Castles and funiculars and gummi bears, oh my!

Photos are here!

Well, I was going to lie down for a bit after getting home, but Mr. Saxophone downstairs has decided to practice, so...

The day started off with the traditional mad rush for the train - for myself and Z anyway, C was there in good time. We all piled on and then found our seats, changed at Mannheim and from there on to Heidelberg. Most of the journey was spent listening to or talking about each others' music.

We got to the station, went and got our 'Heidelberg Cards' which - if you get the two-day ones instead of the one-day ones - give you free use of the funicular railway, free entrance to the castle and the Pharmacy Museum, and lots of discounts in other places. Out at the front of the tourist office we got a 4-person day pass for public transport to cover the three of us, and off we went!

Unfortunately, we went the wrong way. After about 10 minutes on the bus, we figured out that we were not going towards the city centre. The timetables do that annoying thing of listing all stops instead of just the ones the bus is going to in the relevant direction. We jumped off and raced for the bus across the road - thankfully German cars do stop at crossings. A little later we went past the main transport hub - which is nowhere near the station - and then piled off at the funicular terminal.

We ran up to the gates and popped our two-day tickets in, laughing at the huge queue of primary children barely kept under control by parents. Until we realised that although the two-day passes might entitle us to free use of the funicular, they weren't actually tickets. In the queue we got to get our free tickets.

Although we stood near the front window, there was a huge panel behind the driver which meant we could see next to nothing - it didn't matter that much as we were soon whisked up to the castle (which is only a 10 minute walk up the hill). A short stroll up a cobbled slope later, we were inside the castle grounds - I'll leave that to the photos! The guided tour was interesting, but I found it hard to keep my mind on it. Not sure if it was the guide's French accent or just an attack of tiredness. The World Cup has been rough in terms of getting much sleep, as the Germans (and pretty much everyone else here, such as the Turks) tend to stay at home and roar at the TV, followed by driving around sounding their horns. They were more subdued after their defeat last night.

We dived into the Pharmacy Museum, which was interesting for free and had some fantastic cards in the gift shop, and then stopped for a coffee before heading back to the funicular - stopping again briefly for C to buy a hat. We just need a feather for it now. One stop up and we got out of the lower (new) funicular and transferred to the upper (historical) funicular. Apart from the whole being-a-funicular (you all know about my fascination with them by now, as well as cable cars, and trams, and ferris wheels) it hit a 40% gradient at the end. It was like going up a rocket launch track. We stopped to admire the view, failed to get any food and then headed back down again.

Once back down from 500ft above sea level, we crossed the old town through the old market square to the river bank, across the old bridge and over to my must-see item - the Philosophers' Walk! Yes, anything for a gag - in this case contrasting it with the Path of Philosophy in Kyoto (which Dad has the most amazing postcard-worthy pictures of with cherry trees in full bloom). We started up the winding cobbled path, walled on both sides, as it snaked its way up the steep hill. Now, I had made a bad choice that morning in wearing my MBTs, which are the most comfortable walking shoes I've ever had, but are utterly useless verging on dangerous if the ground is uneven or sloped. And this was a lot of both. After we'd got to the point where we were level with the castle on the other side of the river, and realised we were still directly over the old bridge and therefore possibly not actually on the Walk at all, we took photos and headed back down. I'll try again when I've worked on my cardio. And have different shoes on.

After that we headed back across the bridge and into the cobbled streets around the market square, stopping for dinner at a nice place with outside tables. I had some delicious pork in a cream and mushroom sauce - a little heavy on the white wine. It came with something called spargel (not sure about the spelling) which initially looked like noodles but I think may have been shredded fried cheese. I mostly left it alone.

I dragged the guys back along the road to a shop with a gummi bear logo that we'd passed while we were wandering around. We only just got in before they closed, but it was worth it! There were endless flavours of gummi bears, old favourites like marshmallow strawberries and even playboy/playgirl jellies! I got a mixed pack of sample sizes for the team and a big bag of coffee-flavoured jellies for me. (I later repented and brought them into work for my project team...) Fully stocked on sugar, we went back to the bus stop and back to the station for our train.

