Sara's birthday - and matcha!

A couple of weeks ago it was my friend Sara's birthday - to celebrate we went to a Mexican restaurant in Motoyawata called the Crazy Cactus. I didn't realise how much I was craving Mexican food until I nearly passed out from excitement at the mere mention of tacos. So anyway, I had a great time, found out that strawberry pina colada's are the best drink in recorded history and satisfied my Mexican craving.

Here are some photos from the night, thanks to Sara!

Stevo, Carrie, the birthday girl Sara and Sherman

Me with Carrie and Sara - aren't we all cute?

The reason I look so ummm, "special" in this photo is because Stevo decided to tickle me just as the photo was taken.

Again with the tickling

I'm not really what we were raising our fists to here... Whatever it was we look happy...

Also, I've had an exciting week as far as tea is concerned - yesterday I found out that the foreign food store at Nishi-Funabashi station sells chai tea (you have no idea how much I've been craving chai), and last week I bought matcha. Here is matcha:

"mmm yum" i hear you all say! Well yes, it is very nice. Kinda tastes like grass, kinda creamy, all delicious!! Haven't tried slurping it through a Tim Tam yet (which I also found in the last week), but the Japanese put matcha in everything! You can buy matcha ice cream, matcha cakes, matcha doughnuts, matcha iPods (okay, maybe not, but I'm sure it's not too far away).

Tori Amos - Big Wheel video

hahahaha this is the video for Tori's new song "Big Wheel" and it's freakin' hilarious! Yeah, it's cheap and cheesy, but it's ridiculously funny, and why spend a lot of money on a video that'll get played once or twice on Video Hits and then forgotten? Good to see Tori's capable of making fun of herself :P Love it!

Oh and thanks James for uploading the video to youtube!

Tori's back... and hot...

Well aren't you lucky? Two blog entries in one day...

This one is just because Tori is hot. This is the cover of Tori's new single, and damn she looks amazing. One of the lines in the song is "I am an M I L F don't you forget" and well I'm inclined to believe her after seeing this photo. hahaha yeah, the song lyric is ridiculous, but the song is so much fun, and well.. she's not really lying... look at the picture. Not bad for a 43 year old, no?



I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of American Doll Posse from a friend (the album isn't released until April 27th and it hasn't been leaked yet - all advance copies given to promotions people etc have been watermarked so if it leaks onto the web they'll be able to trace where it came from and somebody'll lose their job, so as yet not many people have heard it - I was VERY lucky), and after successfully resisting temptation for about a week, I gave in and listened... and DAMN! This album is incredible, Tori has NEVER done anything like this before - the closest she's come is She's Your Cocaine on Choirgirl, she's brought guitars right to the front, and sometimes the piano serves only as a backing instrument. After the adult contemporary-ness of the last album it's such a relief to hear Tori back and rocking. Of course, not all the songs are full on rock - Girl Disappearing has the most beautiful strings, and Programmable Soda features both strings and brass (so wonderful to hear brass in a Tori song again).

Digital Ghost sounds very Pink Floydish, Father's Son reminds me a bit of The Doors' Riders on the Storm (and has amazing lyrics), while Body and Soul sounds a bit Goldfrappish, but in a dark 70's kinda way. Mr Bad Man sounds like the theme song from a 70's TV show, and is just so kitsch, I love it!

There are some songs that I don't really like - I can't stand Secret Spell, it sounds like generic country-rock, likewise Roosterspur Bridge. Code Red sounds far too much like Evanescence, while the chorus of Dark Side of the Sun makes me cringe (funnily enough it's Tori at her most literal - perhaps I just like my Tori lyrically obscure?). But disliking only 4 songs from the 20 (out of 23 - its a HUGE album) is a pretty good statistic!

You can listen to Big Wheel, Bouncing off Clouds and Yo George on her website.

So anyway, before I left Aus, I knew there was a chance Tori would be touring Aus sometime this year, but thought "no, I should save my money, I've seen her before, it'll just be the same". However after hearing this album, I know there is no way in hell I'm missing her. She confirmed she'll be touring Aus in September with the band, so to my friends back in Aus - looks like I'll be seeing you for a week or so in September. I'll prob not be able to stay in the country for more than 2 weeks, but I'll work visits around the concerts hehe.

In conclusion,

Oh and also, Dad, you'll be happy to hear that the rock in the new album has got me listening to The Doors a lot.

Listening to: Tori - American Doll Posse, and The Doors - Greatest Hits

Night at the izakaya

I realised I never ended up posting photos from the Welcome party we had in March at the Izakaya in Nishi-Funabashi, so here they are.

