Sounds deeply hellish! it brought to mind this tarot card.
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solid
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solid
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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solid
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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solid
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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solid
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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solid
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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solid
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!
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solid
i haven’t read that in ages! really must update the epic tale at some point.
thats some sound advice Dod, i may look into it. Shane’s seems to be looking for people. on the other hand the Yen is a fickle creature and stockpiles of it might not be the best idea when the big earthquake hits! anyway im doing a bunch more lessons at gaba, so incomings will increase somewhat. a tad draining doing 7 or 8 in a row though.
How much is the catholic postal order for anyway?
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solid
stealing some internet from the apple store next door to work.
indeed, it was a touch foolhardy but i felt some wierd energy influx. As Tan suggests it might have something to do with the complete lack of exercise in the last few months apart from the occasional half hearted 20 push ups on the odd morning. As it turned out i did follow it up with a small tot of rum and a hearty meal with Alex and his girlfriend in yokohama. I often head down there on a weekend or Alex pops up to my neck of the woods. It was his birthday last tuesday and as i dont recall the night completely im pretty sure it added to my physical downfall.
Im glad to hear the snortlets are keeping you on the go Tan! I am currently considering tooling back around Xmas for a spell, utilizing a small percentage of my Catholic windfall.
I’ll keep you posted. -
solid
It has been brought to my attention that i have not been blogging quite as much as i could. Therefore, as a lesson has been canceled and i have internet:
Yesterday i woke from, my now standard, demented dreams. I think it has to do with the what i eat. As i return late of an evening, crawling home after a hard days idle conversation, i am consumed by a ravening hunger. “are you having another fry up?” asks Bart in mild surprise, as i crisp up some frankfurters and eggs and cheese into some sort of unctuous, oilsome paste which i lather onto bread. Bart is my Australian housemate and a thouraly good chap. Its either a fry up or some bread and cheese. I cant seem to function with out a nugget of faux brie and some french bread in the house. I live next to a pretty decent supermarket and i can get hold of most things. Anyway, this constant influx of cheese has lead to some vivid and often fascinating dreams. Unfortunately I am so engrossed in them, that in the morning i find it increasingly difficult to get up dispite having slept for 12 hours and not in the least bit sleepy.
But as it happened i had a vague notion that i had to do something to do today. My phone chimed, and i pass it in front of my bleary eyes. An email from my friend Hiro (same name as the chap from Heroes, but this one is a girl) reminding me of the beach party that day. A glance at the time, it was 2.00pm and the party had already started. I leapt from the bed, or at least i would have, had my body not been wracked in pain from some nameless hellvirus i had picked up in the last few days. I had bombarded it with a steady onslaught of Homeopathy from my invaluable ainsworth kit, but it had shrugged it off as if the pillules had contained nought but suger! It was only after tackling it a symptom at a time that i began to get the better of it. (i am currently feeling pretty chipper, and almost fully recovered) so, with acheing body and the sort of weasely headache that only manifests itself when you move your head slightly too quickly or happen to look at anything not directly in front of you, i headed for the shower. These jolly symptoms combine to make your movements somewhat strained, so it took me a while. i got to the living room and gave it a jerky scan. It looked like the aftermath of a terrible battle. That is if the primary tactic of said battle was to leap at your opponent with a bottle of rum and forcing him to drink as much as possible. The room was stroughn with bodies, in various stages of near death. It looked like the entire battalion had taken a full fusillade of Jaigermaster shots to the flank at the beginning of the evening and had never really recovered. “Fun bachelors party?” i asked Bart, who looked like he had personally taken a few too many for the team. and was regretting it. Aproximatly half of Australia had descended on the house over the weekend as it was a friend of Barts bachelor party and he was having it in Japan. I was invited but decided not to join them what with having a bit of jip in the head. No one seemed keen to join me for a spot of beach action so i headed off. Due to some weak instructions and the fact that it was an insane distance away it took my about two hours to get to the beach. I then spent a further 20 minutes walking up and down the west beach looking for everyone, bleating into my phone every now and again that i was pretty sure i was on a different beach to them. and lo, it transpired that they were on east beach. I made it to the group just as the sun which had blazed merrily throughout my