9 September 2010

Another long gap in posting - this time because the cascade of new things is slowing (although is by no means stopping).

My main exciting news it that I have a job with one of the big English teaching schools, which I am in the middle of training for. I shall be teaching poor beleagured Japanese souls to say things like 'what-ho, pop another log on the fire won't you' and 'that tastes very good but I preferred the one you made with beer in it'. I start on Tuesday 14th.

Visitors

In the past month we have had two sets of visitors. The first was Phil Cox - the only person I know who has ever been to New York, Argentina, Uruguay, Japan and Norway in one visit. He may well be the first person in the world to complete such a feat.

Phil's visit coincided with some of the hottest weather of the summer, but we were brave and soldiered out into the blistering sunshine to visit an art exhibition (where Angus became distracted by a room full of broken pottery), to the top of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku,

Angus and I at top of the tall building

to the Imperial Palace (which we couldn't get very far into - living gods are very good at security!)

and very good at architecture

me trying to balance yet again, I'm not sure if I'm holding on tightly enough

and to Tokyo Sea Life Park

Angus and Phil looking very calm and collected outside the Sea Life Park given that it took an hour and half to get there, and we only bought tickets 2 minutes 30 seconds before it closed

to see the penguins and tuna.

Noteable achievements during Phil's visit included assisting him in his quest to eat as much ramen as possible, and learning the restaurant Japanese for 'three people please' (an improvement as we had only had to ask for a table for two previously). We also took him to Angus's friend Julian's house-warming party, which I'm reliably informed was very, very good.

the lady on the left on the subway is obviously immune to Angus and Phil's bountiful post-party charms

Hot on Phil's heels were Chris and Mila (Chris and I share an aunt but aren't cousins). Chris and Mila were in Tokyo on their way from Korea to Mexico. They had been teaching English in Seoul in order to save enough to travel in central America. They weren't in Tokyo for long but we had a fine old time with them, and managed to squeeze enough information out of them about Korea's idiosyncracies to last for a very long time indeed.

I had no idea that South Korea considers itself to be a global super-power, and neither did they when they arrived, prompting tears from some of their charges when Chris showed them how little Korea is on a world map.

It was great to meet Chris and Mila as this was the first time. Mila has a great blog if you want to read about their amazing adventures: http://idreamofdesign.wordpress.com/.

we couldn't find a bouquet for our honoured visitors to hold, so bananas it was

Baby Sea - installment 2

I saw our friendly Bretagne neighbour again last week. She had (quite rightly) forgotten my name - I confess I cannot remember hers either. Anyway, she was introducing me to her friendly French husband, and said 'cherie, this is Catherine' to which I said 'mais non, ma nomme est Elizabeth' to which she replied 'ah yes, I knew it began with an H'.

Mystere.


Heat

So, the heat has continued. Even the normally exquisite, non-ruffled Japanese people are beginning to look at bit sweaty and crumpled. But, today, it rained, and the temperature dropped to an all time low (for those of us who have only been here two months) of 24 degrees. Hurrah!

This is especially good news as my computer is feeling the heat - the little application on my desktop to tell me the temperature threw its teddies out of the pram the other day and proudly declared that it was 96 degrees celcius earlier this week. I was frightened to go outside, I tell you.

Culinary Institute of Nakameguro

Many exciting culinary developments have occurred in Nakkers. Angus made delicious curries (with guidance from Mr R. Stein), and we faced the strangeness of shrimp paste and galangal together for the first time. The end result was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS, and worth going to a market selling dead turtles as snack food for. We didn't buy any turtles.

Score! I give you aubergine curry with chilli, tomato and kaffir lime leaves, and prawn jungle curry. Actually, I can't give it to you as we ate it all up.

I have also decided to mount a challenge to nature, and have planted a lot of seeds (thyme, mint, coriander, nasturtiums, parsley, sage, lemon basil, normal basil and Thai basil, chives and geraniums, for if you can't eat it, what is the point of growing it) just as autumn approaches.

Here they are on 24 August on our trusty balcony when I planted them.

And here they are on 29 August. TAKE THAT NATURE! (postscript - please don't send a big earthquake to teach me the consequences of arrogance)



Wildlife

As I'm sure you know, I take pride in being very nature-friendly. I was delighted to find a stag beetle nest in Carrie's garden. I have been watching the cicadas with great interest (especially since Phil told us that they lay eggs that hatch a prime number of years later, and that they only ever eat sap which sounds desolate even for an insect).

However, I have found the limit to my love of the natural world. I saw a 2 metre long, bright green snake swimming through the river by our flat and almost levitated - running home in record time squeaking with fear like a twit. All I could think about were the deadly green mambas which Roald Dahl described in his autobiography. EEEEK!


That's it for the time being as I am in the middle of English-teacher training and need to go to sleep.

Ja mata!