Hello.
I was just walking home this evening after a lecture on Chinese Tea (very interesting - full of tea though and so needed a pee quite badly so can't be 100% sure that what I am going to describe was actually as it seemed. I am though well over 99.8% sure that it was so.)
I saw a Collie.
A big one, you know, like Lassie.
And it was shaved.
Like a Poodle.
With the shaved back and the pom-pom mane and leg thingees (although being a collie it was less "pom" and more "fall down and be sort of frizzy")
It looked PISSED.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
no jacket required...
Aaaah Sir Phil Collins. The nice guy of pop. Never a finer wordsmith graced the top 40 countdown. Imagine, just imagine if he and Tom Hanks were to hook up. There'd be some love in that room alright.
The reason I bring up Sir Phils immortal 1985 third solo album is the fact that Monday this week marked the day in the office where it was A-ok to not don a suit jacket and to leave the tie hanging on the floor. Thats right. Summer is here. (Although not quite here enough to justify the air conditioning. Dammit)
So here I sit. Relaxin' Laxin Jackson. Cool as a cucumber. Can't wait for no pants day.
So whats been going on? Well....
We had Nics folks here for a week, and grand it was to have them here. its always fun to have people new to japan come over, so you can see what we now take for granted and accept as normal. Fun times. We managed a trip back to Kyoto for the first time in a long time and it was pretty nice to be back. Theres some old, old stuff there and if you get a chance, you really should get along. Try the veal.
We let Clare and Barry venture into Hiroshima by their lonesome and they did very well, and I took last Friday off and we trekked up into the hills for a look around. Japan has some pretty nice countryside if you give it half a chance and we did just that.
We strolled up to a place in neighbouring Yamaguchi Prefecture that I had heard about from several people, always ending on the fact that it was a "Mountain Pirates Lair". Woah. I thought. Mountain Pirates? Tough to keel haul some one on a mountain. "Aaaaarrrrgh. Me hearties. Hoist the mainsail. I'll be in the f'oc'scle (sp?) waiting for the rain to come, arrrgh". As it transpired it was a restaurant, admittedly in the mountains and admittedly beside quite a nice waterfall that it seems, at some stage in the distant past had been soemwhere near a purported lair that perhaps had maybe been occasionally used by people who may (or may not) have perhaps been highwaymen. (although its far from certain). But they did have charcoal roasted slabs of chicken on sticks so I forgave them. They also had some of the greatest urinals ever devised by man or machine. I'll try and dig out a photo, as they were quite spectacular.
So we had our chicken and strutted on to an enormous dam in the middle of nowhere.
Nic and I found this a while back during one of our "point the car somewhere and spend the day following the bonnet" adventures and have been back several times. Big Shane Pienaar made a pilgrimage here during his "Hot Asian Nights 2004" Tour last year. Its got some pretty this and that around and a right nice lake, and a bloody enormous dam. So we were looking at the dam and taking a stroll across the top when we were descended on by hordes of Japanese Elementary School kids. Turns out they were there on a feild trip and got to go deep, deep, deep into the bowels of the dam and look around. Someone asked if we wanted to go too.
We said yes.
Then they had to ask some guy if it was OK, he in turn had to ask some other guy, who asked another guy, who turned to the guy next to him and got him to ring the sub manager who rang the division manager who rang the division cheif who rang the second vice dam manager who asked the vice dam manager who queried the dam manager who called his regional supervisor who got himself put through to the prefectural adviser who asked the prefectural cheif who.....you get the idea. I saw on the news that night when they actually patched a call through to the Prime Minister during a conference to ask if three unannounced foreigners could go into the dam.
He said yes.
So we went.
We got into the elevator in the middle of the dam and went down 100 meters where the helpful elevator-chap told us the water pressure was equivalent to 50 elephants PSI all pushing on us. To prove the point there was a picture on the wall of the lift that showed 50 blue, animated, smiling, pushing elephants, sitting on the elevator. So I beleived him.
We got out and there was about a dimly lit 5ft tall tunnel dripping with condensation (it took a while to convince myself it was condensation and not the dam falling to bits around us). So we went up and down and along and around and through and popped out at the bottom of the dam. It was along way up. And the place was covered in elephant crap. So we left.
Fun times.
We also managed to fit in a trip to Miyajima Island just nearby, where I managed to use up an awful lot of my Son-In-Law-Brownie-Points by stating that the stroll to the top was "a little steep" and "not very long". Turns out I am either a hopeless judge of distance and angle, or a compulsive liar. Bugger.