We were ticket-checked on every train, by plain-clothes inspectors on the first train on the way back - they also had the police meet them at the terminus to discuss something with a young man in our car. I still can't get used to the police being armed here. We checked out the bookshop with English books in the train station and then went our separate ways. C later found out that the gummi bear shop has a branch in Frankurt, so we're doomed.

The adventure for today was heading down to the Japanese bookshop at lunchtime to see if we could get anything interesting in their pre-closing-for-refurbishment sale - I didn't in the end, as nothing discounted was that interesting (I already have plenty of reading material I haven't read yet) and anything that was interesting was too expensive and could wait until I got to Japan.

I am horribly tired. It was a battle to even keep my eyes open at some points today, despite coffee, diet coke and coffee gummis (aka sugar). I think I will be hitting the mattress early tonight, neighbours willing.

Protection

I have fallen in love with screen protectors. My initial experience with the DS ones was mixed - the top screen one went on perfectly but the floppier touch screen one ended up with air bubbles and then I put a small scratch on it when trying to get them out with a credit card. I put it aside until the following night and managed to get them all out with the stylus... and the result is fantastic. The scratchy area in the center of the touch screen (which can be completely blamed on the Kanji training game) is gone and both screens look great. The thing still looks completely battered, mind you.

Today I took the camera in to the electronics shop and ended up getting the cheapest of the cases I was looking at - it fits the camera perfectly, although the pockets have flaps that don't close them completely (can see loose batteries falling out). All the really expensive ones were too big - the whole reason I was looking for a new case is because I already have a huge one - and/or had velcro inside them which is just going to damage the camera. And then - screen protectors! I'm trying the toothpaste dermabrasion on the camera's LCD screen at the moment, as it's covered in small scratches from being carried out of its case, and then I will apply the screen protector ready for taking it out tomorrow. I actually don't use the screen most of the time, as it kills the batteries, but it will be nice to have it looking better.

I ended up staying up late last night, and then was subjected to someone playing lounge music at 1:30am. So, after having headphones in all day, I then ended up with ear plugs all night. My inner ears were not thanking me this morning.

Better get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight - Heidelberg awaits...

No, nay, never

I will be going to the local Mexican no more, as I was awake until 3:00am with my stomach trying to implode upon itself. Still not back to normal.

Have a trip to Heidelberg set up for Saturday with Z and another friend from work, should be good. Will take my camera in on Friday and see if I can't get a smaller case. I never use the lens adaptor, which is almost as large as the camera itself, so the case for both of them is far larger than I would like. The local electronics shop has a good selection of them, which I will peruse on the way to former team leader's birthday drinks.

In other news, it rained all day but even now as it's trailing off the humidity is right back up again. Oh well.

Fontainebleau photos!

We ended up using David's camera most of the time - it's much, much smaller than mine - and he has put up his pictures of Fontainebleau!

Retail and forward planning

Having spent the entire week sitting on my rear end at work or at home, I decided to go out on Saturday into town to at least get out of the flat. First stop was the Japanese bookshop OCS, where they were discounting various items in preparation for closing for refurbishment next month - I picked up a translation of The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment and some Nora Roberts book, as I find them easy to read in English. I even got a free newspaper, which will be handy for revision... not so long to go, as I realised when counting up free weekends to go exploring before the mock exams.

I also used my credit note from the headset I couldn't use with my Mac at the electronics shop, getting some AAA rechargeable batteries for my Sennheiser headphones and a screen protector kit for my DS. I got the same cashier who had given me the credit note originally, and she was incredibly animated about the whole thing. I didn't understand a word, of course.

Then it was into C&A where I picked up some Hello Kitty socks (too amusing to pass by) and a mobile phone 'sock' (black with a cute cartoony white rabbit with a lollipop) to put my new music player in, as even sitting in the outside pocket of my bag the protective case is getting quite scratched. It will make it impossible to operate, as it's all done by touch screen, but hey. It's only a 20 minute walk to work.

I got slightly lost on the way back through trying to avoid the main shopping street, but found the supermarket and picked up some supplies for the rest of the weekend. Including gooseberries! Haven't seen them in ages.

