with "classy" red
chav-town here we come.

You wear burberry
with no care for what you do
to my sanity

Your burberry scarf
it sucks sweaty donkey sack
makes me wanna vom

Give that thing to me
and i will set fire to it
for humanity

Scurge of human life
i can see it everywhere
can't take anymore

Murder most horrid
can't hold me accountable
burberry induced

graduating robots

2006-03-04T04:02:00.000Z

The school year in japan runs from april to march unlike the western september to june. yesterday was the annual "banish the school of evil" day, graduation ceremony. after several months in the making and one day dedicated to a run through, we said goodbye to the 115 third years leaving our school for brighter lands (some are managing to escape toyama to the bright lights of super-prestigious tokyo university. *sob*, it makes me so proud).

Last year this day took me by surprise, the sheer scale and grandeur of it far surpassed anything i had been expecting, and true, the tears came. this year, in what should have been a more emothinal year for me on account of having taught these students for 18 months and thems being my first real class, i was surprised but pleased to find no tears rolling down my cheek in a torrent of saltiness. this was good. either i was affected by the stunning sunshine on a day that started off with snow and gloom, or last years particularly moving rendition of andrea bocellis "time to say goodbye" was what did it in the first place. i think fewer students cried too.

March is othewise a very very boring time for us non-teacher teacher types. i have now not taught a lesson in over 3 weeks and you know what? i couldn't be happpier. the month was preceeded by end of year exams and from now on are "special" classes that i am not required to teach. the term ends in little over 2 weeks and after that it's another 2 weeks of nothingness. this it the time for travel. so whoohoo! on st. patricks day i'm heading to korea with some friends for an extended weekend, after which comes a week of osaka and hiroshima viewing before the term starts again. joy for travel! let's enjoying.

Also, can anyone tell me why this fridge magnet came free with a drink and is attached to the fridge in the staffroom? what do they, what be thems and why?

driving kamakura

2006-02-16T03:26:00.000Z

The conference ended on wednesday around midday (which we... missed), and so before starting the long slog back into wintry toyama, we decided a detour to one of the top spots in japan - kamakura - well worth a visit, for the giant buddha. and so to kamakura we drove, only as quite often happens when driving, the 2 hour journey became 4 and we barely made it before the place closed. it was definitely worth it though, the buddha most definitely is large. it used to be housed but some tsunami some year washed away the building and it was never reconstructed. religion and preservation aside, i prefer things like this to be outside, offering an undrestricted view rather than what i've seen so many times which is a buddha or deity i some gloomy building with little or no light, and obscured by various structural beams. so i was happy.

And joy of joys, on the trip back we stumbled across a pizza hut! oh how i've missed things i had no idea i would - like proper pizza, chocolate, custard... The staff seemed bemused at the sudden flux of foreignness and had fun practicing their english while we slavered on their countertops and waited impatiently for a little taste of heaven. then back in the car. with the heaven.

Big thanks to steve who managed to drive something like 23 hours in the 2 days of travel. crazy bunny.

Ooh, i've uploaded the photos from Yokohama, www.clubphoto.com and type my email adress into the search bar. oh yes.

caramel and tall stuff

2006-02-15T03:19:00.000Z

When we returned from thailand i took the opportunity in tokyo to pop into (and spend 2 hours and in excess of 60 pounds) in kinokyniya, the biggest, bestest bookshop in japan if you're after foreign stuff. i was. whilst there i managed to get my hands on a copy of the "new scientist" magazine and after perusing the job section found a rather spiffing looking 4 year PhD programme with an application deadline merely 3 days away and me without a CV. thus ensued a flurry of preparation, emailing and begging, after which, i'm pleased to say, i got the application in. well it's now been 2 months and i haven't yet heard anything other than the precursory "we've received your application" stuff so i guess no PhD programme for me come september. ah well. travel methinks.

In the middle of february i took another great excuse to get out of toyama on official business, this time for a three day leavers conference in yokohama. yokohama is just south of tokyo and still really high-tech, but with less of the crowds. a more manageable tokyo if you will. the weather was stunning, once we got there after an epic 9 hour drive at 40km/h in 1m visibility blizzards. crazy.

Yokohama has several worthwhile landmarks, and several starbucks containing caramel donuts therein, so on tuesday i, shall we say, "neglected" part of the conference in favour of a little solitary viewing and eating. first off, the shopping street and the french park. walking down the shopping street was like being transported into a sort of japanified italy. pretty pedestrianised streets lined with odd shops and your standard high street stuff. and beautiful weather.

The french park has within it, the tallest of the one hill that exists in yokohama city, from which on the clear day it was, there was a stunning view of the city. so i stayed there for awhile and enjoyed, after which a walk along the shoreline guided me to the spectacle of an outdoor skating rink, furiously melting over the pavement on its final day of life, with a great deal of people upon it. i've always wanted to skate on an open air skating rink but:
1) it's no fun when you're on your own (the rest of the group found bits of tuesdays conference useful...)
2) they're not gonna have skates in my size. besides, i didn't have the time at this point.

Yokohama also has the tallest tower in japan at 296m and about 70 floors. its a bit of a square tower really and something about the architecture belies its true height to the eye.

And of course much time was spent in chinatown, eating, eating and eating. food good. food very good. yum yum yum.

kids and peanuts

2006-02-02T10:14:00.000Z

Ho hum, checked out my first book at the school library today, choosing a relatively simple-looking thin book that i have no hope of getting through in the 1 week they've given me with it. but more to the point, i discovered just HOW the library works. rather than giving each person a card, the library holds a folder in which everyone in the school has an assigned barcode. even me! the foreigner! happy happy joy joy.

Do i get to tatoo it on my neck is what i want to ask.

The teacher's kitchen has been decorated with a calendar deemed too x-rated for students eyes, hence its location in the room no student goes to except to collect cleaning materials, and it is behind a screen next to the sink to protect their eyes from it. yep, this is as steamy as it gets in my school. oh how we laughed!

all kinds of powders

2006-01-31T08:19:00.000Z

Since coming back from thailand i would like to say i've been buried in veritable mountainloads of snow but sadly that's not the case. the first week was unseasonally warm and rainy, leading to all the ski parks in my immediate vicinity being closed due to avalanche warnings (including one dead at a well-used nagano resort), and since then the skies have brought forth nothing like its usual load of snow followed by snow with a frosting of snow. clear skies / rainy air dominates these here mountains.

But it's not all dry, nagano has still been receiving it's fair ton of snow, and after a japanese-heavy week on a training seminar in another prefecture (yay, thank ye heavens for getting me out of toyama) meeting many truly excellent JETs from other prefectures, we scooched to nagano last weekend for some overnight snowboarding madness on a tri-ken (three surrounding prefectures) official yearly debauched meet, with a mad club-night on the saturday, only the venue was burned down last week, and we'd got the dates wrong so it was just us.

But the conditions were awesome, as was the weather, and better yet, i finally managed to land a 180 off a jump and then proceeded to fail a 180 in the opposing direction on the flat, thus giving myself a convincing head-trauma and ongoing whiplash well into the late hours of this somewhat sludge-bedrizzled tuesday.

I credit the photo above to jimmy's superior photo-taking prowess.

Only 6 months left in japan now, after deciding (decidedly in a decisive sort of fashion) that there is absolutely no way i'm staying here another year, all sorts of things are popping up in the pipeline, a trip to korea, a return to shanghai, more japan travels (after the boarding season is over, mind) and a sort of mild panicked wonderement at what the future holds. well, i decided i want to do a 4 year PhD and found an increadibly attractive one based in london, 3 days later applied for it and am now waiting for a response. fingers and toes are crossed. didn't you know i'm a contortionist?

And thank you Pat, you are indeed a star. look! i asked for custard powder and from the heavens (well, postman actually) it came! why? cos it's my birthday on saturday! consider this fair notification for those of you who every year squeal "ohmygodi'msosorryiforgotifeellike#%&*!!".

Thank you pat, i intend to make my by now well-honed apple crumble and tickle the delights of friends (but mostly me) with a presentation of authentic crumble-topping sauce of suitable calibre. yum yum!

bouncing ambience in a sunbed world

2006-01-06T15:31:00.000Z

New Years on koh phangnan brought the best of island life and good music. we stayed out of the main area of haad rin, on a beach called haad yuan about 5 minutes boat ride away that often felt like a lifetime due to the jostling waves and the getting soaked. i though the beaches would have resulted in a drier lifestyle but i was clearly wrong.

We spent many days in haad rin buying up jewelry stocks, clothing and especially cheap cheap cds in a bid to widen my music collection, get some gems i've been after for a long time as well as find some interesting new ditties. we also spent much time playing with the large waves that pulled us into shore - body boarding without a body board is not only possible but also fun, so long as you don't mind being tossed into the shore and finding rocks in your bikini.

New years eve in haad rin was spectacular. thousands of party-goers spread out across a beach with many many outlets catering consistently to all music tastes, and an equal if not larger amount of outlets catering to everyones bucket needs. a bucket consists of (or variations of):
1 childs sand bucket.
1 small bottle of whiskey
1 can of coke
1 can of red bull
many straws.

After a bottle of whiskey only mildly diluted but heavily caffeinated, everyone is happy and ready to dance. and dance we did. i danced my socks off and it was great. of course, being on thai time we actually missed the start of the new year but none of that really matters afterall, right?

Finally we returned to bangkok for the final few days of shopping and cramming of as much good food as possible into our bellies, and of being introduced to a relatively new concept on the club scene, the bed/supper club. basically a very expensive (for thailand) club/restaurant where the seats are actually giant beds, all the waiting staff and the walls wear white, and there's a smart dresscode. its something i expected to see in a futuristic movie, ambient lighting bouncing off white walls shaped like the inside of a tanning bed, and shows of contemporary dance that was a bit pretentious but then again aren't we all, just a little?

Fare ye well thailand, i enjoyed your company muchly and look forward to seeing you again next year. possibly.

caving with jumbo

2005-12-30T05:57:00.000Z

Yesterday we were having a conversation about strawberry picking seasons when it struck me that it's december, not august. the temperatures over the last week have had a good amnesia effect on the time of year and the cold life that awaits my return in little over a week.

At the moment we're on an air conditioned bus in floaty skirts and bikini tops, headed to the docks for the last leg of our trip - new years on koh phangan island. we just took a break at a police station while an officer sat in the shade receiving a very tempting looking head massage.

Today is friday. last wednesday after arriving at our floating bungalows in the national park we dived into the refreshing green lake and bobbed on lifevests before taking my first jungle trek. for 2 hours we hiked on not particularly difficult tererain, over logs and under branches, viewing spectacular flowers and mushrooms, and stunning stunning tree trunks about 4m wide at the base. truly truly astounding, and very enjoyable. after 2 hours we entered the mouth of some pitch black caves and for just over an hour we trecked in streams in the depths of huge spider, crab and bat infested caves. mind boggling. towards the end was a really challenging drop into high current water, over ropes and straddling rocks, absolutely exhillirating. and i discovered my penlights work underwater.

On thursday i rode my first elephant. we sat in threes. two on a seat and me perched on the elephants' neck. as the elephant moved off i tried to get into the hipswing of things, and managed, until it took a step down into a river. not in a long time have i felt so precariously perched atop the head of a beast 2 metres above a rocky ground. and when i say not in a long time i mean never. after about half an hour or so we stopped off at a beautiful waterfall and did some jumping, me mostly to overcome the fear i'd gained from jumping badly in ishikawa 18 months ago, and it was all good. then back on the elephants with a shuffle in position and i discovered that sitting on the seat on the elephants' back is even more precarious than sitting on its sturdy, highly frictionated neck.

