haha! they are pretty neat. i look like some sort of crazy mountain man!
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Hello all! Happy belated birthday Mama! You prezzy will be a little late im afraid, but it’s on it’s way.
I finally downloaded picasa and the blogging program, so here are the picture from a while back.
Here are a few from the beach when i went up to Mayumi’s family home.
Very pleasant and sunny.
Here are some older ones from Korea.
That thing in the middle of the table that looks like a glistening alien thorax is in fact raw crab.
Mayumi can’t wait to get at the succulent alien spleen.
A fine eatery in Izu, the place we went for the hot springs.
Same place, different angle. they had very good scallops cooked in butter.
At the hotel, dressed in my finery.
Out side in the town nearby. very nice place with old style buildings. It had an area called Perry town after Commodore Perry who aided in opening japan to trade with the west.
Im sporting a touch of a side parting for some reason.
Old house with a mix of Japanese and western aesthetics.
A canon. possible one of perry’s favoured canon for slaying the natives.
A cactus. Perhaps unrelated to Perry.
Delightful cooking pot experience in one of the private onsens.
Mayumi, being small, could completely submerge herself.
Mayumi crafting food at the homestead.
Ill see if i can scrounge up some more photos!
Alls well here!
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Indeed a peculiar dream. The other night i had to fight a chap, in some sort of gladiatorial situation, armed only with a spoon. I stabbed him in the thigh with the handle and i believe he died quite unpleasantly. Did i actually slay some dream denizen, who had some manner of real life unconnected to mine? Or was it some mental problem personified?
The trouble with dreams is, they have very little continuity so its very hard to see anything resembling a world that keeps going after we wake up. If we can control and manipulate our dreams then there is nothing actually solid and real in our dream. There is therefore no need for roads, or cars, or potholes. those are requirements of a material world, which the dream world is surely not. Unless you were having your dream on a layer above a sort of base matter, say a dream terrain, and you traveled over blip or bump in it, which manifested itself as a pothole.
On the other hand. For a road to exist there needs to be a set of rules, like gravity and such. But dream rules rarely match up from one dream to the next. So there would have to be a million little worlds each with there own different rules that we visit every night, like a plague of horrifying godlike ghosts, bending matter to our will and leaving a trail of madness in our wake. Actually that would make quite an interesting story if told from the perspective of a dream chap! -
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Completely unrelated, but i thought you all might like to see the simply fabulous summer shoe that my friend Andy sported the last time we met. It defies description and sanity.
It puts “crocks” into perspective. -
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Hello! Here are some photos from the recent trip to Mayumi’s family home. About half an hour away by bus and situated near the coast it has very pleasant weather and is very close to the beach. We went for about 5 days and had a very jolly time. I didn’t actually take that many photos. And although e\we went to the beach every day i never thought to bring my camera. The beach was very nice. crisp and sunny days and the water was for the most part pretty clean baring the occasional band of detritus that would wash past sometimes. Presumably brought to shore by earlier storms that we have been having. The waves were very strong and Mayumi and I, and sometimes her friends, had a great time leaping about in the waves. After swimming we would then go to the bath house nearby and soak in the hot pools for a spell. Despite the rampant nudity its very relaxing and after the extremely hot pool i would stagger into the icy cold pool to cool off. Good for the system and gets the old heart going.
Here is the coastline of where we went fishing. interestingly shaped concrete blocks.
This is Maymi and her friends Nororin and Jun setting up the fishing rods. Mayumi caught a puffer fish, but it was too small and not to mention poisonous so we threw it back. Jun caught a crab. I caught nothing…
This is us again enjoying a convivial beer before the start of the BBQ. This was to be a pretty epic BBQ with about 30 of mayumi and her brothers friends.
Early stages of the BBQ. As you can see Mayumi’s Parents have quite a nice garden. In the back it even has a vegetable plot.
The evening wore on, much tasty meat was consumed!
Just before we head back to Tokyo. The chap on the right is Mayumi’s dad. As you can see i invited Alex. The stuff mayumi is poised to pour onto my head is mayonnaise.It was a great visit! Mayumi’s mum made tons of scrummy food and it was very relaxing.
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Thank you for the letter mama! It was nice reading! Mayumi says hello!
