great service, crap photography at Gofu...

great service, crap photography at Gofu...
Originally uploaded by decentred.

As requested; Laraine, Steve and Jack all arrived safely in Nakatsu, and were duly fed and watered before being put to bed somewhat jet-lagged, but content. Tomorrow sees the first outing for their newly purchased Yukata, which should raise (at the very least) eyebrows at the Gion festival...

Tired.

All apologies

taitsukun kicks balls...
Originally uploaded by decentred.

It's been a while. Oops. I've meant to sit down and blog for a couple of days now, but real-life got in the way. Hmm.

Some things have happened. Other things happened (but they were to other people and I'm not really sure what they were), and many more things didn't happen at all. Still more things looked like they were going to happen and then didn't. Who's to say?

However, in the interests of being succinct, I'll try to put the things that actually happened, and the things that didn't into some form of tabulated list:


Things that didn't Happen

• We didn't manage to call Laura. No matter how hard I try, I can't get it into my thick head that when it's calling-time here, it's middle-of-the-bloody-night there. Sorry, Lou; we promise to sort it out soon :)



• I didn't buy a Nintendo DS lite, despite protestations from Dylan, and the fact that they're only 75 quid. Later, later



• I didn't do anything of note on our days off, due to the constant drizzle and occasional torrential rain. boo

Enough of that.

Things that happened:

• I joined a band. In truth, I joined it a couple of weeks ago, but this week was the first practice. It's not the kind of music I usually play, in that it's a Salsa-Ska crossover band (yeah, I know - anyone who knows me from or in relation to Marzano will know my feelings on Salsa as a genre), but it's not too bad, really. I just have to hammer out some chords, and occasionally do a solo. However, there's definately some promise there; after the regular set that we have to run through, we're more or less free to jam for about an hour and this produced some nice sounds. Hence, might be fun. We'll see...



• In order for me to play in said band, I was given an electric guitar last weekend, along with a practice amp, which saved me about 20,000 yen. It's a piece of crap, but once I'd set the neck, lowered the action and sorted out the pickups, it sounded, well, like a piece of crap that'd had an hour spent on it. Meh.



• We saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Not impressed, really. Was quite drunk (on rum, to get into the spirit) but that didn't really make up for the inexplicable nonsense which at times seemed to be shoe-horned into it just for the hell of it. But I suppose it's a Disney film.



• Played tennis the other night, with Kazkun, Taichi, Kouji and Paddy. I haven't played since I used to bike up to the Wollaton Park Tennis Club as a little nipper, apart from a couple of frankly half-assed games with Lukas last summer, so I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it. However, we did play under lights, so there were more bugs, mosquitos, moths and beetles than I've ever seen (not to be outdone, Jack, I swear that there was a moth there 6 inches wide, with closed wings - I thought it was a sparrow).'Good times', as Paddy would say. 'Super-good play serve' as Kazkun would say.

would you Adam and Eve it?

the miracle shuffle
Originally uploaded by decentred.

Just a quick one. I buggered up this shuffle by washing it at 40 degrees before we went surfing.

Or so I thought.

Apart from a slightly stodgy play button, the thing works fine. It's a mystery... but one I'm happy about. *wry smile*

Into the blue

dawn 3
Originally uploaded by decentred.

So. Back from surfing, then.

It's nice to be sleeping on something flat, and with AC and fridges, but in pretty much every other way I'd love to be back on the beach again (although being woken up by the sun at 5am got a bit tiring).

We (Cory, Em and myself) set off at 6pm on Sunday, and after a long, leisurely drive with a number of pit-stops, we got to Hyuga at about midnight. You can drive right up to the beach, and we were camping on the beach itself, right at the top just beneath a tetrapod wall - look here for a Google Maps link to the area. By the time we were settled in, and had met up with Matt (a JET from near Beppu ) and Ayumi (his girlfriend) it was about 3am, and we ended up getting up at about 5am to watch the sunrise and rent boards from the store. I got a 9'4 longboard, which was as steady as a rock, and Em got a slightly more slippery 8'6.

We made it into the water about 6.30, and having only been surfing in the UK before, where it's pretty much essential that you wear a full wetsuit, it was a nice change to go out in only a rash vest and shorts. The waves were good, too; at best they were above head height and really clean, meaning that they could be ridden right into the shore (which we managed - check out the Flickr set).

We went out 3 times, for progressively shorter and less successful sessions, and finally headed out to Trial for supplies, and had a barbecue on the beach, followed by a bonfire, marshmallows and copious Gin and Lemonades (oh, and some cool fireworks). Another early morning later, and now with only 2 boards between 3 (Cory's got his, and Matt left us his longboard for the day) we spent most of the time taking photographs with the waterproof camera (again, see Flickr), which was much fun despite being bruised and battered from yesterday.

