my brother the snowman

the ease shopping in japan

internet shopping in japan is so easy. you dont even need a credit card.

all you have to do is
a. chose what you want to buy,
b. choose the day you want it to arrive,
c. print out a special page with a barcode on it,
d. take it to the nearest conbini (there is one every 100 meters over here),
e. pay for it there in cash,
f. wait for the delivery man to arrive,
g. and "hey presto" you have something new

I bought tom's chrissy present this way. so easy, no need to lug stuff home from the store or go out in the cold at all! it got delivered at 9.30pm last night, but he wont get it until the 16th january when he comes back to japan. an incentive to get him to come back again :)

okinawa, beautiful one day...

a disater the next.

but in the end i had fun. here is how it started thought

thurs night i went to tokyo to stay at suma's so i could sleep in to get to haneda, but he had to fly to franfurt and so i had to leave his house at 6.30am after we had been out at karaoke till all hours

i lost my scarf in the bus

toms bike was stolen from out the front of my apartment

my camera broke.

got airport way early hoping to get on an earlier flight but the bitch behind the counter wouldnt let me, so i waited for 2 hours.

flight was delayed.

finally got to naha, and found the car rental place. it was actually a 20 min train ride from the airport. the travel agents had told me otherwise..

got there and they wouldnt let me have my car cause i had accidently left my international drivers licence at home. not way they were going to budge.

sat around sooking for about 30 mins trying to decided what to do and gte over the fact i couldnt get my 9000 yen back either. then went to a castle.

met up with tom around 5.30 and thing picked up then we i found out they had missed the cut and he was going to be able to spend the whole weekend with me. originally i was going to have to spend it by myself and without a car that would have been hard.

the hotel was not that flash. aparently the place tom had been in all week til friday was much nicer and cheaper

the weather was pretty shit all weekend. cold and windy. the sun came out every so often and it was warmish then, but when it went behind a cloud it was freezing.

we did managed to go and see some old castle ruins and a traditional style okinawan house on saturday by bus. on sunday we hired bikes and rode to the old navy underground tunnels. and then a strange tree house style restaurant for lunch. didnt get anywhere near a beach at all!

did a lot of christmas shopping, but still have nothing for mum and dad...
the shopping here was good, perfume is really cheap for some reason. but as all tourist traps go, too many souviner shops.

the island was ok, but i dont know if i would go back again unless it was summer, or we went even further south to get away from the civilization. there were just too many people and too much concrete.every building is made of concrete!

sounds all a bit depressing, but we actually did have fun. the food we ate was great and once we got into it, the holiday was quite relaxing. spent a lot of time just sitting drinking hot chocolates, eating ice cream, watching the crowds go by.

the wonders never cease

at 3pm on the dot, the music begins. the voice over is telling me to stand up and stretch my hard worked body, "breath in deeply...., breath out....."

funny, i have heard this music every day since i started working here at the prefectual office, but i have never actually seen anybody doing the 3pm exercices, known in japanese as "rajio taiso" or "radio gymnastics"

english grammar

i know that my knowledge of english grammar is not what it should be. but i cant even remember the last time i studied it at school. must have been in primary school...

anyways i still find it kind of insulting when a japanese person who i have never actually heard speak a grammatically correct english sentance telling me that what i have written in english in wrong.

Correct me if i am wrong, but
Below the motif are the roof and the compartment for the light.

should not be
Below the motif is the roof and the compartment for the light.

When you have 2 things you have to use "are" i thought.
tell me what you think. i might be way off here...

a zipper moment

somthing is going on.

i have a pair of pants that the zipper just wont stay up on. i have another pair of pants that the zipper bit just fell off and now i cant wear, and it fell off while i was wearing them. i also have a jacket that wont zip up anymore.

what is the reason for all this zipper tourment? did i wrong the zipper in a past life? i apologise now for any harm i may have caused to zippers.

i had better sort it out soon cause now i am down two pairs of black pants and a rain jacket for cycling.

i wish i had a sewing machine. maybe then i could fix it myself, but i think the only option is to take them all to a alterations shop, or send them back to mum in oz....

anotehr busy week and weekend

since i wrote last about what i have been up to recently, i have done heaps.

sat 3rd: went to the driving range with Umehara-san, a friend we made at the range who turned out to be my friend's unlce. then took a train for 3 hours to machida on the west side of tokyo to meet up with tom. had a meal with all the caddies at TGI fridays and then beat tom in a game of darts.

