Oh! Blog.

Four Tet - There Is Love In You

2010-02-01T19:17:00.002+09:00

Kieran Hebden – the man otherwise known as Four Tet – has carved out a fascinating little niche for himself in the past several years, with a clutch of stellar remixes for the likes of Sia and Radiohead, a stone-cold classic album with 2003’s Rounds, and even a couple of brilliant singles such as "Smile Around the Face" and "No More Mosquitoes". He’s even spawned his own subgenre in the music press in “folktronica.”
With There Is Love In You, Hebden’s sixth as Four Tet, he largely sticks to what he does best; songs of beautiful, organic instrumental electronica, displaying the so-called folktronica for which he is known. However, as warm and lovely as these songs are, they somehow seem more inconsequential than on previous records; these songs are more content to slip unnoticed into the background, without demanding too much of the listener’s attention.
Part of the problem is that – in layman’s terms – these songs don’t “do” anything much. With songs like “Angel Echoes”, “Circling” and “This Unfolds”, Hebden seems content to find a pleasing rhythm, a few choice sounds, and stick with them for the song’s duration. The ingredients themselves vary substantially – compare the electric harp of “Circling” with the sliced-and-diced beats of the relatively up-tempo “Sing” and the rolling drums and guitar of “She Just Likes To Fight” – but the results remain fairly consistent throughout.
The same can’t be said for “Love Cry,” the album’s longest song, and it’s unquestionable highlight. Here, Hebden’s funkiest and most intoxicating rhythm to date pounds away for nine minutes, whilst a hypnotic stew of electronic noise and splintered, disembodied female voices bubbles around it. Again, it doesn’t “do” much, but when music is as wonderfully hypnotic as this, it doesn’t have to.
Even with any faults in mind, Hebden is still probably the best in the world at this kind of music. Even if it’s far from being essential listening, if you’ve enjoyed any of his previous albums, then chances are you’ll still find plenty to love in There Is Love In You.

7 / 10

The Essential Dozen: January

2010-01-31T19:03:00.002+09:00

Here's the first set for the year: twelve great songs I've acquired in the past month. They might not necessarily be new, but they're all great and you should get 'em.

1. Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky.
2. Vampire Weekend - White Sky
3. The Acorn - Hold Your Breath
4. Madonna - Lucky Star
5. Ball Park Music - Sea Strangers (I Don't Really Know You)
6. Boy & Bear - Mexican Mavis
7. Fuck Buttons - Olympians
8. Girls - Hellhole Ratrace
9. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Le Chat de Cafe des Artistes
10. Gary Numan - Cars
11. Bridezilla - Beaches
12. Four Tet - Love Cry

Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM

2010-01-23T09:40:00.002+09:00

I'm approaching IRM, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s second album, with caution; on the one hand, as a child of famous parentage (she’s Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s daughter); on the other, the roping in of a high-profile producer, in the one and only Beck Hansen. Her first record, 5:55, was a major success in France, but barely garnered much attention elsewhere. With any luck, that may change a little with IRM.
As the principal songwriter and producer, Beck’s influence is heavy throughout this record; the heavy, swooning string arrangements recall his woozy folk masterpiece, Sea Change; the tight rhythms of “Le chat du café des artistes” and the title track hold echoes of the shadowy grooves of Modern Guilt or The Information. Meanwhile, on lead single “Heaven Can Wait,” Beck comes to the fore, backing up Gainsbourg’s vocals on the sort of lazy hipster folk that could come straight from his Mutations album.
Gainsbourg herself, meanwhile, is thankfully not overwhelmed by Beck’s presence – at least, sometimes not. Her voice – soft, understated and charming, yet apparently uninterested half the time – works fine for the kind of groovy hipster folk that pervades the bulk of the album. She’d be the perfect vocalist for just about anything by Air (who collaborated on her first album). When Beck’s arrangements are stripped back, however, such as on the moody “Vanities,” her voice isn’t really engaging enough to support the song on its own. At the other end of the spectrum, on “Time of the Assassins,” she sounds a little overwhelmed by the expansive, multi-tracked backing vocals swooping around her.
It kind of has to be said, then, that the best songs on IRM – “Heaven Can Wait”, “Me and Jane Doe”’s pastoral folk, and “Trick Pony”’s dirty funk – are the ones that exhibit the heaviest influence of Beck’s writing and production. Nevertheless, there’s the pervading sense that these songs, however Beck-esque they may be, wouldn’t have worked on any of his records. Certainly, the combination of Gainsbourg’s vocals and Beck’s famously eclectic tastes has allowed both of them free rein, playing around with some textures and ideas that may otherwise be left unexplored, such as the superbly swooning, vaguely exotic “Voyage.” Indeed, the album’s three French songs add a new dimension to Beck’s work as a producer.
Maybe IRM would’ve been better titled as “Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck,” such is his influence over this record. It’s certainly a fine album, with a good clutch of fascinating songs worth returning too, but I can’t escape the sense that it could be replicated with someone like Feist, or Alison Goldfrapp, or – God forbid – even Carla Bruni, with much the same results.

6 / 10

2009's best albums

2010-01-22T19:19:00.003+09:00

This is coming a little bit late, but in my defence, I was still listening to a couple of these on my commute to school yesterday (new job! woooo!) to decide on which records made the cut. Just for the record, and based on that commute, Wild Beasts just missed out. Close but no banana, boys.

Well, these records got the banana, that's for damn sure. Here are my top ten records for 2009, in order! They're all completely awesome, so go get 'em if you haven't already.

10. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
Virtuoso supergroup = the rockingest album that ever rocked. Also: it rocks.

9. Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night

She's utterly lovely, and I've finally fallen for her quirky charms.

8. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

A quirky, timeless delight; a generous dose of artful Americana.

7. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

An epic, mesmerising, hypnotic and kinda dangerous electronic symphony.

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

The YYYs hit the disco, with Nick Zinner's guitar prowess thankfully still intact.

5. Passion Pit - Manners

An treasure trove of insanely catchy songs, just begging to be loved like a neurotic puppy.

4. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Lovable, adventurous art-pop for New York's trendiest - anything goes on Bitte Orca.

3. St Vincent - Actor

Elaborate yet concise, lurching from baroque pop to terrifying noise; her soft voices belies an undercurrent of danger and violence running throughout this amazing album.

2. Florence + The Machine - Lungs

Like a thoroughly modern, bohemian Kate Bush, Florence Welch's dramatic persona - and the songs to match - make her a star.

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

Rock, folk, electronica and the avant-garde fused together into a single euphoric, transcendent whole. Nothing else comes close.

Academia FAIL.

2010-01-18T20:07:00.002+09:00

One of the most tired and boring arguments made these days is the one about how TV / games / Internet / movies / music etc is making people stupider, destroying all our precious brain cells. It's not an argument I subscribe to (I won't go into why right now, but just go read this book), and think it's an overly-simplistic and generally incorrect way of looking at things.
That said, I'm not really helping my own cause when I go around saying things like "mayonnaise FAIL!" and "I are liberrian" and "mad phat driving skillz" all the time.
Academia FAIL.

Sort it out.

2010-01-18T20:03:00.002+09:00

Two of my favourite things are pop music and the Dewey Decimal Classification. I think I figured out why.

The human brain (and every other kind of brain, I assume) needs to organise all of the information it encounters in order to make sense of the world; things are sorted, classified, put into categories automatically. Categories like “animals I can eat,” as opposed to “animals that can eat me”; “people I trust with my car” versus “people who are douchebags who would probably drive my Camry into a stobie pole if I gave them the chance.” I can’t imagine how we could function if our brains didn’t do this. It’s part of why we do things like organising the photos in an album chronologically, sort CDs by artist, or put our cookbooks in a different place to comic books.
It’s one thing to organise a stack of CDs. It’s another thing altogether to organise all of the amassed knowledge, the sum total of all information, into a single, consistent order. Not only that, but to systematically organise all possible knowledge; all potential information. That’s what the DDC does. It’s the ultimate framework for classifying knowledge, taking what our brains do automatically (only on a smaller scale) to the furthest extreme. Think of anything you possibly can, and there’ll be a specific number for it, a precise location, in the DDC. And if there isn’t, then there’ll be a framework laid for creating that specific number. If you’ve used the DDC (and if you’ve ever borrowed a library book, chances are you have) then you’d probably imagine it as a system for organising books. That’s a handy way to think of it, though of course, the DDC can classify anything; just add “a book about” at the front of whatever it is you’re classifying, and you’ll see how. Let’s say you have, oh, I don’t know... a single pear, floating in perfume, served in a man’s hat that needs classification? Well, think of a book about that single pear, floating in perfume, served in a man’s hat; that pear/hat combo will have it’s place in Dewey. Maybe under 730 for sculptures; you could make it 730.9 for sculptures arranged by time and place, and add coded suffixes for its location and time of creation (730.994 for Australian sculpture, for example); you’d probably want to add suffixes for the materials. You might end up with something like 730.95209613 (which I made up, but you see what I’m getting at).
So, why is that interesting? Why do I give a crap? Well, the thing is, the world does not come organised. Things do not happen, appear, exist, or die in any kind of order. In the grand scheme of things, nothing is planned or intended. I mean, sure, on a small scale, I planned my dinner, and Gustav Eiffel planned that tower. But in the long run, was the Great Rift Valley planned or organised? Or the long sequence of chance events that led to the colonisation of India? Or the unimaginable diversity of human art? Nope, nope and nope. When we create and employ classification systems like the DDC, we’re enforcing an order that simply does not exist in any objective way. We’re creating boundaries and categories which only exist in our minds. Is a book on Archaeopteryx a “dinosaur book” or a “prehistoric birds” book? When I think about it, things like Dewey seem to go against the whole natural order (well, lack of order) of the world. It takes all of existence and tries to put it in order. It takes the greatest of accomplishments and reduces them to a number. Picture the Taj Mahal, then replace it with its position in a sequence: 726.809452. That’s kind of a fascinating thought.

My love of pop music is kind of the same. When I say “I love pop music,” I mean popular music in all its forms – Cyndi Lauper to Mos Def to Frank Zappa to The Mars Volta to Nick Drake – as distinct from classical, jazz, ragas and sufi music and so forth. I’ve realised that my unending love of pop has nothing to do with the way it sounds – after all, I love Aretha Franklin and The Ramones equally – but with the way it’s organised. Popular music, as distinct from pretty much any other kind of music, is almost always clearly organised into sets of songs with unique titles, arranged in a deliberate sequence on albums. Usually, the songs are three, four or five minutes long; the albums usually have a square design of cover art; usually a selection of songs from the albums are released individually as singles. While there are always exceptions and slight changes to the format (singles nowadays aren’t as important as they used to be), the adherence of pop music to that framework is pretty remarkable. Operas don’t work that way. Neither do devotional chants or improvisational jazz freakouts or Aboriginal oral histories told through song or any other kind of music, pretty much. For some reason, I just find music so much easier to enjoy and digest if it’s organised in the way pop music tends to be. It comes back to what I was saying at the beginning of this very long post; to make sense of the music I enjoy, it needs to be categorised in some way so that I can absorb it, digest it, and remember it, even if that categorisation simply means assigning a title and an artist to a piece of music. That, however boring and nerdy it sounds, is really what defines the music that I fall in love with and come back to, day after day, year after year.

Wow, this entire spiel makes me look like the world’s most boring dork. Oh well, so be it. Guess I’ll have to go find a Dewey number for boring dorks.

Survivor: Heroes vs Villains Are Neither

2010-01-16T12:51:00.002+09:00

Just weeks after washing out the icky flavour left by Survivor: Samoa in our mouths, Burnett, Probst and co. are back at again. This time, tying in with the show’s twentieth season, it’s another all-star season. It’s not just any all-star runabout, though; for reasons unknown, this season is going with tribes of “Heroes” and “Villains” as its theme.
Now, I like all-star seasons. I like that there’s no cannon fodder amongst the contestants, I like seeing the politics amongst people who already know each other, and I like how that upsets the way this show usually progresses. By way of example, think of how pretty much every season starts out – voting based on the criteria of “strong in challenges” and “works hard at camp” resulting in early elimination of old people and the lazy, skinny chicks. Then look at the first All-Stars – challenge monsters and/or alpha males (and Probst’s man-crushes, but we’ll get to that) Colby, Ethan, Richard Hatch and Rob Cesternino didn’t even make it halfway through. Then in the Fans vs Favourites season, the mostly-useless-at-challenges Cirie wasn’t even considered for elimination. See what I mean?
The problem with this season (well, one among many) is that it’s a purely subjective categorisation, and one that simply serves to play up to how the show’s producers chose to edit and present these people in the first place, regardless of that presentation’s connection with reality.
Take a look at the men on the “Heroes” tribe; simply put, Probst has gathered his five biggest man-crushes to date and mixed them together into his own wet-dream of a team. JT, Tom and Colby, fair enough – those guys were all strong leaders, well-liked by their other contestants, known for playing hard but fair, and being pretty decent guys, all round (if we conveniently overlook Tom’s treatment of Ian at the end of Palau, that is). Then we have James; James, who was set up in his original season as the Greatest Survivor EVAH, the softly-spoken and charming gravedigger… not to mention, hardly the sharpest tool in the box (he failed to use either of two immunity idols, lest we forget). That’s how CBS presented him, at least. In reality, he has never won an individual challenge (don’t forget, he’s had two whole seasons to do so), and not only made some unfortunate comments towards Courtney (going for “any swinging dicks” etc), and was kind of a bully to down-and-out Peih-Gee. Now, I don’t think he should be a “villain” or whatever – he’s probably a really decent guy, actually – but what exactly makes him a hero? Just being the object of Probst’s man-crush, I guess. Then, we have Rupert. Oh, Rupert. Has this show ever seen a bigger megalomaniac? This moron can drive me into a frothy-mouthed rage, so let me just review some things; this is the man who didn’t want anyone else to go fishing (it bruised his ego, oh it did); refused to acknowledge anyone else’s ideas or opinions, so convinced he was of his own greatness (remember his half-buried log cabin idea?); expected Lil to give a reward she’d won to him for no apparent reason other than that she was an easily-guilted woman; flew into a rage (complete with near-strangling) when someone dared vote for him (in a game all about… voting for people); and delivered the most ridiculous, self-serving, passive-aggressive speech imaginable when he was finally eliminated, which showed pretty clearly that he did, indeed, expect everyone else to let him win. Now, what part of all that makes him a “Hero”? Being the object of another Probst-man-crush? I thought so.
As for the “Hero” women; Stephenie and Amanda are obvious choices. Two hard workers, both are great in challenges, and pretty decent strategists (Amanda, after all, got second place twice in a row). Steph, meanwhile, was the only person to ever be on a tribe of one, thanks to being stuck on the Suckiest Tribe That Ever Sucked. Elsewhere, Cirie and Sugar also make sense and could make for a fascinating pair to observe – they both suck at challenges, and were lucky to survive more than a week in their first seasons, but they’re also two of the show’s most unlikely strategic masterminds. Cirie has repeatedly displayed crazy, Jedi-like mind-control powers over lesser beings, as well as a very wise tendency to sit back and let the knuckleheads sort themselves out. Sugar, meanwhile, controlled the outcome of the Gabon series so perfectly that, halfway through, she just got bored of playing (and also noticed that the jury hated her, no doubt) and engineered Bob’s victory rather than her own. The last “Hero”, however, is a mystery. Candice was a royal beeatch in the Cook Islands. When she wasn’t canoodling with Neanderthal-Adam, she spent her time mutinying against her tribe, playing Mean Girls with Parvati, and finally, hurling insults at Jonathan Penner (“rat!” “cancer!” “rat cancer!”) after he decided to vote against her buddies in order to save his own arse. More to the point, her best buddy and alliance-mate Parvati is considered a villain. Again… Candice… she’s a hero, how, exactly?
Onto the villains. Granted, most of these people are either genuinely wretched human beings, or at least created characters of themselves as wretched human beings. Russell, Tyson, Coach, Parvati, Randy – I refuse to waste any more words on these overexposed twits. Two of them – Rob Mariano and Jerri – I can understand being put here, though I wouldn’t do the same. Jerri is hardly a hero, and was a truly unpleasant wench back in the Australia series, but largely redeemed herself on the first All-Stars. Rob is definitely one of this show’s best players, and while he definitely comes across as very, very cocky (which he’s largely entitled to be), I think he mostly just doesn’t suffer nitwits gladly, and he’s resented for it. If you watch the truly ridiculous behaviour of the jury on the All-Stars season, most of the contestants speeches amounted to “you suck because you beat me!” The other three women considered to be “Villains” are a bit of a mystery, and in my opinion, are the precise opposite of Probst’s man-crushes. These women – Danielle, Sandra and Courtney – are all outspoken women who stood up for themselves and their own interests, and are apparently villains because of it. Sandra and Courtney are both unafraid to speak their minds – Sandra definitely has quite the potty-mouth, and Courtney was not shy about her dislike of other contestants. But really, where is it written that you have to like everyone? I always figured Courtney was smart for keeping her dislike of everyone to the camera confessionals, and not letting it boil over into the open with the other contestants. Because hating all the nitwits you’re marooned with? Fine. Hating those nitwits to their faces? Not good strategy. Finally, I cannot think of anything that Danielle (“Who’s Danielle?” Exactly.) did to warrant being labelled a “Villain.” All I can think of is the fact that she eliminated Terry, thus preventing Probst’s man-crush for that season from winning. In other words, she stood up for herself against her season’s macho-man and so, must be punished. Sort of.
If I had my way, I’d still do another all-star-type season like this, even with a lot of the same contestants, but I’d do away with this awful, awful theme. I’m expecting these people to buy into their labels, with the “Villains” trying to out-douchebag each other, and the “Heroes” trying to out-hero each other (i.e., out-famewhore and out-megalomania). It’s not going to be a pretty sight.
Then again, if I had my way, Rupert would be repeatedly smacked with a dead octopus, and, sadly, that’s not likely to happen any time soon. I guess I’ll just have to sit back and hope that Survivor: Heroes vs Villains won’t suck as much as I expect it will.

Vampire Weekend: Contra

2010-01-15T14:49:00.003+09:00

Like Vampire Weekend's eponymous debut, Contra cuts right to the chase, with Ezra Koenig delivering the Horchata’s first verse within the album’s first few seconds, much like on "Mansard Roof" almost two years ago. But that’s about where the similarities end; Contra is not Vampire Weekend II, so don’t expect another “Oxford Comma” or “A-Punk.” That said, it isn’t quite a complete departure; rather, like all the best second albums, the band have taken what they already know and added a few new flavours. Those familiar Graceland-guitars are still present on the gorgeous “White Sky”, though with some warm, bubbly synths added to the mix; “Cousins,” meanwhile, works as a cousin to “A-Punk,” albeit a far more bonkers one, quite literally with more bells and whistles.
Contra is a very New York album; much more overtly so than the band’s debut. This isn’t the scuzzy New York of The Strokes or The Velvet Underground however; Vampire Weekend’s is a New York of modern art collectors, private schools, real estate, and summer holidays on the beach. It’s so completely not what we like to imagine rock’n’roll is about, so preppy, so well-bred and well-dressed, that in any other world a band like this would be completely hateworthy. What saves Vampire Weekend is their unapologetic sincerity with regard to their music, their inventiveness, and the fact that a great pop song is just a great pop song, damn it. Songs like “Cousins,” “Holiday” and “Run” are fun without being funny, with “Holiday” in particular crackling with such energy and sheer idiot glee (“Holiday, oh a holiday! / The best one of the year!”), it could almost fit on Weezer’s first album.
Best of all, this album maintains a stricter sense of quality control than its predecessor; where Vampire Weekend wavered slightly in its second half, Contra maintains remarkable consistency throughout. Even in its more adventurous, expansive tracks, such as with “Giving Up The Gun”’s jittery groove, and the six-minute “Diplomat’s Son” – which begins with a sample from M.I.A., of all people – there’s barely a single misstep. Sure, its brief thirty-six minutes may not provide as much opportunity for musical mishap as, say, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, but here, brevity is a virtue.
For any band looking to improve on a massively successful debut, look no further than Vampire Weekend. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

8 / 10

2009's best videos

2010-01-14T19:11:00.003+09:00

After much deliberation – and too many hours spent watching Rage – here are my personal picks for 2009’s best videos. These ten videos run the gamut of the best visual imaginativeness – krazy costumes, horses, skeletons, horrible dancing, lyrical interpretation and public nudity abound! So here they are, in fairly random order… enjoy!

