Tyrone In Tokyo

New beginnings...

2008-11-11T09:26:00.003+09:00

Thanks for reading for the last 2 years. As I'm no longer in Tokyo (sob!) I've now moved to TYBLOGISAGOODBLOG. Hope to see you there!

Sayonara. Ganbatte kudasai.

2008-07-26T01:01:00.004+09:00

Why do we do this? Why do we settle down, make friends, learn the local customs, language, make a home, only to uproot ourselves months later? It's horribly painful, and yet we go into these things knowing exactly what is (eventually) to come. Madness.

Tomorrow (well, today) marks the end of Tyrone's adventures in Tokyo. Weather permitting, I will see the Sumidagawa 花火 (fireworks) with some friends, before boarding a night bus bound for 京都 (Kyoto), arriving sometime in the early morning. Last Friday was my last day as a junior high school ALT, and this week has been spent madly packing during the day, and saying sayonara to my Japanese friends at night. Tonight was spent by the Edogawa （江戸川） in Myoden（妙典 - my home for the last year), having quiet drinks with my fellow gaijin and setting off slightly less quiet fireworks, with minimal casualties (one or two singed thumbs is all!).

Sunday will be spent trying to stay cool in Kyoto - I believe Aaron has a takoyaki party in planning. On Monday I will be going to Takamatsu, in Shikoku, the only one of the 4 main islands of Japan I've still to visit. I'll return to Kyoto on Tuesday night, spending one final day on Wednesday in Kyoto, before boarding my Brisbane-bound flight on Wednesday night from Kansai International Airport.

Leaving this country is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. There's so so much I'm going to miss about Japan - the wonderful people I've met (the Japanese can sometimes appear to be cold/distant at first, but once you get to know them are the warmest, most generous, considerate people), the food (sushi, sukiyaki, katsudon, mochi!!!), the train system (!). I'm going to miss speaking Japanese - people back home,I'm warning you now: expect to hear a lot of "nani", "ne", "a-re", "honto", "hai" "he, sugoi", "daijoubu". I see these and other mannerisms as being like temporary tattoos Japan has left on me, and I am going to hold onto them as long as possible! (Since I know these won't stay with me forever, I'm planning on getting a more permanent reminder in the form of a real tattoo - any Japanese design ideas are welcome.) I'm going to miss writing Japanese, and seeing Japanese writing everywhere. I'm going to miss riding through the streets of Myoden, cycling along the Edogawa to my local swimming pool, even in the middle of winter, with 4 layers and a neck-warmer and gloves on, singing along to Arcade Fire on my iPod, not caring who hears me. Watching as my friends who visit me fall in love with the country too - sometimes for the same reasons as I, or their own.

It's hard to believe it's been 18 months. I've managed to accomplish a tremendous amount in that time, and although not everything went according to plan, I don't regret a single part of my time here. Without things occurring the way they did, I would not have met the wonderful people I've met, or experienced the things I've experienced. I've been quite busy these last few months, and so maybe haven't blogged as often as I should. I've so many adventures that I've never posted about - perhaps once I get back to Australia I'll have more time to write about them. I'll be keeping this blog running - with perhaps a name change in the works.

And so now I must once again step into the unknown. It's scary, I'm really quite terrified about taking this next step, but at the same time I know that it's what I must do. My time in Japan was ultimately intended to give me travel experience, increase my confidence, and in this aspect it has well and truly succeeded. I feel capable of landing at any airport in the world and finding my way around now.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy my last few days in this very special country. One more day in Tokyo, a few more days of sightseeing, then it's on to my next adventure.

行きましょう！

Thank you...

2008-07-23T00:28:00.006+09:00

... Catherine Deveny, for a fantastic article.

These paragraphs in particular sums up EXACTLY how I've felt since April.

It's been a revelation to me a year since my "epiphany". I feel as if I'm walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never having lived.

I don't care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don't even know they're there.

A night at the movies

2008-07-13T22:16:00.002+09:00

I went to see a movie at the Tokyo International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival tonight. The movie I saw, A Jihad for Love, is a documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims living in countries like Egypt, Iran, India, South Africa and Turkey. Many of those interviewed have fled their home countries for places like Canada, France etc, because of persecution they have suffered or fear they will suffer at home. It was, at times, distressing to watch, not only due to the physical suffering they've been through, but also the mental anguish they go through, trying to reconcile their faith with their sexuality. Very sad and frustrating to see so much pain caused by so much ridiculousness.

After the film I got to speak to the director, and asked him how the film has been received in Muslim countries. He said that it's been shown in two Muslim countries so far, Turkey and another (I can't remember), and so far the reception have been very positive - so that's very encouraging. I doubt however it would ever be shown in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia, where it most needs to be seen.

Also, in the Q&A after the film, a Japanese guy said that most Japanese people have a hard time understanding why (in this case) gay/lesbian Muslims have this problem with their faith, because "you are a human first and a Muslim second". Why does this faith take precedence over how you are born? The director (himself a gay muslim) said that Islam is a very difficult religion to escape from, as it is a very social religion - your family life is built around the religion, everything you do involves the religion, so if you take it away what's left?

Check out his blog for more, including emails he's had from gay and lesbian Muslims around the world.

All in all a very interesting night. Also it was my first movie I've seen at the cinemas in Japan. The festival continues next weekend, so hopefully I'll see a couple more movies next week.

Last days at Makuhari Nishi

2008-06-02T21:13:00.002+09:00

Last week was my final week at 幕張西中学校 (Makuhari Nishi JHS). I was there for 7 weeks, however unfortunately my contract requires me to work at another school for the next 7 weeks. It's terrible, because just once I was starting to get to know the students well, was working so well with the teachers etc, I now have to start all over again at a new school But oh well, that's how life works, I guess. You get to know people and eventually have to say goodbye to them.

On my second last day (Thursday) I had lunch with my favourite class 1B. The students eat lunch in their classroom, and are served lunch by their classmates, as you can (kinda) see in this picture. The kids in the lab coats are those serving that day, a different group of kids serves each day.

I had to take a photo of the boy in the front wearing glasses in this shot because he's so tiny, the hat he's wearing almost completely covers his head (although you can't really see it here). Also, the boy on the left (Agashi) has his mouth wide open and eyes closed in almost every picture I took the other day! The boy on the far right, Tsubasa, is so friendly, on one of my first days at the school he ran up to me as I was walking into the school in the morning just to say hello. Every time he would see me around the school he would say hello with a big grin on his face, and ask how I was.
The students eat at their desks in small groups. The menu on Thursday was soup, fish (see the fish head sticking out of Agashi's mouth?), a bread roll and tinned fruit, along with milk with is included everyday. I eat the same lunch as the students - it's very cheap, and means I get to eat Japanese food everyday! This is the table I sat at - the boy at the back on the right is Kengo, he's one of those students you just know is going to grow up as a leader. He's very intelligent, and stayed in Australia for 2 weeks when he was in 6th grade as part of an exchange program.

I sat with this table last time I ate with 1B. The first year students, although they are only just beginning to learn English, are really not scared to try to speak to me in the little English they know. When they get stuck I try to speak to them in Japanese - so it's good practice for both of us!

See? In the next photo Agashi has his mouth wide open again. Takayuki, the boy directly behind me, is extremely confident, which also means he is the loudest boy in class, and sometimes gets in trouble for this. But the first time I ate with 1B I sat with his group. Lunch that day included natto, which is a bit like Vegemite in that it is an acquired taste, and liked mostly by the occupants of a single region (in this case the Kanto are of Japan). Many Japanese have it on rice for breakfast, the same way we eat Vegemite on toast. I think it's pretty foul, and so gave my packet of natto to Shishido-kun (Shishido is his last name - boys are referred to in class as [last name]-kun, whereas girls are referred to as [last name]-chan or [last name]-san). Almost everyone else at the table also gave their natto to Shishido-kun, and so he ended up with a huge pile of smelly natto on his rice, which he ate with great relish (and also some difficulty, as strings from the natto kept going everywhere.

Shishido-kun tried to take a photo of me with Kunigami-sensei (possibly the cheeriest teacher I've ever met), while also trying to appear in the shot at the same time. Didn't quite work.

After lunch I got some photos from other classes. These students are from 1A.

On the right: Miki and Rika from 1A. On Friday Miki brought me the most adorable letter, written all in English.

Ayaka and Ayaka from 1C. Ayaka (on the right) played me a song she liked after she asked me what the song title meant - it was called Gimmick Game, so I had to first of all try to explain what a "gimmick" is. This had to go through Nakamura-sensei, who explained in Japanese. Then I had to figure out what "Gimmick Game" means - I don't think it means anything. To try to get a better idea I asked if she had the lyrics - it turns out the whole song is in Japanese anyway :P So I just explained that it was bad English. To thank her for playing the song for me I made a CD of some of my favourite music for both of them. (You do know how I love to share my love of music!)
Eriko (1E) and Emiko (1D) in the back, I'm not sure who that is in the front.
Murakami-kun (Shoutarou - pronounced Shoh-ta-roh, I can't get the accent code to work properly) (second from the right) from 1C is another very confident boy with such a personality, and very friendly - to me at least! The first time I ate with 1C, he lost the game of janken (Japanese paper-scissors-rock - they use this to decide everything, seriously) that decided who I sat with, and so I was sitting with Akira's group (Akira is the boy on the left in the photo below), on the other side of the room. About three or four times during lunch Shoutarou stood up and waved to me with a big smile. He's a bit cheeky to Miss Nakamura though - if I'm not in class and it's just her teaching, he says to her "oh it's just you today?".

The boy in the middle (Yoshiki) has to be the most adorable student I've ever taught - he's so tiny, is always smiling and has such a spark in his eyes.

Shoichirou from 1B and Fujii-kun from 2C. The first time I met Shoichirou he told me his favourite food was poison gyoza (there was a poison gyoza scandal in Japan, involving gyoza imported from China), so I always remember him as "poison gyoza", which he's happy about.

Shoichirou takes a self-shot.

Poison Gyoza on the drums.

Later that afternoon after cleaning time (every day for around 15 minutes the students clean the school, I help as well) 1B called me up to their classroom, and I found they'd decorated the board and were waiting to take a huge group photo with me! On the board they've written some of the lyrics from the song Sing by the Carpenters, as they sing it at the start of every English lesson (as I mentioned in this post). The line is "Don't worry that it's not good enough", the most difficult part of the song, but the part they sing the loudest.

When I got home on Thursday night and was looking through the photos on my computer (I also printed most of them out and took them in to school as a present the next day), I already started to miss them, and I hadn't even had my last day there yet!
So Friday was my last day, however I had no lessons as the students had tests all day. In the afternoon after their tests, I had to give my farewell speech over the school broadcast system (It was videoed, and the students watched on the TVs in their classrooms - scary!). I was able to give my speech in English and (with the help of Mrs Matsunaga, the very friendly school librarian, who lived in the US for three years) Japanese, stumbling only once or twice in the Japanese. A third year student then read out a speech in English, and presented me with some flowers (this photo was obviously taken at home).

That afternoon, after the exams were finished, I was called up to 1B one last time. When I got there, they sang Sing for me one last time. I couldn't have stopped smiling if I'd wanted to.

Afterwards, Shishido-kun presented me with a card with a picture of the decorated blackboard on one side, and one of the group photos from the previous day (taken by Kunigami-sensei) surrounded by messages from the students on the other side. Afterwards, I presented him with a certificate proclaiming him "Best Singer", because his is the only voice you can actually pick out when the class sings!

That night I went out for drinks and dinner with many of the teachers from Makuhari Nishi. Most of them I'd never really spoken to, as 1) my Japanese isn't that great, 2) their English isn't that great (except for the English teachers), and mainly 3) we'd never really had the opportunity to talk. I was a bit worried when I found out the two main English teachers I worked with everyday and was quite friendly with weren't able to attend dinner, but I couldn't really NOT go as the drinks were to celebrate my last day. Well, I'm so glad I went - not only did I get to know some of the teachers a bit better, it was also an interesting look at Japanese social interactions, especially between coworkers, despite the fact it was officially outside work. Also, I was the only non-Japanese there (the first time I've been in a social situation like that!), so my Japanese got quite a workout! The 3rd year English teacher was sitting at my table, so I was able to go through him when I really got stuck, but I didn't want to ruin his night by using him as a translator all night, so used him only as a very last resort (and in fact when possible I spoke to him in Japanese as well). Anyway, I had some really great conversations with some of the teachers (a few of them my age), and have organised to go have ramen at some time in the future with them. The whole night just reinforced my love for this country and its people.

Thus marked my last day at Makuhari Nishi JHS. While I was only at the school for 7 weeks, leaving was tremendously difficult, and everytime I hear the Carpenters I'll be fondly reminded of the little class of first years I taught at a little school in Japan.

Freud on Religion

2008-05-27T23:07:00.004+09:00

From The Future of an Illusion (published in 1927), in which he applies psychoanalysis (the method of psychology he pioneered) to the origins and development of religions. The following are some passages I found interesting. (Emphasis mine.)
[edit: Just for reference - This is actually my own extraction from a larger extraction which appears in Christopher Hitchens' book The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of writings on religion, science, morality and belief from atheists, agnostics and even some theists from the last 2000 years. As the book is arranged chronologically, this essay appears earlier in the book than more recent writings, obviously, thus this is was one of the first essays I've summarized for my own reference. The essays in the rest of the book make excellent points also, and are more recent, however I haven't summarized them for myself yet. Once I do I will try to blog some of the more relevant points of those also. In the meantime, I posted this selection as I thought it made very valid points, regardless of when it was written.]

We turn our attention to the psychical origin of religious ideas. These which are given out as teachings are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lie in the strength of these wishes. As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection - for protection through love - which was provided by the father [Keep in mind this was published in 1927.]; and the recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one. Thus the benevolent rule of a Divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life; the establishment of a moral world-order ensures the fulfillment of the demands of justice, which have so often remained unfulfilled in human civilization; and the prolongation of earthly existence in a future life provides the local and temporal framework in which these wish-fulfillments shall take place. Answers to the riddles that tempt the curiosity of man, such as how the universe began or what the relation is between body and mind, are developed in conformity with the underlying assumptions of this system.
.....

[What is an illusion?]
An illusion is not the same thing as an error, nor is it necessarily an error. [As an example he states that Aristotle's belief that vermin are developed out of dung was an error, whereas Columbus's belief that he had discovered a new sea-route to the Indies is an illusion.] What is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes. [He also makes the distinction that these are similar to psychiatric delusions, but differ in that delusions are necessarily in contradiction with reality.] Illusions need not necessarily be false - that is to say unrealizable or in contradiction to reality. We call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relation to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification. [I.e. calling a belief an illusion makes no judgment on whether or not it is true; it is simply stating that it is primarily motivated by the fulfillment of human desires.]
.....

Let us return to the question of religious doctrines. We can now repeat that all of them are illusions and insusceptible of proof. No one can be compelled to think them true, to believe in them. Some of them are so improbable, so incompatible with everything we have laboriously discovered about the reality of the world, that we may compare them to delusions. Of the reality value of most of them we cannot judge; just as they cannot be proved, so they cannot be refuted. We still know too little to make a critical approach to them. [Once again, remember: 1927. I'm not saying we know everything now; just that we are a lot more knowledgeable about the state of the universe, evolution etc than those of the 1920's.] The riddles of the universe reveal themselves only slowly to our investigation; there are many questions to which science today can give no answer. But scientific work is the only road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves. It is once again merely an illusion to expect anything from intuition and introspection; they can give us nothing but particulars about our own mental life, which are hard to interpret, never any information about the questions which religious doctrine finds it so easy to answer.
.....

At this point one must expect to meet an objection. "Well then, if even obdurate skeptics admit that the assertions of religion cannot be refuted by reason, why should I not believe in them, since they have so much on their side - tradition, the agreement of mankind, and all the consolations they offer?" Why not, indeed? Just as no one can be forced to believe, so no one can be forced to disbelieve. But do not let us be satisfied with deceiving ourselves that arguments like these take us along the road to correct thinking. Ignorance is ignorance; no right to believe can be derived from it. In other matters no sensible person will behave so irresponsibly or rest content with such feeble grounds for his opinions and for the line he takes. It is only in the highest and most sacred things that he allows himself to do so.
.....

