This morning got off to a completely ridiculous start! Luckily, I'd already arranged to go into work late, as I knew I'd be staying late, and I needed to go to the ward office to get my gaijin card updated with my new passport information, as well as go to the library (I really don't want to deal with fines here, that just seems like it would be much too complicated!). Unfortunately, at the ward office, I realised I hadn't refilled my pump, and didn't have enough insulin for the whole day/evening (yea, I know I should have a spare bottle/reservoirs on me, but I didn't; doh!) so I went from the kuyaksho (sp?) to the library and then biked home, filled my pump, and jumped on a train to get to work, about twenty minutes after I'd said I'd get there, which wasn't so good, but actually no one really minded since its a) pretty flexible, and b) busy today, and c) I got everything done.

At the library, it was funny b/c I tried to leave my bike up at the top of the big hill and walk down, and the traffic guy kind of came over to me and was shaking his head, so I gestured towards the bike, and asked him 'daijoubou desu ka?' and he was like 'blah blah blah questioning gesture, why?' so I told him I was going to the toshokan, and he's was like 'ah. Ok desu', and let me park there. Then after, I saw him walking down the hill, and he kept saying stuff in Japanese, and I'm trying to tell him I don't speak Japanese, and then randomly, he was like 'san gatsu', and I was like 'oh! March!' (no idea why that was relevant to whatever he might have been saying!) And he was like 'yes, March. Have a nice day', and walked off. Very random!

Anyway, did eventually make it to work, and had a busy day filling in a few gaps for BAB, and finishing the 'Things to Do' section for Weekender. Most of us went for lunch at Suji's today, which was really good-we almost all got one of the lunch specials which was a cobb salad sandwich... My lunch from today was relegated to the fridge for tomorrow, but I hear plans afoot to go to Suji's again tommorow (beef stroganoff or chicken parm sandwich are the specials), which is very hard to resist!

This evening three of us ended up at Suji's again though, as Grace Kim, whom we featured in the sports section of the Chinatown issue of Weekender was sweet enough to take us out for drinks (and nachos....mmm!) I really want to take some Tae Kwan Do classes from her and her new company, 3 Step Defense. It was funny because my blog came up a lot today, talking about blogs, people who get book deals from blogs, and also, at lunch, how such a high percentage of the search terms coming of people coming to my blog have been about Suji's, and then today, Grace mentioned she'd found my blog by searching for Suji's, so tonight when I got home, I googled 'Suji's tokyo' and I'm the first and second listings on google, (I'm also number 3 and 4 for 'shiba koen futsal') which is pretty crazy! (Maybe I should start selling them ad space on here ;).
I didn't quite make it to Pecha Kucha night as we hung out at Suji's for quite awhile, but that's OK - its every month, and it was lots of fun tonight so I wouldn't have wanted to bail early!

Got home around 10:30, had some pasta, and blogging, still waiting for Peter to come home, though Hitomi has just walked in the door. I have started thinking about what I'm going to do with this blog, because it really has to end soon! Increasingly I think it's bordering on the self serving drivel that people then to complain about when discussing blogs.

I'm also tired of how much I do have to censor myself, and how little I can say about work, etc. We were kind of talking about it today, which made me start thinking about it more, I mean, I'm careful about what I say about work, but what if something slips out of whatever... Honestly, I'm getting tired of the self censorship, but its also not like I'm going to actually say how I feel on here...But on the other hand, I do like having a record of the trip, so not sure what the best solution would be.

I was thinking it might be interesting to write a novel on a blog, like the same kind of length as I write on here each day, and then you'd have like a serialised novel with built in fans, and incentive to write every day, but maybe I should finish CRASH first ;) Or, I could just blog when something interesting happens, but that has the potential to become less than sporadic, or, I could start a second, pass word protected blog and just dish in there, but that seems a bit weird, I don't necessarily want or need my personal diary (not that I've ever kept one!) online...

Who knows? Blogging is weird!
D.

Peter had an early meeting (well, 10am) out near Haneda this morning, so I managed to score a ride to work, which was great :) It also meant, that since we left at 9, which is a few minutes before I have to leave to take the train, or right around when I have to leave if I'm biking, I ended up getting down to Roppongi about half an hour before I was supposed to be at work. I went and got a drink at Subway and read some of Angels and Demons, which has somehow taken me this long to get to!

I managed to pull myself away from Rome and the Illuminati to pull into work right on time, which was handy, as Helen had lots for me to do :) BAB is about to go to print at the end of the week, so there was lots to do in terms of tying up lose ends - writing a 'things we love' blurb, writing an advertorial, adding some text into women of the world (did you know that 40% of women in rural India have never heard of AIDS!), etc.

After Anthony came in, we had a late content meeting with Caroline, and I also worked on the kids pages for Mar 16 (what I want to be when I grow up) with Karin for awhile, before ending the day by putting in a couple of hours of work on the Things to Do for the Mar 16 issue, which I need to get typed up and submitted tomorrow - This issue goes to print in ten days, but it all needs to get to design ASAP. Its crazy how fast each two week cycle seems to fly by! The calendar was a bit of a challenge this week, because for some reason, I was a little thin on the ground with press releases, but also, all the stuff kept happening on the same days! Very frustrating as we only put one event per day, so there was some tricky shuffling going on! I think I had one event per day penciled in (and crossed out, moved around, and highlighted over!) before I left. It was crazy how fast work went today, I looked up at the clock and was totally shocked to find that it was already 3:55! I left at about 4:30, but it still seemed like a short day, which is great I guess! The new intern wasn't there today, I think Helen said she's not in until Thursday now, but I'm sooo curious!! I want to meet her! I'm also curious how we're going to start dividing up the work between the two of us, although I suspect there will be more than enough to keep both of us as busy as we want to be ;).

Spent my break reading more Angels and Demons (I have to get it back to the library tomorrow), and then went to teach, which also went surprisingly fast. The girl had lots of homework which helps pass the time, again, I went to check the time and was shocked that it was already 7!

Came home on some very crowded trains, bah! Walked in the door and made a huuuuge vat of spaghetti for dinner (and dinner, and lunch, and lunch, and maybe another dinner or so). It was pretty tasty - Hitomi's trick of adding some Clamato juice to the sauce is definitely a good one! Thins it out a little bit and adds just a hint of a kick; good stuff. Venus and I curled up on the couch, and I finished my book, which is good, I've been realising that since TiVo (and biking to work sometimes), I've been reading way less, averaging only about 1.5 novels/week, which for me is nothing! I have to try and cut back on the TV and ramp back up on the reading; I miss it!

Finally, in the 'well this is random' category is this website I found with some Japanese phrases on it. Everything is going along as expected (konichiwa, gan batte; good afternoon, good luck, etc.) until you get to the la la land section, aptly named, which has such phrasal gems as:

What is the meaning of my bellybutton?
Ohesotte nani?)

I am too barbaric to eat a Japanese breakfast.
(Nihonshoku o tabesukete inai yabanjin desu.)

and

How honorably shrimp struggle as they choke to death!
(Ebi no idaina saigo desu!)

Oh those shrimp!

D.

Whew, today was a pretty good example of just a little bit too much of a good thing! Jordon and I trekked out to Shin-Yokohama with two of his friends to go to the ramen museum. It was pretty oishii! The museum itself is pretty limited, and largely in Japanese, so we didn't see that part very much (just a tiny bit at the end), but the downstairs two levels are great - themed like the city streets in 1958, they hold eight ramen shops (plus a bar, standing bar, and bakery) representing different types of ramen from around the country. We tried four different kinds of ramen! Luckily, they had 'mini' bowls, which weren't exactly small, but meant that we managed to make it through. (I don't think I want to see noodles for at least a day or two though!) The first kind of ramen we had was from Tokyo and called Harukiya.
(the kind of taupe colored things in the bottom left part of the bowl are bamboo shoots, which I've never had before, they were good - kind of crispy and chewy at the same time, and didn't have a really strong tast of any kind, but I liked them)

It was really good! I think it was my favourite! It is a handmade, hand-kneaded noodle in soy sauce flavoured fish broth. According to the guidebook "The bowl looks simple, but when you sip at the soup, you feel multiple levels of complex flavor and richness combined with fish aroma excite your brain. You would not come to yourself until you finish the whole bowl." It was indeed exciting!

Next, we headed to get some Komurasaki, which was quite good, but not as flavorful. It is from Kyushu, and includes garlic chips (which I think Kazumasa san said were fried in horse oil, after we ate it!! I'm not 100% sure though!), and a mild broth based on pork bones blended with chicken bones. It smelled really good, but didn't quite live up to the tastes of the first ramen we tried.
After that, we took a bit of a ramen break, and wandered around the two stories of the 'town', unfortunately, it was next to impossible to get pictures! It is really low lighting, so Peter's little camera was having a hell of a time trying to sort itself out, and I couldn't get it out of a really slow exposure, which wasn't helping things at all!)

We also got stopped by a entertaininly heavily made up policeman, who was incredibly friendly, and let Jordon take some pictures with him (and his gun). Then, randomly, he whipped out two hula hoops and the two of them had a competition. After that, I had a hula competition with the cop (I think we tied). It was random, because somehow the cop had it in his head that Jordon's name was Danielle, so then when he asked me my name I was like 'uhhhh Jordon!'.

We went upstairs, and went into the old style candy shop, where I got some thin wafers where you put tonkatsu (pork cutlet) style sauce in the middle. Very weird, but not too bad. Everyone else got these little tubs of super vinegary (but slight sweet) liquid in which two Japanese style plums were encased. I tried a little bit of Jordon's and it was intense! Verrry vinegary! An acquired taste to be sure! (Can't you just see the love on their faces?)
We also had some sugar coated fried dough (basically donuts) which were good, but in retrospect, maybe a little bit extraneous, because after a quick visit to the game room (old spinning tops, juggling, ring toss, etc), it was on to part two of the ramen excursion. I tried to give our third shop, the spicy Ryushanhai a miss to save room for our fourth bowl, but they said everyone in the shops had to eat, so I had to be a 'trooper' And get some of the ramen from the Tohoku Region. It is a miso based soup, with fish and shell fish flavouring, and a big ball of spicy miso paste in the middle that you can dissolve at will. It has "a firm yet bouncy textured noodle well worth mentioning". Actually, the noodles were really good, but I don't think this was anyone's favourite. Kind of a weird combi, with the spicy aspect and all.
Since we couldn't leave it at a low note like that, we dragged ourselves across the courtyard to get some Fukuchan from Hakata. This one was really good as well, it was too bad we were all so collectively full after that! This one was interesting, because they had 'add it yourself' garlic on the table, you could add garlic chips and also press whole fresh cloves of garlic into your soup, which was did, and was tres oishii! It smelled sooo good as well, I love garlic!

I'll end with some general shots of the museum, it is pretty well themed in the food amusement park part - they also had audience participation stuff like a 'rock, paper, scissors' tournament, and performances of the oldest types of Japanese manga, where a guy stands by a little stage and tells the story as he shows various still images (paintings) of what is going on in the story. Each of the ramen shops was also decorated differently (to show the different areas maybe?) Though all of them used the super simple and convenient ticket vending machines. They have a really good English guidebook, which isn't always the case with places like this and we learned that there are over 200 000 ramen shops in Japan; wow!

It's too bad its so far from here, or we could get memberships to let us get in and out on an unlimited basis (otherwise, its a Y300 entrance fee for the museum and stuff before you can get down to the ramen shops), but it was a tasty field trip! Next: icecream town or Sweets Forest!

gotta love food amusement parks!
D

I got up insanely early (6:30) this morning in order to go watch the gymnastics classes. It didn't really go overly well, but we had a mis-communication from the beginning I think, so that's fine. I guess he assumed that I had lots of coaching experience, and wanted to come and coach, whereas what I was 95% interested in was finding somewhere to train, which, because of them having to set up/take down immediately before and after each session, its probably not going to work out. I think neither of us was that enthralled with the idea of me as a coach by the end of the day, but I might be helping him out with his book, so there you go; that would be a much better fit!

I went to lunch with them at TAC (the American Club), which was pretty nice - I've never been to the club before so it was fun to see everything they have - an outdoor pool, bowling alley, American style diner (where we ate), restaurants, health club, beauty salon, Foosball, games, etc. It's popular as part of the 'ex pat package' and there were lots of kids there and stuff - looks like it was probably a pretty fun place to have growing up! These ex pat kids live in a bit of a bubble over here! It would be v. cool to study in an International School, etc!

Anyway, after lunch, there was just about 2 hours before soccer, and since I was in the neighborhood anyway, I figured it didn't make any sense to go home, so I went to Suji's for a drink, which was great, as usual :) Got to chat with Suji a bit, and tried to convince Maasa (sp?), who used to be a soccer player in Italy, to come out to our soccer sessions sometimes! Was very happy to see that they were really busy, which is great, we want them to stay right where they are - feet from our office! It was pretty funny because about ten minutes after I got there, just as I was cracking open the old nihongo tekistu books, Jen walked in the door! She was hosting a baby shower for her friend at Suji's, and they were about to take up a big section of the place. I told Suji about how big a proportion of the search terms for this blog are Suji's related, and scored some extra chocolate syrup in my iced mocha as a result :)

Wandered down to soccer (taking some random keitai pics on the way; see below), and played for a couple of hours. There were only seven of us, which means that we were playing 4 on 3, and then after someone had to leave early, 3 on 3. It was pretty tiring, but I was actually in a relatively low level of pain; YAY! I did spray myself down with the Air Salon stuff I got last week, and it was pretty good. It was definitely a bit different from the stuff I'd borrowed last week as there was a massive amount of menthol related freezing in it (I smelled like a stick of spearmint!), but there was also pain killer I think as well, it was all very encouraging how well it went today! I've emailed a couple of other groups about their futsal/soccer, so maybe I can get a couple of other sessions per week in which would be nice!
(It took me awhile (and a double take or two!) to realise that this handsome creature is actually a robot, and not a flag person. After the course I took about flag waving, I can certainly see why they would want to have fake people on the job!)