Today, I did a study plan (just have to stick to it now) and more thinking about Japan - where to be when, what trains are available and where to stay. Then I gave my DS a microdermabrasion! A highly amusing tip found on a website, basically use a tiny bit of toothpaste (which contains fine abrasive) and spread it over the screen, leave to dry and then scrub off. It has helped, although there are also some crumbs trapped in the casing that I'm going to get out by the Official Nintendo method of a toothbrush before I put the screen protectors on.

After all that I thought I'd read my book of Kenji Miyazawa short stories that I'd bout the last time I was in OCS, only to find that I hadn't been paying attention and had in fact bought a poetry collection. I will wimp out of that and read either Kino's Journey or something else instead...

Quotes and words

From my reading of the BBC website (which really has gone downhill in terms of quality of English):

'"We are carrying out executions by selecting the people whom we can execute with a feeling of confidence and responsibility," Japanese Minister of Justice Hatoyama Kunio told a news conference.' (Full story here)

'But this ... is nothing compared to an e-mail sent by an extremely powerful person at JP Morgan encouraging his investment banking team to be more human. In it he said: "Take the time today to call a client and tell them you love them. They won't forget you made the call." Indeed. I'm sure the client would remember such a call for a very long time.

'If love has no place in the language of business, neither does passion. Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office - unless things have gone very wrong indeed.' (Article by Lucy Kellaway, 'Are you going forward? Then stop now)

And this - amazing torn paper art - look out for the parachuting tanuki and Christopher Walken!

Singing in the rain

Getting to Paris was fairly smooth, but the legendary Charles de Gaulle Airport wasn't about to let it be that easy. I got through Frankfurt without having my passport checked even once - I picked up my boarding card by inserting my bank card into an automated checkin machine, then scanned the bar code on it to get past the gate and into the aircraft. David had a slight delay, but the real fun began when we realised that we had landed in different terminals. In the end I asked him to aim for the RER (mass transit commuter lines) in his terminal and I'd just try to find him. The shuttle between terminals is a bit like an old-style rollercoaster ride and takes forever.

Then it was out into Paris' public transport system, which rumbled along to Chatelet-les-Halles, the metro station I was most afraid of when I lived there as a kid. The RER section wasn't as bad as I remembered the metro part being - more people and more lights. Then it was one more stop to Gare de Lyon, which we would leave from the next morning. Despite it being nearly 11pm there were open cafes, and we had warm goat's cheese salad and a Savoyarde flammkuchen with mushrooms, cheese and bacon. I navigated from the station to the hotel, then David navigated us back when I got hopelessly off track. The Hotel des Trois Gares was neatly tucked into a corner at the end of a footbridge across a canal and we had a nice quiet night there (the only downside about the place was the miniscule lift - you would want to be friendly to use it).

The next morning, after commiserating with the man on reception about France's defeat by the Netherlands the night before and seeing Ireland's 'No' vote splashed across the front pages, we headed to Gare de Lyon and grabbed some warm drinks before boarding a train for Fontainebleau-Avon. It was not a good morning for coffee - at the hotel it was stewed and cold (a rare combination) and at the station more like water. Half of the hour-long journey was spent sitting at an intermediate station, but then we arrived through steadily increasing amounts of forest to Fontainebleau. Or, maybe more accurately, to its outskirts. Not realising the scale of the map we walked in, which took almost half an hour. But we found the hotel easily, and they let us check in and get the key card early. We headed out for a pizza and dessert at a cafe next door - narrowly avoiding a rain shower - and then headed back in to plan but ended up sleeping for a while... obviously we both needed it.

We spent the rest of the evening watching Stardust on DVD, which was a lot of fun. My favourite line of the movie: "But you were a mouse! You wanted cheese!" We realised at one point that as David had brought me over some clothes, my new music player, a very large pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a USB headset - there was no way I was going to get everything back in to my rucksack along with my laptop and camera (which I didn't really need anyway as David had brought his much smaller one). So, case swap it was. Must bring it back in July.

Somewhat more refreshed the next morning, we left our cases at the very nice Hotel Napoleon and headed out. After picking up a map of the Forest of Fontainebleau, I realised that Nemours, where we went on family holidays when we lived in Paris, was quite a bit further than I had thought and would probably require a return to the train station. Damn. The weather was also quite unsettled, with half an hour of sunshine followed by ten minutes of torrential rain. Not really the kind of weather you want for going and rambling around (and knowing me, getting lost in) a forest, no matter how lovely the rocks are.