We have recognized [religious doctrines] as being, in their psychological nature, illusions. This discovery also strongly influences our attitude to the question which must appear to many to be the most important of all [i.e. are they true]. We know approximately at what periods and by what kind of men religious doctrines were created. If in addition we discover the motives which led to this, our attitudes to the problem of religion will undergo a marked displacement. We shall tell ourselves that it would be a very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an afterlife; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. And it would be more remarkable still if our wretched, ignorant and downtrodden ancestors had succeeded in solving all these difficult riddles of the universe.

Random images from around town

2008-05-26T21:20:00.004+09:00

I went to the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art on the weekend, this was a neat installation called Reflection (view from above):

And the view from between floors:

Walking back to the train station, I passed a little patch of flowers, from the bridge where I was standing it looked like a painting, and the photo came out the way I wanted it to:

This is my last week at my current school, Makuhari Nishi JHS. I'm really sad to be leaving them, especially my favourite class 1B. Here is a video of 1B singing Sing by The Carpenters. The first attempt was aborted due to their even-more-so-than-usual extra-genkiness.

On the second attempt they were their usual extra genki selves.

Aren't they adorable? I'm going to miss this school :(

Some images from the Makuhari skyline. Every day I pass something I would only expect to see in this country. A love hotel in the shape of a UFO, with a castle-shaped love hotel in the background.

Currently reading: The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong - a history of fundamentalism in religion.
Currently listening to: lots of Björk.

The Beauty of Björk

2008-05-25T22:28:00.004+09:00

Many people dismiss Björk because she's weird. Well, yes, she is, her music certainly isn't like anyone else's out there. But she's also produced some of the most beautiful music I know of. Here are four of my favourite Björk songs.

Pagan Poetry - impossibly beautiful, with a filmclip that was banned on MTV.

New World - the uplifting final song in the terribly depressing but brilliant movie Dancer in the Dark. A bit more accessible - she even uses rhyming lyrics here! (No official video released, this is a fan-made one.)

All Is Full of Love - groundbreaking video for a stunning song.

Verandi - could be the soundtrack to a Bollywood 50's sci-fi film. Wait for the breakdown around 2:10. (No actual filmclip, just the audio.)

MooMoo in Japan

2008-05-20T22:07:00.004+09:00

My friend Moo visited me in mid-March - she was my 4th visitor in the space of an exhausting 2 months. Given I hadn't seen Moo (or anyone from my much-missed Tori group) in over a year I was tremendously excited in the weeks preceding her visit!

Her first meal in Japan - Moo had some difficulty with her chopsticks...

... but still enjoyed her meal. Especially gyoza.
Moo's first day in Tokyo - and we were lucky to happen upon a Shinto wedding at the Meiji Shrine.

The place I was most looking forward to taking Moo was Harajuku - I knew she'd go nuts walking down Takeshita-dori.
One of the few Japanese words I taught Moo the night before (when she arrived) was かわいい (kawaii), which means "cute". As anyone who has been to Japan can attest, it has to be one of the most spoken words in Japanese culture (hey look! It even has it's own wikipedia entry!) - you hear it EVERYWHERE. Everything is described as "kawaii", because, well, nearly everything in Japan IS kawaii. And sure enough, while Moo was purchasing a dress at a small boutique in Takeshita-dori, the store clerk pointed to Moo and said "kawaii" and "dooru"' (ie she was saying Moo looked like a doll). Moo, while flattered, was quite taken aback, especially considering the store clerk herself was about 5 ft nothing and looked even more like a doll (including her clothes). See? Kawaii, ne.
Moo prizes her long-desired crepe in Harajuku.

On the evening of the second night of Moo's visit, we went to a monthly dance party called Hard to Explain. Moo quickly realised that living in Japan does have its annoyances (taking off shoes inside the door)...

... but also its benefits (alcohol vending machines).
In our favourite music t-shirts (mine: Patrick Wolf; Moo's: Blondie) we got our boogie on down to indie music I'd mostly never heard before but could still dance like a nutter to.

Well.. when you stand in front of the speakers...

Moo getting to know the locals. I think this photo was taken just before Moo jumped like a kangaroo across the dance floor - either to explain she was from Australia, or to scare him away, I can't remember. (This photo is actually quite innocent - just poorly timed and the depth is difficult to work out).

Another case of timing and difficult-to-determine depth. Moo wasn't REALLY slapping Annie - Annie is quite lovely (and from Brisbane!) - but it's an amusing shot ;)

At about 4am the fatigue set in, however the first trains don't start running till 6am, so we had to soldier on.

On Monday 17th of March Moo and I took a trip to Nikko. I'd visited Nikko once before, back in November, and loved it. It's one of my favourite places in Japan, offering amazingly beautiful scenery, spectacular temples, and is quite peaceful, with much fewer tourists than places like Kyoto. Plus, it is possible to visit on a day trip to Tokyo.

By this stage Moo was handling her chopsticks like a pro - I'm so proud of her :)

Some shots of Nikko:

Spot the Moo:

Moo in front of Shinkyo Bridge.

Just as my first trip to Nikko gave me my first glimpse of snow, so did Moo's. Isn't she kawaii?
On Tuesday 18th of March we went to Disneyland.
Moo really wanted to ride "It's a Small World". I, having gone on this ride back in December and knowing it to be equivalent to one of the circles of Hell (uh, let's say the fifth - that's got a boat, right?), was vehemently against this idea. However, I was bribed into it with the promise of going on the teacups next. And so it was that Moo and Tyrone boarded the boat across the river Sty- sorry, the boat through Fantasyland.
About halfway through, Moo realised how terrifyingly dull the ride was, and so tried to teleport out of the boat.

However, there is no escape from this diabolically designed ride (unless there's a fire, in which case you have to look for the bright green "Exit" signs - kinda spoils the fantasy), and thus her attempt to flee failed. She had no other option but to sit, grin and bear it. Look at the frenzied look in her eyes - like a caged animal!

As promised, we then rode the teacups. Moo doesn't handle motion well, but she stuck it out like a trooper.

This is Moo concentrating on her breathing.

This crazy bastard invited us to a tea party, made us repeatedly change positions around the table, and then stole my hat!

Unfortunately, we happened to go to Disneyland on a day which was in the student holidays, and so the park was incredibly busy. This meant that the lineup times for the popular rides was ridiculously long. It was also quite cold. Luckily we'd remembered our headphones.
I believe this picture was taken about halfway through our wait in line for Space Mountain.

This picture was taken a bit further along, as evidenced by the progression on our faces from boredom to misery.

In a bid to relieve our boredom Moo practiced her magic "disappearing fingers" act, and had trouble with the "reappearing fingers" part of the act.

Moo has a shocking experience in Toon Town.

Cartoon doors. Difficult.

For the record: this was my third visit to Disneyland in as many months. If I never see Mickey Mouse again I'll die a happy man.

Moo brought a special friend for Beaker. However, while Gumby was very kind and open to friendship, Beaker snubbed him with a look of startled nonchalance (is that possible?).
By the second last day, Moo had grown to love Japanese food so much, she was quite protective of her lunch.

Alas all holidays must come to an end. Here we are at the airport, thinking back on all the fun we'd had over the previous week...

And then realising it will be months till we see each other again, and then it won't be in Japan :(

Moo is probably the last visitor I will have had visit me by the time I leave Japan - and I'm happy to say that every visitor I've had has fallen in love with the country (I think). It is such a great way of renewing your love for the city you live in, when you show people around. It is very easy to get stuck in the same cycle of work-home-work-home, and so when friends or family visit, you of course show them the things you love, and in doing so remember just why you're living here (or why you enjoy living here). The few periods over the last 15 months in which I've been feeling frustrated with living here, for one reason or another, have ended because I've had people visit me, and I've seen them experience the things that have made me come to love this country so much - the food, the unique culture, the quirkiness, the (amazingly) efficient transport system (seriously!), and most importantly, the Japanese people. This country will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will definitely be returning at some (many?) time in the future. For the next two months I will be trying to see as much of Tokyo as I can.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my Poppa, Henry Richard Miles, who passed away on the 17th of March, 2008, aged 75.

An Atheist Manifesto - Part 4

2008-05-16T21:32:00.003+09:00

Part 4 (Religion as a Source of Violence) of Sam Harris' essay An Atheist Manifesto. I'm sure those who wanted to read it already have, but anyway, a quick look at a couple of sections:

In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree. Religion inspires violence in at least two senses: (1) People often kill other human beings because they believe that the creator of the universe wants them to do it (the inevitable psychopathic corollary being that the act will ensure them an eternity of happiness after death). Examples of this sort of behavior are practically innumerable, jihadist suicide bombing being the most prominent. (2) Larger numbers of people are inclined toward religious conflict simply because their religion constitutes the core of their moral identities. One of the enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of religion. Many religious conflicts that seem driven by terrestrial concerns, therefore, are religious in origin.
...
Why is religion such a potent source of human violence?
Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another. Every religion makes explicit claims about the way the world is, and the sheer profusion of these incompatible claims creates an enduring basis for conflict.
There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If a person really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be reasonable to kill them. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics.
Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is the only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and--all too often--what they will kill for.
...
When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; when we have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to the world and to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One’s convictions should be proportional to one’s evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn’t--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own.

An Atheist Manifesto - Part 3

2008-05-15T21:47:00.002+09:00

Part 3 (Faith and the Good Society) of Sam Harris' essay An Athiest Manifesto. This deals with the claim that a world without religion would also be free of morals. Read the full thing. Here are a few extracts:

People of faith regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Although it is true that the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion--delusions about race, economics, national identity, the march of history or the moral dangers of intellectualism.

Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields are not examples of what happens when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; to the contrary, these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking critically enough about specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a rational argument against religious faith is not an argument for the blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem that the atheist exposes is none other than the problem of dogma itself--of which every religion has more than its fair share. There is no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

An Atheist Manifesto - Part 2

2008-05-14T21:05:00.005+09:00

Part 2 of Sam Harris' An Athiest Manifesto (The Nature of Belief) focuses on religious moderates, and the illogical arguments used to justify their faith. Read the whole thing, but here are a couple of important paragraphs (emphasis mine):

When a tsunami killed a few hundred thousand people on the day after Christmas, fundamentalists readily interpreted this cataclysm as evidence of God’s wrath. As it turns out, God was sending humanity another oblique message about the evils of abortion, idolatry and homosexuality. While morally obscene, this interpretation of events is actually reasonable, given certain (ludicrous) assumptions. Moderates, on the other hand, refuse to draw any conclusions whatsoever about God from his works. God remains a perfect mystery, a mere source of consolation that is compatible with the most desolating evil....
Between catastrophes, it is surely a virtue of liberal theology that it emphasizes mercy over wrath. It is worth noting, however, that it is human mercy on display--not God’s--when the bloated bodies of the dead are pulled from the sea. On days when thousands of children are simultaneously torn from their mothers’ arms and casually drowned, liberal theology must stand revealed for what it is--the sheerest of mortal pretenses. Even the theology of wrath has more intellectual merit. If God exists, his will is not inscrutable.
...
It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, “This belief gives my life meaning,” or “My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,” or “I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.
...
The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature of human cognition and public discourse for centuries. Either a person has good reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not. People of all creeds naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to reasoning and evidence wherever they possibly can. When rational inquiry supports the creed it is always championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Only when the evidence for a religious doctrine is thin or nonexistent, or there is compelling evidence against it, do its adherents invoke “faith.” Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for their beliefs (e.g. “the New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy,” “I saw the face of Jesus in a window,” “We prayed, and our daughter’s cancer went into remission"). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are better than no reasons at all. Faith is nothing more than the license religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail.

An Atheist Manifesto - Part 1

2008-05-13T22:50:00.007+09:00

This is part 1 of a brilliant article by Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith. I bought Sam's book back in March this year, it and the books I've read since (including the book I am currently reading, The Portable Atheist, Christopher Hitchens' compelling collection of essays from atheists, agnostics and even a few theists over the last 2000 years or so) have had a profound effect on the way I see the world, and particularly religion. Previously agnostic (I guess), I now proudly and confidently proclaim my atheism.

I'll post this in 4 parts, spaced out over a few days, so that it's not such a huge read for those who are intimidated by long posts. Those who want to read the whole thing straight away, click the link above or below.

An Atheist Manifesto - Sam Harris

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of 6 billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl s parents believe at this very moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?

No.

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.

It is worth noting that no one ever needs to identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise, atheism is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. The atheist is merely a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87% of the population) who claim to never doubt the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his existence and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. Only the atheist appreciates just how uncanny our situation is: Most of us believe in a God that is every bit as specious as the gods of Mount Olympus; no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that such a God exists; and much of what passes for public policy in our country conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a medieval theocracy. Our circumstance is abject, indefensible and terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.

We live in a world where all things, good and bad, are finally destroyed by change. Parents lose their children and children their parents. Husbands and wives are separated in an instant, never to meet again. Friends part company in haste, without knowing that it will be for the last time. This life, when surveyed with a broad glance, presents little more than a vast spectacle of loss. Most people in this world, however, imagine that there is a cure for this. If we live rightly—not necessarily ethically, but within the framework of certain ancient beliefs and stereotyped behaviors—we will get everything we want after we die. When our bodies finally fail us, we just shed our corporeal ballast and travel to a land where we are reunited with everyone we loved while alive. Of course, overly rational people and other rabble will be kept out of this happy place, and those who suspended their disbelief while alive will be free to enjoy themselves for all eternity.

We live in a world of unimaginable surprises--from the fusion energy that lights the sun to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of this lights dancing for eons upon the Earth--and yet Paradise conforms to our most superficial concerns with all the fidelity of a Caribbean cruise. This is wondrously strange. If one didn’t know better, one would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image.

Consider the destruction that Hurricane Katrina leveled on New Orleans. More than a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions, and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Katrina struck believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God. But what was God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city? Surely he heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Only the atheist has the courage to admit the obvious: These poor people died talking to an imaginary friend.

Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm of biblical proportions would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing disaster was tragically inept. But it was inept only by the light of science. Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of his plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. Nevertheless, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80% of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their faith in God.

As Hurricane Katrina was devouring New Orleans, nearly a thousand Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There can be no doubt that these pilgrims believed mightily in the God of the Koran: Their lives were organized around the indisputable fact of his existence; their women walked veiled before him; their men regularly murdered one another over rival interpretations of his word. It would be remarkable if a single survivor of this tragedy lost his faith. More likely, the survivors imagine that they were spared through God’s grace.

Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he refuses to cloak the reality of the world’s suffering in a cloying fantasy of eternal life, the atheist feels in his bones just how precious life is--and, indeed, how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness for no good reason at all.

One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the world’s faith. The Holocaust did not do it. Neither did the genocide in Rwanda, even with machete-wielding priests among the perpetrators. Five hundred million people died of smallpox in the 20th Century, many of them infants. God’s ways are, indeed, inscrutable. It seems that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered compatible with religious faith. In matters of faith, we have kicked ourselves loose of the Earth.

Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If he exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable and least odious: The biblical God is a fiction. As Richard Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different. Consequently, only the atheist is compassionate enough to take the profundity of the world’s suffering at face value. It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion--to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources--is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

Same politics, different name

2008-05-07T23:24:00.006+09:00

There comes a time after each election when you finally accept (after hoping and hoping for months that it really isn't the case) that the party you voted for, which you held up throughout the campaign as some bastion of all that was good in politics, was really just the lesser of two evils, and that effectively all political parties are the same. That moment came for me last week, when, after not one week earlier announcing that for all intents and purposes gay couples would be treated in the same way as heterosexual couples, the Rudd Government refused to allow the ACT to pass its Civil Unions bill as it "mimics marriage". Right. So... you're fine with gay couples having all the entitlements of a married couple... with the exception of a ceremony. This article sums up this ridiculous situation. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Marriage is for one man and one woman. It is not for two men or two women, unless one is no longer a man or woman. A woman born a man may marry a man, as long as he remains a man, and she keeps taking her hormones.