(survey day in Hibiya station! tons of these very studious/taking their job seriously guys were tracking the traffice through the eki today, with like 3 counters each - quite the operation from the looks of things!)
(Tokyo Tower)

(interesting child like statues at a huge temple near Tokyo Tower/the Tokyo Prince Hotel/Shiba Koen. I had no idea this temple was there until I walked past it after getting slightly lost on my way to soccer today. It looks amazing, and I'll definitely have to go back there to check it out properly later!)

When I got back, Peter was still at the office, so I just showered, made some food, and researched freelancing possibilities. I'm thinking there must be an article in the whole food amusement park thing somewhere! Since we're hitting the ramen museum tomorrow, it seemed like a good idea to keep in mind.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Happy Oscars!
D

Taught two people today, chatted with Grampa, and took a few pictures of 'street snaps', including one of the Icelandic Ambassador's daughter, who seemed very nice, and one of an editor from Player Magazine, which Peter and I had just recently been chatting about. Came home around five, hung out for a bit, watched Gilmore Girls, drooled over on-sale and refurbished macs (online), and then eventually we ordered pizza and watched 'The Queen', which I'm going to be reviewing for work. That about sums up the day, so I'm going to take the rest of the regularly scheduled blogging time to review 'The List' by Tara Ison before I forget what its all about!

The List
Tara Ison
March 07
Scribner
978-0-7432-9414-0

When I originally agreed to review this book, I clearly hadn't read the cover blurb very carefully, as what I was expecting was not what I got! Al and Isabel are two lovers who can't quite break up and decide to go on ten perfect dates as a way to to finally bring closure to their relationship. I got about that far on the cover blurb, and then ASSumed that they would fall in love again over the course of the dates and it would be a total pink book.

Clearly, I was wrong, but the novel was good, so there you go! Al, who was a movie director who had one cult hit before giving up the silver screen in favor of professional slackerism and clerking at a video store meets Isabel, a highly driven med student at a midnight screening of the aforementioned hit. The two of them fall into a relationship driven more by physical attraction and an undeniable carnal connection than anything which seems deep and long lasting.

Indeed their relationship (we are told, as we enter the story in the truly dying stages of the saga) has ended several times, as Isabel repeatedly seeks solace in her best friend, the seemingly perfect surgeon Van, and Al couch surfs back to his brother Griff's house, while seeking solace in his own best friend, outspoken lesbian Julie. Finally, the pair decide that enough is enough and decide to put an end to the troubled relationship once and for all. The theory is that if come up with ten things which they have always wanted to do, put it on a mutually agreed upon 'list', and then systematically cross off all of the things on said list they will be able to end the relationship once and for all. The list of activities is eclectic, ranging from smearing themselves in baby oil and having sex on sheets in a cheap motel (ewww greasy!), to doing some 'shrooms while at the Planetarium, to having a candlelit shower.

Instead of allowing them to move past their relationship, however, the list seems to serve only to pull them deeper into a mutually destructive relationship which pulls at them and at their lives as they remain unable to split up, and continue to fight against one another while simultaneously remaining unable to move outside of their relationship.

The book is certainly interesting, and I felt it was pretty realistic how Ison dealt with a struggle between two people who are inexplicably drawn to one an other yet realise they are not the best match for each other. However, I felt that the psychological aspect could have been drawn out a bit more - if she wanted to make the two of them dangerous to each other, I think that could have been pushed a little bit more. Interestingly, I didn't care particularly for one character over the other, but was more concerned for the two as a couple. I don't know if this was intentional, but it worked well within the context of the plot and was probably quite challenging to write like that - I can't imagine that it would be easy to write two characters with a similar level of 'likeability'. Alternating the voice between the two of them in alternating chapters probably helped though.

I think the List was an interesting and completely fresh approach to looking at a crumbing relationship. Nearly free of reproach and recrimination from within the relationship (though those around the two main players have a lot to say!), the story is free to explore the relationship at will. I'd recommend this to the YA set and up, especially if you are looking for a completely different portrait of a doomed relationship!

==
Well, I'm off to bed, I have to be up ridiculously early tomorrow to go check out a gymnastics class (just watching unfortunately)...

Night!
D

I went to check out Sophia University today, unfortunately, it was very rainy and grey, so I didn't spend too much time actually checking out the campus, but it seemed OK - not overly inspiring, but not overly depressing, kind of typical Tokyo architecture; square and efficient I guess. Anyway, I managed to get application information for there, the only wrench in those works is that you have to take the SATs which is a bit ridiculous, but you can take them here, so if I need to I can (and um, be completely screwed in math!) Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to transfer any credits, because for some reason, you're only considered a transfer student if you have finished two years of uni... (Sophia has an English speaking undergraduate program)

After that, I trekked way out to Odaiba, to check out the Japan Association for Foreign Students (or something like that), and picked up their big booklet on studying in Japan, scholarships, the different types of schools in Japan, etc. This would require a year to eighteen months of intensive Japanese language study, plus sitting the university entrance exams known the world over for being brutally intense, but would have the side benefit of fluency in Japanese.

Alternately (and this is my favorite option at the moment), I might try and swing the visa thing so I could stay here yet study through Athabasca, Canada's Open University, which would be great, lots of English classes, more than one major to pick from, flexible, cheaper, etc. I know I can finish correspondence courses if I put my mind to it (and hey, its a great reason to get a laptop!), etc. So, we'll see...obviously nothing is decided yet, but there are options (which knowing me, is a bit of both good and bad, but really, mostly good in this case!)

After picking up the info, I headed across Odaiba to Venus Fort, which is this themed mall targeted to women, its pretty amazing, and I took lots of pictures, so I think I'll just mostly let them do the talking!




It's a themed mall, designed to look like an Italian city, with the fountains, and the cobblestone streets, etc. Its also for women, so the canned music is all Enya-esque, and most of the stores were of very little interest to me (like the Barbie clothes for adults store), etc. But the mall itself was pretty cool! The sky actually changes from day clouds through to evening clouds which are quite dark, it's interesting! There's also a square where you can get married and stuff, pretty interesting just to wander around in even if you don't get up to too much shopping!
(marriage square)

After I'd basically seen the mall, I headed downstairs to get a coffee and read and wait for Peter, who was driving out to Odaiba after some meetings. While I was there, I tried to get a woman to let me take her picture for street snaps for BAB, but no dice, I need to find some people tomorrow in Shibuya while I'm teaching, I had no luck today - I'd been planning to do it at Sophia, but I think the rain drove everyone away, I didn't see anyone!

Anyway, Peter and I went to have a 'quick' look through Venus Fort, as he'd never seen it, and ended up getting very sidetracked! First we exclaimed over the 'Roppongi worthy wear' at the slutty kiddy klothing shop
And then we wandered over to the huge Toyota showroom/amusement park/activity centre thing, called Mega Web, where we saw tons of cars, some cool simulation games, vending machines for car catalogues (the Prius, at 200Y is the most expensive), and took a magnetic car ride around a track, which was so cool! The car was so cute, a little smaller than a mini, and totally drove itself. We did have to wear seat belts though, (it went about 12k/hr), and wouldn't have been allowed on the ride had we been intoxicated or over exhausted.


(kids had designed a lot of the cars, so they were very cool and colorful!)

We also went to the free car museum,called History Garage, because Peter wanted to see some of the old school cars. I was happy because I got to sit in a Messerschmidt, I've heard rumors that during Grampy's London art school days, he used to sit in the back, with Oma, while his friend tooled the little three wheeler around the city...how fantastic! It was actually really comfortable though - squishy seats! If a little small. The museum was really well themed as well, with different street scenes from 1950's America, etc. Funnily enough, they had a well decorated '50s diner/soda fountain, which sold, of all things, curry and pasta!
Finally, on our way out of the mall, we stopped in a random crap shop, where, among other things, Peter got friendly with some stuffed boobs (yes, this is becoming a familiar sight to loyal blog readers!) and I tried on some kicking glasses!

Our plans for a late movie were thwarted by the fact that the last movie had started around eight, so we went to La Boheme, the Italian version of ZEST and had a nice dinner and talked about school possibilities and stuff which was good.

Drove home, and that about wraps up the day! Lots of photos for you, I love being able to upload straight to flickr from my keitai!

D

Biked to work today since it was a gorgeous day, so that was if not nice, at least not too unpleasant! I'm looking forward to the cherry blossoms coming out in Aoyama cemetery, that will be really nice! Managed to listen to my This American Life Podcast, which is still downloading, although some of my other podcasts (Rick Steves, DNTO, All in the Mind) aren't which is really weird/worrying/crappy! This computer is almost totally full though (15GB, not so much!), so that might have something to do with it? LUCKILY the metpod is still downloading, so I can listen to that tomorrow when I go to Sophia University...It looks like a nice long one as well, which is awesome!

Work was good today - I finished up the women of the world section, and I think I managed to find some good articles for that - its amazing what you can find when you just 'google news' "women". What would we do without the Internet! I've been reading a lot about the story I used for the slightly longer 'featurette', which is about the Marianas islands. It's pretty shocking! The islands are are a Commonwealth of the US, which means that they are mostly American, except that they don't have the same minimum wage, and they don't have the same immigration act. This has basically led to tons of factories setting up shop with a low minimum wage, and recruiting tons of women from remote areas of China, Thailand, etc to work for them.

The women go over there hoping to be able to finance educations for themselves and their families, but in order to get there, they have to pay up to $7000 to a recruiter to get themselves a one year contract. Under current rates, they would have to work 58 out of a possible 52 weeks in order to just break even! The recruiters threaten their families back home, and it is very stressful! Many of the women are forced into prostitution, and can't feed themselves properly or anything. One of the women they interviewed in the article said her teeth bleed all the time because all she can eat is a bit of rice and a few crappy vegetables. The US is considering passing a law to change the minimum wage, but some people say that if that means the factories close, it will cause even more problems as their only legal source of income will evaporate. Incidentally, all clothing made in this area, which includes Saipan, can be labeled 'Made in the USA', which gives many people, me included, the impression that the clothes have been made with some level of human rights in mind! Interesting stuff! Ms. Magazine has been covering the story in detail if you are interested....

We also had a content meeting today, which I wasn't really that involved in, but it was pretty funny because Caroline called in from home, so we had her on speaker phone, and occasionally you'd hear her yelling at Tommy (her dog), or something, and then if everyone was quiet she was like 'oh, have you all gone for lunch without me then?' Perhaps you had to be there, but it was an entertaining way to hold a meeting!

I also got to try my hand at cutting an article today, which I've never done for someone else before. I had to take it from about 1400 words all the way down to 850, which was a challenge! I was also doing some minor edits on it to fix some parts which were confusing/didn't flow well/etc. It was hard to make sure that I stayed true to her writing style! I felt bad about chopping so much of her stuff, even though, if it were my article, I wouldn't care whatsoever about trimming it out, but when its someone else's work, I guess I felt I couldn't be that liberally choppy with it. Helen said I did a good job with it, and we sent it back to the author with the option of cutting it herself if she didn't like what I did, so that's good.

No more copy editing today, but finished up the day by working with Karin on the kids pages a little bit, I think they're going to be pretty cute! In other office news, Helen and Kieron have gotten me addicted to tea, since they make it really really well! I have to watch them and figure out how they do it, b/c when I have and/or make tea, half the time I can't stand it, and half the time its great, but they seem to have sorted it out, and also, we have a new intern starting on Tuesday! I think she was hired by someone who doesn't work for CPI anymore, but she's coming over to Japan just for this internship... Helen wasn't exactly clear on what she's hoping to do, so I guess we'll find out more on Tuesday...

After work; teaching, and then a stop at the combeni for bentos for dinner and lunch tomorrow, biked home, stopping to eat my dinner on a bike rack on Omotesando as I went low and it started raining (less than pleasant!) Home at about 8:30, did half an hour of pilates, then watched an episode of Friends before falling asleep, and when Peter came home it was very very very hard to wake up! I think he tried to have a conversation with me and I missed most of it :( We watched the Hills and I managed to wake up a bit, so maybe I'll go see what I missed now!

D

Slept in today which was nice; had a chance to talk to Navina for a bit before leaving, etc. (glad the Shins concert was good! I wish they were coming here!) It was a gorgeous day, but I didn't want to be biking home after the BAB night out, so I compromised by taking the train to Nogizaka and walking up from there, about a twenty minute walk, which was very pleasant in the lovely sun!