10. Sarah Blasko – All I Want
To be honest, not much happens in this video; simply, the combination of the gorgeous scenery, the ever-intoxicating Ms Blasko, and a trusty horse sidekick make for a mesmerising video.

9. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
If you’re a new band looking to grab some passer-by attention in your first video, it sure doesn’t hurt to just slap the word SURFING all over it in big letters. Of course, The Drums don’t much look like surfers, what with the jeans and ill-fitting jumpers. That, and running around in pitch darkness doesn’t really bring to mind the lyrical imagery of the summery-est, sunshiney-est song in years. But hey, that hardly matters when you’re this painfully cool, right? Right? SURFING!!

8. Darren Hanlon – Electric Skeleton
Darren Hanlon is as cute as a sack full of kittens at the best of times, so when his bespectacled self builds a skeleton friend from household junk, dances, and then cries when it all goes horribly wrong, well, it’s almost more adorable than I can bear. Resistance is futile.

7. Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck – Heaven Can Wait
What a last-minute surprise this was! A non-stop parade of suburban slices-of-life, full of the surreal (the SpongeBob Squarepants costume, the boxing at the carousel) and implied violence (the guy fleeing a flying axe); kinda like something Beck would’ve made in the mid-90s. Any video can just throw a bunch of krazy krap at a viewer, though. What makes this one work is that none of it is played for laughs; the clear, bright colours and slow, lingering shots, coupled with the sincerity of all involved (check out the couple proudly displaying their fruit sculpture) and the total indifference of Charlotte and Beck make the whole thing feel like a quiet celebration of modern Americana.

6. Philadelphia Grand Jury – The Good News
This one’s great because it really shows (like a lot of Australian stuff) what you can do with pretty much no budget. It would be cool enough if it just involved the Philly Jays playing in a bunch of places (standing in water up to their chests is my favourite), but then they go and incorporate a whole Where’s Wally?-style game into it? Genius. Love it. I still haven’t found everything.

5. Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
Firstly, in my defence, I still don’t think her songs are particularly interesting or good. Lady Gaga’s videos, though, are something else. Paparazzi is an absolute feast for the eyes. A really bonkers feast, that is: The crutches! The spotty horse! The gold-puking dead maids! The costumes! The boyfriend-murdering! What does it all mean? Partly, that Lady Gaga is willing to take pretty big risks for her art, but mostly, just that she’s kinda mental.

4. Vampire Weekend – Cousins
Every Vampire Weekend video so far has been awesome, so why shouldn’t this be awesome too? Cousins is also their most bonkers song yet, so why shouldn’t it have their most bonkers video yet? This video delivers, because bonkers it is; plenty of confetti, lyrical interpretation, lightning-sharp editing, and that crazy head-turning-mask effect. It’s a total riot in an alleyway. On a trolley.

3. Sia – Soon We’ll Be Found
Some great videos simply choose a visual motif and explore its visual possibilities as far as three or four minutes will allow. Here, that motif is just a pair of paint-covered hands; from Sia signing the lyrics along with her singing, to an explosion of imagination, with dozens of disembodied hands making staircases, trees, birds and more. The result looks fantastic and is surprisingly moving.

Sia Soon We'll Be Found from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

2. Matt & Kim – Lessons Learned
Obviously, a video in which two people get naked in Times Square was never going to miss this list. That said, this eponymous, spousal band don’t exactly look like your average exhibitionists, and it helps tremendously that they both look so nervous, so elated and terrified at what they’re doing. Then, when they’re totally butt naked, they just look around at the buildings, taking in the sights like a couple of tourists – apparently oblivious to the crowd that’s amassed to, erm, look at their bits. Totally delightful. Oh yeah, then there’s that ending. That ending.

1. Metronomy – A Thing For Me
Yeah, it came out in late 2008, but who cares? I sure don’t. So, you know those bouncing balls that help you keep time with lyrics at karaoke? Well, what if, for starters, those balls started attacking people through mildly violent and highly comically head-smacking? And while that’s going on, what if the lyrics on the screen weren’t the real lyrics at all, but all the misheard ones that people sing instead? And then, what if a band put all that into an absolutely spectacularly funny video? You’d have this, of course.

Real Estate FAIL.

2010-01-13T13:59:00.002+09:00

My latest addiction is neither crystal meth, nor heroin. It's not gambling or shopping channels. Nope, my latest addiction is.... real estate! How very sexy and exciting. I've been doing a lot of online real estate browsing, thinking that if/when I get the teacher librarian position I'm expecting, I could very well save enough within a year for a deposit on something simple, a first home to get myself into the market. Sadly, after a few thousand clicks of the mouse through realestate.com.au, that glorious idea has deflated like a week-old balloon dinosaur.

On a young teacher's salary, of around $50,000 or so a year, could afford a property up to around $250,000, at a stretch. There is virtually nothing - nothing - in all of Adelaide under $250,000. A search on realestate.com.au found three types of properties under that price; a) retirement village units, b) caravan park lots, and c) places in Davoren Park. Since I a) am not retiring, b) don't want to live in a caravan park, and c) don't want to be stabbed on a daily basis, those are not sound options.

Now, I wouldn't have thought it would be such a stretch for a professional person, working full-time with a decent wage, to be able to own their own home, but clearly, that's not as likely as I'd like to think. It's ridiculous. This isn't Sydney or Manhattan or Monaco we're talking about here - it's Adelaide. The same Adelaide that everyone claims is so dead and lifeless. More precisely, it's Modbury, it's Salisbury, it's Happy Valley, it's Croydon.... it's hundreds of suburbs that really, really are not especially well-to-do.

Real estate sucks.

Then again, if worse comes to worse, I could always move to Coober Pedy, where I could buy something like ten of these:

Hey! Blog!

2010-01-12T14:06:00.002+09:00

What up, Blog? I'm writing stuff in you again, as you can no doubt see.

Blogging was buckets of fun, back in the sunshiney days of JET and Japan. Then, back in Mt Gambier, the combined pressure of a) high school teaching and b) not freaking out was enough of a full-time load to keep me from writing stuff for a while. Then, teaching stopped, and so did writing. Then other stuff happened, and other stuff didn't happen, and then, I got bored and decided to write stuff again. Stuff is kind of a recurring theme, you might notice. So anyways, in the vein of some very wise kittys, I haz blogz, and I are blogging.

Besides pointless rambles about stuff (Stuff!! yeah!!), I'm going to try my hand at criticism; an album of the week project, starting this week with Vampire Weekend's Contra (when I get it, that is). I've also decided that my near-crazy-making tendency to classify and organise everything I encounter is something to be embraced, rather than avoided. So, hopefully, expect some exceedingly inane and OCD-esque lists of stuff. Do I expect anyone to read any of this? Hell no. But that's hardly the point then, is it?

On the Awesomeness of a City.

2008-07-20T12:37:00.004+09:00

Having just finished Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, I'm all about rational and logical arguments. Hence, here's my argument regarding the awesomeness of Adelaide*:
1. Adelaide has an abundance of things to do, things to eat, things to see, and people with whom to share the above.
2. Naysayers describe Adelaide as boring. "Boring" depends on the actions of the individual, and how actively they choose to use their time; it does not reflect some innate characteristic of the place.
3. Naysayers point to Adelaide's small size as a negative. This is easily countered with two points; firstly, size does not correlate with awesomeness (otherwise we'd be talking about Mexico, Mumbai and Sao Paulo as the greatest places in the world)**; secondly, smaller size means less traffic, less pollution, and lower prices, which is certainly not a negative!

If you want, you can skip all of the above and just read this: I've moved back to Adelaide. I like it here.

I've been doing not much of anything the past couple of weeks, just hanging out with the family, and making good use of the local library, and the Central Markets. I'm heading back to Mt Gambier on Tuesday night for a few days, to help out when the group of homestay students from Soja Minami visit. After that, it's back to uni to start my third degree - a Graduate Diploma in Library Systems and Information Management. The plan is to spend three days a week at uni, two days doing relief teaching at the many nice schools around my part of Adelaide, collect some Austudy allowance, and save enough money to go to Vietnam.

*Warning: argument may not be logical nor rational.
**In Lonely Planet's Cities book, little Bled, Slovenia (pop: 5000) was placed 90th, ahead of Dhaka, Bangladesh (pop: 12,000,000). So there.

Joining Facebook Groups is a Mostly Pointless Endeavour Appreciation Club

2008-06-22T17:44:00.002+09:00

It seems that about 90% of the time, people just join Facebook groups to show that they agree with whatever statement the name of the group makes. Well, I've been browsing a bit, and found a few that I like, so here they are, to save me actually joining them:

Be an organ donor, you tightarse, you don't need that shit when you're dead.
Bindi Irwin scares the crap out of me.
I read the menu, but deep down I know I'm getting the parma.
Mandatory jail terms for animal cruelty.
I use more than the recommended two spoons of milo.
Friends don't let friends vote Liberal.
I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself appreciation society.
People who bite the chocolate off Magnums before eating the ice cream.
If procrastination were a subject, I'd be top of my class.
Those incensed by tacky You'll Love Coles quotes.

Two Things

2008-06-14T23:11:00.002+09:00

1. I managed to go out tonight without actually closing my back door. It was locked, but not actually pulled closed. My computer, camera, ipod, and photos are all present and accounted for. My common sense is not.

2. Pizza Hut closed down! This would not be of much significance, but it did make me think that there are precious few businesses in Mount Gambier that have survived, unchanged, for my entire Mt Gambier life. With that in mind, I have a mission: to compile a list (how unusual!) of those few unchanged landmarks, and to wander down Commerical Street, and try to remember what was there around 1988-89. Let's see... off the top of my head, Golden Chopsticks Chinese restaurant, The Australian Fish Shop, the NAB and Bank SA, Cosmopolitan Pizza Bar, Exchange Printers, Mac's Auctions, those dusty old jewellers whose names I don't know... there's a few, but not many.

Nostalgia. Also, Gnomes.

2008-05-16T16:59:00.002+09:00

I tend to be a very nostalgic person, especially in regard to places. I walk past my childhood home every day, going to and from school, and whilst passing it today, I had a particularly strong pang of nostalgia, and an urge to ask the current resident if I could just go for a wander around the garden a bit. Sounds weird, I know. The backyard, meanwhile, is along the street, and is very exposed and visible. So I had a peek into the yard, and there was a rowboat just sort of dumped on the lawn and OH MY GOD GARDEN GNOMES ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Sigh.

Some more names I like

2008-05-08T22:27:00.002+09:00

I really should be going to bed right now, but here are some more imaginary band names I like:

The Buttons
The Moments
The Oratories
The Nations
The Paperwork

Once, in year 6, we had to come up with names for our table groups. I came up with Frog In A Blender, and thought that was fabulous. Just so you know.

What should I call my book?

2008-05-06T21:06:00.002+09:00

I've drafted it with just the name of the first blog - "This Is A Tree" - though I'm sure I could do better.
Any suggestions? I'll go with anything, besides Engrish. If anyone suggests "Let's Blogging With Us," I may react inappropriately.

Aborted attempts no longer

2008-04-27T12:42:00.003+09:00

I am writing a book. Indeed, it's almost finished. It's more-or-less a compilation of this blog and my previous blog, This is a Tree (which I'm tempted to use as a title), without the bits not concerned with Japan. See, I had been wanting to write some kind of a book about Japan, and figured, why write a bunch of stories I'd already written? So with the addition of some before and after stories, glossary of our Japlish slang, and copious footnotes, it'll be finished. I've also stuck stubbornly with the unedited blog entries, since I figure that makes for a better read than a version sanitised with the benefit of hindsight, or affected by the tinted view of retrospectovision.
I'm determined to make this the first of five attempts at writing that I will actually finish.
The first attempt was an ambitious attempt to create another trilogy of Star Wars novels with my Dad, when I was about twelve. All I remember was that we killed off Admiral Ackbar, Max Rebo (the blue elephant in Jabba the Hutt's band) was a central character, and the key villains were a frog-like race called the Qu'iunni'i (kee-oo-nee-eye, I think). Yeah, I can't imagine why that never got off the ground.
The second attempt was whilst at university. I wanted to write a fictional story about anthropological and cultural theory, but in a fantasy country of my own creation, to achieve an entirely un-ethnocentric tone. Remarkably, drugs were not involved.
The third attempt arose out of my first urge to document our collective adventures in Japan. Dani and I came up with the idea of dramatising the many adventures of a dozen or so of our dearest friends into a sort of soap opera, complete with fictional names. We never got further than thinking of witty fake names for ourselves.
The fourth attempt followed the third; I wanted to make a book about adventures in Japan by compiling the many hundreds of emails between my friends and I over the course of two years. I did compile and organise it all, but it proved to be mostly for my own amusement, and besides, publishing hundreds of personal emails may not have been the best thought-out idea I ever had.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-04-25T10:03:00.002+09:00

There's a little editin' goin' on. I've taken the blogs of my friends off the side, since most of them aren't really active any more. Also the recent acquisitions has been completely updated and replaced. All of those were acquired in a single day, after a mini-shopping spree at JB Hi-Fi, and a pillaging of Aimee and Stuart's computer. Five Eels albums! Goodness!
I'm also spending today backing-up this and the older blog on Word, just in case of impending disaster. Exciting!

Video of the week!

2008-04-24T18:11:00.001+09:00

It's Goldfrapp's new single, Happiness. A man bounces down a neighourhood street, pretty much. Enjoy!

Melbourne! Hell yeah!

2008-04-24T17:56:00.002+09:00

As I said before, I went to Melbourne for a four-day trip over the past weekend, and I've decided that it may very well be deserving of the tag of "11th-best city in the world" that Lonely Planet gave it in the giant Cities book I have. That makes it better than... well, everywhere besides NYC, London, Paris, Sydney, Barcelona, Bangkok, Istanbul, Rome, Cape Town and San Francisco. Pretty lofty claim, that. Still, it is a very cool city, with an awful lot going on. Yes, my ancient and somewhat irrational Melbourne-and-Victoria-hate has finally disintegrated utterly. Please don't banish me, beloved South Australia!

Without writing a boring I-did-this-and-then-I-did-this post, over three days (since I didn't get there until Friday evening) I packed in the following: hippie market at St Andrews, Healesville Sanctuary, Chinese restaurant, karaoke, bars, brunch at Nicola's lovely cafe, trash market at Camberwell, city shopping, local rock festival (as in, loud music, not geology), Bridge Road shopping, exhibition of political cartoons, pub trivia (second place, by one point! Alas!). A busy trip, then.

As an aside, one of the ongoing games of Aimee and myself was the invention of names for potential bands. Amongst my better ideas (better, according to me, that is):
Help Help I'm On Fire
The Habits
Department Of Unclaimed Umbrellas
Informative Billboards
Platonic Lesbians
Southern Crustaceans
My favourite, however, is still simply Ducks. I'd love the idea of a band going onstage to announce, "we are Ducks!" Adorable.

Meanwhile, one of the great things about Melbourne are its neighbourhoods of inner-city stuff; Collingwood, Richmond, Fitzroy et al. Those places that are still busy and funky and full of shops and eating and stuff, where people actually live. The city of Melbourne itself (and Sydney, for that matter) doesn't feel that much bigger than Adelaide, just busier - but it's that inner-city-living feeling that Adelaide really has very little of that I like. That, and its noticeable leap up in terms of diversity. Of course, more Cool Stuff and a bigger, more diverse population inevitably results in more self-important tools. And honestly, given the choice between Harmless But Narrow-Worldview Bogans and Self-Important Trend-obssessed Tools, I might actually go for the HBNWBs.
But that's a minor gripe. Melbourne! Go there!

Spamtastic.

2008-04-17T09:26:00.002+09:00

So I've just added a couple more long-delayed posts to Oh! World and I came across some spam. Spam, glorious spam! I can't believe my useless little blog is getting spammed. Also, spam.

In response to my entry on Tangier, which mostly amounted to "Tangier sucks and is very sketchy," I came across this comment:

Very interesting article. I have been to Morocco only for five days, but it was really great holidays. Most of all I liked Tangiers, it is a city in the north of Morocco near the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean! It has a rich cultural heritage and is a city full of life. And I wasn't surprised when I found that many people buy in Tangiers property. And the climate is mild.
Also I saw many interesting sights such as Hassan 2 mosque, souk of Djemaa el Fna and other interesting places.
Also I was impressed by our trip to the Sahara desert.

Right. So you more or less have the following:
Me: Tangier sucks.
Spam: I like Morocco too, especially Tangier! It is full of life and lovely people.

Thanks, Spam Man! May you not make any sense forever more.

Holidays! or, The Slackest Man In Existence.

2008-04-17T08:36:00.002+09:00

Good lord, I haven't blogged for a long time. I blame having an actual full-time, hard-working job for... the first time ever, I do believe. Term 1 has been survived, and now I am basking in the glory of two weeks holiday. I've been doing as little as possible - walking around the lakes, going to the library, cooking - nothing thrilling.
Tomorrow, however, I'm going to Melbourne for a four-day weekend of fabulousness with some equally fabulous friends. As a kid, I liked to hate Melbourne, though I can't really remember why - possibly just because of a perceived obligation to hate everything in Victoria. Thankfully, that perception is long gone, and I can acknowledge now that Melbourne is fantastic. It'll be nice to spend some time in a genuine Big City for a few days.
Meanwhile, since I haven't written in so long, here's a recap of the past couple of months: work, regional sports day (we came 5th of 8, woe), work, wonderful Easter trip to Port Hughes with the entire family, work, pub, visit from Mum and Dad, work, state Field Days in Lucindale with Jess, pub, work, report-writing madness... and that's about it. Exciting, no?

