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!

Warp speed, Mr Sulu!

I have a new desk!

I used to work here:



Now, I work here!



And after a day of scientific research (did you know they can breed mice with multicoloured brains?) it was time for one of these.

Alive and well and growing

I didn't realise it had been that long. I've been busy getting my new contract (translating from home, but a regular supply of work), getting through some other work, heading back to Dublin to visit parents, and now in the midst of upgrading the entire office - new computer (well, new to me, but as it's himself's video editing machine it's more than capable of doing anything I want and more), new desk (new to me, bought from a friend moving abroad), new monitors (two! I've wanted two monitors ever since working with two in Spain last year), a riser for the monitors (minor hacking with some Ikea feet and a shelf) and last but not least a new router to carry the broadband signal through to the office - Swiss walls seem to be made of Kryponite, so the minute you move out of line of sight of the main router you lose almost all the signal.

Other than that, a good friend from Japan is coming over to visit in July/August, trying to line up some other friends to visit and also to work out if I go to Japan in November. I have an offer for another three-month contract in Spain, but a) if the current contract gets extended I'll prioritise that and b) I really, really want to go to Japan.

I bought a Kindle, which I had to import from the US, and annoyingly I can't buy a case from the UK from Amazon (because it's in the Kindle section and therefore they won't ship it outside of the UK) or from Play (because it's in the Electronics section and they only ship those inside the EU). I got so fed up I ordered a pattern online, and even bought an iron and found and prepared my long-neglected stash of fabric, but I haven't got around to trying to make it yet. I decided to try an easier coaster kit that I got in Japan, but then found I couldn't understand those instructions either, so it's waiting for the next bit of free time I have. Not this weekend - that's going to be assembling the desk and computer, and possibly the Swiss Japanese Friendship Society softball game, where I will take pictures and stay away from the balls.

I leave you with home-grown rocket salad, round 2, and my so far unkillable rocket plants and ready to harvest 'Asian greens'. The packet wasn't any more specific, so I don't know what they actually are, except they're not shiso.

Out and about

Now the whole Easter/visitor period is over, it's back to - well, lots of work! But I have managed to get out and find a few more curiosities.

For reasons best known to themselves, the Germans and Swiss go crazy for chocolate or baked bugs - strictly speaking, cockroaches - in May.



Pure Germanic engineering - a cherry stone remover, guaranteed for three years. For those few days of the year when you stone enough of them to wish you had something to do it for you...

So, so tempted by these. But we already have more storage boxes than we need...

Out, out!

We knew Easter was coming up sometime soon, really. We just didn't realise it was last week, so we didn't organise anything. Himself got some work done in preparation for being away on a work trip and I had a massive clearout, even going through all my jewellery supplies and throwing out and reorganising a whole pile of stuff. I've come to the realisation that I like not having boxes, cupboards or piles of stuff with unknown contents. Strange, given how lax I am at filing and how happy I am to just throw things everywhere (there's a reason why I can probably never live with my brother) but that's the way it is.

In other news, we decided to celebrate Easter by cooking some eggs. I came across a fantastic recipe for 宝袋の卵, eggs in treasure bags, or eggs in deep-fried tofu pockets if you want to be more prosaic. We tried the first one in a pre-made inari-zushi pocket, but it was too small for the egg. I had some abura-age on hand, so we tried that and it was perfect! And we made, um, seven of them in total, including the technically failed but perfectly edible first one. Himself has an amazing internal clock that allowed him to disregard the instructions and pull them out when they were just right, not quite hard but gooey instead of liquid. We used up the remaining inari-zushi pockets by filling them with rice seasoned with goma-shio and yukari, I cooked up some koya-dofu and we had some of the budo-mame I'd made the previous weekend. We were about halfway through it when we realised the entire meal was soy, rice and egg.



The only other remarkable thing we did was walk over the ridge to the lake and take the ferry over to Zurichhorn for a walk around the park. Photos are here! It amuses me that people go down to bikinis to sunbathe by the lake, and slightly surprises me that underwear seems to pass for bikinis here. There were several women in their bras, and one in bra and knickers.