The only way gays may marry in Australia is by sex-change, a rather extreme declaration of love, and anything that even "mimics" marriage is likewise banned.

The internet is great...

2008-05-04T22:25:00.002+09:00

I've just discovered an internet comedy called Mr Deity, which takes a satirical look at God (here called Mr Deity) creating the universe with the help of his assistant Larry, Jesus and his ex Lucy. The writing is brilliant, you need to watch each episode a couple of times to catch all the references and jokes (easily done since each ep is only about 5 minutes long).

The first episode is good, but it's really from about episode 4 that its brilliance shows.

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Evil - Season 1, Ep 1

My favourite episodes are
Mr Deity and the Messages - Season 1, Ep 4
Mr Deity and the Tour de Hell - Season 1, Ep 7
Mr Deity and the Really Cheap Meal - Season 2, Ep 5

About time...

2008-04-30T22:31:00.005+09:00

Hiya all - sorry once again for the lack of postage lately. I am currently working on two posts full of pictures, and they take time, what with the loading and captioning of pictures and my rather short attention span. But rest assured they will be up soon (I hope - they're driving me insane).

As I mentioned in my last post (a long time ago), I've had a busy few months. After my last post Moo visited me (pictures soon to be posted), and two days after she left I went on a 16 day trip through Thailand and Cambodia (pictures also soon to be posted). After returning to Nihon, I started my new job (same job as last school year, now working in a different area, staying at one school for 7 weeks rather than changing between 4 different schools), this is my third week back. I'm very much enjoying my new school, I work with great teachers, and also have a lot of free time, during which I've been doing a lot of reading (this may be the subject of a future post).

However... all things must come to an end. As much as I love this country (I really really do, it is going to be heartbreaking to leave, I think), I can't stay here forever. I have had an amazing 15 months here so far, and had met some truly wonderful people. However I feel I'm now at the stage where I've done pretty much everything I'd wanted to do here (with the exception of climbing Mt Aso and visiting Sakura-jima - unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to afford another trip to Kyushu), and am at risk of becoming too comfortable here (not a bad thing in itself, but I'm not ready to become too comfortable anywhere yet).

My plan has always been to live and work in the UK, and so that is what I am planning at the moment. Somewhere in these plans further education figures highly as well, ideally in the UK or elsewhere in Europe, but that is still in the early stages of planning.
In the meantime, I thought I'd let you know I've booked my flight home. I leave from Osaka on Wednesday 30th of July, arriving in Brisbane on the morning of Thursday July 31st. So I'll be seeing those of you in Brisbane soon :)

Yes, it's about time I posted something, but the title also refers to something else. The Australian government today announced it will be introducing changes to about 100 laws that discriminate against same-sex couples during the winter session of parliament. While this has stopped short of removing the ban on gay marriage (a ban both the Howard government and the previous Labor opposition supported - and actually, both the current government and opposition still support), I'm enormously happy Australia has finally decided the discrimination of its citizens based on the innate characteristic of sexuality is not okay. This is something that should have occurred a long time ago.

One final thing. In Thailand I bought some glasses (I've needed them for a while - I'm a little short-sighted, a problem I was alerted to in Osaka, when upon borrowing Ayla's glasses at the Björk concert, I was treated to seeing a fully formed Björk jumping across the stage, as opposed to the gold blob I was seeing sans glasses). So now I can see things at a distance - no more missing buses for me! Anyway, you like 'em?

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Now playing: Final Fantasy & Ed Droste - Possibly Maybe

KK-LaLa visit Japan

2008-03-09T00:11:00.011+09:00

Thank you Kiiiiiii for that title. You were there for me when inspiration was nowhere to be found.

Apologies for the lack of posts lately - have had a hectic couple of months in which I had 3 different sets of visitors, saw 3 amazing concerts and travelled halfway across the country.

My last set of visitors were Mum and Ayla (or KK-LaLa, to continue with the Kiiiiiii reference which only Aaron and Ayla will understand). It had been over a year since I'd seen Mum and over 19 months since I'd seen Ayla (she returned to Australia from Singapore 10 days after I flew out for Japan), so I was very much looking forward to seeing them!

Day one - I made the trip out to Narita Airport for the first time since I came to Japan just over one year earlier. Dropped off my friend Simone at Terminal 2 (she'd been in the country for two weeks and was heading to Bangkok) and then met Ayla and Mum at Terminal One,

Hugs on the train home from the airport:

Ayla found a hobby in collecting Super Mario keyrings from the machine at my station. She managed to collect every one of the set except for the Black Bullet - when we returned from our gallavantations (I really like that word) around the country the machine had been replaced! Not a happy Ayla. Here she is about to hit the yellow box - what will come out?! A mushroom? An extra life? A coin?

I tried to take a candid shot but Ayla was too quick... Best random pose EVER.
Shadows at Meiji-jingu.
Lights in Shinjuku.

At the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building we found a photo booth (not difficult).

かわいい、ね？

Terrorising Tokyo.Day 2: Mickey Rourke - take me to the Disneyland! (Many thanks again to Kiiiiiii)
Mary Poppins was American!! Sacrilege!

Riding the teacups - fun!

Sleepy - I was supposed to be asleep, but instead I just look drunk.

Riding the teacups again (actually, for the third time) - hey look, you can see my tonsils!

Ayla and her pimpmobile.

Mum and Ayla on Minnie Mouse's couch.
Splash Mountain - the wait was totally worth the photo.
Day 3 - trip to Omiya in Saitama to see the world's oldest bonzai.

Dinner - sukiyaki!! Of course nikku nashi for Mum... so not really sukiyaki.. Vegetables and sauce for Mum.

Bag lady on the train.

It didn't take long for Mum to develop the thousand mile (sorry, 1609 km) stare of the seasoned Tokyo subway rider.

Giant Panda - nuff said.
Day 4 - off to Kyoto:

Uh, I think it had just started snowing at this point, and we were trying to catch the snowflakes on our tongues. Yeah, that'll do...

It snowed! Heavily!!

Our first night in Kyoto was occupied by jazz and liquor (thanks Aaron!).

This was the first time Mum saw snow falling - she was very excited! (Ayla, Mum and Aaron).

Day 5 - 2nd day in Kansai. Nara!
Snow at 京都駅

Ayla facing off with a deer in Nara - I think she won.

When I bought some deer food they got a little rambunctious! Despite how this photo looks I escaped with all parts un-butted.

Sam feeding the deer - or is the deer feeding him?

Ayla decided the deer were now for riding. This deer took it pretty well.

The Daibutsu-den at Todaiji - the largest wooden structure in the world. Houses the Daibutso

Daibutsu - the photo doesn't really capture the grandure.

Day 6 - Kyoto. Kinkaku-ji. Still surrounded by a little snow. Every picture a postcard.

Astroboy at Kyoto Station.

One of my favourite places in Japan - a subtemple of Daitoku-ji. This is a photo I took when I was in Kyoto last May.

The path away from the temple last year (in spring).
Last week (in winter).
Monday night - seeing Bjork in Osaka with Aaron. Ayla lent me her scarf to add some colour, so I would fit into a Bjork concert a bit more. Aaron was doing fine on his own with his cowboy boots and NRA belt buckle.

This old lady was totally on her way to the Bjork concert, check out her jacket. (Thank you Ayla or Aaron, whoever provided that joke.)

Day 7 - Hiroshima - the Atom Bomb Dome.

The moat of Hiroshima castle - reflecty.
Hiroshima Castle.

Day 8 - Miyajima.
The Miyajima skyline.

The floating torii of Miyajima.
Some very content deer.
Inappropriate signage. At least they're questioning, not stating it as if it's a fact.

The Atom Bomb Dome at night - my camera made an eerie image even more so.

Day 9 - the 5 hour Shinkansen journey back to Tokyo.

Mt Fuji

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Now playing: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV (absolutely amazing album)

As a result....

2008-02-04T17:30:00.000+09:00

... of my gallivantations (yes, it's a word now) in the snow yesterday, I now have a cold.

Super.

雪はとてもきれいです！

2008-02-03T18:09:00.001+09:00

It appears I was a tad hasty in my posting earlier today - I've since been out walking again, and have taken more photos of the snow. This time I visited some temples between my house and the train station. It's odd, I've been living in this house since June last year, but didn't actually visit these temples until December when Anita and Espie stayed, despite passing them every day. I guess when you're in your own neighbourhood you switch from being a tourist to just living.

Japanese cemetery in the grounds of a temple

I have a fascination with bridges. I realised this a couple of weeks ago when, at a small park I'd ridden to up the Edogawa, I took off my headphones just to listen to the sound of my shoes walking across.

Maybe I'm a little too easily impressed with snow (not surprising, not like we get a lot on the Gold Coast), but there's something beautiful even in tire tracks in the snow.

Real snowmen
This one even has a carrot for it's nose! Gee Mr Snowman, try developing your own look and personality, rather than adhering to the socially accepted norms of this patriarchal society blah blah blah blah blah.
Me all rugged up! Toasty warm - I even have earmuffs on underneath the hood.

More strange food from Japan. Genghis Khan is a popular lamb dish, famous in Hokkaido. I really wanted to have some when I was there, but didn't get a chance to. Well, wasn't I lucky to find Genghis Khan caramels at my local supermarket. So naturally I bought a packet.There's a distinct taste of onions about them. You can buy these caramels for quite a number of locations around Japan. There's a Hokkaido butter flavour caramel, a melon flavoured caramel (for a town in the north of Japan that went bankrupt because they got a little excited about their famous melons, and created a melon-themed theme park), and Sapporo has a beer flavoured caramel. Tastes like beer, isn't very nice.

... and if the snow buries my, my neighbourhood.

2008-02-03T11:43:00.000+09:00

It's snowing in Tokyo today! Went for a walk outside half an hour ago to take photos.

Across the street -

The garden next door

Abandoned playground

Snowball

Snowman

I took this photo of snow on the ground (exciting, ne?):
and then pressed something in my photo program and it did this:

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Now playing: The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
vi

An Australian Skiier in Niseko

2008-01-03T22:01:00.000+09:00

Cause I'm sure there aren't enough there already.

I recently spent Christmas with some friends in Hokkaido, the northern-most island of Japan.
Of the 8 of us going to Hokkaido, 5 of us decided to take the more environmentally friendly travel option and train it to Niseko, and thus spent pretty much all of Sat 22nd of Dec travelling. Our journey involved taking 4 trains (5 if you count the subway from Myoden - my station - to Tokyo Station) and travelling through the Seikan Tunnel, the 54km long tunnel joining Hokkaido to Honshu island.
Witness my amazing Paint skillz.

While the journey was a long one, it was actually rather enjoyable, as we had good company and cards, books, music and most importantly, many beeru. Plus, the scenery on the way up was amazing, as it got snowier and snowier. Some pics from the journey north:

This shot would be better if you couldn't see my camera reflection in the glass *grumblegrumble*.

All up, from the time Jasmine and I left the house to the time we stepped in the door of the lodge, we'd been travelling for around 12 hours. Needless to say, by about hour 6 we were becoming restless. I submit to you exhibit A - "Scarf Communication"
On the two-car train from Oshamambe to Niseko, Jasmine first dared Kerry that she couldn't climb onto the luggage rack of the train. When this didn't really work on Kerry, she then dared Chris that he couldn't climb up faster than Kerry. Thus I present Exhibit B - Kerry and Chris in the luggage rack.

Upon arriving at Niseko station it was snowing!!
Thus we had the obligatory first snowball fight while waiting to be picked up by the people from the lodge.

We stayed at Black Diamond Lodge, which I think all of us would highly recommend - they drove us to onsens, convinis, helped organise our rentals, and were able to help us with any queries we had. Plus they had a hot tub.... but more on that later.

This is the scene we awoke to the next day:
So much snow!! Needless to say I was very excited. After eating a huge breakfast (need to keep your energy up while skiing - that was my reasoning for the large amount of apple strudel I ate. Oh! Another thing - the Brits (all 7 of the people I was travelling with) didn't know what apple strudel was. Surely they should have more of an idea than me?) and organising our ski gear ("Does this ski suit make me look fat?" "Yay! Rainbow ski poles!"), we were off!

Now, everyone I travelled with had had SOME exposure to skiing/snowboarding - this exposure varied from "a little but I'm a ridiculously fast learner" to "I feel like part of me is missing when I take my snowboard off". My skiing experience was somewhere around "which ski goes on my left foot". Once this little problem was sorted out, and I had a ski on each foot, the right way around, my sensei Nicole taught me how to stop. I'm not sure I'd ever used those muscles before. We then caught a ski lift up to a fun a quarter of the way up the mountain, cause where else to learn to ski but down a really steep slope! Needless to say I ended up walking down a great deal of it.
Anyway, for most of the first day I just practiced sliding on my arse down some quite steep slopes (honestly, I tried walking down, slipped and slid most of the way down, and realised this was actually a much better way to get down). My only big mishap (there were MANY small mishaps) occurred when I failed to dismount a ski lift (it was a solo lift, so there was no one there to tell me when to stand up!) and in a panic jumped a metre or so down to the ground, skis still on, and landed with a thud (and yes, apparently a scream) in the soft snow. Apparently to those who saw it (ALL of my friends, who'd gone just ahead of me) it was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, as they couldn't see where the ground was and so thought I was jumping into an abyss. I managed to eventually get up, with most of my pride intact (although they stopped the ski lift for me, how embarrassing), and shaking a little.

Me decked out in my ski gear - oh yeah, green ski glasses, ooh baby.

Dave and Nicole - aren't they adorable?
Mt Yotei - on the clear days every time I saw this I wanted to take another picture - have SO many photos of this damn mountain. Oh, it's actually a volcano!

On Christmas Eve we had a huge Christmas dinner, with the other guests staying at the lodge. First time I've had a hot Christmas dinner (that I can remember), so was quite strange! There was soo much food, and so delicious.

The group at Christmas dinner (me with my mouth fool - classy. And I swear I can't help but make the V sign when I get a photo taken now, curse you Japan!). From left: Pete, Kerry, Jasmine, Chris, Ian, me, Nicole and Dave.

Chris at the end of his mammoth meal, exhibiting the "It's only wafer-thin" mentality.
We also swapped Secret Santa presents - I got a neck warmer from Kerry, perhaps the most useful present I've been given EVER! For some reason I decided to wear it on my head. Clearly not used to this whole "winter" thing.

Jasmine and the devils and angels on her shoulders.
After dinner we went for a (apparently) traditional Christmas dinner walk, to light the sparklers Jasmine received.

Invisible Bikes?

Christmas morning - we woke up to see it snowing! It was like a dream! So I took Beaker on his first walk outside in many months, and buried him in the snow.

I took this photo on Christmas Day, shortly after having a high speed crash down a run. I'd seen this beautiful shot on the way up on the ski lift, and luckily managed to stop (albeit rather dramatically) at pretty much the right spot). I think my favourite shot, ever. Snow is so pretty.

So we basically spent Christmas Day and the 4 or 5 days surrounding it skiing/snowboarding, and visiting the onsen nearby (they had an amazing outdoor pool, surrounded by snow-covered rocks. Best way to end a day of skiing, soaking in an onsen surrounded by snow) or the hot tub outside the lodge (to get to it you had to walk up snow-steps and then metal steps without your feet getting stuck) to soothe aching muscles. On the first night we used the hot tub Nicole lost a tub-wide game of Janken, and so had to make a snow angel in her swimsuit. I was intrigued by this (given my relatively little exposure to snow), and so by the end of the week I too had made one. Snow is cold. Very cold.

Dave and Nicole disappearing into the fog on our last day of skiing.
You see many interesting things on the slopes:

Don't we look freakin' cool?

Creepy trees in the fog, halfway down a run.

On the last night we did some night skiing, as the snow was very powdery, and so much more fun to ski on (plus our confidence was up - I think my best skiing was definitely the last night). While going down the run Dave found a spot in which these three coloured lights made some very pretty shadows.

