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.