The Grinch that stole Christmas

I think the official line would be...'due to circumstances beyond our control, i won't be coming back to the uk for christmas as planned' (and paid for). long story, but won't be back, wish i was, but won't be, in fact, am planning to be working christmas day this year...apologies if i had made plans i cant keep

Ah, to be in Langkawi...

andy, ben, stoney, jeffcoat, in langkawi...wish i was there...and only 45 min flight from KL....looks like fun guys. x

Snooooze

Ben, famous for falling asleep anywhere...he used to fall asleep in bars all the time in KL. it was like playing the game Buckaroo...the trick was, to balance as many things on his head while he was asleep without them falling off. The best was on carolinas and javiers birthday where a few ash trays and a lit candle were balanced on his head while he slept in a bar...i have a photo somewhere

Langkawi...mew...

aaaw, loads of guys went to langkawi this week. langkawi is a gorgeous island off the west coast of malaysia, and is one of my favourite places on earth. this is ben. ben is quite possibly the best human being that has ever been born.....i wanna go to langkawi!!!!!!! miss you all!

Weekend

Strange weekend in that i had to work saturday all day, so friday was a non starter, saturday night was my friend justine's birthday, went to the usual haunts in niigata. niigata has a very limited number of drinking establishments, ie 4. was a good night, and made it til 3.30am til i had to get a taxi home half asleep. today a few (15ish) of justines friends went for a curry at lunch. came home at 6ish, and went for an hours training run, felt pretty good and was a little warmer than last week....jeez, this entry is dull! apologies, but have to stop, am boring myself! (note to self, only write on this thing when you have done something news worthy!)

the mountains around niigata are now snow capped quite heavily, looks amazing, will take photos then i get the chance...only 2 more week til snowboarding season starts! and 4 more days til i get new car!

KL home...(where its warm..sniff sniff)

my old apartment in kuala lumpur, yellow building, 2nd floor....slightly warmer than here!
(rob, hope you are taking good care of it...i want it back at some point!)

bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrr...

Marathon training started in ernest last night, just a comfortable 45 mins (only 12 weeks to get up to 4 hours!!) ...not had chance to measure distances yet. ran along the coast road near my apartment adjacent to the beach and sea, very pretty and a long long long straight road....was absolutely FREEZING! its gone very very cold here. The wind has changed direction and now comes from the soviet union/china...so is bitterly cold....missing my poolside kl condo!

Fish Sperm & S.A.D.

bit of a weird week or two. been feeling pretty low/flat and fed up and grumpy/bad mood etc... was talking to a few guys at work today and seems that im not the only one. its turned cold and wet here recently, and maybe down to SAD (seasonal adjustment disorder...where you miss ths sunshine and change in weather makes you unhappy), dunno, either that or they have switched to de-caff coffee at work and not told anyone!

on a separate note, i went to a dinner/drinking party tonight with work, to say goodbye to a guy who is leaving. these are always great evenings, long japanese table, sit on cushions while everyone gets very drunk very quickly (the japanese get drunk by simply looking at sake!). always amazing food and good company. i elected to drive tonight so didnt touch a drop (japan has a very very serious zero tolerance on drinking and driving), tomorrow is a holiday, and didnt want to waste it waking up in a hotel feeling like rubbish all day, but had a great night anyway...no raw horse this time, but was given some food to try, and it was white and its texture was very soft, almost melts in your mouth...it was not pleasant to be honest, mainly due to the texture...some japanese guys turned their nose up at it, so it had to be really bad/weird! an arguement ensued as to what it was, it was either, a) fish genitals, b) fish brain or c ) fish sperm....after a long (and not unweird debate) it was agreed that it was in fact fish sperm....there are many things i could write here...but ill leave any comments for you to make up...maybe a caption competition? best comment wins a prize. needless to say, the boxes marked 'raw horse', and 'fish sperm' are now well and truly ticked, and need not be re-visited again.