On the way back, we stopped in at Oita City so that Cory could pick up his and Kristen's entry Visas for their stop in China on the way home (boo). Em and I hunted for some shoes for her, to no avail, and we had a walk around for a bit, then we headed to Beppu for dinner in a most peculiar (but very nice) restaurant called 'Dining Zen'. We dropped off the board, and got back to Nakatsu at about 11pm, very tired but very happy. A sweet weekend if ever we had one, and a great first excursion in Japan.

(oh, and Lukas - the iPod lasted two 5-hour journeys and a couple of intermittent hours play without a charge. Bo.)

Of pools and rain

The three stooges in: 'Pool Story IV: The Raining'
Originally uploaded by decentred.

There's been a fair bit less rain over the last few days, and in anticipation of Jimi-style long hot summer nights, Katie bought a paddling pool of truly wonderful size. Em and Dylan in particular were keen to try out the idea - as you can see from the photo, they were so eager that they just couldn't wait for me to go and buy a hose - they ended up sitting like this (in the rain, of course) for about an hour and a half. wicked.

More to follow in a couple of days - I'm running a bit late for work and we're off to Hyuuga surfing 'till Tuesday.

thunder, lightning, strike!

lightning vidcap 1
Originally uploaded by decentred.

I had one of those very can-do days yesterday. It began pretty normally for a day off, until we decided to go to the open-air swimming pool for a quick swim as the gym is shut for a couple of days (it seems to shut randomly for between 1 and 4 days every month). So we trooped down to the pool, only to find out it wasn't open for another hour and a half, meaning that we had loads of time to just potter about, in all the side streets and such; I took Em to Koi-Wai, where we play football, and we had another look at the castle - watching fish and turtles and such.

When we did eventually get to go for a swim, we discovered a number of things about the facilities. Firstly, there was a 50-metre pool, which was open and partly laned off, so we could swim laps if we felt like it (we didn't). Secondly, it wasn't tiled, only a kind of rough concrete, which whilst good for some exfoliation, led to serrated toes in the end. Thirdly, the facility had obviously been built by a team of Communist Russians during the early 1970's who, after having visited England on a fact-finding tour and been fascinated by the 'lidos' of Milton Keynes and Hounslow, had decided to re-create on on Japanese soil. Have a look at a picture, which shows half of the pool itself. I didn't take one of the changing rooms, in order that I wasn't summarily banned, despite being the only people there (or indeed likely to be), but they were something to behold. There was a partition between the male and female changing rooms (although this had square holes cut into it) and there were shelves full of numbered shopping baskets (up to about 235), so that you didn't need to mess about with a locker key or anything complicated like that. It's only open for 2 months in the summer, and Paddy reckons that the floor ends up covered in dead bugs etc., so I'm really looking forward to going for a quick few laps in late August.

As it was only about 2pm when we finished, I popped to the Cultural Centre, to ask about Tai Chi classes in the area. A very nice man actually called a Tai Chi teacher for me, and arranged (with the help of Google Translate) a visit/demo class at 3.30 that day. Turns out that it was only round the corner from the apartment, so I went over to have a go. I was the youngest there by at least 15 years, but they were all very nice, and the fact that I speak very little Japanese and the teacher almost no English didn't seem to be much of a problem (although it might get more tricky later on). It was tricky but lots of fun, and I'm up for going again.

I also managed to fit a new battery to my iPod, which took all of 5 minutes start to finish. Thanks to Lukas for sorting out a new battery so efficiently. It now seems loads better, but was on charge for much of last night, so we'll see how it goes later in the week.

Then the thunder started. The biggest storm I've ever seen - the above picture is a video capture from my digital camera, and must have struck about half a mile from the apartment. Cool.

I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stich to wear

sunset over nakatsu
Originally uploaded by decentred.

well, it's been pretty hectic here for the past week, what with the gym and the teaching and the eating and the sleeping and the bowling and the shopping and the... well, you get the idea. I'm not sure what the weather's playing at; one minute it's torrential rain, and the next it's crispy sunshine. I don't know, eh...