I'm looking forward to a return to the beach mainly because things actually dry there. having spent the last 2 dayts in a rainforest most of my things - clothes, money, towels, feet, are permeated with water and damp. but it was excellent.

Koh phangan is an island known well for its nightlife, big fullmoon parties and a massive new years party i wam fully looking forward to. but first a day of shopping, sunning and eating await. happy new year everyone!

16 swimsuits and a dog

2005-12-28T05:41:00.000Z

The inland/highland areas are cooler than the beach we just left. surrounded by lush greenery and spiking, stunning rocky peaks i watch as we weave between trees growing in the middle of an expansive lake we've been crossing by longtail boat for at least an hour now. khao sok national park is a beautiful place of green trees and mountainous rocks enveloped in clouds, surrounding a lake held back by a dam.

Getting to khao sok two days ago was quicker but only mildly less kerfuffly affair than leaving bangkok for raillay. at 12 am, after an hours wait we long-tailed to the mainland and waited there another hour for the bus. immediate entertainment consisted of an on board VCD entertainment - thai girls (?) gyrating and thrusting on a giant stage to harsh poppy eletrobeat. after awhile this changed thankfully to a martial arts film based around the kidnapping of an elephant, and so passed a 3 hour bus ride.

Dumping backpacks and donning bikinis, we headed out towards evening, in the rain, to the muddy river for some "tubing" - sitting in rubber rings while the current pulls you along through the rapids, throwing your feet out into hanging brambles and pulling away a handful of thorns embedded in your left little toe. reaching the set off point was only mildly traumatic, walking barefoot and bikini clad into the rain on the main road. transportation on the other side, however, had been arranged. 1 pickup truck, 2 drivers, 16 passengers in swimsuits, and a dog. oh yes.

This morning, our guide Yu, drove us past rubber plantations from last nights stop, into the area. at a checkpoint he handed over his ID whih he will have returned tomorrow when we leave, a security measure to make sure he doesn't blow up the dam and flood the towns beneath it. soon we will go trekking through the jungle.

ooh. ahh. jungle fever.

monkeys and snorkels

2005-12-27T05:51:00.000Z

Raillay was our first encounter with stunning rocky outcrops covered in dense forests and pure soft yellow sands with high visibility waters. for 5 days or so we basked in sunshine, sea water and sands and took in the spectacles of...

...semi wild monkeys...

...stalacmites with colourful rags tied to them to aid their formations into phallic objects (no joke)and entire shrines piled high with wooden exaggerations of said peni (what is the plural anyway?).

One whole day (13 hours) was spent baking in the hot sun on a boat, trying for some snorkelling action, but as the trip was mostly geared towards scuba divers there was not much snorkelling to be done. tip 1. dont go on a joint scuba/snorkelling expedition. 2. bring a book. there was, however, some stunning scenery,

and i did give my hair the chance to make me look like gene wilder (original willy wonka of "charlie and the chocolate factory" fame).

During daylight hours there was a stunningly vast expanse of nothingness to look into pure sea horizons dotted with densely tree-ated islands. once the light faded and a sufficiently large number of photos were taken paying homage to the setting sun, we resorted to silly games for the final 2 hours of amusement, most of which involved a tube of sunscreen, a sleepuing sharon and 2 careful spotters.

And so passed the anniversary of the tsunami.

india. no wait, thailand.

2005-12-22T05:25:00.000Z

So far thailand has eased me into its pace. after a day of travelling we visited a tailord to be fed free beer of which one ingredient is apparantly embalming fluid, and "oohed" and "ahhed" over some designs and fabric but eventually rang up no purchase.

The morning began with the smell. i had been warned several times that bangkok stinks. while it's true that it doesnt smell like freshly cut grass, or freshly baked bread, it doesnt smell extraordinarily bad. the mix of fumes, humidity, heat and a mild lingering of decomposing biological matter. actually, it consistently reminds me of india, smelling of dust and humidity.

Breakfast consisted of expertly fried rice with pineapple, at an incredible price of a whole 60p. great! this was followed by a visit to the salon to be waxed in preparation for the next few days at the beach. thats the first and probably last time i'll ever get waxed.

Wat Pho temple complex is one of the most well known in thailand. its main pull is a gold, 47m reclining buddha so brilliant in colour it would seem the builders deemed it needed obscuring with many "well placed" supporting pillars. a bit of a shame but an absolutely incredible site nonetheless.

Outside of the buddha housing a primary school class ran relay races - running around shoes andplacing dice on the floor. inside the complex yet more students, older primary school as well as secondary schoolers swarmed the vast quantities of foreigners and interviewed them. english education in thailand already seems to me to be far more adanced than that i've seen in japan. the kids are incredibly energetic and enthusiastic, and the secondary school students had better english than a lot of the japanese teachers of english that i work with. and japan is proud of its english education.

A brief trip to khao san orad and the surrounding areas lear to thai pants (one size wraparound trousers) purchases and the discovery of britains own boots chemists! what a mix.

Currently i sit on a night train travelling south at an achingly slow pace, halting every 5 minutes for 5 minutes at a time. i cant help but think that if this were a direct train or a japanese bullet train the journeuy would be a mere 3 to 4 hours. but this is thai time. thai time seems to be 3 times that of normal time. and its all good.

dreaming of a thai christmas

2005-12-20T14:35:00.000Z

And thats the end of snow for me at the moment, off to thailand in the morning! had a great snowball fight to finish off the year. yeay! merry christmas and an exceedingly happy new year to all, especially disgruntled anonymous in manchester.

living in greenland can't be that good if...

2005-12-14T11:31:00.000Z

...you need a coat with a hood.

Happy belated birthday dad! love you.

Getting immunised in japan is a bit of a kerfuffle. they don't have typhoid vaccinations (in the whole country) and you not only have to pre-book things like hep a, but you have to go twice, 2 weeks apart with no other injections, to get the full dose. no no, can't be done in one. still, the doctor cheered me up by telling me i was allowed to take a bath even after the shot. um... thanks.

The weekend started, and continued, with a high abundance of snow. on saturday i woke at 5.30 to go boarding to nagano, home of the olympics. the blizzard boded well for underfoot conditions, and did not disappoint. and i remembered how i never quite truly got the hang of powder boarding. with powder up to the waist on ungroomed pistes making it really difficult to board, i spent a good 10 minutes at a time (on about 5 separate occasions) digging myself out and trying to move from a me-shaped hole. tiring work. and the weather conditions didn't let up. many people are surprised when i grumble about it snowing whilst boarding, surely, snow is exactly what a boarder wants? right. at night. but a blizzard and thick fog call for seriously restricted visibility and my super duper new goggles were even getting fogged up adding to the blindfold effect, making progress on the slopes painfully slow. but how could i complain? by the end of the day i was back in skill-level where i was by the end of last season, and had an absolutely awesome time.

We returned to toyama to the start of toyaman snow proper, a weekend in the low mountains at an english camp provided many a snowy-tree photo opportunity, and even the odd snowball fight, while my muscles tried vainly to recover from saturday's bliss. and to top it all off, the toyaman resorts open this weekend, with one close by offering free lift usage between 9.30 and 3pm so off we go again! now that my journey to school requires wellies and an earlier rise, i can imagine the mountain conditions to equal those seen last weekend in nagano.

And in non-snow report news, it is but a week before we fly off to thailand. still doesn't seem like it's going to happen though, the snow has made my hibernation eating habits kick in and makes it very difficult to imagine bikinis and tropical beaches. *shiver*

And now for something completely different.

Every year around this time, the first years have their dance competition, that is, those first years who chose dance as their P.E. option put on a 3-4 minute show in groups set to, as far as I can tell, any music they desire. when they present and get marked, any students and teachers who want to see it can come and watch, so it makes for an entertaining little show.

After the usual half-bothered ditties to hip-hop and j-pop, some groups showed some pure classy initiative; start with a bit of the theme from the pink panther, end with the theme from the pink panther, and in the middle use some classical pieces such as those from swan lake, the nutcracker suite and the "du du du duuuuuuhhhhhnnnnnnn" one we all know but i don't know the name of. alternately, use a track that sounds like it could plausibly be a remix of both the theme from the exorcist, and rob d's "clubbed to death" from "the matrix", claw your way on stage like something out of "the ring", whilst wearing fur trimmed anoraks, and bingo, an A grade in contemporary dance. or if you're the only four boys (better than last year when they made the only boy dress up with a ribbon in his hair; 16 year old girls can be so cruel), get together and work out the steps to step's "5, 6, 7, 8!". country show down and not a little funny.

And that's what japanese A-level age education is all about.

teaching vodka

2005-12-06T09:42:00.000Z

The first of december was, in my opinion, considerable as a t-shirt weather day. while it had begun with the threat of a non-break in the previous 14 days monotony of chilled rain, by the time a decision between train or bike was required, the sun was most definitely out in a blinding rage. a beautiful day with a clear view of the snowy mountains, soon to be replaced by snowy snow.

The mid-year seminar is a time to get together and exchange teaching ideas and become better teachers. i gave a seminar called "trading places" and taught a bit of polish to japanese and non-japanese teachers of english in a bid to help them realise how confusing a beginner level class in english can be for students. but of course i couldn't just do a boring standard lesson so we spiced it up by teaching the most important thing. how to order a drink. and we brought wine and vodka and beer in and made them order a drink or 2 in polish and it was all a lot of fun. and very edumacational. if only my real classes could go like that. ah well.

On sunday i sat the japanese proficiency test at a stupidly difficult level, and failed, but i won't know by how much until february. now i know that my reading is weak (slow). this is great. i now have a focus and know exactly what areas i should work on. so all in all it was good.

I then discovered that 1.5 months had passed since i was first put on the waiting list for flights home for christmas, and that still not a single flight had changed status. as the departure date was only 17 days away this had, without my realising, become a dire situation. so i made some calls, did some frantic cycling and chattering and booked myself some flights to thailand, and joined the tour-group with sharon and bunny(rachel) for christmas. so i'm going to thailand on the 21st till the 7th, we're going to sleep in hammocks, lie on beaches,go snorkelling, diving, kayaking, caving and elephant riding, and get out of toyama. happy happy joy joy.

winter approach

2005-11-29T09:27:00.000Z

On Monday the special care school had some russian mime artistes come in and perform for the kids. they put on a mime about a boy in the big city, and it was all very entertaining, if a little odd and probably very scary to the tiny paraplegics in the front row. they even had a pantomime horse galloping through the hall, much to the joy of the little 'uns. you could tell by the chorus of gargles and squeals that rose.

When i first started at the special school i found it really hard. i remember being shocked at the extent of the physical disabilities of some of the children, feeling sick at the vision of drips in noses being changed and feeling awful when asking kids who can't speak "what's your favourite food?" in my cheeriest voice only to have one of the teachers or care workers lean in and solemnly say "he can't eat anything" while laughing. but these things lose their edge after awhile and the disabilities drain away in my mind until i no longer notice them, and it makes me think whether this is what is happening in toyama with all the foreigners running about - at first everyone is interested and excited and scared and confused, but after repeated exposure they might become used to it, and accept it, until one day we will no longer be noticed and it's no longer a mentality of "us japanese" and "them's foreigners". this is what the government hopes to foster, i'm fairly certain that it won't happen in this generation, or the next, and by that time the rest of the developed world will be so highly internationalised that japan will suffer a true set-back or will finally struggle through. either way that's not what i want to digress to here.