Finally after a long hard day of skiing, we went for a hearty ramen dinner.

Kerry guards her ramen:

On the last full day in Hokkaido, while the others continued skiing/snowboarding, Dave, Nicole and I visited the town of Otaru, about 30 minutes from Sapporo. Otaru is a port town, and has done a lot of trade with Russia, and so many of the signs in the town were in Russian.

Snow-covered landscape on the way to Otaru.

One of the main attractions of Otaru is it's canal.

Also a very nice temple at the top of a hill.

And shrines.

And mirror-plaques, photos of which look quite cool, like we've floating text around our heads.

There were many Western-style buildings in Otaru. This one I thought could have doubled for something from The Addams Family.

For lunch we had sashimi - cause you just have to in Hokkaido. This was tuna (the dark red at the top), salmon (pink), some type of fish egg (middle) and some type of white fish, on a bowl of sea weed and rice. The light green stuff is wasabi.

And so it was we spent our last day in Hokkaido gallivanting around a small port town, eating sashimi, drinking coffee and eating chocolate cake, watching glass-blowing and posing in churches.
And that was the end of our holiday! Or so we thought.
The next day we were supposed to start out 12 hour long train journey home at 9:30am, from Niseko station. However, it was an absolutely horrid day, raining and windy, and there was a train derailment at one of the stations we were supposed to pass through. So we ended up stuck at Oshamambe for 2 hours while they organised buses to take us to Hakodate, then stuck on a hot stuffy bus for another 2 hours (actually we got to see a lot more Hokkaido landscape). So we missed all our connecting trains we had reserved seats on, but luckily managed to scavenge seats on the trains we were able to catch, leaving Hakodate around 5pm with 6 hours left to travel. Jasmine and I stepped in the door of Kettle House at around 12:30, making it 15 hours we'd been in transit. Thank god for good company!

Leaving on a jet plane Pt 2

2007-12-09T00:16:00.001+09:00

Last weekend we had Sherman's going-away party, as he'd decided the previous week that he was leaving last Thursday. Big kudos to Mariko for organising it in such a short time!

Group shot:
3 of my favourite gals: Fumiko, Misuzu and Nobu

I love Misuzu because she takes your camera when you're distracted and takes photos like these (from Steve and Carrie's going away party in September):

So we needed more.

The lovely Eriko, who even looks graceful with a mouthful of food (I make it my business to try to catch people at their worst - which just doesn't exist for some people).

Tomoyo and Mariko - wonder organisers and hilarious.

Tomoyo and Fumiko showing us a TV show they watched - those crazy kids ;)

Eriko, Sherman and me.

When I saw Eriko's rocker pose I wanted to try it - I think Eriko pulls it off much better than I, I just look like I'm about to throw up.

Sherman very animated over dinner

Mariko very nearly surprised us all when she unzipped her top - unbeknown to us she had a t-shirt on underneath

Dan and Nobu

Tomoyo interrupting a group photo - but how can you be mad when she's that cute!

Final shot before parting ways

And a final treat - for an explanation of this photo, click on the video below to see Tomoyo demonstrating an important Japanese cultural dance which every Japanese child learns at a very early age :P

Leaving on a jet plane Pt 1

2007-12-05T21:41:00.000+09:00

No not me, not yet. But most of the people I used to work with at NOVA have now left.

Sara left early November, after finishing her contract 4 days before NOVA imploded - good timing, ね？ Some photos from her various going away events:

Yakiniku dinner with Nobu, Misuzu and Sherman - かわいい、ね?

Sara and I - I can't tell, but it looks like she's giving herself bunny ears.

(Violent) Group photo.

Drinks by the river - a good idea in summer. A freezing idea in the middle of November!

From left: Garcio, Daniela, Michelle and Sara

Camilla, me and Rachel

We then decided to have some fun with the glowy ring things Sara had - perhaps as a way to warm up..

This one of my face looks kinda freaky:

An old man doing the "old man backward shuffle" down the river.
Then in order to get some final group shots before the party split up (but alas, after the old man shuffled away), we made good use of the timer function on my camera, some stools from Papalo Mama and the walkway space below the subway line.

This was followed naturally by karaoke... the photos of which will never see the light of this blog.

The next morning, Sara's last in Japan, we had a sushi breakfast at the local sushi restaurant.
Our sushi chef - I don't know his name - who kept trying to pass us our plates through the glass. I still can't decide whether he was doing it on purpose or as a joke.

Three of the last Nishi-Funa NOVAites - Sherman, Sara and me.

The Kettle Shackians together for one final meal - from left: Sara (US), me (Aus), Nik (Canada) and Jasmine (UK). Nik is the next to leave, on the 10th of December. Jasmine and I have made a pact to leave at the same time, so that neither of us leaves the other to face the madness of Kettle Shack alone.
And so it was that Sara, who I'd spend most of my time with in Japan, left the country - hopefully, as I wrote in her card, we'll catch up one day and drink wine in a tiny village in the middle of Spain, basking in the sun and remembering how friggin' cold it was at the top of Mt Fuji.

Photos from Sherman's going away on Sunday will appear maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the contract for my current job (I've been working as an ALT - Assistant Language Teacher - at junior high schools in Tokyo since mid October) expires in March, and while I could renew it if I wanted, I think by then I'll be looking to move on to the UK, and so will be heading back to Aus in April, for a few months at least while I work out visas etc. As much as it is going to pain me to leave Japan (there's so much about this country that I love), I think I'm making the right choice.

Also, if you want to see photos from Nikko, but can't be bothered waiting for me to upload them to my blog (I will eventually, but these things take a lot of work you know!), check them out here.

Yatta!!!!

2007-11-24T23:43:00.000+09:00

Not only has his party lost the election massively to Labor, but at this stage it also appears that he will lose his seat of Bennelong to Maxine McKew. I couldn't think of a nicer man for it to happen to ;)

And how is Tyrone feeling about this?

Pretty damn happy :)

It's going to be quite strange though - Howard has (unfortunately) been PM for half of my life, and I don't think I had much of an interest in politics in the first half of my life (although I can remember watching Keating's concession speech in '96 and having an intense disliking of John Howard even back then). So an adjustment, but one I'm only too happy to make.

All in all, I think I was happy to experience this election from outside Australia, as I didn't have to suffer through the numerous ads from both parties. However, I've been reading the Australian newspaper websites and blogs religiously every day, and found that you don't even have to be in Australia watching the party ads on television to get a serving of government propoganda, all you need to do is read The Australian. Tonight was very exciting, with a bottle of red wine (to either celebrate with or drown my sorrows with) I watched a combination of the coverage on Sky News and the ABC, depending on when they worked on my computer, and madly refreshed the results page of the ABC election site every 30 seconds, and while I would have liked to have been celebrating with friends back in Aus, thank you to the other Aussies at FTW for sharing the experience with me - you guys are hilarious.

Anyway, in the last week it was getting very stressful and tense, and given I had a week off work, I was spending far too much time reading election articles, so went on a short trip to Nikko to get my mind off of it (and my eyes away from the computer screen). Saw my first snowfall, my first autumn leaves, and met some fantastic people. Will post more photos. I think I've found my favourite place in Japan - each time I go somewhere new it overtakes the last place.

But to symbolise this turning of a new leaf in Australia, here's a picture of the pretty maple leaves in Nikko (okay, these leaves are dying, but you get my connection).

End the Senate majority

2007-11-19T20:53:00.000+09:00

Have been meaning to post for a while, lest someone reports my death.
I just read this, and deemed it important enough to break my posting drought...
From GetUp.com -

At the time [of the Coalition gaining majority in the Senate], John Howard promised to use his Senate majority 'wisely, soberly, and sensibly'. But in the last two years, the Senate has become nothing but a rubber stamp for the Government -- in 2006 our Senate passed 100% of Government-sponsored amendments, while rejecting 98% of amendments proposed by other parties.

No matter how you vote in the lower house, don't vote for the coalition in the Senate. This abuse of the Senate, which is supposed to act as "a house of review" on legislation, has got to stop. It is highly unlikely Labor will reach a majority, but if you're worried about that vote for the Greens or the Democrats.

Also, if you want to know which candidate (in the lower house) has your priorities in mind, and the order to place the candidates on your ballot, check out howshouldIvote.com. This will allow you to find out who is really acting in your best interest.

I love this city!

2007-10-21T22:10:00.000+09:00

I went in to Yoyogi Park with my friends this afternoon - I've never been on a Sunday before, it's such a cool place!

We skipped with a skipping rope, played tiggy (tag), while walking through the park realised we were following a family whose daughter was riding a unicycle, danced at a rave being held in a corner of the park at 4 in the afternoon, did handstands and cartwheels, joined in a group doing Mexican dancing, saw a skateboarding dog, saw people dressed as Spiderman (this guy was scrawny, so not much of a superhero) and some other type of superhero/pro-wrestler, saw people sitting in the park blowing bubbles, throwing frisbees, juggling, drumming, and passed the people dressed in cosplay on the bridge in Harajuku. All in the space of around 3 hours.

I freakin' love this city!

Tyrone is Back... now with 530% more drumming!

2007-10-08T01:26:00.000+09:00

Just to let you know, I'm back from my holiday - I managed to eat everything on my list, and climbed an active volcano, so 'twas a successful vacation by my standards!
I have SO many photos, will start uploading a few in the next week. Before then however I've got a concert on Tuesday night (M.I.A. with Aaron and Camilla).

In the meantime, enjoy some Japanese drumming. This was a family of drummers Aaron and I chanced upon in the streets of Nippori in Tokyo (set up literally next to a 7-11).

Oh... one final thing. While walking the streets of Akihabara tonight, we found... bread in a can. Rest assured, I bought some, and will let you know how it tastes. It is because I care about you dear reader that I make this sacrifice.

And as Aaron asked... just how many lessons do you need to be able to Hula?

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Now playing: Tori Amos - The Waitress (Sessions at West 54th)

Holiday... Celebrate...

2007-09-30T19:58:00.000+09:00

Since I've now used a Madonna lyric as a post title I must destroy this blog. However, before I do that, I'm going to Kyushu on vacation. Hence the celebration.

I leave ridiculously early tomorrow morning, and fly into Fukuoka around 10am.
I'll spend Monday and Monday night in Fukuoka/Hakata, then head down to Nagasaki on Tuesday morning, spending the rest of the day there. On Wednesday I'm heading out to Unzen, where I will hopefully climb to the peak of Fugen-dake, the peak of Unzen-dake that erupted in 1991. I'll return to Nagasaki on Wednesday night, spend most of Thursday wandering around Nagasaki some more, before heading back to Fukuoka on Thursday afternoon and flying back to Tokyo on Thursday night.

It's going to be a crazy busy few days, I've got a list of food my students have recommended I eat: Hakata ramen, mentaiko (cod roe), castella and champon, to name a few.

My accommodation is quite cheap - in Fukuoka I'm staying at a youth hostel (VERY cheap), while in Nagasaki I'm splashing out and staying in a ryokan. All up my accommodation for three nights will come to less than ¥10,000, which means more money to spend on delicious regional food!!

Anywho, I'll be back in a few days with many photos (and possibly a couple of extra kilograms).

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Now playing: Fiona Apple - Waltz (Better Than Fine)

ugh...

2007-09-16T02:11:00.000+09:00

The only consolation for this is the prospect of John Howard crashing and burning in the upcoming election, which is looking increasingly likely every day/leadership squabble. (Thanks to Chris for the heads-up. And for the awesome postcard.)

In other news, Matt Price is great.

Climb Hard 3 - Climb Hard with a Vengeance

2007-09-09T23:30:00.000+09:00

The final thrilling installment in the long running saga of our trip up Fuji.

I left off last entry with me waking at 2:30am. Normally I get to bed at this time. Anyway, I was surprisingly alert - I pretty much being deeply asleep (to the point someone had to yell at me to wake me) to being wide awake.

The view downstairs as the climbers prepared for the final trek.

We left our 8th station hut at around 3am, freezing our fingers off. Well my fingers were frozen - I hadn't properly dried off my gloves from the previous night, so I had to alternate the hand I was carrying my walking stick with with the hand in my warm pocket. Also, the ventilation material on my jogging shoes, ever so handy when you're running, was letting an awful lot of cold air into my shoes, meaning for the first hour of our climb to the summit I could only feel one toe on each foot. A very strange feeling. I was also slightly hampered by the fact that my 420 yen headlamp purchased from Daiso the night before decided to stop working after 20 minutes - this works out to a cost of 21 yen/minute. You call that value for money? Curse you Daiso!! It was useful however in keeping the hood of my rain jacket (*grumblegrumble*) up, thereby stopping the wind from freezing my head.

Another group passes us while resting. Their lights captured using the night mode setting on my camera look like those time-tentacle things in Donnie Darko!

We'd been told that sunrise was due at around 5:09am, a little later if there was cloud. We were still walking with the rest of the tour group, and we were a little concerned with the number of rests we were having we would miss the sunrise (well, not really miss, since we were on the east side of the mountain, but still - the whole point is to see sunrise from the top of Mt Fuji, not the side). We could already see the first rays creeping over the horizon.

The first glimpses of sunlight, along with a climber's cool looking time-tentacle.

After a third break however, our guide gave everyone permission to walk at their own pace. Not wanting to miss sunrise, I bolted.

The torii at the 9th station under which we passed - I couldn't help think about that terrible Roman Polanski/Johnny Depp movie The Ninth Gate. This ninth gate, made of wood and not doing much at all, was much more interesting.

The path between the 9th station and the summit was considerably more rocky than much of the path further down the mountain. I was very grateful for my hiking stick.

Nearly at the top!

Finally at around 4:45 I reached the top. The gate at the 10th station:

Many people already there!

Sara and I at the summit, just before sunrise.

Gabriel from the UK.

Sara plants the flag to annex Fuji in the name of Japan. I didn't have the heart to tell her they already owned it - she seemed so proud.

Just before sunrise

Almost there!

The sun peeks through the clouds:

Many people up the top!

More clouds... lots more clouds...

After viewing sunrise, we went for a 2 hour tour around the crater.
Some shots of the top of the volcano:

Looking into the crater - not a great photo I'll admit, but it gives you an idea of what is inside the crater. This crater last erupted about 2000 years ago.

Looking over at the other side of the crater... It really is quite wide.

The colours were so intense - the landscape really is like nothing I've seen before.

A shot of the little village at the top of the mountain.

A torii at the top - there were many. This one was covered in bells from people's walking sticks (it was around this time I discovered mine had fallen off at some stage).

I thought this chunk of dried lava was amazing.

This is the crater from the last eruption of Fuji in the early 18th century. Each time Fuji erupts it is from a different part of the mountain.
I was trying to be artistic in this shot by capturing the sun in the middle of the torii - not sure it really worked.

A view of the highest point of Fuji - this is actually the highest point in Japan.

Sara commented that these rocks look like the vertebrae of a dragon - made me think of Bjork :)

A shrine at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately since it was outside the official climbing season everything (including the shrine) was closed.

This is some sort of "sacred pond". Looked more like a puddle to me, but I didn't want to argue :)

Overlooking the Izu peninsula

Clouds fill the crater...

The huge shadow of Fuji on the surrounding landscape - a very impressive sight.

A creepy figurine we found.

More clouds - cause they look so perrtty! And yes, I did have "Bouncing Off Clouds" in my head the whole time I was at the top...

Three Japanese guys who were part of our tour group - really friendly guys, they didn't speak a huge amount of English, but it well and truly put my Japanese to shame. I ended up walking down the mountain with them.

Me posing with Nishizono (the middle one in the photo above) - he seemed especially interested in me, asked me so many questions all the way down. Not sure if it was interest interest (and well, who could blame him - did you SEE my rain jacket?), or just interest in another person cause they're from Australia, but really does it matter? I'll take whatever interest I can get :)

Breakfast! The long yellow things are some sort of guppy type creatures... and at 8 in the morning, after you've just climbed down from the top of Fuji, it is very appetising... I guess you'll just have to trust me on that!