Home decorating

2008-02-21T20:29:00.002+09:00

Few things give me more satisfaction than simple home decorating. This has been a great delight since moving here, especially since I own very little furniture or kitchenware. Indeed, the vast bulk of my belongings are books, CDs and useless knicknacks. Actually, when I arrived, the only furniture I actually owned was my beloved treasure chest that my Dad made, full of old National Geographics.
The greatest single thing in my house is a built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, which divides up the living room to make a dining area and an entrance. It has been lovingly filled with the aforementioned books and useless knicknacks.
I've bought myself a nice dining setting, with a round extendable table and four chairs; the washing machine of last week's saga; and a bunch of assorted kitchenware. All I need now is a microwave, a full dinner set so I can actually have people over, and a bed (I'm still sleeping on a mattress on the floor, which is just as comfortable as the same mattress on a bedframe, so that can wait a while). Today, I quite awesomely got a TV cupboard for the princely sum of... nothing. See, the students who do woodwork or work-related studies or whatever make a lot of stuff they don't need, which is left in the staff room for anyone to take home. So I got a perfectly serviceable TV cupboard for free. It's a kind of ugly white, but the tapestry I got in Thailand is big enough to cover the whole thing. It's a big improvement on my previous TV stand, which was just the TV perched on a stack of old crappy books.
Lastly, I've been trying to put my yukata up on display, since it's neat and I have huge expanses of wall to cover. Yesterday I built a needlessly complicated arrangement involving a curtain rod, string, shoelaces (because the string wasn't long enough) and safety pins to hang it from one of those stick-on removable wall hooks. The whole concoction came crashing down within an hour. Today's attempt involves the yukata hanging from the same curtain rod, with an unwound coathanger re-wound around the curtain rod, then hooked onto one of those vents every house has, with the obi slung over the top. It's lasted a few hours, here's hoping it'll last a few more.

Video of the week!

2008-02-21T20:25:00.003+09:00

You really haven't lived until you've seen Kate Bush's dancing in Wuthering Heights. When I was in Scotland, I liked to imagine her twirling across the moors, wearing one of her daft frocks. Oh, Kate.

Let's Complicated.

2008-02-17T15:03:00.002+09:00

First of all, I apologise for my reverting back to Engrish. It was either going to be that, or "The Saga Of Attempted Washing Machine Purchase," which isn't quite as catchy. Nevertheless, yesterday I attempted to buy a washing machine, and it has been quite a saga.
I visited my friendly local electrical store and picked out a machine. Not quite having the cash in the bank to buy it there and then (since I bought my wonderful dining setting, which isn't that exciting, but it's the first time I've ever bought my own furniture, so I'm pretty excited about it) , I opted for one of those 12 months interest-free deals. However! I needed photo i.d. to finish the application, and my expired learner's permit wouldn't cut it.
I went home and came back to the shop with my passport. Turns out that if you use some i.d. other than a driving licence, you need to show a utility bill as well. Don't ask me why.
Today I came back to the shop again with a phone bill in hand. Finished the application, and it was rejected. This was presumably on the grounds that I haven't been with my current employer very long, but the helpful computer screen says nothing. So, I'm advised to change to a rent-to-buy kind of thing. This has to be arranged by phone. We (the storeperson and I) sit on hold for a half hour. We get through to the rental people, everything is sorted out, and it's only twenty minutes after closing time.
I start walking home. A few hundred metres away from the shop, a car pulls over, and it's the salesperson, who forgot to get my signature on some forms. Since she's in a car and I'm walking and it's about 30 million degrees today, she drives me home.
Did I tell you it was a saga? It was a saga.

In other stupidity today, I put some juice in the freezer to cool it down quickly. When I poured it out, it was all slushy and reminded me of the fruity frozen margaritas at Moby Dick in Okayama, so I put a splash of pisco. Now it tastes horrible.

Oh well, no more laundromat, at least.

Roots

2008-02-10T08:47:00.000+09:00

Back to mine, that is.
Two years and twenty-something countries later, I'm back in Mount Gambier, in the same neighbourhood I grew up in, teaching in the same school with a lot of my former teachers. The school's looking much nicer than it did ten years ago, though of course the kids keep complaining about how feral it is. Feral is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. The student numbers have dropped by about 200 since I was there as well, so there's a bit more breathing space, and the corridors no longer have the same Mumbai-train crush they used to between lessons. Otherwise, it's much the same, and it's a great help to start (more or less) a career in a familiar environment and not have to worry about where the bookroom is, what time recess starts, what is acceptable school uniform, and such. When you're a new teacher, you've got enough to worry about.
Mount Gambier has hardly changed, which is fine by me. A couple of shops have changed, and that's about it. What's really striking is that everyone drives everywhere; there's no-one walking on the streets. It's deathly quiet and peaceful out there. The birds are great too; there are flocks of lorikeets in the trees in the park next to my place, and big mobs of corellas on the school oval.
My school's Aquatics Carnival is on tomorrow, and the forecast is for a not-scorching 24. It's already cold in the mornings and evenings, and this better just be a cold patch before the sun comes back, because seriously, this is meant to be summer, people! Yikes.
Lastly, my flat is really nice and roomy, and in very nice shape. But, I have hardly any furniture, and it feels really empty. So, today's mission: get a table.

Things I Like

2008-01-12T19:21:00.000+09:00

Here's some songs I've been enjoying in 2007.
Firstly, the best thing I've heard all year, Parting of the Sensory by Modest Mouse. The linked video is just one of those fan-made cobbled-together things, but you get to hear the song. It sounds simultaneously angry, hurt, sad, and exhausted, before spinning into a sort of terrifying boogaloo hoedown, and the refrain that "someday you will die somehow and something's gonna steal your carbon." It's completely remarkable, if you're into terrifying boogaloo hoedowns.
Right behind is Arcade Fire's Intervention. All the trendy indie rock kids have been going ape about Arcade Fire, and really, why not?
Next, Grip Like A Vice, by The Go! Team. Super-funky, with kitchen sink present and accounted for.
M.I.A. has an even louder, funkier kitchen sink, banging all over the place in Boyz. As David Bowie wrote on Ziggy Stardust, "to be played at maximum volume."
Bjork has to get a mention every time she puts out a record - have a look at Earth Intruders. Ditto Radiohead - my pick off In Rainbows is Weird Fishes / Arpeggi (not a real video either, oh well).
I have no idea who Bluejuice are, but their song Vitriol is a first-class lesson in how to make a great video with no budget. The fake-interview at the start is hilarious.
My favourite video of the year is All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem. It does that neat trick of building up momentum and energy gradually, without you really noticing, without going "BANG! CHORUS! LOUD BIT!" like some songs tend to do.
Architecture In Helsinki can't put a foot wrong - cue the steel drums in Heart It Races.
The Polyphonic Spree keep making great pop songs, though the frontman looks like more of a tool all the time.
Lastly, Just A Song About Ping Pong, by Operator Please, is my pick for winning the Hottest 100. I'm sure I'm losing all trendy indie rock cred by endorsing a pop-chart hit by a bunch of high school kids, but so be it. Everyone in this band looks about twelve years old, and I'd give full praise for any schoolkid who can write a decent pop tune (Hanson aside, because they were evil).

Selamat Natal

2008-01-12T18:32:00.000+09:00

Looking from Mum and Dad's lounge room. Adorable squirrels out of shot.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain! Okay, that's enough. Seriously, that'll do...

The tiny beach at Amarta.

That's "Merry Christmas," in Indonesian, in tribute to a Christmas season spent with the family in Ubud, Bali, one of my favourite towns anywhere, and curiously the town whose dining scene I am most familiar with. Seriously, ask me for somewhere to eat in Adelaide, and it's just... "Rundle Street, I guess?" For Okayama, "the izakaya? Or Moby Dick if you want something really special?"
But anyway. I spent three weeks total in Bali, mostly enjoying family time and battling swarms of flying termites and rains of biblical proportions. It's still a great place; visitor numbers are up a bit from the last time I was there, I think, which certainly helps local business, but there's so much more to it than tourism. The Balinese remain as legendarily friendly as ever, and become even more so with kids around, as I found with nephews T and M in tow. Really, if you have kids, it's a great place to bring them - no snooty looks from restaurant staff, lots of smiles and compliments, and plenty of playmates.
In the first week, we all went to the Amarta Bungalows near Candidasa for a two-day stay. The beach at Candidasa itself is pretty much completely eroded away, but there's a lovely little patch of sand remaining at Amarta. It's a private beach, more or less, since there's no-one else around.
I rented some snorkel gear whilst there for the princely sum of $2 and had a look around. Plenty of gorgeous fish and coral around, and after a rather scary attempt to swim out to and climb a sea wall offshore a bit, I emerged nicely diced up. Coral hurts.
It was M's birthday just before Christmas, so we had a little party, and invited a bunch of neighbourhood kids. The family who own my parent's house catered, and a good time was had by all.
For Christmas, we had a Balinese buffet at a little Ubud restaurant. The many Balinese and two American guests were introduced to the great Australian traditions of Christmas crackers (including the paper crowns and God-awful jokes), Christmas cake and decent cask wine. The food was fabulous, as usual - the Balinese certainly know how to put out a good spread of food.
Which brings me to my favourite discovery this trip - the glory of nasi bungkus. Nasi bungkus literally means "take-away rice," and is just that - a take-away lunch of rice with assorted toppings, wrapped in a paper cone. What makes it so great is both the cost (average about 40 cents for a filling lunch) and the variety - even from the same shop, it can be different every day. Chicken, pork, egg, tempeh, tofu, peanuts, fish, green beans, sprouts - anything goes. We had one for lunch almost every day.
We spent the last night and two days of the trip down at Kuta. I've always said point-blank that Kuta sucks, and... it doesn't quite suck, exactly. The best way to describe it is as a whole city of Bangkok's Khao San Road. There's lots of shopping and eating, and the beach is surprisingly decent, considering the state of the rest of the town. On the other hand, it's full of bogans, wandering the streets in their Bintang singlets, beer in hand... "funny" and "witty" profanity-laden t-shirts... McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks et al... and Javanese tourists who come to look at all the crazy Westerners (so I've heard).

This one's for Rachel. Rusty play equipment? Creepy paintings of the Teletubbies? It must be a Balinese kindergarten!

Video of the week!

2007-12-09T10:51:00.000+09:00

It's been away a while, but the sporadically-posted fun of Video of the Week is back. Here's "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem. It's a one-shot masterpiece.

Okaeri.

2007-12-09T10:27:00.000+09:00

O-kaeri. I'm back. Back in Adelaide, that is, though not for too much longer. I'll be off to Bali again for Christmas in a week's time. Then it'll be back to Adelaide for another couple of weeks in January, then off to start my new teaching job at Mount Gambier of all places. Yep, after all this time abroad and twenty-something countries, it's back to my own high school in my inaka homeland. Madness.

When I came back to Adelaide in the middle of November, the jacarandas were out in force. Lots of streets in Adelaide are lined with these glorious purple trees, and the smell and sight is wonderful, as is kicking around the fallen petals. Definitely gives sakura a run for its money.

It's Christmas time in Adelaide! Despite the sometimes sweltering heat, we keep on clinging to the same wintery Christmas imagery. And, depsite what Japan will tell you, Santa definitely is not riding a surfboard. Instead, he's swelled to enormous proportions, and stands on David Jones (our Macy's / Takashimaya), beckoning passers-by with his vaguely scary expression.

I was planning to start a stall at a local market selling some of my photos as enlargements, postcards and greeting cards, but with the impending move back to Mt Gambier next month, that plan's been put on hold. Nevertheless, I'm still taking lots of pointless arty photos, as exemplified by a trip to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens last week. For just about the first time ever, I got to see the lotus pond in full bloom.

Oh! World.

2007-09-24T04:07:00.000+09:00

I've started a new blog, which is going to be the journal that I'm keeping whilst travelling around. Out of laziness, more or less, to have to tell stories twice. It's imaginatively called Oh! World. The magic address is: http://thisisnotatree.blogspot.com

Goodbye Japan, Hello World

2007-08-26T16:36:00.000+09:00

In a case of Captain Bloody Obvious Strikes Again, I've been neglecting this blog somewhat of late. In short, I've been soaking up a month of South Australia love - a fortnight each in Adelaide and Port Lincoln - having left Japan on the 23rd of last month. And the past fortnight in Adelaide has just confirmed what I always thought - it really is a fabulous place. Not in the mind-blowing, postcard-perfect sense of Hong Kong or Paris or whatever, but as a place to live and absorb life, it can't be beat.
That said, I'm leaving it again on Tuesday for my long-anticipated and heavily-planned (for those who know me at all, that's an inevitability) tour du monde. Eighty-eight days living out of my trusty backpack, before heading home and hopefully getting the French teaching position at a snooty all-girl school that was advertised in the paper yesterday. So, Oh! Blog is on hiatus until December. Goodbye Japan, Hello World indeed.

Farewelling

2007-07-19T21:18:00.000+09:00

Right, so I've been really slack with this blog and haven't written anything about what I've actually been doing since goodness knows when. I haven't written about the Sayonara Party, the trip to Fukiya Villa, the weekend in Nara with Chris, or the Tottori beach party, so let's just say that they were all wonderful and leave it at that, shall we? Right. On with more recent business, then.
There's only three more days until my day of departure from Japan. I've been saying goodbye to all the wonderful people I've met these past two years, often multiple times, as our fondness for beer gardens and karaoke brings us together again after initial farewells.
My first official farewell was from Takeeda Elementary, where my departure was commemorated with a whole-school game of Fruit Basket - including the teachers, and even Kocho-sensei! He's a refreshingly non-stuffy Kocho, he is.
At Fukuwatari Elementary, my departure was commemorated with... nothing. Which is completely fine with me, because being the focus of fuss makes me uncomfortable. Nevertheless, when I was leaving, and that school's Kocho-sensei said to me, "oh, is it your last day? Well, bye!" - that was a bit much.
At Takebe Elementary, we had a short assembly in the morning, where I gave a terrible impromptu speech in Japanese. Then after school, the staff had a little coffee-and-cake party. Someone asked me what I was doing after Japan and I said that I'd most likely be teaching French, they asked me to translate the French on their cake wrapper. Then they yelled "jouzu!" Another chance to show off, then.
This afternoon was the farewell ceremony at Takebe Junior High. I spent the whole thing standing in the wrong place, walking off when I should've stood still, bowing to the wrong people, and generally acting like I'd just arrived in Japan. Funny how little things change. Finally, I did the walk-through-a-tunnel-of-students thing, whatever it's called, which was wonderful. There were lots of handshakes - still a novelty for Japanese kids - and some boys said "no handshake, hug, hug!" so there were some hugs too.
The ni and san nensei kids all wrote me farewell messages too. Here are some of the highlights:
"You go back to Australia. So, I'm sick!"
"I'm an alien. I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you."
"You were the One for me."
"I found you taught me joy of English."
"My name is Naoto, your HERO. Don't let it get you down. Let's get out of here!!!! God damn it!!!!!!"
"The past two years with you at Takebe will perfectly bear wonderful fruits in my life."
"Hell My name is muscle Hayato."
"I have a orange. I like ORANGE RANGE. ORANGE RANGE is good singers. If you listen to their song, you will like them."
"I like Mr Robert and Robert's bike. One day when Masashi and I rode a bike, they saw you. Robert's bike is very cool!"
"I love Robert. Because your handsome gentle and a rich man. I want you. I need you. I love you. Will you marry me?"
That last one was from a boy, which somehow makes it okay. Huh?
And now, photos! First, Takeeda Elementary School. All of it.
The giant year 6 class at Takebe Elementary.
The crazy year 5s at Takebe Elementary.

The equally-crazy year 5s at Takebe.
The super-cool 2A at Takebe Junior High. I just realised they'd written my name in kanji on the blackboard. The first two say "six horses" - the last one's a mystery. Also, probably should've moved those desks out of the way.
Just-as-cool 2B. Didn't like these classes much when they arrived last year, now I reckon they're fabulous.

It comes in threes...

2007-06-28T20:40:00.000+09:00

What comes in threes? In Japan, everything does. The top three gardens, the top three waterfalls, the top three scenic views... and of course, it is never known which of the three is actually the best. So, keeping with tradition, here's a reflection of the best and worst of these past two years, in sets of three.

3 Great Parties

1. Sayonara 2007, Jibutei

2. Julia’s farewell party: yukata, purikura, Thai food, karaoke, Aussie Bar, lotus-opening at Korakuen, breakfast at Macca’s.

3. San-In Beach Party, 2006 and 2007.

3 Great Domestic Trips

1. Kyoto and Nara with Mum and Dad

2. Iya Valley with Amyko and Herbsuke.

3. Tokyo long weekend with Daniko.

3 Cases of Glasses Abuse

1. Thrust down my fundoshi during the Naked Man Festival, 2006.

2. Worn whilst jumping off a 20 foot rock into a lake, Iya Valley

3. Lost in the mosh at a Regurgitator concert, 2001 (not Japan, but still noteworthy).

3 Non-Japanese Cultural Experiences

1. Halloween

2. Thanksgiving

3. Whangi

3 Ways to Kill Time at Work

1. Write this blog

2. Plan trips

3. AJET business (including Fuzzy)

3 Miserable Rains

1. Descending Fuji-san, 2006.

2. Naked Man, 2007.

3. The Big Rain of Takebe, 2006; the one that washed away my bridge.

3 Kickarse Towns

1. Takahashi

2. Katsuyama

3. Takebe

3 Cool Kanji

1. 薬: medicine, drug; the radicals are “plant” and “enjoy,” so that’s just perfect.

2. 鏡: mirror; the radicals are gold, stand and see.

3. 苺: strawberry; the radicals are plant and mother, so strawberries are the mother-plant, I guess.

3 Great Fuzzy Articles

1. Interview With an English Teacher by Tiffany Tse

2. Getting the Most Out of It by Chris Cooper (ie the one with the anti-Pocky rant)

3. The Inaka Factor by Phil Jones

3 Regrettable Elementary School Lessons

1. Halloween: I did a terrible job of feigning interest in the topic.

2. Animal noises: I should point out, not my idea. Who would think teaching 12 year-olds “woof woof, meow meow” would be a good idea?

3. Maths: also not my idea. By someone else’s plan, I spent 45 minutes reciting sums for the children to answer.

3 Great Teachers

1. Ms Tsuuchi. JTE Extraordinaire.

2. Ms Fujiwara. Super-cool PE teacher; actually talks to me; kids call her Junko-sensei.

3. Mr Ando. Best elementary teacher I’ve worked with. Gets involved in the lessons and wears funky golf pants.

3 Great Students

1. Kuroda-sensei. The 88 year-old scholar of my eikaiwa class.

2. Haruka Hino. The best junior high student I ever had.

3. Nao Atsuta. Now in year 4, she came to my kid’s eikaiwa class religiously and tried so hard to get me to teach her the word “poo.”

3 Ways To Get Stares

1. Playing rounders in the front yard of a school in Fukiya.

2. Playing cricket on the Asahi River in the city.

3. Walking in a group from Champclair, all dressed in yukatas.

3 Stolen Items

1. My bike

2. Countless umbrellas, lost, stolen, abandoned.

3. DVDs and Tim Tams accidentally stolen by birthday party attendees at Red Moon (I had put my stuff down too close to the birthday presents, which were all gathered up and taken together).

3 Nightspots That Suck

1. Friends

2. Desperadoes

3. Mars

Reflection

2007-06-21T21:04:00.000+09:00

I have one month and two days left in

Japan

, so naturally, I’m getting into a bit of a reflective mood. I came to Okayama with twenty-seven other people. Of the twenty-eight of us who went to the Takashimaya Beer Garden on our first night in Okayama, only three (myself, Eric, Dylan) were at the Sayonara Party a fortnight ago. That got me thinking: these two years have been quite an adventure, and as always, the people with whom I began this adventure hold a noteworthy place in my memories, even if we didn’t see out the end of the adventure together. So, to Herb Moscoso, Amy Dunn Moscoso, Betsy Herzog, Adam Dunajko, Julia Lam, Jess Chadwick, Dave Jones, Dawn Lee, Wendy Strachan, Dave Hakaraia, Eric Azevedo, Alison Clarke, Alex Richards, Claire Thomas, Grace Key, Dylan Lawson Brown, Patrick Chaury, Ashley Hamilton, Jarek Polak, Michael Agcanas, Jeff Walz, Adam Stuart, Brendan Daley, Ted Tsung, Greg Porter, Kathryn Fleming, and Gabriel Pliska, cheers! You guys are fab.
Meanwhile, in a completely different realm, Kevin, Tibor and I had a fabulous night out on the town on Saturday, with help from Reed and Andy. Here's some photos.