sun 4th: went the golf course early and hung out in the club house away from the cold while tom and the korean guy he was caddying for practiced. watched the tournament with what seemd a milllion other people. i couldnt get close enough to even wish them luck. in the end they came 7th, but that was pretty disappointing after coming 1st at one point in the tournament. number 13 was not a lucky number for them, triple bogey i think it was....

mon 5th: tom came back to mito to spend the week, and i went back to work.

tue 6th: as per previous post, was on NHK TV again for a short bit of advertising.

wed 7th: went to help out at a childrens taiko school for a few hours. i think i might have finally remembered the song that i have been learning for the last few months off by heart. the kids were doing the same tune, but a lot slower, so it was easier to get.

fri 9th: anotehr trip to the driving range, followed by a dinner at a restaurant called just "EAT". was recognised by the waiter there cause he delivers lunch boxes to my office every day. i didnt even realise. after dinner it was off to bowling with a few JETs from Mito area. Was completely thumped by Tom (must have ben payback for beating him in darts) but i still played my bets game ever, about 90 i think...

sat 10th: a sleepy morning and then a bit of japanese study for tom. at 4.30pm, tamami, a girl from my office picked us up to go to the JET christmas party in Itako, about a 2 hour drive away. actually it only took us 1.5 hours so we got there way to early. so a brief trip to a japanese pub to kill the time was in order. the party started at 7pm and was lots of fun. we played our family's style of kris kringle that involves a lot of stealing and everyone enjoyed it. i ended up with some chocolates and some "elephant" condoms, and tom got a bottle of whiskey.

sun 11th: we had got home from the party at 1am so that was enought time to sleep until we were getting picked up at 8.30am to go group bike riding in Tsukuba. it was a pretty laid back ride, only 30km over the whole day. we stopped every 5 mins to go to a coffe shop or bakery or cake shop. this was good and all but it was soo cold i wished we could go further between stops. the day finished off with a trip to the top of the tallest building to see the night lights and a walk through the christmas tree display. got home around 8pm and had dinner at groovy, our fav pasta shop near my apartment

mon 12th: tom left for okinawa and i went back to working as normal

tonight we have a birthday party for a mito JET called Mehn, actually it wiill be at groovy pasta again, so twice in one week!

on friday i am off to okinawa too, so i hope the weather gets a bit warmer down there. tom called me yesterday as said it wasnt as warm as expected, but anything is better than the 5 degrees we had here yesterday... i might not go on that scuba dive that i had planned though...

the mystery half solved

my digital camera has been broken for the last few days. i went to my bag on friday night to look for it to take a photo at the bowling alley when my friends were being silly, but it just didnt turn on. all it said was "lens error"

this was a shock. what was wrong with my lens? i hadnt used my camera for about a week, what had happened to it in those short few days?

today i discovered a clue. half of the screws from the case are missing! i found one in the bottom of my bag, but about 5 are still missing so the case is very loose.

by pressing the sides of the case together you can make the camera turn on again, but this is not a very good way to take a photo.

now i know what is wrong and i can take it to the shop and just ask for new screws and not have to spend hundreds on getting it looked at. i have heard times when it costs more to fix than buy a new one.

but this still doesnt explain why the screws fell out. the mystery continues...

super stars

tom and i were on tv today. granted it was digital local nhk which noone watches, it was still fun.

i had to go there to promote the asian carton expo that my depeartment is running and decided to invite tom along too. he got to hold a poster and sit in the front row. i had to say a few words, but nothing too strenuous.

not only did i do the promo, but they got me up on stage to help with the cooking segment too. they were making some kind of italian cookies that taste exactly like mum's forcer biscuits. very tasty.

all i need now is snow

the temperature has dropped. the gloves. beanies and scarves are out. all we need now is snow.

and apparently we might get it tonight.

in other regions of japan such as kyoto and hiroshima they have already unseasonal snow. the kinkakuji temple in kyoto is all white! this rarely happens, and especially at this time of the year.

i am sure matt is feeling it in niigata. its been snowing all day according to the weather report.

tonight i am going to cook soup for the 1st time this winter. a big thick veggie soup i think. and then cuddle up on the couch with tom and maybe watch a dvd or 2. definately not going outside at all

rss feeds - the new way to read

I dont know much about all this, but i think it is pretty cool.

Today i discovered that you can personalize your google homepage so that it comes up with links to new posts in your favourite blogs

Click on Personalized home on the normal google page and it lets you add whatever content you want

If you creat a section, use the following link to get Kokogahen updates immediately on your google page

http://kokogahen.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I know i dont write that often, so at least you wont have be disappointed when you go to my site anymore cause you will know if there is something new or not beforehand.

