www.picresize.com/ is an online alternative, when the cybercafes don’t have the required software.

hail all!

things are ticking along nicely here in nippon. recent developments suggest there could well be a job on the horizon, or at least a source of income while i look for a better job. anyway i have met some really nice people both western and japanese and had some exceedingly good times.

currently alex and i are living in a place three stops from yokohama called ishikuwacho. to describe this place as “a fetid hellhole, stinking of rotting fish and filled with the largest concentration of homeless people i have ever seen ” would be a bit of an understatement.

it is deeply rancid. strolling down the street is reminiscent of scenes from a zombie movie as hundreds of old men lurch about clutching cans of chu hi (korean alchohol mixed with lemon, the cheapest drink avalable) and “one cup” sake easthetically served in jam jars. the smell is not dissimilar to an open sewer and regulaly the stench of spoilt meat or fish will burst from an open window of doorway and send you reeling into the gutter, retching and gagging for air. our room is on the fifth floor of an apartment block. this is nice as the bottom three floors seem to have been annexed to the old men and appear uninhabitable to anything human. since we arrived the smell of the place has got steadily worse. before long i believe the fourth floor will have to go and then we will have to break out the shotguns and start nailing up the windows. occasionally we will see the local yakuza having meetings a few blocks from us and give them a cheery wave.

apart from the fact that we are living in the worse place in the world im have an excellent time. yokohama is really nice and exciting without being as garish as tokyo. i think i will try and go back to asakusa though. actually i have been trying to book a place there for some weeks now.

asakusa is quite touristy on one side of the river and on the other really calm and quiet. its a pleasent mix with the only downside the lack of parks.

once again i am on a computer with no means of shrinking my pictures, so i will put some up that i grabbed from facebook. you can go and look at them yourselves if you like but you will have to trawl through about 800 of me being drunk at karaoke.

me in the commen room of khoa san tokyo, moderatly happy

a jolly meal at a classy japanese resturant

delightfull lantern lit sukura (cherry blossom)

the shoe depository at koah san

me and some dudes heading of to sightsee in tokyo

might mail you some more that i cant resize

anyhoo shall blog later with some more news. i have an interview on the ninth so fingers crossed.

Yes to Sidearse. He actually played well and was easily man of the series.

No to Vaughan. He averaged 20 with the bat and leading your team to victory against the Kiwi’s – who let’s face it would be an average county side (ranked 7 in the world) is hardly an achievement.

And at least we can support the gentlemen in the English cricket team, most of the English football team are utter utter gits (especially Rooney, Terry and Ashley Cole)

Surely it’s all down to good old Ryan “Sidey” Sidebottom for his 7 cheap wickets in the first innings!

Nonsense. It is our heroic captain who should be saluted for steering our boys to a sterling victory against all the odds.

Needing more than 200 to win with one wicket left Southee, a valient young Kiwi making his test debut decided to go out in style. Taking on Panesar (who’d bowled 17 maidens from 30 something overs and taken 6 wickets) Southee put away his bat and got out his seven iron.

He bludgeoned the fasted fifty ever by a Kiwi in 29 balls blasting Panesar for six repeatedly and hitting Anderson quite literally out of the ground. When Broad was bought on he hit him for two sixes in an over and continued on to hit a grand total 9 sixes – more than any Kiwi or Englishmen in history! All this from a 19 year old, test-debutant bowler.

Sadly the rabbit at the other end left him stranded on 77 not out (with 54 in sixes alone) from 40 balls. A herioc and quite frankly almost “British” failure.

Gentlemen let that be a lesson to us all. If you’re going down, go down guns blazing, and bring the bastards down with you. Southee, we salute you.