In one of the paraplegics classes that i rotate through on a monthly basis is a kid who is sits wrapped up in her tiny chair with a blanket over her body tucked under her arms, a grumbly expression on her face and her tiny tiny hands up under her chin with her tiny blue nails topping her tiny fingers. she's always cold, scowly and suspicious of me. but i like Mayu, she usually looks how i feel so i think we have something in common.

The last lesson i had with her class of 5 we played hungry crocodile, a game with a plastic crocodile head and teeth you push in till the jaw snaps shut. this didn't strike me as a particularly fair game to play with children who are easily startled and upset by being startled. but anyway. after a while the teachers decided they should make some sort of "fun punishment" to administer in addition to the mouth snapping shut, and naturally, as the foreigner, i would be the one to administer it. the word "um..." popped into my head but i fought it down and "um..." lost the fight to "justdowhattheywantandshutup". the punishment? "spray this finely misted water on the loser". "ok". so a few teachers and students who didn't mind the water "lost" and got sprayed and laughed and it was all very jolly, and every time it was mayu's turn i prayed desperately, with a hug fake grin on my face, that her carer wouldn't hit the trigger tooth but sooner or later my hope would remain just a hope. as the jaw snapped shut and mayu flinched i glanced at the teachers seeking confirmation that they really wanted me to spray this cold, mist water over an already cold, helplessly disabled child, for a "bit of fun". they did. so i steeled myself.

I barely crossed the circle to where she was, set the nozzle at double the distance i'd had it for anyone else and pressed as lightly and imperceptibly as humanly possibly. no joy. the damned bottle was a good one and sprayed far and wide over mayu's face and tiny, blue hands. she flinched even further still, arms bundling up under her chin, before her eyes and mouth opened wide in utter horror, then her arms flailed out to her sides like some broken wings and har face remained frozen like that for a good five minutes while i grinned on to my internal monologue of "i'mgoingtohelliknowiamijustsprayedacolddisabledhelplesskidwithcold
waterandmadehercolderforfuni'mgoingtohellijustknowiamohgoodgrief
whydidn'timakethebottleslipandspraytheblanketortheairorsomething
oranythingornothingi'mgoingtohellohyessorryyesthankyousorryyes
thankyousorrysorrysorry". by the look on her face after she finally relaxed i could tell that i should be very very afraid of the day she gets cured and can walk. the look most definitely turned a grumblier shade of grumble and quite clearly glowered "you're dead" at me.

The only thing that saved the day was the start of the winter. snow was falling and while it was turning into slush it's hard to stay scared by a kid's reaction to something when there's white fluffy things all around.

thankful intrusions

2005-11-24T09:09:00.000Z

Every year the JET programme produces a promotional video on 4 teachers like me and 2 international relations coordinators, of what it's like to be here, and sends the video to japanese embassies and universities around the world to seek applicants. it also sends the video to prospective organisations within japan that still don't have a foreigner within its walls.

This year they asked me to be in the video, and in mid-november they came to my school, my matchbox apartment, my japanese lesson and my band practice to shove a camera in my and other teachers faces, and seek information by the long trusted medium of speech. my school was thrown into an unbelievably large amount of overstressing it. even after explaining several times that this video will not be on tv, it will not make the school famous and will not reflect on, well, anything, the principal still insisted on arranging my timetable to have a stupidly large number of classes, harassed the students into being perfect carbon copies of the japanese stereotype (i'm proud to say they failed somewhat), and attempted to have me prepare a special lesson and practice it with the class several times. this too, i am thankful to report, failed.

When the crew arrived, they planned to get right to filming, the schedule was tight and it was almost time to go home, but of course, the principal had other plans. he sat them all down and spent a good half an hour talking them through the school's brochure with student numbers, club statistics and other really interesting facts like "this school used to have 5 classes per year but due to the declining youth situation, now there are only 3". much like the situation everywhere else in japan. i saw their eyes glaze over as i shrank back in embarrassment for my principal, who still hadn't understood that this was not a documentary about the school but merely one small part of many in education sector overseas propaganda. after that the crew finally got the set on interviews they wanted, involving questions like "why did you choose to come to japan?" and "how have you changed since coming to japan?" ("because it was something to do", and "i've realised that many many areas in japan's society are backward and retarded") which i'd figured that after leaving home and passing the customary self-introduction period here, were no longer questions that would be asked of me and i could stop making up answers for.

The video will be sent to me after it has been compiled with all the other participants interviews. i'm actually quite looking forward to seeing how it turned out and having a good laugh at the future of the programme now that they've resorted to using people like me in their promo material. i query their decision.

The 23rd of november saw a public holiday for "labour thanksgiving day" and coincided happily somewhere around american thanksgiving day, and so i took part in my first thanksgiving ever. it was great. we made lots of food (i contributed enough carrots to last well into the next week), ate lots of food, and talked about how much food we'd eaten, and it was all goooooood. yay for thanksgiving.

oop, there goes gravity

2005-11-07T08:57:00.000Z

The rest of the time in shanghai was spent sampling other foods and wandering about, taking in the markets and the park, the smells and the smog, and a bit of shopping. the flight home was surprisingly comfortable after finding out on the craft that i had been moved to business class. business class has legroom and fancy sushi, silk pillows and attentive service, and people who look like fashion designers next to people who look like they shouldn't be there. me. after such a buffered return to japan, the return by a cheap overnight bus from tokyo to toyama was a bit of a shock, but i was happy with my weekend and i was the only one on the bus with 2 seats to myself so i had a better night than most.

Shanghai left a mixed impression on me. It's bustling and loud, exciting and smelly, stressful and calming, like any big city depending where you look. almost londonesque in its ability to provide a veil beneath which to hide away, walking past unnoticed, and its range of foods to eat and places to go. the time out of toyama was much appreciated and far too short, waiting for my flight i already started planning and counting to the next time i would escape life in toyama. it becomes quite clear at times like this, not that it's not clear enough at other times, that leaving japan at the end of this contracting year (july 2006) is most definitely the right thing to do. i do like japan and there are things i love about my life in it, but there are more things that i am too used to which annoy me, and more places to see and experience, but being in japan makes that more difficult. i want to see more of europe, and i look forward to blending in, being unnoticed and regaining my privacy again. and custard. i miss custard.

dj cat and the mountain of beans

2005-11-05T08:52:00.000Z

Shanghai has many fruit i have never seen before, or have seen but never tried. i was interested to be introduced to a pomello, an adult-head sized citrus fruit with flesh so unbelievably firm to the touch you could easily pick the individual juice-filled sacs out of the segments and eat them singularly. with a dry texture and only a lightly bitter taste, it appears to be the more convenient cousin of the grapefruit. in contrast, jackfruit is a yellowish, fleshy, pulpy but firm fruit with a light flavour, strong smell and a sordid texture, not unpleasant but certainly a little unsavoury if unexpected. and of course the king of stink, the durian, was also tried. wrapped in triplicate it still exuded a pungent smell which again, whilst not itself too unpleasant, quickly becomes unpleasantly overpowering. the taste is far more delicate than the smell would indicate, a sweet yet rotting tone with a heavy texture like grainy animal fat easily pulped by pressure from the tongue, spreading and coating the mouth. and for this reason i couldn't eat very much. an overpowering smell with a surprisingly faint taste and a heavy, spreading texture was too imagination-inducing.

After a friday of chatting preceeded by 2 weeks of a cold, i had lost my voice. so after breakfast we went in search of a remedy, and i put my faith in a set of 5ml phials containing a vile concoction of plum-sauce-tasting, eye-scrunching chinese herbal remedy that did not work and made me nauseous. this was followed up by an hour long massage after which, heavily relaxed, a return into the raining bustling world was both startling and exhilarating, so we went to eat. this time lunch was rounded off with icecream, a mountain of shaved ice topped with bean syrup and covered in sweet beans, which i rapidly destroyed with a badly placed spoon, rendering half of it on the table.

The restaurant was noteworthy for three things.
1. the service was exceptional. already after a day in shanghai i had become aware of how unconcerned businesses are with customer care. this restaurant was a far cry from the norm, and was more in line with the kind of over-zealous service i had become slowly and painfully accustomed to in japan.
2. all the waitresses had the same short hair in the same prim style.
3. the restaurant had dripped coffee that started with ice slowly melting and dripping through ground coffee and down through those funky spring shaped glass evaporation tubes we love from secondary school water-purification lessons, into a pot waiting a metre below the starting point, in an impressive display of chemistry-set aptitude and a love for ice coffee.

After lunch, a stroll over the beautiful park and a search through the dvd racks provided me with series 1 of "little britain", and 2 seasons of "nip/tuck" to make me wince at for the next few weeks back in japan.

In the evening, the change of scene involved a moroccan restaurant, with good food that took an hour to arrive, and other company that was as equally squeaky and sick of it as i. we rounded off by visiting a newly-opened club on the outskirts of town, a massive venue with several function rooms, a capacity i would estimate at easily over 1500, with about 30 people in it. the clientele was outweighed by the staff which clearly bored them to being overly interested in our presence there, so after a few drinks spent admiring the impressively jungle-scened main room, appreciating the bouncy floor in the front room and playing "laser dance scene from oceans 12" in the laser lit corridor between the two, we headed back into the city for a smaller club with a maximum dancefloor capacity of about 30, free entry and a mix of housey club tunes set to a video of a cartoon cat djing in space. cartoon cats clearly rule china.

televisual pearls

2005-11-04T08:40:00.000Z

The middle of the school festival saw me scooching off for some "get out of toyama" time. i headed toward tokyo on the bullet train, then on to the airport in a flurry of leaving the country excitement. it was time for some shanghai adventurism, staying with a friend who lives there in a rather nice apartment or two, in the thick of it all.

The first thing i noticed about shanghai was that it was warm, humid, and smoggy. shanghai stays humid throughout the year, so while the temperatures may not dip as low as in japan, the winters seem equally harsh nonetheless with a bone-penetrating cold. but in autumn, the temperature was still superb enough to require no more than a t-shirt and something light for the evening, a combination already impossible within the boundaries of the escaped land.

Shanghai has many tourist traps for the avid traveler, and as there are intentions to return to shanghai over the week-long vacation in april, i focused mainly on food. first off, peoples' square, which was less full of people than i was expecting, but then again it was a friday morning. i was glad to see the usual harassment i'm used to in tourist areas was steadily present, i was offered a variety of watches, bags, bootleg dvd's and drugs. we ducked into a few of the spice stores selling just about everything from powdered spices to candied fruits to cigarettes by the hundreds, before sitting down to a good meal of dumplings and soup, pork and cabbage, spinach and beef, and coriander and chicken, all dipped in a heavy garlic and chilli sauce, and a side of a watery, mushroomy, beefy soup, all of which warmly settled, leaving no room for icecream.

"The bund" is an area around the huangpu river that is tourism-rich. from the west side, looking across the expanse of muddy, slow-moving water to the east, a futuristic pair of globes and a central tower rise above a low skyline filled with equally new buildings. the east side of the river had suffered a shun from society by businesses choosing to set up in the more popular, historically wealthier west side, and is currently under the government initiative of a "business tax break", resulting in a minefield of new buildings and new construction work, heavily sullying the air to a visibility range of a hazy 500m when coupled with the lingering humid fog. And still it is too new to pull in the crowds. an expansive shopping centre lies on the riverside, completed a few years ago and lying desolate ever since, its 500 or so shop capacity laying untouched by businesses all too wary of the east side bringing no people while 50m away across the river buildings, businesses and people jostle for any available and all unavailable space. and in the middle of this zombie-era city, protruding in a triple beaded (though actually containing 11 spheres in total) structure, pearl tower.