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my packet just arrived! thanks Tan! we are really enjoying the saucisson, so cheers very much for the resupply.
the statuette made it almost in one piece. there is a clean break at the neck wich should be easy to glue. i think Mayumi has some paints, but im still not sure what colour as yet. ill show it to her when she gets home tonight! -
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happy birthday tan! prezzy is in the post!
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had a delightlful meal last night of bread, french cheese and sosi… saucisson! absolutely scrumptious. Mayumi is still in desbelief that it tastes so good in comparison to the bilge cheese we get here. she says thank you all so much for the nice gifts!
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a jolly few days back in tokyo. thanks Tan and Geoff, i had an epic time! here are some photos.
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some pictures from the recent sakura hanami. very nice this year. lots of blossom.
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no to feel left out i decided to produce my own emaciated bod.
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i am currently in Korea, where it is a delightful minus 6.5 degrees. i think i have lost a good deal of my face to frostbight. its still rather nice here as the food is fantastic and in general its very cheap. there was some suggestion at the airport that i would need an outgoing ticket on my return to japan but i have printed out my statement and am hopeing for the best. that said could you let me know a likely date i should book a ticket home in case i have to by one in narita or something unpleasent.
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Sounds deeply hellish! it brought to mind this tarot card.
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yes indeed, the first thing i thought when i saw the stone people i thought they looked remarkably like your paintings!
yes Mayumi has an iphone and it comes in very handy as a translator and gps device. Its like something out of 24 giving realtime satelite movement on googlemaps.
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Hello all! i recently went on a trip to Ikaho onsen area about 2 hours from tokyo. As it was my first trip to the more rural areas of Japan i was pretty excited. Onsens are hot spring baths sourced by presumably volcanic hotspots dotted all over Japan. this perticular one is famed for its rare iron rich spring. It is said that bathing or even drinking from the noxious fluid can heal all manner of ills. i eagerly awaited my perenial cold disapearing. I feel like numerous uncles from PG Wodehouse who take the waters for their health.
we set off fairly early sunday morning and took a train for a couple of hours out of tokyo. Oddly enough i could not see the transition from tokyo to other towns. It all seems to blur together in a suburban sprawl. The few slightly open spaces seem to have been allocated to growing miles of cabbage. In fact this area was so taken with cabbage that in place of your more standard flower and or colourful plant in flowerbeds around town you have blooming cabbages of various shades green. delightful. we reached a cabbage flavoured town of outstanding dullness that nestled at the base of a dozen or so mountains and took a bus up into said mountains. The view was pleasing as you could see for miles and in the distance, snow covered peaks could be seen gleaming in the harsh winter sunlight.
we were dropped of at a jolly township that looked like it’s delightfully old fashioned houses had been poured down the side of the mountains. it was a collection of steep roads and flagstone steps leading up to a temple at the top of the town. The air was brittle with cold and ice hid in the shadows were the sunlight couldn’t thaw it. After a short period of peering at our print out map and the town sign map and wondering why the two did not seem to corrispond in even a basic sense, we we got lost trying to find our hotel that turned out to be directly opposite were we had been dropped off.We left our bags at reception and headed out for some food. Mayumi had been recomended a restaurant that served possible the best Udon noodles in the land. Udon noodles are very thick and white and are generaly served in a broth which flavours them as slurp them down. We trecked for about 40 minutes along a winding mountain road, drinking in the delightful ambiance and air of glacial freshness. The resturant was situated in an Udon township of resturants and Udon makers. Clothelines drapes in drying Udon noodles flapped in the crisp breeze. We were pretty frozen at this point and were grateful to enter the pleasently warm restourant. the reception area was pretty impressive. All gleaming woods and pollished surfaces. Some prominant artist had an exhibition there as well much to Mayumi’s delight. After a short wait we were led into an enormous eating hall. Rows of long tables made of slablike chunks of pollished wood filled the room. Everything had a nice happy glow and the sounds of contented chewing.