It was fun at work today, for some reason it seemed even more happy and jokey than normal. I'm not sure if that's because Weekender got finished a bit early, or the combination of people who happened to be working, or the sun, or this is just what they get to be like later on in the day when I've already left usually, or what, but it was good fun :). I was doing more proof reading, which I do really enjoy, despite being painfully slow at it! It's amazing how many grammatical things I've either never considered or never come across, (what happens to the punctuation in a bracket if the bracketed content is the entire sentence? Do lead in headlines have punctuation? Is everything in them capitalized? etc.) *by the way, what DID they teach us in highschool English, because it certainly wasn't grammar!* I'm quickly becoming attached to the Chicago Manual of Style! Presumably, this will help me with future essay writing, though with my luck, I'll be studying Japanese, which doesn't do grammar with quite the same fervour as English!

I'm also working on the 'women of the world' page, where we digest important news involving and affecting women around the world. If you know of something you think might be appropriate, leave a comment!

Speaking of interesting news, this story is crazy! In part:

"Three ultra-endurance athletes have just done something most would consider insane: They ran the equivalent of two marathons a day for 111 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert's grueling 4,000 miles."

I think they meant to say: "...have just done something everyone except these fitness freaks would consider insane" but actually, its a pretty amazing story, test of strength, willpower, etc!

After work, Jen and Karin and I headed down to Paddy Foleys, a traditional Irish pub in Roppongi, and the location for our Being a Broad Girls Night Out. We got there a bit early, and Jen and I shared a baked potato and the oddest pizza I have ever had! It had uncooked spinach, tomatoes, fresh shaved mozzarella, and (wait for it!) sour cream and mashed potatoes! It was tasty, if bizarre! As Jen says, 'the term pizza is used loosely here!' Indeed!

We had a fairly small turn out tonight, compared to other nights, from what I've heard, but everyone seemed very nice, and there was even a random connection between one of the girls and Jen, as the girl works for the same company as Jen's husband. They didn't know each other, but knew a few mutual co workers.

We had a makeup artist, 'Medusa', come tonight to give free makeovers, and Helen took before and after photos to be used in BAB. My name ended up on the list somehow, but it was fun - she used sparkly eyeliner type stuff, which was really cute and fun, I like it! She has the most amazing selection of stuff; she used to work at MAC, so most of the products were from there, all packed into a suitcase which just seemed to disgorge (is that even a word?) mountains and mountains of products and brushes and stuff, it was pretty impressive!

I met one girl who is a singer for Disney, which is pretty cool (and to which Jen and Karin and I all chorused: "oohh like Kieron!" as that's how he came to Japan). I took the train a couple of stops with her, and I think we'll connect through Facebook perhaps, which would be cool - always nice to meet new people! (and this one has an 'in' with the mouse!)

Just got home at about quarter to eleven, and walked in the door approximately a minute before Peter, who got home about five minutes before Hitomi - Venus was so excited!!

Going to go find a snack and then head to bed - unfortunately its not another 1pm start tomorrow ;)
D

A basically average day of work today... I started learning how to copy edit/proof read for BAB today, which I enjoyed, but I'm sooo slow at it! I don't even want to know how many mistakes I made (well, left) either! Luckily Helen will of course be looking at it after me, and she's not expecting a high level of accuracy, since she said her first few goes at copy editing were a bit rough as well... It's hard, because:

a) you get wrapped up in what you're reading (even though I just read it first so I would know what happened as I was correcting), and then,

b) there is sooo much stuff to look for! Double spaces after periods (what is with that? I'd never even heard of people doing that till I got to Weekender!), comma usage (which I have to look up, since we all know I'm shocking at commas!), British vs. American spelling (and both look pretty much correct to my middle of the road Canadian eyes), etc. Its ridiculous! I was going along, and then suddenly realised that I hadn't been looking out for something, and would have to go back through, trying to re catch whatever I missed.

c) there is a lot of grammar we didn't learn, or I've forgotten from school - that Chicago Manual of Style is a fat sucker! Also, trying to align everything with our specific style guide...so much to remember haha!

I actually really enjoyed it though, somewhere in me there is a little bit of an organized perfectionist (just a bit haha), so that was appealing to that little methodical bit of me. That was basically the majority of my day at work though, just going through the feature and one other short piece took me four hours! By the time I typed something for Bill, reorganized my workspace a little bit, etc. That was all I had time for.

Went to teach, which was fine, except I wasn't able to move the lesson to be a half hour earlier on Thursday so that I could go see a press screening of the new Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore movie, Music&Lyrics which SUCKS! I sooo wanted to go see it, as it is a total chick flick! I guess I'll just have to go when it actually comes out! I think I'm going to Happy Feet in a couple of weeks - Go penguins! And also maybe Babel, which should be really interesting with the sign language component (and the first Japanese women ever nominated for an Oscar, I believe).

Got home around eight, and had an email from Peter, which was forwarded on to him about scholarships in Japan - there are a lot of them! I was looking through the big list, and some also had pretty high rates of recipients vs. applicants, which is encouraging. I think on Friday I'm going to go to the office of the website I was looking at and pick up some more information to try and figure out what I want to do and what my options are if I decide to stay here...

There is one university in English, Sophia, but they only accept 70 students a year in the English faculty of liberal arts (!!), plus, I'm kind of tempted by learning Japanese in one of those 18 month killer courses which also prepare you to study at a Japanese university. I'd just be a bit worried about not passing the entrance exam though (like for the university afterwards) (especially in math!) Decisions, decisions! (and we all know how much I love them :s).

Peter got home surprisingly early, around nine, so we ate some pasta which I'd just finished cooking, and I got an exciting pile of stuff from home - insulin, a book, a Pilate's DVD, a veerrry cute card from the Richmonders, and soooo excitingly, the Schleich vaulting set!! Thank you!!

(isn't it great!? Schleich is really really nice hand painted plastic figurines, animals, knights in armour, farm animals, etc. All very realistic and correct, and high quality stuff - we've bought it for Aly, and the vaulting one is great - I should use it to explain to people what the hell I'm on about when I try and explain vaulting, which is not as easy as one might think!)

Other than that, not so much going on this evening, I'm tired!! Read my book to review on here a bit more, and watched most of the Apprentice: LA, but fell asleep during the end of it before coming up to blog. Tomorrow, I get to sleep in!! We're having our 'Girls Night Out' monthly event through work, which I'm going to, but since it's right near the office (at Paddy Foleys), and starts at 7, I'm going to go to work from 1-6 or so instead of 10-4, so there's less of a break, plus more sleep for D, yay!

xox
D

Well today started pretty slow, but it ended strong, we'll get to the good stuff soon :)

I woke up pretty early, and then went to lie down to read for a bit after breakfast, and the next thing I knew, it was 12:30! That's ridiculous! I didn't sleep well and went to bed late last night, but still, I felt super incredibly lazy after that! It worked out well for V though, as she got two breakfasts - I fed her when I got up, but didn't leave a note, because I was clearly expecting to see Peter before he left, and then when Peter couldn't find me (um, I don't exactly have a huge room, so I'm not sure where he looked!), he fed her again, lucky girl :)

I wish I could say that I pulled it together from that point forth, but I really didn't - I had good intentions of studying, writing articles, etc. and unfortunately, went straight to procrastination station without passing GO and/or collecting my Y200. I even brought my Japanese books with me when I left the house, with the full intention of getting to a coffee shop early and studying before meeting Jordon for the Margaret Atwood reading, but it really wasn't to happen!

My plan was to go to the ABC book centre in Omotesando, and pick up a copy of a Margaret Atwood book (any one, didn't care), in Japanese, with the hopes of getting it signed tonight. I went to the English section and grabbed one randomly, and took it to the desk, where I was like 'Margaret Atwood de Nihongo arimasuka?' (roughly translated: Margaret Atwood (random particle) Japanese exists?) and the girl (I think), thought that I wanted that specific book in Japanese, so she did a bunch of quick computer checking/googling, and was like no, sorry. So I tried to get across that I didn't care which title, just any Margaret Atwood, and she was still like 'nope, sorry'. So then I browsed briefly through the fiction section and concluded that it would be like finding a needle in a haystack, so I went back to the English section, and stood by the MA section until someone walked past, and then flagged them down, and conveyed my more general question to them. Again, the answer was no, so I guess they don't carry them, but I think I got my point across more effectively, so I'm pretty confident that they actually didn't have any, and she wasn't just saying 'no' to shut me up.

Anyway, I was going to be lazy and take the train to Aoyama Ichomme, which is the closest station to the embassy, but I ended up on the Chiyoda Line before I quite realised it didn't go to AI eki (well that's not quite true, I did know it wasn't going there, but didn't know which lines did go to AI from Omotesando), so I just decided to go to Nogizaka, which is pretty close, and walk, but of course, got out on completely the wrong exit, and ended up walking about a kilometre to Tully's anyway. Oops! I did find a really nice park though, so enjoyed walking through that, and managed not to get lost, in fact, the side street I took a chance on dumped me out exactly where I was expecting/wanted to be, so that was good!

However, all that screwing around meant I only had about 20 minutes, which I spent, predictably, reading the book I'm reviewing for my blog. I won't talk about it, since I'll be reviewing it in detail, but I just realised that this will be a perfect thing to talk about the next time I have nothing to talk about on here!

Anyway, headed to the embassy to see Margaret Atwood speaking at 6:30. It was busy! Very packed... I got there first, and there was a bit of time confusion ;), so I went to get us seats, and I was worried because I had to sit way in the back, so I figured there was no way he'd find me, but luckily he came in the back door right beside me, so it all worked out perfectly! Just before the reading started, someone came to the microphone to say 'her Royal Highness is walking down the stairs, if you could all stand and welcome her please'. So I'm thinking, OK, I know Margaret Atwood is a big name and all, but her royal highness? Isn't that pushing it a bit? But then lo and behold, in walks Her Royal Imperial Highness Princess Takamado! Here's the family tree for reference - she's towards the bottom on the right. From what I caught, Margaret Atwood was actually here to do something to do with birdwatching, and the Princess seems to head up the division or group she was here with, or something like that, I'm not exactly sure!

Ms. Atwood read from two of her books, Alias Grace, and her latest, The Penelopiad (which I ended up buying in English at ABC), and also spoke a little bit about the plot and her inspiration, etc. It was interesting, but a bit odd, as it was being translated, so she would say a few paragraphs worth of whatever, and then the translator would do her part, so it seemed quite fractured. She opened it to questions at the end, but also actually asked the audience a couple of questions, to do with the symbolism of cranes and owls in Japanese culture, and the Princess answered both of them quite knowledgeably in very good English!

She was only able to answer a couple of questions, which I thought was unfortunate as I thought that was the most interesting part of the event, but it was only an hour and a half, so they had to do what they could...Her translator was amazing though-she made a few notes as people were speaking, but she was able to hold soooo much in her head, and translate long, complicated questions and answers! Unfortunately, Margaret Atwood didn't sign books afterwards, but there were a lot of people, so I can see why not. Jordon took some pictures, so hopefully I'll be able to steal a few of them to get up here in the next couple of days...

After it was done, just after eight, we went out for dinner at ZEST, which is a bit of a trek, but with things like the Donki with huge fish tank (yea, they kinda freaked me out a bit, not gonna lie!), and the 'only in roppongi fish-mac', we had lots to entertain us on the way! At Zest, me and my 'amigo' split nachos, chicken quesadillas and the beef jambalaya, which they mixed up for us at the table, all very tasty! As usual, good fun/chatting/etc... We ended up staying for a couple of hours, and even found time for a game of basketball in one of those arcade style games, which they randomly had in a corner. With coffees on the line, Jordon managed to pull out the game, but I blame the faulty counter, which didn't give me points for any of the baskets I scored with the small balls (never mind that he would have missed out on those too!) Anyway, I'll just have to challenge him to a rematch at some point! (or maybe skeeball... I could probably take him in that :p) It was a great evening, and next week...ramen museum! Eating and learning and eating = a good time to be had by all, I'm sure!

Got home around 11:30, and poor Venus was waiting hungrily for her dinner, I guess those two breakfasts had probably warn off by then! Peter was/still at the office, (its now 1:20), so I guess I might not see him tonight, since I should probably get a decent sleep before work tomorrow...

night!

d

For inquiring minds (comment/question from yesterday)... Otaku is like being geeky or nerdy, into anime and stuff like that. From what I can gather, its like a pretty general state of being, so not only tied to being into anime, and I guess its used like if we were to say 'you are such a nerd! (geek/dork/etc) in English. My student was telling me that 'otaku' people generally have trouble forming social bonds and can be found playing DDR in street front arcades. Take what you want from that :). I think if used with friends it can be like a more friendly thing, and otherwise can be an insult, which is exactly how it works in English... Anyone who actually knows what the story is, feel free to pipe in with a comment if I'm wrong here!

Maid cafes are cafes where everyone who works there is dressed up like a maid, I don't really know the details, but I'll probably have to check one out at some point, just to say I have. I have no idea if girls ever go to them, but I'll go with someone to make it look a little bit less weird (possibly?) Thanks to wikipedia, I've just discovered that there is also a version for women - the 'butler' cafe. I guess they're popular in otaku culture, and they're supposed to make the guests feel like 'masters of the manor' coming home.... Incidentally, here's one in Toronto of all places! Also, CNN's take on it (via youtube)- I love how the private room you can get comes stocked with comic books and figurines! Classic! Clearly, I'm not an expert, so people with more info, feel free to chime in!