To cross the river is not as easy as it should be to facilitate mass movement to the east. it involves a choice between a boat or a tourist tunnel, sections of which where psychedelicified by various commissioned artists, resulting in a highly conceptual, flashing-light-heavy journey that everyone should do once but ends up doing twice. the arrival station is filled with other little niches to occupy idle wanderer, including a sex museum filled with an impressive if somewhat concerning array of relics from china's sexual past and present, contrasting in places with some of the west's own modern sexual "relics" which can at best be described as novelty shaped household items: a salt and pepper shaker, a lighter, and an ashtray.

At 263m high, the upper sphere (not to be confused with the highest sphere - "space module" at 350m high) should provide a commanding bird's-eye view of shanghai, the chongming island and the changjiang river. on a clear day. what we saw was best described as a view of 30 or so hazy construction sites in one direction, behind a wall of fog and under a wall of smog. but i'm the sort of person that likes the sort of height where i can observe and see the bigger picture, and so city, clouds and smog, i was happy.

It had rapidly become dinnertime and so we crossed back through the tunnel of flashing neon and air-filled human-shaped figures tied by the feet to the trainrails, to eat outdoors at a rooftop restaurant commanding a stunning view of the city lighting up as the skies darkened, with a centerpiece of multicoloured pearl tower brightness shining from the forgotten lands.

chavs and goths unite!

2005-11-01T10:30:00.000Z

Halloween! after 3 hours of getting ready and looking as scary as humanly possible, we headed 25 minutes east of toyama to uozu, by train. public transport. dressed like that. sharon had incredible amounts of leg showing, while bunny was barely covered up with a fishnet top. but with 30 odd JETs on the trains at the same time, i guess, well, really hope, it was clear that it was an acceptable state of dress afterall. the venue was a tad small, with 200 odd people in a place with a comfortable capacity of approximately 140, but the music was great, and the dancing was aplenty.

Bunny and i in an overexposed shot. chavs and gothics unite. though as most americans don't get what a chav is, many thought i was britney spears. or jlo. fair enough.

Other than that, the school festival came and went, the chorus contest went quicker than the year before which was a godsend, then i had a quick look around to appreciate some interesting exhibitions, including pictures of famous people made from toothpicks with painted ends; witness the incredible production of audrey hepburn! nice!

beaches and big cities

2005-10-27T09:16:00.000Z

Last week i finally, and thankfully, got out of toyama, and headed back to bright lights big city tokyo. i've warmed to tokyo in the way one warms to a doe-eyed puppy thats been soaked in the bath. in my case that'd be a hopping tropical forest frog, but the sentiment's the same.

My requirements of tokyo were two-fold - get stuff and get recharged. within 2 hours i'd completed the mission of renewing my iPod for a new one, free of charge, and collected my passport with visa enclosed. what followed was a great day trudging through shinjuku, a big shopping district, and eating. the evening started with a trip to a pub serving steak pie and chips. and it was goooood.

We headed out to find some nightlife, and came across a rather ickle club with a maximum capacity of about 150, playing a mix of house and electronica, exactly the sort of thing thats devastatingly lacking in toyama. the fact that we were the only foreigners there, topped by how everyone seemed to already know each other, really managed to make for a mildly uncomfortable atmosphere to begin with, but once it filled out a bit more and a silent movie was put on, it was beyond noticeable.

Yes, a silent movie. one of the club's crew seemed to be a bit of an amateur film maker, and the next half an hour saw a film about an office lady being stalked by a guy in a pink bunny suit, and eating mushrooms, set to electronic house. one of the more bizzarrely satisfying experiences i've had in japan. then we danced the night away, and my legs regretted it on sunday, even though we taxiied it back, much more cheaply than i had expected, and much faster than i have felt in a long time. people in tokyo can drive. in toyama they most definitely can not.

Sunday was spent with more of the same, shopping in very cool areas of tokyo and watching the kids dress up, followed by a mammoth all-you-can-eat (i doubt they made any money off us in the end!) and a stop off at the american pharmacy to stock up on about 1kg of sweets, before training it back home, laughing hysterically all the way.

And i now know for sure that toyama is, in fact, the armpit of japan. even in the opinion of japanese personages. proof?

1) the lady exchanging my ipod, upon gaining knowledge of our toyaman status let out an "oh". i couldn't be sure if it was an "oh, i have connections with that place too!" or "oh, you poor bastards!"
2) the lady at the hostel visibly pitied us when we wrote our addresses, though this might have something to do with my ongoing mental block whereby i must check my diary before i can write it.
3) rachel, actually recieved a verbal "oh, i'm so sorry" from a guy after answering his query about where we lived. and he was homeless.

Interestingly enough though, even with the realisation that toyama is, in fact, a hole, tokyo has helped me start the grappling clawing out of culture shock, so i believe. getting away from it for awhile and have everything go so inexplicably right for 2 days was what i needed, and having 2 solid days with my travelling companions provided me with the unabridged muppetry and general making a fool of oneself i had missed these past 3 months. i doubt that will have been my only taste of culture shock, at the moment i feel i can expect it to return a few more times, and keep coming back till i actually leave. but all that could change.

I am currently experiencing my first cold of the season. today i sneezed hyperproductively over myself, my desk, the students and their work. what an achievement.

Yesterday one of the pool attendants stopped to talk to me as i paused for breath, the usual interchange of "where are you from" included, and then asked how far i swim every day. i was definitely pleased for the conversation (funnily enough, japanese conversation is something sorely lacking in my life, i've only recently become what i consider to be able at it, but none of my co-workers know, so they keep babying it up for me, and i can't find anything suitable to start a conversation up with them with) and maybe it's just me but i feel somewhat odd chatting to a stranger while wearing something soaking wet and clinging to every bump and crevice between my neck and my hip.

Doh dear. di've dust found a thnot puddle on by thleeve.

Some kid was hauled into the staff room earlier, hands restrained behing her back, screaming like no sound i've ever heard before. this went on for a good 10 minutes with her thrashing about like a drowning goldfish before she was subdued / worn out enough to risk being taken downstairs to be (probably) tied down in the nurses office and told several times to calm down. trying to find out what happenned led me to this conversation:

me: um, that girl earlier, is she ok?
supervisor: i, um, think so. she's still calming down.
me: it was over an hour ago.
s: yes me: what happenned?
s: i'm not sure but she got excited. maybe she had an argument with the teacher.
me: i've never seen anything like that. it's as though she was on drugs.
s: umm. i don't think she was on drugs.
me: naturally psychotic?
s: yes.

Earl gray made it all better for me.

ESCAPE ALERT!!!
Whoop di whoop whoop and a shoobadi *sneeze* shoop, i'm off to shanghai in 1 week! before then i get the honour of playing the piano for the school festival, which i'm sure will go hilariously badly, but hey, 3 minutes of embarrassment then i'm out of there. by the time i get back they'll have forgotten. joy!

shocking culture

2005-10-04T13:36:00.000Z

Marathon day. poor kids, 4.4km for the girls, 7.7 for the boys. some managed it in pretty impressive times, though when we talked about it later, none had enjoyed it. still. they got an afternoon off from lessons and, in exactly the same manner as last year, got mildly rained on.

At the disabled school i work at on mondays there's kids with a whole range of issues. some have severe physical disabilities (total paralysis) while others have mental instabilities. i was shocked on monday to see one of my students with fresh (blood still soaking through the bandage) slash marks up her arm, where last week i saw 3 or 4 day old scars. i felt myself going lightheaded as i sat down for the lesson. not happy about that.

I've just finished the homework assignments for the linguistics and pedagogy course month 2, of which one assignment was to write an essay. so here it is, my very first japanese essay, written after 14 months of study, all by my very self, taking a mere (!) 4 hours to compose and another hour to re-write in neat. the topic was the usual rubbish of "something you found difficult as first in japan but have now gotten used to", so i wrote about how people keep asking awkward questions which back home would be considered private, and about sugihara "wasting your time" sensei and how he got that name (accusing me i was wasting my time on the jet programme because i'm pharmacologically trained and should have gone straight to a lab job not some airy-fairy english thing). joy!

In other news it would appear that i'm in the full blown phase of culture shock. i figure i've been lucky not getting it till now, or unlucky depending on how you look at it, but there you go.

But what is culture shock?

According to the JET general information handbook i lugged from the UK with me, its a wave of 4 stages which repeats itself as necessary. like wash, rinse and repeat:

1. Initial Euphoria a.k.a. "honeymoon stage"
Positive mindset, high expectations, all new things are intriguing and exciting, similarities between the host and home cultures stand out, and the new arrival is generally impressed with how people everywhere are really very much alike.

2. Irritation and Hostility
Focus turns from the similarities to the differences, which suddenly seem to be everywhere, and troubling. you blow up little, seemingly insignificant difficulties into major catastrophies (just like japanese people tend to do then... lydia). This is the stage generally identified as culture shock. Often feel homesick and have a negative attitude towards the host culture.

3. Gradual adjustment
Blah blah yadda yadda, culture becomes familiar again, worst part is over, sense of humour returns, realise the situation is not hopeless afterall blah blah blah.

4. Adaptation and Biculturalism
Full recovery, finding things you enjoy/adopt. blah.

At present i'm in phase 2, hating everything around me. it's quite odd to be seeing japan from this perspective, remembering how i once thought there was no way you could hate everything about a country, and yet now from this side of the fence, where arguably the grass is greener because i don't care enough to inspect it, i can't imagine how i ever didn't hate everything around me in this "country". for those of you crying out for concrete examples, rather than make this a droning account of an exhaustive list of moans, my selected favourite hate for the day is:

Banking.
Japan, in all her wisdom, doesnt understand the concept of "user friendly banking". i've been here for 14 months now and i've just done my first unaided bank transfer. though i needed a 12 page a4 guide help me do it. and even then the machine kept bloody beeping at me because i was taking too long. what's wrong with internet banking?

The odd thing is, that as far as i know i didnt come out with unrealistic expectations, i was never "in love" with japan and finding all things new and exciting at the beginning (well, i know i tried to be realistic and accepting but not gushing but hey, i guess sometimes a change does throw one in the deep end of the honeymoon pool), and this is the first time i've fully entered phase 2, which "usually" occurs after 2 months, not 14.

I've been frustrated before, but thats a different categorisation, characterised mostly by knowing that the frustration is as a result of one specific aspect of japan (for me, this was frequently school), as opposed to all of it. this time is different. right now, as far as i can see theres just nothing worth staying for. and thats not a normal outlook. i came home on tuesday and cried for the first time with the hopelessness of how i have to wake up the next day, and a neverending stream of another 10 months, and go through the whole thing again.

I think the reason its only really hitting me now is that the people that formed the support network i came out with have gone, and the new network isn't working yet. i just know that all i've been trying to do for the last 5 weeks is get out of toyama for 1 damned weekend and everytime i get closer i get further away again.

By all accounts, i'll either detail all my peeves one by one for all the spammers to comment on and leave me joyous messages of how "xxx relieves even the most stubborn of period pains" (yeah, so does a hysterectomy), or i'll leave this phase and start "gradual adjustment" soon enough to spare you. or i just won't see any reason to write 'till i get over it. either way, enjoy the first hand account of the shocking culture of japan!

