Realising how lucky and privileged you are...

I was in the communal kitchen making my dinner...as you do, and I was chatting to Lim-san; who I'd not seen in a while.

I like chatting to the people in our halls, it's always a great insight into a different culture and upbringing; especially as there are very few westerners here. That, and I'm always fascinated by peoples different takes on the same situation...

Anyhoo, not so long ago Lim mentioned that he had a wife, and as he is generally very adverse to cooking; linked to the lack of seeing him in the kitchen, I asked if his wife usually cooked for him at home...

'It depends, sometimes my wife cooks, sometimes my niece or nephew...'

'Oh really?' I was a bit confused... ' Do you look after your niece and nephew then?'

'Yes, I look after them, their parents passed away' says Lim; in possibly *the* most casual manner.

my brain is shouting: 'What?! - did i hear that right?'
'oh', I say, trying my best not to sound too surprised or ignorant: 'errr, if you don't mind me asking: what happened?'.

I would like to point out that Lim is about the same age as me...and that he's a guardian for two children.

he explains how, his niece's and nephew's father contracted HIV through unprotected sex with prostitutes during his time in the military. He then proceeded to pass it on to his wife when he returned. So, it eventually claimed them both and left their two children orphaned, and Lim now looks after them. The children don't have HIV as they had already been born when this happened.

Lim was saying all this in the most matter-of-fact manner; to him it was just another one of life's tribulations, and I just kept thinking god, some people are so quietly impressive...I've been living next door to this guy and going to the same university as him for the past 8 months and not known this.

In the UK we complain about such insignificant things, I think we forget how privileged we are to have access to such facilities and services; a lot of people only dream that they can have a small slither of what we have access to.

While I'm over here wasting my time with some ethereal research into the finer details of sand, shaking, and stresses in pipes, I've been noticing that all the other foreign students; particularly those from other, less entirely developed parts of Asia, have been very aware of the value of the research that they are doing, how they can take it back home, how they can adapt existing solutions to a more affordable and practical form that they can actually use in a practical sense...

I'm going to have to figure out something meaningful to do with my life, me thinks...I'll tell you if I manage to come up with something...

A very cool café

Rei had insisted we do some form of climbing on Sunday, and luckily for me rain was forecast; which meant that I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed at silly-o’clock to get me down to Yugawara. So, to satisfy Rei’s urge to climb we went to Pump2 instead…

When we got to the wall, Rei proclaimed that she would climb 10 tens (5:10’s); she seemed very excited about this. I think she’s just trying to kill me…I just gone climbing on the Wednesday before for the first time in about 2 weeks and I was crap! So I wasn’t really expecting to be able to do much today but see how long it would take me to wear myself out.

Anyway, Rei bounced up and went into her mission with all her energy…we did 5 and to celebrate the halfway mark we had a little break. Up in the rest area, from where there is a nice viewing window to watch all the people doing the viciously high overhangs on ‘tsunami’ from a comfortable position, we had a nice little rest and our usual animated discussions in English attracted some attention as per usual but this time from someone we actually knew. After a little chat we went back to the business of climbing…

Five climbs later and we were both quite happy to get away from the wall…And Rei had been told that a band that she liked were playing at a café half way between where we were and Shinjuku, so we headed off to the Café.

We walked in the rain down a narrow road, lined with little shops, in a very nice little town. Finally we found the entrance to the café besides a book shop, the signs took us winding behind the shop and upstairs to the roof. The metal stairway opened up into an outdoor lounge area. The rain drizzled through the straw-matting which sheltered the space. Directly opposite, you could see the more solid structure of the main part of the café. As you enter, the hatch to the kitchen would be seen through the ordering window. The band was at the furthest wall in the small, dimly lit room. On the bare sheets of wood which were screwed on to the walls were a mixture of brightly coloured paintings of tropical scenes and artistic sketches. The whole room had the perfect atmosphere for the music which followed.

We were just in time to get a small table at the edge of the room, which someone had just vacated, and we perched ourselves down on the dark wooden oblongs that served as seats. There were only about 12 people in the room, including staff, and the café was pretty much full. Rei got down to the serious business of ordering us some food…climbing is hungry work…and not long after she sat back down, the music started. There three in the band, a cellist, guitarist and the lead guy was on a tiny guitar (I don’t know what they are called) and doing the singing too. His voice was perfect, fitting with the chorus from all three instruments and the atmosphere of the café. Obviously the songs were all in Japanese, so understanding what he was actually singing about was practically impossible for me, but the music impressed me nonetheless. The second song, saw the cellist change to a flute and the front man pick up a Sanshin (similar to the Shamisen) Japanese instrument made of snakeskin…(apparently home to the Okinawa region, where snakes are rife and thus the easiest source of animal skin for music making).
Our burgers arrived, and they were delicious! My BLT was perfect and before I knew it Rei had magicked hers away. Anything other than rice is good, after 8months of the stuff everyday.