Carrie taking a photo of me taking a photo of her taking a photo of me taking a photo of her taking a photo of me taking a photo of her taking a photo of *head explodes*

Food!!! Many photo pics in this post.

Steven (NZ), Carrie (Aus) and Stevo (UK)
Sara (US), Dan (UK) and Nobu
More food - that white and purple stuff in the bottom right is octopus... I tried some, very chewy.
Me trying sake (warm) with Arno, our branch trainer
plate dj

The lovely Sara!

Cheryl being a dork :)

Cheryl (US), Matt (UK) and Arno (Canada)

Mayu and Naomi - the Japanese staff at our branch.

Nobu assuming some sort of pose - for some reason it's named "train man"

Soba noodles - they're served to you cold, and you dip them in a special soy-like sauce

dumplings of various types

Stevo covering "Jack" and "Kyle"

chicken salad

Carrie and Nobu
Stevo, Mayu, Naomi and Sherman
Nobu mid-soba noodle

Stevo and Arno - thinking "what would make this night unforgettable?"

Maybe they thought too hard about it.

Osaka and Kobe

Some photos from my trip to Osaka and Kobe (finally):

Okonomiyaki in various stages of cooking - basically you sit at your table, which has a huge hotplate in the middle, and they come and make your okonomiyak while you wait.



Doesn't it look delicious?


When it's finally cooked you smear a type of BBQ sauce, mustard and mayonnaise over it - delicious!! Although it was tough getting through all of it, espec when it comes with rice and miso soup as well.



The Umeda Sky Building - it looks like it's still in the middle of construction, but those two crane-looking things up the top are actually the escalators to the observation deck.

The view from the Sky Building - lots of city
Osaka is famous for it's bridges - and well, there are a lot of them.

Looking down from the Sky Building

Osaka Castle

A time capsule in front of Osaka Castle, consisting of two sections. The first section is supposed to be opened every 100 years from when it was buried. The lower section is supposed to be opened in 6970, 5000 years from when it was buried.


Kevin with some people from his work (I'm sorry Kevin - I have a terrible memory and can't remember their names!! But thanks for meeting up with me, it was a great night!)



Walking around Osaka on the Tuesday I found what appear's to be Ayla's restaurant

Osaka's version of the Eiffel Tower

Me at the Osaka Aquarium - their big attraction is a whale shark (and a whale shark replica as you can see below).
Not sure why the penguins turned out green, to be honest... very odd
A ridiculously cute baby seal (sea-lion?) that was staring at people through the glass at the bottom of the tank
Some very disturbing Japanese spider crabs
Beaker getting up close and personal with one


Thunderbirds are go! The Yamato 1 - a superconducting electromagnetic propulsion boat.


In Kobe:
This statue and clock toppled over when the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck in 1995, breaking the clock. The clock has thus stayed at 5:45 ever since (this confused me, since it was around 5:30pm when I visited it).
A section of the pier that has been left in it's damaged state since 1995



Finally a very crappy photo of Mt Fuji (or Fuji-san) as we were going past it on the shinkansen, very hard to see as it was a very hazy day.
So that was my holiday! I have many more photos, but well, in an effort to not bore you I won't post them :) cause some of them bore me :P

I liked Osaka, and really liked Kobe (despite only spending a day there), but I'm very happy I was put in Tokyo. I didn't make it out to Kyoto, as it was stressing me out trying to work out what to see in one day - plus the day I was supposed to go I woke up with a cold (that I'd thought was almost gone, but instead was just preparing the troops for the final onslaught) and it was raining and just plain bleghy outside - not good conditions to be walking around temples and shrines in. So instead I walked around Osaka some more, and ended up finding a bag, some shoes (for half the price I'd seen them for the week before) and a heap of second hand cds, including the Japanese version of From the Choirgirl Hotel with bonus track Purple People! So the day ended up splendidly.

While I was away a English woman teaching for NOVA was found murdered in Gyotoku - the suburb next to mine. You can read about it here and here. Turns out that I'd been to a gig with her a couple of weeks before, as she worked with a friend of ours, but I'd never met her. It's very sad and disturbing, for obvious reasons, but I think it made a lot of foreigners realise that just because it is very safe here (there is no denying that, I feel a lot safer here, even compared to back home), doesn't mean you can completely let your guard down. Anyway, the police still haven't caught the guy yet, but a few people have said they think he'll turn up dead, having committed suicide.

oh yeah, and finally; it's news like this that makes me happy I'm out of Australia for Howard's last term.


Listening to: Tori Amos - American Doll Posse and Madonna - Ray of Light (don't laugh - it's actually really good)