I mean culture shock in japan.

Thanks ama and mark for the encouraging comments on the last post, and jeremy, ben ben and ben tokyo for additional email support. it helps.

snakes alive and chewing up money

2005-10-02T01:59:00.001Z

My train pass has run out again, meaning no more yukky trains for me! i'm back to cycling and much happier for it. on friday the air was so crisp and mildly foggy that it reminded me of an autumn dawn in london, beautiful. the mountains loomed behind wispy layers of floating water, graduating in depth intensity with distance increase. it looked like someone had photoshopped the landscape, and then, because it's japan, added in a few electricity lines for good measure. the mountains' natural beauty coupled with the governments determination to ruin it impresses me. i wonder how soon the leaves will turn.

I've started playing in a band which is comfortably giving me something to do for 2 more evenings. the keyboard nicely both fills out the bassline and gives some interesting overtones, but its difficult to hear it when the speaker that services it is on the other side of the room and the guitar amps are next to me... the real fun lies in playing the saxophone though, and its definitely a steep learning curve for me! i still haven't learned where all the sharps and flats are so its a lot of fumbling through the keys at present - very jazz-like i thought.

So currently my rent is sitting a full week late, and while i would love to have paid it earlier there was only one day when i had the time to do so, so then i went. the problem is that for the first time in my entire life's experience, the cash machine i pay through not only chewed up 4 of the £50 notes but clean ripped one of them, making it now totally valueless tender in the everyday world. so now i have to make time to go back to the bank (between 9am and 4pm) to explain that (unbelievably) one of their machines defaced my money and can they swap it for me? grr.

The school had an inspection day by the local board of education last friday, which of course resulted again in a timetable mess-up and a frenzy of student cleaning and teacher panic. this year they didnt ask me to present a lesson to the inspectors, which surprised me as last year they insisted i did, and the lesson got a good response.

However, they DID ask me to be present at the discussion meeting that ensued, and to give my opinions of asai "on your planet" sensei's lesson we had watched earlier. and surprisingly, for the japanese stereotype where foreigners and tolerated in companies but not treated as equals and therefore have no input, they actually really wanted to hear my opinions. that was a weird feeling. kind of nice though.

After maeda "erroneous theraurus" sensei's blunderous 2 minutes of nothing but praise giving and self-deprication, consisting mostly of "i was very impressed, he put a lot of work into this (for once), i could never do such a thing", i decided to make this meeting more worthwhile and actually allow some progress to be made by voicing my true opinions. now those of you who know that i have many-a-time received the description "confrontational" thanks to my lack of fear of asking questions and expressing a disbelief at seemingly unfounded theories at university, are probably worrying that actually the way i expressed my opinions means i am probably job-less right now, and owing to my current dissatisfaction with said job it probably wouldn't surprise you if i'd done it with the intention of ruffling some feathers. however, this is not the case.

I must say, i did the obligatory precursoral amount of ass-kissing before stating delicately that "as with everything in life, there are areas which could be improved, mainly levels of student participation" and left it at that - my other criticisms i knew there would be time to introduce in another part of the meeting under the guise of "wouldn't it be great if we...". oh yes. queen tact. and actually, they really went for it. my single suggestion opened the flood gate and suddenly tsukashima sensei from the board of education (she helps run the jet programme in toyama) was openly throwing criticism left right and centre, in a torrent of never-ending words and stern expressions. i developed a new-found respect for this lady. she's amazing.

Formula 1 is fast approaching - just 1 weekend away, but it appears that this year i will not be among the crowds. this makes me slightly sad but actually, i'm more relieved that i don't have to organise it. and i don't honestly think anything can top last years experience. best to end on a high note.

So instead i may push forward my tokyo trip to that weekend, as it's a long one, provided i can find hostel rooms. i want to go mainly because my ipod needs replacing, the screen is acting up beyond belief, so this week i will mosty be transferring files onto the schools computers as my laptop has just... 123mb free at the moment. joy. my other travel plans are to shanghai at the beginning of november, 4 days of shanghai madness and really really cool people. i can't wait. and thanks to the sudden disallowal of applying for visas by post, the time between now and then (32 days) will be all the more exciting by figuring out how to deal with that!

But first i have to go pay my rent.

a chilly 27

2005-09-24T07:36:00.000Z

Long weekends are a great opportunity to travel japan/asia and see some stuff. sadly, when a lond weekend is preceeded by the longest and most difficult week imaginable, it leaves planning the weekend itself near on impossible, not a good plight when hostel rooms tend to book out stupidly early. so yes, i was pretty peeved to be wasting one long weekend, and the fact that it was compounded by being followed by another long weekend i had no plans for just took the biscuit a bit. mmm. biscuit.

So i spent the weekend acutely aware of how the rice harvesting was happenning, and remembering the plans i'd had to photograph the crops every 2 weeks to make a biweekly visual of rice progress. ah well, i guess i can tell myself that would only have been one step above watching paint dry on the boredom scale.

Instead i took part in the time honoured tradition of hip-hopping to the skibbidy dibbidy beat of the japanese deck, followed by a night of karaoke at which singing celine dion with a japanese accent is fast becoming a firm favourite, which was topped with meeting and getting-on extremey well with a fellow JETs visiting family member.

It's strange, i still feel a great loss for my friends who returned to the uk in august (though i'm very happy for them), compounded by the fact that there is still no-one here i can see becoming quite that close to (and i try to remember whether or not i'd had the vibe from michelle, nic and tess this time last year and while i can't be sure, i'm pretty certain we were already on fairly firm grounding), and suddenly one random weekend someone pops up who seems to already fill the mutual understanding gap that the british 3 left behind, and lo and behold, the hilarity that exists in the fact that this weekend appartition lives in shanghai is not lost on me.

At times like this homesickness is replaced by understandingsickness, heightened by my exponentially sharp decline in tolerance for niggling annoyances, like the teacher that apologetically and quielty informs me of something but can never do it with just one set of words - she is fast becoming maeda "erroneous thesaurus" sensei. then there's sugihara "wasting your time" sensei with his questions that probe into my personal life (which i don't mind but for the fact that he always asks with the air that my responses will be used in some class or other and is inevietably always dissappointed with my answers) - and he also has emPHAsis issues:

"are you STAying in jaPAN this WINter?" "no, i'm going home" "ahh, *nod nod nod*"
"do you exerCISE in your CONdo?" "no, i go to the gym" "oh, *nod nod nod"
"do you have aNY pets like a CAT OR a dog?" "well, i have a fish, and i've killed 6 others" "mmm *nod nod nod*"

Of course there's also the actual teaching itself, my students don't want to learn english, there will never be any use in them knowing the english that is taught to them at this stage, and my lessons don't even entertain them for the hour each week this pointless language is rammed down their throats, so one might forgive me for feeling my entire existence in japan is ever so slightly pointless. i seriously question my decision of having stayed a second year, but frustratingly, i know that had i gone home i would be kicking myself for leaving so soon when i haven't visited as much as i wanted, and i still want to learn the language in an immersion environment. is this culture shock?

On that note, the japanese itself is going well, i need to review the kanji (chinese characters) i've done so far, which is what this long weekend has been half-heartedly set aside for. that and excercise. so of course when i went swimming today only to find that once again the 50m pool is inconveniently closed for a junior high school competition, i smiled and shook my head at the country that is japan.

The summer has thankfully passed, bringing fresh breezes and cooler temperatures. actually, inspecting my thermometer reveals the temperature to be around the 27 degree mark, by all accounts a hot summers day in the uk, yet i am shivering and cursing the use of air conditioning in shops. it's true that i didn't find this summer anywhere near as oppressive as the last, in fact, i don't remember needing to complain even once, which is the aim i had in mind in it's preceeding months, but now i worry that my thermal perception has been set to a higher level and that i will in fact die this winter. 16 weeks to find out... bring on the snow!

stockinged faces and the way of the we

2005-09-21T05:54:00.000Z

Surprisingly, sports day passed by rather un-typhoon-like. how very dissappointing. what wasn't dissapointing however, was the after party for the teachers that ensued, where teams were made, food and drink enjoyed and many silly silly games were played. you can't beat staff bonding parties!

Sports day in the UK is a much more low-key affair than in japan, much less time is wasted (and i use that term without guilt, i was always more of a bookworm than a runner), and events don't change from one year to the next, so when in my first year i decided i didn't like sports day, i knew it would seem pointless for the next 6 years.

Last year i was amazed at just how much time goes into the preparation and engineering of such events, and i found it hard to see how japan (for it's not just within my school) can possibly justify the vast quantity of time that sports day takes out of academic learning. and its not just sports day that has this incredible ability to procrastinate the teaching of even the most exciting and interesting (and i'm not pretenting i mean english) lessons; in 2 weeks the students avoid school with half a day of "marathon" (as well as its' practice sessions and days) around the town, the school cultural festival in 4 weeks sees that the young ones' brains are currently engaged in the memorisation of 1 or 2 songs for an inter-class choral contest, after which there will probably be sport-specific days like football day or ping-pong day, in addition to ball sports day (!) in late may.

Rather than remaining cynical about them and becoming a twisted, bitter westener in a senseless eastern world, i attempted to brainstorm a life use for such events. sure the kids and teachers are happier when an event is afoot, and while i could probably put this down to the occurrence that at such times lessonal monotony adherence fails, but surely there must be something more to it?

Under the influence of such events and the leniency of academic work, i worry that the kids will graduate under the impression that anything required of them will co-exist with copious amounts of time, allowance for sloppiness and an abundance of helpers, rather than the order of "do this perfectly, by yesterday, and it's not to interfere with your other pile of work, nor anyone else for that matter", that is reality.

It wasn't until later that i remembered that western and japanese societies differ somewhat - japan is famed for being a unitarian society, no "i", only "we". decisions are made by a board, carried out by a group, and supported by the people. never does one person make a decision, and never is a decision made for one person. and should anyone struggle against the grain, sense though his argument may have, he is considered selfish.

This system is in place everywhere, from big companies, to schools, to the family domain. while a home may technically see the father as the head of the family, it is most common that the finances are controlled (though not earned) by the mother, and any decisions made are made as a family - involving the children, such as what furniture is bought, family outings and grandma is sick style "what shall we do's". in this way, schools and universities prepare the populations' youth to be perfect little citizens by the time they are allowed out into society and considered contributing members thereof, when they get a job.

Far be it from me to criticise this system, i think the "we" mentality is extremely important and effective for japanese society, but i worry what should happen if bad eggs should ever come to power on the boards. can we expect a japanese re-enactment of china as portrayed in "wild swans", or have the japanese enough "against the grain"-ness bottled up, waiting to be released in a fighting torrent should the need arise?

This is something we may never be able to guess at but rather would need to witness. i suggest that for their next prime minister the japanese elect mr. bush. pass me the popcorn, darling...

bacon, cheese and chips

2005-09-07T12:32:00.000Z

Typhoon number 14 (Nabi - which funnily enough is a type of food methinks) is the first this year to affect toyama, affording a still-water clear view of the expansive mountains, and tinging the air with the smell of frazzles - puffed bacon crisps from back home. i was instantly hungry.

And once again my school has managed to schedule sports day and its practice day right at the same time. the prognostic powers and out-door activity willingness throughout such seemingly predicted bad weather is astounding. "so you want to know if there will be a typhoon next september 8th? let me check... yes, the calendar says the school has scheduled a sport day for that time so there will definitely be a typhoon then. have a nice day now."