What's wrong with English education in this country.

2007-06-19T16:44:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, in class, my co-teacher writes the word "marvelous" on the blackboard. He asks me, "is this spelled correctly, or are there two Ls?"
I tell him that both are correct; he's written the American spelling, though Australians spell it with two Ls.
"Oh," he replies, "I suppose the American spelling is better."
WHY is American English so much better? Just by sheer force of numbers? In that case, do all Spanish students learn Mexican Spanish? This is becoming another rant, but I should like to think that students of a foreign language should learn a sort of internationalised version of the language to enable them to handle variations of the target language. They don't have to use one particular kind of English or another, just whatever is understandable. I tell my students, that as foreign speakers of English, they can say mum or mom; mobile or cell; bog or restroom - whatever they want. So when I hear that students who write words like colour, programme or marvellous in their exams will be marked as wrong... well that's bloody stupid.

I've been watching lots of YouTube...

2007-06-13T16:32:00.000+09:00

...particularly music videos, which can be fabulous. Here's my favourite 21 videos that I could find. Unfortunately only one is Australian, since Aussie bands are usually broke and can't afford to make videos. Oh well. Enjoy!

The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be
The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button
The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
Bjork - All Is Full Of Love
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop
Blur - Coffee & TV
TISM - Thunderbirds Are Coming Out
Massive Attack - Teardrop
George Michael - Freedom (yes, I'm serious)
R.E.M. - Electrolite
The Strokes - Reptilia
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Hot Chip - Boy From School
The Guillemots - We're Here
Bjork - Joga
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

The bright and the not-so-bright

2007-06-12T16:38:00.000+09:00

In the past, English classes at my school were divided into two smaller classes, for the brighter and not-so-bright students. This year, the classes are instead divided into two smaller mixed-ability classes. I'm generally in favour of mixing students of different ability levels, because a) students can learn from each other, and b) if you're put in the lower-level class, chances are you're stuck there for good, which isn't very motivating. However, the dictation tests I've been giving lately have made me reconsider. These tests are just a case of me saying three sentences, and the students writing down what I say. Every time we've done such a test so far, there have been seven or eight kids with perfect scores, and a few others who turn in their papers virtually blank. Now, these students are either so far ahead or so far behind that I have to wonder how much they're getting out of the classes, if, for example, they can't manage a sentence like "I am a baseball fan," whilst at the other extreme, some are coming up with work like "I usually sleep late on Sunday, and today was no exception" on their own.
Now, I am a big fan of foreign language education (obviously) but in a rural school like mine, a lot of the kids are likely to end up in blue-collar, unqualified work, where they're not likely to need the kind of grammar-based education they're getting. They should be focusing on international education and general communication strategies. The more academic students should get that as well as more complex grammar, composition and conversation study. In other words, in cases of such huge extremes as in my school, maybe ability streaming isn't such a bad thing after all.
Rant ends.

Meanwhile, at elementary school today, the office staff and I bonded with an impromptu English lesson over "Spot's Big Book of Words." I taught them "beanie" and "touque" for "woolly hat," so you Canucks should be happy.

Now there's something new...

2007-05-26T21:21:00.000+09:00

I just discovered this evening that the toilet at Fukuwatari Station is a squat. Not only that, it's a squat long-drop. Yup, you squat, have a poo, and it falls down a hole. Yuck.
In other news, the other guy who got off at Fukuwatari tonight was hott. But that's nothing to do with anything.
What have I been doing the past month? Not a whole lot. I announced the 2006/7 Okayama JET LookBook a fortnight ago, and have spent most of my evenings working on that since then. It's been going much, much more smoothly than last year, since a year of making the Fuzzy Peach has taught me all about the miracle of text boxes on Word. Basically, I made a page-by-page layout beforehand, and now I'm just pasting in the photos and words as people send them to me. It's been fun.
Went to Bernie's birthday barbecue today. The twenty-something gaijin populating her backyard will surely be the biggest news to hit Yoshinaga in years. It was a delight, and I realised I had forgotten the pleasure of standing around the barbecue, beer in hand, watching the meat cook. Good times.
At school, I have had very little to do. A combination of school trips and exams has deprived me of most of my classes, leaving me to spend my days working on the LookBook, studying kanji, and occasionally working on the other book I've very occasionally been working on writing. Elementary school, on the other hand, has been fun. A fortnight ago, I finally gave my last jiko-shokai (self-introduction) lesson of my life to the year 1 class at Takebe Elementary. This year I've shortened my self-into speech to just ten minutes. I show an Australian flag, a map, four photos and draw pictures of emus, kangaroos and crocodiles, and then let the kids ask me questions in Japanese. The other two schools' year 1 classes just asked "do you like oranges?" and such, but Takebe's kids' questions were much more impressive. I was asked (among others):
How fast can an emu run?
How many countries speak English?
When are all your family's birthdays? (with brothers-in-law and nephews that's ten people, so I didn't spend the time to answer that)
How long does it take by train to cross Australia?
Are you taller than Inoue-sensei? (their teacher is a freakishly tall woman. And no, I am not.)
How long have you studied Japanese?
And so on. Pretty impressive for six-year olds.
Finally, I've finally noticed that my schools are fairly enlightened when it comes to gender roles. Of my four schools, there are two male and two female kocho-senseis, two male and two female kyoto-senseis, and two of the Office Ladies are actually men. Interesting, ne?

Nusa Penida

2007-05-09T18:38:00.000+09:00

Like the other post says, on the Tuesday of my week in Bali with my parents, we took an overnight trip to Nusa Penida. Nusa Penida is an island off Bali, a half-hour boat ride away. In every other sense, it's part of Bali; it's part of the province of Bali, and the people are Balinese-speaking Hindus. However, it's virtually tourism-free, has a drier climate, and the people are poorer than mainland Balinese.
We got to the harbour at Padangbai harbour bright and early to buy our speedboat tickets for Rp20,000 each. Instead, we paid Rp50,000 each. This is a common, sometimes-fair-sometimes-not phenomenon later described as "skin tax," if you get my drift. We took a packed public speedboat across the strait, with some cool views of the 3,142 metre Gunung Agung behind us.
Soon afterwards, we arrived at the FNPF's bird sanctuary on Nusa Penida. The sanctuary's primary focus is the Bali starling, one of the most unbelieveably endangered animals in the world. The last census counted a total of six birds remaining in Bali. Six! The FNPF sanctuary rehabilitates, retrains and releases starlings formerly kept in zoos or as pets, and has so far successfully released about 50 or 60 (Dad will correct me I'm sure) starlings on Nusa Penida. The sanctuary is also home to Java sparrows, lesser sulphur-crested cockatoos, Mitchell's lorikeets, and a very impressive kind of hornbill (forgot what kind). After meeting Ketut, our guide for the day, and Fauna, the sanctuary's lovely three-legged dog, we hopped in a truck for a day around the island.
Our first stop was for a view along some rather bloody spectacular coastline, with certainly the tallest cliffs I've ever seen. Next, we drove to the release site for the starlings. Birds from the sanctuary are transferred to the release site - basically a huge aviary, built to blend in with the surrounding countryside - to get them accustomed to their surroundings before being set loose. It's pretty cool, really.
From the release site we took a steep hike down into the valley, heading towards the sea, to an awesome natural spring. Mum and I took a swim, and it was fantastic, of course. I've never swam in fresh water like that before; so clear and deep and wonderful. From there, we took a short scramble down the beach, admired the enormo-cliffs, then took the steep trail back up to the release site again.
Our next stop was a weaving village. We saw some nice weavings, hand-made with natural dyes, but the asking price was more than any of us actually had, so it was no sale.
Lastly, we stopped at a empty temple where a pair of starlings was known to be nesting. We spotted them eventually, and thanks to Ketut knowing precisely where the individual starlings lived, we managed to to see eleven starlings over the course of our trip. That's 11 out of maybe 60 in the whole world, which I reckon is pretty awesome.
Back at the sanctuary, Mum and I took a stroll along the beach (conveniently across the road). which was entirely taken up by seaweed farms. The seaweed from those farms is used in shampoo or cosmetics or somesuch, rather than for sushi. We had several friendly "selamat soreh"s (good afternoon), and a few odd looks, too. That's Nusa Penida for you; a part of Bali where you still get foreigner-stares.
There was some kind of ceremony happening that night (frankly, though, there's a ceremony every other day in Bali). From the nearby temple, we could hear singing, chanting, and prayer recital all night. As in, really all through the night and into the morning without a break. So I couldn't get to sleep at the bird sanctuary because the chanting at the temple was too loud.
Kuta this ain't, people.

Bali

2007-05-09T16:39:00.000+09:00

Friday
I arrived in Bali around midnight and enjoyed a rather horrendous wait at immigration, thanks to the simultaneous arrival of four other flights, and also thanks to the fact the Balinese never seem to be in much of a hurry to do anything. After an hour of standing around, meeting Mum and Dad, and an hour of driving, I arrived at Chez Powell in Ubud. Hurrah!

Saturday
We spent our first day in Bali wandering around Ubud. Ubud is a fabulous town; the guide books generally call it the "cultural and culinary capital of Bali," and they're not wrong. It's a bit like what Chiang Mai is to Thailand, or Kyoto to Japan, only on a much smaller scale. So, in brief: art, dance, markets, shopping, eating, monkeys, temples, rice paddies. We stopped by Dad's office first (he's working for the Friends of the National Parks Foundation - check out their website), then on to the cute little town library, and then to lunch. After lunch, we stopped at the Smile shop, where Mum volunteers, and finally stopped at the Kupu Kupu shop; Kupu Kupu is a local NGO providing assistance to handicapped people in the area, Mum does volunteer work with them too. Later in the evening, we had a fabulous Balinese tapas for dinner, polished with a margarita in my case. It's funny, the only thing in Bali that costs just as much as elsewhere is cocktails, but on the other hand, they do make them really damn strong.

Sunday
On Sunday morning we went for a walk among the rice fields just out of town. It's a bit of a quirk of geography, I suppose, that you can emerge from the middle of Ubud into idyllic rural scenery so easily; on this walk, the farming loveliness starts barely 200 metres off the town's main street. So we had a lovely wander among the rice fields, with lots of "selamat pagi" (good morning) from farmers and passers-by, and hundreds and hundreds of ducks. Ducks are wonderful. We had brunch at a little restaurant perched in the middle of the fields, where we met an expat American lady who had taught at Keith Area School in the '60s. Keith is three towns away from Mt Gambier. All together now, "it's a small world, after all..."
Later, we stopped to check out the work of an artist who had set up in a little shack on the path. I bought three bookmark-sized paintings of birds for about $10 or so. Still later, heading back to Ubud, we met two kids, a brother and a sister. They wanted to try their English, Mum wanted to try her Indonesian, so we had a neat little bilingual conversation. The girl had a notebook, in which was written the names, nationalities and ages of all the foreigners that she had met, which we filled in. As we left, I thought that that was exactly what we wished our students would do, pretty much.

Monday
On Monday morning I went with Mum to help teach a class at the Kupu Kupu foundation. We had two students, girls about eight years old, who were quiet but keen, and covered colours, clothes, and body parts. Next, we had lunch at a nice hippie cafe (tempeh burgers, hurrah!), then stopped by Dad's office to meet his colleagues. The other staff at the office are Bayu, Komang, Made, Made and Made. See, in Bali, men and women have the same given names, and children are named according to their birth order. So a family's first child is named Made, the second is Wayan, the third is Nyoman, the fourth is Ketut, and then it starts back at Made. There are a few other names around - Komang, for starters - but there's still an awful lot of Mades and Wayans around.
That evening, we went to see a performance of the Kecak dance at a local temple. In short - because I am stupid and don't really know - the Kecak tells a story from the Ramayana, with an all-male choir providing the musical accompaniment. The choir, who sit in a circle for the performance, are representative of a monkey army, and their "ke-chak-a-chak" chant echoes the sound of monkeys. I think. The Kecak dance was followed with a Fire Dance, in which a man riding a prop-horse danced in hot coals and kicked the glowing embers around the performance space, rather perilously close to the audience.

Tuesday
On Tuesday we went to Nusa Penida for an overnight visit to FNPF's bird sanctuary. I'll put that in another entry, because it was really cool and un-Bali-like.

Wednesday
After visiting the local market, we hopped on the ferry back to the mainland from Nusa Penida. The actual crossing can be done in thirty minutes, but we were on that boat for three hours. We boarded at 10 o'clock, but didn't depart until 11:30. Then, the boat took its merry slow time getting to Padangbai harbour. When we got near the harbour, another boat was taking up the only berth. Padangbai is a launching point for ferries to Lombok, so if there are several ferries competing for the one berth, why do they not co-ordinate the arrival times? It's a mystery that can be solely put down to "Bali time." Anyway, we putted around the harbour in circles until the other ferry left and we could finally disembark. Phew.

Thursday
On Thursday, Dad worked in the office whilst Mum and I had a lazy morning before heading out to the Ubud Botanic Gardens. The gardens are lovely, and blend in with the surrounding forest very nicely. The pitcher plants and orchids were especially cool, though the "labryinth" was rather lame. That night, we had dinner at Indus, perhaps the best restaurant in Ubud. Indus is perched on the edge of a ravine, overlooking two river valleys and the steep ridge between them, with the occasional view of Bali's highest mountain, Gunung Agung (when the clouds part). A wonderful spot, and the fluttering bats and ample geckos just added to the atmosphere. Of course, geckos aren't really anything special in Bali, but whatever.

Friday
In the morning, Mum and I went to the Ubud market. Technically there's only one market in Ubud, but really, there's two; the one selling souvenirs to tourists on one level, and the local produce market for locals on a lower level. Interestingly, the market was pretty much women-only. The LP reckons that since women are in charge of cooking food, they're also in charge of buying and selling it, too. Like most markets, the Ubud market is fabulous.
Next, we popped into Ubud's number one tourist attraction, the Monkey Forest. The forest is home to a large troop of long-tailed macaques, who, technically at least, are wild, but they're not likely to wander out of their forest haven any time soon. These monkeys are very assertive and very confident. They have sharp eyes and won't hesitate to snatch whatever takes their fancy. The mere sight of a water bottle was enough to send a young monkey clambering onto my shoulder, eager for a grab. When I tried to gently prod him away, the little bugger bit me! One of the resident monkey experts immediately came to check it out, but the little blighter didn't even break the skin. No rabies for me, then.
We had lunch with Dad and his colleagues, enjoying a fabulous (and fabulously cheap!) nasi campur.
The rest of the day? We lounged around, before finally heading back to the airport for the midnight flight back to Japan.

Macau in "not crap" shocker!

2007-04-17T20:38:00.000+09:00

For our last full day in China, we took a daytrip to Macau, which, as it turns out, is pretty much divided between lovely Portuguese architecture and seriously bling-bling casinos.

After buying our tickets, we had to wait about four hours for our ferry, so we explored Honkers a little more. We rode the giant Central Escalator all the way to… nowhere in particular. Then we checked out yet another market – Graham Street, the best food market in Honk Kong, according to Lonely Planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right. I love all these food markets, especially the rather exotic seafood shops. Seriously, anything in the sea that can be fit into a box can be sold; we saw absolutely everything swimming about, waiting for the inevitable; the highlights were rainbow parrotfish, cuttlefish, and… horseshoe crabs! They’re so weird and cool.

Four hours later, we had our first-class ferry tickets and a one-hour ride to Macau. Some advice: don’t just go to Macau for the ride and the passport stamps. Getting off at the ferry terminal, you could quickly decide that it was crap and head straight back. That would be silly, because a little walking shows how lovely it is. Indeed, we did a little walking trying to find the historic centre of Macau, and find it we did. The older parts of Macau are seriously lovely; the squares, churches, fountains, grand buildings painted green, yellow, pink, and who knows what else – it’s fabulous. Macau is also the second most densely-populated territory in the world (17,699 people per square km; Australia – 2.6), so there are lots of tiny little alleyways winding among rather packed apartment blocks; and every single alley, staircase and driveway has a street name in Portuguese, nicely labeled with a ceramic sign. We wandered for a couple of hours and managed to cover about a third of Macau, I think. On the way back to the ferry at the end of the day, we took a different route past some of Macau’s rather ridiculous casinos. One had a very fancy show out front of fountains and flamethrowers choreographed with that tacky “Hero” song – “I need a hero!” something something – which was certainly very bling. And not to be a miserable wet blanket or anything, but upon seeing such insane extravagance, I can’t but think, “Rachel’s going to Cambodia to build rainwater tanks so that people can drink without dying of cholera. And then there’s this.” It’s all a bit silly, really.

And that, pretty much, is that. We ferried back to Hong Kong, the next day we flew back Japan. And to top it all off, I made it from Kansai Airport and onto the last train of the night to Takebe with about 5 minutes to spare. Phew.

This is what Macau looks like, provided you ignore the casinos:

In China-but-sort-of-not-quite: Hong Kong!

2007-04-17T20:36:00.000+09:00

This is what Hong Kongers live in: miniscule, colourful, and covered in laundry.

This is what passes for suburbia in Hong Kong.

Fun with night-mode: the Star Ferry terminal, and a view across the harbour to Kowloon.

Hong Kong is a special place; a little bastion of Britishness in Asia; a city of ground floors, lifts and primary schools; a forest of skyscrapers without any suburbs; a city that spoils you with transportation options – bus, subway, ferry, tram, or giant escalator? It’s a fantastic place.

On our first day, we strolled uphill to the small Hong Kong Zoo, which, quite fabulously, is free to enter. Hong Kongers tend to lead busy, cramped lives, so the local government has put quite a lot of effort into providing leisure facilities such as the zoo and botanic gardens. I mostly wanted to go to the zoo to see the Bali starlings and mouse-deer. I’m a big fan of the mouse-deer: take an ordinary deer, give it tiny little tusks instead of antlers, and shrink it down to the size of a fox terrier. They’re adorable. From the zoo we moved on to Hong Kong Park’s enormous walk-through aviary. The aviary is fabulous, of course, particularly with the views through the trees back to the skyscrapers below.

The aviary.

A Bali starling for my dad.

Yuen Po Bird Market.

As if we hadn’t seen enough birds already, we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon and made our way north to the Yuen Po bird market, strolling past a nice little flower market on the way. Whilst there’s always something inherently sad about seeing birds in small cages, it was still a great place for a wander, and the birdie in me was excited to see so much variety; lories, waxwings, laughing-thrushes, sunbirds, mynahs, robins, cockatoos and a sole toucan, among lots of others I didn’t know. After the bird market, we wandered past a sort of random-crap market, and stumbled across the Goldfish Market; a couple of blocks of pet shops mostly dealing with aquaria and fish floating about in plastic bags. The rain then briefly changed from drizzly to torrential, so we took shelter in a nearby indoor food market, full of all the wonderful sights and smells one expects from an Asian food market. Hygiene was conspicuous by its absence. I’m sure all the restaurant food we ate came from markets like this so there’s no point in getting all snooty and “oh, it’s so dirty!” about it. Finally, we returned to North Point (the neighbourhood of our hotel) and wandered through yet another market, bringing our market count for the day up to six. Six markets and no money spent makes for a happy Bob.

