11th Nov 2006

I couldn't cope much longer…I gave in and made a roast…this turned a little in to a kitchen specatcle where other people on my floor watched in amusement at my attempts to cook. Anyway, didn't find any joints but I did finally manage to find lamb…they only seem to have pork, beef and chicken here (and weird fish – which I don't know how to cook…I'm going to have to interrogate some of the people who have lived here a little longer to find out…

Anyway, full on roast potatoes, yams, carrot, aubergine, courgette, peppers and lamb…was great…for me anyway…

So with the vast quantities of left over stuff I made a roast veg sandwich for lunch…mmmmm….

39.1 degrees

39.1º. Apparently, that was my temperature when I went to see the doctor…something tells me I might have a fever…I thought I was just feeling a little warm... oops! Anyway I'm not feeling too good, last night I was shivering and my whole body ached with some extra garnish of pain in my left kidney type area…not so good…hot shower helped a bit. Went to bed then this morning woke up in a sweat…tried going in to college, which was a bit of a mission. Walking very slowly because everything hurt – ignoring the pain yesterday was easier. Today not so easy to ignore. So went into college…was going to try and go to the health centre before Japanese class, but it doesn't open until 10am then shuts from 12 – 1330 for lunch…so sat in my Japanese class for the first hour then gave up and found Seda and we went to the health centre together…had some interesting language issues, had no idea what they wanted…they took some details gave me a card and took my temperature…which was a bit on the high side…saw the doctor, who's English wasn't too bad. Anyway after some poking he prescribed me antibiotics and pain killers because despite the painkillers ability to mask actual illness my temp was soo high and the amount of discomfort I was in, he said I should take them anyway…dragged myself back here to have lunch and take the medicine slept…the fever went down but now it seems to be back up… I don't think that this is a good thing…might have to go in tomorrow to see the doctor again if it's still like this…hmmmm, fun!

8th Nov 2006

Was stopped by a police man on my way to the metro platform this morning…asking me something I couldn't understand!!! Apparently this isn't normal…well that was what I was told by the Japanese…still have no idea what the police man wanted…anyway I showed him my college ID, he said to me 'shimu san?' I went 'hai' and he said (well pointed) that I could continue… I have no idea why he stopped me…odd…anyway the speaker system that I bought is arriving today…so that's exciting…went into my early (830) lecture then Japanese class then went home to wait for the delivery…and waited, and waited. It was 1630 and I was getting fidgety…so went downstairs to check that it hadn't already been dropped off in one of the parcel boxes…Nope. Nothing there but junk mail…so just as I'm about to leave to flat to go to climbing. The door bell rings! Hurrah! I now have I hifi system…I couldn't possibly leave the box with all the speakers trapped inside so I open the box and liberate the contents…and set about setting the stuff up. I guess I could have left so that I would have gotten to the gym at 6pm…but I'm kinda aching so I don't think my climbing will be all that good today anyway…So I hurriedly assemble the stuff…plug things in…and make an effort to guess which plugs go where. Progress is slightly impeded by everything being in Japanese which is a challenge…but all good fun!

Dinner after climbing was good, food tasted a bit too salty which was weird but we had some interesting conversations about panda porn and whether we could apply the same idea to tuna so that we still have more tuna to eat…could be interesting…

anyway i can't write anymore, my painkillers seem to be wearing off...better have another sleep...apologies for the sporadic posting!

6th Nov 2006

Monday 6th November
If in doubt, add an O on the end of a word and the japanese are more likely to understand you… this only really applies to words which end with a consonant which isn't M or N. I discovered this whilst trying to buy a large piece of dowel which I wanted to have cut in half.

Why was I buying dowel?

Well I decided that my speakers needed speaker stands (the ones at the back any way) and I couldn't find any to buy so I thought I'd make them…found some pre-cut circles of wood and some thinner hexagonal along with 4 pole ends…the screws which came with them were a little too long for the hexagons so I bought some smaller screws too…then the getting the connecting pole was interesting because the ones by the pole ends that I bought were all too heavy…walking around I eventually found some wooden dowel (slightly wrong diameter…but that's ok). I went to the desk to get it cut…much to the confusion of the staff…it only costs 30yen for a cut! Anyway trying to explain I wanted the thing cut in half was interesting…but 'cutto ban' seemed to work because I came back and there were the two halves of wood waiting for me.

So I get the stuff back home and make my stands…but I needed to wedge the pole in because they were 2mm thinner than the holders..so used some left over felt…seemed to work. But I don't think it will be very safe in an earthquake…definitely just topple over with the speaker on…oh well. I'm sure it will cope.

5th Nov 2006

Whilst on my way to buying junk at the 100yen shop saw some Japanese (?) dancing on the promenade outside the shopping centre. There were ladies dressed in what looked like Japanese style dressing gowns (I'm sure they weren't dressing gowns but they weren't kimonos…) with some sort of maracas…a wooden clapping device they move in time to the music with…there was also a very impressive martial arts type dance routine made up of girls wearing very skimpy crop tops hot pants and boy mainly topless (even the younger ones) wearing black trousers and some black waistband-cummerbund thing…which did just make them look like they'd pulled their trousers up to their nipples. Anyway large age range…OOooOoooh and there were two larger guys at the back waving the largest flags you have EVER seen… with Japanese on them. It looked like a lot of effort to get the kind of whooshing affect they were achieving… one of them had two mega flags attached to him. They looked ridiculously heavy… felt quite sorry for him actually…looked rather weighed down by it…anyway the whole troupe were running about doing some weird moves with nun-chucks and other things, generally kicking about and thrusting fists…etc.. a good show me thinks…

4th Nov 2006

ahhh...bought a 5.1 dolby surround thingy...impulse buy...could have bought something far cheaper...but it looked sooo pretty!

3rd Nov 2006

Met an American girl at a party and she invited me to the cinema in maihama…which isn't too far from where I live…but despite this I was still late…and the cinema was at the entrance to Disney land here…anyway we had some really nice dinner…I had a chicken and pineapple burger with actual chips! Was amazing to taste something that wasn't oriental for a change…think that was the first time in a month! Craziness. It's very tacky where we went, probably because it's owned by Disney and they try to make everything 'nice' we ate at a restaurant on a fake outdoor street…with neon signs lining up everywhere and a painted ceiling…it was weird…

The movie was cool, although I'm sure we all looked like idiots sitting there with out 3D glasses on. A fetching green. Obviously not designed for fashion purposes. The glasses clearly stated that they wouldn't protect against UV radiation…just in case you felt the urge to wear them outside the confines of the cinema as part of some crazy fashion statement…god knows.

The movie we saw was 'the nightmare before christmas' there is a crazy amount of marketing over there…sooo many things you can buy, also have a lot of pirates of the Caribbean things…lots of small jack sparrows to adorn you phone or key chain…

Today I have also seen a lot of young girls dressed up in kimonos…apparently, the culture day (the holiday that we just had) is some sort of coming of age day for kids…7-8 yrs for girls and a bit younger for boys…think the boys get dressed up too. But think they just looked like they were training for some kind of fight…with a head band…