Hinamatsuri Party

Yesterday I went to an international event in Honjo. Every year a group of kindly Japanese ladies put on an event for the Gaijin of the area around the time of hinamatsuri. Hinamatsuri is a festival where people who have daughters put traditional Japanese dolls about their houses. It is the girls' festival. (The boys festival is on May 5th, and there is an 'old folks' day too. These days are rather like Mothers' and Fathers' days). Anyway, I went to a convention centre of sorts and learned how to make origami Japanese dolls then ate a lot of food. After that there was a bingo game. Everyone got a prize (I got a blanket).

I had heard there are a lot of foreigners in the area, but had never seen them before. There were a lot of families there where the mother was Chinese, Korean or Thai and the father was Japanese and their kids (who were for the most part very little) were half-and-half. But I didn't know that other than my Chinese student there was another teenage boy in the area who had recently come over from somewhere and was only just learning Japanese. That kid is at Sr. High school, but his Japanese is still very bad. He must have come to Japan very recently. His school life must be so hard.

There was a family where the mother was Russian, and the daughter was a beautiful mix of pale hair and Asiatic face. There was also a whole Peruvian family who seem very good at making merry.

It was not as fun for me as for the families. I was the only person who went alone, and I only knew two people there. But I was there in a 'representative of the JET Programme' kind of role, so I am glad I went.

With a little help from my friends, Part 2 - Mame the super-cute mouse

Name: Mame
Name meaning: Bean
First seen: right before I bought it
Bought: 19th February, 2006 at the Sakata City branch of Yamada Denki
Model: ELECOM M-BG2URCR
Price paid: 3,000 yen
Colour: transparent green, silver. When in use - glows red.
Size: tiny
Weight: negligible
Can adult human hands use it?: surprisingly, yes.
Comments: Gosh! This is the tiniest mouse I have ever seen in my life! I just had to buy it for Tsurara-chan. It even fits in the bag with Tsurara. No way!

Akita Photo Essay

I live in Akita Prefecture. Akita has fish
and snow
and the coast has wind.
People from the south think that is all Akita has to offer, but they are wrong. Here I will show you what the north has to offer, and I promise you, you will feel jealous.

In Akita there is:
Kanto,
talented kids,
taiko
and snowboarding.
Mount Chokai,
cute kids,
famous fireworks festivals
and trees in the middle of the road.
Interesting places to shop,
Tazawako,
students performing in traditional festivals;
fish festivals . . .
. . . that are guarded my scarier-than-usual beasts.
Schools with lots of space.
Samurai museums
in Kakunodate
where there is a whole district of museums
that people still live in.
Beautiful towns;
very beautiful,
with beautiful parks,
bamboo groves,
beaches;
and let's not forget the unicylces in the elementary schools.
(All photos except the 'snowboarding' one taken by me. That photo was taken by another ALT called Valent. I used it because only he is strange enough to sake his camera onto the slopes).

Bad choice of name?

I just found out, while checking if my blog is turning up on Google yet (which it's not), that 'Togiren' is some kind of pharmaceutical drug. The webpage I found would not tell me what type of drug because I did not have a password, so if anyone knows what this drug is used for, please leave a comment.

For the record, I got 'togiren' from Japanese. It is a name with many meanings. A while ago, I chose kanji to phonetically represent my real name. I got 'togiren' by taking alternate pronunciations of two of those kanji and putting them together. 'Togiren' also loosely translates (if written with different kanji) as 'don't stop' or 'don't interrupt me' which is fitting, because I never manage to get a word in edgewise in conversations. Therefore I did not name myself after a drug of some unknown use.

With a little help from my friends, Part 1 - Tsurara-chan the Subnote

I thought that I should introduce to you the gadgets that I have bought while in Japan. Living in Geek Paradise Japan, I have all sorts of geekery to showcase, so get ready.

First on the list is my subnote computer (pictured with a standard BIC ballpoint pen)


Name: Tsurara-chan
Name meaning: Little Icicle
First seen: Akihabara in December 2004
Ordered: from the Honjo City branch of Super Denkodo on December 25th, 2004
Bought: January 24th (?) 2005
Operating system: Windows XP Japanese Version
Model: Panasonic Let's Note R3
Price paid: 189,000 yen
Colour: very pale silver
Features: can be found here or here.
Weight: with battery = 990g - this is a very light computer.
Size: it fits in my handbag!
Comments: a great computer! The best of all the sub-notes I saw. It is very nice to type on, which can be said about very few sub-notes. It was a bit expensive, being Panasonic and all, but Panasonic always delivers extra quality for the extra money you pay, so it was worth it. Everyone envies me.

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 9 - Random Observations in Retrospect

Here I will discuss some random thoughts I've had about my trip to England. They are in no particular order, sorry.

I was surprised to find that the 'gaijin begone' effect followed me. (Gaijin = 'outsider' in Japanese). It is not so surprising to receive strong 'go away' vibes in certain places and from certain people in Japan. It's a cultural thing. Mostly it is a problem of the older generations. You are much more likely to receive hostile looks from an old Granny than a hip young J-girl or J-boy. But the reason the old Granny knows I am a foreign devil is because I look different. I am pale-faced, curly-haired and green-eyed. I stand out. But in England I received the very same vibe in all the non-tourist spots I was in. For example: a Co-op in Giffard Park. Why? I don't stand out in England. My blood is mostly from the British Isles. I brought up the subject with Gillian after the Co-op incident, and she pointed out that because the people there had never seen me before, I was an outsider. The fact that I was wearing orange shoes probably didn't help either. In small towns, I received those looks because I am not a resident. I felt like I was only welcome in cities, not towns. Conclusion: the English cultural concept in the non-tourist parts of England of 'inside' and 'outside' groups is as strong, if not stronger, than in xenophobic Japan.

England is very expensive. Very expensive. A sandwich costs the same in English pounds as it would cost in NZ dollars, but there are about 2.5 dollars to the pound. Therefore a sandwich costs 2.5 times as much in England as NZ. That's horrendous!

Many towns in England, especially the towns and cities I saw from National Express busses between MK and Bath, were dirtier than I remember. Some of them were quite horrid-looking. But Bath is very pretty, just like everyone says, and the towns I saw up north looked nice.

My tolerance to sugar appears to have gone down while I have been in Japan. I bought a Double Decker bar and it took me two days to eat it.