An indoor market. Fishy.

On Tuesday we went to… Disneyland! Hong Kong Disneyland has the exact same stuff as every other Disneyland, only in a smaller park, so I won’t bore you with details of this ride or that ride. Instead, here are some neat features unique to Hong Kong Disney:

- Alice speaks Cantonese, and possibly also Mandarin.

- At the Jungle River Cruise, you form three queues depending on whether you want a commentary in English, Cantonese or Mandarin.

- Cantonese people don’t smile much, so the fake smiles on the staff are even more fake than usual.

Because it was a cool, rainy, midweek day, it wasn’t at all crowded, and we were able to jump on any ride we wanted without any queues at all, which was pretty great. All in all, Hong Kong Disneyland: thumbs up.

The train to Disneyland. More cheese, anyone?

On Wednesday… we shopped, pretty much. We started with one of the Malls of Fabulousness in Causeway Bay - where I couldn’t afford a single damn thing, pretty much – before moving on to a much more decent (by my ghetto inaka standards) mall in the upper reaches of Kowloon. There we found an excellent bookstore, where I managed to spend $600 on books (about A$100, but it sounds cooler in HK$).

Later, back on Hong Kong Island, we finally hit Hong Kong’s best-known tourist attraction (probably), Victoria Peak and the Peak Tram. As you probably know, the charming old tram ride is very, very steep, and the views over the city from the peak are spectacular. What you may not know, however, is that perched on top of the peak is a massive, multi-level shopping mall monstrosity. There was a lot of souvenir-y crap – one of the restaurants even had its own souvenir shop – but we did find one decent one, run by a Singaporean woman (judging by the “lah” on every sentence), which had some really cool Tintin prints on lacquer. The Monstrosity Mall also held the Hong Kong branch of Madame Tussaud’s, which we meandered through whilst waiting for sunset. Some of the models were fabulous; some were scary (exhibit A: Macauly Culkin); some were modeled in unfortunate eras (Madonna in the cone bra, Cher from that “Turn Back Time” video, Michael Jackson in creepy bondage gear); and some were just dreamed up somewhere (I do not believe that Mick Jagger ever wore a spandex jumpsuit with a hearts/diamonds/clubs/spades design). Best of all, we got the opportunity to kancho John Howard, which alone was worth the entry fee.

Our Johnny gets a friendly greeting, Japanese-child-style.

From Victoria Peak. Mental note: buy a tripod.

Another market. For all things squishy and unidentifiable.

Welcome to Communist China

2007-04-17T20:32:00.000+09:00

Shanghai

At the Shangri-la, even the teaspoons are well dressed.

Shanghai, along the Bund.

The craptacular "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel."

An oversized needle thing, Shanghai.

A public fitness space in Hangzhou - the perfect clothes line.

A causeway across the West Lake, Hangzhou.

A bridge, a garden, Hangzhou.

A view across the West Lake to downtown Hangzhou.

That heading is what I thought, sarcastically, upon visiting the gleaming, mall-tastic Pudong New Area in Shanghai. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

My China was as follows:

For starters, don’t fly with China Eastern. They’re shonky. On our flight from Hong Kong to Hangzhou, the top of my left armrest broke off. The one on my right was held together with duct tape. They’re shonky.

Something that wasn’t shonky was our hotel in Hangzhou, the one and only Shangri-La. It was classic fabulousness incarnate, and my first 5-star experience. By way of example, we gave them our dirty undies to wash, and they came back neatly folded in a silk-lined basket. That’s something I could get used to.

Our first day was spent exploring Hangzhou. Hangzhou is regarded as one of the three most beautiful cities in China, and was declared by Marco Polo to be “the finest and the noblest [city] in the world“. Its centerpiece is the West Lake, a massive man-made lake surrounded by gardens, dotted with islands and pavilions, and crossed by many bridges and causeways. It certainly is beautiful. But before hitting the lake, we made a pilgrimage to the university Richard studied and lived at a couple of years ago. We saw his apartment building, the Educational Supermarket (it really is called that) and the big Mao statue. Next we went to Trustmart, a big supermarket selling live frogs and turtles, if that tickles your fancy. A short break from walking later, we explored the lake, talking a walk on a causeway with lovely gardens, and thus crossing the entire lake. It was a gorgeous walk, though the throngs of tour groups made it a little squishy sometimes. That evening we enjoyed a dinner of Hangzhouese cuisine at the hotel’s restaurant, followed by cocktails at the bar, thus furthering the fabulous expensiveness of the trip.

The next day, we went for a daytrip to Shanghai, two hours away by train. After much confusion in Hangzhou station, we found ourselves on a decent train that looked like a bargain-basement shinkansen. The only thing of note on the train was the guy sitting behind us who thought that scrolling through every ringtone on his phone would be a polite way to pass the time. Tool.

And then… Shanghai! After a food court lunch, we found our way to The Bund, thanks to Richard’s mad phat navigation skillz. The Bund makes for a lovely stroll, with the grand European buildings (now banks, mostly) on the left and the hyper-modern Pudong New Area across the river on the right. We crossed the river on the fancy new Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, which may be the most impressive waste of funds I’ve ever seen (except, perhaps, the South Australian Wine Centre). Basically, you take a little tram/monorail thing through a tunnel and enjoy a gloriously over-the-top sound and light show, all lasers and seizure-inducing flashes. It’s craptacular. Emerging on the other side of the river, we wandered around a huge mall and discovered that Dairy Queen is not as good as its many pop-culture references would suggest. Finally, we wandered back through the craptacular tunnel, through the crowded streets to a subway station, and endured the most ridiculously overcrowded train ride of my life back to South Shanghai train station. We bought our tickets back to Hangzhou and realized that we had “standing class” tickets. So we stood up for the two-hour trip back to Hangzhou, whilst people pushed around us to get hot water for their pot noodles. Fun! Or not.

Richard may not like to hear this, but I didn’t really like Shanghai much. I don’t enjoy cities for the sake of being cities, in the sense that crowds, traffic and noise don’t impress me. And from the few hours we had to see it, Shanghai felt like just a Big City (Bund and big European buildings notwithstanding). I wouldn’t rank it among the few Great Cities I’ve been to; New York, Montreal, Bangkok, Tokyo, and (as I was to discover) Hong Kong. Nevertheless, it was worth the trip to see it.

Hangzhou, on the other hand, is much lovelier, and on our last day there, we had a relaxing wander about town. We explored some gorgeous gardens around the West Lake, returned to Trustmart for supplies of Western (read: not Japanese) toothpaste, and found a really cool night market. The market was a little more classy than the usual, as in, not trashy, as in, we couldn’t afford anything much. Still, Richard got a hanko of his name in kanji, and there was a shop selling jars of dried frogs (for all your dessicated amphibian needs, I suppose).

The next day, it was off to Honkers.

A List

2007-04-12T18:04:00.000+09:00

Yes, I have a lot of China stories and photos to share, and I'll get to that later this evening, but for now, I thought I'd share a list. I was looking around at my rather cluttered little house, and got to thinking that in a few months I'll have to fit all of this stuff into a suitcase, a backpack, and a couple of boxes for posting. Then I got to thinking that despite all the stuff lying around, I have very few mementoes of Japan that I feel the need to keep. Then, as is my wont, I made a list.

Japan-Stuff I Need To Keep
1. Keitai
2. Hanko
3. Yukata
4. Plastic tonkatsu and taiyaki lantern
5. Beer mug nicked from karaoke with karaoking-cat
6. Purikura stickers
7. Towel from the international sports festival, featuring Momichi in all his different sporting guises

That's all I can think of! I may also have to stop hoarding the mass of postcards and pictures cut out of magazines and diaries that I keep dragging around. Of course, one could say that the best mementoes are photos, of which I now have 4,892. Shashintastic, no?
This is packing business is gonna be fun. Or not.

How to make a dull week go by quickly and, Graduation.

2007-03-23T18:06:00.000+09:00

How do you make a dull week go by quickly? You only work for two days of it! I've been feeling rather sick and crap this week, so on Tuesday and today I went home from school halfway through the day. Add that to a public holiday on the Wednesday, and you've sort of got a two-day work week. I'd rather be at school and not ill, but on days without classes, why should I sit at my desk feeling horrible?
Rather than elaborate on details of snot and coughing, let's move on to graduation. Graduation! Yay! Thankfully, having been through the same thing last year, I was well aware of how sombre, stiff, and just plain boring Japanese graduation ceremonies were.
Some observations from this year's ceremony:
1. Fit in better this year through the suits-and-cheap-white-sneakers combo.
2. Far less tears than last year.
3. Blanked out during the speeches and made mental lists of songs to do at karaoke.
4. One boy gave me a rose. Charming!
5. The boss of the Okayama-shi BOE totally has a Hitler moustache.
After the ceremony, the graduates held a party for themselves, their parents, and their teachers. Last year I wasn't invited, and left school at the end of the day highly suspicious of the party decorations in the table tennis hall. This year, one of the mothers actually invited me in. That little gathering was Japan in a nutshell, for better or worse. I was seated at a table, all on my own. Worse still, it was a table surrounded by the other tables, all full of happy students and mothers. I filled my plate with the mini-sandwiches on the table, and waited for someone to take pity on me. Someone did, and I was invited to one of the mothers' tables. Someone asked me if I had eaten lunch, and I said I thought these sandwiches were lunch. It was then I noticed that everyone else had neat little sushi-bentos (There wasn't one for me since I wasn't officially invited, I suppose). Six or seven mothers suddenly looked nervous and muttered to each other, then they each took one piece of sushi off their trays and gave them to me, which was very kind. Then, inevitably, I was complimented on my chopstick abilities. And then my Japanese ability. And then they showered me with tea and sweets.
Japan in a nutshell, I tell you.

Some kids on graduation day:

The universally-adored maths teacher, flanked by a mob of fans. The boys on either side of him are brothers, by the way.
Me with Yasuomi, Naoto and Ryuichi. All funny, silly boys, and all half-decent English students. Ryuichi gave me a rose! (every graduate had one rose to give to someone - that was the only one I got)
Daishi and Makoto. Daishi was the star student of the school, and always the one to make speeches when required. Makoto, not so much.
Three of the best students in the school: Chiharu, Shoko, and Arisa. Shoko's mum is a high school English teacher, and she was one of the only students who actually held conversations with me.

Video of the week! Another one!

2007-03-16T17:39:00.000+09:00

You get two this week, 'cause I like you. This was recommended by Brian.
Knights of Cydonia by Muse. It's about what you'd expect from the opening sound effects of horses and lasers, with lots of added cheese.

Video of the week!

2007-03-16T17:34:00.000+09:00

Good Song by Blur.
A Tragedy in Pen Drawing. With squirrels!

Nothing out of the ordinary, then.

2007-03-14T22:29:00.000+09:00

This morning, I saw the former boss of the Takebe BOE (now retired) standing in the car park of the town Culture Centre, yelling "ohayo gozaimasu" at all who passed by through a megaphone. He saw me and called out, "Mistaa Robaht, good morningu!"
I have no idea what's happening around me.

Meanwhile, yesterday's elementary school day was grand. First, the year 3/4 class gave me a "thank you" book they'd made for me (their teacher was very impressed that I could actually read it... this is the woman who asked me "do you know any Japanese words? For example, "arigato"?). Then, at the end of the day, the year 6s (all three of them) held a party in their classroom for the teachers. They made fruit-filled crepes and sweet potato chips, and we played Uno and Shiritori. It was grand.

macaca fuscata

2007-03-14T00:01:00.000+09:00

Last Saturday, after an epic karaoke session the night before, Richard, Barbie, Jess and I headed out from Tamano to explore the massive island of Shodoshima. Shodoshima has a fairly large population, and is best known for its olive industry, resulting in the predictable omiyage stores of olive chocolate and olive-wearing Kitty-chans.
After much initial confusion, we hopped on a bus towards a beautiful gorge and cable car. We had to change buses along the way, with enough time between buses to squeeze in lunch. Barbie asked the second bus driver about transport from the top of the cable car, and he was kind enough to phone ahead and arrange a taxi to drive us from the cable car to the monkey park, our key destination for the day, and back to the harbour.
After a short, steep bus ride, we arrived at the gorge. The cable car ride to the top was great fun, and the view was spectacular. At the top, we found a dirty concrete cage housing a single macaque. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen, and if that's not torture, I don't know what is.
We met our taxi and took a scenic drive to the monkey park. The park is home to a massive troop of wild macaques (encouraged to stick around by offerings of food and ample play equipment) and a "monkeys of the world" exhibit. The "monkeys of the world" turned out to be one olive baboon, two ring-tailed lemurs, and two crab-eating macaques, housed in bare, dirty cages, as expected. There were also a couple of caged Japanese macaques (clearly diseased, mentally ill, or something) and a three-legged deer. A pretty sad sight, though it was interesting to see my first olive baboon.
The wild macaques were, for me, a spectacular experience. There were at least two hundred of them, hanging out around a few large, terraced areas with an impressive array of play equipment. It was absolutely wonderful to watch them play and interact, to exchange glances with them (one doesn't stare at a monkey), and to listen to their incessant chatter (I had no idea they had such expressive voices). A rather sad and touching moment happened when a sad, skinny old lady, who had lost most of her hair to (I assume) fleas, scratching and old age, stood up next to Richard and I, looked into my eyes, and extended a hand towards us. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to give her. And yes, I'm still talking about a monkey.
The opportunity to observe a huge community like this was awesome, though the park itself was rather sad and declining. Monkeys really are fascinating, especially macaques and baboons, which are the smartest and most social of all. It's a rather cliched observation to make, but it's a true one: they really are so alike us humans. Everything they do has its reflection in our own behaviour.

Some of my favourite observations of monkey society (not all shown among Japanese macaques, but if other monkeys do it, why shouldn't they?):

- Monkeys can recognise individual voices. They also know whose infant is whose in their troop. So, if a baby cries, monkeys will look towards its mother to see how she responds, and may alert her if she doesn't notice her baby's cries.

- Low-ranking males sometimes like to babysit, and will even kidnap babies for brief periods. They know that no-one can hit you if you're holding a baby, so babysitting is a way for males to defend themselves from other males. If a babysitting male does cause trouble, however, the higher-ranking males may just wait for him to put the baby down before beating him up. Monkeys take note of everything that happens around them, they remember, and they will wait for the best opportunity to retaliate.

- Don't smile at a monkey. Smiling reveals the teeth, making it an aggressive display: "if you piss me off, I will bite you with these." A few male monkeys with broken or missing teeth have been known to avoid yawning in front of others so as not to show their toothlessness. Some scientists consider this as evidence of self-awareness (because it requires the monkeys to have some understanding of how others see them), a quality once thought to be unique to humans.

- Monkeys groom each other as a way of social bonding. However, if they can't groom for whatever reason (maybe their hands are busy), they chat instead - just like we do.
- Lastly, I just noticed that macaques have very pale eyelids. Monkeys do a lot of gesturing with their eyes, so making these signals stand out makes sense.

It's pretty neat to be sharing a country with another primate, with their own communities, full of planning, scheming, play, joy, grief and sadness.
They may not be quite as advanced as our own (no karaoke.... yet), but they're still pretty damn cool.

Welcome Home, indeed.

2007-03-12T17:25:00.000+09:00

A dog shat on my doormat today. I appreciate any opportunity to use the word "shat" in a sentence.
That is all.

Another Reason I Love Takebe

2007-03-08T16:35:00.000+09:00

Somehow, I left my back door open today. Not open in the sense of unlocked, but open in the sense of swinging open in the afternoon breeze, for the whole day whilst I was at work. My computer, camera and ipod were still present and untouched. This is why I love Takebe. Unless, of course, you happen to be a bike or an umbrella, in which case, finders keepers!

Video of the week!

2007-03-04T15:23:00.000+09:00

Boy From School by Hot Chip: watch as a huge artwork is created around the band, using everything from dirt to jelly. Anyone ever sea Art Attack? With that guy who would make giant pictures of budgies out of bird seed? It's like that.

A Minor Landmark

2007-02-27T21:11:00.000+09:00

The Year 6 class at Fukuwatari Elementary, the class that has given me so much grief for the past year, whose enthusiasm has always been conspicuous by its absence, have had their last English lesson. I have finished with my worst class (out of the 21 I teach), and with probably my best lesson with them too. See, this class has been a model for the problems of year 6 classes in general; basically, they're old enough to be quite self-conscious about how they appear, particularly to their peers. Hence they are far less willing to participate than younger kids, and are fairly careful about not standing out from the others. In this class, that means no volunteers, no hands raised to answer questions, complete silence at lunch time, and fits of giggles when the English teacher (me) tries to interact.
Today's lesson worked because I let them just enjoy games that didn't require any interference from me, and didn't require them to stand out individually. First, we played a basic matching game to make random groups. Then, we played an ingenious version of Uno devised by one of my JTEs. In this version, instead of following a red 7 with another red card or a different-coloured 7, the cards each have a word, and you follow the previous card with one that follows logically to make a sentence. Technically, these kids can't read English, so we kept it simple; a "do" card was followed by "you," then "like," then "cheese" (or whatever), then "?". To my complete shock, they loved it! We followed that with Snakes & Ladders (home-made boards with a question or a word to translate on each square), with also worked reasonably well.
So the Class of Suck is no more. In a little over a month, they'll be divided between 1A and 1B at junior high, they'll be knocked off their "kings/queens of the school" perch, and I won't have to deal with those 25 grumpy little buggers again. I can't wait.

Bunnies: Now With Added Poisonous Gases!!

2007-02-27T20:44:00.000+09:00

Last Saturday, Rich and I took a trip to Okunoshima, a small island in the Inland Sea, in Hiroshima-ken. This charming little island's attractions are three-fold: mobs of friendly, adorable bunnies; some crumbling ruins; and a poison gas museum.
That's right, a posion gas museum.
See, during the war, Okunoshima housed facilities for producing various poisonous gases to be used in combat; hence the museum. The ruins are those of storage rooms, a power plant, and other bits and bobs associated with those gases. And the bunnies? Well, they fullfilled their fourth most-popular occupation (behind being adorable pets, ravaging the flora and fauna of Australia, and being eaten) by being test subjects for said poison gases. It all makes for a delightfully strange environment.

On arrival at the island, one disembarks from the dinky little ferry, and is immediately greeted by a dozen or so perfect bunnies, who happily trot towards the newly-arrived humans in the hope of a few pieces of lettuce or carrot. Of course, these lovely lagomorphs are only here because of their ancestry as test subjects for weapons of war, so it's... kinda weird, I suppose. We were also not expecting to see so many bunnies just hopping around on their own; being Japan, I at least expected a designated bunny-viewing area, vending machines of bunny food, and muzak piped through the island's woods. Similarly, I expected the ruins of the gas-making-facilities to be propped up with boardwalks, guided tours conducted by flag-wielding air hostesses, and perhaps a purikura booth or two. But no; shockingly, the remains of the facilities have remained completely untouched - abandoned in the 1940s and left to crumble on their own. As such, they're great to explore, covered in vines, cobwebs, and dark corners. The only restriction is a strong advisory to not actually wander inside the ruins of the power plant, just in case it, you know, collapses on your head or something. The remains of the island's power plant

Storage rooms, built into the earth like hobbit holes, presumably to avoid being seen from the air.

A gorgeous view, of which the Inland Sea has many.

Okunoshima summed up in one photo: bunnies and ruins.