The track back down the mountain was a quite gradual zig-zagging slope, made up of about 40 zigs (or is that zags?) - I guess to stop people from gathering too much speed and face-planting it into the volcanic ash making up the path (as Gabriel did on his was down to the 8th station - I have it on good authority that volcanic ash does not taste good).

Success!! At the bottom of the mountain (well, almost at the 5th station), looking back up.
Back at 5th station - is there something wrong with this pic? 3 Japanese people with me, and I'm the only one making the peace sign!
We got back to 5th station at around 10:30am on Wednesday. After some lunch with Zono and his friends, we got back on our disco ball-less coach and were taken to an onsen on Lake Kawaguchiko, one of the Fujigoko (or Fuji 5 Lakes) - a very relaxing way to spend an hour after climbing to the top of Japan's highest mountain!

Unfortunately due to the approaching typhoon (the people who started climbing as we left weren't able to make it to the summit, I found out a few days later) the views from the lake weren't that stellar.

Didn't stop me from getting another photo of the clouds on the surrounding mountains as we drove back to Shinjuku!

So that pretty much covers our adventure! An absolutely amazing experience, and I recommend it to anyone who lives in Japan for any extended period.

Thanks for reading these - I promise not to post another picture of clouds on my blog for as long as it is in existence.... :)

edit: Okay, since Dave requested another cloud photo, here is a video of the clouds filling the crater:

Mt Fuji Episode II - Attack of the Clouds

2007-09-06T10:28:00.000+09:00

Before I continue with the enthralling tale of my adventures, just letting you know we're currently being "attacked" by a typhoon. Walking home from the train station was not fun, but my poor housemate is walking home from two stations away (on the other side of the river) as our train line stopped running. Here's hoping our shack stays up through the night and doesn't fold like the house of cards it so resembles.

Anyway, continuing from last night.
Koko, our guide, told the non-Japanese people to stay up the front with the elderly and other special people. Made us feel very special. Honestly though, some of the climbers were so inspirational. One couple, from Okinawa, would've been in their early to mid 60's, and they made it to the top.

We set off around 11am. Pretty much the whole time we were walking we were either just above the clouds, or surrounded by them.

Since we were in a large group (about 50 people), we kept stopping after about 30 minutes of walking. Sometimes we'd stop for 5 minutes, sometimes for 20. This was somewhat annoying, as every time we'd stop we'd lose our pace, and the clouds that had previously been below us:

... would then catch up to us.

This wasn't particularly a problem at the start, but by the time we reached around the 7th station it had started raining (not heavily, but enough to be annoying and cold), so that every time we escaped the rain, we'd take a break and the rain and clouds would surround us again. Ultimately though, I think the breaks probably helped us, as they stopped us from wearing ourselves out, allowed us to acclimatise ourselves to the thin air of the high altitude, and gave us a chance to eat and keep our energy up.

Looking up at the 6th station huts:

The queue up the mountain:

The inside of one of the 6th station huts:

A man at a 6th station hut branding my walking stick:

This was the old descending route - it was changed many years ago due to an accident in which a number of high school students were killed by falling rocks.

The side of the mountain:

More clouds. Yes, I took many photos of clouds. But they were just so pretty!

But sometimes rather threatening.

Sara looking rather cold and damp. But happy.

At this stage I was only wearing a t-shirt and long sleeved shirt, with my rain jacket over the top. I say rain jacket, despite the fact that the label on the packet said rain suit and had a picture of a man wearing both a rain jacket and rain pants. When I pulled the rain suit out of my bag I was dismayed (hmm, not sure that really captures what I was feeling) to find out it was only a rain jacket. Jeans are comfortable, but not really the warmest of pants, especially when damp.

Finally we reached our hut at the 8th station at around 6:30pm. Shelter, warmth and food - what more could we ask for.
Many people choose to do Fuji all in one go - starting the climb at 5th station at around 10pm, and walking through the night to reach the summit by sunrise. This is certainly a very cheap way to do it, one we had originally considered, and assuming you bring enough food, is most definitely possible. Unfortunately, once the climbing season ends around the end of August, buses up to the 5th station are much less frequent, and cost a bit more as you have to take two separate buses, one from Shinjuku to the town at the base of the mountain, Kawaguchiko, and another from Kawaguchiko to 5th station. So Sara and I decided to book a package deal which provided us with the guide, and allowed us to stay at a hut, with dinner and breakfast the next day provided. I'm so glad we did this - it was nice to have a break after 7 hours of climbing, and to have a hot meal, and to be able to change into dry tracksuit pants when my jeans were a bit too damp to sleep in (for a price of course - 500 yen).

After dinner, I pretty much went straight to bed, as I was quite tired and wanted not to be tired when we were to wake at 2:30 the next morning to head for the summit. Been a loooong time since I've gone to bed at 7:30pm. And well, it didn't really work for me, I woke up at 10:30pm and couldn't get back to bed so went outside to look at the stars. It was the first time I'd seen the stars since arriving in Japan - they were so beautiful. The clouds that had surrounded us (literally, we couldn't see more than about 10metres in front of us) on arrival at 8th station had since descended, and we had a clear view of the moon shining down on the clouds below us. Such an incredible sight, and one I was unable to capture with my camera.

I managed to get back to sleep after a little while (taking off my watch seemed to be the key), and woke up at 2:30. Despite the fact that I'm usually a very light sleeper and people had been moving around packing and talking for half an hour, it took Sara yelling my name at 2:30 to wake me - guess I was really tired. Then again, I seem to have slept through every major tremor we've had in Tokyo, so maybe I'm not that light a sleeper!

And that's where I'll leave it tonight. I'm meeting up with Verity and Lauren in Shibuya tomorrow (assuming my train line is working again in the morning - hopefully it will be as it will be my only chance to see them before they head to Nagoya), so I'd best be off to bed.

But for now, here's another photo. This is the enormous shadow Fuji casts on the surrounding landscape.

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Now playing: Philip Glass - Morning Passages

Climb every mountain... (Part 1)

2007-09-05T20:50:00.000+09:00

Well, I did it...

I finally found a place to reference The Sound of Music on my blog.

Wait, what I meant to say is, I climbed Mt Fuji. Bringing to 3 the number of Japanese mountains I've climbed (I'd previously climbed Nokogiri-yama and Mt Takao - although "climbed" is used in the loosest sense of the word, sense they're really no more than long and tiring walks).

The trip was amazing, the views from the top were stunning and the landscape resembles that of another planet.

Might do this in a few parts, as I'm sooo tired, but wanted to get some pictures up.

We started out very early on Tuesday morning - we left home around 6am in fact. Which meant I had to wake up at 5am. Blegh. In the last few years, 5am has come to be something I fear, like the boogeyman, but something I know doesn't exist in my day to day life (also like the boogeyman). Despite this (some might say irrational) fear, I found it surprisingly easy to get up when my alarm went off. I found it less easy to stay up after the alarm had been turned off (read: thrown against the wall), but somehow managed to sleepcrawl to the shower.

40 minutes later, chock full of pith and vinegar (and slightly more appetising toast and tea), our bags full of chocolate, water and warm clothes, Sara and I headed into Shinjuku to board the coach that would take us to our date with old man Fuji.

Our bus was very comfortable, and very spacious. I only had one complaint. No disco ball. The people in the coach next to us at the truck stop had one, and they were old and can't even use a disco ball to its full potential! A waste, if you ask me.

Anyway, in spite of (or perhaps due to?) the lack of disco ball, the trip to Fuji was very relaxing - this was the longest amount of time I'd spent on the road in Japan.

Eventually I looked up from my book to see the following:

Now, Mt Fuji is one of the most recognisable mountains in the world, due to its almost perfectly symmetrical volcanic cone shape. Also, consider the fact that our ultimate destination was the TOP of Mt Fuji. So why did I feel the need to ask Sara "Is that Mt Fuji?". Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. I could claim mountain sickness, but that would be a bit of a stretch, given we hadn't even started the ascent yet.

The bus dropped us off at the 5th station at around 9:30am. The hiking paths up the mountain are marked along the way by stations - starting with 1st station at the very base of the mountain, and 10th at the summit. So we were basically starting the climb half way up. In order to climb from 1st station, it would require at least 2 full days to get to the top I think, including rest time, so most people catch a bus to the 5th station (which 5th station they start at depends on which side of the mountain they are coming from) and start from there.

This is a view of the carpark at 5th station - to give you an idea of how high up it is (about 2,300m above sea level).

A few minutes later - the clouds had risen dramatically!

For anyone thinking of climbing Fuji in the future, I definitely recommend bringing a set of clothes to change into the next day. I'd read that piece of advice on another website, and I'm so glad I did - when you reach the bottom of the mountain your clothes are very dusty from the volcanic ash you walk through on the way down. There are lockers at 5th station in which you can dump any excess items you don't want to carry up the mountain - for a fee of course, but it's definitely worth it.

After dumping our clothes I bought a requisite hiking stick. Well, the hiking stick isn't actually required, and it is expensive for what is essentially a piece of wood, but I considered it all part of the experience - at each mountain hut you pass through on the way up you can get your stick "stamped" - branded - with the station name and/or height (again, for a fee, usually 100 or 200 yen each). So as well as a neat keepsake memento of your experience you also have something which comes in very handy when walking along the somewhat unstable ground. My answer when asked "Why did you spend so much money on a hiking stick?" was pretty much "Because I'll probably never get to spend 1200 yen on a hiking stick for walking up Mt Fuji again".

The village at 5th Station:

We met up with the rest of our group and our guide, and were introduced to the other non-Japanese in the group - an English man on holiday/business trip in Japan named Gabriel, and a Swiss girl named Lea, who was visiting her friend in Japan (her friend Chihiro, who could also speak very good English, also joined her for the trip). The guide, Koko, was really lovely, she spoke excellent English and so after giving instructions in Japanese would tell us what was going on as well (but the English translations never seemed as long as the Japanese instructions - this is always a little worrying). Our climb was going to be Koko's 33rd climb of this season - and she does this every year.

Okay... I have reached the point where if I write anymore tonight I risk drooling over the keyboard due to extreme exhaustion. So I'll continue the tale of our quest for glory tomorrow!

In the meantime, enjoy a photo of clouds - this was taken from the summit, just after sunrise. I took many such photos, and there are many more exciting photos to come!

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Now playing: Philip Glass - Metamorphosis Four

Fuji-san

2007-09-03T23:03:00.000+09:00

I'm climbing Mt Fuji tomorrow!

We're climbing through the night so as to reach the summit by sunrise. Gonna be very hard, but an amazing experience!

We leave Shinjuku on a bus at 7:30 in the morning (oh god getting up that early tomorrow is going to be harder than the actual climb, I think!), then arrive at the 5th station of Fuji at about midday. Then we climb for a few hours till we reach the 8th station, where we will be staying in a hut. We'll have dinner, then sleep/rest for a few hours, before starting to climb the rest of the way at around 2am Wednesday morning. We should reach the summit around 4:30 am, in time for sunrise, all going to plan.

Then we start the climb down (said to be the worst part), stopping back at the hut for breakfast, and then climbing the rest of the way down. We catch the bus back sometime in the afternoon, stopping by a hot spring for a soak somewhere along the way, apparently.

Wish me luck! (and also pray that Fuji-san doesn't choose tomorrow night to roar back into life - it's listed as an active volcano with low risk of eruption, but that's more than dormant!)

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Now playing: Yann Tiersen - La Valse D'Amelie (Orchestra Version)

Shopping with Kids

2007-08-24T16:03:00.001+09:00

Okay. Third post of the day. But this one is a short one, and it's just to tell you to read this ebay auction page.

Very funny.

Mt Takao

2007-08-24T14:52:00.001+09:00

Well, aren't I feeling inspired? Two posts in one day!

A couple of weeks ago I came to the realisation that I'd settled into life in Japan a little too much, and was now living an existence of working, then spending my weekends bumming around home or my little town waiting to start work on Thursday. In short, I'd forgotten why I'd come here, which was to travel. I'm not here for work, my job is simply providing me the means to live in Japan - and while I'm here I should be seeing as much of the country and culture as I can. So to remedy this situation I decided to climb a mountain.

Okay, so Mt Takao isn't a huge mountain, and when I say "climb" I really mean "walk up". My point is, it got me out of the city for the day, seeing nature and just relaxing. Of course, I chose one of the hottest days for this expedition, and instead of taking the cable car or ropeway halfway up the mountain as most people do, I decided to climb the first part. Thus the first part of my walk was spent wiping sweat from my eyes while "konnichiwa"-ing the Japanese people walking DOWN the very steep road, while I walked up, eternally grateful for the "wifebeater" I'd decided to bring "in case it got hot". Yes I'm sure I looked like a yobbo, but they don't know what they are here so it's okay.

Anyway, here are some photos.

The giant torii over the entrance to the parking lot - I guess to cleanse your car's spirit as you enter?

The suspension bridge along one of the paths - on the map it looked a lot more impressive.

The path up the mountain. Well, one of the paths. There were about 6 or 7 different ways to get up the mountain, and when you're as indecisive as me, choice is not your friend, it can lead to hyperventilation and tears. I think I flipped a coin.

The view from the top. There were many views depending on which way you looked. Obviously.

Plums drying outside a restaurant at the top.

Lunch. I mentioned it was one of the hottest days, right? So you'd think I'd order something cool for lunch, wouldn't you? And the restaurant did have cold soba noodles, which would have been delicious. So why did I order the hot soba noodles in soup? I panicked. The waiter came to take my order, I pointed at the first picture I saw that looked edible. And so spent the next 15 minutes sweating even more while eating my delicious hot soba noodles.

The intricate carvings on the outside of the temple on Takao.

A rather foreboding face on the outside of the temple. Certainly makes one feel judged.

This shrine is perhaps devoted to the cool wooden sandals worn by the priests?

More shoes. These ones are protected!
The emergency slide from the second story of a building on the trip back down the mountain. Why walk when you can slide? I've since seen similar spiral slides down apartment buildings.

I mentioned there were a number of paths up and down the mountain - on the way down I decided to take path #2, which supposedly went past a waterfall. While the waterfall was pretty, what I could see of it, the path took me to almost the other side of the mountain, and so I spent the next hour walking through the town to find the train station. On the way I saw a crane - so Dad, this photo is for you.

A neat structure I saw on the way through town. Reminded me of something from Star Wars. Perhaps Chris can help me this?

I also found a dead dragonfly. I could wax poetic about the fragility of life, but I suck at poetry, so I won't.

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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)

The musical adventures of Tyrone

2007-08-24T10:08:00.000+09:00

In the past two weeks I've bought two musical instruments.
Firstly, I bought an ocarina at a little store in Chinatown in Yokohama. 1000 yen for the ability to make music! The first tune I played was the theme from Rocky :)

While there I also bought a new pet - a gay panda called Ping. He was only 400 yen, how could I resist?

Then last Tuesday I bought a keyboard!

So I'm slowly remembering how to read music - 12 years away from the keyboard, in which time I've played trumpet for 5 years and then nothing for 7 has meant that my musical skills are lacking, but they're slowly coming back. The biggest challenge is learning how to play with both hands again. When I learnt keyboard last I seem to remember only using one finger at a time on my right hand and playing chords with my left hand. Now I'm learning from piano books, and so I have to use both hands to play many notes. 'Tis tough, but I'm getting there, and it's giving my brain a workout, which is what it needed.

Anyway, I thought now was a perfect time to show you my new home. Wonder at it's storage space - a desk! A set of drawers! A wardrobe!

Marvel at the bookcase! Even my bed (yes! a real bed!) has drawers underneath it!

See the Great Wall of Photos! (haha and yes that is the Under the Pink sheet music - optimistic, yes, but I can already play the opening part of Pretty Good Year).

Compare this to the first room I stayed in upon arriving in Japan, which had only a small set of drawers and a clothes rack. And I pay less rent for this place, which has a much larger kitchen, shower and better housemates.

Okay. Will start writing entries showing off some of the places I've visited lately.

