Archive for the 'Larks' Category

What’s been going on…

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on August 13, 2008
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A fresh post up on Deep Kyoto today for the cafe/bar Salut Ya. Top slogan they have there: Soup! Hamburger!!

Last weekend I went to see the long-awaited follow-up to Batman Begins (which I loved), The Dark Knight. I’d heard it was dark, but man, that’s a really dark movie. I think it’s less a Batman movie than a movie about three people (one of whom happens to be Batman) who decide to take a stand against the crime and corruption in their city and then are totally and utterly thwarted by a twisted psychopath called the Joker. Forget any other portrayal of the Joker you have seen, they were just cartoon characters. Heath Ledger’s Joker is a flesh and bones character you can believe in: creepy, scary, nasty, he lives for mayhem, pain and fear. And did I mention scary? He’s really scary. Oh, he also likes to corrupt people. He loves that. Moral quandaries - he likes those too. It’s a complex story and not for the kiddies. I’m wondering how they are going to follow that up.

On Sunday, I went to see the Ujigawa fireworks. Great display. I’ve always thought 花火 or fireflowers is a great name for fireworks. On Sunday, they had fireworks that looked like flowers, hearts, cats, smiley faces and Doraemon. Yet all I managed to take were these lousy pictures:
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People weren’t kidding when they told me it would be packed though. It took ages to get home when it was over. Still I enjoy the summer festival atmosphere, the yatai stalls with their crap-but-tasty food, the girls in yukata, the street beers, the excited children…

Now, once again the Japanese festival of the dead, Obon, is upon us and it’s time for another message from Hozouji.

Obon message

Obon
kono yo to
ano yo no
tsunagari wo
kakunin suru
kikai

Obon:
a chance to reaffirm
the ties between
this world
and the next.

During Obon, the traditional belief is that the departed spirits of our loved ones return to visit their homes. Families get together during this time to honor their departed relatives and visit their family grave. In Kyoto, they light fires on the hills around the city on the 16th, to guide the spirits back to deads-ville. I’ll be there watching on Saturday in my jimbei. And then I’m going to Joao for Masuda’s birthday party. I think that’ll be my last blast for the summer. Off to South Africa next Tuesday for ten days, and it’s winter there…

大阪海遊館

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on August 8, 2008
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I went to Osaka Kaiyukan last weekend. They have nice collection of wonderful beasties and weirdy creatures from another world. It’s all set up to be both entertaining and educational and so a good place to take the kids (if you have any) and get them interested in the natural world. Or you could take a date and repeatedly exclaim “kawaii!” and “kimoi!” together. Weekends are crowded though, so to avoid being jostled by over enthusiastic amateur photographers (like me) or having your feet stomped on by harum-scarum kiddies take advantage of the summer hols and go on a weekday. Here are some pictures.

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Here are some very pretty jelly fish:
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And here are some pictures of and from the big wheel outside:
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And this fellow was very entertaining. In these pictures he was balancing on a bowling ball but he can also toss it up and catch it on his neck. (Don’t try that at home kids).
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You have to click the forward button to see him move, yeah?

Holy Crap! I’m 38…

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on July 6, 2008
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Birthday Cake

…How did that happen? Well, having celebrated more than plenty on Friday night, I opted for a quiet night in on the day itself. “Let’s stop in with a DVD” says I, “Something light and fluffy. Nothing too heavy. A romantic comedy perhaps…” But instead I ended up watching “Reign Over Me” which is a movie about friendship, and about loss and it does have a lot of light humour in it but also what you might call a deep sea of sadness. I recommend it. Don Cheadle is always good but Adam Sandler’s performance was outstanding. Rent it! Here’s the trailer:

That was a really good movie. The chocolate cake and champagne I had after was nice too… AND・・・Thanks very much to my sister Sheila for the You Must Celebrate! Dalek birthday card. That made me laugh out loud! Oh, and I just watched the last episode of Doctor Who tonight (glad to see that I’m not alone in that), and I’m glad (yet sad) at how all those loose ends got tied up. Davros was supramegalomaniacally excellent. The bit with Rose choked me up. Donna’s exit from the show did my head in totally… I’m glad David Tennant is still the Doctor. And I’m gutted there won’t be a full series next year… Saturday’s just aren’t the same without him, eh? I’ll definitely be home with the family for the Xmas Special.