I also got a lovely gift from a friend who spent Easter unwinding in Nice - the supreme de tomates makes an amazing pasta sauce. ^_^



Other than that, just been thinking. (Working too! But thinking...) While it's good to reexamine things every now and again, pulling the carpet out from under yourself is never fun. It may prove valuable - even necessary - in the long run, but it's never pleasant. I've been having trouble focusing, so I tend to flick back and forth between different things, and one thing I've been doing is reading through a blog written by a writer I kind of used to know when I was doing my first postgraduate degree. She kept on and never gave up on her writing, which I really admire. She had a lot to say about throwing things away and starting again, thousands of words of writing set aside when they just didn't quite work.

The thought makes me go cold. I've never written that much (not that I write anything anymore, unless you count user manuals and security guidelines) but I cannot imagine just... starting over. Except that sometimes it is the right thing. I know I sometimes try to stay with things for too long - which has come back to bite me nicely in the shape of a contested invoice from the first accountant I hired here, who I never really trusted but convinced myself to go along with until there were issues with my business registration. Sometimes, things are hard and that's just the way it is. But sometimes they're hard because you're doing them wrong. And sometimes, they're hard because they're the wrong thing to do. I just need to figure out which one is in play. I can see why people want to believe in fortune-telling. I miss my magic 8-ball.

She also has a wonderful post on the cold-blooded necessities of being a writer, and there's quite a bit of overlap in advice between writing and translating.

I can has cat!

No, we haven't finally gone out and got ourselves a cat.

I came home from posting letters, forms and cheques after my huge personal/financial/business paperwork clearout and buying a watering can to find a parcel in the postbox. From the UK. I checked the back and read the customs sticker. "Picture"?

Not only is it a fantastic picture, it's from Egaku: Draw for Japan which is raising money for the Japanese Red Cross. So not only do I get a great framed picture for my desk, the proceeds go to Japan too. Double rainbow!

Working like a bean

Beans are used in Japanese new year recipes as the word 'mame' means 'hard-working and diligent' as well as 'bean'. We had a very productive day yesterday, stripping down and washing all the mattress and pillow covers, getting everything dry and doing our normal washing, and - in a process started the night before - I cooked budo mame from a recipe at Just Bento.

Those who know me well will undoubtedly be clutching their aching sides and rolling around on the floor laughing, but I also planted some rocket and shiso in little troughs and put them out on the terrace. The only plant that has survived around me so far is a nigh-indestructible money plant I was given on my birthday many years ago as a cutting, which has somehow flourished in the face of - well, me forgetting to water it. It had a transplant into a new, larger pot a few weeks ago and is doing well.

Time to become fully conscious and go and get a watering can...

You spin me right round baby, right round

I took remarkably few photos of CERN for some reason. I was still under the influence of a nasty cold and far too little sleep, but still a shame. I'll just have to go back sometime. ^_^

Photo roundup

A few more photos from the phone that I haven't uploaded yet!



An amusing product name from Spain.



A tofu dog at a local Thai restaurant.




Not well-known film characters at all. Honest.



On the packaging of a set of two commemorative royal wedding teatowels that our guest brought us as a joke present. So... they're hazardous? Or you've checked they have no workmanship?

Pinball heaven

A new reason for no updates - we have been doing things, but I was working flat out to clear time for a trip to Geneva, in particular CERN, which went down beautifully with our guest on Friday. Photos soon, although I didn't take nearly as many as I thought I would. We had a nice lazy day yesterday with a barbecue to finish it off, himself and guest cycled up into the mountains today, and tomorrow - we totally forgot but it's perfect timing - it's Sächsilüüte! Nothing quite like an exploding snowman, lots of Swiss in medieval guild costume and, er, rather non-PC blacked-up Swiss "Arabs" running around on horseback.

In the meantime, here is what we were up to last Friday: a trip to the out of this world retro pinball and arcade paradise that is Outlane.