But just quickly - I've decided to leave Japan by May or June next year, and will be heading to London. So in the next 8 months or so I've got many people visiting and many places to visit myself. In the next month and a half I plan to climb Mt Fuji, and am taking a trip to Kyushu, where I will visit Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and hopefully climb Unzendake, a volcano that last erupted in 1995. Excitement! Also, at this stage it looks like I may be spending Christmas in Hokkaido with my housemate Jasmine and her friends - so I'll pretty much be guaranteed a white Christmas!
In early September Verity and Lauren are coming to Tokyo for a day or so, at the end of September my cousin Jared is coming with his schoolgroup, and then in December Anita is staying for a couple of weeks. Also, in November I may be going to Thailand with my housemate Sara. Then in February, Mum and Ayla are coming, and Moo is planning to come in March. And that should be it till I leave in May. In that time I also have to see Hiroshima, Niko, and Nara - but I might try to do these when I have visitors.

So the next 8 months are going to be very busy! But I'm very excited by it all :)

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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!

Hot Town, Summer in the City

2007-08-17T00:46:00.001+09:00

Today was apparently the hottest day in Tokyo in 70 years. I'll believe that.

This is a photo of the indoor wave pool area at Tokyo Summerland in Hachioji (from Japan Today).

More Hanabi, and Patrick.

2007-08-08T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hanabi seems like an excuse for everyone to wear yukatas (summer kimonos), drink beer and eat fried chicken (well, okay, maybe I'm the only one who used it as an excuse to eat fried chicken. The chicken was so greasy, it was GREAT) with friends.

So here are some more photos from hanabi.

Some yukatas - 'tis very pretty watching everyone walk around wearing them.

A beautiful sunset - who needs fireworks?

I also saw hanabi a couple of Saturdays ago, with my housemate Jasmine and her friends. Very nice people. The fireworks were amazing! They went for about an hour and twenty minutes, and were the most beautiful fireworks I've ever seen. Much fried chicken and edamame was consumed by all.

Not sure why I'm making this face...

... but I'm not the only one, Jasmine also makes odd faces.

The many strange faces of Tyrone and Jasmine.

Rachel is also quite good at posing (Claire was maybe caught off guard?).

Rachel, Jasmine and Adam - the people I usually go climbing with (I've been thrice now! I'm slowly getting better - overhangs are tricky things.)

Also, finally, here is a photo from the Patrick Wolf concert I went to - the only decent one according to the photographer. Yes, those are lederhosen he's wearing. Isn't that great?

I've been quite busy the last couple of weeks, last week I climbed (okay, walked up) Mt Takao. Yesterday we went to Onjuku Beach, and today we went to Yokohama (where I bought an ocarina!!!). So many photos to sort through. So, will be updating soon.

Hanabi on the Edogawa

2007-08-02T00:17:00.000+09:00

Tonight I saw the hanabi (fireworks, or literally "fireflowers", or "flowerfire" I guess - "hana" can also mean "nose", so I joked with some of my students last week I was going to see "nosefire") on the Edogawa River in Funabashi. I managed to record some of it on my phone, which I then uploaded to YouTube - dodgy quality, but who's gonna complain? Nobody, that's who.

Prior to watching the fireworks I went shopping at Lalaport, where they have a whole store devoted to tea. Tea and fireworks make for a happy Ty.

fuckin' go (aka Music is my Therapy)

2007-08-01T02:01:00.000+09:00

Fiona Apple - Get Gone (apologies for the sound quality, this is the best live version I could find). A tremendous song to sing along to when you're angry. Pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right now (although I must say I'm feeling slightly more genki than Ms Apple looks at the end of this clip). My kingdom for soundproof walls!

edit: Sleep to Dream also works a treat.

And because too much anger isn't always helpful, Paper Bag has a serenity and sense of resignation that is very soothing (as well as a charming filmclip). Thank you Dr Apple. You made last week much more bearable.

It's the little things...

2007-07-30T01:44:00.000+09:00

It's the little things that can make you really appreciate living in a new country. Like the fact that everyone in Japan is tiny, making size 28 jeans incredibly easy to find (unlike in Australia, where they are an incredibly rare beast). Since I've gotten over the shock of paying two months' rent from the one pay cheque (the joy of moving), I decided it was time for new jeans. And I know I should use this blog to discuss politics, literature etc, but seriously, these jeans fit like they were made for me (apart from the legs, which they hemmed for me while I waited - you just don't get that type of service in Aus!). So I present: jeans. (Notice in the corner of the photo you can see a bed. A real bed. No more futon! Joy of joys!)

Also, my hair changed colour. Work seem to be okay with it. Huzzah!

On Thursday I had my first 2nd day of a weekend in a long time, and so went indoor climbing with my new (Kettle-)housemate Jasmine and her friend Rachel. 'Twas fun, I've never been before, and apparently I'm quite monkey-like in my climbing, so I do believe I'll go again. This Thursday in fact.

Not sure who does their advertising, but they should be fired.

Climbing shoes: not sexy.

The start is the hardest part.

Success!!

Not sure exactly what's happening here. I think I got stuck.

Jasmine putting us all to shame - overhangs are so difficult!

This one especially!

I've progressed a bit with my Japanese. I attempted my first kanji characters. Here is my attempt at Happy Birthday.

Also, this notice was left on the noticeboard at work when the typhoon was approaching Tokyo - bless our staff, they try so hard.

Finally, I've decided I'm going to buy a digital piano. I promise to upload my version of Chopsticks in a future entry. You have been warned.

Things I've learnt in the last month.

2007-07-26T02:34:00.001+09:00

Patrick Wolf is a brilliant performer. He better come back to Tokyo soon.

The world's second largest Statue of Liberty can be found in Odaiba, Tokyo.

When making sushi, use freshly cooked rice. Rice that has been stored in the fridge for a day loses its stickiness, and doesn't make good sushi rice. It does make the process of making sushi that much more hilarious though, especially after a beeru or wine.

The video for Moloko's Forever More is awesome. Like the song.

English guys can be real jerks. But then so can I.
Fiona Apple makes wonderfully therapeutic music for when you're angry. (Not really something I've learnt recently, more a rediscovery.)
Standing up to drunks in bars who think they can intimidate you by pointing out your sexuality does wonders for your self esteem.
Great Expectations really is a very enjoyable book.
はしでごはんをたべます。

I know I've been really slack lately, and promise to put more photos up soon.

The rocks in Kyoto are different to Tokyo rocks

2007-06-27T00:25:00.000+09:00

More photos from Kyoto! These are from Ryōan-ji, a Zen temple which boasts a large rock garden. When I first saw the rocks I thought "hmm great, rocks". After walking around the temple a bit, I came back to the rocks and sat down on the balcony where everyone else was sitting (there were a lot of people staring at these rocks), and soon found my self staring into the rocks, thinking. I can't remember what I was thinking exactly, probably something like "I'm hungry", or "tippy tippy ty all over the world", but, thinking is thinking! So congratulations rocks, you worked.

A view of the rock garden from a specially chartered helicopter the Japanese government organised to celebrate my arrival at Ryoanji.

The walls of the temple are made from clay that was boiled in oil. The distinctive patterns on the walls are from the oil leaking out after the walls were erected.

One of the things I loved about Kyoto was that you don't have to go far to be surrounded by trees. Most of the temples have quite lush gardens, the big ones especially so.

This is a snake Aaron and I saw climbing up the river bank while we were having lunch on the last day of my visit. We left just as it was about to slither onto the bicycle path.

Aaron, being the awesome person he is, met up with me every day for lunch and/or dinner, including the final night spent eating with the students of Kyoto University in their cafeteria - oh how that brought back memories! I must agree with Aaron, the food they serve their students is MUCH better and much cheaper than the fare at the UQ refec. Although, it's pretty hard to pass up a chicken dim sim.

So to thank Aaron for his hospitality, I now post a very flattering picture of him mid-bite of lunch.

Finally, some news. I am no longer coming back to Aus in September for the Tori concerts (sob, hardest decision I've ever had to make), so anyone looking forward to seeing me unfortunately will have to make the long trek to Tokyo (but the offer of a spare bed stands!)

And 3 days till my Patrick Wolf concert!!!

Finally... some Kyoto photos! Also, moving house and Patrick!

2007-06-17T00:05:00.000+09:00

I finally got my act together, and have uploaded some photos. There's so many photos from Kyoto, so these are going up bit by bit.

These are photos of/from Kinkakuji Temple. It's very popular with tourists - there were SO many people here! So Kinkakuji Temple gets it's name from the fact that the upper two levels are covered in gold foil. At first when you see the temple it looks like it could just be gold paint - then when you get close enough you can see the water reflecting off it in such a way it could only be gold! Very beautiful (unfortunately it was cloudy the day I saw it, I bet it would look even more amazing on a sunny day).

The gardens around Kinkakuji were also very beautiful. They're mossy gardens, and look like a carpet of green has been laid out over the bumps and hills of the landscape.

Before leaving Kinkakuji I had some Japanese green tea (matcha) - they were serving it for 500yen and it looked traditional, so I thought it was worth it. I was served in a similar way to that shown below - the person serving it kneels down, and places the cup/bowl on the floor in front of you, turning the cup after placing it on the ground.

It also came with some sort of sugar and sweet bean paste cake, which had pieces of gold foil (or something that looked like gold foil) on the top.

So that was Kinkakuji! Now that I've started hopefully I'll be motivated to put up more photos :)

In other news, I've moved - I'll have to send out a mass email with my address, it's much simpler than my last one! Also my room is much bigger, I have so much storage space (that was a problem at my last place) including a desk to put my junk on, instead of the floor, and I have a real bed!! Hooray!!

Also, I'm going to see Patrick Wolf - he's playing in Tokyo on the night of the 2nd of July!!! Woohoo! I totally didn't expect him to come here (as much as I hoped he would), so to find out the other day was a complete shock! He's also touring Aus, playing Sydney and Melbourne - so if I was still in Aus I would have to have flown to see him. After much confusion I managed to buy my ticket from the machine at the convenience storeUnfortunately this is the same night Au Revoir Simone are playing in Tokyo (what are the odds?), so sorry Aaron, I'm going to have to miss them (unless I see them in Yokohama the next night). Anyway, yayness! I'm very excited as you can see. This will make up for having to miss Regina Spektor in Australia (soo jealous of everyone back home who gets to see her). Now if only Ms Spektor can come here, I'll be one very happy chappy!
Here is my ticket - I have NO idea what any of the Japanese says, nor do I know who the other people playing that night are. All I care about is the fact that the ticket says Patrick Wolf SOMEWHERE on there... cause when I was ordering this ticket, the machine said nothing about him, so I wasn't sure I even had the right night, or the right place. Then it printed out with his name, and all was right with the world.

My first concert in Japan!!

Am off...

2007-05-28T01:27:00.000+09:00

... to visit Kyoto and Aaron for a few days. Be back Thursday night!

A Biological Explanation for Human Sexual Orientation

2007-05-20T19:03:00.001+09:00

I will say this: at the very least, if no one reads this entry, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading scientific papers and doing research for the first time in 6 months. I turned off my music to write this. That means a lot! Anyway, given it HAS been a long time since I've written anything like this, I hope my writing is coherent enough to make sense.

This is a lecture presented by Dr Cynthia Chappell at a PFLAG meeting in 2005, reviewing the best research done on the biological causes of homosexuality. This is not Dr Chappell's area of research - she's a Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center's School of Public Health, her primary research interest (at the moment) is related to human parasitic diseases. After her son came out to her a few years ago she decided to do some homework into the research done on the causes of sexuality, in the hopes of a) having a greater understanding of homosexuality, and b) being able to translate this research into language more palatable to a general audience, so that this information could be disseminated. As she mentions at the end of the lecture, a study done in 2002 in Sweden, which involved 992 adult Swedes, found that there had been a significant change from previous studies in tolerance of and attitude toward homosexuals. The three main reasons for this were found to be:

Anti-discrimination legislation
Increased visibility of homosexuals (due to aforementioned legislation - more and more gay people felt safe revealing themselves, and so more people realised they had gay family members and friends); and
the belief that homosexuality has a biological cause and is a normal variant of human sexuality.

Since this research shows very clear evidence of sexuality as being established prenatally (before birth, and therefore not "chosen" later in life), the more people who know about it the better. I will add this - this doesn't try to explain why ALL homosexuals are the way they are, and certainly does not prove that sexuality is 100% genetic. It simply shows that there is very good evidence that sexuality is at least some part genetic.

Anyway, I found it to be a very interesting lecture. It goes for about 45 minutes, followed by about another 30 minutes of interesting questions. The information is easy to digest, and the results are fascinating. If you have time to watch it I recommend it. However, if you don't have time I've summarised some of the results I've found fascinating below.

Summary of some results:
Neurohormonal model
The current theory regarding the assignment of sexuality is the neurohormonal model. During gestation (between 8th and 16th weeks) fetal hormones act on fetal tissues (between 8th and 16th weeks of gestation) to "assign" gender (sex is established at conception, however sexual differentiation occurs at in gestation), giving rise to male and female characteristics, and thus influence characteristics such as neuroanatomy, brain function and body type. The neurohormonal model suggests that these androgens (hormones) also "assign" sexuality. Testosterone is either present during gestation or absent (or existing in very small amounts). The presence of testosterone during gestation (whether a male or female fetus) leads to a preference for females (thus a straight male or lesbian respectively). The absence of testosterone leads to a preference for males (producing a gay male in the case of a male fetus and a straight female in the case of a female fetus). Note that these hormones are produced by the genes of the fetus, and have nothing to do with the mother (other than the fact that half of the fetus's genes come from the mother).

In other words, sexuality is influenced by hormones present during gestation, not after birth. By the time the child is born sexual orientation is set and it can't be changed by hormone injections.

Level of testosterone is same in gay and straight men.

Testosterone increases libido, but does not affect sexual orientation.

Thus hormone levels AFTER birth do not change sexual orientation - it's the hormones present during gestation that decide a person's sexuality.

However, its very difficult to study this, as there is no way to measure the hormone levels in a fetus without destroying it, and so they've had to study this in other ways.
A number of studies to back this theory up are discussed in the lecture. Tests on traits known to be affected by hormone levels in the womb (I think, I'm very tired as I'm writing this) such as neuroanatomy, anthropometric measurements etc have been performed on straight and gay males and females, and the majority of results are consistent with the model (eg. the size of certain areas of gay male brains is very similar to that of straight females, gay males showing similar finger ratio measurements to straight females etc).

Some other results:
Childhood Gender Nonconformity - the excessive behaviour of the opposite gender in children. So for boys that means displaying behavioural traits commonly associated with girls while avoiding (or not displaying) those traits commonly associated with boys. Research has shown that around 75% of children who exhibit CGN will turn out gay or bisexual. This obviously occurs well before that person can "choose" their sexual orientation.

Family Studies

9-22% of brothers of gay men are also gay (compared to the 4-5% of men in society who are exclusively gay (not bisexual))

5-25% of sisters of lesbians are also lesbian (compared to the 2-4% of women in the general population who are exclusively lesbians)

Some evidence to suggest that opposite sex siblings of homosexuals have increased chance of being homosexual, but not as significant as for same sex siblings. This suggests that while male and female homosexuality may run in families, it doesn't mean a family with more gay brothers will have more lesbian sisters.

Twin Studies

Identical twins (have same genes and share amniotic sac in womb) have a 52% chance of sharing the same sexual orientation.

Fraternal twins (have different genes and each have their own amniotic sac; no different from normal brother/sister pair) have a 22% chance of sharing the same sexual orientation.

Fairly strong evidence suggesting a genetic influence on sexuality (brothers sharing the same genes have a much higher chance of sharing sexuality than brothers with different genes). Of course if it were all in the genes, the rate for identical twins would be 100%. If it were all due to the environment the children were raised in, the rate for identical twins would be the same as that for fraternal twins.

Fraternal Birth order effect
Gay men have been found to have significantly more older brothers than straight men (reported in 14 different studies).

It's estimated around 15% of gay males in society could attribute their sexuality to the fraternal birth order effect.

Each older brother increases a man's chance of being gay by 33% (but you would need a LOT of older brothers for the chances of you being gay to increase above 10%).