People were either shockingly cool and unhelpful (such as the lady behind the counter at the TI in Bath, who ignored my presence at the counter for two minutes then finally came over, sighed and said 'yes?' in an impatient voice) or they were what my Japan-ified brain interpreted as 'too nice,' as in they smiled too brightly and said things like 'dear' and 'honey,' which I am not used to (or am not used to at the moment; I used to think that was normal).

It seems that I am turning Japanese, because the comments above are mostly the type of comments that a Japanese person would make of the British Isles.

DD's Last Call

Diane Duane has posted a last call for her straw poll on whether people would buy the 3rd 'feline wizards' novel even if she self-published it. If you are a fan of hers and have not yet voted, hop to it! You can sumbit your vote to thebigmeow@youngwizards.com.

Oh yeah!

My CafePress shop Otogi no Kuni has only been up and running for a few days, and already I have my first sale!

(If you want to sign up with CafePress too, please type 'togiren' in the referrals box. Thank you!)

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 8 - How I Got Home

On the 13th of January, I left England. Gillian had instructed Ant to pick her up after work, take her home so she could change and eat, and then we would head for Heathrow. But we knew that Gillian would take forever to get ready, so we just picked her up and went straight to Heathrow. So the last time I saw Gillian she was bitching and moaning WHICH WAS NOT NICE, GILLIAN! She got all stubborn and wouldn't let me buy her food at a gas station. Silly thing. I still have that 5 pound note I tried to give her, and I can't do a thing with it.

I rang Nanna from a payphone at Heathrow, checked in and then went through to the departures lounge. I ended up sitting staring at a screen for ages. There was no gate number printed on my boarding pass, just a section. In Heathrow (or the part of Heathrow I was in), you have to wait for your gate to be displayed on the screens before you know where to go. Gates are displayed 20-40 minutes before your plane leaves. But if you are sitting at one side of the terminal, and your gate is on the other side, it can take 20 minutes to walk there. I don't think it is a very good system.

But I got to my gate without difficulty (although it was a long walk and I had to hurry) and soon found myself on the way to Paris. Because it was an evening flight and usually I fly day flights, I spent a while looking out the window at the lights of civilisation below. Cars look like blood cells from above at night. But then it got cloudy so I couldn't see anything anymore. Too bad. I would have liked to be looking for boat lights on the English Channel.

I had to wait an hour or so in CDG for my boarding call. I had put some Euros in my wallet, intending to buy tea or something while I waited, but the teashop in the waiting lounge was closed. The only beverage that was available was beer, and I don't drink beer very often. There weren't even any drinks machines (which is shocking for someone who has lived in Japan for a while). Eventually the boarding call came. There is no queue area at the gates in Paris, and since there were so many people on the flight, there was just this big crowd of people milling around and pushing forwards trying to get on the plane. What a mess.

When I got on the plane, I found that the seats were in a 3-4-3 arrangement, and I had a window seat. Uh-oh, I thought. I am going to get trapped in my seat, aren't I?

The woman sitting next to me was a Japanese woman who had just spent two weeks on a home stay in France. She knew some French but not English, which is very rare for a Japanese person. I was talking to her for a while, but after dinner she and the person next to her went to sleep for most of the flight. I was indeed trapped in my seat and unable to go for a walk. What made the situation worse was that the woman in front of me spent the whole flight arguing with her chair to get it to go further back i.e. closer to me. She kept bashing at the chair so violently that if I had a drink in the cup holder, it would splash out of the cup. She managed to get her chair to go much further back than an economy class chair is designed to go. It was much further back than her grandson's or daughter's seats were, and they had put their seats right back. It was so far back that I couldn't stand up to exercise my legs or rest my backside. It was so far back that I had trouble seeing my LCD screen when it was displaying some colours. It was so far back that the back of her seat was ABOVE my knees. It was an uncomfortable flight.

We got to Japan, and started flying towards Tokyo. The weather started getting very bad because there was a storm sitting right on top of Tokyo. The turbulence got very bad. I was looking at the progress screen, and saw the plane turn around 180 degrees above Ibaraki Prefecture, and I thought Uh-oh. Then an announcement came saying that we would be landing at Nagoya instead because of extreme weather at Narita. Now, this was an extreme inconvenience for everyone on the plane, including me, but after another half an hour the plane turned back around and headed towards Tokyo again. Everyone stopped panicking for a minute until an announcement came saying that the plane would be landing at Haneda instead of Narita. So most of the people on the plane started panicking again, except for me and the lady next to me. My hotel was actually near Haneda because I was catching an early morning flight from Haneda to Shonai the next day, and Ryoko-san (the lady next to me) lives in Yokohama, which is fairly near Haneda. So the two of us were rejoicing. But most of the people on the plane were French people headed for a final destination of New Caledonia, and they were annoyed. It was not nearly as much of an inconvenience as Nagoya would have been, though.

So we started our descent towards Haneda. Now, Haneda is not really all that far from Narita, as far as weather is concerned anyway. It has more shelter from storms from the east than Narita does, but the weather on the approach to Haneda was still right on the borderline. I was looking out the window, and in the moonlight I could see that our plane flew underneath the edge of a huge storm head as we reached Tokyo. It was a beautiful sight, but frightening. Then the turbulence got very bad. Kids started throwing up in sick bags, and I was fanning my face with a notebook so that I would not have to do the same. I kept looking out the window in sick fascination. For a long while there was no way to see what was going on outside, until suddenly the bright lights of a freight ship appeared out of the murk beneath us. That too was a beautiful yet scary sight. We got lower and lower, and I just stared at the water that was fast approaching. The plane was being buffeted around in the wind of the storm, and the sea was so close beneath us . . .

The edge of the runway appeared beneath us only a few seconds before we touched down. Haneda is only a domestic airport, and our plane was very heavy, so it must have been a difficult landing for the pilot. Then before our plane had lost it's momentum, there was a rather loud BUMP noise as the plane swerved . It didn't lose control, but I am afraid it was close. I was happy, thinking that from then on there would be no troubles.