Boy's Toys

well...welcome to my new baby...a 1995 subaru impreza wrx 220 horse power. cost £1500 + £900 to get it on the road (£500 for compulsory MOT/shaken). took her for a test drive yesterday, and my god....it was sooo much FUN!!! crikey...it is soo fast and powerful. chose her as she is 4 wheeled drive for the snow here, and an estate so i can get my snowboard in...perfect car. the car itself is immaculate, not a scratch on her....its like driving a jet aircraft i swear. man...its fast!!! not bad after driving a poxy proton for 2 years then having a 1.3 honda fit rental car over here....did i mention how fast it is?? the muffler is the size of a football, so is loud and meaty as hell!....happy boy (well, will be in 9 days time when i pick her up from the dealership) p.s. Col, if you are reading this...it is perfectly acceptable to buy a wrx when you are 31....it is still NOT acceptable when you are 50+ and have 3 kids....

I'm an Alien...It's Official!

I had yesterday off work to go and sort out all my visa's etc....extremely long winded process (most japanese things are), which meant driving across Niigata many times. Luckily, we are pretty well looked after here, my company employs a relocation company to take care of most of our whims, who sort out everything from our flats, our bills to helping us out if we get stuck in any situation that we get stuck in (i.e reversing into other peoples cars etc...). So yesterday involved driving to Niigata airport to get my alien registration (surprisingly i didnt turn green and have a cone shaped head afterwards...sorry...) this means i can now leave japan and come back without having to get another 3 month tourist visa, then i had to go to the city hall to fill in many many forms (japanese love forms), then to a Hanko shop. A Hanko is like a personal stamp that you use instead of a signature. Japanese dont have signatures, they have their little personal seal stamps that they use instead, and i have to have one for a few official type things. it had to be in english unfortunately, but i am getting a japanese character one for work. then back to city office to get my Hanko registered, you cant simply have a hanko, it has to be logged officially by the state. more forms, then went to open up a japanese bank account (all ATM's in japanese!). So now i am officially an alien resident in japan...which is a bit of a relief as i only had 2 weeks left on my visitors visa and was getting a bit close to the wire! this also means that i can get into japan as a resident, and dont have to queue up at immigration with the rest of the common foreign people. In the afternoon, I went to buy a car....more on that later...

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

congratulations to some of my dearest friends in the world, the de souzas who welcomed an addition to their family on wednesday last week, little Kaela born at 4.26am in kuala lumpur. (thankfully she seems to have Jen's nose and good looks) and is the little sister of the ever adorable yasmin. nice one guys, you have totally made my day, she looks absolutely beautiful! you guys are also looking great... i forgot what malaysian sun tans look like...you lucky sods! anyway, brilliant...im absolutely thrilled for you guys....and i look forward to seeing all 4 of you in japan in the spring?? p.s. karl, how are you going to cope with 3 women????

Living room

jo, lins, kat, j, hisa, adam, deccy

All

Ahem...

i swear they're weren't all mine!

Justine and Pam..and Kat looking wistful

the arty shot from behind the glasses and cans was not deliberate!

Dinner at mine

Dinner at mine...

Last night i had a dinner/party at mine. the concept is called 'pot luck', its a canadian thing, where everyone brings a dish each. was a great great night and much fun was had. in attendance, myself, gareth, jo, adam, anna, lins, justine, hisa, tomommi, pam, deccy and kat, who are a mix of work mates and teacher friends. i cooked a chilli, which went down pretty well...it had a sweet taste to it, and everyone kept asking me what the secret ingredient was....i actually had no clue, but tried to bluff it that it was a mystical secret recipe and hence couldnt tell anyone...got busted after a while when tomomi and justine guessed that i had used sweet beans instead of kidney beans....well...they looked like bloomin kidney beans on the tin...of course, i couldnt read the label on the tin as they unhelpfully put it all in japanese! anyway, it actually turned out really nice...p.s. dont tell anyone i put the wrong beans in...some might still think it was deliberate... kicked the last people out at 3.30am ish...i think. really good night though.