Here are a couple of pictures from Nakano-kun’s second Takoyaki party last Wednesday, that I haven’t had a chance to post till now. Below are left to right: Miyazaki-san, China-san, Miyabe-san, some daft git in glasses and Nakano-kun.

Takoyaki

And here is the same bunch but with Yamamoto-san on the far left. We had a good time!

Takoyaki 2

Yoshida-kun’s Birthday 2008

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on June 3, 2008
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Here are some pictures of Yoshida-kun’s birthday party last Saturday night which was of course, a blast. His actual birthday isn’t until this weekend however, so I think we may have to take him out for some emergency-nampa before he hits the big FOUR OH!
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And here are some pictures of feet.
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And here are some pictures of people in hats.
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Saturday Night’s Party @ Joao

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on March 25, 2008
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I got back from Ishikawa yesterday, but haven’t had a chance to sort out my pics yet. Be prepared tomorrow for a full accounting of my trip north to beautiful Kaga City (Hokuriku’s answer to Middlesbrough perhaps). Well, maybe not a full accounting. That might not be wise. Here however, are some pictures from Saturday night at Joao (or at least the ones I can show). I can’t claim credit for all of them but I think I took the one on the left here, and I’m quite pleased with it. Actually my consistent (some would say incessant) picture taking and blogging of said pictures does have some uses; it actually persuaded the chap below to put his shirt back on for example. Let that be a deterrent to you all.
Anyway, it was a great night and everyone was on top form. But where was Kageyama. What he up to, hmmm? There is some fairly pointless commentary on the first few pictures below if you hover your mouse over them, but after a while I got bored so it petres out towards the end. Kind of like this post….

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Goodbye STT

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on February 25, 2008
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Small Town Talk finally gave way to harsh economic realities on the weekend (even a special guest appearance by Bono couldn’t save it) but it didn’t go out with a whimper. The place was jam packed with STT supporters, DJs Noda, Yoshida, Masuda and Nana all took turns at the turntables, beverages were quaffed, emotional speeches made, gratitude expressed, Queen renditions sung and good times had. Here’s a short compilation of photos with a short message from Kageyama-san at the end. Adios STT!

I put the photos up on Bubbleshare if anyone wants copies: LINK

Kyoto Zoo

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on February 12, 2008
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Now the reason I haven’t written much lately is I’ve been way too busy having fun. I just had three whole days off work; Sunday, Monday (thanks to a national holiday), plus a Tuesday off from Kyoto Girls’ High (thanks to their Junior High entrance exam). I’ve had a pretty lazy time of it really, but I did meet a wandering minstrel (this old guy who walks the streets happily playing his harmonica as he goes - friendly chap and not strange at all), and I discovered a cafe really close to my house where they play Irish music all the time (a future post for Deep Kyoto methinks) and I went to the zoo. Now, as far as I remember I’ve never been to a zoo before (I may be wrong about this, I may have been to Dublin Zoo when I was about 5, but I don’t actually remember that - one of my darling sisters would have to confirm it) and although it is pretty sad to see animals being kept in tiny spaces, I have to admit I was pretty excited (you know - little kid excited) to see my first real live lions, giraffes, gorillas, the elephant and the tiger. The tiger was pretty damn cool. Especially when it roared. That was really really cool. Just imagine being lost and alone in the jungle and hearing that go off! Damn! Goosepimples! I have a lot of respect for tigers. Here are some pictures:BubbleShare: Share photos - Green Toys

Joao 新年会

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on January 21, 2008
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Here as promised are the pictures from (a most excellent) Saturday night, most of which I think were taken by Betty. The music is by Devo.