journey by train, began to sink towards the horizon. it wasn`t cold but then again it certainly wasnt warm. Well i had come all this way, i had to swim really. I took a look at the sea. It looked pretty nasty. The sand was black and the sea was a roiling brown soup, that some how looked worse then England’s fetid waters. It was now or never so i got changed. I didnt trust the now brisk wind not to wip away my thin see-through sarong so i got changed in one of the most disgusting toilets of my career. back, i managed to persuade Asumi (alex’s girlfriend) to join me and we plunged into the dark waves. It was surprisingly warm and after a few moments, pure bliss. I didn’t realise how much i missed the sea. Feeling a surge of energy i struck out for a distant bouy. Asumi gave up pretty quick and returned to the beach and she and Hiro took some photos. I was feeling a little fatigued upon reaching the bouy, but nothing to worry about. I decided to take it easy on my return. i slid over and started a sort of backstroke. it was most pleasant. After a while i turned back over and faced the beach. It looked remarkably far away. I decided to power on a bit as there might be a mild outward drift. I was going well when i felt a startling stinging pain on my ankle. Fish? I thought to myself and carried on. Again a stinging surge across my wrist. Jelly fish! i realised. Unpleasant. Small stings cropped up all over my body. one flared across my chest and i began to become mildly concerned. Was i wading through a massive jellyfish horde?! Were they poisonous!! I turned up the speed a notch and made it to the beach. I leapt out but i didn’t bad, just as if i had been stung by a bunch of nettles. It turned out Asumi had been stung all up her leg as well. Nasty looking welts appeared on my wrist. they are still there now, but much faded. Anyway i stuck around for a bit then went to Yokahama and met up with Alex. all in all a fun day, and slightly more interesting then the average.
i will attempt to blog later.
Julio
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solid
this is my new address
4-6-3 higashisuna
kotoku, tokyo
136-0074
Japan -
solid
for some oddness of scale it looks tiny but it is actually as big as my last place
some pictures that i found whilst rooting around in my camera and some of my new place
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solid
that looks fantastic fun! i can almost taste the french bread and cheese!!!
i have moved into my new palatial abode and unfortunatly i dont have internet at the moment. should sort it out soon so i can upload some photos.
i plan on climbing mount Fuji in a few weeks. not sure im entirely prepeared or fit but it should be fun. ill keep you posted
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solid
yea, dogtanion was truly epic. and dispite Ren being a tad cheeselike you need to watch them all!
no body send me anything! i am planning on moving house in a couple of weeks.
its getting a little hot here in tokyo. i tend to boil lightly in my own sweat as i trudge to work in my black suit.
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solid
the finest cartoon ever made.
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pgx8WjZ_0TE&feature=related
or maybe that was dogtanion…
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solid
many happy returns of the day tan!
epic paintings dod!
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solid
a belated happy fathers day dod!
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solid
Dick Francis, if i may be so bold, is a cretin. and can count the number of Japanese people he has met on the one finger. babies are carried in a variety of slings and what not. also prams. i can have a look around. dod has my address and i recon its easier for him to forward the mail to you then me having to type it out. im pressed for time as i have to crawl into bed soonest. indeed the room is mine alone. most refreshing area of space after al those dorms. will blog later
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solid
hail! thank you for you letter mama! it painted a nice picture of home!
as requested i have uploaded a bunch of pictures mostly of my grinning visage. went to the premier of the latest indiana jones film last night. it was really fun. the film itself was good but not great, however the ceremony was interesting. and it was very cool to see harrison ford in the flesh. slightly less interesting to see the jowley george lucas but still.-
- me and Asuka
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- Masa, mike, me, Kyle and Asuka
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- me
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- me and Alex
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- me and Alex
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- me again
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- Asami, Ophilia and I
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- Sam and i (or is it me)
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- tipsy
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- room a
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- room b
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- Alex
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- blossom
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- salary man
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- shrine
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- some child
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- Asuka
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- bebas
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solid
hold on!!! whos this new cat?! and aren’t those my flipflops!