Falling off an elephant...(that sounds like it should be a 'saying' or something)

sorry, slow news week this week, just found this flicking through a few photo's. this was taken in Kuala Gandah Elephant Reserve in Malaysia this summer...great photo if for no other reason than tam's digital camera was awful and took about 5 seconds to take a picture...this one was supposed to be a picture of me ON the elephant...as with most things in life, timing is everything...

Tokyo Marathon!!!!

holy cr*p! got this email today...
"Congratulations! You have been selected to run the 2007 Tokyo marathon..."

I applied in august, but due to the severly limited number of places available, and the fact that i hadnt heard anything since then, i assumed i hadnt got in......oh b****er! seemed like a good idea at the time! ive only ever done a half marathon, last time was Kuala Lumpur earlier this year... for those not in the know, a marathon is 26 miles of pure running hell....my mum has done the london marathon twice, and my dad had also run a couple of marathons, and its always been a lifetime ambition of mine to run one...but....oooh eck. its on 18th feb....which is really not long away....ooh blimey...need new shoes!

cripes.

Playstation 3..the end of life as we know it...

p.s. Adam...you are now officially my new best mate in the whole wide world!

Sony building, Ginza

sony building 2 hours before launch of ps3!!!

IT'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11th November 2006......a very important day in history.....the new playstation 3 came out in japan, think its a week earlier here than anywhere else in the world. fri night (10th) i was in Ginza district of tokyo...famous for many things, one being the sony headquarters... went in the sony building sat night and saw the new ps3 in the flesh!! man...its so sexy!!! see pics.
saturday, i got home and went to see adam who lives in the flat above me....when i walked in...i almost stopped breathing...adam had bought a ps3 !!!!! on the day they came out!!!! now when the ps2 came out, people here queued for days. this time was they used a lottery system. adam told me that they only had 50 in the whole of niigata city (big city), so he went to a huge shop in a nearby town called tsubame, he got there at 10am, he was then given a lottery style ticket, the nwas told to come back at 3pm when they would make the draw, now, this shop only had 10 ps3's and adam had ticket number 120 at 10am, by 3pm there must have been a few hundred people vying for 10 ps3's....anyway, long and shotr of it...adams number came up, chances were incredibly slim, but the jammy sod got one of the 10!!! it costs about £300 over here, and i got to play on it last night...hhmmmmm...needless to say...its pretty amazing. no idea when next batch out...we'll see.....it has wireless controllers!! anyway...was quite funny to speak to adams japanese girlfriend, who just did not get any of the fuss, or why we were both like 4 year old kids!! love it!!

Muse Club Tokyo

Ah, Raman (noodle soup thing...my favourite) took this is at an all night raman place at 3am on way home to my hotel...better than a drunken kebab in the uk anyday!...although its hard not to spill it after a few beers! and no idea why i have a supreman kiss-curl on 2nd photo!

Tokyo... like buses...