So much fun was had we didn’t want to stop and wandered over to an art gallery off Kiyamachi where Matsuda was dj-ing and one girl was doing some pretty intense dancing:

The Aftermath

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on December 17, 2007
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Last night we went to see the Pogues. And after a long wait at the bar we had just gotten our drinks when the music started up… Abandon Pints! I cried and into the fray we dived. The next couple of hours wasn’t so much dancing as trying to stay upright and in my case trying to avoid the seven foot skinhead who kept trying to use me as a human shield. Shane MacGowan was looking comparatively sober… well, you know - for him. And it was a fun. And when it came to Fairytale of New York and people had settled down a bit I thought I might try and take a picture on my mobile for you, or maybe even a video, and I reached into my pocket and thought “Oh crap. It’s gone”.

That aint coming back again I thought. But do you know, searching through the rubble and broken bottles left behind in the aftermath along with about thirty other people (also looking for their mobile phones) I did find it! And this my friends is what a mobile phone looks like after a couple of hundred boots have stomped up and down on it in a wild alcohol-fueled frenzy.

my camera post pogues

Oh, and thanks very much to the kind gentleman who seeing me pick up these fragments gave me a short lecture on the folly of bringing a mobile phone to a Pogues gig anyway (point taken!) and then said “This is your Sim card”, handed me same and put my mind at rest.

This weekend’s entertainment…

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on November 25, 2007
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Here’s a story. A couple of weeks ago I wandered into Tsurugi (as is my wont) and for the first time in two years there was a young & attractive female in there. She was friendly too. Wow, thinks I, miracles do happen. Naturally, after a bit of the old chat, I asked her out. I have a boyfriend, she said. Oh well, says I, you know where I am if things don’t work out (having already passed on my contact details). Then with a silent “oh well never mind” I forgot all about it.

To my surprise she called me the following Monday. She was complaining about her boyfriend and comparing me favorably to him. Hmmm, thinks I, intriguing… OK well, let’s go out then. She says she could maybe meet me Friday night, but she isn’t sure what time she will finish work. OK, says I (ever amenable but silently cursing my Saturday morning job), no problem. So we met. She finished work super late. We had a couple of drinks. I took her to Small Town Talk (what could be romanticker?!). We had a couple of more drinks. And that was that. I didn’t really feel like were clicking but at the end of the evening she said she lived too far away to go home and was going to spend the night in a Manga Cafe. Well, I genuinely felt sorry for her (yes! really! genuinely!) - ok you can stay at my place, I says. Nothing untoward will happen I assures her. I am  a gentleman.

And being a man of my word nothing untoward did happen.

(Really!)

And that was that. Thinking about it later I thought I probably wouldn’t bother contacting her again. After all - I just didn’t feel like we were clicking. Life’s too short blah blah blah. And I’m just to lazy to be bothered. But then Kageyama-san was going on and on about her the other night so I thought - oh what the heck - I’ll mail her and ask her if she’s “genki”. So I did. Quite an innocent mail. Kageyama-san would like to see you again. That kind of thing.

Little did I know… her insanely jealous mad psycho-boyfriend reads her mail! (Hurrah!) He proceeded to send me a plethora of mails in the choicest Japanese imaginable ranging from abusive (and racist) to “I know where you live and I am going to hunt you down and kill you.” (- nice!) Silly girl seems to have told him she stopped at my apartment. Why she would tell someone so obviously insecure something like that I can’t imagine. Anyway, I assured him in the politest possible terms that I was “just a friend” and there was really no need to be so angry, I also thanked him kindly for teaching me such interesting Japanese, but that just seemed to infuriate him more (hence the death threats). Oh the irony, thinks I, to think of the things I have done in life and totally gotten away with, on the one occasion I actually do behave like a gentleman I get grief for it. Well, he hasn’t mailed me since three o’clock this morning so perhaps he’s calmed down a bit now. Or maybe it was me telling him he had a tiny dick that shut him up. Who can fathom the mind of a moron?

Anyway, I suppose I should thank him for an evening’s entertainment. Funny how a full moon gets to some people.