Effects remain when parental age is controlled (ie ruling out the possibility that this high rate could be affected by the age of the mother - older eggs, genes more susceptible to mutation etc?)

Gay males with older brothers have also been found to have lower birth weights than straight males with older brothers - suggesting fraternal birth order is associated with prenatal events, as obviously birth weight is affected by these events alone.

None of these associations have been found with lesbians.

The effect is independent of the family situation in which the boy is raised - an increase in the number of older brothers by adopted brothers and step brothers has no effect on this, and even when the younger brother is raised by a different family (eg adopted) the effect is still seen. So the effect is not due to being RAISED WITH older brothers, it's simply BECAUSE the boy's mother has given birth to boys before him.

One hypothesis put forward to explain these results is that an immune response in the mother's body, provoked by male fetuses, becomes stronger with each male pregnancy. The different chemicals present in the womb due to this response may lead to different brain development patterns in later male children. The antigen thought to produce this response, the HY antigen, is found on the surface of the cells of male mammals, but not females, explaining why this fraternal birth order effect is not observed with lesbians.

Interestingly, one recent study (Blanchard et al. 2006) shows that the fraternal birth order effect appears to be limited to right-handed males.

Genetic Studies
Linkage studies: a method to find chromosomal regions that "match" within populations expressing the same trait. Values > 50% indicate linkage. Higher values indicate more similarity.
3 independent studies show 66-67% linkage between gay brothers (significantly higher than that shown between straight brothers); 58% between lesbian sisters.

Ultimately it's highly doubtful there's a single gay gene - so many genes contribute to sexual development, so it's impossible to identify a single gay gene.

The trouble with these studies is that there is no single objective measurement of human sexuality - ie you can't take a blood test to determine whether or not someone is gay or straight, you can only go by what they tell you. In some cultures only the receptive partner is considered gay etc, so your results are highly dependent on the thinking of your subjects.

By no means does this research show that sexuality is entirely biological - it simply shows that biology plays a very large role in a human's sexual orientation, and goes some way towards settling the nature versus nurture argument.

A very interesting article published on this can be found here. For those more adept at reading scientific papers have a look for Mutanski, Chivers and Bailey, "A Critical Review of Recent Biological Research on Human Sexual Orientation", published in Annual Review of Sex Research 13:89-140, 2002.

Big Buddha in Little Nokogiriyama

2007-05-15T22:36:00.000+09:00

My friend Sara and I visited a place called Nokogiriyama today - home to an enormous stone Buddha. Nokogiriyama is about 2 hours south-east of Tokyo on the Chiba peninsula - across the bay from Tokyo actually. Anywho, it was a really great day, prob the best thing I've done since I came to Japan - the scenery was stunning, and it was great to escape from the city and be surrounded by nature.
Some pics:

Walking from the train station to Mt Nokogiriyama - a real Japanese rice field!

Lots of stairs
On the way up the mountain

The largest statue of the Buddha Daibutsu in Japan! It was completed in 1783 after 3 years work by Jingoro Eirei Ono and his 27 apprentices. In 1966, work was begun on restoration, after it had suffered much erosion over the years. From the information sheet:

The statue is an image of Rurico Bhechadjaguru Tathagata and signifies that whole universe is "a pure field confined in a lotus world" - it was constructed to be construed as a symbol of world peace and tranquility.

The Buddha is 31m tall from base of the pedestal to the top of the head - and pictures really don't do it justice - you need to see it!

a close up (as close as you can get without cutting out bits of him)

Then we stopped for lunch - soba and udon noodles. You dip the noodles in the sauce (which is like soy sauce, and has spring onions and wasabi in it). You eat the noodles cold - yum!

Eating lunch by the Buddha

more stairs:

The view from the top - on a clear day you can see Mt Fuji, apparently.

The lookout from where I was taking photos

Below the lookout - the hundred-shaku Kwan-non

A little while later - more stairs

Many low-roofed tunnels - this is supposed to be me holding the roof up... but i just look like a tool.

Some of the 1500 stone figures of Arhats - novices who had undergone spiritual awakening. These carvings were scattered the whole way up the trail.

Some interesting food they were selling at the ropeway (cablecar) station - they looked like they could've been strawberry-ish, or at least somewhat dessert-like..

Then they dipped it in soy sauce... so yeah, not as delicious as it looked...

After the buddha, we went to the beach!! The town we caught the train from (Hota) is a beachside town - I was so happy to see the ocean!

But the beach was quite polluted :(

The last two weeks have been fairly uneventful - I've been working and enjoying my days off. There's been some karaoke, some strawberry daquiris (happy hour is dangerous - three ridiculously large drinks is enough to render me unable to walk without the help of friends - will not be drinking that much ever again. But my friends are wonderful!) and some strange spider sculptures in Roppongi.

I truly discovered the brilliance of Tori's Strange Little Girls album. ADP came and was/is superb. While waiting for ADP I got Bjork's new album, and it too is great (although I can't listen to the two Antony songs - his voice drives me insane). Also I plan to go to Kyoto in two weeks for a few days - will hopefully catch up with Aaron! Oh, and I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman - fantastic book so far.

Finally, I leave you with another shot of the Buddha :)

Ah, the Liberal Party...

2007-05-02T11:40:00.000+09:00

.. full of progressives like Bill Heffernan.

Sara's birthday - and matcha!

2007-04-30T18:43:00.000+09:00

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

2007-04-18T17:49:00.001+09:00

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...

2007-04-17T01:10:00.000+09:00

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

2007-04-16T20:35:00.000+09:00

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

2007-04-14T01:38:00.001+09:00

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)

still here... just lazy

2007-04-08T03:25:00.000+09:00

erm so apparently some of my dear friends were concerned I'd stopped blogging...

well I'm still here, and have been meaning to update my blog for a while, but well... I'm really a very lazy person, and posting these blogs really does take a lot of effort :P Plus I've been working a lot lately, and have also been distracted by a CD sent to me by a very naughty person...

so in the meantime, enjoy these photos of cherry blossum trees, taken at a place called Sakura-dori ( Cherry Blossom street, or as I like to call it, Cherry Tree Lane) in Goko.

ta-da!

prettiness!!

And some photos (courtesy of the lovely Carrie) from a Hanami party I went to last Sunday- a hanami party involves sitting under the cherry blossoms eating and drinking. Lots of fun, and many wonderful people! Such as:

Ich (I think?!), Carrie, Misuzu, and Sara

Misuzu and Carrie

and again! (sexy poses)

Little Earthquakes

2007-03-24T23:55:00.000+09:00

So apparently an earthquake of magnitude 4.2 hit the prefecture of Saitama (just north of Tokyo) on Wednesday around 10:30am, and it was felt in Tokyo, with some buildings shaking. It was not felt by Tyrone though. Oh no, he was sleeping. Just like when it snowed. This is becoming a pattern.

On Sunday night we had the work party at a local izakaya (so local in fact it's three floors below work). I had a great time, got lots of photos, but can't upload them yet as my internet is being stupid. So next time I post I will have lots of photos of yummy food, and general craziness courtesy of everybody from work. No karaoke or Kate Bush this time (alas), but I did try hot sake!

Since this entry has a Tori title, I'd better include something about Tori. So here it is: I present to you a picture of the American Doll Posse, the 5 characters from whose perspective Tori will be singing on her new album. From left to right: Santa, Clyde, Isabelle, Tori and Pip.

I love it, and I love the concept. The Tori character appears to be a caricature of herself (with the chicken, and the previously released picture I featured earlier), it would make me so happy to see that she's capable of making fun of herself. Damn the next 5 weeks are going to be hard to get through - I want the album now! Leaks are starting to appear on the net, but I'm going to be strong and resist till I have the album in my hands... probably.

Side note: I wonder if I'll be able to work the other album titles into my blog? I don't really mention Pele (the volcano) very often, so that'll be tough, unless I happen to make a trip to Hawaii.

Also, the album cover for Bjork's new album has been revealed... oddness. But I can't wait to hear it! I really hope she tours here.

On Monday I'm travelling outside of Tokyo for the first time since I got here! I'm catching the Nozomi shinkansen (the fastest of the bullet trains) from Tokyo at 7:13am to Osaka, and will spend three days in the Kansai area. For the rest of Monday I'll be exploring Osaka and hopefully catch up with Kevin, on Tuesday I'll go for a day trip to Kyoto and then on Wednesday I'll take a trip to Kobe (both Kyoto and Kobe are only about 30 mins from Osaka by train). I'm staying all three nights in Osaka, and on Thursday I catch the shinkansen (a slightly slower one) back to Tokyo, arriving in Tokyo just before 2pm and starting work at 4:05pm - haha will be a pretty tight schedule! But Japanese public transport (at least the trains) is so reliable, I don't think I'll have any troubles. But I'll be out of internet contact from Monday till late Thursday.

Finally, I wanted to say (in mint green writing)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLIE!!!

Listening to: sigur rós - untitled 8 - popplagið (the pop song)

It snowed today!!!

2007-03-17T00:57:00.000+09:00

... but I was asleep when it happened... One of my students was awake at 7:30 this morning and said it was snowing, but only for around 10 minutes. CURSES!! I missed it!!

Anywho, since I'm creating a whole new post, I may as well tell you about the rest of my day. I joined a gym! So I went for the first time tonight - so confusing! You have to take your shoes off before going up to the change rooms, and finding the pool is like trying to find your way through a labyrinth. But I eventually found it (with a little help from the staff and a map on the wall - it's amazing, when you think everything is in Japanese you start not to notice English and things like maps).

Also had my first sento (a type of communal bathhouse) experience at the gym - they have showers for rinsing off after your workout, but they also have a large bath, along with a sauna and cold bath for after the sauna. So before you enter the bath you're supposed to wash using the soap and taps provided, along with the little stools provided. That way you're all clean when you enter the bath, and so the water stays clean. I really wasn't sure on how things were done, so I showered first, while watching (okay, not TOO closely haha) what other people were doing, then decided to give it a try. It's so relaxing after you've been working/-out, so I imagine I will make use of this facility even if I don't do a proper swim/workout. So then I tried the sauna, but only spent a couple of minutes in there (the clock was doing weird things - was the heat affecting me already?) before showering again and testing the other bath... which before that moment I hadn't known was cold. So I stepped into 18 degree water, and I'm fairly sure let out an audible gasp. Then just so I didn't look like a complete wimp I hopped all the way in, up to my neck, decided I'd been in there just enough time to look manly and hopped back into the warm pool.... much better.

So yeah, back to being active - I feel much better now. I joined the gym at the same place as my work - I was going to join one closer to home (which is only 10 mins from work haha, but still), but decided to go with the one at work, as if I move out of this place (which I would like to do sometime in the next two months) at least I won't have to travel any further to get to the gym. The only problem is, apparently quite a lot of the students from our school go to that gym... so there is a chance I will run into one of them whilst one of us is naked in the change rooms or shower... which would be awkward.

Listening to: Ariane Moffatt - Bien dans rien

tempura, Italian, onigiri and sweet potato. And one craptacular night.

2007-03-13T23:41:00.000+09:00

Well it's been a week since my last post, so I'll fill you in on what's happened - I can't say it'll be as entertaining as last week, but I can't find Godzilla every week!

Last Wednesday I had my first Japanese lesson - I can now (theoretically) tell the time in Japanese (although it won't be much use, by the time I get it out you'll have to add another 15 minutes or so. Anyway, I enjoyed it, it was just a free community class taught by local housewives in Tsudanuma, so it was a good chance to interact with locals. After that I discovered an awesome second-hand music store (going to be bad for my wallet I can see!) where I bought my first Nine Inch Nails cd (who'da thunkit?). I then joined my workmate Steve(-o) for lunch at an Italian restaurant. It was so good, for 1100Y each we got a decent meal AND a decanter of wine each! Awesome.

Here is Stevo being a bad influence on Beaker

Things got nasty

Friday night was one of the most craptacular nights of my life. I finished work at 9pm, and decided to go clubbing in Shinjuku, as my friend Yu was out. So I arrived at Shinjuku around midnight, managed to find the club again, and found Yu. However, after an hour Yu said he was going home. This meant that I was now alone at the club, in the middle of Shinjuku with no way of getting home until the first trains around 5am. While I wasn't mad at Yu because I don't think he should have to babysit me, I was just annoyed in general at the situation. Dancing by yourself (well, surrounded by people but still alone) is only fun for a couple of songs, especially when the music is shite. So I decided to walk to the main part of Shinjuku to try to find an internet cafe to sleep at until the first train - the internet cafes here are 24 hr and you can get a private room, good for those pesky times you miss the last train home. So I walked the 15 mins or so to Shinjuku Station, very grateful I'd bought my ipod and headphones (which make very good earwarmers) and scarf, seeing very few internet cafes. When I finally found some they were all full. So I thought "I know! I'll sleep at McDonalds!" as I'd heard this was a common solution to my problem. So I found a McDonalds, bought some food so that it looked like I was actually interested in their product and not just their oh-so-comfy benches, and just as I was handed my food a sign was placed across the stairs to the upstairs eating area, which I correctly guessed meant it was closed for the next 2 hours... Doh!!

So at 2am I found myself walking the streets of Shinjuku with a delicious hot chocolate and not -so-delicious burger, wondering what the hell I was going to do for the next 3 hours. After a bit more walking around, I realised I really had to find somewhere warm, as no matter how suave scarves and jackets look, they really only do so much to protect against the cold. So I headed back to the club, deciding that despite the crappy music and smoky air, at least there I could feel my fingers. I found a comfy seat in the corner of the room, and spent the next 2 hours or so with my headphones on, getting strange stares from some guys and thinking "either ask me to dance or stop staring", and counting down the minutes till the first train. To top off my wonderful night/morning, once I was on my train I fell half asleep, and woke up just as the train was pulling out of my station - as I woke up I thought "hmm I wonder what station we're leaving", then saw the name of the next station - dammit! So I did a quick platform change at the next station, waited another 10 minutes for the next train and eventually got home at 6:20am, getting some sleep before starting work at 1:20pm.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with the way I handled the situation - this was the first thing to happen that could've made me really miss Australia, but I didn't really feel that. I survived walking around the streets of Tokyo in the ridiculous hours of the morning by myself, without freaking out. I'm sooo happy I had my ipod though - I think without it the night would've seemed 3 times as long.

Today I got my first haircut in Japan - the thought of getting a haircut but not being able to tell the hairdresser what you want is kinda scary, so I was a little nervous haha. I went to a place suggested by Stevo, and luckily there was an Australian girl working there, so she was able to help me and so now I don't have the beginnings of an afro on my head! woot.

Tonight I met up with a new friend Yoshi in the city for dinner - I had my first tempura! It was very nice, and again quite cheap! Then we went back to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building I visited on my sick day - got to see the lights of Tokyo from 45 floors above ground!

Bright lights - crappy picture. This is looking towards Shinjuku station.

excuse my Joker smile.

I've been meaning to get photos of the people I work with, and so far I've only remembered once. So here's a photo of Stevo and Cheryl at work.
Next Sunday we're having a party at an izikaya - kind of a going away party for one guy and a welcome party for me and the Assistant Trainer Steve (from NZ). So I promise to get photos then. I think I was so lucky as far as my home branch is concerned - everyone is so friendly and so much fun to work with.

I thought I'd show you some of the food I've been eating since I've been here.

From all the convenience stores/supermarkets you can buy onigiri - rice balls - which have different fillings. However the fillings are marked on the packaging in kanji - as you'd expect - so I have no idea what's in each type, making onigiri a mystery package for me! So one day I just chose one at random, deciding I'd work my way through them until I knew what was in each one. The first one I chose I was lucky, it was tuna and mayonnaise, my favourite type so far. The second time I tried it I wasn't so lucky - I chose the pink one as I thought it might be salmon. Well I was half right... it was salmon roe.
It was okay - the texture was just very odd. So I'm not sure I'll be eating that one again.

Also most supermarkets have grill-type cookers outside, from which you can buy hot sweet potatoes. I only realised what they were last week (thanks Cheryl!) and have since been buying them often, they're so yummy!