The band went on to play some Spanish music, also sung in Spanish, which was impressive, with not even a hint of a Japanese accent. And there was a truly brilliant performance by the guitarist during an acoustic solo, which involved a blur of finger movement over his strings.

They had some really attention grabbing songs, which I’m sure would have been catchy too, if I’d understood them. An awesome band in a cool café…

Krispy Kremes...

As far as I know, there is only ONE Krispy Kreme shop in Tokyo, let alone Japan, and it's in Shinjuku. It permanently has horrendous queues outside, and you can always tell you're close to the place, as there are increasingly more people carrying Boxes of the things away from the place...

Anyway, on fateful night, I met Annalisa and Rei in Shinjuku...and after some dinner we were craving some dessert...a meal just isn't complete with out it, and the restaurant we were at had a rather pitiful selection. But that's besides the point, we're in Shinjuku for once and so we totter off to Krispy Kremes...and it's already 10pm, but we're convinced it's still open because we can see a steady stream of people walking in the opposite direction with the boxes of a dozen of the things...so we power on...and sure enough when we get there there's a long and winding queue.

The following is the general gist of the conversation which followed:

'that's just ridiculous! who on earth would queue that long for a doughnut!?'

...' well we would'

hmmmm...'but it's just a doughnut!'

'but they're Krispy Kreeeemes'

'just LOOK at the queue!'

'But, KRISPY KREEEEEMES!!!!'

'good grief...look, people are being turned away by the guard!'

'noooooooo! it' can't be shut NOW!'

'hey... you know what, i could climb this railing... no problem...'

'go on then'

we skulk round into the shadows a little more and check that the guard isn't looking

[whispers] '...here, hold my bag will you?'

I leg it over the railing...and Rei follows...Annalisa due to her skirt decides it's better not to do a risque manoeuvre over the railing, takes our bags and waits for us on a wall nearby...Rei and I scoot to the back of the queue as subtly as possible while trying to stifle giggling.

in awe of our own cunningness, we have an increasingly loud and animated conversation mainly about doughnuts... we then slowly come to realise that the guard had actually been turning people away because the queue stretched back around the corner of the krispy kreme building...and was acting as a break in the queue not marking the end of it... so not only had we jumped a railing, but also a good section of a queue. But it's okay, because we already had the last free doughnut from lady giving them out to all the patiently waiting people...which i promptly ferried over to Annalisa...whilst the lady went to get more supplies for us and the people that we had unintentionally queue-jumper and were filling up the space behind us...

In the meantime we carried on our loud conversation to make a point that we were foreign...because the guard was glancing us evils at regular intervals...if they knew Rei was actually Japanese and fluent they would have been over like a flash to get us out of there. The gaijin ploy worked wonderfully.

The lady made it back with a full tray of glazed and gave us another doughnut, but we asked for another one, in English until she gave us one...all be it reluctantly. you're only meant to have one each apparently, but Rei did her amazingly convincing impression of an American on holiday with no Japanese ability and we got it.

there was then some contemplation of the benefits of waiting in the queue to get to the front to buy a dozen...weighed up with the fact we just had a free doughnut and were pretty much sorted...Sod it, we've had a FREE doughnut and we're good. So, we went to starbucks and had a coffee instead.

a slightly more traditional approach to blogging

coffee break

We have a communal coffee/lunch/white board/disscussion area, which also includes manga graphic novels, tapes on learning to speak english, an alcoholic 'O-miyage' shelf, a mah-jong set, a TV and a playstation. There has been the recent addition, due to popular demand from mainly Ivan and heavily supported by Daniel and Ramin, of a coffee maker.


Here's a blurry photo of Ramin and Ivan diligently demonstrating what coffee breaks are...

This is the Russian looking very happy with his coffee maker and more importantly a freshly brewed cup of the stuff...

They've been spending the past month asking if I want a cup of coffee, and finally gave in yesterday after lunch. I never realised but coffee drinking forces Daniel to eat ice cream... I don't know why...

Anyway, here's Daniel with his ice cream and coffee and Ivan again.

Canoe Camp

So, we met at the Tokaido line platform at Tokyo station at 9am for a 915am train and head for Fujikawa, passing though Yugawara on the way. We get to Fujikawa station at quarter to 11 to be picked up by one of the guys from the activities centre, there are already two girls in the car and we are driving to pick up another guy so that he can follow us in his car to the centre.

