Natural Disasters

1. Did anyone notice that Japan has been hit with not just a typhoon, but an earthquke as well this weekend? All we need now is a volcano warning and we’ll have the trifecta. Or we could go for the Superfecta with a North Korean missle launch, Russian territorial dispute and Chinese environmental disasters drifting across the seas.

2. I think I live in the most exciting part of the world.

June

1. Summer, in all it’s humid glory, is here. It’s actually not quite as hot as I remembered it last year, but it’s plenty hot enough for everyone. Though I do really love summer, the humidity makes it feel like a sauna but I prefer it to the dry furnace heat of the Australian summer — and I’m less likely to get sunburnt just sticking my head out the window. The Ozone Layer is really great like that.

2. (It’s so humid that at night, it fogs. At 24 Celcius.)

3. Summer never travels alone, so trailing its tshirt-tails are the festivals and festivities that happen around summer. Beginning of this month was Tokasan, which celebrates the coming of summer, where everyone dresses up in their best Yukatas and enjoy the street stalls and street food and street drinking. And dancing, as my friend Dan found, who looked his, err, best, in his man-Yukata dancing with the old ladies. He lives in a country town after all.

4. The beginning of the month also saw the leaving of two close work mates, and the arrival of a new one. It’s always sad to see people go, and it can be difficult to deal with friendships as a transient experience. But thanks to the magic of Facebook and email, they’re never that far away. Later this month my best friend here will leave for home, and tears may well be shed. *sob*

5. But it wasn’t all bad news. Fireworks are legal here, and people here love nothing more than to go down to the river and run around with sparklers and shoot off some explosives. So last weekend we did as the locals did, and went to the park to play with explosives. While drinking a lot. And I mean a lot. We also climbed trees, and you can see the photos here.

So I’ve been a bit quiet…

1. So, what have I been doing? Work has been very hectic, and I have been quite sick recently. My allergies have gone from mildly annoying to bed-ridden mess, without due warning. So annoying. But I decided the best thing that I could do about it is just go out and drink myself better, so I’ve been doing a little bit of that in the last couple weekends. So far it seems to be working. Who needs doctors?

2. But really, what I have been doing, and why I haven’t really been writing here, is because I’m spending far too much time in Facebook. It is so addictive. I’ve already sold my guitars, cameras and my computer to fund my habit, and it’s still not enough. I’m a month behind on my rent, and I’m on the street trying flog all my clothes. I’ve started selling my body, luckily the men here look like girls so it’s not so bad. But I still want more, more.

3. Ahem.

4. What else? Well, I’ve finally bought a bike, it wasn’t too expensive and it has practically paid for itself already from what I’ve saved in public transport fees. I’ve also bought a film scanner, which made it possible for me to keep shooting film. And I’ve posted my Tokyo photos, check them out.

5. See you on facebook.

Mamiya 645 Super

1. It was the Holga.

2. I hadn’t thought about shooting film since finishing Uni, after I no longer had access to the uni darkrooms. Film was expensive and sometimes difficult, and after I bought me a D70 there was just no going back. But in the back of my mind I’d always wanted to play with a medium format camera, but I never found one in the right price range that I really wanted.

3. And then I found this…:

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4. …a Mamiya 645 Super, for 38000 yen. Medium format is usually a fairly expensive proposition; most of it is pro gear, with the pricetag to match, or older cameras become sought-after by collectors, driving prices up. Luckily, these cameras can still be found for reasonable prices, and $400 is a pretty cheap way to play around with medium format.

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5. Unlike the Holga, this is a proper, serious camera. The lenses are great, and this was a pro model so it has a bunch of cool features, like a removable back that can accept anything from Polaroid film to digital systems. Not that I’m ever going near a digital back for this thing, not when the asking price for a Phase One P25 25MP back is somewhere around $25,000. Dude. And now for the obligatory Transformers shot:

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6. As you can see the film cartridge at the back comes off, as does the viewfinder prism (which you can replace with a prism with an auto-exposure function built in), and even the film winding crank (makes way for a handgrip / film advance motor). But, most of all, it’s just fun to play with; I love all the mechanical noises it makes, the way the film crank turns, the snapping of the shutter when it goes off…

7. I can’t wait to get back into the darkroom.

The Merry Month of May

1. ‘Tis be a merry month, for today is my birthday! Happy birthday to me! Yesterday a big group of us celebrated with a big big picnic by the river in the Peace Park, enjoying the spring sunshine and the river views and the many many cans of beer we all consumed. Strangely, I have almost no photos of the occasion, as neither photos nor words could describe just how much fun I had.

2. Last weekend was the Golden Week holidays, and a friend and I went up to Tokyo for a few days during the holidays. I took a lot of photos for that, and I’m sorting them out now. We also started a series of photos featuring my friend, Derek, who has an almost abnormal fondness for jumping in photos. Check it out here.

3. I also got myself a new mobile — a Nokia N73. It’s essentially an upgrade of my old phone here, the aging Nokia 6680. It’s a good phone, but damn the N73 is awesome! Even with Softbank’s (and other Japanese carriers) insistence on locking their phones down stupid levels (my phone doesn’t support playing mp3 files, can’t install many programs available on the internet even when it works with regular the N73) and removing functionality (my phone ships with Adobe Reader and Lifeblog, neither of which is on my phone), it still does so much — I use it like an iPod Shuffle, got about 1 Gig’s worth of music on it, as well watching movies and tv shows (converted to the same format as for the iPod) and for showing my photos. The screen is brilliant, the web browser is super sweet, and the camera does an ok job of taking pics. The camera, though, is really, really slow, even compared to the cheapest point-n-shoot digital. Even so, it’s a great phone.

