Pumpkin tiramisu at Hakata Station.

Wearing a CERN tshirt feels odd.

Hypocenter Park Nagasaki.

Dessert courtesy of 7-11.

A new special move?

Miniature Dejima at Dejima!

Enjoying the view of Nagasaki Bay.

Return to Obuse!

Everyone but me is dozing on the train from Nagano back to Nagoya. We had two fun-filled and relaxing days in Yudanaka Onsen and Obuse, with the added bonus of company in the shape of Dawn and Simon.

The trip didn't start off that well - I realised on the train from Nagoya that I had lost my suitcase key, a tree fell on the line delaying us for 2.5 hours, and I ended up having my suitcase locks expertly picked by a locksmith in the police box outside Nagano Station. But once we got past all that, we had a wonderful stayat Seifusou ryokan in Yudanaka, with its incredibly nice staff and insanely hot spring water.

Monday was David's birthday, and we went to the snow monkey park which had no snow but plenty of Japanese macaques. Then after wandering around the town for a little we had dinner and went back to the hotel for cake and cocoa and mattcha lattes!

Today we visited Ganshoin Temple and wandered around Obuse, and are aboutto change at Nagoya for Okayama. All change and heading south!

There's always one

The jet lag hasn't been too bad, and I've spent my first few days in and around Tokyo, so I haven't had the early morning or travel time to injure my fingers writing long messages on the phone. I've done very little in the way of sightseeing so far, mainly hanging out with friends and seeing clients. It doesn't help that I rented a diffent model of phone and the keyboard is a pain to use.

Tokyo is warm, in the low twenties, and other than seeing people I've been getting lost (despite my excellent map book), picking up some Xmas and birthday presents, and playing many rounds of Uno Junior with a 4 and a 6 year old when they aren't watching or reinacting the latest Ultraman or Kamen Rider series. The older brother can tell you which Ultraman series anything appeared in, and the little brother went to a Halloween party as an Ultraman monster (Gomez). He wore his cardboard claws, made that morning by his mom, all through breakfast, sofly roaring 'ga-oh' with a big smile on his face.

Last full day in Tokyo today, more clients and friends to meet, then tomorrow morning I'm off to Nagoya and Kyoto.

Going to seed

Since I only got three plants out of my pack of 500 shiso seeds, I haven't been picking the leaves off that often as you can't do that much with so few. And now - flowers!

So, I don't know what this means for the leaves, but maybe I'll get some seeds for next year. We'll see!

Cows!

I managed to get out for a few walks last week, as I was going a bit mad being tied down at my desk all day with a big translation project and making preparations for both our trip to Japan and himself's trip back to the UK to pick up his bike.

But it was a wonderful walk the days I did do it - just took the train two stops up and got off and walked back - and the weather was perfect. Not like today, when it was throwing it down. We had a bit of a storm last night that knocked over one of my flower boxes and ripped a branch out of one of the trees in the garden.

And I had an extra special treat on one of the days - two teenage girls were moving cows from one field to another one across the river! They drove one cow in to the river and then ran over the bridge to coax it across - and the rest followed in their own good time, over the course of about 10 minutes. I wasn't the only one who stopped to watch it, and there were also two herons and a dozen paragliders in attendance. I was particularly impressed by how calm the dogs being walked on both sides of the river were, I only heard one bark. One of them even gave me a little 'kiss' both times he went by!

Bears!

Last weekend we ventured over the Swiss border to Singen, which is on the line that runs through Schaffhausen, a must-visit if only because of its proximity to the Rhine Falls, but it's actually a lovely town in and of itself (and the place that introduced me to the divine combination of chocolate and chili).

The main object of visting Singen was to get new protective clothing for himself before he either collects his old motorbike from the UK or trades it in to get a new one here, and although the town didn't charm us immediately, it was an excellent shopping trip and we found some curious sights - in particular a series of charming painted bears. (This must be a mainland European thing, as they do it with cows in Switzerland, but I hear there are painted gorillas in the UK as well.) There was also a deeply disturbing and enormous sculpture of flaccid naked people which I avoided looking at, and the excellent piece of graffiti stating "homophobia is gay".

Back in the UK

It was a packed week back in the UK for me, meeting up with friends and family in London, including seeing some the Mayor's Thames Festival...

... and this wonderful currywurst emporium near Embankment.

I'm normally not a huge fan of scribbly artwork, but I fell for this notebook after a friend brought me into Paperchase - not only is it Japanese-themed and very cute, it also has a plethora of pockets, including a big ziplock one at the back, which makes it my new travel planner for our trip to Japan!

I had invested in some moulded SIM card holders - since I now have four of them - but this will do nicely too!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Thank you to mom, dad, David, Bill and Austa for their fabulous cards and pressies!

More photos, and a blog

Finally got some more photos up, this time of our second trip to Schaffhausen with a guest and a two-day trip to Zermatt.

I was reading the Asashi newspaper online this morning, and saw a fantastic story about a Swiss travel agency employee who is walking the length of Japan to show that it is still safe to travel there, after his company in Winterthur (right next to Zurich) was hit by 90% cancellations after the earthquake. Have a look at Walking through Japan (English translations of the German posts tend to follow a few days later.)

Like buses, only photos.

Nothing for ages, then three new albums at once! Here are some photos taken on a hike from Felsenegg to Uetliberg, at the Technorama science museum in Winterthur, and on a walk around Lake Zurich one evening.

My favourite? The dancing magnetised iron filings in Technorama, doing their thing to Technotronic's "Pump up the Jam". (Warning: video)

Truth in advertising?

This reminds me of a place I once worked, who rolled out a standard email signature that we were all supposed to use under threat of some undefined penalty. It included the wonderful phrase "Educate Yourself", followed by a link to product information, which I promptly changed to "Find out more".

For more on the delicate distinctions between Englishes, I recommend the wonderful US/UK English blog Separated by a Common Language, written by Lynne Murphy, especially her recent post on making suggestions.

Never rains but it pours

After a few really hot, sunny days we're having a downpour. It's lovely and cool! And at least I won't have to water my rocket and Asian greens back from a state of total wilted dehydration.

We went to Basel Zoo on Saturday in an attempt to see the new baby snow leopard cubs there - no luck, but we saw lots of other animals! And if you'd like to see what the cubs look like, you must have a look at the photos by a serious amateur we met at the zoo, Urs Witschi.

This week has been the usual nose to the grindstone, and me finding out the hard way that sleep is not as optional as I'd like to think. I'm also making an effort to eat properly during the day, so I've been cooking big pots of things and eating them for a few days afterwards. I've just made the "upside-down lentil shepherd's pie" from Appetite for Reduction, a vegan low-calorie cookbook that has already come up with some recipes we can't wait to try again. I also tried out the chocolate cake from the author's site, which smells amazing. It's very much not low-calorie though!