An enduring mystery

Can someone please explain to me what that brown stuff they put on mochi is? Kinako or something? What is with that crap?

An enduring mystery

Can someone please explain to me what that brown stuff they put on mochi is? Kinako or something? What is with that crap?

The Greatest Show on Earth

My favourite TV show, the only one I watch seriously any more, is back on. Yes, it's time for the tenth Amazing Race.
It's nice to finally see some diversity in the cast; it's certainly time to take a break from pretty, young, bickering couples, and tags like "dating/models," "friends/models," and "Satanists/models." Of course, of the non-Caucasian teams, two were eliminated in the first episode. They seemed like lovely folks. Damn.
The most interesting bit of diversity-casting, though, comes from a coal-mining couple from Kentucky. It's diversity of classes, not races, and actually comes across more strikingly. As in, the hard-working white miners stand out more than the devout, beardy Muslims. These two have never a) travelled beyond Kentucky or Tennessee, b) been on a passenger train, c) never met gay people, and d) never met Asian people. I cannot imagine never seeing people of other races, or travelling beyond my own state. It'll be interesting to see what happens to that team.
Also of some interest is the pair of pageant queens, if only because a) they seem aware that they are instantly hateable by virtue of being pageant queens in the first place, and b) they're quite competent racers, and, missing-horseriding-helmet aside, are low on sucking.
Also, they went to Mongolia! Neat!

Survivor is also on, which I watch despite becoming more ridiculous each season. They're gonna run out of idyllic tropical islands soon. I'm all for future seasons of "Survivor: Svalbard" or perhaps "Survivor: Kyrgyzstan."

Keeping aliens under tabs

A strange thing happened the other day. Whilst at work, my supervisor asked if he could make a copy of my alien registration card, because Mitsu (next town south from here) police station wanted a copy to keep on file.
Let's think about this; a police station that has never met me and never will (unless I nick something from their Family Mart), in a town I've never even been to, wants my personal details kept on file. Because I'm a foreigner, I must assume. Does that strike anyone else as a little odd?
I did hand over my card to be copied, but I have to think that it would be absolutely outrageous to try and pull this in Australia, or in most countries. Imagine being told this: "I don't know who you are and you've never done anything wrong here, but we need your personal information kept on file because you're not Australian."
It's funny to encounter things that are perfectly acceptable here, but would probably have riots in the streets back home.

Where are all my teaspoons?

There aren't any in the cupboard, nor in the sink. Do you have my teaspoons?

Happy Snaps on the summit

The victory gang: Dave, Bethany, Jen, Brian, Herb, Amy, Dawn, Wayne, Barbie, Andy, Kim, Lauren, Chris, me, Jon, Dennis. Huzzah!

But Ludo and Jason were missing, so we took another one! Ludon in the front, Jason to the right with the cap and glasses.
Yay us.

Pre-climb

Jen, Andy (blurrily so), Brian, Marisa, Suzette, Dennis, Tiffany, Jon, all looking amazingly genki for 4am.

Bizarre squid-headed omiyage in the 5th station souvenir store. Yeah, I don't know what it is either.

Happy JETs by the lake at Hakone. Tibor, Brian, me, Dave, Jason, Herb, Wayne, Amy, Danielle, Dawn, Dennis, Jen.

I am a Fool

(I just posted this on the old blog today, but I figured I may as well put it here too, to get things started)