We came to a stop, and people immediately began gathering up their hand luggage as normal, but then an announcement came telling us to remain seated. After a while another announcement came telling us what we were waiting for. Because Haneda is mostly a domestic airport, it does not have a full-time Customs staff. People are only brought in when a flight is due to arrive from Korea. Therefore there was no one at the airport qualified to check our Passports. Also, even though the storm had moved on, we could not fly the plane to Narita because we may have sustained damage during the landing and the plane was not cleared for flying again yet. We were told that Customs people were coming from Narita, and so we would have to wait.

So we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. It got very hot in the plane. After an hour and a half, they opened something somewhere and allowed some fresh air into the plane. My happiness that I was so close to my hotel was replaced by worry that by the time we were let off the plane, the public transport would have stopped. Then an announcement came. The customs people were stuck in a traffic jam.

We landed at Haneda at a little after 7.30pm, but by the time we were allowed off the plane it was nearly 11pm. Three stuffy hot boring hours straight after an uncomfortable long haul flight. We were bussed to the terminal, went through customs and then everyone stood at the baggage collection carousel and waited for the bags to arrive. And waited . . . and waited. Did they unload the baggage from the plane while we were sitting in the parking lot for three hours doing nothing? Of course not.

By the time I got out to the front of the airport, it was nearing midnight and public transport out of Haneda had indeed stopped. So yet again I had to fork out for a Tokyo after-hours taxi. That time it only cost 6,000 yen. Only, she says. That is a lot of money for a taxi ride, in my opinion.

I got to the hotel alright, but only got a few hours sleep because I had to get up bright and early for my flight back to Tohoku.

So at 6.20 in the morning I set out on foot for Hamamatsucho Station in order to catch the Tokyo Monorail to Haneda. The hotel information said it was a 5 minute walk away. So I hauled my luggage 5 minutes down the road, and was confronted with a staircase saying 'station this way' or something to that effect. So I climbed the stairs, and was confronted with a long tunnel with signs saying 'JR this way' and 'Tokyo Monorail this way.' My back was dying by this stage, but I plodded doggedly onwards. Then I had to climb another staircase and cross a bridge over all of the tracks. I was a bit surprised about that, because Haneda is on the side of the tracks I had started from. But I kept following the signs, getting slower and slower. I went down a set of stairs, through the station concourse, and up another set of stairs and finally found myself at the Monorail gate. So I bought my ticket and took the escalator up to the platform. The Monorail, as soon as it starts, crosses back over the tracks and passes my hotel on the way out to Haneda. Why does that keep happening to me?

After I got to Haneda, I hauled my bag through the Main Concourse, checked in, and went through baggage check. Then I went looking for my gate. As I am sure you can guess by now, my gate was at the very end of the terminal, so I had to walk a long way.

While I was at the gate, I looked out the window and saw the Air France plane sitting outside being serviced. That plane had to go back to France a few hours later. I wonder what happened with that?

The flight to Shonai was very nice. That storm had already left, and Tokyo was sunny. I had another great view of Tokyo and Mt. Fuji. Then we flew over the spine of mountains that runs through the middle of Japan, until we got to Yamagata. I had all sorts of interesting sights to look at. I could see the distribution of snow over the country i.e. none in Tokyo, then on the mountains only, then everywhere. I landed at Shonai safe, and caught the bus back to Sakata Station. Now, I had been expecting to miss the 9.30 train north and have to wait for the train that gets to my town at 1.10 in the afternoon. But I got to the station at about 9.15am and therefore was back in my town by 10.30am. I hauled my bag to my apartment. I was physically very tired by that stage, and I was stumbling the last 50m but I did it. I was home, my back not unbearably sore, my pipes weren't frozen: I had done it! It was the 15th of January, and I was home. All I had left to deal with was the jet lag (which was terrible, but I won't bother describing it; most people have already experienced it before).

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 7 - The Time in Which I Recuperated and Ate Chinese Food

Gillian and I had been thinking about heading down to Crawley the day after we got back from Bath, but we were just too darn tired. Gillian didn't even get up in the morning. I had to take Gillian's key and wander around the streets of Newport Pagnell looking for the Co-op I had thought I had seen from Ant's car so that I could buy something to eat. It was a long walk, but that was alright because it was a sunny day.

When I got back, Gillian was up and reading the book I had given her for Christmas. It was at that point that she told me about the short cut to the shop. Oh, well.

We did nothing else that day. The next day, Gillian was working, so I spent time packing. I was also reading and drawing on my computer.

That evening we went out. I tagged along as Gillian and Ant met friends of theirs at a pub, and then went to a Chinese restaurant. I had felt out of place at the pub, but at the restaurant the ladies were talking to me. It was very good to eat Chinese food that had been prepared by Chinese people and therefore tasted like Chinese food. The stuff you get in Japan tastes totally different because they don't seem to like real Chinese food flavours. For example, Japanese people tend not to like real sweet-and-sour sauce, so they make it with different spices so they can eat it. Therefore, I ate as much as I could at the restaurant, which was not much unfortunately.

After the restaurant, we went to the house of Phil and Anne-Marie, friends of Gillian and Ant. They made me feel very welcome. They are very nice people. We talked until about 2 in the morning, and then went home.

The next day I was packing, and then I left.

See, I told you it would be a short post ;)

Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: How I Got Home

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 6 - A Lot of Time on Busses

On the 7th of January, Gillian and I headed out to Bath. Getting there was not much fun. Gillian looked on the internet for a National Express route from MK to Bath and found one that left at 9 in the morning and got to Bath at around 2.30pm. But when we went to the ticket office, the woman there told us that there was another bus just the same that left at 9.45. Because neither of us are morning people, we decided to get the 9.45 bus. That bus ended up being cheaper than the one Gillian had seen on the internet, but we should have realised that there was a reason it was cheaper.

The bus route Gillian had found on the internet had gone to Heathrow, changed busses, and then out to Bath, which is a logical route. But the route that the lady recommended us went all the way into Victoria Station. It takes a long time to get through the streets of London to anywhere, so that added a lot of time onto our journey. But then we had to do it again on the bus that took us back out of London. Then we found out just why our ticket had been so cheap. The bus we were on kept leaving the motorway and going to stops in the middles of various towns. Now, the woman at the ticket office had told us that both routes were essentially the same because only the MK - London bus was different, the London - Bath bus was the same. She TOLD us we would get to Bath at the same time. That woman doesn't know her arse from her elbow. It took us hours longer to get to Bath than we were expecting. That bus to Bath stopped at every single stop along the way, and it took AGES.