Done sulking

The case is unpacked and put away and most of the gifts have been posted (after a moment of confusion when my local post office told me they weren't accepting any post for Japan at all, but the larger one in town had no problems).

And we took advantage of the spring-like weather yesterday to head out to see the Haru Matsuri Japanese festival in Toss, just outside Winterthur. There was great origami by my friend Mr Yamaguchi, calligraphy on demand from Mr Nojima and plenty of fantastic food including traditional Japanese sweets, yakisoba, Japanese baked breads and bento boxes by the amazing Washoku AG.

I wasn't intending to go to the concert advertised, but Mr Yamaguchi reserved tickets for us so we went to see Kiraku - can't recommend them enough! It was a fantastic show and lots of fun. Photos of the Kiraku concert are here!

Postponed

After watching NHK and BBC all weekend and talking about it with himself, we decided to postpone our trip to Japan until the autumn. It took me about 48 hours to actually stop feeling awful about it - probably a mixture of not enough sleep, stress, too much watching disaster footage and guilt over letting people down after telling them that I was delaying for a day, a week - and then not coming. The Japan-11 tag I was using to identify emails with hotel bookings and meetings is now mostly on ITI Japanese Network emails about volunteer translation and interpreting and disaster relief efforts.

My case is still packed in the front room, and I've had to get bits and pieces out of it during the week but not had the heart to unpack properly yet. After the hard decision was made, I then had to write to everyone to tell them, cancel meetings with clients in Tokyo, cancel flights, cancel JR Rail Passes, cancel hotel reservations, cancel the mobile phone and wi-fi rental... it will take weeks before it's all sorted out. I just feel exhausted. But apart from staying away and not taking up resources, and donating to the relief effort (the Japanese Red Cross seem to be heavy on the ground out there, so they're getting my donations) there's not a lot I can do.

I leave you with a photo from the local DIY and gardening shop, where we went to try to find a bird box. The only ones they had were painted with hideous Disney Winnie the Pooh motifs, which put us off completely (not sure if the birds care). But they have scythe blades! And sickles! And machetes! Not sure what they think people are growing here.

Still in the land of chocolate, for now

After seeing how things are in Tokyo - mainly the transport disruption caused by the blackouts and the risk of magnitude 7 aftershocks - I have postponed my flight until 20 March. We're also looking at cancelling our flights to Tokyo and booking to Osaka or Nagoya instead. There is always a chance that we'll cancel completely and go in autumn instead, but we need to decide soon.

Maybe... Go... Stop...

Well, I should have put the clean washing into my case, checked my hand luggage for all the essentials and be going through security for my flight now, but I'm cooling my heels instead. My flight has been cancelled, but I have rebooked to fly tomorrow.

There's been some good coverage on BBC explaining how there cannot be another Chernobyl, which was good to hear against so many scare stories. I'm still expecting disruption but not any kind of nuclear disaster. The strong aftershocks are still a concern, though.

More later!

Wait for it...

I know I'm not the first person to suggest financial or legal penalties for out-of-season items, but it makes sense for governments. Imagine the boost to Switzerland's wealth if it fined places for selling all of this over a month early... the sheep chocolate cake is new to me though!

Chocolate. And Kitty.

It's funny how these things keep repeating themselves. To me, anyway.

I had a look around town on Saturday, checking out a Korean restaurant with a Japanese food shop - very nice selection and good prices - and dropped into the amazing chocolate shop in front of the station to drool-I mean select some gifts for clients in Tokyo.

One of the more amusing items in the shop were these solid chocolate cylinders for use with the Tete de Moine cheese slicers.

A slightly more disturbing discovery was these dress-up sticker packs - since when does Hello Kitty wear a bra?

I'm used to finding Kitty when I look for her, but I was not expecting to see her in a CD shop.

I did like this pun though. Just when you think the Swiss have no sense of humour.

Other than that, a quiet week. Accounts are done and sent to the accountant. Raining most of the day today which himself hopes will turn into snow if it lasts. Made chocolate coffee brownies, although they were seriously undercooked as I had them in a smaller pan than the recipe called for. Still edible, of course!