We resigned ourselves to staying in the town where we could find shelter, which was no bad thing. Lunch was had at a cafe and patisserie we had seen the day before, some nice quiches followed by a raspberry souffle for himself and a coffee religieuse that almost made me ill - I seem to have lost my sugar tolerance somewhat. There were plenty of places in the town to wander around and buildings to admire, then we explored the chateau gardens and did a quick bit of boating on the carp lake (just got out in time as it started to rain again - although we were equally worried about being capsized by one of the giant fish). We even went on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the French Garden and out a little way into the forest, which was lovely but made you appreciate modern suspension. Amazing how even rain can be enjoyable when you're somewhere else on holiday.

After spending a few hours around the chateau and realising that the weather wasn't going to improve, we set off for the station again, this time by bus. The train back was much quicker, and we were in Gare de Lyon over half an hour before we had planned.

For the next half an hour or so, we were reminded why we don't come to France very often. The Japanese restaurant we had seen on Friday was closed, as were the Chinese and Italian ones. Which left the Fruits de Mer (seafood) and Savoyarde restaurants - none of which had a 'vegetarian option' beyond plain omelette. Eventually we got tired of walking around the area - particularly as the number of open restaurants decreased as we went away from the station - and instead headed for the airport.

That was equally bad, and we ended up having slightly stale mozarella and tomato and ham and cheese sandwiches at a terminal cafe. After splitting up to head off to our checkins, I found that my flight was delayed by a technical fault which had caused a delay on the incoming craft, which was then followed after boarding by some passengers from another flight deciding they didn't want to transfer to this one, so their bags had to be found and offloaded. Between that and the irregular evening trains from the airport (filled with celebrating Turkish supporters), I got home about 1:00 am.

Monday was thankfully quiet at work, and although one of the MA seminars was supposed to have started yesterday there was nothing on the bulletin boards, so as I was geared up to do something I instead redesigned my j-trans site. It's still not perfect but at least looks a lot better.

Touch base

It was a fairly hectic day yesterday, but first back to the long walk.

I thought I was one of the last to leave the office, running out at 5:45 which is when we were meant to be registering at the tent. The park was just down the road, but it was absolutely immense and it took me a while to find any tents, let alone the Nintendo one. When I finally found it, and the other UK translators doing the run, I was still in plenty of time - someone had obviously added a cat-herding margin to the arrival times.

A pleasant surprise was that the company t-shirts were actually quite nice - normally they're things you'd be embarrassed to wear after the event unless decorating, but I'll definitely wear mine in public. We also had inflatable batons to make noise with, and there was a lot of it as we headed off en masse after a group photo (there's no way they got everyone in without a panoramic lens). We filed out of the park, joking about how we were all wearing 'Wii Fit' t-shirts but were being passed out by pretty much everyone else, including some very fit-looking people from Panasonic.

It was a fair walk before we even got to the start area, and it was jam packed. There was some idea of organising yourself by your projected race time, but no-one seemed to be paying it any attention (which came back to bite us later). We stood around commenting on other people's t-shirts (one had 'we love this meeting!') and groaning at the choice of music (themes from Rocky and Chariots of Fire). After several '5-4-3-2-1!' announcements, we finally started to move forward, although it was another few minutes before we got to the start gate. But the crowd was very good-natured, and kept doing Mexican waves while standing around.

G and I walked the whole thing, but didn't do too badly at 50 minutes for 3.5 miles. The worst part was being pushed past by people running, as no-one had lined up by race time (it was simply too crowded to do anything like that) and although they were letting people out in batches the road (2-3 lanes) was still too narrow to allow everyone to be where they wanted. We ended up hugging the side of the barriers, but people still tried to undertake us. After a while the runners from both start gates joined up as we got to use both sides of a 4-lane dual carriageway, which made things much easier.