I have shunned practice this year in favour of a less windy, quiet staff room in which to study. actually i'd much rather be outside trying out a variety of new hairstyles a la the force of nature, but unsurprisingly, there is a veritable mountainload of chinese characters i am technically supposed to know by tomorrow evening's japanese lesson, and seeing as tomorrow the rains will come with the typhoon - therefore we will most certainly be outside pretending that the rain soaking the students to the bone is "all in your mind", this is all the time i have. and i wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for myself anyway.

As of july, the JET intake for toyama was decreased by about 10 or 15 people from 120, so many of us now work at more than one school. last monday i did my first day at my new addition, the disabled school that caters for toyama-cities' 4-17 year old disabled students. the range of disabiities is enormous, from paralysed kids who can only gurgle, moan and bang things, kids with manic depressive disorders, and those with mild mobility problems, making the range of teaching techniques as inconsistent as imaginable.

I have a lot of anxiety about this new addition to my timetable, mostly because i'm not entirely sure i can offer the right amount of sensitivity (the balance between not being too "in your face" and being so withdrawn as to appear freaked out), which i think stems from a fear appearing patronising to people.

Either way, monday's search for the balance left me exhausted and confused: the physical condition of the 6 year olds was genuinely frightening - steven hawking-esque, with 1 inch thick limbs, and making a 13 year old manic depressive get up and walk out of class in tears because the introduction consisted of talking about my family, of which hers consists of (as far as i can understand) a mother in a mental institution, an absent father and a step-father who abuses her sister, was enough to leave me reeling in a wake of harsh realisation.

But even that feels wrong - having so far spent one year as one of the local viewing attractions, i am all to conscious of how uncomfortable it can be to be treated differently, and am anxious not to be a perpetrator of the same mistake. but then again, these kids, in their lifetime, have always stood out, so is this their norm and by trying to treat them as fully able-bodied/minded people would i actually be treating them differently, and therefore insensitively? the circle is endless.

Last weekend we partied like it was 1999 in world heritage houses, huge houses which used to house many families back in the day, with thathced rooves infested with bugs to bite legs. again the valley setting offered beautiful mist covered mountains in the morning, after a heart-warming campfire and beer the night before. the return journey saw a remake of the song "blue (daba di daba daii)" by eiffel 65, an old favourite. it now sings (courtesy of the "rental mazda 4"):

i'm blue, i like cheese on french fries,
have them to go, and big sized.
i can eat 12 mince pies,
then throw up, they're my demise.
i like setting up fires
they give me a real rise
and a couple of highs.

i'm blue, there's a guy who likes ties
he has blue and green eyes.
coloured contacts he buys
but they get wrecked by the flies.
this guy hates bees and hives
but he sure knows his wines
so he keeps many vines.

and so forth.

cloudy othello

2005-08-28T12:22:00.000Z

Over 3 days toyama orientated the newly arrived, there was a stifling day of seminars, a half day of regional meetings and a climb up mount tate. as usual, the climb was greeted with copious amounts of clouds, even though this is apparantly the best weather the excursion has been met with from the last 6 years. regardless of that, i opted out of the chracter building climb and into the sulphur onsen (hot spring) instead.

Fully refreshed, heated up and smelling of egg we returned to town, taking some stunning shots on the way - true it was the least cloudy excursion day for 6 years but this doesn't mean there were no clouds. i like clouds. stunning.

Every school in toyama with a high level of english runs english camps for interested students, at which guest ALTs (me) run workshops and talk to the kids. i took part in a 2 day event at tessa's old school with the kids i had met at the same event last november. the highlight for me was larning to play "othello", a game whose origin i am unsure of, but also goes by the name of "black and white". in a way it's like drafts (draughts?), but with pieces black on one side and white on the other, flipped as and when they are posessed by a player. highly highly addictive.

buddhas and brass bands

2005-08-14T15:27:00.000Z

Takaoka city in toyama is famed for a bronze buddha that ranked at third or fourth largest in japan but for some dispute that it (or the one ranking just above it) doesn't count because it was erected recently and specifically for the purpose of becoming the 3rd largest... something-or-other. rankings are so important in japan. whole tourist economies are based around them. anyhow, as it stands (sits), the one in takaoka city is particularly beautiful around the time of the rare and beautiful full moon. please be careful to enjoying of it.

The school lies virtually deserted as the majority of the teachers take leave for o-bon, the major japanese festival in august. o-bon is a time when the memory of those deceased is honoured, their souls returning to life within the family domain for a few days. the lighting of lanterns outside the home help the spirits to find their way back to their loved ones, and at the end of their stay, families float tiny boats laden with the spirits' favourite food to sustain him for the journey, and a tea-light. the boats are released over the ocean and the food, light and tide help guide the spirit back to the underworld. it's a good time for me to reflect on the recent loss of my great aunt and grandpa, as well as the upcoming anniversary of my grandma, and i'd like to think that some part of their spirits are currently experiencing this japanese tradition. a wave of homesickness creeps up on me.

It seems fitting that as the official time of return approaches the skies should open and bring forth a torrent. after a night of heavy downpour i am fully braced for a day of the same, and thinking back to the joyous, snow filled winter i am reminded that japan doesn't do precipitation by halves.

The rain has brought with it a 28 degrees C air, far more comfortable than the 80% humidity 38 degrees of former weeks. the air had smelled heavily not only of sweat but also rice, a though the heat and humidity were both growing and cooking the crops at the same time.

Last friday saw the "34th annual concert of oyama senior high school. please come and see the 34th at 6.30 in the town hole". so to the drab, grey town hole i went for an evening of brass-bandage. among a selection of classical works, a scottish jig was semi-successfully attempted on drums and flutes, and a 20 minute choreographed square-dance march with instruments provided the opportunity for many students to be hit over the head by a trombone. i smiled. not only from enjoyment and memories of my own secondary school orchestra and friends, but also from a hint of pride at the accuracy of the band (trumpeters excluded). yes. accuracy.

But where was the feeling?

welcomage of japan

2005-08-06T15:37:00.000Z

The last 2 weeks have brought a plethora of welcome events for the recently arrived, in the midst of which lay an establishment at which we suspect the food had something to do with the wave of stomach matter-bringing-uppage of many JETs, leading to a conversation i had with one:

me: hi! i'm lydia!
alt: hey, how're you doing?
shake hands
me: wow! your hand are really soft...
alt: yeah, i just threw up...

It's interesting to see their reaction the their new lives, some choosing to remain as they were, some choosing to japanify themselves immediately, but everyone hurling themselves whole-heartedly at their chosen routes. it makes me think back to what my first month was like, the highs and the lows, and i wonder if i stood outside of myself and looked, what genuine reaction to japan of mine i would actually see. internally i remember finding the heat and humidity unbearable and the lack of english input with my non-existent japanese frustrating. i'd like to think that i accepted the culture with an open mind but i know that the majority of my reaction consisted of lapping it all up like some freak show, a world apart from the culture and customs i came from. i still do. i think that the day i stop holding it and examining it at arms length, wearing latex gloves and gingerly teasing it with a scalpel, will be the day i could consider keeping japan as my home beyond this temporary life i am leading, and i seriously doubt i would ever choose to do that.

I have, however, chosen to take a step further into trying to understand japan, and have started actual japanese lessons with an actual japanese teacher, one who specialises in examination preparation. the lessons follow a mind-numbing drill which while unvaried, are certainly systematic, and i know i'm working hard when i leave a lesson feeling like i've been beaten around the head with a pick-axe. once again i have entered myself into the official proficiency test, at a level i know in theory is possible but in practice would require the sort of dedication and natural language ability i'd like to possess but seriously doubt i do. as usual, i am doing this for the motivation to study it gives me, not because i expect to pass.

On that principle i applied for a "linguistics and pedagogy" course run by JET and sat a test, knowing that for a month prior to it my study level had increased, but knowing i was still beneath the required level. so imagine my surprise when having totally forgotten about it, my principal comes and hands me a certificate, closely followed by a 1.7kg B5 package of the first month of study material? oh dear. i passed.

After the initial shock the course material actually presented itself largely in english, and this month focuses on "the japanese life". there's some interesting insights made which help explain a lot of what i've experienced in this last year, such as my advanced-in-years (but not showing it) female english teacher insisting on looking at my chest rather than my eyes when we talk, because up until a few decades ago it was considered an aggressive intrusion on someones' personal domain to look them in the eye, the last thing one wants when requesting or telling something. as a result, some of japan's advanced members seem aloof and rude for the very reason that they are trying to be polite.

How insightful. i'm going to like this course.

orientate me!

2005-07-31T15:49:00.000Z

Towards the end of july i helped out over 5 days in tokyo with orienting the new arrivals into japan. to get to tokyo from toyama, one travels through niigata, where the big earthquake was last year. everytime i travel through it i am reminded not only of that earthquake but also of the sheer beauty of the area - these mountains are just screaming a need for snow! and speaking of natural disasters, japan certainly had a nice little week in store for the new arrivals!

While we were sat in a planning meeting the day before their arrivals, tokyo held witness to the largest earthquake it had felt for 10 years. on the 4th floor out room started to rumble and then sway heavily from side to side, and in the instant i reached out to safetify myself on the seat infront i realised the futility of my actions. considering the hotel was build to withstand 4 times the maximum ever recorded earthquake but still swayed so much, i could only wonder what it must have felt like in another building, or on the 42nd floor for that matter.

With threats of aftershocks with which to warn the arrivals, we set off late at night to narita, 2 hours drive away that still, laughably is tokyo's airport, and woke early to attack it in bright orange t-shirts and short shorts, in preparation for the expected 39 degrees, which bafflingly turned a chilly 18. The arrivals did not go without hitch. not only were baggage losses and flight connections missed leading to 24 hour late arrivals present, but so were celebrities. ai-chan, the 16 year old japanese table tennis champion, and the real madrid team, along with david beckham. and this was supposed to be the quieter terminal 2! while thousands of people and photographers crowded around the gates for hours, we struggled to attract the attention of incoming JETs, and lure them to the buses waiting to take them to tokyo.

After a day of 1,500 new arrivals over 15 hours and 2 terminals, we awoke on monday to discover the reason that it had been so unecpectadly cold. a weather system approaching from the south of japan over the philippine sea, headad to tokyo over the next few days. joy!

In our free time we played with the inflatable "finding nemo" toys in the 7th floor rooftop pool, surrounded by skyscrapers and office workers, and a threat of cloud gathering. i also met one last time with kelvin, anna and JP who had gone to kyoto as i came to tokyo, and were now in tokyo for the last leg of their japan trip, before heading off to china. we went to the top of the metropolitan governement building to see what we could see, and after having tried to get myself up there over my last 7 visits to tokyo, i was pleased to finally do so, even if it was to be met by cloud and summer haze that enveloped tokyo like a wet blanket.

Tuesday started with a myriad of typhoon warning announcements that continued throughout the day as its route was ascertained. it was expected to hit tokyo that evening. by midday we had been informed that the embassies that had been planning outdoor events for the newly arrived - new zealand, australia, canada, uk, south africa and so on, had cancelled their nights. no astroturf and sandwiches for us brits then.

Not to be perturbed by a spot of rain however, us toyamans ventured out to the crazy christian/gothic themed restaurant that is the christon cafe, and emerged several hours later with a better understanding of each other, and a facefull of wind. after 4 nights of less than 4 hours sleep i was less than iclined to check the typhoon situation at 3am upon returning to the hotel, but check i did and was met with the news that the airports were on standby for flight cancellations as the typhoon progress seemed to have slowed. more joy!