Because you wanted it

I just realised that i hadnt announced Kates new blog to my site. Maybe i did and i forgot i did. I cant even remember what day it is at the moment. Being away from the office for half the week really stuffs with your mind.

Because you wanted it takes of where "Funny Face I love you" left off

recent news

what have i been up to recently...

after finally getting a few free weekends to relax, it back to being busy busy busy again.

since i last wrote on the 19th, i have been riding a bit. I bought some new brakes for my bike. About time too. I dont know how mant thousands of km i had done since i bought the bike in oct last year. But they were very very worn down and probably dangerous. Now i am all ready to ride some huge ride.

I did ride down to the beach and then to the shopping centre that weekend. And then the weekend after i rode a big 50km circut around mito and the surrounding cities. Riding along the country roads is very relaxing, but the large roads have way too many trucks on them for me. I think next time i will stick to country roads again.

On the 22nd we had a big party at one of the JETs houses which ran into the next day. Luckily it was another one of those great public holidays japan loves. I am sure there is at least 1 or 2 a month. The next day a got a lift home with a friend and we decided to go shopping at the new Jusco shopping centre again for christmas presents. I am having no luck at all this year finding anything. And i will have to soon or they wont arrive in the post in time...

This just passed weekend i went into Tokyo on the sunday to meet up with Tom. He had been in Kochi Prefecture, about a 2 hour flight down south working and was coming back to Tokyo to work there for this week. HE wasnt coming till the evening so i spent the day at Design Festa, a big arty kind of show at Odaiba Big Sight. Two of the JETs in Ibaraki were having stalls there so i checked them out. All i bought was a few post cards though and i am sure i will never get around to sending them..

So sunday night was in Tokyo, then monday was the first day of the CIR conference in Chiba. Spend the morning shopping in Ginza with Tom and then got on the train to Makuhari where the conference was being held. I had spend a lot of time in Makuhari in 2003 cause it was where the Tokyo Motor show was held.

The conference was a bit of a waste of time, 3 days of seminars about pretty obvious things. But i got to meet up with lots of other CIRS and stay in a nice hotel (the Prince Hotel). I even met up with an ex-swinny student who was 3 years above me (any one remember Jason?). And also i met someone who was a Rotary exchange student from Melbourne to Saitama 3 years before me.

Tuesday night and wednesday night i went back into Tokyo to have dinner with Tom. First time in a while i have seen him 3 days in a week. Next week he is coming back to Mito though. But the week after is Okinawa. Luckily i am going to go to Okinawa too, but just for the weekend. My office owes me so many days in lieu for weekend and evening work so i can justify taking the friday off. Maybe i will be able to find those christmas presents i need to buy there. I am planning on spending one of the days learning to scuba dive though.. And i will not spend any of the time watching the golf!

So back at work now. But this weekend i will go back into Tokyo to watch the golf on sunday (i know i said i wouldnt go to watch it again, but they have a good chance of winning this week) and have dinner with one of Toms friends on sunday night in Roppongi. Gosh i do some kms for this boy! Oh well, he did come all the way to japan to be with me so i have a couple of thousand kms to catch up on :)

Taiko News

I got a random email from an ex-CIR from Australia so i thought i would put this up for everyone to see if they are interested.

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wadaiko art
workshop with Taiko Master Art Lee

Winner of the Tokyo International Taiko Solo Contest,
and the only Non-Japanese Professional Taiko artist working in Japan.

coming soon 20 - 22 January 2006 Burnie Tasmania

This 3 day Taiko Workshop aims to broaden your understanding of the art of Taiko
the weeked will cater for a range of Taiko levels through both group workshop sessions
and special tutorials, lead by Instructors of Hobarts Taiko Drum, including Simon Vanyai

Details will be coming soon + keep updated on our website - http://www.taikodrum.com/art-lee.htm

(taikotecture)
art : structure : rhythm

Featuring the highly acclaimed Taiko Artist - Art Lee from Nagano Japan.
http://www.wadaikoworld.net/Aasaa.html
*Recent winner of the Tokyo International Wadaiko Contest - Odaiko Solo - that's the big drum.

3 fantastic shows - Feburary 4th+ 5th 2006
Saturday 2:00pm + 7:30pm
Sunday 4:00pm

Collegiate Performing Arts Centre, - Hobart -
Keep updated on our website - www.taikodrum.com