Diary post Jan-Jul

This post is to review January - July.
We have had a great 6 months but it has been greatly overshadowed by our intentions to leave. Our visa problems hammered home that we couldn't settle here. It is a country that we love, filled with people that we love but we couldn't imagine setting up a home and having a family here. We imagined having to suddenly pack up our possessions and head to Korea with kids in tow... Or maybe the government deciding to limit the renewal of visas (it has happened before) making the annual process a lottery. That kind of uncertainty, expense and stress was tough enough with savings, few possessions and few responsibilities. With a family it would be terrifying. We want to settle somewhere and we think that it will have to be an EU country to avoid these kind of problems.
We have started to see work as a bit of a chore despite having great students. This has left us feeling a bit blue from time to time. Luckily Sarah has done a great job of maximising our time off and reaffirming the purpose of our life in Japan (to have a great time). This has lead to trips to Sapporo, Hakone and a fantastic golden week. We still have a trip to Nikko/Tokyo to look forward to, plus the usual eccentricities of life in Japan which never fail to add a few smiles to even the toughest days.
- Cucumber Pepsi
A green coloured beverage with a cucumber aroma
- Hotel Villa Kuretake
A previously grey and innocuous hotel, magically transformed into a tropical vision, resplendent with shipped-in palm trees, surrounded by jungle flora and backed by a new brown/yellow/red/green paint job...
- A toddler with a helmet
A wonderfully excitable kid who screams "eeeeoooo" which translates from todlish to "see you". This is followed by him running headlong into closed doors. His helmet turns a potentially upset child into an invincible door denter. Hilarious is an understatement and it is a regular occurrence.

Death of the blog?

Golden Week '07 - Nakatajima
Hamamatsu Kite Festival

Hakone

On the left you can see the ropeway which takes excited tourists over the volcanic sulphurous springs. All over the area are signs warning that the gases are fairly toxic and people should not stand around for too long. Despite that it is an incredibly popular area for people to cook kuro tamago (black eggs). The eggs are boiled in pools (as you can see on the right) and after they have turned black they are eaten. Supposedly, each egg adds a few years to your lifespan. This might balance the reduced lifespan caused by spending 20 mins breathing in toxic fumes.

Bad Blogs

The worst blogs to read are those that have infrequent updates and constant apologies.... Ooops...
Erm, recently we have had a few adventures.
As I am typing this on a work PC I have no pics but we went to Hakone.
It's an area famed for onsen (hot springs) and fine views of Fuji. We were not disappointed and I look forward to posting the pics tomorrow.
Last weekend we were invited to a small spring festival in the nearby town of Hosoe. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom so it was a lovely day out.
My first lesson warning bell has just rung so I have to stop typing.
Until tomorrow.....
D

In Europe this building wouldn't be particularly strange but the Sapporo Beer buildings are an amazing sight in Japan. It was modeled on a German factory. It was quite beautiful compared to the mishmash of industrial Japanese buildings in the surrounding area. Errrmm..... and the beer.... errmmm wasn't bad either :)

Some of the sculptures were huge. It seemed like the festival was some misguided attempt to offset global warming.

I'm not entirely sure what the theme was for this sculpture (whales, seals, penguins, dogs and boats.... maybe words with 's' at the end?) but it was impressive.

Finding out that he was in Sapporo, Thomas realised that the Fat Controller was crap at his job.

Ohisashiburi

Back from the cold, snowy city of Sapporo.... To give you some overdue pictures.

< - This was the queue for the hot Baileys bar.

Sorry for the huge wait for a new post

I decided to switch operating systems on my laptop. We have ditched XP in favour of Ubuntu. It is great but I have made a few mistakes that have caused a number of major headaches.... And my digital camera and printer don't appreciate it....
Anyway, we are both doing fine. The weather has become much colder recently. It is good preparation for our next planned trip さっぽろ雪まつり.
Sapporo Yuki Matsuri is a famous snow festival. Large ice/snow sculptures are made in the town and over two million people visit during the week. We are heading North to the island of Hokkaido in early February and we will enjoy all of the wonders of a city known around the world for beer :) I doubt I will be able to find a pint of Old Hooky but I will try my best to cope.