The food was the finest i have had in Japan, possible becourse we had built up quite the appertite on our little treck. it consisted of a large teaming bowl of unctuious udon noodles, some massive mushroom tempura (battered) and various bowls of strange liquid. The eating method is as follows: You spice the liquid bowls to taste with chilly/wasabi/onions/ginger and then taking a large bundle of udon with your chopstics you slither them into the liquid bowl. once you feel they have cooled and been coated in flavoursome liquid you cram them into your mouth and try not make a mess as you slurp them in. delightful! the same goes for the mushroooms which were big chunky things. like a fist sized lump of lichen. This you also dip into the sauce and munch down once it is saturated. obsolutely luscious! after this feast we went to visit the near by temple (below) this involved another hike up the side of a mountain. very scenic but pretty tiring. At the temple you lob a coin into a box, bang a large bell (presumably to wake up the resident god) and have a bit of a pray as is your want. there were many different smallish temples and mini shrines and it wasnt clear what religion they belong to. It doesnt really matter in Japan. Shinto and Budhism mix rather well together it seems. after that we walked the long walk back to the hotel feeling a bit strained and yearning for the the healing waters. Getting back after dark we checked in. I havent really been at the business end of Japanese customer service and its quite extraordinary. Much bowing and scraping and pretty much everything is done for you. Our bags had been left behind the reception counter and they were taken to be transported up to our room by a tiny old woman who seemed barely capably of carting her own sticklike form around. Mayumi tried to protest and rest her bag from the wizened septogenarian but she was having none of it, skuttling away and out of reach. In the lift up she seemed amazed that we had walked so far, and indeed i had noticed every one was using cars to get around. The room was palacial and had a pleasing view of the surounding countryside. we got dressed for the evening in our complimentary yukatas (kimono like robes) I rather liked mine i have to say but unfortunatly we couldn’t keep them. We then went our seperate ways to the female and male onsens in the hotel. Mixed onsens are not unheared of but not very popular. Inside the onsen there was a large pool about chest high with a raised lintel around the edge for sitting on. The precedure seems to differ from person to person but in general you head in and go to one of the many shower outlets that line the walls of the room. They are those fun hand held showers and you sit on a little plastic stool and wash yourself with the complementary soaps. Some people wash after rather than before and others do both. Everyone is ofcourse, offensivly naked. One can wear a towel, but i asume if you do then you are shunned like an outcast. After washing i slipped into the healing waters. It was lightly simmering, and after a few minutes it unknots the muscles and relaxes the mind. Very pleasent. there were about 4 people and they were all chatting away in a convivial way to each other. After a while the heat gets a bit much and you clamber out and sit on the edge to cool off. And then back for a bit more broiling. After the onsen i felt pretty genki(good feeling) and we had our evening meal. It was pretty diverse with many small portions. Some really tasty and others deeply horrible. The platter of sashimi (raw fish) was good, and so was the nuggets of fried blowfish (which Mayumi assured me was not poisonous) the fish custard on the other hand was an aquired taste, and the less said about the pickled radish the better. I had miso soup for the first time in japan and it was actualy pretty good dispite my misgivings. The tea is also passable. Not unlike the hot water +leaf that is drunk at home. After the meal we relaxed for a bit with a few cans of chu hi. we had sake with the meal but niether of us could stomach its strong flavour. At around ten in the evening we were informed that our private onsen was avalable. This was on the roof and only avalable for an hour. Open air onsens are by far the superior hot pool experiance. It was a bitterly cold cloudless night with the moon beaming down at us and the plumes of steam rising from the pool. Also its never possible to 100% relax when there is a bunch of random naked chaps hanging about and heaving themselves around the pool like a bunch of pink hippos. So Mayumi and i peered at the night sky and listened to the muted kareoke warblings coming from somewere in the building. Perfect.
The next day checked out and explored the town. It was a steep hike up the stairs and in our hunt for the source of the hot spring we clambed up half the mountain. We gave up after about the fifth small summet and returned to the bottom by cablecar. We then went to a farm resort thing. It was mostly closed and a bit of a wash out. At one point some chap goes by leading an enormous fresian cow and telling us the the cow milking school was starting in a few minutes. so we hung about with a bunch of wide eyed japanese people who possible have never seen a cow before and soon enough the milking started. It was pretty extraordinary. One grips the teat and squeezes with the index finger and then each finger down consequtivly in a fluid movement. The milk then shoots out at a high velocity. The strange thing it that the teat is actually hollow and fills with milk after each squeeze. sort of like a water balloon with a small hole in it. the other highlight was an arthouse which unfortunatly was closed but outside had a bunch of strange art including the stone chaps below. After that it was back to tokyo and we met up with alex for a drink at the 300 yen bar. All in all a highly pleasent weekend!-
- me, on arrival
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- Mayumi in a state of confusion
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- some nice trees
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- the detritus of a fine repast
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- the meal before
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- the eatery
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- udon noodles out to dry
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- creepy statue
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- nice temple
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- a carven frog
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- Mayumi’s celebrated hand frog impression
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- samurai brockbank!
