Adventures in the Looking Glass

Curses!!!  I just wrote a veritable missive about my day today and then I hit delete to correct a typo and the whole bloody thing disappears.  Shit!!!!!!  Bloody hell, that just took me 15 minutes to write.  Can I be bothered to re-write it all again?  Probably.

So last night, craving not the company of my students, who had invited me out for a drink (for which read copious amounts of money spent), I went to my local and sat drinking beer and sake.  I taught everyone how to swear properly, which is another sign, in addition to this morning's sore head, that drinking sake should only be done in moderation.  My friend Gen-chan came up to me just before he left the bar and blurted out "Son of a bitch!" I hasten to add that I didn't teach him that one.

This morning's hangover was miraculously cured by scrambled egg burritos and cups of tea, so I was ready for action by 11am.  In the bar, I had been told about Gen-chan carrying a portable shrine through Umeyashiki, the next train station down from mine.  Given how tiny he is, I was rather concerned that he might end up getting squished, and thus decided that photographic evidence was needed.  So I jumped on my bicycle and took my Holga and Canon EOS out for some exercise.  I haven't used my SLR since January, so it was nice to use it again.  Having the Holga has made me appreciate what my SLR is good, and made me a little more confident in taking more "from the hip" candid shots of things.  We'll see how they turn out.

Tonight I met up with one of the guys from school and we went to see "Star Trek".  We had been listening to the two other guys ar work having a long debate about "Transformers", and turned to each other.  "Geeks," I muttered. 

"So are you coming to see Star Trek?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied.  "We're geeks of a different kind."  I should have offered the Vulcan salute, but I may have been eating at the time.

I honour of how much I liked the movie, I decided to use my icon with the lense flare, which was grossly overused in the film, though I must admit to rather liking it.  It reminded me of "Firefly" in that it was trying to capture a feeling of nostalgia about early Star Trek.

Hmm, surely it must be time for bed now.  My brain thinks otherwise, it seems...

I'll post my first Twonnet tomorrow.

I seem to have got the "Firefly" bug again. It's the only DVD I brought with me to Japan so I save it for lazy mornings and nights when I can't sleep (there have been a few).

Today is a national holiday in Japan so we got the day off. I went to Komagane with Yasuko and one of my students, Yuko, for lunch. We went to an Italian restaurant for spaghetti and then onto Mr Donut for coffee. I had three cups of the stuff so I'm now simultaneously tired and buzzing. To give my shaking limbs a rest I read the entire Firefly entry on Wikipedia, with associated offshoots and found out some rather interesting stuff. I know want to watch more episodes but I have to ration myself!

Komagane is, from the bit I saw, one huge retail park in the most dramatic setting you could hope for - out-of-town shopping with mountains. Not a big deal for those who live with them, bit for a small person, from a small country, with smallllll mountains (which one rarely sees), this kind of thing is quite shiny. I'll write some more about it at the weekend for the weekly report.

Have started putting together tentative travel plans for the coming month or two including trips to Tokyo, Matsumoto and Nagano amongst others. I want to get into my new apartment and feel a little more settled and at ease with things before I start venturing off for the weekend. The Japanese switch in my brain has finally turned on and all the random syllables are now starting to make sense a little more, so much so that I can now intuit the meanings of certain words according to context, and the rest I merely repeat and ask the meaning. This is a very slow process, however, so expect no bi-lingual-ism anytime soon.