4. New phone and holiday aside, I’ve also reined in the spending, and have started saving in earnest. My travel plans are changing by the day, which makes it difficult to know how much I need to save — so I’m just going to save as much as possible and see where we go from there.

5. That’s that for now, I’m going back to playing with all my presents!

About Japanese Literature

1. A curious observation came up recently amongst a few friends while we were talking about the books we were reading. We were all reading something written by a Japanese author, and the discussion led to other Japanese authros that we’ve read; in the course of our conversation a common theme was how depressing Japanese authors can be. I’m hardly well versed in Japanese literature — my experience of Japanese fiction extends no further than a handful of Murakamis and Koushun Takami’s Battle Royal, but in a group of four only one of us managed to come up with a Japanese book that wasn’t depressing in any way. The rest deals with pain and loss, or violence, or oppression; the list of depressing subjects goes on. So why are Japanese authors so damn depressing? And if we know it’s depressing, why do we keep reading it?

2. Right, back to Murakami.

ohanami

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1. One of the most beautiful times of year in Japan are the blooming of the cherry blossom trees, which signals the beginning of spring. Cherry blossom viewing parties, or “ohanami”, are held all across the country, and it’s basically a picnic underneath the cherry blossom trees where you hang out with co-workers and friends and family and get utterly sloshed. It’s brilliant!

2. Check out some of my other shots in my portfolio here.

March

1. It’s March 26th, one day away from the one year anniversary of my arrival in Japan. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of weeks, thinking about all the things I’ve had to learn and adapt to. And all the things that I do now that I never thought I could do as well. I never thought I would like teaching, but I’m enjoying teaching immensely. I never thought I was any good with languages (well, I’m not, but that’s through lack of study rather than lack of talent), but I have picked up a bit of Japanese, and I’ve been remembering a lot of Cantonese as well. And who would’ve thought I’d even like the kids classes? I imagine a few of my friends have just fallen off their seats. Yep, I do fine with kids these days — a few even like me.

2. (One 3 year old likes me so much that her mum once asked me if I was her dad. Her mum! Mothers should not make those kinds of jokes. It’s just not cricket.)

3. (And speaking of cricket, we’ve been playing a few games of corridor cricket, one of the benefits of working with a Brit. If anyone wants to send me an inflatable cricket set, I’ll love you forever…)

4. Some things won’t change though; I completely forgot to renew my work visa, so I will have to do that today. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, if not for the fact that my visa runs out tomorrow.

5. I’ve been playing a lot of guitar right now, building my chops and my ears by listening and working out different songs. I haven’t enjoyed playing so much for ages now, and I’m looking for people to play with — I’ve already met a bunch of guitarists, bass players, trumpeters, saxophonists and harmonica players, which makes for one hell of a mix. And I’ll be adding guitar teaching to my rotisserie of talents, I’ll start teaching a class next week. Maybe I can turn that into another source of income… extra beer money!

6. Not much more to report for now. I’ve put up more photos on my portfolio site, look for the highlighted entries. I’m planning on spending my Golden Week holidays on a road/train trip to Tokyo with a friend — using the cheapest possible modes of transport and accomodation there and back. I’ll be writing about that, so stay tuned. The first of my Indonesia stories are ready, so I’ll be posting it as soon as I choose the accompanying photos. That rounds out this month, (I can sum up my entire month in less than 500 words. I lead an exciting life) more later.

February

1. I once mentioned that the reason we drink ourselves to oblivion every weekend is because we don’t know what else to do — not being able to read Japanese makes it very difficult to browse the entertainment guides. But, I’m happy to say, we’ve started branching out, and the weekend is no longer solely devoted to breaking one’s liver (though, we still do that quite often).

2. Last week, my friend Dan and I wandered down to the river by the peace park and sat under the bridge and rocked out some blues — me on guitar and he on the harmonica. It was too damn cold to play for long outside, and we were quickly upstaged by a bunch of uber-cool Japanese lads cranking out Sting and other tunes. I can’t wait until spring comes, there’ll be tons of kids down by the river cranking out tunes. Sundays will be totally awesome.

3. Afterwards I went bowling. Yep, Ten Pin Bowling. It’s pretty popular here, and you can drink while you play! Drunk bowling is great, if somewhat embarrassing. You can count the drinks you’ve had by the number of gutter balls per game. You should try it some time.

4. What else was there? Ahh, yes, Valentines Day. Valentines runs a little different here than back home. Here, girls buy guys chocolate, and guys reciprocate by buying girls candy and cookies and stuff on March 14th, which is White Day. And it’s not solely people you really like, it’s co-workers and friends as well, so it’s kind of a nice day for everyone, rather than a miserable day for single people. I got 8 boxes of chocolates, so I got some White Day shopping to do (as well as some serious exercise to burn off the choco-fat).

5. That’s about it for February, which marks my 11th month in Japan. I’ve received my new contract, which I will sign tomorrow, and I have my papers together to renew my work visa here. So I’ll be here for another year at the very least, though I don’t see myself coming home permanently for some time yet. Sorry Mum.

New glasses!

New Glasses!

1. This has been a weekend of change — I got a haircut (short again, and for those who have seen it, not asymmetric. For those who have not seen the asymmetric haircut, think one side shorter than the other. People tell me I looked good in it. People are nice) and, these are my new glasses! Thus ends my Japan-assimilation program, I now sport Japanese glasses and haircut.