There is a saying in Japanese that "he who climbs Fuji-san once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool." In that case, I am officially a fool, as I climbed Fuji-san for a second time this weekend.
This year, Barbie and I were running the show. I had a great time keeping the lists, collecting money, and being a general source of info (Dawn was the only other fool to climb a second time). Barbie, meanwhile, did a great job of keeping the whole trip together, and negotiating with bus drivers, hostel owners and mountain guides. Finally, everyone else did a great job of being punctual and not getting lost.
The bus trip on the Friday night was more peaceful than last year, thanks to the absence of free grog. Sadly my bus/plane sleeping curse continued, and I don't think I slept for a minute. Actually not sleeping meant I could experience the same early-morning magic moment I had last year; being the only person awake at sunrise, with tunes on the ipod, seeing the Pacific Ocean on my right and the first views of Fuji-san ahead.
We stuck to the exact same schedule as last year, with the first stop at Hakone, followed by a trip to the gigantic outlet mall in Gotemba. The mall trip was highlighted by a) not finding anything I wanted, b) swarms of ugly little dogs in ugly little doggie jumpers and c) spilling an entire caramel milkshake on Brian.
After the mall, we finally arrived at our hostel for the night. Unfortunately, we'd forgotten to keep enough AJET money on us to pay, and the night-hike group had to cancel their reservations, so it was a little chaotic. But Barbie worked her magic and I worked my bank card, and it was all sorted in the end. A troop of day-hikers soon went to a supermarket for supplies, then on to dinner at the same multi-room, glass-pyramid, anything-goes-décor café Dawn and I went to last year, called Think 1984. It was a decent meal, apart from the two-hour wait for our dinners. I think they were waiting for the chef to actually show up. Because of the long wait for our dinner, we missed out on having a wash that night (hostel's bathroom hours - 6:30-8:00) and went to bed smelly. At 11:00, I got up to go and meet Richard (who had had a terrible time making his own way on trains after his sports day) at the nearby train station. Of course, when I arranged to meet him, I forgot that I didn't actually have any idea where the train station was. After a few minutes, I asked someone for directions, and by blind luck, I had wandered within a hundred metres of it. Phew.
At 3:00 on Sunday morning, we were off to the mountain. We met our guides in the rest house at the 5th station, and for some reason, milled around an awful lot. I don't know what was going on exactly, but we ended up starting the hike almost an hour late. We did manage to see some sunrise, but I can't say it wasn't a little disappointing.
Our guide was an interesting character. She'd make a great schoolteacher. She was all about walking slowly, telling us off for going ahead of her, and stopping us for pointless little facts. Two examples:
Ludo: what did she just talk about?
Me: she was saying that there are lots of insects and butterflies in the vegetation down there, and people come to study them.
Ludo: oh. Why [did she bother stopping us to say that]?

Guide, seeing two Canadian-shaped figures up the slope: What are their names?
Me: Herbert and Amy.
Guide: Herbert, Amy! Please come back! I asked you to please wait for me!

So, in my humble opinion, we took the flatter, easier parts of the hike too slowly, and when our guide finally released us to hike at our own pace, we had under an hour to reach the summit, so we really had to push ourselves. The official time to start descending was 11:30, because the descent takes four hours, and we were meant to leave at 3:30. So to reach the summit at all was tough, and for me, much tougher than last year, because last year we were able to keep a much more reasonable pace throughout the hike. We did get to the summit after the official descending time, and in the end, so did everyone who hadn't had to head back down already. Somehow our guide disappeared to have tea or something, and emerged on the summit after everyone else, all "oh, so you made it, then?" Not sure what happened there. Hopefully someone will read this and comment?
After lunch and happy group photos, we headed down. And as we took those first steps on the descending path, the rain came. The rain came, and did not stop for the entire four-hour trek back to the 5th station. The path itself was no more fun than last year, and coupled with wind and horizontal rain, it was officially miserable. In fact, it's now on my Top 3 Things That Were No Fun (see also the Naked Man Festival and Halloween afternoon in Takebe after an all-nighter party in the city). We gave up taking breaks before too long, and just pushed on to get down and out of the rain as quickly as possible. We arrived a little under an hour late, and seeing as no-one was lost, we left almost immediately, so there was no time for hot snacks or omiyage shopping, unfortunately.
Next stop was an onsen in Yamanakako, the mention of which caused angels to sing hallelujah. This was the first time at an onsen for many of the first-year ALTs, so whilst on the bus we gave a quick lesson in Onsen Etiquette 101. It was a pretty good onsen, very big and busy, with a huge dining hall where we had dinner.
From there, it was back on the road home, and thanks to absolute exhaustion, I slept! Eureka! So that was a total of 8 or 9 hours sleep for three nights. And that was the trip. The climb itself was more enjoyable last year, but this trip was still a success. It was great to hang out with a lot of the 1st-year ALTs (being in a one-ALT town, I'd never see anyone if I didn't make the effort) and also to be the deputy-organiser-person. A good trip, then, but there's no way in hell I'm climbing Fuji for a third time. I'm already a fool, so that would make me an absolute bloody moron.

Number One.

This is the first entry. There will be many more.

For starters, here's an adorable frog I found on my doorknob the other day.

For news of the world before today, please read my old blog.