We've had quite a good week, though; the new Nova inmate arrived on Friday - Dylan, his name is, and he's American from near San Francisco via New York. He speaks pretty good Japanese, so he'll get on fine. Work has been fine, although it will be nice to have a new teacher to take the pressure off the evenings and crossover periods.
We went to the 'Kyushu Baila' on Saturday night - a big open air concert at Taihei, which is at the top of a big hill in western Nakatsu. It had rained very heavily in the day, so I didn't take any camera stuff with me, but I'll get a few from other people and post them. The highlight of the evening was actually the first act we saw - a very tight 4-piece 60's cover band called (i think) the HiTones, complete with matching tight suits, pink shirts, haircuts, vintage instruments, and the most inexplicably Japanese stage presence that I've ever seen. If you can imagine a slighltly chunky Japanese 30-something with a slicked-down left parting and thick black-framed glasses jumping like Michael J. Fox doing Chuck Berry, whilst his band mate 'shoots' the crowd with a vintage Gretsch at the culmination of the last song, you're getting close (and you may need a lie-down). A great night however, I had a long debate with Kazkoon, the photographer/restauranteur about whether i could fit on his tiny electric motorbike, which was only about 40cm high, but could do about 30km/h. I sat on it, and pointed out that my knees protruded not only over the handlebars, but over the front of the bike, making steering something of a problem. He finally let me get off the thing, only to whizz (i love that word) off to harangue someone else.
All the other bands were good, and we got to meet Glasgow Pete's girlfriend, who flew down from Sapporo for the weekend to surprise him for his birthday. Pete's off up there to live in a couple of weeks, and will be very sorely missed (sorry if that sounds a bit like an obituary).

Some of the things that happened this week:

• being chased by a tiny dog at 1 in the morning, on my bike, in the dark, before said dog apparently fell into a drainage channel but kept on running


• seeing the crazy Hi-tones lead singer jive like a nutter to a Japanese version of Dick Dale and the Deltones, in a pink shirt, drainpipes and teddy-boy shoes. Classic.


• the conversation I had had with the man in the sauna, which I managed to make almost completely unintelligable in both English and Japanese. I'm blaming the heat.


• nearly crashing into the back of Em's bike in one of the back alleys at 1 in the morning, only to discover that she's stopped to avoid a tortoise which is crossing the path. Then spending a couple of minutes wondering if i'm hallucinating it before asking Em to check. She was thinking the same thing, apparently.


• eating at Ichiban sushi after the gym, and finding out that you can get sweetcorn nigiri.


• playing football in a 15mph wind


• getting hit in the face by a big old cockroach whilst in goal last night


• not wanting to kill the cockroach, so nearly letting in a goal trying to get rid of the bloody thing, and writing arse in 8-foot letters in the sand to relieve the frustration


• listening to the Smiths and wondering why I haven't before


• listening to the new Streets album and wondering why I bothered


I'm off to the gym.

tobo tobo - the Japanese sound of trudging

Japanese onomatopoeic words
Originally uploaded by decentred.

Not that this is in any way a metaphor for the last couple of days - far from it. We've been very productive, despite the crushing humidity and the general lethargy it creates - I joined the gym, packed up a few things to send to the UK, and went on a monster shopping trip, buying apples bigger than my fist. Nice.

This picture actually comes from a book (please don't sue me - I'm broke) of Japanese onomatopoeic words. We've got a fair few (see this article on the great Wikipedia) but Japan has loads - each of them have their own little drawing on the page, and a short definition. It's a fun li'l book - I might pick it up...

The gym is very nice, despite looking like it was built in communist Russia and shipped over here piece by moulded-plastic piece. Most interesting is the lone Coolio CD on a table with no CD player, the boxing ring, with all the punchbags at entirely the wrong height for anyone not 5'5", and the fact that there's an onsen, sauna and 20-chair 'relax room' in the changing rooms. All good.

Denver or bust...

Denver or bust...
Originally uploaded by decentred.

it's been a busy week. We've been on a normal round of workage, but this has been liberally interspersed with bouts of going out. This started on Monday with a trip to Paddy's to meet his buddy Josh from Australia (and to watch the game that booted the Socceroos from the World Cup. that was fun to watch with Paddy, Josh and Katie...

Tuesday night was pretty full-on - we had the next day off as we'd done training on the Monday, so we all went out to Bunbuku for a meal, and on to the somewhat peculiarly named 'Queen's Echo' for some very, very bad Karaoke. The little machines they have in there are incredible - in addition to the normal, TV-type remote is an 8-inch LCD panel, which is portable, touch-sensitive and (most usefully) in English. The translation leaves somethinng to be desired on occasion, but it's really useful.

Wednesday, I went to Usa Shrine with Paddy, Kumes and Josh, whilst Em nursed a hangover (I was more in favour of field medicine consisting of a Coke and some crisps). There were loads of Koi in the lake, and Kumi showed us how to feed the ducks. Seriously.

Thursday, I took Josh to GooDay (the pun being suitable for someone from Australia), and after managing to stop him buying the biggest paddling pool I've ever seen by reminding him that he was only here for a week (I only just managed, by the way), and we bought fireworks. I figured that we'd get a couple of packs of bottle rockets, but Josh buys the biggest bag of fireworks in the place, and we set off to cause a series of small, localised explosions. However, the weather had other ideas, and we had to give up on that (but there's still time - he doesn't go until Sunday night). So off to Tropis for a quick one, until I had to go to bed. Man, am I tired...