Had a meeting on friday in Tokyo, so reckoned on the only sensible thing to do was to stay over and see a bit more of the city, even though i had spent the whole weekend there last week. had to get up at 4.30am to get my train to Niigata, then got the bullet train to tokyo...then another 2 trains to get to the supplier. the supplier turned out to be one of the biggest oil companies on japan, and the plant is 4 km long by 2km wide....kinda undermines and authority you thought you may have had! went out at night with tomomi, my translator, and one of her batty japanese mates who lives in tokyo. went to a club in roppongi, the club was interesting in that it was full of geijin (westerners), and i mean, full of them. strangely, i hate this, i have had discussions with people about this in the past, and others do share this view (although not all). tokyo itself has many many westerners who live there, and im not sure why, but i resent this...maybe i feel that japan is 'my' place, i dont know, but somethig about them gets my heckles up, maybe its the kind of westerner in tokyo that does it..(usually full of testosterone and ego's, middle class superiority complexed banker types..) i dont know. Niigata doesn't have many westerners, and i like it because of that. anyway, this club was full of westerners....mainly americans to be honest....and mainly american army types. you can spot an american a mile off...you can usually hear them 2 miles off! especially the army ones. i malaysia, and japan you can always go iut without fear of getting the living **** kicked out of you, i remember my first trip back to the uk from malaysia and i was in burger king on a saturday night, and al hell broke loose between 2 sets of guys, chairs went flying and we had to flee quickly before we ended up in hospital..not nice, anyway, i have never ever had that in any place in asia, but on saturday, i got that feeling all over again...especially, when you are out with 2 atractive women...i turned round one time and there were about 8 guys just ogling and waiting for me to go to the bar/loo etc... was actually quite funny, but as i had to pretend to be their boyfriend every 5 mins...i was sure i was gonna get killed! ended up being a really good night though...and thankfully no fights broke out. left at 3am ish and went for food, then off to bed..shattered. got up sat and came straight back to niigata, it was chucking down with rain in tokyo and it has not turned cold (was 8 degrees today!!) was t shirt weather last week.
saturday night i chilled at home and watched bad films. today i went car shopping with gareth, he is a complete boy racer type! wants a souped up jap car....i think ive found the car i want. im basing my entire car buying on going snowboarding this winter. i want a 4 wheeled drive subaru or mitsubushi, ideally a superu impreza estate to get snowboards in...second hand cars are sooo cheap here, long story why, and will explain another day...but you can get a scooby impreza for £1500 in great condition, in fact my mate got one for that much....i cant buy one until my work visa comes through, so ive been renting a honda jazz (honda fit over here), but is v v v v expensive to rent, BUT it does have sat nav/gps in english....so havent got lost yet!...(yet)

Tokyo!!!!

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend here, Fri-Sun, so me and two work mates decided to have a weekend in Tokyo, my first time really, other than passing through on the way to the airport. Was a bit apprehensive as Tokyo is soooo big, makes London look like a village hamlet. Turns out we weren't the only ones with that idea, as all...and i mean ALL the hotels were booked...we only got 3 cancellation rooms on the Friday morning. We got the bullet train (Shinkansen), which is just under 2 hours to Tokyo. We arrived at lunchtime, and we met up with a friend of mine Justine from Niigata, who was also down for the weekend. Friday afternoon we met her and about 20 of her mates in Yoyogi Park, for beers and frisbee. Yoyogi park is a beautiful place, there are people doing everything there, from football, to juggling, to playing music, to dance, to...well, everything. Our hotel was in Shinjuku, across the road from a lovely park and about 100 yards from the Park Hyatt (the hotel from Lost in Translation). Its in th skyscraper area. Friday night we met up with Justine and her friend Kate for a few beers and a TGI Fridays..(you can have too much fish and rice you know....!) we then went to play on the arcades and photo booth things) we left Justine and Kate at around 10pm and went to a club the size of someones front room...literally. its in a dodgy area where they have Love Hotels..where they rent rooms by the hour. Friday was a relatively tame night as we didnt want to miss out on Tokyo on the Saturday. Saturday, me Gareth and Adam did the touristy things, which are all on one train/tube line. We did Ueno park, a lovely tranquil place (apart from 1 milloin tourists!). Ueno park is strange that jsut outside the gates is one of the busiest places in Tokyo. We toured the markets in Ameya Arcade. Then onto Akihabara, which is techy heaven, all electronics gizmo's...a fast busy place where you can lose your mind if you hang around too long. We then went to Shibuya, where the famous busy pedestrian crossing is for a bit of shopping and umpteen photos of said crossing and neon lights! Saturday night, myself, Gareth and Adam went out for dinner then to the 'dodgy' part of Tokyo, Reppongi. Its the centre of the Tokyo sex industry, but to be honest, it isnt that bad, as long as you ignore the touts and the dodgy clubs, we were actually just trying to find a normal club. After stopping some Germans to ask for advice, we ended up in a mad club called Vanilla. Just a normal dance club, but Japanese style, where everything just appears weird! Had an amazing night out. The Japanese had this weird thing where they would chant 'wwwhhhhooooaaaaa oi oi oi oi!!!' at every chorus of every tune, so its all you could hear, and every song then sounded identical...all night! well, when in rome...of course we joined in! Note for the Weeble boys, got chatting for quite a while to this girl...who ended up being the girlfriend of the drummer of Capdown!! what are the chances??? she's just moved here. Small world. We left around 4am, to go home, stopping off at McDonalds near our hotel, well, they did, me being me and always the first to go to bed, apparently, they werent serving food til 5am, and it appeared closed, so they went to sit upstairs to wait, expecting it to be empty, only to find that every table was full with someone sleeping on each one!! why they didnt take a photo ill never understand!!
Sunday we went back to Yoyogi park to relax in the glorious sunday sunshine and watch the world go by. Yoyogi park on a sunday is famous for al types of things going on. Loads of weird kids dressed up in all kinds of clothes being photographed by tourists, a footpath with bands playing every 100 yards, about 15 of them in total! weird elvis impersonators dancing, people with drums, people doing martial arts, frisbees, football, skipping, running, playing guitars....everything imaginable, such a great vibe. we had to eventually leave and get the bullet train home....tired, but such a great great weekend. Tokyo is an incredible place, such a mixure of beautiful parks, temples, noise, people, smells and downright utter organised chaos...great for a weekend....couldnt live there though..everything is just way way too much....of everything! I love Tokyo!!