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- classy clothing
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- mayumi serving up the Sake
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- the scenic town
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- pleasing view
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- and another
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- basking in the sun
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- strange stone chaps
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Hello! Its been a while since i last blogged!
Not much has happened of note though. Went to my first traditional Japanese garden the other day. I was delightful. very calm and artfully constructed. The trees especialy looked resplendant in brilliant reds and browns. the only bad point was a group of Japanese Tourists (oddly enough) which was led by an officious woman brandishing a microphone, her bellowing voice eminating from a speaker strapped to her ample stomach. dispite this we had a jolly time. then the sun went down and it turned bitterly cold. the temperature difference is extrordinary. In the mornings the sky is clearn and the sun beams down and its nice and toasty. around five the sun sets behind a collosal skyscraper and frost starts to appear in ones beard. last night i was cought without my leathern jacket and if it wasnt for Mayumi lending me her scarf i might have cought a nasty cold. That is to say, if i didnt already have a nasty cold nestling in my lungs.
The house is still ticking along nicely with everyone pulling thier wait in some fashion. A few of us went to a local resturaunt the last saturday. It was my first time there but Carol and Bart have been there so often that they are now regarded as minor celebraties. everyone was brimming with good cheer and the food was delicious. and in vast quantaties. First we had Sashimi and i managed to take too much Wasabi with my slab of chuna and gave everyone a good chortle as i coughed and spluttered, eyes streaming. then we had many courses of varying tastiness. Every one was really nice and helped us translate the menu. There was a fairly drunk chappy who took a shine to the females in the group and kept on afforing everyone a slurp from his bottle of Sho Chu (a deeply horrible alcohol). His kind offer was slightly mared by the light rain of spit that issued forth wenever he spoke, which was often. This repulsant mist landing indiscriminatly on food and people. luckily i was out of range though i had a good view of him broadsiding the girl oposite me. It didnt help that his mouth contained fangs that would have made even the most unselfconsious horse feel bad about itslef and head to a dentist. Undismayed by our refusals he bought us a pot of pickle vegetables for out table. I took a bite from something long and purple. It tasted like paint thinner. Smilling weakly around the mouthfull and advised the others to tuck in. They declined.
We ate absurd amounts and paid a pittance becourse the owner likes us. Fantastic place! ill take some pictures next time. speaking of pictures, here are some crummy ones from my phone of the garden.-
- A truly epic film. Perhaps Liv and i are the only people to have watched it
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- Me at work
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- Asuka and Mike at the garden
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- setting sun streaming through the trees
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- some nicely juxtaposed rocks and trees
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- the sun setting the trees afire
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nice photos! i am currently at work. pondering between lessons. my internet is not working and we are having a difficult time getting it fixed. mainly as the support center is in japanese. most stressful. the apple store near my work is getting a bit fed of me traipsing in and pretending to peer at the insanely expensive imacs while i check my emails on the sly. we should get it up and running soon or we will get a new provider.
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aha! as of 11ish tonight i shall have internet at the homestead and will be able to skype and mail and stuff. the one down side to my wonder machine is that its all in japanese. better get cracking on the old language books.
another earthquake today, im getting pretty used to them but they are still mildly exciting. the prospect of some sort of horrifying disaster adds a little spice to the day.
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Billy Bunter was clearly one of those right thinking, enterprising chaps who live life for the momant and to the fullest! a visionary from whom we could all learn much.
i bought a new computer to facilitate my internet needs. after checking out the ultra cheap Eeepcs i descovered that Acer had jumped on the tiny cheap pc bandwagon and made their own. to my untutored eye i seemed vastly superior so i got it. it cost me the princely sum of 20,000 yen. 100 pounds. as i purchased it from the same place that we had got the internet i got a wopping 30,000 yen off. (150 pounds) not too shabby. and it is a rather neat little beast. http://www.acer.com/aspireone/
im still shaking of a tenatious cough which is sticking around dispite me drinking buckets of a drink which claims, in bold english on the side, to have the power of twelve lemons!
