Shiny Shiny Book

Mmmmmmmm...tasty. Thesis in Hardcover binding...

Was impressed at the speed at which the printers got the copies done. We (the secretary and I) handed the electronic version over to the printer man on Mondon afternoon, after making the poor guy wait 30mins for me to get the thesis on to a CD and then trying to explain that certain pages needed to be in A3 and then folded with neither the guy from the printers or the secretary understanding my english and then having to resort to very very bad Japanese - which then made me a little bit paranoid that he didnt really understand what I wanted. Anyway, the 3 shiny copies arrived this morning, with everything printed out perfectly.

Brilliant.

Post 'Final Defense' Wind Down....

To celebrate the passing of the 'Final Defense' on friday last week we planned a lovely (Greg-funded *THANK YOU GREG*) trip to the beach, so that 1. we could both relax, and 2. i could finally get to use the body board that I bought in Malaysia (dammit its been too long since I've had a holiday)

We ended up getting the Odoriko Minami-Izu free kippu* [踊り子・南伊豆・フリー切符] which, at 11400yen each turned out cheaper than buying our return tickets with the student discount.

We got to Izukyu Shimoda [伊豆急下田] just in time for lunch. MMmmmmmmm unagi, yumyum. while Greg had sanma [さんま](i have no idea what fish it is in English) and what looked like an enormous cockle which aso appeared to be a speciality of the region.

Then took the hotel shuttle bus to the hotel to drop our bags then BEACH TIME!

Look! Palm trees!

The sea was a bit nippy, but a nice escape from the ridicuously hot sun...we eventually wondered back to the hotel as the sun started to set and had a pleasently surprising dinner at the hotel restaurant. The desserts sounded a bit strange (pineapple canole with rosmary sorbet) but they were absolutely fantastic. The pineapple canole turned out to be some rosmary sorbet wrapped in a thin layer of pineapple flesh, lying beside tubes of meringue and some more sorbet in a heap on top.

The next day was spent taking a little wander around the coast line and playing with hermit crabs (there were millions).

*the Odoriko Minami-Izu free kippu is valid for 3 days valid on the JR Odoriko limited express which takes 2hrs 40mins from Tokyo. more info here

[N.B. all photos are property of Greg, because it was his camera and he's also much better at taking photos than me]