In other news, this story is pretty amazing! Imagine being a hang glider who gets picked up by a wind tunnel, sucked up to 35 000 feet (that's higher than Everest), and floating around up there for awhile with no oxygen, and clearly not enough clothing for that sort of thing, and then eventually getting dumped back to earth 60 miles from where you started! With only a bit of frostbite on your face! Amazing...and she wants to keep going in the world hang gliding championships later this week, crazy lady!

Anyway, taught this morning at ten, it was a bit of a sloshy walk down to Shibuya as it was pouring when I got up, rather depressing! I wasn't so much looking forward to the walk, but it ended up not being too bad, yay for umbrellas and all that :) It's weird, because to get to Shibuya on the train really isn't that convenient, esp. since I was teaching at this end, away from the station, so I probably didn't walk any more than I would have if I'd gotten on a train...

I got there a few minutes before my student, so finished my Margaret Atwood book, I have one other one I got out of the library, so I might start that tonight, if I'm completely unproductive tomorrow I could finish it, but that might be a little extreme, we'll see what goes on between now and 6:15 tomorrow! Anyway, I managed to successfully steer the conversation away from town cars for the first time in about five weeks today, much more interesting! I found out he went to university in Kyoto to study religion (his parents are Buddhist priests), so since I'm looking into this MEXT scholarship thing, I grilled him on the Japanese school system, it was pretty interesting, and a good 'culture exchange' since I could explain the Canadian system to him, and answer lots of questions which began with 'in your country....' He seemed a bit surprised that the church hadn't given me my middle name, but I was a bit surprised he'd ask that, so there you go ;). (Yea, we moved off schooling a bit somewhere in there!)

Finished up at about 11 and then I headed off on a half hearted search for pants, I've been destroying mine recently! First I looked in GAP which wasn't so inspiring, and then I went around the corner to UNIQLO, which is supposedly the J equivalent of Old Navy. It was a surprisingly successful! I ended up getting these jeans, in like a dark grey wash (it looks like a black/blue) I even managed to organize hemming, which was free, and only took thirty minutes! I was very impressed, and will definitely be keeping them in mind!

Wandered home and had some lunch and chilled with Peter for a bit before we both headed our separate ways again - he went to a Mardi Gras party in Roppongi (he's claiming it was actually quite tame, though at 3pm on a Sunday perhaps that's what you would expect, hosted by Sohan's restaurant/bar I think), and I went to play soccer.

Luckily, the weather had become gorgeous, so other than the turf being incredibly soggy - we all looked like we'd been slip 'n sliding (wait, we were!) it was good... I like my new cleats, it is sooo much easier to play in cleats than runners! Especially on a day like today where the turf was that incredibly wet and slippery. Of course, I couldn't get away without my shins being stupid, especially since we had no subs, so it was 2 hours pretty much straight, however, there was another girl there, and she offered me some spray stuff she had with her. I thought it was just ice in a can like they'd given me in the little physio room the week before, but I tried it out and it was amazing! (there was an analgesic in it i think!) Instant pain relief and my muscles untied themselves a little bit. I have the name, and will definitely be getting some ASAP! As far as I can tell, it's pretty similar to this stuff. I was still pretty careful, and definitely didn't push 100%... For the same reason I never take cold medication, I like to be able to tell what's going on - there's a reason we feel pain, but since I don't think I can make it any worse by playing on it, it was basically amazing! I figure if I can use it while I'm getting back into shape, then I should be able to stop using it, but in the meantime, WOW!

I got home at about 7:15, and beat Peter home, so I made some pasta and corn for dinner (so good but I ate too much haha), and watched Friends while I worked on icing myself (I think I've used up my 'we better be careful with her because she's a girl' time, I bit the dust a few times today, but then again, I also sent one guy to the locker room early after a tackle, and uhh gave another guy cause for reproductive concern *oops!* so it all works out, I'd way rather this than them not playing properly with me!)

Peter came back at 8:30 or so and I looked through his pretty tame pictures from the party, and then we caught up on our TiVoing, and just hung out for awhile... I'm hopefully chatting with Navina tonight, but that requires waiting for the time zones to line up, which isn't for another 2 hours or so... Maybe I'll study some Japanese or something, maybe something will stick eventually!

mata ne,
D

(Just because I was told about emailing keitai photos directly to flickr by Jordon, so random gems like this are already online, and also because honestly, how often do you see a beached Shark in the middle of Shibuya?)

Trekked to Hiroo this morning to the International School of the Sacred Heart, which is just like a big North American High school picked up and chucked across the ocean to meet coach Lance of I Can Gymnastics. He's been running his program for like thirty years, and actually coached Lisle, which is how I got in touch with him. I arrived after their class finished, so I didn't get to see any of how they work, but I'll be going back next week to watch a morning of classes, and I think later in the spring I might start coaching for him which would be cool. They do all their classes in the various international schools, so they're all in English, which obviously is a bit key!

After that I headed to Shibuya to pick up a copy of Metropolis and also teach, at the New Yorkers Cafe at one. As usual, it was fine, nothing exactly earth shattering happened, we talked about the concept of being 'otaku', maid cafes, Japanese schools, getting a visa for the states, and his upcoming visit to New York, in general the average list of topics we tend to get through. Tomorrow I teach taxi guy, but not the girl - her mom called to cancel because of a volleyball game or something, so I'll have enough time to come home before soccer (new cleats, yea!) Which is exciting!

Got home at about 3, and found out that Peter's surprise for tonight that he wouldn't tell me about last night fell through (we were maybe going to go see Cirque du Soleil), but we can do that another time, since they're here till May, and the tent is steps from our door. Hitomi had to go home, so Peter and I spent a few hours trying to come up with an acceptable plan b. We finally decided we wanted Mexican, and then it was about another hour of trying to make some kind of plan before we finally ended up heading out to pick up Kong and go to Zest in Moto something or other I think. (They all kinda blend together in embassy land down there!) Zest is pretty good for tasty Mexicanish food! I had the make your own fajitas which is always tasty, plus we split delicious nachos, and shrimp and kalamari, which I tried, and it was OK, but the squid was kinda chewy... I fully voluntarily ate fish though, which becoming a much more regular occurance over here! It's OK as long as it doesn't taste 'fishy' :).

As usual when Kong is around it was good fun - got to hear a bit about his recent trip to Hawaii, and he and Peter spent quite a bit of time chatting about the exciting new Orbitune stuff coming down the pipeline, I like these projects since for once I actually understand what's going on, and it's going to be something pretty cool to be able to tell people about when I get the invariable 'so what is it, exactly, that your uncle does here?' question. Just as we were finishing dinner, a very loud group of very dressed up people came in, rather a bit sloshed already, and started up some kind of after party, it was rather rambunctious!

Anyway, we left around 10:30, dropped Kong off at his place and then came back here, where I proceeded to almost give myself heat stroke in a much too hot bath, for much too long...oops! Anyway, cooled off, watched Ugly Betty (poor girl, its all such a mess with Henry, isn't it?) and now I'm headed to bed, since it's 1:15, and I need to leave the house in 8 hours.

D.

Wow nothing like sleeping in! I was wide awake at 7:45, incidentally exactly when I have to wake up for work, but after a few minutes of being up, I decided that was way too early and went back to sleep...till 11:30! Yikes! It was nice though!

Ummmm lazy morning (well after a start like that, what can you expect?), finally talked to Ms. Andee who had fallen off the face of the earth for a week (personally not sure I could go that long w/out 'net, though it would let me have a break from blogging!), went to circle K, and read more of my Margaret Atwood book (determined to get it finished before Monday! It's good though!)

At about 1:30, I headed to JRA Baji Koen to hit up the vaulting barrel again. Man I'm unflexible! It was very depressing! I spent a lot of my time there stretching, which was good, I actually think it was already helping my calf/shin issues, I could feel the difference just on the walk back. They've also managed to get the surcingle completely tight (I think because they added side reigns to the surcingle, and the way they've wrapped them in tightens it right up) - I can do hangs and stuff without worrying about it now! There was some kind of little schooling show or something going on, although I didn't really watch too much of it - I think there were some university teams though, I saw a bunch of people in various uni jackets wandering around - there seems to be a very big equestrian team community within the schools! It's interesting! And soooo many riding guys! The horses are all soo nice too!

Actually, to check out another super amazing, gorgeous horse, her brilliant rider, (and one rather cute pony!), check out this video - Gooo Karen! If you ever need to inject some inspiration into your life, check out her story! I want to go to Beijing sooo much to cheer her on! (Well actually, HK I guess, since I'm pretty sure that's where the riding is going to be, which actually, sucks - half the point of the Olympics is the atmosphere!) Oh! I just realised that since she competes afterwards, it's all good! I just have to win the lottery and then I can go to Beijing for the Olympics, and then head to HK for the paralympics... Perfect! Of course, if she double games, I might have to change my plans, but I have the feeling there are going to be a few bigger hurdles in my way than planning my itinerary!

(I wonder how this golf course feels about becoming a cross country course?)

Anyway, stayed at JRA until about 3:45 and then wandered back to the station, stopping at a Saint Germain bakery (mmm!) to get some buns on my way home, which I ate with leftover minestrone soup for a very late lunch once I got back. Venus and I also went for a walk, and I found the other grocery store by the station, Marusho, which seems much nicer and bigger than the one I was in on the muffin baking day (but also doesn't take VISA, though this time I wasn't shopping, so it was OK!)

We wandered back and then just chilled- reading, watching Friends, etc. I really need to be more productive the rest of the weekend, today was ridiculous! Peter and Hitomi came home long enough to drop the car off at about 9:30 and then went back out for a late Valentine's dinner, so Venus and I ate the rest of the curry (I really made a ridiculous amount of the stuff at the beginning of the week!), and have just been relaxing.

Tomorrow is kind of exciting though - I'm off to meet a gymnastics coach that Lisle put me in touch with, hopefully I'll be able to borrow a corner of his gym to train in, and possibly even lend a hand with coaching occasionally - not really sure, but either way I'm excited about just being in a gym tomorrow! Also teaching, and then not sure what the plans are for the rest of the day/evening - I hope they include being vaguely productive though!

TGIF!
D

I'm quickly reading Lady Oracle (about a writer who fakes her own death to get away from a life in shambles, which she immediately proceedes to reflect on in detail...) in preparation for going to see Margaret Atwood speak on Monday, luckily I'm really enjoying it, so I took the train this morning to get some more reading time in (plus, I thought I was going to be playing volleyball, and thinking that biking so much is contributing to my shin issues, etc.)

The exciting news at work today was that the new Weekender came out, its our special China/Chinese New Year issue, and I was particularly looking forward to it because I have lots of writing in it! The cover photo is mine, and then the calendar (as usual), the feature, the up my street, a movie review, and the sports page. I'm not keen to actually read my stuff, since I've already read it more than enough times before submitting it, and because I'm convinced I'll find a mistake once its gone to print, but my portfolio is growing which is good!

I spent a lot of the day doing admin type stuff, running to the post office and stationary store, and a bunch of distribution, but I really don't mind that sort of stuff so it was totally fine - a pretty busy day which passed quickly!

Controversy at work today too - names and context eliminated to protect the innocent (and my job!), but basically we got word from a guy who wrote in to tell us that he feels gaijin women don't take care of themselves, and don't care about their bodies compared to Japanese women, and that they really couldn't be that successful in that case, and its no wonder that foreign guys go for Japanese women and ignore the gaijins. It was all written pretty offensively (esp. since we're a magazine celebrating successful gaijin women!), and sparked off some heated retribution within the office! I personally have my own ideas on why so many foreign guys go for Japanese women, but I'm curious what you all think - leave a comment!

I went to teach this evening and that went well too - I got a bunch of books out of the library yesterday for the two of them and they went over well - we have some we're still working on for next week - Sleeping Beauty for the Girl, and Encyclopedia Brown for the boy, I'm making him write down what he thinks the solution to the crime is after he finishes each story, which doesn't make him a very happy camper since he doesn't like writing, but he needs to practice, so I'm putting my foot down! <--yea not so much, but I'm firmly encouraging at any rate.

Lisle had to work late, so Volleyball was put off until next week, but that's OK, because Peter was actually home before me today, so I saw him for the first time since like Monday (he's been working super late on some very exciting possible projects!). Hitomi was also here, so we looked through his piles of giri choco and then Hitomi made some delicious minestrone soup and pasta and we watched Desperate Housewives and American Idol and part of the Hills (God I watch too much crappy tv!) and now I'm going to crawl into bed with my Margaret Atwood for a bit and try and even out the brain drain from the last few hours ;).

I also got a book in the mail today, which looks like some quality chick lit! I'm going to be reviewing it on here, (that's why they sent it to me), so stay tuned... It's called The List by Rara Ison.

sleepily yours,
D

Well this morning, I bailed on taking the bike because it was very grey and ominous looking, and also raining a bit. I was planning on taking it, until I got outside and realised there was NO way I was going to want to bike home in the rain after teaching tonight, so I went back inside and upstairs to get an umbrella (it was hanging on the back of my bedroom door), then went downstairs and carefully locked the door behind me, and walked half way to the station before realising that I didn't actually have an umbrella with me! Oops! <-- I have no idea what I actually did in my room, like re packed my backpack or something stupid like that! Pretty quiet at work today - we didn't really do the giri (obligation) chocolate thing in my office, probably because no one is Japanese, but a couple of the girls had been to Sapporo for the ice festival, so they had brought omiage anyway, and Anthony made all of the girls in the office cookies which was very sweet! I should probably explain that in Japan, Valentine's day is when girls buy chocolate for boys. When they're buying it in an office type situation, it's called 'giri choco', or obligation chocolate, although apparently some girls are just buying 'tomo choco' now, which is for friends (girls). For girls, our day is 'white day', which happens on March 14th and was invented by a marshmallow company in the 50s! Pretty funny! Although, I have to say this is a cruel trick to play on us single people - why not rub that in our faces twice a year? Bonus!
(Tokyu Hands has cute little cars to advertise the holiday though!)

