little irish jackhammer
I’m beat. Been walking all day, round Yoshida and Kurodani, with a big bag of books on my back. Now various parts of me are aching like an old man. Well, if you double click on the pictures below you can get a better look (and there is some explanatory text too). There are some nice ones in there, so be patient. It’s not all “yukiyanagi” flowers (though they are quite nice too).
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Something to make you feel small: The Size of Our World
Something to make you feel big: We Are All Just Phantoms!
Something to make you feel superior: Rep. Rohrabacher: Global Warming May Have Been Caused By ‘Dinosaur Flatulence’
I had an excellent night last night. One of those seemingly magical nights when you’re with just the right people, and you never want it to end - which is why I didn’t go home till 5 in the morning.Oops. A friend told me she’ll be leaving Kyoto and moving back to Tokyo soon, so I was kind of sad about that. But we promised to meet up in Tokyo sometimes so our friendship continues and that can only be a GOOD THING.
Here’s another good thing. I never thought I would care so much about CRICKET!
Kumar and George are going to have a baby! Wow!
To celebrate here’s a traditional St. Patrick’s Day tune from the Pogues. See if you can spot Joe Strummer at the back (standing in for Phil Chevron at the time I believe):
Leaving Didi’s curry emporium a couple of months ago I glanced over the rack of flyers they have outside and found a book with a sticker on it. The sticker said “Free Book”, which just happens to be two of my favorite words, so I took it home and examined it further. Inside I found another sticker with a web address and an ID number. So I checked it out and discovered BOOKCROSSING. What a marvellous idea, I thought: leaving books you have read and finished with, out “in the wild” for other people to read and write their impressions on the bookcrossing site. Certainly, it would beat selling them to those money-grabbing cheapskates at Green-e Books. How they have the audacity to offer to buy good books for frankly INSULTING prices when they are selling ridiculously over-priced second-hand stock I CANNOT IMAGINE. Green my arse, “Greed-e Books” more like. Anyway, that aside, (bastards) I figured it would be a cool way of disposing of some of the excess bookage I’ve garnered over my ten-year sojourn in these merry isles - whilst participating in an interesting social experiment, benefiting humanity blah blah blah… However, there is one draw back. People are really only likely to “release” books that aren’t that special. If a book really speaks to you, you keep it right? Hence my rather lack-lustre review of John Banville’s “The Sea”. That’d be me being the “anonymous finder”.
No. For book lovers, the next big thing has to be LIBRARYTHING . Here you can catalogue and tag what you are reading, blog your books, connect with like-minded souls, get recommendations, gain access to vast data searchs in over 70 world libraries…
Here’s what I’ve been reading lately (see if you can spot a recurring theme):
Deleted Youtube videos still viewable on Delutube
New Population of Bonobos Discovered
All the fun of booze without the pain
Interspecies Sex: Evolution’s Hidden Secret?
World’s First Recorded Homosexual Necrophiliac Duck
Here’s this week’s Whale Love Wagon, this week Yuki and the Spanish guy learn all about the importance of Antartica’s summer ice-melts to the world’s eco-system. Good stuff.
There’s more information about that up at: くじらぶ
I’ve made some changes to the links at the side of the page, mainly to make it a bit more user friendly. Visitors to Kyoto can find some useful links in the aptly named “Kyoto Links” section. And I’ve provided back-links to all previous recommended restaurant postings. Enjoy!
I found a nice site that answers all those odd little questions I’ve been silently asking myself about Japan for the last decade or so. For example:
Q. Many Japanese people have told me that instead of seeing a “man in the moon” in the moon’s craters, they see a rabbit. Where exactly is the rabbit?
A. Both Japanese and Chinese people see a rabbit in the moon instead of a smiling face. Not only do they see a rabbit, but they believe it is making mochi (rice cakes). The origin of this idea comes from a play on words. The word mochizuki has a double meaning in Japanese. Although it is written with different kanji, it can sound like either “making ricecakes” or “full moon”.
And if that aint clear enough click here: RABBIT MOON.
So if you want to know why Japan is called “Japan” in English, what the MOS in MOSBURGER stands for and why Tanuki have big balls, click here: JAPAN SAQ.
Irresistable, yes?
Also it seems the French have discovered: POCKY and are doing great things with it.
On Sunday Paul took me to a very nice beer bar in Kagurazaka named “Bitter”. Kagurazaka itself, is well worth a visit if you happen to be in Tokyo, full as it is with nice little, shops, restaurants and dinky little bars. And if you happen to be in Kagurazaka, then “Bitter” is certainly worth a visit. Check out the spacious wooden interior!
Although the main speciality is Belgian beer, they also have over 70 varities of British and German beers. Bar snacks and meals are also available. And I believe they have some occasional Japanese micro-brews on tap too. Sunday being our lucky day we were able to enjoy a couple of pints of delicious Harvest Moon Brown Ale fresh from the cask.
Ready to serve: sisters Teruko and Mayumi. This bar has a very cosy atmosphere. RECOMMENDED.
Opening hours are 5:00 PM - 2:00 AM with no cover charge or extra tax. Closed on Saturdays and National Holidays. For a map, click here:Beer Bar Bitter Map, then go to the bottom of that page and click on the map again for a clearer image.
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Here’s a couple of interesting links before I sign off for today. First off, Japanese clothing company Uniqlo are launching a new world-wide recycling scheme. Once you’re done with your Uniqlo clothes you can take them back to any Uniqlo store for reprocessing, or if still in good nick they will be sent on to refugee camps and such. Marvellous. Bravo Uniqlo!Also, this article I read a few days back shook me to my Irish roots. It seems that the Irish, Scots, Welsh and English are all pretty much the same when studied genetically and it is theorised that the whole bit about one lot being descended from Celts and the other from Anglo-Saxons is simply not true. We are in fact all descended from an earlier base stock upon which later invaders (Celts, Angles, Vikings etc) were but a light and spicy seasoning. It’s a fascinating article, especially the bit about English being spoken in England before the Romans arrived.
Here’s an amusing video from the Oval Office:
And here’s another of Joe Strummer, this time with the Mescaleros singing “Coma Girl”:
LINKS FOR THIS POST:Beer Bar Bitter/Kagurazaka/Kagurazaka Restaurants/Genetic Roots of British Isles/Uniqlo Recycling Scheme
Now I’m back in Kyoto and here’s a further update on Saturday night’s beer tasting party. (Scores were out of twenty).
1st >>> Harvest Moon Brown Ale (Chiba), 14.1 average score
2nd >>> Sagami Kolsch (Kanagawa), 13.6 (lower mean average)
3rd >>> Harvest Moon Schwarz (Chiba), 13.6
So, as these are the top-three tasting beers in Japan, you might want to track them down. Here’s a nice pint of Harvest Moon Brown Ale. Goes down smooth like liquid toffee.
Here’s a short video from the party finale:
And apropos of nothing there’s an excellent video of London’s Burning up here.