Still. Bunches of fun had by all and it was grand to have them come on over.
In other news, I had a conference in Tokyo earlier on this week and it helped to confirm what I always suspected. Tokyo is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,very, very, very, very, very, very big place.
Right-o. Work beckons.
Tata.
The reason I bring up Sir Phils immortal 1985 third solo album is the fact that Monday this week marked the day in the office where it was A-ok to not don a suit jacket and to leave the tie hanging on the floor. Thats right. Summer is here. (Although not quite here enough to justify the air conditioning. Dammit)
So here I sit. Relaxin' Laxin Jackson. Cool as a cucumber. Can't wait for no pants day.
So whats been going on? Well....
We had Nics folks here for a week, and grand it was to have them here. its always fun to have people new to japan come over, so you can see what we now take for granted and accept as normal. Fun times. We managed a trip back to Kyoto for the first time in a long time and it was pretty nice to be back. Theres some old, old stuff there and if you get a chance, you really should get along. Try the veal.
We let Clare and Barry venture into Hiroshima by their lonesome and they did very well, and I took last Friday off and we trekked up into the hills for a look around. Japan has some pretty nice countryside if you give it half a chance and we did just that.
We strolled up to a place in neighbouring Yamaguchi Prefecture that I had heard about from several people, always ending on the fact that it was a "Mountain Pirates Lair". Woah. I thought. Mountain Pirates? Tough to keel haul some one on a mountain. "Aaaaarrrrgh. Me hearties. Hoist the mainsail. I'll be in the f'oc'scle (sp?) waiting for the rain to come, arrrgh". As it transpired it was a restaurant, admittedly in the mountains and admittedly beside quite a nice waterfall that it seems, at some stage in the distant past had been soemwhere near a purported lair that perhaps had maybe been occasionally used by people who may (or may not) have perhaps been highwaymen. (although its far from certain). But they did have charcoal roasted slabs of chicken on sticks so I forgave them. They also had some of the greatest urinals ever devised by man or machine. I'll try and dig out a photo, as they were quite spectacular.
So we had our chicken and strutted on to an enormous dam in the middle of nowhere.
Nic and I found this a while back during one of our "point the car somewhere and spend the day following the bonnet" adventures and have been back several times. Big Shane Pienaar made a pilgrimage here during his "Hot Asian Nights 2004" Tour last year. Its got some pretty this and that around and a right nice lake, and a bloody enormous dam. So we were looking at the dam and taking a stroll across the top when we were descended on by hordes of Japanese Elementary School kids. Turns out they were there on a feild trip and got to go deep, deep, deep into the bowels of the dam and look around. Someone asked if we wanted to go too.
We said yes.
Then they had to ask some guy if it was OK, he in turn had to ask some other guy, who asked another guy, who turned to the guy next to him and got him to ring the sub manager who rang the division manager who rang the division cheif who rang the second vice dam manager who asked the vice dam manager who queried the dam manager who called his regional supervisor who got himself put through to the prefectural adviser who asked the prefectural cheif who.....you get the idea. I saw on the news that night when they actually patched a call through to the Prime Minister during a conference to ask if three unannounced foreigners could go into the dam.
He said yes.
So we went.
We got into the elevator in the middle of the dam and went down 100 meters where the helpful elevator-chap told us the water pressure was equivalent to 50 elephants PSI all pushing on us. To prove the point there was a picture on the wall of the lift that showed 50 blue, animated, smiling, pushing elephants, sitting on the elevator. So I beleived him.
We got out and there was about a dimly lit 5ft tall tunnel dripping with condensation (it took a while to convince myself it was condensation and not the dam falling to bits around us). So we went up and down and along and around and through and popped out at the bottom of the dam. It was along way up. And the place was covered in elephant crap. So we left.
Fun times.
We also managed to fit in a trip to Miyajima Island just nearby, where I managed to use up an awful lot of my Son-In-Law-Brownie-Points by stating that the stroll to the top was "a little steep" and "not very long". Turns out I am either a hopeless judge of distance and angle, or a compulsive liar. Bugger.
Still. Bunches of fun had by all and it was grand to have them come on over.
In other news, I had a conference in Tokyo earlier on this week and it helped to confirm what I always suspected. Tokyo is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,very, very, very, very, very, very big place.
Right-o. Work beckons.
Tata.
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