Luckily, I have a great boss, at about 11 this morning, the takubin guy (takubin is like courier, but everyone uses it for all sorts of things here! our takubin guy comes like 4 times a day, whether we need something or not, and things get to wherever they are going super super quickly!). Anyway, he turned up at eleven, with two huge boxes (like three feet tall) of flowers...one for me, and one for a girl in sales. I was very very very confused about who on earth would be sending me flowers (definitely thought it was a mistake!), but it turns out that Caroline won't let a single 'single' girl in the office go through Valentine's day without getting flowers, so the gorgeous arrangements were from her. It was so sweet! I love getting flowers, so I was v. happy!


I have pictures, but I can't find the download-y adaptor thingy! (FOUND IT!) I blame Venus because she escaped today while we were out and ate a whole bag of individually wrapped hard candies I had on my desk, plus some Orange flavoured Listerine breath strips, and who knows what else, so I wouldn't put it past her to have munched a small plastic USB drive. I really hope it turns up unharmed somewhere though!

We all went to Suji's for lunch which was very tasty - I had a BLT which was v. yummy, and everyone's food looked amazing! As for work, it was fairly administrative-ish today, I typed in Partyline, sorted out quotes and photos, looked over my article for March's BAB, finished the calendar, etc. Nothing too exciting, but all good things to tick off my list of things to get done. Incidentally, I came to a natural close at exactly four, so I headed off then...

It was lucky I didn't have the bike since I'd gained my big flower box (I figured they'd stay more protected in there than outside, especially since it was windy when I left the office). I took the train to meiji jingumae and went to the library - I stocked up on a couple of Margaret Atwood books, since Jordon and I are going to see her speak at the Canadian Embassy on Monday and I've only read one of her books, and then also picked up a few books to offer to my various kid students...

After that, I walked to the New Yorkers Cafe in Shibuya to teach, we had a good chat about his recent trip to Taiwan, and his upcoming trip to shop for clothes for a month in NYC! (he's a stylist). It sounds like a pretty great trip! Once we finished at about 7:15, I walked outside and discovered that it was absolutely PISSING rain, like get in the shower wet, so I ran across the street to KAMO, the huge soccer shop, and went to 'look' at cleats and turf boots. Well, I really wasn't expecting a good sale, and for there to be a HUUUGE selection of cleats, for cheaper than you can get at home! I ended up with a nice pair of Nike multis (so I can play on grass too, instead of just having turf shoes), for 45$ (50% off). I'm pretty happy with them, and can't wait till Sunday now!

After that, I went to leave the store and it was *still* pissing down rain - by the time I got half way to Shibuya station (I wasn't walking home in that!), I was drenched through my rain coat and my cardboard box was looking a little worse for wear! I called to check in with Peter, thinking that since its easy on JR to get up to Mejiro from Shibuya that I might just do that, but he said he'd be late, so I dragged my drowned rat self onto a couple of trains, and by the time I got to Yoyogi Uehara, it had stopped raining, which was nice! However, my box was destroyed, the bottom had kind of disintegrated by this point, it was a sorry sight!

Straggled home, and was greeted by an embarrased looking V (see above for a partial list of transgressions), she's lucky she's cute! My new passport was also waiting for me - it's sooo pretty and crisp and not covered in hot chocolate! I love it! (I do however hate my picture, it's actually horrific!)

I crawled into warm/dry clothes and then ate some leftover curry for dinner and watched a couple of episodes of Friends with V before coming up to blog. I think I'm going to submit my Suji's point of interest to Wcities (I finally got my answers to my last couple of questions at lunch today), and then curl up with Lady Oracle.

D

FYI, I was fully crashed on the couch before dragging myself up here to blog this, which really means it is likely to not make a whole hell of a lot of sense!

Anyway, today was kind of a weird day, I felt like I didn't get very much done, which was unfortunate, or I guess really that I was just working on a bunch of little things, not for very much time each and therefore didn't get any one block of anything accomplished (and yes, I'm aware that makes no sense, and no, I don't particularly care).

Biked to work this morning, after chatting with Navina a bit and planning stuff to do when she's here. Honestly, if we do even half of the things that one or both of us has thought we should, she's going to need to stay for two months, as it is, clearly we won't be sleeping for a couple of weeks! Fingers crossed for a favourable exam schedule! I got all distracted giving her links, and luckily managed to get out of the house at exactly the last minute its possible to leave and still bike! It was a really nice day, so I'm glad I did-the blossoms are *just* starting in Aoyama Cemetery-they're going to be gorgeous soon, especially when all the cherry blossoms are out! I'm not sure about the whole Hanami party thing (where you go picnic and party in parks and cemeteries <--that's the weird bit! to check out the blossoms), but it will certainly be enjoyable to bike through!

Anyway, at work I flipped through the new issue of BAB, which came out last Friday, and has my article about cruising in Hawaii in it, as well as double the content of the past few issues - it looks great! Our Canadian cover girl, who lost 30 kilos (gave a few of 'em to me I reckon) after coming to Japan is so inspirational, and her before and after photos are amazing! I too am avoiding all escalators from now on (and biking to work...really!). After that, I worked on the things to do section for the next issue, and then had time to type in a few captions for Bill's partyline before walking to Moto Azabu to go to a couple of schools to pick up work for our kids pages.

One of the schools I went to visited Kidzania recently, so we're using their work for an upcoming issue which has a theme to tie in with that nicely. They were sooo cute! They also made timelines discussing what they want to do with their lives. One boy is going to cure cancer on his way to becoming a botanist, and another is planning on staying a teenager until his 76th birthday. Sooo cute! The kids are so smart too, all of them were bilingual basically, and it was pretty amazing to hear these five year olds chattering away, switching back and forth between English and Japanese. I think the head teacher thought I was a little nuts because I was so enthusiastic about kidzania. Honestly though, how cool an idea is it?! (The correct answer here is, 'yes dani, it's cool' with a minimum of eye rolling).

After that, I went by another preschool to pick up some artwork for the Irish issue coming up, unfortunately, 2/3ds of their class was sick, so we're a bit thin on the ground, but I'm sure we can figure something out tomorrow! Maybe I'll make up a cross word or word search or something like that!

I finished up at the schools at around 4, and since I didn't need to go back to the office and it was time for me to be done anyway, I walked through moto-azabu to Roppongi Hills to wait to teach. That area is sooooo expatish!! I saw soo many gaijin parents and kids, and heard so much English, and saw so many international schools, it was nuts! I guess that's where most of the embassy families and people here on expat packages get put up.

Wandered around the maze that is Roppongi Hills for a bit and then read BAB and some more of the 10th anniversary edition of Wallpaper magazine (from back in October) that I've been working my way through - it's a tome! Pretty interesting though, and very multi disciplinary which I really like.

Teaching tonight also felt a bit fragmented - they didn't really have homework, and they hadn't covered any new material, so I was scrambling a bit to come up with good stuff for everyone to do. The boy read Jo's Journey over the last week and really liked that, so we chatted about that a bit, and we did some spelling, and I think I confused him by trying to make him use a formula in math which was in his textbook on the page they are working on, but that they haven't learned yet. Of course, he made me go on for like 20 minutes trying several ways to explain how to use the formula before he mentioned they hadn't actually covered that in class yet. Things which might be helpful to know and all that...

On my way home, my trusty pump alerted me to the fact I was about to go low (yea, I'm experimenting with the testing thing again, which is going MUCH better this time.) so I stopped in at Subway and then finished biking home. I powered back pretty quickly, which was fun, and a good work out up that last big hill! Made some curry for lunch tomorrow and for Peter if he ever comes home, and ate a little bit but not very much as was still full from Subway. It's yummy though! This time I made a green curry (if by made I mean opened a tin) - I apparently really really like curry if it isn't too spicy.

Watched a couple of episodes of Friends with Venus curled up on top of my head (she's a pushy one!) and then apparently fell asleep before coming up here to blog this. I think I'm going to go to bed pretty soon and try to get a good night's sleep... I love sleep! I think its so ironic how sleep is like your most hated thing in the world when you're a little kid, and then gradually it becomes such an amazing luxury! I kind of wish I was one of those people that only needs a couple of hours of sleep every night, but let's face it, I'm really not!!

Ramblingly yours,

D

Pretty slow start to the day, just called home for awhile, talked to Navina for a bit, watched Grease: You're the One that I want, etc. Since I really can't remember any details, I'm guessing nothing too exciting happened!

Peter and Hitomi were the ones who had exciting plans today, heading off to a wedding this afternoon. One of the people who has been working at Orbitune for about ten years is getting married today, so off they went to the ceremony followed by the reception. Hitomi rented a kimono for the occasion, and Peter even got into a black suit, so they were quite the lovely couple as they headed off! Pictures to come. Hitomi's kimono was really nice, kind of pinkish, and v. pretty! I think they all are! It's a bit different from the one I rented, because it has shorter sleeves and a slightly less elaborate bow in the back. I think the kind of kimono I wore is supposed to be for the 'single young adult', so hers is a little bit more practical, but of course very nice - its too bad they're so constricting/hard to breathe/hard to eat/hard to sit down in, because they're very cool looking!

Weddings in Japan are complicated! Instead of having a registry, and bringing gifts or what have you, everyone who comes to the wedding is basically expected to bring cash. Usually its 30 000Y (300$), but couples can bring 500$. And then depending on who it is, it can go 3/5/700$ (I guess best friends would bring more). You have to avoid anything divisible by 2 (so they don't split it (or up) so easily?) and at all costs you need to avoid the number four (bad luck here I guess).

The thing with the money is that it also buys YOU a present. I guess after the wedding you get your thank you for coming card, along with a catalogue of goods. You can pick a present worth about half of what you gave. Its one way of adding to your crystal collection! I can't wait to see what kind of stuff is in the catalogue they get, I'm veeeerrry curious! There's also a slightly odd tradition that the groom isn't supposed to invite female friends to the wedding, and vice versa, which is really unfortunate - a lot of people have close friends of the opposite sex, it would be terrible if you couldn't invite them to the wedding! Anyway, when I find out more about the wedding, I can post some details - not sure if it was going to be a 'white' wedding, or not, and also no idea how a reception typically works - dancing, cheesy toasts, etc? No Idea!

As for me, I went muffin crazy today! The prerequisite for that was groceries, which of course, was an adventure. I went to a new grocery store (new to me, not actually new), which turned out to be a mistake, but anyway, it all started out OK - I found most of what I was looking for, and decoded 'vinegar' by using my keitai dictionary to find the kanji for it. There were lots of kinds, but the the kind I got seemed to work out OK - I was getting it to make buttermilk, since you can turn milk into buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of vinegar to every cup of milk. It's a handy trick to use when baking because, let's be honest, no one keeps buttermilk in the fridge, but especially good to know here, when I wouldn't have the first clue how to look for buttermilk, let alone whether or not you can even buy it here.

Anyway, when I got to the checkout, the guy was asking if I had a card, and I was like 'no', because I didn't have a club card. I think he also asked me if I was going to use a card. Which I said no to (no is maybe not the best stock answer!). Turns out that they don't accept VISA. What kind of biggish grocery store doesn't accept credit cards? This is why a lot of people don't leave the house without 100$ cash on them! Even when digging out my backup 'need to get on a train or buy juice' Y500, and adding it to the other cash I had in my wallet, I could only scrape together 5900Y. Of course, it was 6200Y worth of food. Cause that's not embarrassing or anything! A couple of 'just add water' lunches lighter than I'd originally planned to be, I came home and set up muffin shop.

I have no idea why, but I really wanted to make muffins today, so I made three kinds (as you do!). I made a batch of low fat banana muffins which turned out pretty well, and then two kinds of savoury muffins which are soooo good! The first one has oatmeal and sausage in it, and the second kind has corn and pork in it. You can get really really nice cuts of thin meat here, so I got some pork and cooked that as a substitute for the bacon which was called for in the recipe. It turned out really well - I used kernels of corn as opposed to cream corn (again, no idea if that's something you can find here), but I think it turned out really well. There is now a mountain of three dozen muffins in the kitchen, and I'm very full! Muffins for dinner!

I'm just watching some Friends (it takes exactly one episode to bake a perfect batch of corn and pork muffins) <-- that's not a flavor you hear every day! And waiting for the 'kids' to come home. I felt like a mom sending them off to prom or something - taking pictures of them all dressed up outside the house before I let them leave, and then heading off to the grocery store to come home and bake muffins.

Oh good God!

