Photos, Beans and KittensLas

Just when I had settled on a Canon, along come  pictures from the NYE party which get me thinking again.  

Here's one of me taken with an Olympus EP-1.  It's not so obvious in this one, but the colouring and image clarity were spot on.

Here's another one taken with what I think was a Canon DSLR:

 

It was taken rather suddenly, hence the blurring, but again, I liked the colouring in all the photos.

And, in my hand you will see my Holga, which is now serving as main camera until I figure out what I'm going to do, and which kidney I'm going to sell.  On Thursday a friend of mine will be giving me his 35mm/120mm negative scanner, which will make my Holga life a lot cheaper.  Expect to be hit with plenty of Holga yumminess at the weekend.

Today I went to my student's house to play with his cat, Hana (that's Japanese for flower), and eat o-sechi-ryouri, which is traditionally eaten over the New Year to give wives a break from cooking.  I particularly love the kuro-mame, sweet black beans, and the tonnes of vegetables you get to nibble on.  Here's a picture of me and Hana:

 

Last night, in a bid to be a bit less reclusive and more spontaneous, I decided (after initially turning things down) to meet up with some friends from Nagoya:  Audrey, and Jay who was only up for the evening.  Jay's a nice guy, but when he gets drunk he becomes quite aggressive.  This was actually brought up by both Audrey and I and he seemed rather shocked by the accusation.  Given that this was one of the first things I spotted about him, when meeting him for the first time about two years ago, I too was rather taken aback.  Anyway, Jay was on good form all evening, which is not something that can be said for the  buddy of his who turned up after having been drinking his fiance's family dry all afternoon.  He launched himself into the Irish Bar we found in Shinagawa, spouting various profanities in Japanese, before entertaining a Scottish couple sitting behind us with some slurred discussion about Sheffield.  He then introduced himself to everyone, forgot everyone's name and then insisted on loudly telling the whole bar about the 50yen beer bar he was taking us to.  There were 8 of us in total, and we all agreed that we were only tolerating him because he knew where to find beer for 50yen in Tokyo.  

On the train there, he started talking about the time he got into a fight and was wrongly accused (he says) or pulling the hair out of the skull of one of his four attackers.  Allegedly they tried to sue him for 'emotional harm' to the tune of £20 000, but settled for £2000 when he threatened to leave the country rather than pay up.  All of which sounds like a load of bollocks to me.  While the story was being told, the train around us slowly emptied out as more and more people sidled off into nearby carriages.

So we get to Gotanda and set off to the bar, only to find it closed, which is really no surprise.  We ended up in an izakaya, where Audrey and I gave each other moral support (having two vegetarians is quite glorious when you need to pressure people into ordering salad), and Mr Obnoxious continued to test everyone's patience.  As I bailed out he grabbed my hand and said:  

" You know, despite what people have said about you, you're actually quite cute..."

...which I shrugged off as the ravings of a drunken, obnoxious twat and went home.  It's nice to be reminded why I don't like hanging out with most foreigners.

And just think, if I'd stayed at home, there would have been no story to tell you.  Which is why going out more is worth it.