Summer Reading

I have promised to take a break from the computer while we are on holiday, so I might not be blogging for a few weeks. Instead, I will be working my way through this pile of books:


















Have a good summer!

Recent Events

It's the last few days before we go away and there's lots going on.



On Thursday we went to see Joe and Megumi and their new baby Nicolas. They had warned us that he screamed a lot, but he was perfectly well behaved while we were there.






Last night we went out for a surprise dinner for our friend Gwen who is leaving. Even Sayuri came down from Yokohama for it!




Today we went to a classical concert. My colleague Takahashi-sensei plays French horn in the Nagoya citizens' orchestra and always gives us tickets to their performances. Todays' highlight was Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite 1. Absolutely lovely (I am listening to it again at home right now).

Summer Travel Plans

We have had a long-standing plan to meet our friends Kevin and Dawn in a luxurious resort one day. It is actually happening next month – we are meeting in Bali. They are coming from Abu Dhabi and we are coming from Nagoya. Flying from Japan can be really pricey, but we found relatively cheap flights with China Airlines going via Taipei. When I told this to my friend Nancy (who used to live in Taiwan), she looked at me in horror: “You do know that they are the ones that always crash, don’t you?” Yikes! No wonder the tickets were cheap. I did some checking. They don’t actually ALWAYS crash. The morbid website airdisaster.com only has 12 records, and nothing since 2002. They have also now been accredited by IATA so I am hoping that they are no longer dodgy. Anyway, we are about to find out. On Tuesday we fly to Taipei and spend a night there before going on to Bali on Wednesday. We are back a week later and are spending 9 more days in Taiwan and are hoping to do some hiking.

Ah yes. The hiking arrangements. I thought we could just turn up at a mountain with our gear and get walking. Wrong. We need permits. That’s fine, but we can’t work out how to get these permits. We get conflicting information depending on the source. The worst-case scenario is we have to print of the form and fill it out in triplicate identifying our precise itinerary and where we plan to sleep each night. We post this to some office in Taiwan along with a fee and copies of our passports at least a week before we want to hike. I have tried e-mailing them, so we’ll see what happens. There are some amazing-sounding mountain ranges and national parks there. I hadn’t realized that Taiwan was so mountainous. There are dozens of peaks over 3000m. I hope a typhoon doesn’t hit while we are up one of them…

Hello Kitty Sightings in Japan

Did you know that there is a blogger out there who writes about nothing but Hello Kitty sightings in Japan. It's brilliant! (Kozue - it isn't you is it????)

http://www.hello-kitty-sightings.com/

Another city, another Washinton Hotel

Why do we always stay at the Washington chain of hotels in Japan? Perhaps it's the charm of their tiny rooms and cheesy furniture? Or the nylon dressing gowns (yukatas) you get? Or the way you can't check in until 2pm? Or how check out time is strictly 10am? The optional bag of beans instead of a pillow? Perhaps it's the fishy breakfasts? Or the "vending machine corner" instead of a mini-bar? The tiny teacups with no handles you get in the rooms? The all plastic bathrooms that are the size of the ones you get on planes? They don't take credit cards either. No, the real reason we stay there is that the English signs make us laugh so much.




You read this as you sit on the loo (click to enlarge).














The view wasn't bad this time either















Book the Okayama Washington

Weekend in Okayama

We were invited to give a presentation in Okayama on Sunday, but we decided to go a day early and make a weekend of it. We packed in so much in that it feels like we were away for weeks!

On Saturday afternoon, we went to the nearby city of Kurashiki with our new friend Shirley who lives in Okayama. There is a lovely old town built around a canal with good restaurants (we really enjoyed the food and company at the Santa Cruz Kitchen) and a really good art museum featuring work by some really famous artists (Ohara Art Museum). Our visit also coincided with the annual summer festival so we kept running into people dressed as demons and the like, and also people dressed in summer kimonos (yukata). Click to enlarge the photos.













































On Saturday night Neil cooked us dinner at his place and we shared a nice evening with Neil, Shirley, Keiko and Aya.

On Sunday we wandered around the city of Okayam in the morning, visiting the famous gardens, the municipal museum and the castle.










We found a lovely Italian Italian restaurant for lunch. Jazz music was playing and people read books at the counter....were we in a Murakami novel?

We were so relaxed that almost forgot why we had come to Okayama. Our presentation was at 3pm and we arrived early to set up. I think it went OK. Everyone was very nice and asked lots of questions about our work so we were pleased. We stayed on to see another presentation about a student newspaper which was very good. The folks in Okayama do this kind of thing once a month and were surprised to learn that we never do this in Nagoya (we are always up mountains at weekends - you can't do everything). After the presentations, we had time for a beer in a German bar with everyone before heading off to the station to get the bullet train back to Nagoya.

Trip to the dentist

Exactly a year ago I was making daily treks across town to have treatment for an infected root canal (ouch - really!). Guess what. It's back. Same problem, same pain, so back to see the same dentist, Masataka (David calls him MassiveAttacker). At first Masataka didn't believe me when I told him I was in pain. He showed me the x-rays showing nothing out of the ordinary and sent me home. I suffered over the holiday weekend and went in again on Tuesday. The clinic was so busy that they had almost run out of slippers (you have to take your shoes off before entering). I was left with a choice of a pair of extra large ones or a pair of Miffy ones (especially for college-aged girls?). I went for extra large and they kept falling off. It's hard to be dignified with a swollen mouth, a pair of giant slippers and crap Japanese. I came prepared with a book and whiled away 45 minutes listening to cheesy muzac versions of Disney songs (as if they weren't bad enough to start with). Is that meant to relax you? Anyway, daily treatment and antibiotics have once again commenced. I know the drill, it's the same as last year. I had to BEG for painkillers. I swear I had to produce real tears in order to break MassiveAttacker. Pretty humiliating in an open plan dental clinic. Just like last year, I will probably have to administer some sketchy DIY treatment over the summer while I am travelling. This is a major nuisance, especially when camping. I managed to do it last summer in basic conditions in Indonesia, so I'm sure I'll manage again (blog from last summer)