Tokyo Station...home

Tokyo Ecki - awaiting the bullet train home, Sunday evening

Yoyogi Park - Sunday, bizarre!

Yoyogi Park - Bands

Amazing sight, in Yoyogi Park, theres a foot path with about 15 punk/rock bands stationed about 100 yards apart, all playing one after another...looks and sounds great..well, the bands are of differing abilities...ok, most pretty bad, but looks incredible

Yoyogi Park - Sunday

You know you're drunk and it's time to go home when...

Friday night with Adam and Gareth...the only picture in focus...

Arcade games

Me, Justine, Gareth, Adam and Kate in an arcade on Friday night....great drumming game....all i'll say is that someone tried a little too hard and ended up with blood blisters....p.s. it wasnt me...

Shibuya Crossing

Like picadilly circus in london, the famous pic of Tokyo, all neon lights and people....great place Shibuya

Shibuya Crossing

Very famous Tokyo image, the pedestrian crossing at Shibuya, complete madness! so many people!! (pics taken with slow speed shutter). I have a video of crossing this..so scarey, about 1000 people coming straight towards you!

Ameya-yokocho Arcade 2

Pickled octopus tentacles...as wide as your arm...and Tuna...it doesnt come out of the sea in tins....who knew???!

Ameya-yokocho Arcade

Right next to Ueno park is this area, very similar to KL's Petaling Street, without all the knockoff gear...just mad again, so busy with people, sights and smells

Akihabara - electronics district

completely mad place...just noise, people and lights. its a famous area where all the electronics shops are...its total hard sell...i managed to snag a cheap laptop in english. couldnt cope with this place after a while, just too much everything, senses overload! oh, did see the new Playstation 3!! comes out here next week...ssoooooooo excited!!

Ueno Park

Ueno Park, again a beautiful place, but was so packed as it was a bank holiday weekend, the usual Japanese thing to have beautiful sights, ruined by hordes of tourists! (ok ok, so we were tourists...but we're different!...). The white pieces of paper are fortunes. You get a fortune on a piece of paper, if its a good one, you take it home, if its bad, then you tie it to a tree or post, and the spirits take it away...

Ueno Park (after a wedding)

beautiful children...the little girl was adorable...luckily someone else asked her to pose...i just sneaked a shot

Shinjuku

Shinjuku, the Skyscraper area...where I stayed

Tokyo Park Hyatt Hotel

View from my hotel room in Shinjuku, this is the hotel from the film Lost in Translation

Yoyogi Park...Friday afternoon

Yoyogi park is beautiful...tranquility in the midst of chaos! playing frisbee and american football, (North American contingent kicked our asses...and there was only one of them) and drinking beer in the sunshine...bliss