Of Rain and Bumcracks

2007-02-20T20:44:00.000+09:00

This was about as much as I saw of the Naked Man Festival on Saturday night. It rained, and it rained, and it continued to rain. Nevertheless, weather aside, the festival was a success (as in, our organization of a trip to it was).

Eric and I took charge of the bus for the participants. I was surprised that there were so many guys from other prefectures, and so few from our own. The only familiar faces were Kevin, Rene, Herb, Haka-Dave, Vasco, Wayne and Ludo. That these particular men chose to join in the madness did not surprise me at all. That bus certainly filled its quota of testosterone, and we enjoyed a drunken, rowdy bus ride there. Once we arrived in Saidaiji, we managed to lead our gaggle of gaijin to the temple and get them dressed (well, undressed, mostly) without any hassle, which was pretty surprising considering more than a few of those blokes were already pretty much tanked before we even got there.

Now, as the guy who was meant to be in charge of these guys, helping them out, showing them who to pay and what they needed and such, I had the privilege of hanging out in the Naked Tent without having to get naked myself. It was a right old laugh. For an image to make you giggle at any time, try this one: a line of naked men, holding white cloths over their bits, watching with trepidation as another man has his cloth tied around him in such a way as to protect his bits, peaking with a colossal yanking of said cloth up said man’s bumcrack. Hil-A-ri-ous.

An hour after we arrived, the busloads of gaijin spectators arrived right on cue. We milled around in the rain and appreciated the posing of a few gaijin participants in their fundoshi (read: sacred nappies). Amy failed to resist the urge to poke one such fellow in the arse with a kebab stick.

As we stood around in the rain, mostly-naked men marched past in teams into the temple. Eventually, we moved there ourselves to watch the madness. However, thanks to the rain and the inevitable mass of umbrellas, no-one saw anything much. A friendly foreigner saw me straining on my tiptoes and offered to hoist me up on his shoulders, which I did, and managed a good view for a few minutes. Alas, that was all I was to see, and the festival came to its conclusion, not a minute too soon for those of us who had been standing in the rain for the past three hours.

We made it back into the city, feeling rather cold, wet and miserable, though I mustered up the energy to go to the Aussie Bar (as per usual) to kill the remaining four hours before the first bus home. The bar was ridiculously full, and was surely breaking all kinds of fire regulations, but oh well. Afterwards, I was introduced to Okayama’s only 24-hour café. Why did I not know of this place before?

So, the trip to the festival was a success, though I doubt anyone actually enjoyed the festival very much. There were a few promises of participation at next year’s event, and I will make sure that those promises come through, though I won’t be here. Nevertheless, it shall be so. I decree it!

I don't know whose bums these are, hence I don't need permission to show them to the world. Result!

Video of the week!

2007-02-13T18:41:00.000+09:00

This one is Reptilia by The Strokes. It's basically extreme close-ups of the band, all edited very snappily. There's never more than one hand or head in each shot. Julian Casblancas pulls some fun faces. He's also wearing a gold watch, which may or may not be significant.

Let's Indulgence...

2007-02-13T18:07:00.000+09:00

In honour of the foundation of this nation (and its associated holiday), Richard and I spent a long weekend in Osaka. We saved money by taking the bus, but otherwise it was a weekend of spending and fabulousness.
We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday, and promptly had lunch at - quite shockingly - Richard's first ever sushi train. From there we checked into our hotel, which was fabulous simply for being an actual hotel, not a hostel dorm, capsule, or scungy tatami room. After ooing and aahing at the prospect of having a half-decent room for a while, we made a beeline for Spa World.
Spa World is meant to be the world's largest bath complex or somesuch. It's a sort of Disneyland of onsen; the bulk of it is taken up by two floors of themed baths - the European zone and the Asian zone. Each zone has several themed areas within it, for example, the European zone has baths modelled on Finland, Rome, Greece, and Atlantis (which doesn't exist yet is European?). This month, the men (ie us) get the Europe zone, the women the Asia zone, and next month the genders swap, so we'll have to visit again in March. Check out their website for some snazzy photos. It's brilliant fun, quite ridiculous, and of course, thoroughly Japanese.
Hence thoroughly onsenned, we moved up to Umeda, where we had a disappointing dinner at one of the department store restaurants (though we did get to enjoy Kirin Black - why does hardly anywhere sell the tasty dark varieties?), and then hit up Osaka's rainbow side at a couple of bars. We were the only patrons at the first bar, Physique, which has a lovely, chatty bartender with a fondness for Kylie. The second bar had plenty of Japanese folks and a rather annoying bartender who looked like a ferret. We contributed to the karaoke with Total Eclipse of the Heart (not my choice). This promptly put me in a mood, and we immediately departed for a two-hour karaoke session for two.
On Sunday, we shopped. We shopped and did little else, besides frequent coffee stops. All I bought was some hair wax, Colgate (foreign toothpaste, hurrah!!) and tea-tree oil face wash, which we decided smelled like Australia, and hence was a good thing. We spent a while wandering the streets of Amerika Mura in search of gaijin-sized clothes. Gaijin sizes were lacking, but the Mura is certainly great fun for people-watching. Actually, that should be "fashion-victim watching." Later, back in Daimaru, we did find Richard a rather snazzy jacket and shirt ensemble, and we returned to our hotel to snazz it up for the evening.
Freshly snazzed, we had dinner in Namba, the wandered the arcades for the Baskin Robbins we had seen earlier. We did find it, eventually - five minutes after it had closed. Tragic. So we moved on to the Pig & Whistle to drown our ice-cream-lacking-sorrows in a pint or two of Kilkenny. And who do we meet right inside the door? None other than Wayne and Dawn! You're really never far from home, are you?
On Sunday, we hung about in Namba, waiting for our bus. We marvelled at the plastic samples and gigantic knives in Dogusuji-ya (Osaka's restaurant supply arcade), made up for missing Baskin Robbins the night before, and made use of a half-decent bookstore, where I found a new Frank McCourt book and a new collection of National Geographic photography.
Osaka is great for a weekend trip, and a bit of indulgence. I could never spend more than a few days at a time there, though; for all its attractions, it is not an attractive place, it's desperately lacking parkland, and I can not help but spend more than I should whilst there.

I think I just got a pay cut

2007-02-08T16:40:00.000+09:00

There was a discussion with my Jicho (now the boss of our BOE) involving lots of pointing at figures on a calculator, and "Okayama-shi ni nattara..." (since becoming Okayama-shi). I think my salary shrunk a little since the merger. We (JETs) all get the same salary before tax, but local taxes differ a little, so maybe Okayama-shi has bigger resident's taxes than Takebe did?
Either way, no ivory back-scratcher for me, then.

Hyper-sensitivity a go-go

2007-02-07T17:02:00.000+09:00

The grammar for today's 2nd grade lesson was "[blank] is as [blank] as." I had made an activity in which students measured each other's height and then wrote comparisons, as in "I am as tall as Chihiro," "Takahiro is taller than Ikuo" or whatever. My team-teaching partner approved this activity. I printed the worksheets.
Later, my colleague approached me to ask if we could change the activity a little. She was worried that my activity would upset the short kids. Would it be okay to change it to older/younger, rather than taller/shorter?
Well, sure, we can change it, if you don't mind wasting 50 sheets of paper for the sake of a minor change in the name of some imagined hypersensitivity. Goodness. Perhaps if my topic was actually controversial, like "I am as fanatical as" or "I am as much of an orphan as" but height? Goodness.
Perhaps I'm overanalysing the situation but... in case a student does have an issue about his height, should we (as teachers) not teach that physical qualities don't matter? Who cares if you're short? The message should be "no-one cares if you are shorter than everyone else," rather than "let's avoid discussing anything height-related when Kazuki's around."
Anyway. I was pissed at wasting so much paper, is all.

My town has died.

2007-02-01T17:34:00.000+09:00

Well, the growth rates would suggest it was dying anyway, but my little Takebe has officially died. Ceased to exist. It was eaten by the hulking beast that is Okayama-shi about a fortnight ago.Luckily, my day-to-day life is unlikely to meet any great changes; I'm not moving into ChampClair with the other city JETs, and the waste disposal system still sucks in its lack of recycling. But there are several small changes that I've noticed.
1. I now receive the monthly magazine for residents of Okayama-shi. The first issue celebrates the city's invasion of Takebe and Seto.
2. My BOE boss became obsolete and abruptly retired, leaving me his office computer. This is a big step up, as my previous office computer was on Windows 98 (98!), had no USB port, didn't recognise CD-Rs, and took about 15 minutes to start up.
3. My office is strangely bare; a lot of the piles of folders and paperwork, and most of the stuff on the walls, has vanished.
4. Our lunch hour has been shortened from an hour to 45 minutes, in line with other city employees.
5. Our tea/coffee cupboard and urn has been moved into the storage room. We can't be seen having beverages on the job, perhaps?
6. The other BOE staff now answer the phone with "Okayama-shi board of education, Takebe branch." They still keep getting it wrong and have to correct themselves, even when receiving a call from one of my schools.
7. Every part of town once had a small sign like "Fukuwatari, Takebe-cho," or "Kawaguchi, Takebe-cho." These have been replaced with "Fukuwatari, Takebe-cho, Okayama-shi" and so forth.
8. Road signs have changed from "Okayama 30km" to "Central Okayama 30km." Because, you're already in Okayama-shi! Get it?

One of the English teachers had an interesting theory for why Okayama wanted to take over Takebe and Seto (another town with the same story of absorption). In Japan, cities exceeding a certain population (I think the ones termed as "designated cities") are given certain special rights, especially in having greater autonomy unto themselves in civil matters. So, Okayama wants to boost its population to the magic threshold (700,000 maybe?) to become a "designated city." Still, even if that is the reason, I doubt that Takebe's six thousand people would make a great difference in boosting Okayama's population. You could probably fit Takebe in one big housing estate. Why not absorb Kurashiki instead?
The reasoning is likely to be the opposite of population growth; Takebe is shrinking, and I guess it's just to small to operate as an independent Local Government Area. According to the free "Takebe: 40 years" book I received, the population was 8,838 in 1970, compared to 6,524 in 2005. Even worse, the number of children (14 years and under) has dropped from 1,759 in 1970 to 705 in 2005. Indeed, pre-merge, Takebe was the smallest LGA in Okayama. Everything else had already been eaten up by Niimi-shi, Tsuyama-shi, Takahashi-shi and the rest.

It's too bad, 'cause it's a nice little town, and I its far less interesting to be living in Okayama-shi, if by technicality.
Still, as long as they don't make me move into ChampClair, it's all good.

Kuriketto onegaishimasu!

2007-01-31T16:41:00.000+09:00

Some photos from our cricket extravaganza, courtesy of Phil, this lovely guy to the left. He shashinned so I didn't have to.

Australia Day. Oi, and indeed, Oi.

2007-01-28T19:09:00.000+09:00

Friday was Australia Day, recognising the arrival of the first European settlers in Australia, and all of that moment's subsequent consequences, for better or worse. I celebrated by listening to the end of the Hottest 100 online, then eating Tim Tams and salt and vinegar chips with Richard. Saturday was a day of belated celebration involving cricket and the Aussie Bar, and lots of Australian company.
First, my expert analysis of the Hottest 100. For non-Australians, the Hottest 100 is a music poll run by Triple J, a national radio station. It's apparently the largest publicly-voted poll in the world. As the name suggests, it's a countdown of the one hundred best songs of the past year. It's been going since 1993, when it was won by Denis Leary's poetic anthem "Asshole." This year's poll was won by perhaps the most unlikely winner ever: One Crowded Hour by Augie March. This is a brilliant song, packed full of imagery and growing from a hushed whisper to swirling, spinning crescendo. On the other hand, it's not exactly catchy, and with all those words, it's impossible to sing along to. Let's just say it's not exactly Jet. Still, in my humble opinion, perhaps the best winner ever, besides Franz Ferdinand. So good for them. Elsewhere, five songs for Hilltop Hoods - the only South Australian band and the only Aussie hip-hop band of any importance. And then the obvious biggies - Scissor Sisters, Gnarls Barkley, Muse, Killers, Snow Patrol.... nothing to really complain about. Good show, kids.

So on Saturday, a bunch of Australians, a Welshman, and three curious Americans found a space along the Asahi River in Okayama to play a bit of cricket. Japan, of course, is not known for it's open public land, and it took a thirty-minute walk to a fairly desolate bit of riverbank in order to find any open space whatsoever on which to play. Still, a good time was had, and it was nice to have a bit of Aussie company, which I don't get much of these days.
Now I just have to get these damn stubborn grass stains out of my trousers.

This is what I get for never using Japanese in class

2007-01-26T19:38:00.000+09:00

It's a year 3 class at elementary school, and the lesson's topic is jobs, and the structure "I'm a ~." I open with an example.

"I'm a teacher. Matsumoto-sensei [the classroom teacher] is a teacher too."

Boy at the front: eh! He spoke Japanese!

Apparently, I shouldn't say people's names in Japanese. I should translate the kanji.
"Pine-origin-teacher is..."

Video of the week!

2007-01-21T13:23:00.000+09:00

Not a video in the MTV sense, but brilliant nonetheless; a live performance of Tame by Pixies. Brilliant watching just for Black Francis, looking genuinely barking mad, and screaming like the end of the world. It's rather loud.

Ko Tao and beyond

2007-01-15T21:01:00.000+09:00

I wrote the rest of my Thailand stories a good while ago on Word, and I've only just remembered to put them up. Whoops!
Also, for a lot more photos than I can be bothered to upload here, have a look at this: http://cowssaymoo.photosite.com/Thailand/
On with the Thailand...

The 29th was a traveling day. First, a flight to Bangkok, then a flight to Surat Thani, where we encountered our first attempted scam. At Surat Thani airport, all the foreigners hopped on the same bus to take us to the pier for ferries to either Ko Samui, Ko Pha-Ngan or Ko Tao. As soon as we set off, a guy in a yellow shirt told us that the weather was very bad, the seas were rough, and that we shouldn’t take any ferries tonight. He suggested we all stay in Surat Thani and get a ferry in the morning. The bus was to drop us off at a hotel, and there we could decided whether we would stay or still take the ferry. When we got to the hotel, some people immediately cancelled their ferry plans and checked in, and guess what - Yellow Shirt works at this hotel. Fancy that. Of course, we stuck with our plan, since the only ferry to Ko Tao was the supposedly dangerous night one. Eventually, after much sitting around and wondering what on earth was happening, we were delivered to the pier, where we had another hour to wait for our ferry. At first glance, I thought the ferry looked like a disaster waiting to happen; it was a big fishing boat, with the upper level divided into two rows of futons. Everyone had an assigned spot on the futon-row, and those spots were about 2 feet by 6 feet. It was certainly cosy, and the seas were a little rough, but I slept a bit, so I consider it a victory (I have a thing about not being able to sleep on transport).
We arrive on Ko Tao, and guess what, it is beautiful. Even more so than I expected. The settlement on the island is restricted to a two-street village around the pier, and a cluster of restaurants, dive shops and bungalows along the main beach, ten minute’s walk north of the pier. Add a few more isolated hotels scattered around the coast, and that’s it. Our bungalow overlooked a rocky bit of coastline between the pier and the beach, and suited us just fine. We spent the first day exploring and swimming at the main beach (Hat Sai Ree). The stroke of planning genius that makes Hat Sai Ree so ideal is that the beachfront is pedestrian-and-bike-only; the actual road is further inland. So there’s a lovely promenade lined mostly with shops, bars, restaurants and all the rest. The beach itself was surprisingly quiet and clean, all things considered. I already decided that even if I didn’t go snorkeling (which is what everyone comes to Ko Tao for), I was glad we’d come here rather than the other two bigger islands, Pha-Ngan and Samui. On the next day, New Year’s Eve, Dawn, Chris, Dave and I hired some snorkel gear and walked to a smaller beach with supposedly good snorkeling on the other side of the island. Distance from one side of the island to the other? Two kilometers. The beach we went to was tiny and pretty, though there was a surprising amount of rubbish there and in the water. At first, we same straight out from the beach on a search for fish and coral, and found nothing, perhaps not surprisingly. Then, we followed the rocks along the shoreline, and, hallelujah, we found fish! And coral! And sea cucumbers that look like lumpy poos! It was fabulous; whenever I thought I’d seen every fish on this reef, another swam past. I don’t know fish like I know birds, but I did recognize butterflyfish, parrotfish, batfish, cleaner fish, and maybe a tiny dogshark. I could’ve stayed out there for hours, but when snorkeling, it’s kind of easy to forget that you’re having to swim the whole time, and wherever you drift, you’re going to have to swim right back. So swimming exhaustion got the better of me and it was back to the beach. That night was New Year’s Eve, and Hat Sai Ree put on a fine show for us, mostly involving fire, and lots of it. There were fire dancers, hundreds of candles, and a couple of man-made palm trees set alight. People were setting off fireworks wherever they pleased, often within a few metres of where people were drinking. Indeed, Dave and I were both burned by stray sparks (though it should be said, I didn’t notice at the time; I woke up the next day with mysterious marks on my arm, and fireworks were the most likely explanation). Many locals were lighting Thai balloons (don’t know the actual name), which are rectangular and made of cloth, and have some sort of flame burning at the bottom, creating a hot-air balloon effect. There were dozens of them, and the coolest thing was that the wind currents tended to carry them all away in the same direction, creating a line of balloons in the sky. We chose a bar with beanbags on the beach, and tucked into the drink of the night; vodka buckets. More specifically, vodka and Red Bull buckets. You might imagine that that combination could get a little messy, and you’d be right. I’ll leave it there. New Year’s Day was the only day on the whole trip in which we did absolutely nothing. It was fab. On the second, I took a day-long snorkeling tour of Ko Tao without the others. My boat had six Koreans, a Swedish couple, a Thai teenager and her grandma, and two Aussies. Naturally, the two Aussies became my single-serve friends (© Fight Club) for the day. We were first taken to Shark Island, hopefully to see sharks. It turned out that ours was only one of three boats doing the same route that day, so the water became quickly packed with snorkellers. With no sharks and poor visibility, Shark Island kind of sucked. Luckily, the next stop was Ao Leuk (the snorkeling beach from two days prior), which was still beautiful, and I was able to enjoy it even more by figuring out how to balance the pressure in my ears and thus diving deeper. I found a semi-giant clam and poked the rock on which it lived, making it snap shut dramatically. Fun! We went to another three bays for snorkeling, each beautiful, each packed with fish, though none any better than Ao Leuk. The final stop for the day was Ko Nangyan, which is a private island taken up by a single resort, and claiming to be one of the world’s ten most beautiful islands. After hiking to the island’s peak, I’d believe it. The island is actually three tiny islands joined together by sandbars; the shape of the sub-islands and the sandbars creates elaborate bays filled with garden-like coral. Really spectacular. Unfortunately, because ferry connections between Ko Tao and elsewhere suck mightily, we had to take the night ferry back to Surat Thani to make our flight back to Bangkok the next day. The boat was fine; what sucked was having to spend 11 hours (4am to 3pm) waiting around in Surat Thani, the suckiest suckhole that ever sucked. It wasn’t a complete loss; Wayne and I found the smelliest and most congested (and therefore best) food market we’d yet seen. In the end, we spent seven hours sitting around Surat Thani airport; it’s a good thing I’d bought ‘Tis by Frank McCourt in Chiang Mai, or I would not have been such pleasant company. Bangkok! Is enormous and overwhelming, and we only saw a tiny portion of it. I’ll have to come back. For our last two nights in Thailand, we splashed out on an actual hotel, meaning hot water, clean towels, air conditioning and breakfast. Lux-u-ry! We stayed at the Royal Hotel, a sort of art deco place neatly positioned between Khao San Road and the monuments of the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Keow and Wat Pho. It’s also where Kevin and Drew stayed, in case anyone saw the first Amazing Race (probably not). On our first evening, we explored the budget traveler haven of Than Khao San. The highlight of this evening was the spectacularly bad band that played whilst we ate dinner. The non-singer of this duo was terrible for a) not being able to maintain a beat on bongos, b) whistling in inappropriate places (The Scientist does not need whistling!!), and c) having an unfortunate fondness for windchimes. Oh dear. On the first of two full days in Bangkok, we hit the big sights. First, Wat Phra Keow, home of the Emerald Buddha, and the most garish, bejeweled thing I’ve ever seen. It was also our first encounter with mass tourism, in the form of busloads of Japanese, Koreans, and various westerners. Dave, Chris and Dawn had to wear rented sarongs and pants (because they’re always such indecent people), which were actually rather snazzy, and worth nicking for the 100 baht deposit. After Wat PK, we popped into Wat Pho, home of the Reclining Buddha. For me, this temple (the Buddha, mostly) was much more beautiful than Wat PK, and yet it was also much quieter. This was also where Nancy and Emily were tragically beaten by Joe & Bill (TAR reference, sorry I’m such a dork), in the put-a-coin-in-every-pot game. The game was there, so we had a go. You buy a bowl of coins, and place one in each of a long line of copper pots along a wall. If you happen to choose a bowl with as many coins as there are pots, you get good fortune. We did not earn good fortune. After Wat P, Dave and Chris returned to the hotel, while Wayne, Dawn and I took a tuk-tuk to Siam Square, home of some pretty spectacular shopping malls. The tuk-tuk driver charged us 500 baht; the taxi driver on the ride back charged us 71 baht. Damn. Tuk-tuks are great fun to ride in, but for the sake of your health, a half-hour ride in one through central Bangkok is not recommended. You may as well smoke a pack of cigarettes.On our final day in Thailand, we took a tour of Ayutthaya, the former capital of Thailand, except for Dave, who went exploring on his own. Turns out Dave might have made the right choice; we saw some wonderful things that day, but the tour itself was a shambles. First, the good: we saw the summer palace, an enormous white chedi, another reclining Buddha, and fields upon fields of ruins – beautiful stuff. On the downside, our driver was rude, didn’t tell us anything (ie we had little idea what was happening all day), and the guide appeared to be stoned on something strong, as he spent the day mumbling incomprehensibly, regardless of whether anyone cared or not. He also had an annoying habit of saying “nyah” at the end of every phrase, kind of like Singaporeans with their “lah.” All in all, it was a decent trip, and the frustrations of the tour folk ended up being a source of amusement, nyah?We returned to Bangkok, had dinner, got our bags, and headed to the airport. And that was it for our whirlwind tour of Thailand. Bada bing bada boom.