D. - who is clearly 45 going on 20

Hmmm up at about 8:30 to teach this morning, it was an absolutely gorgeous morning (well day actually!) which definitely helped with the whole getting up thing! Somehow it took me ages to get ready this morning though, so by the time I left the house at 9:35, I was running seriously late to walk to Shibuya for ten, so I ended up jumping on the train for one stop, which is so annoying, and getting there at about 10:02. With most of my other students, I wouldn't be so worried about it, they tend to be 5-10 minutes late anyway, but with this guy (the taxi guy), he is obsessively early, so I figured I should really try and make the effort! As usual, he wanted me to write out a couple of things for him (this time explaining the pricing structure of the stretch limousines, which are pretty expensive!), and then we moved onto small talk, which tends to centre around the weather with him.

After we finished at eleven, I basically hung out in Shibuya for a couple of hours, because I had to be in Ebisu by 2, and it wasn't really worth it to go home. I went for lunch at Saizeriya, which is a ridiculously cheap (bowl of pasta for 399Y) Italian cafe/fami-resu. All things considered, it was pretty good... I spent a bit of time studying Japanese, but it wasn't really the kind of place you want to stay in for a long time, it's very much a get em in, get em out kind of idea. Then I wandered through the Jeans Mate (why is that place open 24/7?) since it was right downstairs, and then hit the foreign book section in Tower Records for awhile, always fun to browse! (and pick up the new Metropolis).

On my way to the station, I impulse popped into a very nice, but expensive (yikes!) Japanese School. I'm going to observe a lesson on Friday, but I'm pretty sure that because its a) really expensive, and b) they don't have the one month intensive course that I'd ideally want to do, I'm not going to end up going there. I think you're paying a lot for a gorgeous environment, and while I might do that if I were like 35 and successful, it doesn't so much jive with the starving student thing! At this point, its all a bit of a moot point, but good to do the research about what's out there I guess!

Finally headed to Ebisu, and again, didn't actually meet the girl I'm supposed to be teaching. Her mom is very sweet though, and asked if I could give her a lesson instead, so I did. It was a bit tricky though, because she's studying accounting in English (she's already studied accounting but is now learning it in English), so I was helping her with that, but its a bit hard to explain, especially since I don't exactly make inventory lists every day. We worked through it OK though! I think we're actually going to split the lessons in future now, 1/2 an hour with her daughter, and 1/2 an hour with herself, or every other week or something like that...

After that, I had just enough time to head to Shiba Koen for futsal at 4. It was a bit of a different group than usual, though some familiar faces turned up part way through, and everyone was nice. About 20 minutes into it, both my shins decided to be horrible, so I went and made friends with the physio guy (well he gave me ice and freezing spray, but didn't actually do anything, since I couldn't so much communicate the problem or what I would want him to do for me). He was super nice though - we haltingly got across a few bits and pieces of information - he lived in Argentina for four years studying coaching, and is now a professional level coach over here, which is very cool! He speaks Spanish as a result, but that wasn't so helpful for us today! I managed to tell him that I lived with my uncle, and then that my uncle had lived here for 18 years. Or is 18. I'm not quite sure :p.

Luckily, the break, ice, and freezing spray (that stuff is weird!) worked pretty well, so I was able to play the last hour and a bit in relatively low pain. Iced them for like an hour when I got home, and it all feels OK now, we'll see how the next few days go! It was really weird today though, this one guy from Wales and another guy from Japan found out they went to the same college together at almost the same time, in England, and lived close together and went to the same pubs and stuff - "do you remember the old couple that always used to come in with their dog?" "yea!", but never actually crossed paths.

Also, at the end, one guy came up to me and was like 'I think i read your blog when I was looking for this field on google' which was a bit odd!. I think I might have found another place to play futsal though, where one of the other guys plays twice a week, he said I'd fit in there OK. It's late though -10-11pm, so I'm thinking maybe once a week? It's in Aoyama though, which is great! I also should get a cheap pair of turf boots if I'm going to start playing fairly regularly again, its sooo slippery and hard to play in runners!

Got home around seven, and Hitomi came over at about 8 - we watched an episode of the Grease:You're the one that I want show, and Peter made sloppy Joe sauce with pasta which was pretty good! Tomorrow is a holiday, and Hitomi and Peter are going to a wedding. I'm not really sure what I'm going to get up to...

D

Since Peter and I barely saw each other all week, between me leaving for work before nine, and him staying out until after 2am like three nights, I was determined for us to do something today, especially since I wasn't teaching today.

I was woken up at about eight, when Venus pushed into my bed, stole the covers, and sat on my head, but we managed to get ourselves organized and finally sleep in until about 10:30, which was lovely. It was less lovely when she woke me up by licking in my ear, but at least she's cute, so you can't get too mad at her! (What is with that by the way? I mean, what a random thing to enjoy doing-she's a weird one, no doubt about it!)

When Peter got up around 11:30 or 12:00ish, I made us some brunch with bacon and Kona coffee and chocolate chip flavoured pancakes from a mix we brought back from Hawaii. They were veeeerrrry chocolate-y, but veery yummy as well! We watched an Ugly Betty, and generally chillaxed around the house before finally leaving at about 3:00.

We decided to go to the Lalaport in Toyasu, which is big, new, and very nice mall. I'd heard about it back in November, when the metpod did a big feature about Kidzania, which is this theme park for kids where you can try out tons of different careers, and they're all sponsored by companies, so you can go and learn how to make Mos burgers, and be a pilot in an ANA plane, and all sorts of stuff like that. We peeked through the window today and it looked sooo cool! I wish I were under 12, I know I would have been TOTALLY into it when I was that age (k, let's be honest, I'd be totally into it now!)

We passed the cutest thing in the mall - there is this cooking centre, where you can take cooking classes, and they were teaching a kids class. The kids were maybe 4-8, and all working at a station right by the window so you could watch them. They were absolutely adorable because they were wearing tiny chef whites! And concentrating sooo hard on making some kind of doughy balls of something, we weren't quite sure what, but the youngest one, who really wasn't very old at all, was sooo dedicated to the cause, it was adorable! They all looked scarily well behaved and quiet! Sooo cute though!

Anyway, Lalaport was pretty nice! Brand new, so all clean and sparkly, plus a nice selection of shops.
(its very curvy and open like this - there is a boat/dock theme, so I think they've tried to build it to be swoopy and nautical feeling)
(this is an interesting courtyard/stage/water feature, which Lalaport is kind of built around, in a U shape. The big crazy blue thing in the background is a pedestrian drawbridge, which lets evening dinner cruise boats in and out to load people in and out of a little boat shaped slip, its cute!)

We wandered around for just over an hour and then when to see 'The Departed', which is a looong gratuitously violent movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Jack Nicholson. It was an interesting concept for a story, and I probably would have really enjoyed it had I read it, but since I am the way I am (jumpy!) it was a little bit stressful. It also got to the point of being a little bit like 'hmm OK, here's a new character, let's see how long he lasts before he becomes one of the 'departed'. The movie theatre was very nice though, there was a pretty swanky club with lovely water views, and the concession stand, was as usual, much nicer here than at home - gourmet bakery goods were on offer as well as your standard popcorn fare. We also each got a pizza slice (if by slice you mean tube), and my basil and tomato and mozzarella creation was pretty tasty! After enduring all 2:45 of blood splatter, we headed to Bubba Gumps, for dinner.
(Club in the movie theatre, not the best 'stealth' shot)

You might remember Bubba Gumps (the Forrest Gump themed restaurant) from Hawaii, we were a bit surprised there was one in Tokyo (turns out there are actually two), it definitely had a similar theme to the one in the Ala Moana Shopping Centre, but we had a gorgeous view over the river, looking directly at the Rainbow Bridge and over towards Odaiba and the big ferris wheel there. It was really nice!
(really nice view, but not such a great shot b/c very reflecty! You can kind of see the Rainbow Bridge in the background though, its the green string of lights...)

We took the train back to where we'd left the car (in Ginza, since traffic wasn't looking so good), and then ended up back here at around 11:30. Tomorrow, I teach at 10 and at 2, and then have soccer at 4, so a fairly busy day all around. Hopefully it doesn't pour like it was tonight during soccer tomorrow, that would be unpleasant!

D

Woke up around nine this morning and spent a couple of hours finishing up my article on Ireland for Weekender. I really really want to stay in that castle, Ashford - it looks so decadent and fun! And riding around on the Irish moors and learning falconry before retiring to my bed chambers with the whirlpool tub. If I ever end up getting married (when I'm 25 according to my new student's mom), a place like that might be a pretty great place to do it!

Peter left for work at 12:00ish and I slowly got organized to go - after I submitted my article, I watched Gilmore Girls on slingbox/TiVo and then listened to the Metpod, which came out yesterday... I liked this week's a lot - it was pretty long again, and even though I am in the vast minority wanting the hour long ones, I'm v. happy to see it at 50 minutes this week instead of that 35 minute stuff. So much for calling in anonymously to the pod classifieds (for a concert review, not a personal :p) when everyone at the met pod knows your name and puts it in anyway :) Handy I don't particularly care when my cover is blown!

I made some pasta and veggies for lunch and then Venus and I walked to Shimo Kitazawa and listened to the rest of the metpod. I checked out a little bit of the part of Shimo that I didn't know existed until last week when I biked past it at 5:30am, and then when Peter told me about it after he discovered it last weekend as well. Its just another part of the neighbourhood, but on our side of the tracks, and for some reason I guess we never saw it. Anyway, I didn't look too closely since Venus was all sniffy and pully and typical dog on a walk-y, but it looks cool-cute cafes and clothing shops and stuff.

I came back to drop Venus off and then walked down to the Library to pick up a copy of Olivia to use when I teach on Sunday. Since I was all the way down there anyway, I stopped in at Starbucks and studied Japanese for awhile. I finally got to start learning some kanjis in this lesson. I already knew most of the ones that I learned today, either from high school (numbers 1-10), or just from existing (yen), but it was still fun to learn a few. I'm sure that pretty soon I'll be pulling my hair out trying to remember, and also learn all the variations on the theme of each kanji, but for now it's good fun.

Stopped by Daiso on the way home which is a great Y105 store here. I've finally figured out why all the pens in this country have tiny little ends - some of those kanji have a lot of strokes squished into a very small space! My regular ball point was all smooshing into itself (I love how I blame the equipment and not my technique), but anyway, I now have the requisite little pen end (I think I'm going to need all the help I can get!)

Came back home and worked on Mom's website for awhile. Its basically ready to launch (well with the exception of three sub pages with the dreaded 'site under construction, check back soon' disclaimer), but I went through and made all the typefaces consistent, added some photos, linked to the pdf, and generally cleaned things up a bit. I was going to get it up, but I didn't want to set Peter's .mac account up without him here, as it involves setting user names and passwords and I figured he might want to pick those sorts of things :) If he ever decides to come home from the office I'm sure we can get it sorted pretty quickly (one click publishing and all that).

Then I studied Japanese for awhile longer (all the while watching season 8 of Friends in the background. I'm going to be sad when I finish the series, since I finished Sex and the City recently, I'm going to be lacking things to watch when studying and otherwise working!) At about 11:30, when I found out from Peter that he'd eaten, Venus and I walked to Circle K to get a bento for dinner. Seemingly they get one delivery in the morning, and by 11:30 its been pretty well picked through! Luckily, I ended up getting a pretty good pork and rice bento, and peach juice which is so good - it tastes like fuzzy peaches in a bottle.

After that, just blogging and watching Friends, its just before one, so either Peter will get home soon, or I'll go to bed, or both... Not sure what's going on tomorrow, but I don't have to teach, so I think we should try and have some kind of outing.

D

Work was very quiet today, it was just myself and two sales people in. I had thought that I was going to have a pretty easy day, but in the end, the article I had to write ended up being really challenging! It's hard to write about things you don't really know much about which is what was happening today - trying to take like thirty pages of information about Ireland and turn it into an interesting travel article, which for some reason, ended being way harder than it sounds like it should have been! I was having issues finding a good hook or connecting thread I think. In the end, I didn't get it quite finished, so I'm either going to look at it tonight, or more likely, first thing tomorrow morning and email it in to them.

I did find one pretty cool thing to do in Ireland (well and most of the UK actually) which is to stay in a castle. I guess I knew you could do it, but I've never really looked at pictures or anything. I found this great website all about it today though, and spent some time browsing around a bit. I really want to stay at Ashford Castle! (since 1228!) where you can go riding in the 'indoor school', or on the grounds, learn archery, or try your hand at falconry! It's all very lord and lady of the manor, quite cool!

You can also rent smaller castles by the week for just your family, they usually have a modern style kitchen, and then fairly grand old living quarters to stay in, pretty gorgeous and very cool!

Anyway, left work around 4:40, so I had enough time to eat a snack before teaching, and as usual, took my break sitting in the weird kind of open part in the bottom of the Roppongi Hills Metro Hat Building... I'm reading a really odd book right now called Sophie's World. On the back cover blurb it says: "Sophie's World is set to become a unique popular classic: a wonderfully engaging mystery story that also forms a completely accessible and lucid introduction to philosophy and philosophers". It sounds like it should be interesting, and it is, but its got a very weird feeling about it, like the story is getting lost in the philosophy, or that it is just a very very very thinly veiled textbook, whereas I get the impression they actually want it to be a story which happens to have philosophy in it, as opposed to the other way around. I wonder if part of it is that it is translated, but I don't think that could be the whole issue! I'll read a bit more and see what I think, otherwise it would be a great phil 101 textbook!

