The Magic Position

Well a few people have commented on my lack of posting over the last week, and well, to be honest, it's because I haven't really done anything interesting... well, I have, but nothing that's really been deserving of a complete post. So here's a brief recap of my week.

On Friday I met up with a new friend Yuichi in Shinjuku - he lived in Brisbane for about 6 years, and then moved back to Tokyo last year. He showed me around the gay clubbing area of Shinjuku and then we had a coffee, before I had to get back to Nishi-Funabashi for work.
Anyway, here are some photos I managed to take in Shinjuku on my phone (hence the craptacular quality)

The NTT building - it really intrigued me, just rising out of the middle of nowwhere like that

The NTT building again - I told you it really intrigued me

People waiting in line to buy Krispy Kreme doughnuts - it apparently takes about an hour to buy these doughnuts, so people come out carrying cartons of them. This was only half the line, there were people waiting around the corner to get into this line

A ummm... strawberry sandwich?? lol it looked interesting, and I saw it at the "kyu kyu", or 99Yen store, where surprisingly, nearly everything costs 104Yen (the 99Y is before sales tax, so really I think it should be called "the 99Y before GST store" but they can't make an annoyingly catch song out of that), and so I thought "why not?"

This is why not... I have no idea what the white stuff is, I can only assume fake cream...

Anyway, that night after work I was bored, so went into Shinjuku for dancing with Yuichi and his friends. The funny thing though - once you get in, you either come home on the last train, which for me would've been around 11:30pm, or you stay out till the first train, which for me leaves around 4:30am. Taxi's are ridiculously expensive, so you pretty much have to stay in town all night or come home before the night's even begun. So I left home around 11pm, knowing that I had to stay in Shinjuku, as pretty much once I got on the train there was no way for me to get back home (without spending my entire savings on a taxi :P).
I had a great time, and the best thing about the club we went to was that there was no entry fee - you simply had to buy one drink, which ended up being the only alcoholic drink i had all night! Just enough for my to get my dancin' boots on, and I was set!

Around 4am we went to McDonalds for breakfast, then i caught my train home, stepped in the door at around 5:45am, and slept, ready to wake up, get ready and be at work by 1:20pm... exhausting - but i had a great night and made some new friends.

The rest of my week was pretty uneventful. I picked up my coat from dry cleaning on Monday night, wore it for the first time to work today and then spilled my dinner on it tonight.. doh! No one else in the restaurant seemed to notice, I'm not sure whether it's because they really didn't notice, or because they were trying to keep from laughing at the silly foreigner who literally couldn't handle his food...

One of my students sounds like the Scottish character from Little Britain - "a-yeeeehhhssss".

In Voice the other night, there was only one student, an editor of a maths textbook, so he got me to explain my Honours thesis on the whiteboard - it felt soo good doing some maths again, and I pretty much had to do it all from memory. Surprising how much I was able to work out on the spot....

Oh yeah, I got sick on Monday night, so spend the first day of my weekend (Tuesday) at home with a cold, but i was actually lucky i got sick on my weekend, as I don't get paid for sick days. I'm actually quite surprised it took me this long to get sick! All of the other instructors in my branch have been sick, as well as my students, but it took me a while to catch it.

Tomorrow night is Cheryl's birthday, so I think everyone from my branch is going out for Thai food in Ginza, followed by karaoke and dancing... Tonight while teaching I was starting to lose my voice, so hopefully by the time karaoke comes around my voice will be completely gone :P Although that doesn't really help with the English CONVERSATION teaching.

Yesterday, I needed to get out of the house, and met up with another new friend Aung in Shibuya, where I bought two albums - Cut Copy's Bright Like Neon Love and
my current obsession, Patrick Wolf's The Magic Position.

Yeah, he looks a bit like a crazy homicidal clown - but his music is incredible, I listened to this album last night and for most of the album I had to actually stop what I was doing just to absorb the music. At times he reminds me of both Bjork and Kate Bush, because of his songwriting style, but more so because of his use of instrumentation - at various times in this album he plays

• a viola;
• two Bosendorfer grand pianos;
• synths;
• baritone and soprano ukuleles;
• dulcimers;
• a clavichord;
• a clavinet;
• a therimen;
• harmonium;
• autoharp;
• gongs just to name a few;

as well as the audio and electronic programming! Also featured are a string quartet, clarinets, a cello, trombone, vibraphones and glockenspiels, and Marianne Faithfull providing guest vocals on one song! One track also features the sound of fireworks, anther starts off with what sounds like an alarm clock going off (beep beep beep beep beep) and one song The Stars sounds like Bjork at her Vespertine-ish best, managing to sonically capture a beautifully starry night sky (so I can listen to this when I'm missing the clear night's skies of Aus?)

So I'm currently floating in a state of sonic bliss, in my own little world of sounds rushing from one headphone to another through my head, amazed at the power music can have over me, that it can leave me feeling numb, floored, grinning like an idiot for hours, and feeling wonderously happy that music like this is still being made.

Currently listening: Patrick Wolf - Overture