Also the in-bus entertainment was not so entertaining. There was an interesting episode of Top Gear shown, but after that was an episode of the Vicar of Dibley, then a few more comedies. Then the tape RAN OUT. The bus journey was so long that the National Express had not provided enough entertainment for it!

But we eventually got to Bath sometime between four and five in the evening, and set out to find our B&B. Now, Gillian had a map of Bath she had printed off the internet with our B&B labelled, but the map was about 4x4 cm, and so the bus and train stations were not labelled. Roads were labelled, but that did not help out because the streets themselves did not have signs. In Bath, it seems, only tourist attractions are labelled. The Circus and the Royal Crescent will naturally have signs, but other streets? Only if someone gets around to it.

I said "I think it's that way," pointing towards the hills because the B&B owner had told Gillian on the phone that the B&B was on a hill. But Gillian charged off in the other direction saying she needed to find a street name first (which led to our discovery that there are no road signs in Bath). We found numerous signs pointing to 'Roman Baths' and 'Bath Abbey' and all sorts, but not a single street name. So we ended up walking in a big circle and arriving back at the bus terminal (but we found food on our circuit, so it was not a complete waste of time). I asked someone behind a counter how to get to our B&B, and received directions.

First, we had to walk in the direction I had suggested right at the beginning of our meanderings. Then we had to cross a road and walk over a bridge and under a train line. We had not seen that path on our travels because it was behind a building. Then we had to walk up the hill until we saw a pub with a white bear on it. We did that with no problem other than getting tired legs. Then we were supposed to see our road lead away from that area. There were several roads that were labelled, but none of them were the one we were looking for, and there were two that weren't labelled. One was the same road we were already on, so we thought 'it can't be that one.' So we took what we figured, by process of elimination, was the road we wanted. We climbed and climbed and climbed, looking for the B&B. After about ten minutes of this, we FINALLY found a sign for the road we were on. And it was the wrong road. So we turned left, and left again and found ourselves on the right road. About 30 houses or more too far up it. So we walked back down the hill and found the B&B. From there we could see that the road we were on was the road we had been on before, the one with the pub with the white bear. Apparently it just changes name randomly half way along. Confusing, huh?

That night we ate food we had bought at the co-op and watched TV, because we were tired.

The next morning after a delicious B&B breakfast we went down to the bus terminal because I wanted to see about busses to Glastonbury. I really wanted to see Glastonbury but after looking at the bus timetables and inquiring at the TI, it turned out that it was too difficult to go there for a few hours without a car, so I didn't get to go. I bought a souvenir book of Glastonbury from the TI, but that is no where near the same . . .

Then we went to the Roman Baths. What a wonderful museum! It was actually worth the 10 pounds entry fee. Really, a very interesting museum and you get the chance to wander around in a 2000 year old bath house and shrine afterwards. The whole place has misty, aromatic air from the spring water. I won't talk too much about the baths, because it is something that has to be seen to be appreciated. But I will talk about something Gillian and I saw while in one of the original rooms. Gillian said to me "Look!" So I looked where she was pointing. On the other side of a barrier, on the stones of an old Roman floor was what I at first thought were big clumps of creamy mould. I said "Ewww," but then Gillian pointed at the ceiling. It was quite dark in there, but I could just see long thin white tendrils hanging down. I thought "Oh, that's disgusting, why don't they clean that?" and then realised what I was REALLY looking at. To give you a hint, 'Bath stone' is a limestone. Yes, they were 2000 year old baby stalactites and stalagmites. Groovy.

The Pump Room was closed for renovations, so we didn't get to see it. So we went and had an expensive tourist lunch while we thought of what to do next. Being winter in England, it was drizzling, so we did not want to go for a walk. So we got on the tourist bus. We were thinking of doing the hop-on-hop-off thing, but because it was rainy nowhere looked appealing, and the driver did not look inclined to stopping anyway. So after an hour of driving around Bath we ended up where we started. Although the look-see had been interesting, we had paid 9.50 for the privilege, so it was quite a rip-off.

Then I had to go to the loo, but it turns out that as well as lacking street signs, Bath also lacks public loos. So we went into a pub and had a drink each so I could go. After that we went to a mall we had seen from the bus, and I bought a nice amber pendant and a silver whatchamacallem. Collar? Whatever. Then we went back to the B&B and ate Co-op food again because we are young and poor.

The next day we went on a bus tour. We got to see a cute Cotswold village called Castle Combe, eat lunch in a village called Lacock, see Silbury Hill and visit the Avebury and Stonehenge monuments.

It was a misty morning, so Castle Combe had a strange atmosphere to it. It felt very still, like something was about to happen. After Castle Combe we went to Avebury. On the way we stopped to see Silbury Hill. It was still drizzling and misty, so we didn't get out of the bus, but I was nevertheless very impressed. That huge, ancient man-made hill looming up out of the mist is a powerful sight.

We quickly moved on to Avebury itself. Over the centuries, the residents of Avebury village have taken down an awful lot of the monument while caught up in religious panic. The stones that are standing now are the ones that had been too strong for the villagers to break up so were buried instead. Also, the fact that there is a village slap-bang in the middle of the monument is rather off-putting. But still, it is easy to see how magnificent the monument must have once been. I was as fascinated with the henge part of the monument (which was huge) as the standing stones.

The tour guide told us an interesting story at Avebury. Apparently, the huge central stone of the south circle had been present until only a few hundred years ago. But then the Church had ordered the villagers to remove the stone immediately, the reason being that it was thin and very tall (6m tall, I think) and the Church does not like huge Pagan phallic monuments, not one bit. So the villagers broke the stone up, and built a small church out of it. Then the tour guide pointed to the church in question. "Look at the shape of the windows," he said. So we looked at the tall, thin gothic-inspired windows. And the tour guide said "Now, isn't that just an example of the Church shooting itself in the foot?"

Next we went to Lacock. The tour guide dropped us off outside a pub so we could have lunch. When we went inside, there were very few locals and the food was expensive, so Gillian walked back out. I felt kind of embarrassed doing that, but the pub down the road had lots of locals, a better menu and was cheaper, so it was a good decision. I had an absolutely delicious steak-and-ale pie. With it, I had vegetables and lemon meringue pie. Gillian had the same pie, but had a salad and apple crumble with it. (BTW the same thing was happening with the breakfasts. We would be asked what drink we wanted; I would say tea, and Gillian would say coffee. When we were asked what toast we wanted, I would say brown, and Gillian would say white. We are such opposites). After lunch, we went for a wander while taking pictures then got back on the bus and we all went to Stonehenge.