Anyway, went to teach, which was fine. The little girl loves 'scary things that scare me', so she brought home a book version of Disney's Hercules, and was enjoying the cyclops and Hades and all of that. This book is waaaay too hard for her though! It's 90 pages with quite a bit of text on each page and some pretty challenging words and concepts. It's also written with some slang, so trying to explain a sentence like 'then the boss-man up on high, Zeus did decree', can be pretty challenging! It's exhausting to read because each page requires a translation on my part, and I definitely feel like I don't always make it simple enough in the end. I asked her if she wanted to try another book that was a bit easier, but she's determined to work our way through this one, so I told her to get it back out of the library and we'll work through it a few pages a night.

Got home at about eight and ended up going the most annoying kind of low, which luckily barely ever happens, where I don't feel low, just really, really, really tired, and like my whole body weighs a million pounds and I'm off in some heavy fog somewhere on and off for the whole evening. Very annoying! It also means I didn't get anything (like that article, which is what I'd hoped to do) done, because I couldn't peel myself into any sort of upright position. I've finally emerged from that cloud though, so maybe I'll have a quick look at my article before bed, though I'm really tempted to wait till I have fresh eyes in the morning. Peter should be home soon, (its 11), so I can maybe see what the plan is going to be for tomorrow and then make some kind of decision about the rest of the night...

D

I've been supremely lazy this week and taken the train to work the last two days! In my defence, this morning I did try and bike, but I am having serious technical difficulties pumping up the front tire which is in desperate need of some maintenance air. I think I'm going to have to call in some backup (Peter or another pump or something!) this weekend, because this is ridiculous, and since It's not actually my bike, and I'm not going to risk screwing over a rim or something, it's the train for me. Plus, they pay for my transit at work, and I'm reading a great book, so anyway you look at it, I'm hooped in terms of biking!

Anyways....as I was walking from the station to work, I started to notice the riot police around the area...
(img from militaryphotos.net)

...At first, they were just dotting the road every few metres, but as I got closer to the big intersection where the riot bus always parks (and I feel safer here than in Victoria, go figure :p),
(img from miliaryphoto.net) These are the types of buses, with a metal grill over all the windows, but this obviously isn't actually from where I was as I didn't take the photos!

They began to get closer and closer together, and there were probably about fifty in and around the intersection. No one looked too worried, least of all the riot cops, so I kept going to work and got the story at lunch. It turns out that since we are just a couple of doors down from the Russian Embassy, sometimes there is tension on our block. I guess there is a group of Japanese Nationalist right wingers or something like that (they have black vans with gold lettering and chrysanthemums on them, and drive around singing stuff and shouting stuff and also demonstrate in Yoyogi Koen, etc). Anyway, this group occasionally comes to yell at the Russian Embassy about a dispute over some islands, and today is like the celebration day for the islands so the police were on high alert. The black vans were parked around the corner, and we could hear them yelling for most of the day, but they never came too close. Apparently, that's why there are the riot vans parked by the intersection - if the black vans ever come, the riot vans drive into the intersection and block them from getting down our street. Drama!

Work however, proceeded as normal. I was working on the article about Sarah's experiences at Waseda and finished a first draft of that. The MEXT scholarship she's on looks great, definitely something I would consider applying for after I finish at SFU! Speaking of which, I should really apply for SFU! I went out for lunch with Helen today (Jambalaya at Zest, so good!) for my first month review (seemingly we do them every month, which is great. Everyone does them, not just the interns, but I think its a great idea for everyone to check in with each other).

It was all very positive, and I'm definitely going to get to continue to work on the editorial side of things, and also have a bit of a hand in a book project we're finishing up. Helen wants me to concentrate on learning something new every month, so this month we're going to do proofreading and copy editing for BAB which will be really interesting! I better finally get this comma issue licked! I also briefly saw the proofs for the next Weekender, I can't wait to see it next week! I'm not actually sure, but the cover photo looks suspiciously like a crop of a photo I took for my article, although its a fairly generic ish shot, so I'm not 100% sure - I'll have to check next week I guess!

They're also generally happy with my writing which is good, I hadn't heard anything to the contrary, so I figured it was generally OK, but its nice to hear that they're happy with what I've been doing. I also love how concerned they are with making sure I'm getting a lot out of the internship. It's loads better than I was expecting, and definitely inspiring me to get out there and start freelancing, especially since I can now send out proper clips to publications that request them with queries. I am going to buy a macbookpro come hell or high water! (well eventually. Or at least keep myself in coffees and concerts!)

After work I decided to drop in at Suji's for coffee and to benkyoo some nihongo for awhile. I really love it in there, and its fun to be a 'regular', especially in a city as huge as this one. I know everyone in there and they know me, and they're so friendly! They basically know everyone in our office too, its funny because Karin was walking to Starbucks today, and was going to get Kieron a drink to bring back for him, but Kyu saw her walk past, and when she said she was going on a Starbucks run, he was like 'you can't do that!' and sent her upstairs with a hot chocolate (in a real mug no less) for Kieron. It was pretty funny! This afternoon, Jason must have read my mind when I was thinking about getting something to snack on, because when he saw me from the kitchen he waved and then a couple of minutes later a plate of crackers and cookies appeared at my table from him. We chatted a bit and I also chatted with Suji, who recommended a language school for me to try out, and then with Kyu, who was sooo nice, as usual.

Turns out they have free wifi in the restaurant, which is really, really, really unusual in Tokyo, so I was like 'hey, you'll never get rid of me now', and he was like 'that's OK, i think we can say you could have that private table between four and six every day, no problem'. I mentioned how great it was that they have wifi, and that its hard to get in Tokyo and then when I said it was hard to find plugs as well, he's like 'well, there's a plug on this wall over here (on the opposite side of the room from 'my' table), but we can always run a long extension cord to you over there, no problem'. Now that's service!

Obviously, they've won me (and the rest of my office!) over! In fact, I'm using them as my sample 'POI' (point of interest) for this website - Wcities, which is an incredible, comprehensive guide to tons of cities around the world. I'm hoping to become a contributor for Tokyo. I just have to confirm the hours and credit cards at Suji's and then I'm good to submit my first piece to them!

Anyway, Peter's just let me know he won't be home for dinner tonight, so I think I'll munch some leftovers from last night, and then perhaps watch some Friends, read some 'tokyo', or query some magazines!

D

Very very little to talk about today, sorry!

Got up at eightish, got ready for work, etc. I accidentally managed to procrastinate sufficiently to fun out of time to bike to work, which actually kind of sucked because it was a) a gorgeous day, and b) today is the day most of the podcasts I listen to come out, so its always an interesting ride... Tomorrow I suppose!

Nothing overly exciting happened at work either, oddly enough I didn't have to frantically write anything to fill a hole (we go to print tomorrow), so I spent the morning trying to get some entries for our creative kids contest (cold calling was a bit too close to ISR!!) and then spent the afternoon working on transcribing the interview I did with Sarah for BAB... I think we're going to run an article in the magazine and then also post the transcript of the interview online since it has lots of good practical information for anyone who is interested in maybe doing a program like hers, but would probably not be so interesting for anyone who isn't...

Actually left on time ish today and spent my break reading tokyo by Mo Hayder (and evidently called 'the devil of Nanking' in Canada), which is a pretty interesting thriller about a girl who gets mixed up with the yakuza while searching for answers about the invasion of Nanking in 1937. The only thing I don't really like about it is all the flashbacks to the invasion, the modern story is great, and the interruptions are a bit annoying, but it's a good read for sure! Incidentally, there have been two shootings in Tokyo in the last two days, both Yakuza related. From what I've heard, there was a shooting in Shibuya yesterday morning at ten am, which killed a high ranking mobster, and then this morning at ten am, the shooter was gunned down in Roppongi. Yikes!

Taught the two kids today, who were pretty cute. We read a book about a family in a covered wagon heading west which they seemed to enjoy, and I again successfully navigated their math homework, always a plus!

Came home, and since Peter was thinking he was going to be late, I just made myself dinner (rice and bean burritos), watched a couple of episodes of Friends, and now up here blogging... Perhaps tomorrow will be a more blog worthy day! I hope so! Actually, it should be - I have my one month (a little early, but that's OK) review at work tomorrow...I guess you can't get fired from an non paying job, right? I'm sure it will be fine!

Night!
D

PS - anyone want to go see Margaret Atwood at the Canadian Embassy with me on Feb. 19th? (Monday). C'mon, you know you want to be a bookworm with me! :p

Post 150!!! It seems like a lot more somehow, but I guess its more than once a day since I started this amazing trip, so...what a record! In thirty years, I'll know more than I ever wanted to about how I spent my time here, and even the things that aren't recorded on this oh so public forum (opinions, thoughts about people, anecdotes, etc) I'm sure that the events and situations and locations and photos will be enough to spark the personal memories way down the road, and I can remember these months! (If I want to at that point haha!)

Anyway, I woke up to some bizarre thumping noises outside my window at about 9:30 this morning, turns out that there was some power pole construction or something going on, so when I looked out my window (which basically doesn't have curtains b/c its on the second floor), I was somewhat shocked to see an electrician in a cherry picker hovering just outside my window! Lucky I didn't kick the covers off during the night :p

That was the end of my sleeping in, so got up, hung out here, called Julia (great to talk to you!!), etc. Peter watched the end of the Superbowl, and then at about 1:30, Peter left for a meeting in Roppongi, so I went with him, since TGIFridays seemed like a better place to study Japanese than Oyama-cho! We got there at around 2:00, and when I sat down, at the table beside me, it was really weird b/c there were four places, two of them had full meals (all burgers) sitting there, and there was only one guy there. Passed out.

Cure for hangover by hamburger?

It was kind of hilarious, because he was passed out for literally an hour, in which time the waitress had cleared the two burgers and brought them back wrapped up, refilled water glasses on the table, etc. None of this even made the guy twitch. Finally, about an hour and fifteen minutes after I sat down (so who knows when they got there!), the one guy woke up at about the same time as another guy came to sit down with him (both 25 ish gaijin guys). They were both soooo out of it!!

The conversation revolved around trying to figure out how they'd gotten there, where they were, what the food in the bags might be, etc. With a liberal sprinkling of swearing, groaning, and in the end, even puking into their food. It was, um unpleasant! I gather (from listening to them try and figure out their lives), that they'd gone to watch the Superbowl (which was on at 8:00am this morning), and then somehow gotten taken to TGIFriday's by two strangers, a couple of guys they didn't know but that they remembered bringing them to the restaurant, and who actually settled the bill for them before they'd left them there to semi recover. This all was pretty entertaining, especially as they tried to sift through the mists of time and reconstruct the morning, with some color commentary thrown in -

(Rated R :p)

"woah, dude think of how fucking cool this story is going to be when we tell our kids about it! Remember that time we went to the fucking Superbowl in the morning and ended up fuck knows where and we had no idea how we got there? I mean, I've had bad morning afters, but never morning ofs!"

However, they were also the kind of people who give travelers a bad name, loud, annoying, and by the sounds of it, not overly bright! Anyway, spent a couple of hours there working, and then when I realised there was absolutely no way that any of the grammar was sinking in 'ru verb? uhh which ones are those again?' I went downstairs and found Kong and Peter having coffee... Said hi to Kong and then shortly afterwards Peter and I got going... By this time, it was about 5:15, Peter wanted to check his email, so we stopped in at CCCJ and he grabbed a net connection, and then at about 6:00 we headed to Shibuya AX to see India.Arie!!!!!

Peter got given a couple of extra tickets this morning (thanks Nana!), so we had that great surprise today!!! I only knew a couple of her songs before the concert, but she was fantastic! I loved the concert and she was a great performer. I wasn't so keen on her opening act (a J group called Superfly) not that I really disliked them or anything, but wouldn't buy they're album or anything. I was pleasantly surprised by India.Arie's act though!
(only half decent picture I managed to get :( )

You really got the impression that you were at a concert as opposed to just hearing a bunch of songs off an album or whatever, she had lots of extra things to make it seem like more of a performance. For instance, her Mom was here in Japan with her and came out to do a duet. She also spoke to the audience quite a bit, sang some extra verses of songs that didn't make it into the radio/album cut, gave the mic to someone in the audience for a few versus of one song (either a lucky guess or a plant, the person was pretty good!), and generally kept the crowd pretty happy through her 1.5 hour show. It was pretty full in AX, but it's not a huge venue, so it felt pretty personal. I love how you can see acts like this in Japan so often! (pretty big names in pretty small spaces) I think it wouldn't be easy to be 20 feet from her at home! In her final song, Ready for Love (amazing lyrics, btw, especially for a sappy romantic such as myself), the audience was so quiet you probably could have heard if not a pin, at least a pen drop. Her voice and presence is very powerful and she certainly knows how to add the performance into the concert! (Yea, I know I said that already, but that's my overwhelming impression of tonight!) If you have the chance to go see her live, I would highly recommend it!

Unfortunately, they were soooo strict about photos, even stopping people from taking keitai snapshots. I have a couple of iffy ones that I managed to sneakily take, but they really aren't very good! I also took a TON of sound clips with my phone, of her playing the flute, speaking to the audience, playing a few key songs, letting the audience sing, etc. But my voice recorder on my phone appears to be really really crappy because you can't hear what's going on in any of them :( I wonder if it was too loud for it to deal with? Anyway, that means that unfortunately there's just the one picture, but there's a couple of links, so check those out...