Chiang Mai, part 2

2007-01-11T16:29:00.000+09:00

A surprisingly tasty grasshopper. And becardiganed Dave reads a brochure.
Have elephant, will travel. Wayne plays mahout for a day.
One of several deliciously rickety bridge crossings on our trek.
The Thai jungle in the morning; the mist makes it all the more beautiful.
The waterfall was beautiful, but this photo of the sunshine through the waterfall's mist is prettier than any of the actual waterfall.

photos from Chiang Mai

2007-01-10T21:18:00.000+09:00

travelling by sawngtheoy (taxi-truck thing)

our intrepid guide braves a funky nest of ants
yet another lovely temple, this one taller than the others
Wat Chedi Luang - it's big.
clothes, lots of clothes, at the night bazaar.

Chiang Mai, the awesomest city that ever awesomed.

2007-01-09T16:00:00.000+09:00

Wayne took us to a market he had found in his solo wanderings the day before. This market was clearly not for tourists; it was where local people shop, and I loved it, though I would rather stick a fork in my eye than buy meat there. Still, it wasn’t as gross as the chicken-seller-next-to-a-dumpster scene from Ubud in Bali, and there was more to see. And it was packed, really packed. Markets are so great I can hardly believe it, and you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen a pig’s head hanging from a hook in the tropical air.
On day four, we set out on our overnight trek. Our guide was a Karen man named Det, or Daed, or whatever the transliteration was that day, and another nice guy whose name we missed the first time and never learned again. On our way to the national park, we stopped at a market for supplies, which was smaller but more exotic than the previous day’s (basket of frogs, anyone?). Once up in the forest, our first stop was a gorgeous double waterfall, which we were invited to swim in, though none of us did. After a lunch stop, we arrived at a natural mini-geyser. It wasn’t very spectacular, but still a neat thing to see for Wayne, Dawn and I, coming from geyser-free countries. From there, we began our hike – about three hours, eight kilometers I think. We pretty much hiked up and down two large hills / small mountains, with a break in a village between them. At the top of the second mountain, our guide pointed out the misty hills in the distance, which were in Myanmar. So now I’ve been to eight countries and seen nine. Neat. We spent the night in a Karen village, in a big raised wooden building built for visitors. We had a communication barrier with our hosts, who of course didn’t speak English, but didn’t speak Thai either. It would’ve been nice to chat with them a bit, through translation, but no effort was made on either part, so too bad, I suppose.
In the morning, we hiked another hour or so over the next mountain to reach the next village, and elephant camp. We were here for an elephant ride, of course, though there was already quite a mob of other tourists when we arrived, so we had to wait a while. We passed the time with a friendly dog who very bravely attempted to cross a wonderfully rickety bridge over the river.
When our elephants finally arrived, we hit a snag; the elephants are equipped for two passengers and the mahout; since there were five of us, Dawn and I had one elephant, and Dave, Wayne and Chris had the other, though Wayne had to sit on the elephant’s neck, completely mahout-less. It was a very pleasant and slow journey up the river (often actually in the river), with our elephant’s calf tagging along for the walk. The final stage of our brief trekking adventure was a trip on a bamboo raft. These were incredibly stable for a bunch of bamboo tied together, and we also had the benefit of having two Thai guys punting (the other rafts had one, meaning one of the tourists had to punt too). Again, it was a beautiful, peaceful ride, through forest like none of us had ever seen, it’s safe to say, though two hours of standing perfectly still gets a little achy. We pulled ashore at a sort of rafting camp / resort thing, where we had lunch and returned to Chiang Mai.

Video of the week!

2006-12-20T16:49:00.000+09:00

All Is Full Of Love by Bjork. Minimal colouring, beautifully shot, and some android lovin'.

SNOW! Sort of.

2006-12-19T19:37:00.000+09:00

Yesterday morning, Takebe had its first snow of the season. Sort of. There was about an inch of snow on the rooftops, and a few little patches in the fields, as well as a nice little clump on my bike.

My school likes to dope me up

2006-12-19T16:43:00.000+09:00

...with caffiene. Today at Takeeda elementary, I enjoyed not one, but five caffienated drinks; tea upon arrival; cocoa with the special ed class; coffee at recess; bottled milk with coffee-flavouring at lunch time; and another coffee after the last period.
No wonder I'm buzzing like a hummingbird. Bzzzzzzzing!

Video of the week!

2006-12-15T16:46:00.000+09:00

1998: "Thunderbirds are Coming Out" by Australia's hooded techno goons TISM. A nice twist on the usual dull performance video; one of these bands actually went on to greater success than TISM themselves, even scoring a hit single! Shocking! Guess which one?

Absolutely gorgeous.

2006-12-15T16:34:00.000+09:00

This has nothing to do with anything, but this video montage of footage from the David Attenborough series Planet Earth, set to a song by Sigur Ros, is lovely. Enjoy.

Glasses first, clothes second.

2006-12-13T20:38:00.000+09:00

Whilst getting dressed after a swim at the pool this evening, I saw what I thought was a bit of twig or apple stem on the bench next to me. I reached down to put it in a bin.
It was not plant matter.
It was squishy.
It was a booger.

Glasses first, clothes second.

Thursday.

2006-12-07T14:56:00.000+09:00

I've started going to the local indoor pool for a spot of much-needed exercise and escape from the winter chill. Like most things in Japan, the swimming pool is a sanitized little happyland, where everything that could conceiveably be different from its Australian equivalent is different.
My first trip on Tuesday was taught me all this and more.
First of all, after enquiring about opening hours and establishing that yes, I could swim right now, I motioned to pay, but the office lady pointed me to a vending machine a few feet away. I buy my ticket, give it to her, and go in. Somehow I think that that vending machine was a few thousand dollars poorly spent.
The pool itself is very shallow (1m all over) and very warm (31 degrees!) As I would at home, I bring my towel and glasses into the pool area. I notice a single chair in the entire hall. I claim said chair for my towel and glasses. I also realize that everyone wears those annoying locker-key-on-a-wristband things whilst swimming. I wear shorts, but soon notice that everyone wears proper swimmers, like speedo-shorts. When I take a breather after a lap, I see a lifeguard running towards me in a panic. He reaches me and thrusts a rental swimming cap in my hands. So apparently, swimming with an uncovered head is forbidden in Japan. Can’t risk any renegade hairs getting in the water!
There’s a class of elementary school kids in the pool whilst I’m swimming. As I leave, I put on my glasses; suddenly, they gasp; “It’s him!” “Robahto-sensei!” “Robahto-sensei!” No hello, no konbanwa, just the yelling of my name. Nothing out of the ordinary, then. I wonder for a moment why they didn’t notice me earlier, but then again, with a cap to cover my non-black hair, goggles to cover my non-Asian eyes, and stripped of my teacher’s uniform (unironed shirt and trousers), there’s not much to go by.
On a completely different topic, I am stuck (once again) wondering what to do with tomorrow’s kid’s eikaiwa. I had had a few good lessons in a row, working on the alphabet, phonics, and beginning reading, but last week two new students came unexpectedly. A brother and sister, five and six years old. So now I have to cater to one kid who’s still at kindy, and others who could skip the first term of junior high English. It sounds mean, but I would rather these new kids (or their mum) decided the class was too difficult and they didn’t come again. Furthermore, the class is now up to 15 students, and I am still not allowed to split them into two classes based on age. Back to Karuta, I suppose.

A Comparison of Grades

2006-12-05T14:55:00.000+09:00

Today's elementary school lesson was more or less the same for every grade: make a Christmas card, and write the message in English.
I provided hiragana/romaji charts (for figuring out how to write names in English) and some clipart-style pictures of Christmassy things as a starting point for drawings. The results were as follows:

1st /2nd grade: they haven't learned the alphabet yet, so the teachers did all the writing. Pictures were restricted to trees, presents and snowmen, but they were original. One girl said, "Dad might not understand it, so can I write the Japanese above the English?" Most cards addressed to the teachers. One girl asked a teacher to write the English on another piece of paper, so she could copy it onto the card by herself.

3rd/4th grade: I'd planned for them to write only their names, but they actually wrote the whole thing by themselves. Cards mostly addressed to other classmates. Drew pictures of the same things that I provided (plus a few reindeer) but they were original drawings.

5th grade: Wrote the whole thing, but found it difficult. All the pictures were copies of the examples I provided. One girl covered her card with Winnie the Pooh stickers. Addressed to people other than classmates or teachers.

6th grade: Wrote the whole thing, very easy for some, very hard for others. Girls did excellent drawings and designs, including some nicer lettering than I can imagine. Boys mostly drew simple trees and presents. Addressed to classmates and family; some wrote "to my family."

Interesting variation over the years, no?

Woohoo!

2006-12-01T16:52:00.000+09:00

After the Big Rain of 2006.

Oh my beloved little bridge, how I miss thee. The Big Rain the night before the end of term took thee away, and since July, I have had to commute via the blue arch bridge with all the students, instead of enjoying your wooden, rickety delights. My daily commute has been that little bit less enjoyable since your demise.
However.
My bridge is being rebuilt!!! HALLELUJAH!

rants for the day

2006-11-28T12:56:00.000+09:00

There are times when people mean well, and mean to help, but come across a little patronizingly. For me, this happens a lot when people feel the need to translate very basic words into English. Last Friday night, I popped into the BOE office to ask for the key to the room we use for evening classes. The lady who got the key for me said “eikaiwa desu ka? Kodomo? Children? [more, chirudoren]” Yes, I do understand the word “kodomo” after a year’s study, thank you.
Just now, at lunch time with the first and second grade class, the teacher asked me if I knew how to use chopsticks. It’s the oldest gaijin story in the book, people being surprised that you can use chopsticks, but after more than a year at this school, it was a little shocking to be asked. I think I was holding them improperly for a moment, so apparently I needed a remedial chopstick-holding lesson. The boy next to me even said, “copy him,” pointing to another boy expertly eating. As long as I can get the food from the bowl to my mouth, who cares? I ignored the lesson, mostly out of spite. Maybe I was holding them in a Chinese style, or something equally shocking. Finally, one of the boys told me I was rinsing my milk bottle incorrectly.
And for my final rant: yes, Christmas is in summer in Australia. No, we do not think Santa rides a surfboard. I am quite sure that this image was either a) invented by creative Japanese minds putting two and two together and getting five, or b) a bored exchange student making up crap about Australia for a cheap laugh. Santa – surfboard – NO.
These are some things I will not miss when I leave Japan.

Strange happening, #5314

2006-11-25T15:08:00.000+09:00

I was summoned to the Board of Education the other day to fill out some paperwork regarding officially becoming a staff member of the Okayama-shi Board of Education (as opposed to the soon-defunct Takebe BOE). I struggled through it with dictionary in hand, as I tend to do when faced with having to write in Japanese. When I was done, BOE lady #1 (who speaks English and helps me out with these things) said to BOE lady #2, "can you read it?" and "is the kanji okay?" Why did BOE lady #2 have to read my handwriting? Because she was going to re-write the entire thing on the real forms. So I'm not trusted to write things in Japanese, apparently. All I supplied was my signature.
Back to the madness, then.

A mid-week holiday

2006-11-24T16:57:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Labour Thanksgiving Day, yet another national holiday I don't understand. It has nothing to do with North American Thanksgiving, and it's in the middle of the week, meaning we all had to go back to work today.
Nevertheless, I made the best of it and had a great day, thanks to the planning of other folks.
First, I took the bus to the city with Maricar, who lives two stops north of me, and always turns up on the same train as me. And yes, bus; there was a derailment on the Tsuyama line on Sunday, because of a landslide of some sort, so trains have been replaced by buses for the time being.
I was in the city for a pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner organised by Rachel and Nicole. It was a fundraiser for the Baan Unrak orphanage in Thailand, which R and N are visiting over the Christmas break. As organisers and fundraisers, they both did a fantastic job. There was a good mix of JETs and Japanese, which is always good to see, as opposed to living in our isolated little gaijin bubble. My usual chocolate mousse was a success, as usual, and I also got myself a neat woven glasses pouch for giving a donation to the orphanage.
After the dinner, I headed to Wake with Jon and Annie for a birthday dinner for Boone and Tibor at the legendary Pizza King. It was a pretty massive gathering, considering the size of the restaurant. Amazingly, despite the huge Thanksgiving dinner that didn't start until 2-ish, I managed to eat almost a whole pizza. Then, to top off a great day, Britt drove me home. Result!

Big knives, cake, scary faces: Happy Birthday, Boone!

Ludo attempts to create an impromptu birthday cake with a candle and cake he just happened to have in his backpack. He's trying to make a little pool of wax on the wrapper with which to attach the candle.

Everyone watches Ludo's birthday cake-creating with great interest.

Happy Birthday, Tibor! Note that despite his efforts, Ludo's still holding the candle in place.

Let's trivia!

2006-11-19T12:29:00.000+09:00

The first Okayama AJET trivia night was a success! We had a much better turnout than expected, were well-behaved (for ALTs), and had a great time. Eric and I had great fun in planning and hosting, and were actually a little over-ambitious in our planning. Indeed, we only used about half the material we had prepared, so chances are there'll be another trivia night sometime in the future.

First, the winners!
Most Arse-kicking Team and Supreme Overlords of All Things Trivia: The Tawdry Hepburns!
Team That Most Sucked The Bag: The Auks! (proud winners of a set of Scream masks scrounged from my bedroom cupboard)
Best Team Name: The Bitchu Bitches! (selected through the highly democratic and accurate method of lots of cheering)

The final results of all teams and their members was as follows. Don't blame me for the names! I'm just reporting here!

The Tawdry Hepburns: 77
(Kevin, Christopher, Sarah, Rach VD)

Sekushi Ando Derishisu: 71
(Brian, Jen, Zet, Lauren)

The Ligers: 67
(Bernie, Britt, Boone, Sarah)

The Bitchu Bitches: 64.5
(Aaron, Vicky, Hitomi, Marilu)

Racism: 64.5
(Kim, Martin, Nicole R, Rebecca)

The Inaka BOOM Shakalakas: 63.5
(Vasco, Dennis, Tara A, Dave J)

The Strays: 63
(Rach A, Richard, Dani, Maricar, Tara C, Rene, Ana, Barbie)

The Handicaps Who Know Fuck All: 59.5
(Meghan, Carrie, Tibor, Marshall)

The Auks: 53.5
(Brian, Luis, Bridgid, Ping)

When gaijin attack! (2!)

2006-11-18T14:51:00.000+09:00

Boone: when spaghetti attacks!

Rachel, Barbie, Jon: when social committees attack!

Kevin: when salarymen attack!

Dennis, me, Chris: when bio-nerds attack!

John and Dave: when PAs attack!

Amy and Ben: when Albertans attack!

When gaijin attack!

2006-11-18T14:34:00.000+09:00

Greg, Kim, Lyric, Nicole, Rebecca, Luis, Ted, Martin, Jen: When ChampClair attacks!

Andrew and Christine: when northerners attack!

John: when beer attacks!

Ludo: when Frenchmen attack!

Un-bikeless!

2006-11-12T13:29:00.000+09:00

In a happy resolution to the stolen-bike saga, I now have a bike again. A couple of weeks ago, I asked my BOE staff if there was a bike shop in Kumenan or Mitsu (the neighbouring towns, north and south), since I could take a train there, buy a bike, and ride it back. No-one knew, but the jichou (deputy of sorts) said the town library had a mountain I could have. We checked it out, it was completely kaput and unuseable. Back at the BOE, someone asked if I had checked Fukuwatari station again. I had. But had I checked Takebe station? No, I hadn't, since it's a damn long way to walk. One of the ladies immediately said, "I'll drive you there now!" We drove to Takebe station, the bike was not there. BOE lady then told me she had a bike no-one used. We drove to her house, cleaned up the bike (which is in surprisingly good condition, having been left against a house for goodness knows how long), and I rode it back to work. Result!
The moral of the story? Help does come eventually, you just have to leave pretty blunt hints in order to receive it.

afternoon chats with the nurse

2006-11-07T21:24:00.000+09:00

One of my favourite parts of any day at Takeeda, my smallest elementary school, has come to be my afternoon chats with the school nurse. My classes at this school are all in the morning now, and with only 25 students, she isn't exactly run off her feet. She doesn't speak any more English than the average person off the street, but she's keen to learn, and with my keitai jisho (dictionary on my mobile), we have some decent conversations.
She likes to ask about whatever I'm reading; at the moment it's Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Taking that book and its pictures of various ethnic groups, we managed to discuss the following:
1. The axis theory of the spread of culture and technology*
2. Why we, as northern Asians and Europeans, are pale-skinned whilst indigenous Australians, Africans, etc are dark-skinned.
3. The diversity of religions, animals and cultures in Indonesia.
Also, I played soccer with half the school (ie a dozen kids) at lunchtime. We jankened to make teams and I ended up on a team with all the year 1 kids. After 15 minutes or so of running, I was exhausted. I may have climbed Fuji, but I'm still horribly unfit.