I picked up an audio guide at Stonehenge, and was listening to it as well taking pictures. Gillian got grouchy, growled at me and stalked off. (She apologised about it later, saying she needed to be alone while experiencing the spiritualness of the area or something. But then, I left her behind at Avebury when she couldn't be bothered hiking over to see the northern circle). Stonehenge is just Stonehenge; it is not much more interesting than seeing the photos. It must have had an amazing atmosphere in the past, though. That open space, the barrows on the horizon. You can almost feel it today, if you use your imagination. But those noisy roads and the visitors centre ruin it. Just RUIN it.

After that we headed back to Bath. We nearly died on the way. Some idiots in two cars drove into one of those places by the side of the road trucks can stop to let cars pass, and then one of the cars pulled straight back out into the road A COUPLE OF METRES IN FRONT OF OUR MINI BUS. . . . . WHILE GOING SLOWER THAN THE MINI BUS! It was close, it was very close.

But we got back to Bath alive, which was good. Then my Credit Card was promptly eaten by a cash machine. Probably because I hadn't used it for a year and a half and suddenly started using it to buy plane tickets and hotel bookings from the internet, as well as buying several different currencies of cash in several different airports. I'm not a thief, I'm me I swear!

We didn't go out that evening either. We were both having money troubles, and there were some interesting programmes on TV. That night was either the first episode of Life On Mars, or the second-to-last episode of Lost, so Gillian had something she wanted to watch. It was definitely the night that a programme with Richard Dawkins talking to various radical religious people was on. That was interesting TV, but it made me so riled up to watch! Especially the evangelical guy telling one of the worlds leading scientists that he was not only wrong, but arrogant and probably evil, and then yelling at him "Get out of here before I call the police! You called my children animals!" Dawkins said it took him a while to understand the 'animals' remark, but then realised that the guy meant the 'primate' status of the human race. No matter how many people tell them that mud-slinging just makes them look more like monkeys than the rest of people, and therefore supports scientific theory, they don't listen.

Anyway, enough of trying to puzzle out strange people. The next day we went back to MK. By the same long, boring route. There was another interesting episode of Top Gear to watch, and that was it. That evening we took it easy. And because I just did a word count and realised I have written over 2000 words, I will stop.

And continue later with Part 7 - The time in which I recuperated and ate Chinese food (which will be a short post, I promise).
Oh, and I had formatting problems with this post, even before I started putting pictures in, so if it is not displaying properly on your computer, please leave a comment.

Sick (bleh . . . .)

I don't feel well. I left work early today because of a sore stomach, and went straight to sleep. I woke up in time for dinner, but I only had pasta, and now my stomach hurts again. Woe is me . . .

On a brighter note, the last couple of days have been kind of spring-ish. Yesterday an unseasonally warm wind arrived. It was a strong wind, so probably came with a sea storm, but that is not supposed to happen during February here. The temperature rapidly rose from its normal 0 degrees C to about 8 or 9 degrees C. Then the wind cut through all the snow that had fallen over the weekend and then started working on the snow plow-created snow mountains. Today it was still warm, and raining to boot. It will probably get cold again, but today I saw geese flying north so it won't stay cold for long.

I just realised that's probably why my stomach started hurting. I am sensitive to rapid weather changes.

Major online store overhaul

I have just spent the last day and a half carrying out a major restructure of my online store. I have not finished quite yet, but nevertheless please go and have a look here.

I have made a lot of products based on Japan and Japanese society. I hope to get more options up in the 'Images of Japan' section soon.

Have fun browsing! (and hopefully shopping . . .)

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 5 - A Pilgrimage

I deciced that since I was in England, I ought to go have a look at Ireland as well, since it was so close. So on the 3rd of January that's what I did.

I made my way (with some assistance from Gillian) to the MK Coachway, and then went by National Express to Luton Airport. I then flew by Ryanair to Dublin. They squish so many chairs on Ryanair planes that it is quite claustraphobic, and the day-glo yellow and navy decor does not help. But the flight is only an hour, and since I essentially paid pocket change for the experience it was still excellent value.

I caught the airport flyer bus into Dublin. I wasn't sure where to get off, so I ended up at Busaras (the main bus terminal) which was not near my hotel at all. So I decided to walk across town and get a first close look at Dublin. I thought I remembered the general direction my hotel was in from a map I had been looking at before, but I was worried that I would get horribly lost. I needn't have been. I managed to walk right across town and through the Viking/Mediaeval part of town without taking a wrong turn and found my hotel by looking to the right and there it was. Previous life's memories, mayhap?

My hotel was called the Harding Hotel. It was more expensive than the hotels I usually stay in, but because the flight had been so cheap I decided to treat myself. It was a very nice hotel. It was on Fishamble Street, which is one of the oldest streets in Dublin. I saw a model of it in the Viking section of the National Museum. An alley runs through the middle of the lobby. It is called Copper Alley. It was also a Viking street. In the middle ages and through to the 1800's it was famous for dangerous taverns and brothels run by infamous characters (said the information in the folder in my room). The hotel was also across the road from Christchurch Cathedral, so there was a nice view from the dining room/bistro.

I really liked my room. It was tucked into an awkward part of the building where it crosses over Copper Alley so it was a funny shape, almost a triangle. It had a proper bed with a nice wooden post-style headboard, a nice desk, plenty of tea-making supplies and was very spacious. The window looked down into Copper Alley. It was so well heated that a window had to be left open at all times despite the fact that it was winter.

That day I went to the Tourist Information office hoping to book a bus tour, but the counter was closed. Then I went for a walk on Grafton Street and bought my dinner at the M&S supermarket section.

