Surprise me

Lisa rocks. Not only is she coming out to see me at Christmas, she also sent me this ace Camera Obscura t-shirt. Lisa, we love you.

Supersize me

I found some great restaurants this week - or rather, my Japanese friends found these great restaurants and took me there in a bid to wean me off my diet of Doutor sandwiches and Ministop salads. Last Thursday I went to the Orchid Garden with my flatmate Donna, Takako, and 3 of her friends - Yoko, Noriko and Keiko. In the daytime the orchid house is open to the public, and in the evening the patio-style restaurant comes alive. It's set in a beautiful garden complete with a lawn and a pond, and is the largest enclosed outdoor space I've seen in Japan so far. The atmosphere was relaxed and the food was inexpensive and tasty. I would give it 7 out of 10 and recommend it to my friends.
The nicest thing about the evening was hanging out with cool locals. I got on well with Noriko, who spent last year studying in Germany. She was very patient with my high school German (which is an awful lot better than my Japanese, even though I haven't used it much since school) and didn't seem to mind me speaking in pidgin German/Japanese/English to her.
On Sunday night I finally went for dinner with Yoko. I met this Yoko at Dan's leaving party about 3 months ago, and she took me to an organic buffet restaurant in Yaba Cho. All you can eat for 1800 yen. Mmm. And for 1800 yen, I can eat a lot.
I felt very virtous eating all my organic healthy food, then went home and watched Supersize Me. Part of me was disgusted and horrified, and part of me really wanted a cheeseburger.

Bliss!

Oh this is good. I snapped and bought wildly expensive olives slathered with so much garlic my flatmates left the building. This leaves me alone with my gin and olives and listening to Radio 4 comedy over the internet in a state of middle-class bliss.

Shake shake

I was dozing in the livingroom watching Futurama when BANG like something hit the side of the house, only I live on the seventh floor. I'm surprised it took so long to feel an earthquake. It was only a little one, thankfully.

Takako pics

Here`s the lighthouse and Takako.

The problem with saturdays

In some ways I like my work routine. Friday is a half day, Saturday and Sunday go by quickly because we're so busy, Monday is quite relaxing because I have the place to myself, and then there's just Tuesday to deal with before it's my weekend. Saturday and Sunday are hard-going because they start at 10, and the rest of the week I don't start work before 1. Unfortunately, Nagoya goes out on Friday and Saturday night, and though it's fun going out on other nights of the week, The occasional big Saturday is ace.
　　This Saturday I'm promising myself a quiet night in. Two weeks ago was a house party I swore I would leave at 1 am, but anyone who knows me knows that my uttering the fateful words "I'll be home early" means something will mess up my goody-goody plans. Quarter to one and someone produces a guitar and a decent guitarist and the next thing I know its 2 am and my good intentions are wrecked.
Same again last weekend. I went out salsa dancing and again promised I would be leave at 1. I love dancing and the place was just getting going at 1, I couldn't leave then... and the barman was being very generous with his measures. I watched him pour one and realised I was getting triples. And probably more tipsy than was a good idea on a Saturday night. I reluctantly went home at 2.30, but only because I thought I was going to be hungover. Turns out I was right.
I'm now on day 8 of socialising but the appeal is starting to wear thin. I think I may be a hermit this week.

Takako

I nearly bumped heads with this Japanese girl as we both tried to read the notices on the board at the International Centre. We were both reading the notices for language exchange partners. I already have a language exchange partner, Yukie, but I generally only see her for about 45 minutes a week which isn't going to improve my Japanese very quickly.
"Are you looking for a language exchange partner?" I asked, feeling like I was stating the obvious. And this is how I met Takako. We arranged to meet in her home town, Tokai, the next day.
On Thursday I took the train and my hangover to Tokai and met Takako at the station. It was blisteringly hot. I had no bright ideas of what to do, and it suited me to go where she wanted to go since I'd never been there. We took the back roads along the coast and wound through small towns down the penninsula while we chatted about ourselves. Takako can talk for Japan. She is only in the country for a few weeks before she goes back to Australia to study again and doesn't want her English to slip while she's in Japan. In the hour-long ride to the restaurant she had in mind, I learned about her family, dog, friends, job plans and everything else she could think of to talk about while I mostly said little and thought longingly of coffee.
The restaurant she'd chosen was near Noma, a popular beach. The restaurant looked over a lighthouse and for a second it made me think of a similar view in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. Cool thoughts of Canadian winter on a scorching Japanese summer day. Lunch was huge, one of these great lunch specials that Japan does so well that includes soup, salad, fish, desert and coffee for the price of two beers in Outback. The lighthouse has a high fence around it and has become something of a shrine for couples. You write your names on a padlock and chain the padlock to the fence, and this will supposedly keep you together forever.

After lunch we wandered along the beach and sweated profusely, then headed back to Tokai. Takako took me up to the big Buddha on top of the hill. It has a scary face. On the plus side, it's in the middle of a gorgeous park with - get this - grass! Japan doesn't seem to believe in lawns very much. I wanted to roll down the hill. I plan to come back some afternoon with a book and laze on it.
A mad, action-packed day that took me to places I would never have gone to otherwise. Remember, kids - always talk to strangers.

Utsumi

Me and Jo hit the beach a couple of Thursdays ago and managed not to get sunburnt at all. Getting out of the city was such a relief. I spent the afternoon floating in the sea and admiring the perfect sky.

Finally, those sumo photos

Sorry for the lengthy delay, I went out lots and couldn`t face dragging myself all the way down here to argue with the Japanese computer about how to put up these photos. Guilt won. These are from July 19th.

Before a session, the fighters all parade around the ring (not the right word, I know, I`ll come back with the right word) wearing pretty aprons. It`s all very macho.


And then they square up and stomp and slap their thighs for a few mintutes to psyche each other out.


Eventually they get down the wrestling.



This guy came out top overall, so at the end of the day he does a special ceremony.

deja vu

Sorry I havent posted for ages. Ive been busy and lazy. After not going to karaoke for months, I have managed to go three times in the past two weeks. First time was with Donna, Pip and a couple of Donna`s friends. Donna can belt them out proper lounge-singer style. The past two mondays have been birthdays, and were almost identical nights - same people, same bar, same karaoke place afterwards and mostly the same songs sung equally badly. There were a couple extra Americans at the second one who chose some truly awful songs (Stairway to Heaven is not suitable for karaoke, especially if you`re flat). All good clean wholesome fun.
Yesterday I went to the beach at Utsumi with Jo and felt very nostalgic for Thai beaches. Its summer holiday season here in Japan so the beach was packed. Next week we have no kids classes, but we`re going to be crazy busy at work.
Got to dash, off to watch the summer festival at Inuyama.
More posts to follow when I can be bothered to string together a coherent, interesting narrative.