We drive through some amazing scenery and when we get to the centre we greeted by a little black Labrador called San, we trek down the hill through a maze of wooden walkways down to large shelter, where we have our orientation. Which mainly consists of name games... then we get ready for a little excursion on to a calmer part of the river...

Very close to where we are going to be canoeing there is a big climbing frame with a little zipline...which we all have a go on before choosing a canoe to play in.

There are 2 single canoes, a double canoe, and a Canadian canoe...which we all have a go at...mainly we try to paddle our boats up over a rocky patch where the water flow is much faster. Our paddle-powered attempts were pretty lame, and ended up with some of our instructors standing on the large rock to the left of the imp-sized waterfall we were trying to scale... and trying to pull us up with a rope.

The first people to accend was a multi-manned attempt with the benifit of Charukii powering through. By the end of the afternoon, everyone had managed to get up to the other side at least once, had tried all the boats, and jumped in to the freezing cold river water swinging on a rope and jumping from the rocks on the other side. I on the other hand was the ONLY one to capsize that day... well done wayway! yes, the water was freezing.

Da, Iulia and Nachi trying to scale the rocky part of the river...

People watching me trying to right myself after tipping into the river.

Camp fire dinner, where I had a special dinner after I asked whether or not the large pot of creamy looking stew had milk in and they said yes! Charukii ran to the instructors kitchen to ask if they had any non-cow food...whence I was provided with some really cool gyoza, potato stuff and veggies... which was very very nice of them...then we proceeded to drink and toast marshmallows on the fire that we made...THEN several drinking games ensued including 'Go, Back, Jump', 'Dooby-Dooby-Do' and 'Mafia'. Which everyone got really into and ended up staying up til 2 am playing it...

Next morning, breakfast is at 730am along with some more orientation with Fujikawa river and what we'll be doing that morning.

It started raining lightly as we were starting out....it got a bit worse...but the rain wasn't my main concern.. it was the raging TORRENTS! and the rocks that the water was raging over...anyway we set out and were told to follow where the lead guy was going...so, fine. I tried following...and unfortunately I was following a little too closely to Iulia; who managed to run into a rock and got turned sideways into the current because of it...and I crashed into her (it was all rather slow motion... and hence rather a disappointing 'crash' more of a bump then both of us capsizing...) anyway we both ended up in the water. Which was Definitely not as cold as the day before! but where as Iulia managed to do a proper capsizing...while she was busy with all that... i was busy looking like a pillock and managed to fall over my own rock and slowly rolled over to my right, with the river pounding me from the right... Slowly, I could feel the river filling my little canoe and that there was NO chance of me righting myself...I meeped a pathetic....'errr help?!' and one of the instructors glided upstream (this is quite a feat...but she made it look so easy!) towards me and looked at me in a quizzical manner, wondering what on earth I was doing sideways...I tried to explain to her that I (well my boat and hence ME) was completely stuck ...I got out of my boat and tried to free it. Which failed dismally...on the account of it being 1.) wedged in between two rocks...and 2.) being wedged by the water flow. The combination of which made it pretty buggered. so Nachi told me to let go of the boat....I checked that she meant what she said... and asked... 'let go, and float WHERE?!?!'...

'oh just float downstream....'

yeah...that's helpful...

as I looked towards the rocky torrents which were looking Very hungry for wayway type food. I thought.... well what the hell...why not... so let go of my nice boat...(which was definitely easier than letting go of the stalactite) and headed for the river of DOOM! I did what they told me in orientation, and kept my feet up in the water...to defend me against the large rocks...but the rocks were quite insistent on hitting me and completely missed my feet and hit my arse instead. thank you very much. I was busy being swept away wondering how to stop myself from being drowned everytime I went over a big rock and was drawn into the whirlpool on the other side... as well as being swept into the faster and faster flowing part of the river itself.

Fast = BAD! so I thought I'd try and get my body over to the calmer, less rocky looking areas of the river, by paddling to the left, where I could. It obviously wasn't as futile as it felt while I was in the water because I managed to get my self close enough to the bank for one of the guys to throw me a rope to try and save me; by this time all the other people had been made to stop at the side of the river to watch me fail around in the river. The rope throwing was rather comic. For a start the guy who was trying to save me....ran right past me on the bank as I floated by, and was pointed in the right (down stream!) direction by the other people in our group...and it was quite amusing (even from my position of certain watery death) to watch him make a sudden changed of direction and hot-foot it back downstream from whence he came. THEN, he tried to throw the rope and missed me by about a meter too far from my reach (towards the bank and BEHIND ME!) SO, he pulled the rope back in and tried again... and again the rope landed behind me....by that time the feeling of doom had gone, and mild amusement of the situation had set in. and i thought:

'Sod it I'll just go get the rope myself shall I?!'

at which point I started to stand up...and then i realised that 1) the water was actually rather slow where I was now...the manic paddling had obviously worked to some extent as I was out of the torrents of doom and 2) the water was also shallow. I damn well didn't need saving NOW....and walked over to the bank. Short of a boat and a paddle.