The next day after having an Irish breakfast I went back to the TI and booked the bus tour, then to an internet cafe. Then I spent quite a while looking for a place which, I eventually found out, had closed down. Then I got on the hop-on-hop-off bus and stayed on for most of the route. I tried to take pictures, but it was difficult. I got off at St. Stephen's Green and went to the National Museum. I spent hours in there, looking at all the Celtic, pre-Celtic, Viking and Mediaeval artefacts. They even had some stuff from Cyprus and Egypt. After that I went to the Natural History Museum. I didn't spend long in there. Mostly I was looking at the incredibly alive-looking wolf, and then the Irish deer skeletons. Those things were huge! I would not have even come up to an Irish deer's shoulder; nowhere near. The males' antlers spanned about 4 metres!

I got back on the bus and went to Dublin Castle. I only went inside the church part, not the castle itself (click on the title of this post to see a picture from the church). I took a lot of photos of the outside of the castle.

On the 5th I went on a bus tour to the Boyne Valley in County Meath. There was a Japanese guy on the tour who didn't understand the tour guide, so I was translating for him (yet again Japanese comes in handy outside of Japan). First off we went to the Hill of Tara. It was difficult to see what you were standing on at Tara, probably because the hill was occupied for millenia after the monuments were built. Later on I bought postcards with aerial photographs of the hill.

Then we went to the Bru na Boinne Visitors Centre (Boyne Valley). There was time for a quick lunch, then we were bussed out to Newgrange. I was in the first group to go into the tomb. It was very hard to feel the atmosphere of the tomb/temple/whatever. This was due to the electric lights, the crowds of stupid-question-asking tourists, the tour guide's endless rambling and the tacky re-enactment of the Winter Solstice. The hundreds of years of grafitti didn't help either.

But nevertheless, it was amazing to be standing inside a 5,000 year old building.

Because the day was short (being winter) we did not get to visit Knowth. After looking at the exhibits in the Centre, we headed back to Dublin.

Despite the lack of scenery, I quite liked the look of County Meath. It was more like NZ than England is. Next time I'm in Ireland I want to go look at the area around the Wicklow Mountains. I bet that is even more like home.

On the 6th I headed back to MK by retracing my outward-bound route. And then I had very little rest time before heading out on another holiday the next day.

Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: A Lot of Time on Busses

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 4 - Tales from the Northern Moors

I will pick my story up again from the morning of 27th December.

It had snowed overnight. Not much, though. In Milton Keynes there was all of half a centimetre, but in England that is enough snow to cause all sorts of traffic and public transport problems, so I was a little worried about how the journey to Cumbria would go. Gillian was telling me horror stories about winter-tyre-less English cars sliding about all over the place. But for the most part, the journey went smoothly.

Nanna and Gordon chose to use a toll road to skip some of the traffic jams, so (as far as I can remember) we only got caught in one. The road was either slightly slushy or just wet. We spent nearly an hour having a leisurely lunch at a road stop (or whatever they're called out that way). But because we left MK quite late, the sun went down before we got to Alston (our destination). The road that wound it's way up to the moor was covered in ice, and Gordon does not own chains, so we were travelling at about 10 mph and yet still sliding all over the show. But we got there eventually.

There was a decent amount of snow in Alston (nearly 10 cm). I wanted to look at the scenery, but because it was dark I could not see anything. But I finally got to see the cottage. It is really nice. It is so old that even the extention has latches rather than handles on the doors. The walls are thick and white-washed. The guest room has a toilet and basin, so it is very convenient.

When I woke up the next morning, I still couldn't see the view because there was a thick fog. I woke up at 8am sharp because Nanna has a clock that chimes like Big Ben on the hour. I couldn't have a morning shower because there is no shower at the cottage (no water presure). Nanna warned me that when I ran a bath it might be slightly discoloured because the water comes straight from a pond on top of the hill. Despite this warning, I was still very surprised when the water came out of the tap brown, and grit began collecting on the bottom of the bath. At first I didn't want to get into the bath, but then I remembered that I have bathed in brown water before, it's just never been in a bathtub, that's all.

That day we went grocery shopping and then had a slow evening because it was still very snowy.

On the 29th we drove over to Hexham in Northumberland. We visited Hexham Abbey. I got some lovely pictures of 12th century gothic architecture which many Japanese people have since admired when I've shown them my holiday slideshow. The part of the Abbey that I personally enjoyed the most was the crypt. It is usually closed, but the kind old nearly-deaf priest let us go down and have a look even thought it was outside of the viewing hours. The crypt is dates from before the 12th century gothic church, right back to the original 6th century saxon church. The crypt had been forgotten about for centuries and was found again in 1725 by workers who were working on the foundations. But what was really interesting about the crypt was how it was made from recycled Roman stones. They didn't care what stone they used, any stone would do. Therefore, there are random sections of Roman frieses at various points on the walls, random writing on the ceiling, and one of the door arches was carved from a bit of a shrine altar.

That evening heavy rain started to cut through the snow. The next morning the power was flickering and finally died altogether. Therefore, apart from going into town to ask about trains to Milton Keynes, we did nothing.

On the 31st I went for a walk with Gordon and Manfred (Manfred=dog). Then I saw more relatives when Christine and Layton come over for New Years. We had a dinner that very much resembled a Christmas dinner except that it was built around duck not turkey. We even pulled Christmas crackers!

Then Gordon and I went to see an old Viking ceremony being performed in a nearby town. People carried barrels of fire on their heads and then lit a big bonfire at midnight. Then everyone sang 'Auld Lang Syne.' I think Auld Lang Syne is a recent addition to the festival ;)

On the 1st I travelled back to Milton Keynes by train. I went by Virgin. It was a very comfy and very new train, but the decor was a little bit too 'Starship Enterprise on Valentines Day' for my liking.

On the 2nd I went shopping in MK central with Gillian. She introduced me to a shop called 'Lush' which sells hand-made soaps, cosmetics and (to my surprise) 'shampoo bars.' I had never before seen solid shampoo. There was one that smelled just like some scented candles I used to have, so I just had to buy a piece.

On the 3rd I went on another trip so;

Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: A Pilgrimage

(By the way, does my corny 'next time' announcement come across as purposefully done and therefore witty, or does it just sound silly and tacky? Please leave a comment).

Snow!

It's snowing again! Blizzard conditions! I can't believe it. There is so much snow outside. True, most of it is in piles where the snow ploughs left it, but it is still impressive.

Looks like I won't be going anywhere this weekend, so I will have time to write a decent length post.

New photos uploaded

I uploaded two new sets of photos to my Flickr. You can see them here and here.