There were loads of cheering fans standing outside offices, and samba dancers for some reason. Other Nintendo people stopped to talk to us as they passed (which they generally did) and before too long we were passing the 5km markers and trying to figure out what 3.5 miles was in km. The end gate was a fairly subdued affair, with people raising their arms to run through in front of some cameras. From there we carried on walking until we were back in the park - we never did find the places to pick up our post-race JP Morgan t-shirts but we weren't that bothered. Cold drinks were foremost in our minds, and with those supplied we headed back to the company tent. The sight of the queue for the BBQ - and the amount of fat some of the stuff was frying in - put myself and G off and we had some biscuits instead.

I ended up sitting next to the producer from my previous project, a gregarious Frenchman with a love of any chocolate over 60% cocoa (and a corresponding hatred and scorn of anything less). Various areas had begun to hurt, mainly my calves and front of my thighs, followed by the backs of my hips (I did the whole thing in my MBTs, as they're simply the most comfortable walking shoes ever, so long as it's on a flat surface). My neck started hurting as well and I tried stretching it out, which he noticed and pushed his thumbs into the top of my shoulders, and agreed that I was indeed very stiff.

Then he took my hand and started pressing his thumb into various parts of it, which was fine until he reached the area above my thumb on the side of the hand - then it hurt like hell. "Are you sleeping well? You're not sleeping well, and you're depleted." I was frankly amazed - I haven't been sleeping well in Frankfurt, and gave up eating properly in the heat as I had no appetite. Turns out he has been informally studying shiatsu for years, and loved to use it to ease his wife's aches and pains when she was pregnant.

If any guys are reading this, this is a skill that will help you pull. He gives the best backrub, if G and P's reactions were anything to go by (actually, if we'd video-taped P and you didn't know what was happening...). I, unfortunately, was judged too tense for him to be able to do anything there and then, but I was still most impressed. Quite interested in it now.

Thursday was spent crunching through possible localisation issues in files at work - it's always fascinating to talk about it with someone else and see how differently people can think. Now we just need to close down as many as we can and leave as few changes to implement as possible. After that I concentrated on checking my translation, which I also spent most of the night doing. It started raining about 4pm, and I was only in a t-shirt as it's been way too hot for weeks. Bought a brolly in the supermarket.

I've bought some music online in anticipation of getting my shiny new player from David tonight, and am having a lot of enjoyment listening to Sunglasses at Night (Sean Finn and Gino Montesano, Moog Radio Mix) and Dangerous Power (Gabriel Dresden feat. Sean Burton, Gabriel Dresden Extended Mix).

But now it's time to pack the laptop, get a fleece and get to work! Paris and Fontainebleau await!

All walked out

Have dragged myself home from the 3.5 mile JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, one nice t-shirt to show for it. I'm going to be very, very stiff tomorrow.

Something funny

Again, a genuine search - this time for weasel words, to find a nicer way of describing the cop-out of saying 'most people would agree that...' without providing any evidence for my feminism nationalism translation - has led to some new gems.

Follow it through glittering generality to The Society for Propaganda Analysis, then Argumentum ad numerum through to Communal reinforcement and finally you will arrive... at the wonders of truthiness. Keep going until you find the report on the speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

I hope it makes you laugh - albeit in a rather painful way - as much as it did me.

Run!

I completely forgot that I'd signed up to do a charity 3.5k run (after being assured that not only could I walk it, I would probably have to as there were so many people involved). And forgot when it was, so was worried it was this Friday or weekend, when I will not be here. Unhelpfully, the reminders in work were vague in a 'less than 2 weeks to go!' way but not actually giving a date. The internet informs me that it's Wednesday, so I will trundle along with loads of others from work and go to a huge BBQ afterwards. Should be fun.

Finally finished translating feminism nationalism over the weekend. Now I just have to check what I've done (especially the last section) and try to make it into acceptable English. It's hard when I'm not sure what some of the passages are trying to say, or when I don't understand the theory behind them. But such are uni assignments, particularly when you're trying to do something vaguely advanced in a field you know little about.

Amusing factoid I found today - there is a Black Day in South Korea. Nothing racial, I stumbled upon it while looking up Baumkuchen (legitimate work-related search!), which led me to White Day, which led me to Black Day. Seen my past failure at baking pretty much anything, I am in no hurry to try a traditional Baumkuchen...