It took the guys a good half an hour to get my boat back...in the mean time we all had a nice rest and biscuits.

which is what we are doing below.




Iulia had managed to float a LOT further downstream...but she was all good...and raring to go! So once we got the boat back we were all good (although I was feeling FAR more feeble!) to go.

I survived the next torrent...and paddled like crazy through them all...

on our next rest, we pulled our boats up on some rock and had a 'jumping into Fujikawa contest' which I just watched... lame, I know. I have no shame. I'd already had enough falling, from the game of 'trust' we played 'getting to know one another' falling into other peoples arms from a height....hmmmm nice.

However, the Granite here is Amazing. It's really grippy even when wet! and so some climbing of wet rock ensued...we also had a chat to one of the guides who runs the climbing bits of the camp too... who was recommending the climbing nearby...

Just as we finished the day the rain cleared up and it was beautifully sunny!

the last photo....of 'good people'!

my box

The past month or so I've been doing some 'serious' research and building a large wooden box, to fit into a bigger tank...

The square hole in the middle is for a seperate section to go in...

But, i'm not allowed to do any shaking tests yet, because the thing isn't bolted down to the shake table :(

Look mum! I grew me a pepper from seed!

After all those years of killing my poor mothers pot plants everytime she left me in charge of them and left for a month to go home; I've finally managed to grow something from seed, and it is currently trying it's best to bear some fruit... the tiny pepper in question is cirlced in red...he's well camoflauged.

So, I have one tiny pepper!

yay!

my enggament...photos and video

First of all the video that Amy and Chin-san made of trying to deafen me with some poppers...



and yes... i was concentrating hard on NOT dropping my cake...

CHEERS!

Look! i'm 'Enggaged'!

Thank you Mihiri!

my engagement party

Amy wanted to hold a party, I had gotten engaged, so what better way could there be; but combine the two and have a engagement party.

Amy is not only my well-loved Malaysian 'senpai' (mentor-thingy; despite the fact I'm a very well disguised British, and even more covert Malaysian) but is my main futon provider...well, my *only* futon provider; if you've stayed at mine and have slept on a futon, it's Amy's! Anyway, we have a deal going; she cooks the main course in her lovely larger apartment, and I come over with some dessert, usually some form of Kay-kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (cake)! She's also been instrumental in showing me all the best places in Tokyo.

It's Sunday, and I've spent my morning baking a chocolate cake, followed by a apple crumble...I've just put the apple crumble in to the oven, which Annalisa helped me to prepare, and I'm already late to go over to Amy's. So, we take wine glasses and the chocolate cake...Annalisa and I just followed some other people into the building who happened to be going at the same time...then we popped up to the 14th floor (which has much nicer views than my little room on the 3rd floor) then knocked on Amy's door...she shouted something through the door; but to be honest i didn't really hear what she said. We waited, and waited a bit more...
So, I'm standing there with two wine glasses in one hand and a large and hot chocolate cake balanced on the other when the door is opened...I'm busy concentrating on not dropping my poor cake and not smashing the glasses on the floor as I enter the room. It's a bit strange because I can hear the wedding march playing, THEN there is this *bang* and Amy giggling; I'm still concentrating on my lovely cake, then I see Chin-san pulling some kind of cracker...and it all starts to make more sense. I finally put down the cake. Then notice that there's a poster stuck on to Amy's window saying:

"CONGARTULATIONS

WAY WAY

ENGGAGED"

I'm still in shock that somebody had tried to kill me with a party popper, then Chin-san runs over to point out the lovely spelling error made due to Amy's complete lack of sleep for the past 24hours but steely determination to make me a sign. I *love* it! It's the *best* sign ever! The whole thing (including my lack of reaction; Annalisa reacted more than I did) has been videoed and I'm currently waiting for the photos from Amy...

I had the honour of popping all the champagne bottles, which I did over the balcony to see how far we could send the cork. It's an awesome lunch, with champagne and sukiyaki dipped in raw egg...*delicious*...okay, it may not sound that nice...but despite the high cholesterol hot meat dipped in whisked raw egg is awesome.

Some cool cartoons...

Drawn by a 18yr old guy, called Jeff Thomas, a comic called 'Pon and Zi'. You'll find the link here...very cute...very emo...I *Like* lots!