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 3 - Biscuits and Half-a-Million Cups of Tea

After Heathrow, we briefly stopped by Gillians house (the only time I saw the place on my entire trip), and then went to Ant's (Ant = Gillian's boyfriend) place in Newport Pagnell. I had a cup of tea, and then Gillian and I went over to see Nanna and Gordon.

The place was kind of the same, yet kind of different. There were doorways where there had not been doorways before, porches where there had not been porches, and a whole new kitchen.

We were offered tea and biscuits, and I sleepily worked away on them. Nanna rang my parents (a birthday call), and the phone was passed around. But by this stage I was in such a state of extreme exhaustion that I cannot now remember the phone call. Indeed, the very next day I could not remember what I had talked about with whom.

After getting caught up, we went back to Newport for more tea. I was starving by this stage, but I was at that stage where I was sure that if I ate anything with flavour in it I would promptly be sick, so I nibbled on bread before going to bed.

On the 24th I had breakfast at Nanna's house, and then I tagged along to Gillian's friends house as Christmas visits were carried out. Gillian has very funny friends. There was tea and entertainment.

That evening for dinner, I had steak pie. I had not eaten pie for 1 1/2 years, so it was almost a religious experience for this poor pie-deprived Kiwi.

Gillian wanted me to go with her to a pub to see some of her friends, but I was SO tired. I stayed behind, and managed to stay up until 8.30pm before crashing. I was sure, going to sleep so early, I would be up really early on Christmas morning. But the next thing I knew, Gillian was banging on the door. "Get up! We want to open our presents!"

"What time is it?" said I.

"10.30!"

"I don't believe it!"

I had slept for 14 hours.

Present opening commenced (with tea), and then we went to Ant's Dad's place for a lovely Christmas dinner. I felt bad about going to another family's Christmas dinner, but I was made welcome. I even recieved another Christmas present!

On the 26th we went to see 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' at the theatre in Milton Keynes. It was great! A faithful representation of the book. All of the things that had been added to or subtracted from the story made sense to me. The kid who played Edmund did an exceptionally good job, imho. I can't wait until 'Prince Caspian' come out!

The next day I went up to Cumbria, so I think I will stop here and make it so that -

Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: Tales from the Northern Moors

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 2 - Flights and Airports

As promised, I shall continue my account of international travel.

~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~._.~

My Air France flight to Charles De Gaulle left on time (yay!)
I had a window seat, so I got to see many beautiful sights before the air hostess came and made me shut the blind.

First beautiful sight: Narita in winter.
As it was (is still in fact) winter, all the rice paddies (of which Narita has many) were brown. I could clearly see how generations of farmers have made all but the most stubborn of hills as flat as a pancake in order to farm rice. The rivers looked very out of place on that flat brownness.

Second beautiful sight: Tokyo
Out my window, I could look down at Tokyo and Tokyo Bay. At first I was picking out places I had been to, such as Odaiba and Shinjuku. But then I noticed that I had a really good view of Mt. Fuji, so I looked at that instead.

Third beautiful sight: Tohoku in winter
The rice paddies of Tohoku (northern Japan) are also flat, but in winter they have the added bonus of being covered in a perfectly level pristine coating of snow.

(I will now take the time to point out that the place over which the airplane crossed the coast and headed out over the Japan Sea was near the border between Yamagata and Akita prefectures i.e. where I live i.e. at the beginning of the day before's troubles. Oh, if only I had a really long ladder).

Fourth beautiful sight: Random land north of Vladivostok
The next time I saw land was up north somewhere on the continent. The land was thinly forested and very snowy. There were very few signs of human habitation, just the odd road or two. The geography of that land was stunning. It was hilly/mountainous country, but it was all smooth and rounded. Right down to sea level, I could see that the land had been under the polar ice at some stage. In some places I could see long, thin, perfectly sculpted glacial valleys (the last strongholds of the ice age in the area?). They are empty now.

The first meal of the flight came. I had not eaten for 23 hours by that stage on account of there being no food available at train stations during blizzards, or in Tokyo after 11pm. It filled me up for a short while. But it was another 9 hours before the next meal came, probably because it was the cheapest airfare between Japan and Europe available on any airline. I was wasting away to nothing.

For much of the flight, we flew up over the north of Siberia. There was a lot of cloud. We must have been up near the arctic circle because even though it was a day flight, the sun was down on the horizon mingling with the clouds. I did not get to have a good look at this area, because the blinds were down, so all I could do was peek out from time to time.

Finally the plane got to France. The fields of France are huge, with no hedgerows between, and the houses are all brown with roof windows (at least the ones I saw were). Terminal 2F of CDG is quite impressive. Being in the gate area is kind of like being inside a glass whale. While I waited for my flight to Heathrow, a group of Japanese tourists sat nearby. They were mostly middle-aged women, and they were ooh-ing and aah-ing over a Frenchwoman's unshaved poodle puppy. They were saying "chitchai hitsuji mitai" - it looks like a tiny sheep. They loved the dog, and because the dog was young, it loved them too.

I had a conversation with one of the women until their group boarded their plane. Not long after, my flight call came too. The plane left 15mins late or so, because of long queues at the baggage check. I translated this for a Japanese family who did not understand what was going on.

(As an aside: for those of you who think Japanese is useless outside of Japan, notice how even in France it was lucky that I can speak it. You will see later that it was useful for me in England too).

So finally I got to England. I made my way through customs and baggage collection in record time. This was facilitated by luck. It turned out that my plane's baggage was available from the carousel in the very middle of the baggage collection room. By coincidence, my bag happened to be on the side of that carousel nearest me just as I entered. Therefore, I was able to walk straight throught the room in a straight line and *yoink* pick up my bag half way accross without having to stop walking. I barely even slowed down.

I should have known there would be one more problem before my journey was done. Things had been going altogether too smoothly for too many hours.

When I got to the main concourse of Heathrow Terminal 2, Gillian (my sister) was not there. I figured that she was stuck in traffic (not such an uncommon thing in England). So I waited. And waited. And waited. I went for a walk to see if she was waiting in the wrong place. I positioned myself in the easiest-to-spot position. No sister. So I decided to ring her. My cellphone does not work outside of Japan, and at that stage I had no pounds on me, so I had to buy pounds at the exchange bureau first of all. Then I went to a coin phone. "This number either does not exist or . . ." Oh, @$%^.