*In short, Eurasia has an east-west axis (ie its greater distance is east-west) whilst the Americas and Africa have north-south axes. Travelling east to west, you travel through largely similar climates; these similar climates make it easier for crops and domestic animals, and later culture and technology, to travel; hence both Japan and Spain have the same animals and crops. Going north to south, you travel through a variety of climates, from temperate to tropical to temperate. Crops and animals cannot be brought from a warm climate to a cool one, or vice versa, and hence cannot spread easily along a north-south axis. In practice, this meant that goods and ideas spread easily throughout Eurasia, giving its cultures a boost in progress, whilst the same was impossible in the Americas and Africa, thus hindering their progress in technology, agriculture etc etc. Phew!

This weekend, in pictures!

2006-11-05T17:39:00.000+09:00

Thursday: I buy cheese. It proves to be the grossest display of overpackaging yet; a normal-sized bag of shredded cheese containing 5 packets of supposedly single serves of cheese. Now, why Japan would sell tiny portions of cheese to spread over its enormous slices of bread is beyond me.
Also on Thursday: karaoke! hooray!
Friday: Takebe culture festival. Basically, a bunch of local arts and crafts on display at the town culture centre. Great stuff, especially the ikebana, and the pictures made of pieces of shredded coloured paper (whatever that's called). Also, I had 10 photos displayed, meaning I supplied two-thirds of the photography display. There was a mix-up about labels, so there was just a big sign in katakana saying "Robato Paueru: Osutoraria."
Saturday: afternoon in the city with Dave, coffee, shopping, library, and an arty photo of a snazzy orange building and the purple Symphony Hall.

Sunday: some errands in the city. Exploration of the new Okayama station, which is horribly inconvenient for my train line, but has one saving grace - Vie de France, a wonderful bakery, that's worth the effort it takes to get from my platform to the new station parts. In the above photo, see the new structure, with a bit of sloping roof? See how it stops before reaching the platform on which I'm standing? Yeah, apparently the Tsuyama and Kibi Lines weren't worthy of access to the fancy new station. Instead, we have three ways of accessing the fancy new shops and restaurants; go downstairs, then upstairs onto another, worthier platform, then take the stairs up to the new stuff; exit through the west side, go up the outside staircase down the road a bit onto the new east-west overpass (new station signage actually directs you to do this); use the stairs at the end of the platform to make a near-complete circle of every other platform, around the back. So, new station - boo. Vie de France - yay.

Are you postmodern?

2006-11-02T14:25:00.000+09:00

"I'm So Postmodern," by the mysterious Bedroom Philosopher, may well be the funniest song I've ever heard. Here are its deliriously wonderful, definitively Australian lyrics in full:

I’m so postmodern that I just don’t talk anymore, I wear different coloured t-shirts according to my mood.
I’m so postmodern that I work from home as a surf lifesaving consumer hotline.
I’m so postmodern all my clothes are made out of sleeping bags, I don’t need pockets, I’m a pocket myself.
I’m so postmodern I go to parties I’m not invited to, and locate the Vegemite, and write my name on everyone.
I’m so postmodern I write reviews for funerals, and heckle at weddings from inside a suitcase.
I’m so postmodern I’m going to adopt a child, and teach him how to knit, and call him Adolf Diggler.
I’m so postmodern that I breakdance in waiting rooms, play Yahtzee in nightclubs, at three in the afternoon.
I’m so postmodern I only go on dates that last thirteen minutes, via walkie-talkie, whilst hiding under the bed.
I’m so postmodern I invite strangers to my house, and put on a slideshow of other people’s Nans.
I’m so postmodern I went home and typed up everything you said, and printed it out in wingdings, and gave it back to you.
I’m so postmodern I held an art exhibition, a Chupa-chup stuck to a swimming cap, and no-one was invited.
I’m so postmodern I make alphabet soup, and dye it purple, and pour it on the lawn.
I’m so postmodern I request Hey Mona on karaoke, then sing my life story to the tune of My Sharona.
I’m so postmodern I only think in palindromic haikus: “Madam, I Glenelg, I’m Adam!”
I’m so postmodern that I sit down to wee, and stand up to poo, at job interviews.
I’m so postmodern that I dress up as Santa, in the middle of August, and haunt golf courses.
I’m so postmodern that I cut off all my hair, and knitted it into a beanie, and threw it off a bridge.
I’m so postmodern that I stole everyone’s mail, cut them up into a ransom note and hid it in a thermos.
I’m so postmodern I take my Lego to the supermarket, and build my own shopping trolley and only buy one nut.
I’m so postmodern I wrote a letter to the council – I think it was M.
I’m so postmodern I bought a round-the-world plane ticket, and stuffed my clothes with eggplant and pretended it was me.
I’m so postmodern I’ve got a tattoo of my PIN number in hieroglyphics, on my neighbour’s guide dog.
I’m so postmodern I fought my way into parliament, made a law banning Nuttelex and then moved to Spain.
I’m so postmodern that I iron all my lettuce leaves, put my shirts in the crisper – they’re real crisp.
I’m so postmodern I give live mice to buskers, dirty teatowels to Mormons and pavlova to crabs.
I’m so postmodern that I live in a tent, on a platform of skateboards that’s tied to a tram.
I’m so postmodern I write four-thousand word essays on the cultural significance of party pies.
I’m so postmodern I recite Shakespeare at a KFC drive-through, through a megaphone, in sign language.
I’m so postmodern I’m going to watch the Olympics on a black-and-white TV, with the sound down.
I’m so postmodern I go to the gym after hours, push up against the door, then cry myself to sleep.
I’m so postmodern I wrote a trilogy of novels from the perspective of a possum that Jesus patted once.
I’m so postmodern that I marry all my friends, soak myself in metho, and tell them that they’ve changed.
I’m so postmodern I bought every book written in 1963 as a reading challenge, and clogged up a waterslide.
I’m so postmodern I think I might be a god, in my undies rolling in sugar, in the carpark of a rodeo.
I’m so postmodern I prerecorded this song, and laced a message subliminally telling Shane Porteous to buy a smock.

J'oublie le francais...

2006-11-02T14:00:00.000+09:00

Il y a un et demi depuis que je parle le français dans la vie quotidienne. J’ai peur que je vais oublier tout que j’ai appris. Même qu’avec les autres francophones, je ne le parle pas beaucoup. Alors, j’écris un petit blog en français. Si tu le comprends, bien, sinon, tant pis. Aujourd’hui je suis allé à l’école pour deux leçons avec les classes cinquième et sixième. Les enfants étaient, comme toujours, assez enthousiaste. Ensuite, je suis rentré au bureau, et maintenant, je suis ici, assis à mon bureau. Formidable. Il n’y a que deux heures jusqu’à le weekend, parce que demain, c’est une fête nationale. J’irai à la fête culturelle de Takebe, et après ça, je n’ai pas grand chose à faire. C’est le premier weekend depuis longtemps comme ça, et ça me fait heureux. C’est bien à n’avoir pas grand chose à faire, je crois.

Six syllables! Six!!

2006-10-25T17:14:00.000+09:00

The maths teacher / baseball coach at my school is a busy man. So busy, in fact, that he doesn't even have time for all the syllables in his morning greetings. For him, "ohayo gozaimasu" must be reduced from six syllables to a more efficient one: "masu!" It sounds like "muss" to me, and something about it drives me batty.
Today was an exam day, so I knew I had no classes. So, I figured it was okay to not shave and not iron my shirt, as I didn't have to look good for anyone. Of course, with my luck, today turned out to be the day of the annual staff photo. Everyone looked immaculate in their black suits... except me. It would be great if someone told me these things, wrote it on the blackboard, handed out a notice, something, anything so I didn't have to stand out any more than I already do.
Meanwhile I spent a pleasant afternoon cleaning out my desk, after a year and a bit. It turns out that Takebe - and that exact desk - has a long ALT history. I found worksheets dating back to 1998, handwritten with the pictures pasted on by hand. Word! My kingdom for Word!

Bikeless

2006-10-19T15:35:00.000+09:00

My bike was stolen last night. I got back to Takebe after dinner at Chez Moscoso at 10:30, and there was no bike waiting for me. I figured I’d just parked it somewhere else and couldn’t find it in the dark, so I slept on it, and checked again this morning. No bike.
When I arrived at the BOE after my morning of classes at elementary school, I told my supervisor. After a bit of “ehhh?” he thought for a moment, then said, “but you have another bike, right?” THAT’S NOT THE BLOODY POINT. And anyway, that granny bike’s an unrideable dud. The conversation quickly faded, nothing happened.
Later, a couple of BOE colleagues came back from a meeting, including the sole English speaker. She was filled in with the news; she asked where it had gone missing from. Then, the conversation in the room shifted, and I was being asked how to say “eh” and “eto” in English.Goodness. Thanks so much for your help and concern, everyone. Sometimes I really do think the famed kindness of the Japanese is just a big ol’myth.

Today's thoughts

2006-10-17T18:00:00.000+09:00

1. Today I harvested a rice field with my elementary school's 20 students. I'm gonna hurt tomorrow.
2. I wonder how pumpkin, chicken and white miso would go together in a stew/soup thing? I've had miso-pumpkin and miso-chicken at school, and it was tasty.
3. The current Amazing Race continues to be awesome.
4. The current Survivor continues to not be full of complete tools, for once.
5. I get to program the music for the Halloween party and the trivia night. This is one happy music geek typing here.

Bunkasai

2006-10-17T17:53:00.000+09:00

Saturday was the annual school Bunkasai, or culture day. There were three events, taking up the whole day; a speech contest, with one competitor from each class; a play written and performed by each of the six classes; and a chorus competition, with two songs from each class. It was far and away better than last year's event. The plays were vastly improved by not all being set in a classroom, for starters. Here's my analysis, from what little I understood:
1A: a yakitori stand existing for about 4 seconds, an old lady being run down by a taxi, punch-ups (someone even thumped kocho-sensei!), and swigs of unidentified grog. Quite subversive, really.
1B: something called "cunning paper," otherwise set in a classroom. Dull.
2A: notable only for three boys riding a bike across the stage through a mob of girls. Otherwise, just a bunch of dialogue.
2B: it's a mystery what this slice of Bizarro World was about, but there was a magician, lots of cross-dressing, and absolutely nothing to do with school, which was a relief.
3A: something with someone burning to death after re-entering a burning building to rescue someone or something, as well as the receipt of mysterious voiced-over letters.
3B: a trip to the beach and euthanasia. Your guess is as good as mine.

TO-KYO! Hell, yeah! (2)

2006-10-14T17:09:00.000+09:00

Hachiko says hi.

Sunday! Shibuya! Many photos were taken of Hachiko the blindly faithful dog and that street crossing before an essential coffee stop. Next, we shopped, but only in HMV, Tower, Loft and the Disney Store; all of which are much like the same things in Okayama, just on a Tokyo scale, of course. Next, we had a decent spaghetti lunch and a sublime icecream from Hagen-Dazs, and a stroll up to Harajuku and Yoyogi-koen.

I have really fond memories of Yoyogi-koen from my previous, pre-JET trip to Toyko with my family; I remember looking at the food stalls and painfully deciphering the hiragana I’d tried to teach myself – “ya…ka….zo….ba? Yakisoba! Cool! What’s yakisoba?” Today, we first saw the Tokyo Rockabilly Club dancing up a storm, then some badaaaasss BMX dudes, before finally finding our way to the rather legendary Harajuku girls. Ask Gwen Stefani, she’ll tell you all about ‘em. I’ll just explain with photos, and just say that they’re very weird, and a little bit awesome.

Screw the mouse - this is the happiest place on Earth.

Also at this point it’s worth mentioning the odd culture shock I had in Tokyo. I’m used to being the only foreigner, or all the foreigners being residents; I’m also used to two broad categories of Japanese people – those that assume you can speak Japanese (because what kind of barbarian doesn’t?) and those that assume you can’t (because it is the world’s most difficult language and foreigner simply cannot speak it). Seeing mobs of tourists, no-one giving a crap about our being foreign, and people asking “can you speak Japanese?” instead of making assumptions – well, it was all very refreshing.
The next stop was Meiji-jingu. There was a wedding party moving through, and with everyone dressed traditionally and looking immaculate, the army of tourists turned into an army of paparazzi. Weird.
Finally, nearing the point of exhaustion, we subwayed to Shinjuku, and shopped at Tokyu Hands and Kinkuniya, where I found three near-perfect books; a new one by primatology legend Frans de Waal about the common ground between human, chimpanzee and bonobo behaviour; an adult textbook that will save me a lot of eikaiwa preparation work (why didn’t I think of that before?); and a wonderful book in French, Lisa et Gaspard au Japon. Yes, I bought a children’s book in which two fluffy little dogs go to Tokyo and struggle with hashi, futons, toilet buttons and slippers. Due to absolute exhaustion, we grabbed a fresh burger at Freshness Burger and another coffee before retreating home.
Monday! We got up early-ish to get to the Tsukiji fish market before it closed. Little did we know that being a public holiday, it was already closed. We got there eventually, after more “fun” subway station navigating, and yes, it was all closed. It was a bit like, “it looks like it would be great… if it were open.” However we were only two stops away from Ginza so to Ginza we went.
In Ginza, we found the first alfresco café I’ve ever seen in this country (hallelujah!) then went to the same department store food hall that my Dad and I famously gorged at all those years ago. Sadly, the samples were reduced to some sort of not-mochi with the dreaded kinako, and one plate of wonderful chocolates. We tried another department store in the hope of free food, but to no avail. Instead, we had a quick look through the Sony building at the newest stuff, where the theme seems to be “the same… just smaller.” Finally, it was back to Tokyo, for omiyage shopping, a bento lunch, and a shink home.
Four hours on the shinkansen; one on the local; bed; exhaustion. Done.

TO-KYO! Hell, yeah! (1)

2006-10-11T20:48:00.000+09:00

Last weekend was a long weekend. Great minds thinking alike, as they are wont to do, Danielle and I both fancied a trip to Tokyo, the greatest metropolitan area on Earth.
Saturday morning, early shink, arrived in Tokyo 10:30, subway to Ueno.
The first stop was the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno-koen. This is a beautiful place spread across a couple of buildings, primarily on Japanese art and cultural artifacts, with a hall of Asian treasures. That is, the Asia that Japan isn’t a part of, of course. Thankfully, the museum isn’t too huge, and doesn’t feel the need to display every single thing in its collection, so it’s quite manageable.
Back in Ueno-koen, we had a kebab (it’s a yiros in my neck of the woods) / samosa / chips / orange wedges lunch of gloriousness. Ueno-koen is very pretty, huge, and packed full of attractions, yet it still has NO GRASS.

Next, on to Kappabashi, which is a long street mostly of restaurant-supply shops. It’s claim to fame, and highlight for the average tourist, are its many “sampuru” shops; “sampurus” being the wonderful plastic food models displayed outside the average restaurant to entice in customers. I really wanted a bowl of spaghetti with hovering fork, or yakisoba with hovering hashi, or possibly even a big ol’ squid, but since anything of size started at 6,000 yen, I settled for some plastic tonkatsu (the crumbed pork cutlets, sitting on egg and rice) and a ramen keitai dangly thing. The lady I bought my fantastic plastic from gave me two keitai dangly things (an onigiri and a prawn sushi) for free! She was nice, as people who give you free stuff tend to be. I also bought a red lantern with “taiyaki” (fish-shaped pastry filled with delicious anko) written on it. Kappabashi is wonderful; why it’s not in the Tokyo LP is a mystery.

From Kappabashi we wandered through the quiet streets of Asakusa to Senso-ji. I think LP is spot-on about this
place; they say it’s certainly not the most beautiful temple, but it’s possibly the best-used and best example of a temple in action in all Japan. It’s wonderful, of course.

After a necessary Starbucks pit stop, we subwayed to Tokyo to collect our stuff. From there, through one baffling connection (Otemachi station? Booooo!), we found our way to our lodgings, at a hostel in Takashimadaira, which is a classic Tokyo suburb, with busy little streets and local small business surviving alongside the ubiquitous kombinis.

We lucked upon a fantastic place. It’s listed as a hostel, even though all the bedrooms are private, with their own toilet; showers, living areas and kitchens are shared, but only between three bedrooms. The third room joining mine and Danielle’s was empty, so we basically got a private apartment for the weekend, at about 3,000 yen each per night. Pretty damn sweet, I say.

We soon subwayed to Shinjuku for dinner, looking for a particular Sri Lankan restaurant (we found it, it was good).
Yet again we got lost in the station; seriously, those subway stations are the most baffling thing in this whole damn country – we’ve been here a year and use the trains constantly, so if it’s this hard for us, then newly-arrived, non-Japanese-reading tourists must have a ball.
After dinner, we decided to go for a sample of the high life, and on an LP recommendation, found our way to the Park Hyatt’s New York Bar. That is one confusing hotel; it occupies the 39th to 52nd floors of an office tower (the lobby’s on the 41st, the bar on the 52nd); finding your way in is a feat in itself. We got to the bar, with its expected spectacular view, lounge band, and very wealthy (and probably very boring) clientele. Of course, you can’t get into these places without a bit of cash, and we paid a pretty obscene amount of money for one fancy drink each and some nibbles. Still, it was a fun bit of people-watching in an environment I’m not likely to visit often.

The School of Suck.

2006-10-03T15:32:00.000+09:00

Today's elementary school day just plain sucked. Let me run you through it:
Lesson 1: year 5. Pretty good.
Lesson 2: Year 1 and 2. Chaotic. Kids can't sit still or listen, teachers do little to help the situation.
Lesson 3: Year 6. Entire class (bar three) refuses to talk.
Lunch: With year 6. Their teacher asks them to talk to me. Silence. I ask the class - in Japanese - what they'd like to do next lesson. Silence.
Lesson 4: Year 3 and 4. Year 4 kids are 10 minutes late, both teachers are over 15 minutes late. No explanation. Lesson is therefore very behind plan and I try to rush through; class is chaotic.
Bah.

On the Kibi bike trail

2006-10-03T15:26:00.000+09:00

On Saturday, in a trip organised by daytripper queen Vicky, a bunch of us did the Kibi bike trail, something I've been meaning to do for over a year. It's a fifteen kilometre trail from Soja to Ichinomiya, just a couple of stops away from Okayama, weaving its way past temples, shrines, and burial mounds.
There were about twenty ALTs on this trip, and in our fleet of rented granny bikes, meandering among the fields, we made quite a sight. The scenery was beautiful; mostly farmland with distant hills, but with some houses, roads, and other signs of humanity always in sight (to my inaka-mind, it's not truly rural unless there's not a building to be seen). Together with the perfect autumn weather, it certainly made for an ideal way to spend a Saturday.

Dawn and Gary: have bike, will travel.

Chris, kicking some bike-riding arse way out ahead of the pack.

Chris, Kevin and Dave, enthralled by Kibitsu-jinja's koi.

A fortune-dispenser-thing depicting the life and times of Momotaro. Here's his birth, springing out of a peach, already about 10 months old, apparently.

An enduring mystery

2006-09-28T20:05:00.001+09:00

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

2006-09-28T20:05:00.000+09:00

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