Also, just to prove that I've been eating healthily, here is my dinner from the other night - prob the third (half-)homecooked meal I've had since I've been here.

Tomorrow is the start of my 7 day work week - it would usually be the second day of my weekend, however I have training all day so that I may teach children (I'll get a day off to make up for it sometime in April). Then Thursday I start my regular working week, and next Tuesday which would normally be my day off I'm working to cover Carrie, who's going on holidays. Going to be a fun week I'm sure haha.

Oh and I'm going to join a gym this week, as I feel like I'm getting lazy and fat. Will be a good way to meet locals.

To finish off, here are some photos from my visit to Shinjuku on the day I was sick - I know I promised these ages ago but tough :P

Walking around Shinjuku, I pretty much got lost many times on purpose. Since I wasn't looking for anywhere in particular this seemed like a good way to explore the area - just walking down random streets and alleys.
A temple in Shinjuku

The inside of the temple
A shrine in Shinjuku Central Park

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government buildings - the ones I was at the top of.
One view from the top of the tower. In the distance of one of the windows you can actually see Mt Fuji on a clear day - however the day I visited it was very hazy and cloudy, so I couldn't see it. But anyway - in every direction all you can see are buildings and buildings.

So I've been here over a month now, and have to say I really love this city. I think I'm going to find it very hard to move on, as I know that anywhere else I go won't be as safe as this, or as convenient. I've already reached the stage where I get slightly annoyed at a wait of 5 minutes for a train (in Brisbane missing a train would mean a 30 minute wait for the next one). This city is exactly what I needed in my life at the moment. I'm loving the food, the people I'm meeting are so friendly, and I feel so at home. So for the time being I'm really happy :)

Listening to: Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Godzilla attack!

2007-03-06T19:03:00.000+09:00

Today was the first day of my weekend, and I had one mission - find Godzilla. My Lonely Planet guide book said he'd been spotted harassing old ladies in Ginza, so I ate a hearty breakfast, packed a bag of ammunition (and a muesli bar in case I got hungry), paid the Y230 required and boarded the steel chariot that would take me to my destiny.

I arrived at Ginza expecting scenes of carnage, buildings toppling down, overturned and destroyed cars everywhere, and instead I was faced with an even more shocking sight - high class stores selling things I could never hope to afford! Ginza is for Tokyo what Park Avenue is for New York - loads of big name designer stores, all of which made me feel like such a bogan as I walked into them.

One of the first stores I saw as I emerged from the underground gave me the resolve to continue my quest - I realised that there were some stores that needed protecting! (If only so that a certain Miss Vuittonaholic could visit them if she ever came to Tokyo!) I briefly visited the store, and contemplated purchasing some Y140000 (AU$1400) shoes.... then realised how ridiculous that would be, and how many pairs of equally-as-good looking shoes I could buy for the same price....

But I had more important matters at hand. For a few minutes I thought my quest to find Godzilla was all but over - the beast had left no trail of destruction for me to follow. And then I spotted it - the beast liked fruit...

Seeing that half-eaten apple shocked me out of my daze, and the hunt was on again! For an hour I stalked the streets of Ginza, looking for clues as to his location. At one stage I thought I may have seen him disappear into a music store, and so went inside to investigate further. No sign of the Zill-meister (as he's commonly referred to, by me), but I did find a Bösendorfer piano - I tried to take a photo but one of the staff politely gestured for me not to. So with a quick "gomennasai" I was off again!

Things were getting de-desperate, as every street I turned down yielded no clues, no enormous footprints, not even a half-devoured human who, with their dying breath could have whispered the Zill-meister's location (which to be true, wouldn't have helped given my lack of understanding of Nihon-go). Through a series of trials involving paddles and swollen asses I managed to procure an ancient map marking the site of his nest, however given the fact that Japanese streets have no names, this proved somewhat useless.

Just as I'd given up all hope of finding the great lizard, I stumbled (as often happens in these situations). As I picked up my belongings, I realised that my breathing had suddenly become a lot louder, and somewhat fishier... "How odd" I thought... then I looked up, only to find myself staring into the terrifying jaws of the monster!

For what seemed like an eternity I was too terrified to move - had all my training (I did sit through all of the 1998 remake) been for nothing? I reached into my bag for my weapons, then remembered that in my desire to look fashionable I'd brought my ultra-hip laptop satchel, and not my backpack, and all I could fit in it was my phrase book!! Curses!

I was determined to show the beast I wasn't scared, and so gathering up all my courage, I opened my phrase book and roared the first phrase I found: "DENGENPURAGU O KUDASAI!!!!!"

I'm not sure whether it was the fact that I'm still missing half my voice and so my manly roar sounded more like a slightly boyish shout, or that the phrase I'd picked translates as "I'd like to buy an adaptor plug", but in any case, the G-man wasn't phased (if maybe a little puzzled), and he proceeded to advance on me.

I'd now lost all hope - in preparation for my digestion I set my iPod to play what I thought would be my last song - Tori's hypnotic voice came drifting out of my headphones "surrender, then start your engines" - oh how apt, except for the fact I had no engines to start, part of the reason I was in this situation...

The beast stood menacingly over me... saliva dripped down, saturating me as I literally shook in my boots... with a horrendous roar the beast opened his massive jaw (duh).....

All of a sudden, I heard a heroic cry -

"MEEMEEEMEEEEMEEEEMEEEEEE!!!!!"

I looked up to see my rescuer staring down the mutant lizard!

With another heroic "MEEMEEMEEMEEEEEEEEEE" Beaker leapt atop Godzilla's great spiky back, displaying a nimbleness and strength never before seen in a muppet his size. He grabbed hold of a spine, and while the great monster roared and shook in outrage, Beaker held his position.

"Oh no!" I thought, "He'll be thrown for sure! He can't possibly hold for much longer!!"...

Well I won't bore you with the details of what happened next, but 20 minutes later the beast was tamed, with Beaker riding him like a carnival pony!

Uttering a few words of command, Beaker leapt down from the G'meister's back, landing beside me on the pavement.

"The beast has now sworn to protect this city" he said, as he wiped the blood from where a great claw had ripped into his muscular upper arm. "Now, let us depart, we are needed elsewhere".

And we left Ginza, confident that the city was now in safe hands. I took a final glance at Godzilla, now Protector of Ginza, before stepping into the darkness of the subway.

The most wonderful thing happened to me today!

2007-03-04T00:19:00.000+09:00

I walked into a crowded elevator, full of people of all ages, and I WAS THE TALLEST PERSON IN THE LIFT!!

That has never happened to me ever!!

Okay, I promise tomorrow night I'll put up a proper post for what I did today - basically I lost my voice, and given a voice is a pretty essential tool in the instruction of English Conversation, I had to call in sick, so decided not to waste a day off and headed into Shinjuku...

Will post more pics tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's:

Me on the 45th floor of the North Tower of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building (said elevator brought me here)

Beaker staring down at the city
and a cool shot of the sun coming through the clouds.

The minute you walked in the joint...

2007-03-03T02:12:00.000+09:00

So tonight I went to karaoke with the people from work, for Cheryl's birthday.

I had such a fun time, despite the fact that I had no voice for most of the time. Here when you book a karaoke room all the drinks you want are free (well, the ones from the 3 or 4 page menu they give you) so we kept ordering vodka and ginger beers hehe. I've only known these people for a max of 2 weeks, but tonight it felt like they've been my friends for ages, we had such a great time! There ended up being 9 of us (7 instructors from Aus (2), the US (2), Canada (1) and the UK (2), and 2 Japanese NOVA staff from our branch) in this little karaoke room.

From left: a Japanese staff member who changed branches before I arrived, so I'd never met her before tonight and can't remember her name, Stev'o (UK), Carrie (Aus), Sherman (Canada) and Mayumi (from our branch). Not pictured: Cheryl (US), Sara (US), me and another guy I'd never met from the UK. I should have got more photos but my phone ran out of batteries after these two.

And my tori group - remember back in Brisbane when we went karaoke-ing there were only about 8 or 9 rooms in the whole place? Well walking around this place felt like walking around a mansion - hallways off hallways filled with karaoke rooms!! I think we were in room 41 or something...

Anyway, so by the end of the night, I'd sung to:
Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush (a duet with Stev'o - he's British and a Kate fan!) - but my voice lost it's higher registers, so I had to sing it low - felt so wrong, or like I was in that British Ukulele Choir that covered that song! Next time I will have my voice back and will be able to sing it properly!! but I was still able to do the "waving" she does at the end of the filmclip heehee)

Karma Police - Radiohead
Closer - Nine Inch Nails (with Sara and Carrie)- lol everyone else was a bit shocked at the lyrics.
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Big Spender - Shirley Bassey (duet with Sara)
Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics (group song)
Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie - this was the last of the songs I chose, and I was able to finish singing it just before racing for my last train

They didn't have any Tori though - not a single song!

Anyway, despite barely having a voice I had an awesome night, we did lots of dancing on the seats to the songs, and shouted our lungs out! I shudder to think what my voice will sound like tomorrow though - and I have 8 lessons to teach!

So there you have it - my first Japanese karaoke experience!

The Magic Position

2007-03-02T01:12:00.000+09:00

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

Imperial Palace East Garden and Ueno

2007-02-22T00:18:00.000+09:00

Okay, so as I said in last night's frenzied post, I actually did have a very big day yesterday, but it was all overshadowed by a certain provocative singer/songwriter...

So yesterday was my day off, I'd planned with Chris and Christie to go to see the Emperor's Palace, so met up with them at Otemachi station. It was such a freakin' cold day! It was drizzly all day, but because I'd been inside until pretty much the last minute, i didn't realise how cold it was, and so didn't take any gloves with me - pretty much just had my beanie, and didn't even take my 150Yen umbrella! When Dad called around 5pm when I was outside the Tokyo Museum, I had to keep changing the hand I was holding my phone in, as they kept freezing!

So we spent the morning walking around the Imperial Palace East Garden (the only part of the palace grounds open all year round) and freezing our little fingers off...

Some photos:

Beaker in front of the main gate

Beaker inside the main gate

me! inside

Christie in front of the huge gate

Beaker getting stuck in the thicket, trying to climb into the moat (the castle has a moat!!!)

Interesting contrast - shows you just how close to the Imperial Palace entrance the city is - it's literally just across the road

Samurai quarters

The Mt Fuji View Keep - used to store things, but also used by the Emperor to watch fireworks over the bay in old times, and it used to have a clear view to Mt Fuji

A keep, which they think used to be linked to somewhere else... i can't really remember

a cherry blossom tree, not quite in bloom - all of my students believe they'll bloom early this year, as it's been a very mild winter

This was the base of a huge tower, destroyed by fire sometime in the 1600s

The view from the top of the base

More cherry blossoms - very pretty already!

A Music Hall built for the Emperess back in the 1960s... yeah, kinda ugly

Beaker about to leave - that's Chris and Christie on the left

Exit gate - wasn't sure if the guard would have a problem with me taking a photo, but he seemed okay

The bridge back to 2007

Me between worlds - looking back to the 1800s, forward to 2007

Some type of statue - I can't really remember who he was, so lets just say he's the Patron Saint/Samurai of Pigeons

Chris and Christie encouraging the pigeons

So after seeing the Imperial palace gardens, and feeding the already fat pigeons, we headed to Ginza for lunch. Ginza is said to be to Japan what Park Avenue is to New York - and you could tell as we exited Ginza Station, very swanky stores, advertisements and restaurants. We ended up settling at a little Italian restaurant, as we all had a craving for spaghetti - and it was so an awesome meal! Lol it felt a bit odd though, coming all this way to Japan to eat Italian food.

Anyway, Chris and Christie had to work later that night, so they headed off then. I'd made arrangements to meet up with Stevo, a British guy I work with, for some drinks at Ueno, so headed there, then spent about 10 minutes walking around Ueno trying to find the Hard Rock Cafe, before getting a message telling me that I'd walked past it, as it was right in the station. Doh!
So I spent a good hour or two chatting to him over my ice tea (free refills! woot!), it was great, we sort of had similar upbringings, so got on quite well. So it's good to know someone else at my work a bit better now. I think we're all planning on going out for Cheryl's birthday this week (Cheryl is from Seattle), so that'll be a great way of getting to know people as well.

After chatting to him, I spent a couple of hours walking around Ueno-Koen, the huge park at Ueno. Some of the features of Ueno-Koen include an amusement park, a fountain, a huge Shinto shrine and a 5 storey pagoda (very impressive). Ueno also has the highest concentration of museums and art galleries, but as it was fairly late in the afternoon I didn't really get a chance to go into any of them (except once when i went in to warm up!).

So I'll let the photos do the talking:
A statue outside the Tokyo museum of modern art (I think? or another art gallery?)

A huge whale outside the Tokyo Science Museum...

... which Beaker managed to piss off

Inside the Shinto Shrine, looking towards the temple (?)

and looking back out

A flame from the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki - kept burning all these years. A man found his uncle's house still burning, and kept some of the flame burning as a symbol of regret, and a whole lot of other stuff happened, such as it being combined with flames created from the friction of two Nagasaki roof tiles hitting each other, and at some stage it was taken into the UN, and then a lamp was created for it in Ueno, where it now resides

The temple (?) inside the shrine

The pagoda (I couldn't find a way to get a better view of it, so this is all I could get)

The front gate of Inshu Ikeda's Residence (known as Kuro-Man, or Black Gate) - and a van....

a cool "sculpture" in front of one of the art museums - that flash is me!

The Tokyo Museum

8 degrees!!! this was at 5:30pm, I was soo cold. Okay, so I know it gets a lot colder than this, but for a Brisbane/Gold Coast boy, this is damn cold!

After walking around Ueno till around 6, hoping to avoid the rush hour trains, but getting tired of walking around, I decided to go home - and had my first true rush hour train trip! So many people packed into the trains, and they all act like it's the most natural thing! People are reading while being crushing into one another, then at a station people surge towards the exit, so people get pushed out, then if they want to stay on the train they have to get back on, but they look so nonchalant.

Also, the whole time I've been here I've been saying "sumimasen" when I wanted to get past people, as I was told it means "excuse me". Well I realised yesterday or the day before that it does mean "excuse me", but is used as a way to get their attention... so that explains why people looked kinda weirdly at me whenever i said it.

Tomorrow I get my alien registration card so can stop carrying my passport around - woot! I'm also having a hard time finding a swimming pool that's close to me that also doesn't charge a ridiculous amount to use (such as the private gyms)...

Well, today marks 2 weeks since I arrived, and it seems like I've been her so much longer! I keep stressing out, thinking that I haven't seen enough, but then I have to realise that I've only been here a fortnight, and well, I've got a lot more time here. I think I'm just in holiday mode, thinking that I've only got a short amount of time here, so trying to fit a lot in.

One stupid thing - you can't send sms or free messages to people on different phone networks to you! You have to send them emails from your phone, but of course you have to know their phone email address... Seems so ridiculous. But I have been receiving the sms's everyone from home has been sending, including the one message sent from someone telling me they had a new phone number, but didn't bother including their name :P So I have no idea who's new number I have!

Anyway, I'm still very much enjoying myself here, and am settling in quite nicely - I'm used to the train systems, have already bought my first Tekei (monthly pass), and little things like going to the shops aren't freaking me out. Work is fine, a bit brainless, but this is what I wanted, a holiday for a year or so, so it suits me fine. And I have two imminent CD releases to look forward to! Patrick Wolf's The Magic Position, coming out next week, and that should keep me happy till May when Tori's American Doll Posse is released! Huzzah!

Currently listening: Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!

Holy Flirking Shnit!

2007-02-21T00:24:00.000+09:00

Okay, I actually did have a very busy day today, and have so many photos to show, but I just found out that Tori Amos is releasing her new album American Doll Posse on May 1st!

check out the link here (cause i know you're all ever so interested :P)

And the photo that's been released looks amazing!!

This album is going to shite all over The Beekeeper, this picture is like the complete antithesis of the photos from The Beekeeper. Sounds like old Tori is back!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay... gonna be hard to get to sleep now...