So I ended up going to the information desk, telling the clerk my Nanna's name and address and asking him to look up her phone number on the internet. (Despite the fact that Heathrow is the biggest international airport in the UK and one of the biggest in the world, they apparently only have those small local directory phonebooks on hand).

When I rang Nanna, she told me that Gillian had been at the airport for hours. I asked if she knew I was at terminal 2, and my lovely Nanna said, "I don't know, dear. I'll just go ring her and check."

Ten minutes later, Gillian and her boyfriend rush breathlessly into terminal 2.

Gillian, being a little sister, naturally blamed this communication error on me. My opinion is this: even if the e-mail I thought I sent her with my itinerary details was indeed a figment of my imagination, Nanna had all the details. Therefore, whose fault is it for not contacting their grandmother, who lives five minutes down the road, on a regular basis? (Sorry Gillian, but I had to say it).

To cut a long story not-all-that-short, I found myself in Milton Keynes after a long-haul international flight, and only having had four or five hours sleep (half of which was on said flight) and two small meals (both on said flight) in the previous forty-hour period. And the day was not over yet.

Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: Biscuits and Half-a-Million Cups of Tea

Flickr!

I created a Flickr account. For those who don't know what Flickr is, it is a photo sharing service.

So far, I have uploaded the pictures I took today at the Kakeyo festival. If you want to look at these photos, either follow the link above or click on my flickr icon to the right.

Enjoy!

Codfish Festival!

Today is the annual Kakeyo Matsuri (hanging fish festival), otherwise known as the Tara Matsuri (cod festival). So I toddled on down to the shrine to have a look-see. (Follow the link above to see an explanation of the festival).

A lot of snow fell over night, so it was not an easy walk, but I got there eventually. I took a lot of pictures at Seishi Park, and a LOT of pictures in the shrine grounds. All the snow that had fallen had made the shrine look like something out of a fairytale. I spent quite a while trying to take arty pictures, playing around with the filters and such.

The sun came out for a few minutes while I was leaving the festival, but then half way home it started to snow very heavily. Blizzard conditions yet again. I can easily believe that this is the worst winter in this area for 83 years.

I could barely see where I was going, but I had to go to the supermarket because I had RUN OUT OF SOY SAUCE!

Recent holiday to the British Isles, Part 1

On the morning of 22nd December, 2005, I went to work. But I only worked a half day. After lunch I went home, turned off my water, and then laboriously hauled my bag through the snow to the train station (falling into a snow drift along the way). I caught the train to Sakata City in Yamagata Ken in hopes of catching a plane from Shonai Airport down to Tokyo so I could catch my international flight the next morning.

Although the weather on the morning of the 22nd had been good, during the afternoon the weather started to get worse. My southward-bound train was delayed at some random station for fifteen minutes. But I got to Sakata station in plenty of time to catch the airport limousine bus, so I stopped worrying.

It started snowing while I was on my way to the airport. When I got there, the desk clerk told me my flight may be cancelled, they didn't know for sure yet. Bad weather in Haneda meant that the plane I was supposed to board had not yet left Tokyo. So I started worrying again.

But then the plane left Tokyo, so I was allowed to check in, and I stopped worrying again.

But as I was sitting at the gate, the weather got steadily worse and I started worrying again. My instinct was proved good when the plane went back to Tokyo and my flight was cancelled.

I got a refund for my ticket, and heard from the desk clerk that there was still one way out of Yamagata to Tokyo. I would have to take the bus back to Sakata Station, then catch a local train to Shinjo. The Yamagata Shinkansen line has recently been extended to Shinjo, so I would be able to get to Tokyo that way.

By this stage, there was a blizzard blowing outside, so the bus ride back to Sakata was more than a little scary. There were all these BUMP noises, as if we were hitting people, but it was probably just mounds of snow.

A couple of kind Tokyo Salarymen helped me buy a transfer ticket to Tokyo, and then I got on the train in what I thought was the nick of time. And then I waited. And waited. . . . The train finally left 25 minutes later. But there was supposed to be a 45 minute wait for the shinkansen in Shinjo, so I was not worrying too much.

But then half way to Shinjo, the snow got to be about 1 metre deep. We had to wait 15 minutes for a train going the other way to pass. So I started worrying again.

When I finally got to Shinjo, there was only a few minutes until the last shinkansen of the day left. It started moving before I had found my seat.

About a third of the way to Tokyo, the shinkansen stopped. The over-a-metre-of-snow had fallen off a platform in front of a local train, and we had to wait for that train to be dug out before we could move. Between there and Fukushima(?) the shinkansen moved slowly.

When I finally got to Tokyo Station, it was after midnight. All public transport to Narita (where my hotel booking was) had stopped. So I caught the 12.35am train to Chiba and then went looking for the taxi stand.

It seems that taxis from Chiba are popular at that time of the morning, because the taxi queue was over 200 metres long! I had to wait an hour for a taxi.

My taxi driver was a kindly old man. We chatted in Japanese on the way. We had some trouble getting into the airport grounds (because it was closed). The boot of the taxi had to be checked. But finally, at three in the morning (after a 14,000 yen taxi ride and a 14 hour journey) I got to my hotel. And had the pleasure of sleeping for 2 1/2 hours before getting up again and heading to the terminal to check in for my flight to Charles De Gaulle.

To add insult to injury, the weather on the morning of the 23rd was glorious, warm and sunny.


Next time on Randomness, by Togiren: Flights and Airports

(My apologies for all the Japan-centric terms. If there is anything that really does not make sense, leave a comment and I will post a better explanation)

Hajimemashite!

You can call me Togiren. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!
I finally got around to making a blog. I have only been meaning to making one since I moved to Japan over a year and a half ago.

Some things I am hoping to discuss on this blog:

• Life for a foreigner in Japan.
• My varied and wide-ranging interests.
• My hobbies and ever-accumulating projects (follow the link in my links section to my DeviantART account for an example).
• My writing.
• Anything else I feel like writing.

So as you can see, this blog has no specific point or topic, hence the title.

But before I write on any of these topics, I ought to write about my recent holiday to the UK and Ireland so that I can send the link for this page to my family and friends. I have been lazy about keeping up correspondances recently. . .

So please bear with me for a few posts until I have dealt with my responsibilities.