At 6am i braced myself for an interesting day ahead, trying to get back to toyama, and hesitantly peeled my eyelids open, fell out of bed and crawled to the window, disorientatedly jamming my glasses onto my face. gingerly gripping and sliding the curtains to one side i gasped as i got an eyefull of what lay outside - mountains!

The typhoon had swept over us dragging the haze with it, leaving a stunningly crisp air that afforded a superb view of the mountain range in the distance! i dashed up to 43rd, snap happy with my camera, unable to believe my eyes! i could even see mount fuji enveloped in a ring of fluffy whites, something totally incomprehendable in the average summer haze!

Rejoiced by the clear skies the typhoon sweeping through had caused, the day seemed to be set to become an easy one, and as we coached to the airport bathe in clear skies and light we sang birthday songs and chatted till the flight offered us superb, elevated views of the sprawling mega-city, taking us away from the past crazy days, and into what will be classed as real life for at least another year.

Landing in toyama with a better unerstanding of its geography was like having become a stereotype trainspotter - "look, there's takaoka, that's the jinzu river we're flying over now, i can see my house from here!" a kid at chistmas. i love flying.

So the 5 days ended, as far as i was concerned, by looking at the faces of the arrivals as they saw the sight that met them at the airport. through glass doors, 100 japanese and foreign people waiting to greet the arrivals, most waving welcome signs and some wearing masks with photos of arrivals on them. students, teachers, leaving ALTs, all eager to meet and welcome them to toyama, and the newbies' reactions are always worth every last minute spent in tokyo battling earthquakes, beckhams, aftershocks, cancellations and typhoons.

I went to bed after that.

bristol stylee

2005-07-28T15:00:00.000Z

In the middle of july, 3 of my bristol chums came to japan on the first leg of their tour of asia and (of course) to visit me! after the overnight bus and a train (the smell of sticky salaryman sweat settled on the station) out to the airport i waited with my expertly crafted welcome sign. it was great to see kelvin again, who i'd lived with for a year, and anna and jape who quite often were my only points of sanity outside of a 3 male and me house, though calling either anna or jape sane may well be a severe misrepresentation.

The plans for the next few days were to travel 200km west to himeji from where we would take a ferry to one of the islands on the inland sea, which had the soy sauce museum and monkeys. then onto the big island of shikoku before hopping back to an inland island to see the naruto straits whirlpool and using it to cross back to the main island of honshu and seeing himeji castle, and kobe. well, the best laid plans and all that... what looked like a 5 minute walk to the port on the map ended up being a 90 minute walk, making us miss the ferry and give up on the soy sauce museum and whirlpools, and set us looking for cheap places to stay in himeji.

Himeji is not a cheap place to stay, it does not offer anything beyond japans' best castle by way of tourism, so when we found the cheapest hostel i have ever come across in japan we rejoiced and dealt with the 9pm curfew and lack of air con in 39 degree heat, with pleasure. it certainly was the most interesting place i've ever stayed at. attached to the crumbling baseball stadium, the 3 storey building offered shared washroom facilities (open 7pm-10pm) consisting of 2 cold taps in a concrete room, tatami matted rooms with windows outside which cicadas shrieked incessantly, staircases with precariously low, advancing ceilings, and a kitchen.

I decided to look into the kitchen for interests' sake, and turning the lights on and taking 2 large steps in i found myself stood in the middle of a concrete room with several benches and sinks in rows across it, and 2 fully grown, black cockroaches, frozen from motion, on the floor. i had never seen a fully grown cockroach before so these creatures fascinated me, and as i peered at these two, out of the corner of my eye i sensed movement to my right. them to my left. 2 more cockroaches. then another, and several on the taps and suddenly, accustomed to the light again, the whole room started to scuttle and crawl and climb and run and i backed away very slowly, turned around, switched off the light, closed the door and went up to bed.

In the morning we visited the castle and grounds which took an interesting 2 hours, then went to himeji park to introduce the bristol 3 to green tea ceremony. as they injested the tea and braved the sickeningly sweet bean paste in clear jelly to which i have now become accustomed, i laughed inside at how disgusted their faces betrayed them to be. oh its so fun to have people to play with. and so started my mission to introduce them to as many japanese foods they might dislike as possible. 1-0 to me.

In the evening we headed to osaka and stayed again in a youth hostel attached to a stadium, and never have 2 youth hostels or stadiums been so apart in quality than osaka and himeji. osaka has an olympic qualifying sports complex with sumo rings, swimming pool and 2 stadiums (among other things), of which in the walls of one lay the hostel. due to overbooking we stayed us four in a conference room with real beds and made as much noise as we wanted, made the air as cold as we liked, and it was good.

Osaka is one of the major industrial cities of japan and having been completely rebuilt after WWII has little to offer in the way of historical tourism. instead, we trecked out in the sweltering heat and blinding sunshine to an impressive trading building with a viewing floor, and spent a pleasant hour planning future movements over a view of the ocean and osaka city.

Over lunch i introduced my chums to daifuku, the beanpaste in ricedough muck my teachers rammed down my throat and i'd gagged at a year before, much to the same reaction. again, i laughed. 2-0.

We headed over to amerikamura in osaka, and area where the kids hang out and try to be american, to quite some success, if a little outdated - the impression is one of having been thrown back in the 80's with crazy outfits and bongos. i exposed my chums to squid-in-dough balls. they liked those. 2-1. In the evening we headed to nara, japans' second most historical city, and took a walk around the famous pagodas at sunset, and dined on udon noodles (tasty) and sake (rice wine, not so tasty - too strong). the score stood at 2 the them, 3 to me.

The next day we walked a 5km temple course around nara and saw not only some truly incredible temples but also many many deer, roaming happily throughout the city. at "daibutsuden" (big buddha) temple, we were amazed by the entry gate at which enormous and highly detailed wooden carved and very scary monoliths glared over all who passed. we saw the largest indoor bronze seated buddha in japan if not the world, and at 13m tall it was truly impressive. also within the temple is a wooden pillar with a narrow hole carved in the base, with the legend that all those that successfully pass through the whole will become enlightened. well. how can one resist? after cramming my shoulders and hips into the whole and making it somehow to the other side i did indeed emerged enlightened, enlightened that i would never do that again.

And so to toyama we returned. i think the bristolians were rather alarmed by the size of my apartment, i realised this for certain when kelvin, after half an hour, asked: "so where's the bedroom then?". "um, you're in it". we went to my school for summer closing ceremony and the kids impressed and scared us all with the military style cheerleading that is prevalent throughout japan. my principal surprised us all by showing how sexist his and the views of many older japanese men still are, and the vice principle put on a truly astounding performance of kendo (japanese sword practices) and shorinji kempo, a self-defence martial art i had attempted 2 years running at university, and quit 2 years running at university because it hurt so much. of course my vice principal knows this (they know everything there is to know about me, often before i know it myself), and has "invited" me (told me) to learn kempo again with him and the first years starting in september.

Can i request someone from home sends me some strong painkillers please?

To top it off we sampled the best sushi japan has to offer, right on the shores of himi, toyama. and how can one resist when it comes so irresistable proffered as a caterpillar? not we.

goodbye cakes

2005-07-13T22:04:00.000Z

Last weekend we partied in honour of those that would soon be leaving us. it started in town with a stunning sunset.

The setting of the weekend was a remote part of the prefecture that while only about 40km away took an hour (or 4 in some cases) to drive, owing to windy windy roads and poor japanese signage. we started off the evening with a trip to the local onsen (public bath) and took in the stunning view over the valley whilst soaking in hot water and bathing in the cool breeze as the rain fell around us. sadly, as people get naked there, i don't have any photos - they're a bit funny about cameras.

I had made a cake to mark the sad sad time of their leaving, and so after washing and returning to the site, i presented it, somberly, before we disfigured, dismembered and ate it. it was yum. butter icing is the best thing since sliced bread methinks.

And then the festivities began. we made 2 very very good fires, made yaki-soba - a staple japanese dietary requirement of fried buckwheat noodles with meat and cabbage, wrote silly goodbye things to leavers (it descended into school-age humour of course) and took photos. many of which look the same.

The digital age. without it michelle and i would never have known how we look to our students...

This coming weekend my chums from bristol arrive, and i'm whisking them off to himeji, home of japans best castle, some island on the inland sea for monkeys and soy sauce museums (they do soy sauce flavoured ice-cream :)) and nara, dubbed japans second most historical city.

Yay! (i admit, ice-cream i'm so excited about).

wax on, wax off

2005-07-01T14:36:00.000Z

Happy birthday blog!!! it's made it a year now. to think it all started with cake.

Every summer the floors at my school get re-waxed, by the students. this is one of the rare opportunities to see the kids actually on their hands and knees, scrubbing the floors like the stereotype claims they do everyday. this is not to say they don't clean at all on a normal basis, everyday the class cleans its classroom (a quick sweep), and people are allocated to cleas the staffroom (a token gesture of running through with a hoover, barely skimming the surface), the corridors (a not-so-thorough sweep) and the toilets (a quick spray of hose-pipe water around the whole room, leaving it not only wet, but mysteriously smelling like urine in a way that was never a problem while it was dry).

For 3 days the kids scrubbed, rinsed and waxed the floors, and while i'd love to say the school looks better for it, actually they did a fairly shoddy job. i now notice patches of poor workmanship i had not noticed before. poor floor. but it was fun to see them pour water down stairs.

As the rainy season kills the oppressive heat, the smell that results from wet hot dust throws me back into last summer, and at times i feel like the new foreigner again. it's almost as though my levels of japanese have reverted to pre-japan levels as well, and my brain struggles to remember that i have been here a year and i do know what i'm doing. the power of smell is truly impressive.

The first of july is prefecture-wide air-con turning on day, the day from which schools and offices are officially allowed to use said apparatus, for while it was uncomfortably hot in june (mid 30's) and while now the temperature has dropped back to a cool 25 thanks to the rains, it is deemed "time for air connage". my school struggled with the few clear minded people on its staff who realised that yes, we're allowed it but actually it's cooler with the windows open, and the eye-drying machines were turned on and off no fewer than 3 times in this battle. i escaped to the library for sanctuary, where, upon seeing me the librarian insisted i must be hot and should she put the air con on? i said "no, it's ok", and the air con came on. this is when i worked out that saying "no it's ok/i'm ok" in japanese actually means "no, yes please do". that only took 11 months.

In little under a month the new arrivals arrive, and i say goodbye to the friends i've made over the past year, who are managing to escape back to the land of fish and chips. well done ye on your escape, say i. i'm looking forward to what the new year will bring, i hope to see more of japan. equally i am looking forward to the snow again. just 24 more weeks.

I've been asked to help out at tokyo orientation, a 5 day conference for the new arrivals in tokyo, to prepare them and welcome them to japan. i've been really excited about it, but this morning it dawned on me that should any toyamans become lost, it'll be up to me to find them. i think i'll tie them together...

rainy season

2005-06-30T14:31:00.000Z

So the rainy season started at the weekend, a month later than everyone was expecting but there you go. and so ends my cycle to school for the next 3 months, 1.5 while the streets get drenched day in, day out, and 1.5 months while the sun and humidity make it hard to breathe at resting. i am looking forward to "the big sweat".