Sleep tight, don't let the dani-bugs bite!
D

I taught the taxi guy this morning, he is a pretty funny guy because he always tends to spend the first several minutes of the session telling me about clients whose reservations have been lost or changed or not honored or whatever. Of course, it's never his company's fault, which is pretty entertaining. I also think that maybe he's not the nicest person in the world, though I'm sure some of it is probably that he can't express himself accurately in English, but as an example-we were talking about the types of people who rent limos from them, and he explained that he really doesn't like it when people book for weddings because they aren't repeat clients and the priest or minister who is setting up the white wedding will shop around and wants a lower price. Add that to the fact that churches are on narrow roads, and clearly you have an unattractive client.

All that makes sense, but the slightly sketchy part was when he goes 'well, what we really want are the funerals, because when someone dies you need to take a lot of people to the burning up place, and its usually a shock, so people aren't comparison shopping and they'll pay whatever we want to charge them, so we can make it more expensive for them and they'll pay it without asking any questions.' Great, nothing like capitalising on people's grief or anything like that!

Anyway, he's never been anything but nice with me, so I can't say too much about him really, it's interesting though! I also met a new student today, or, well at least her mother - the girl is 12, but she had a cold so I'm going to start teaching her next week. We went to a cafe today and I just showed her a lot of the books and materials I use, and she seemed to like that, which was good. After we exhausted the teaching thing, we started chatting a little bit, and she gave me an impromptu Japanese lesson, I finally got the whole pun vs. fun thing sorted out which is good - it's a really random rule to do with time - if a time ends in a 3, 6, or 10 (minutes) then its pun, but any other time, its fun. So 2:03 = ni ji san pun (two hours, 3 minutes), but 2:04 = ni ji yon fun (I think!)

After that, she randomly read my palm! She was like 'can I see your palm?' so I handed it over, and seemingly, I'll be getting married at 25! She's very nice, so I'm sure everything will work out well with the family (I hope!) I guess we'll see next Sunday...

Came home and ate some leftovers for lunch (mmmm!) and then Peter and Hitomi and Venus walked to Shimo Kitazawa so that Hitomi could organize a kimono to wear to a wedding she's attending with Peter next weekend. I stayed at home and got caught up on Desperate Housewives that they'd watched while I was out teaching, and then when they got home, we tried to watch another one, but everyone flaked out for awhile, so Peter's really the only one who knows what was going on.

After we all woke up, just around 8:00, I made some cream of potato (and onion, broccoli and cheese) soup, which was pretty tasty. I was a little worried because I didn't think through my recipe modifications very well and kind of screwed up my roux, but in the end it doesn't seem to have mattered very much. We've spent the evening catching up on season three of Desperate Housewives (after the market episode we really couldn't stop watching at that point!) We're watching right now actually, so I'm going to leave it at this and get back to DH...

D.

In the end, I ended up not going back to sleep, so I ran on about four hours of sleep today, which means that I'm about to be pretty ready for bed, and its not even eleven yet!

I rode the bike down to Shibuya to teach at one, which was good - I was teaching the stylist guy, and that's getting to be an easier and easier conversation each week. Today we were commiserating about getting money stolen out of our wallets - he had 80 000Y (800$) stolen with his wallet from work a few weeks ago, except all of his ID and everything was taken as well, so obviously overall that was a shittier experience than mine! We also talked a bit about his upcoming trips to Taiwan and a month long shopping trip he's planning on taking for his job, which sounds pretty sweet - there must be worse things than shopping for clothes in NYC for a month!

I came back home at about 2:30 and Hitomi was cooking up a feast for the party she hosted today... People started coming at about 3:30 I think, and about eight people or so came (a few are still here now, at 10:50, but I've crawled up to blog since I was falling asleep while they watched various bits and pieces of Canadian tv, so I'm not missing much). It was all current or former co workers of Hitomi's plus Peter's friend Lisle, whom I met on my third or so day here when we went to see her movie with Jordon at the Canadian embassy (it was about Japanese pottery). It was good to see her again, we chatted quite a bit tonight, (she might be able to hook me up with some gymnastics!!) and everyone who showed up was very nice - there was even another Canadian in the mix (who went to U of T) so we chatted about Toronto and the such for awhile...

Hitomi provided mountains of delicious food, including soft tacos, home made guacamole, yummy bbq chicken Peter grilled up, and an amazing pesto pasta salad, plus more... I'm soooo full! Peter and I combined in a team effort to create a Betty Crocker cake and canned frosting creation, which turned out pretty fantastically I have to say!


Ms. V was in her element, getting dropped morsels and generally causing chaos wherever possible... She didn't steal food out of anyone's hand (as she's done in the past I hear), but she did try and eat off my plate while I was eating, which earned her a time out/bannishment from the house into the yard, which is to her, the worst thing ever - being segregated from the rest of the pack is just not on in Vchan land! She's cute though, and she has her 'guilty/i'm sorry' look down pat, so she's lucky there!

Anyway, I have to teach at 10 tomorrow, and then I'm meeting a new family tomorrow afternoon, there is an eleven year old girl I'm supposed to start teaching I think. I don't know anything about her English ability, or what the Mom really wants me to do with her, so it should be interesting! We'll see how it goes tomorrow I suppose...

Happy Weekend!
D

So in the end, I decided to go see the Molets play, at Club Que in Shimokitazawa. It was great, because Shimo is like a seven minute bike ride from our house, so I figured I'd go, watch them, hang out for a little bit, and then bike home at 2:30 or so... In the end, that's not exactly what happened, but that's OK! It's a great little live house, and I had a great time overall. I got there a little bit before the Molets set and we listened to the world music-ish band on before them, and then when the Molets were getting set up, I went to say hi to the only two other gaijins (a Brit and a German from Yokohama) in the whole joint.

Earlier, Jordon and I had been wondering how they'd found out about the event, turns out that they'd heard about the club from a friend who promised them British club music, so they came to check it out a few months ago, and even though they didn't find British club music, they liked the venue and come from Yokohama a couple of times a month to hang out there depending on who the live acts are. I ended up hanging out with them quite a bit, and then weirdly, when Jordon got introduced to them, it turned out that the girl, Rosie, from Britain, recognized Jordon from a Geos teaching social like two years ago! What a small world this gaijin community in Japan truly is!

After the Molets played (good fun as they were last time I saw them!), I was going to stay for a few minutes and hang out, but a few minutes turned into a few hours somewhere along the way - everyone else was staying till first train, and I kind of ended up doing so as well, even though I had my bike with me... It was a pretty chill club, and not very busy - people were basically either dancing, chatting outside where it was quieter, or passed out asleep waiting for the trains... At about 4:45, I decided to go, and discovered my wallet missing! This is the first (and last!) time I'd brought it to a club or concert with me - usually I just take a bit of cash and id in a meishi case in my pocket, but last night I just ran out the door with my purse cause it was all a bit last minute, and I wasn't planning on staying... I had my purse on me a lot of the time, but for a little while, I had it with a big pile of coats and purses about 10 feet from me. Someone had to go under the coat and scarf stuffed in my purse to get it.

When we realised it was missing, Jordon helped me look all around where it was, and I asked at the door (I was amazed that at 4:45, stressed out about my wallet, I was able to pull the Japanese word for one out of my brain!). We left a description and a phone number for them, and Jordon tried to convince me someone had ended up with it by accident, like it had fallen out or something. We waited till five when the lights came up and searched around everywhere (by now there were a lot of people looking for it), and one of the staff members (I think) found it on the other side of the club, where I really hadn't been that much, $70 lighter :( (For here, that's really not much cash to be carrying, I know a lot of people who never leave the house with less than $100, because its still very much a cash based society here) Everyone who heard was pretty surprised that would happen there, but I was definitely stupid to leave it there, so I'm really glad I got my id and visa and everything back OK, and lesson learned I guess...

By the time that drama was over, it was 5:20ish, and so the trains were running again. I walked up to the station with Jordon and a couple of other people and then biked home, getting back here at about 5:40 and going to bed at 6:00 or so... Its a complete mystery to me why I was wide awake less than four hours later, but I'm sure I'm going to crash early this evening!

Anyway, that's enough for the bonus blog, I'm going to go get ready to teach, and then Hitomi is having some friends over, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to get up to for the rest of the day, sleep perhaps...

mata ne,
D

Woke up around 9:30 today, and spent the morning and early afternoon working on Weekender stuff even though I didn't go into the office - I had to finish the article about Grace Kim for the sports pages (she's the one we interviewed about martial arts and 3 step defense on Tuesday), and then I also had to write the piece on Motomachi and a small profile of Tomei's to go with it... Since I wasn't exactly on task 100% and was on msn for most of the morning, it ended up being around three before I finished and got both pieces emailed in. I love how on the web based email we have for work, so we can log in from home its called 'squirrel mail, email for nuts' or something along those lines, clearly stating that you are a bit nuts for checking your email from home :p

I took Venus for a walk in the back streets of our neighbourhood after I finished - I listened to about half the metpod and we poked around some streets I've never been on before, we found a cute little shrine and some tiny back alleys, before winding our way past a school and out near the station... Dropped her off at home and then headed to the library to do my bi monthly book exchange, and then continued on to Roppongi to meet Peter and check out their new studio space. Jordon was there, so the three of us saw the space and chatted for about an hour - Peter told us about his tour of the about to open Ritz Carlton Mid Town project which sounds very nice. He got to see the hotel, and checked out the top suite which will go for a cool two million yen per night! ($20k) The Ritz is scheduled to open towards the end of March, but they're just putting the finishing touches on it right now, unfortunately, they don't need room testers, though we're all willing to take one for the team and try it out!

Jordon headed to the office around 6:30, and Peter and I went a couple of blocks down the road to Suji's (I seem to be determined to become a regular there!), where we had a great dinner. We split a side salad and garlic toast, which were both nice, and the I had 'Jason's burger' and Peter had a blackened Cajun whitefish which he really enjoyed. The burger was sooooo good! It was hand made -thick and juicy, with cheese and crispy bacon, and then fresh veggies, basically the perfect burger! It also came with some tasty thick cut steak fries; I was very happy with my choice! I was also glad to see that Suji's had some customers in there, I really hope they do well, with so much competition in terms of places to eat here (I read somewhere that there are around 80 000 restaurants in Tokyo), it can't be easy to open a new place. It should do well with the ex pat market though, as most of the staff are native English speakers, and being in Azabudai means its a good location for that crowd.

After dinner we met Hitomi at Nissin - she was shopping for an afternoon/evening get together she's hosting at Peter's house tomorrow, and then we headed home at around 10. I think we're about to watch some Ugly Betty and then I'm either going to sleep, or head over to Shimo Kitazawa to see the Molets play. I'm a little undecided since it's after last train, but it's within easy biking distance, so I guess we'll see how asleep I am after Ugly Betty and then make some kind of decision - I don't have to teach until one tomorrow, so staying up till 3 or whatever would be fine...

decisions, decisions!

D.

PS, I'm going to try and upload a couple of Chinatown pics, so check that out as well...

Busy day at work today - the new Weekender came out, so there was distribution for that, and of course, I had to read it over my lunch break, though I haven't read my pieces yet, I'm too worried there will be some mistake or something!

I also spent the morning compiling the 'things to do' section, where we list one thing to do for each of the fourteen days that the Weekender is current. Its amazing how many things will happen on the same day, leaving you with nothing for some of the other days! I have a sort of master calendar going, that I add to as I get press releases in, so I'm able to pull from that, but its still usually a couple of hours to get everything sorted out and try and find some pictures or whatever.

This afternoon was spent writing the Chinatown article. I'm still not sure where they're using it, but neither was Anthony, so he told me to just write it and then he'd cut it if he needed to. The two possible lengths were 1500 or 850, and I ended up at 1506, so I'm glad I'm not the one who might be getting rid of half of it! Also downloaded my pictures from Chinatown and chose a few to suggest for the Chinatown article, and the Motomachi piece which I still have to write and submit tomorrow. Did a quick run to the post office and then left at about 4:30 so I'd have a bit of a break between work and teaching.

Taught/tutored/whatever you want to call it until seven and then biked home-it was sooooo cold! This morning, I was biking in a long sleeved shirt and HOT doing it, but tonight the wind kicked up and it was bloody freezing, especially with no gloves! I was sorely tempted to leave the bike at a station overnight, but then I'd have to get it tomorrow, and I also would be worried about it getting stolen, bike theft is pretty common here compared to the overall non level of crime. Someone at work actually had his bike stolen a few weeks ago, but then found it yesterday... he has plans to steal it back with the use of a spare key - it's pretty phenomenal that he managed to find his bike again, but I guess it's got a few unique features and was also parked where he normally parks it!

Anyway, just before eight I dragged myself home and made some tea and then curled up on the couch with Venus to read about some people who really had some cold to complain about in a book about Everest called The Climb. It's about the tragic and disastrous trip to Everest in 1996 which Jon Krakaur was on, and eventually wrote his book, Into Thin Air about. An interesting read! I have to say though, I'm pretty sure these high altitude mountaineering types are a little bit nuts!

I spent the evening curled up on the coach with V, after I finished my book we watched the last three episodes ever of Friends, and just as I was finishing that, at about 11:30, Peter finally made it home from work. In the end, we didn't really make dinner, just scavenged snacks, but that's ok - cereal and crackers and cheese are V. yummy!

I almost forgot to blog, which is why this is pretty short and thin on details, but nothing much exciting happened, so don't feel you're missing out!

D