Other than that, all getting a bit existential, in a what-am-I-doing way. Some colleagues have the chance to work closely with their teams or project managers, or actually translate, and so show what they can do, which I am quite envious of (the chance rather than the people). What I'm working on at the moment is checking US English text for anything unacceptable and/or incomprehensible in UK English, which while worthy in its own way is quite boring and simple work. I'm not stretching myself in any way, there isn't much to make an impression (let alone impress) with and although the pay is excellent the work itself isn't getting me anywhere.

My self-motivation is slipping (has slipped?) and without it there's not much to keep me going. While I feel I learned the hard way that trying hard for a lost cause (aka flogging a dead horse?) just ends up driving me crazy, I'm afraid of becoming sloppy and missing a chance if it does present itself, or simply messing up at some point.

And while saying all that, I have to laugh - it's nothing that hasn't happened to pretty much everyone else, including me, and the answer is the same as it's always been. Somehow, bootstrapping.

Too damn hot

Yes, it's still hot. Not quite as bad as it was, but it's been hot for so long that I'm feeling really worn down and light-headed most of the time. So, hiding out in my room reading rather than going out at the weekends, which means not much in the way of news.

Himself has been wonderful and ordered my new mp3 player, headphones and USB headset for me. Can't wait to see him next weekend.

Still trying to drag myself through this feminism nationalism translation. If nothing else it's turning into an interesting impromptu history lesson as I try to place some names - female anarchists executed for treason in the Meiji era.

Quote for the day: "Not unusually, tradition in Japan held that femaleness and an individual identity and destiny were oxymoronic. Thus, when the Tokugawa (1603-1867) authorities chose to execute a woman, she would be given a man's name. This was not unlike the view of progressive medieval Buddhists that enlightenment was not, after all, out of the reach of women. In male bodies, transformed at the point of death through the grace of Amida Buddha, they might gain immediate entry to the Pure Land. Either style of 'annihilation' meant dying a 'man'. However, after the Meiji imperial restoration of 1868, Western-style modernity brought with it a new view of women as modern citizens. The Meiji Constitution, Civil Code and political assembly laws fell far short of according them equality in terms of their rights or duties to the nation, yet the new criminal code promulgated in 1880 spelt a certain equality for women in granting them equal access to criminality."

From 'Resistance to Difference: Sexual Equality and its Law-ful and Out-law (Anarchist) Advocates in Imperial Japan' by Hélène Bowen Raddeker

Now you've done it

I've booked my flights for Japan in October! Finnair are having a seat sale, with Heathrow to Nagoya or Osaka for a mere £392.90. I'm leaving on Oct 3, arriving early on Oct 4 and there until the morning of Oct 26. The three week JR railpass and rental mobile will be sorted out later...

Not much else - it's still too hot. Went out to Yumeya, a ramen restaurant near the Frankfurt Messe exhibition center. It was fun, if quite disorganised on the service front. Not expensive either.

Really, really must concentrate on getting this feminist nationalist translation done this weekend so I can run away to Fontainebleau with himself next weekend. Shall bring the camera - I know I haven't been doing much around Frankfurt recently. There aren't many people interested in going places, and I'm sorry to say my German is still non-existent so I'm still quite nervous. But I should make an effort to at least see Heidelberg and one town on the Romance Road that seems near enough.

June already... been here three months. It feels like it, in that way that you get used to places, but also not in that I feel like I haven't got that much done. Another three months (or possibly four, the one month extension I was promised has not shown up yet) and it's all over. For now anyway.

But I have other things to worry about - I'm managing to read a small newspaper article a day on the Asahi Shimbun website, but as soon as I get back from France I need to start preparing for the residential weekend, which means reading short stories, reviewing the report-writing and preparing visual aids for the presentation. There's quite a lot of work to be done there, so I just hope I have the willpower for it...

yes, yes, YES!!

As the ad goes. I finally got my hair cut (goes a bit like this) which makes me feel like I've taken off a woolly hat. Which is good, as the weather continues to be stupidly hot.

In other news, having far too much fun looking at places to go with my brother and his other half in Japan in October (Tokyo, Matsumoto, Obuse, Inuyama and Kanazawa on the list so far) and generally managing to avoid the MA translation I should be doing.