While the river swelled and looked vastly different from its usual appearance of silent, humble trickle to scarily full and worryingly fast, the local wildlife decided it had also had enough and hopped on my train. i wonder if frogs get a discount ticket like children?

courgettes and tea

2005-06-24T14:34:00.000Z

The mountains are loking stunning behind a veil of half mist, half wispy cloud. the air is crisp and threatening rain. almost like being at home but you don't get quite the same view.

Somedays i like to look at the world from a different angle. i put my head down on my desk and look at the teachers walk by a background of a whiteboard covered in obscure, scrawled symbols, and wonder how guilty i should feel if i fell asleep, of how much more comfortable this pastime would be if i brought a pillow.

It's about this time that i start thinking a cup of tea would be nice, and while i ponder over the benefits of darjeeling over earl gray, and remember that it makes no difference as i don't have any darjeeling with me, i watch as the office lady slides into view, lifts the kettle lid, peers inside to what i can only imagine looks like a full fettle of hot, boiled water, and sensing that i was thinking of lifting my head and making some tea, she slips the cord out and slides out of view, taking my lifeline with her. in under a minute she reappears, bearing a cold, dead kettle, likely to be as equally full as it was before. i lift and drop my head against the green, flexible plastic protector 3 or 4 times. i've run out of sugar anyway.

I was astounded to find a courgette in my supermarket the other day, i've been searching for them (to no avail) for 11 months now, yet there it was, in the bargain bin. they must have confused it with an order of oversized cucumber (the average cucumber here is incredibly thin), and the toyama local population, not knowing the world of the courgette, shunned it. i enjoyed.

charataaaay

2005-06-18T14:19:00.000Z

Back in whenever it was, the days of innocence or something, 2 kaufmans’, 2 daves’ and a josh got together and created a blasphemous re-write of “charlie and the chocolate factory”, adapted for an audience that would consist (hopefully) of japanese kids and non-kids, proud of japan, and we foreigners, who don’t know any better. while i have no doubts that Dahl turned in his grave enough to bore his way out, he never found us to tell us to stop, so we kind of continued. for 6 months of rehearsals we trudged through snow, cherry blossoms and stupid heat to meet each week, neigh, twice a week, to revel in each others company and slowly, as it all started to stick, we got better. a bit.

So now i have seen 3 of japan’s 4 beautiful seasons (didn’t you know that you can only see the seasons here?) from the viewpoint of being pressed up against a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass in a rehearsal hall in some backwater town, banging my head against it, trying to get out. and what a time it was. along the way we found a supremely capable props queen and her 7 dwarves to take care of all our giant spoon and rice parcel needs with speed and finesse surpassed to none, a costume knightess in shining armour to save the day with orange overalls, a trend set to sweep the nation (look out you harajuku girls, your days are numbered… mu hu hu hu hu hu huuuuuu….. “ahk-cough”), a load of new vocabulary we never new existed (don’t ever give up on the goo finesse), and the stage-hands we pretentious “ak-tours” had been promised from the start to suffer the back-pain for us. no-one saidit would be easy. on them.

But zip forward, if you will, to june 19th, a day that will forever be etched into my mind without fail or error as the day of the performance of the greatest, bestest, most awesomest show on earth, in the history of mankind! wait wait… sorry, 18th.

As i recall the skies were clear, it was a bright and balmy day with temperatures in the high twenties, a north-westerly breeze caressing the tree-tops that had long ago given up the blossoms in favour of the rare and beautiful green leaves, and as one cycled the paved streets of toyama with a bag full of talcum powder and fudge, one noticed things one had not noticed before – the tweet of a bird, the blue of the sky. the lack of sleep that makes the world appear as though through the eyes of a drugged, crazed lunatic is truly astounding.

On with the costumes, on with the make up (blimey, ross, you make one pretty boy – you’ve done this before, haven’t you?!), on with performance one, the dress rehersal. this went smooth as. smooth with a capital smoo. kind of. there was the slight case of the missing lines and the stage fright-frozen piano fingers from my very own 10 digits, but at least we got the curtain call down. sorta. performance 2 rightly followed, as “2” is wont to do after “1”. the afternoon showing. a few hiccoughs, mainly from worry that the audience is a bit thin on the ground (not helped by my teacher leaving inthe interval after the variety show thinking that was the end, despite announcements in both english and japanese, yes, i do worry sometimes), and we made a kid cry it was just...that...scary… but what a feeling! (bein’s believin’, i can’t have it all now i’m dancing for my life…) after this one is over you can feel the buzz, everyone’s high (what was in that fudge?), grins showing overwhelming excitement and hiding overwhelming exhaustion plastered on each little shining upturned face, “aww go on dad, give them cake”, time for a quick recharge, and off for the beer we go, before …”BAM”…

There’s performance 3, lurking in the shadows ready to pounce with jaws wide open, gnashers freshly sharpened and dripping with slaver, audience consisting mostly of friends who we know and trust not to heckle us (yeah… right). buzz levels are overboard, we’re on the homestretch and can smell the stench of the sweaty after party… just a few more hours….

The curtain, had there been one, would have gone up to an awesome backdrop which you “couldn’t see” at this time, a laydee in a kimono, and a spotlight on a guy karaokeing to the carpenters. yes, we had it all, the carpenters, famous korean actors, orange-overall-clad oompah loompah's, a strong-man granny, a scary yellow villain, a cow, a dancing bear, a man in a top hat… what more could you want?

Sports with balls

2005-06-10T14:15:00.000Z

Every so often my school, and in fact the whole region, decides it's time for the kids to get active. this time round it was humourously named "ball sports day", a day of football, basketball, and many other ballgames i'm having issues remembering right now.

Of course we start off slow and the kids do a bit of jumping in unison, yes, a whole class through a skipping rope, and i was impressed when one group got to 40. but then i was impressed with any group that got to 3...

After ball sports day we found out that our schools' girls' softball team won the prefectural championships and would be going to tokyo in august to take on other prefectures in the nationals, so the sports peeps and me and a few other honorary sports teachers went out and... got drunk. whilst out i ascertained once and for all that my bike does indeed, hate me.

I have never been particularly clumsy or bad on bikes but it seems my bike here, which i love, does not reciprocate. in december last year i was cycling home after a conference when my foot got caught beneath the pedal as it whizzed downhill, turns out i fractured my foot but ignored it 'cos it was the start of the snowboarding season, i didn't want to be out, and it didn't swell up anyway. same thing happenned a month later and again i ignored it, till 2 months ago i decided it still hurting was not normal. turns out i pulled some ligament, doctor gave me ointment and told me to come back in a month.

Queue present day, 1 month later, 2 days before the check up the bike atacks me again, i have once more stretched a ligament (different one) and am now sporting a nice leg support. joy!

Fishy puppetry

2005-06-08T12:50:00.000Z

After going to bed at 8 on sunday, we got up at 4.30am to go to the fish market. the days catches by this time have been hauled into a huge warehouse in tsukiji, tokyo, and put on display for buyers. i've seen more squid than you could shake a stick at and bigger fish than you can fry, frozen and carted around on huge carts pulled by men. they also had these cute little scooter things that have a pivotal rotation so they're incredibly manouverable and can squeeze around a very tight corner.

After the fish market we felt rightly peckish for sushi, and so we went to the on-site fish market to partake in snapperfish and some other incredibly tasty fish. having satisfied ourselves with this lunch, we looked at our watched to discover it was but 8.30am. hmm.

This still left a good 5 hours before we were due at the conference, so tess, finn and i went to the island of odaiba that i visited in december, and took the monorail around it. still so calm, so peaceful. tess mused that if she worked in tokyo she'd probably, once a week, get up early just to take this monorail and come back. and i heartily agree. it's so calming.

The island, like anywhere else in japan, has a well-equipped shopping mall, so we dipped in to see japans answer to hong kong (a whole 2 floors in the old hong-kong style with restaurants that served tasty if not totally authentic dim-sum at 10o'clock), and a replica of japan in the 1920's. that looked like an interesting if overwhelming place to live. nothing's changed then...

The actual conference turned out to be incredibly useful (even if i did smell of fish...), as well as entertaining. i met up with ben who's a guy i met in london before coming on JET and is based now in tokyo, and finally met his wife who he met out here. i also met the majority it seems of the fukui JETs, a prefecture about 200kms west of toyama, by chancefully sitting next to a guy in the first meeting who's blog i read on a regular basis. it was very surreal. moreso that another fukui JET went to the same uni as i on the same course a few years earlier than me, actually it would have been a transition year of his last and my first, which would explain why i thought i recognised him. we had fun talking about the department.

We went to "the christon cafe", a gothic / christian themed restaurant that takes any and all christian iconography and makes it bigger, and packs it into a dark and dimly lit restaurant. it's amusing to see how wrong they can get it, and makes me think just how authentic chinese restaurants back home actually are...?

And what night would be complete withought a trip to the local club to see the puppetry from the dj booth? i dunno.

Eerie misties

2005-06-05T11:52:00.000Z

We left yellow at about 5am and watched the stunning sunrise as we trudged back to the station. somewhere along the way a taxi was suggested but they're not big enough for 5 so nic, michelle and hannah got in and tess and i decided we could cope with taking the train. A few stops before ours we had the conversation that actually we'd ahve to get up in a mere 2 hours again in order to make it in good time to the harajuku (of harajuku fashion fame) flea market, a must-do while here. so we rushed off the train in a bid to stay awake the day.

First we went to the shrine which i had tried to go to on new years day but the crowds were too intense. the shrine itself was fairly standard but, at 5.30am the mist that has settled in the night and is trapped through the sunrise under the canopy of the lush green trees lining both sides of the path is truly beautiful.

The area around the shrine is famed for the fashion of the girls that go there dressed up and sit waiting for people to look at them. theres the standard get-up of goths and dolls, as this pink lady demonstrates.

After the shrine we we went to shinjuku, home of the worlds busiest intersection, and saw a rare sight. the intersection with barely any people on it. it was eerie to have been here a mere few weeks previously and having been caught up in the throng that crosses it only now to see it empty of almost all life, save the odd early morning commuter. we sat in the coffeeshop overlooking the crossing that starbucks must have paid a veritable fortune for to get the location, and people watched while it got busier. what a prime people-watching spot.

We ended up staying up the whole day, with restaurants and random fashion shoot sightings to keep us amused, failing in finding the market but having a superb if surreal time nontheless. i love controlled periods of sleep depravation in bustling cities that aren't home.

Moody skies

2005-06-04T11:03:00.000Z

Happy anniversary mum and dad!

I love tokyo. the first weekend in june we went to tokyo for the weekend then i stayed behind till wednesday for the recontracting conference. we went down on friday directly after work. i took a half hour off work so i could grab a shower and finish packing, and as usual still end up narrowly missing the train. still. i found out that when i need to, the 32 minute bike ride home can in fact be completed in 22 under perfect conditions. these conditions constitute in no particular order: threat of missing a train, threat of getting rained on, all lights on green/ignoring red ones.

On friday night we went to a steak house that took an hour to find, gorged ourselves silly on red meat and onions, then topping it off with open-bar karaoke for a few good hours before collapsing exhausting and extremely happy into a real bed.

Saturday consisted mostly of getting rained on (the rainy season started today i tokyo i guess), shopping and dining at places that served food we'd missed, and in the evening we hunted for 2 hours for a club so exclusive it has no sign outside it and everyone you ask for directions tells you the wrong way. its ethos is that if you can find it off your own instincts you're very welcome and well taken care of, but if you can't find it yourself, they don't want you there. eventually we tried a large metal yet inconspicuous door we had passed at least half a dozen times, lo and behold, yellow.