Full

From 1991, before businesses allowed flexible start and finish times for employees.

Source : Kirai-net

Alice, Duplo, Speaking, etc.

Harajuku Signs

The irony was that it wasn't on a corner at all.



Such noble sentiments.

Mogul Skiing

Lang-8

You may know that I've been studying Japanese as a way to prevent insanity, however Japanese is not really a good language to do this. I'm now more insane than ever, less social, yet more tech savvy and so I've attached a widget to the sidebar which links to my Lang-8 journal.

What is Lang-8? Well it's a really simple yet amazingly useful idea. When I taught English, one of the truly terrible jobs was correcting student diaries. There seemed an endless stream of them, and most were filled with incredibly mundane entries like "today I didn't do anything, I slept and watched TV, and had something to eat". I mean, sometimes they would write these sorts of things every single day. Do any thoughts at all go on in English student's heads apart from the basic necessities of life? Were they unable to at least tell me how they felt, and I don't mean physically, I was hungry, thirsty, sleepy, I mean their true secret deep thoughts, the ones which they dare not speak of, only hurriedly scribble down in a flurry of passion and guilty emotion? Why couldn't they let me in on their loves, their dreams, even their dirty, dirty secrets? I thought diaries were kept locked up, saturated in juicy details, leaking information to the minds of ingenious siblings bent on exposing who Katie 'really likes'.

Anyway, I digress. Lang-8 is an online diary writing website aimed at language learners. You write a diary in the language that you are learning, and native speakers from that language correct it for you. In return, you correct journals in English. It's basically an honour system, you aren't forced to correct diaries, but as you gain friends and notoriety you kind of feel obliged. So yes, I'm now correcting diaries again, and I'm not getting paid.

It's a great idea, it's free, correction is much faster than writing a post yourself so it's not a big deal to edit a few, and best of all, people write interesting stuff about their lives, their thoughts and cultural differences which they find puzzling. It's addictive to read these short, pithy opinions about this and that. You can leave comments on each journal entry, so often you get correction and discussion, which is marvellous. Also, it allows you to still interact with natives no matter where you live. I know it's not as good as speaking to a language exchange partner, but it's good to have the discipline to keep coming back, writing something and then checking where you went wrong.

So if you're a language learner, try it out. Especially if you speak Japanese, kick my grammatical butt if you feel the need to.

You could also search for my nickname on the site (phauna) and add me as a friend, please. Unless you are my enemy. Don't do that if you are, soon I'll find you, when you least expect it. Expect me. Although you won't know when I find you, just expect that I *will* find you, sometime, when you least suspect it.

Some Gifts

Thanks everyone for the presents.

A Woman's Mind

Oh those fickle women.



This coffee is innocently brewed and really blended.

Ball-Shaped Onions

Here's an ad which caught my eye. It says "with the power of onions, a healthful life." I've never thought of onions as a wonder food, and have thought even less of them as a delicious drink. I suppose the ad execs were thinking onions are cheap, they aren't bad for you, and voila, new health food.

They have a lot of faux health products in Japan, as do Western countries, however a lot of them centre around the amazing properties of regular food. For example, pills which contain the equivalent of 25 sweet potatoes. Just try and eat 25 sweet potatoes a day. You can't, can you? Well just throw back one of these pills. And then there are the testimonials, some old man saying he tried to eat 25 sweet potatoes a day but couldn't carry them all home from the store on his bike. So he takes these pills, and he's not dead yet. Proof of their efficacy.

Oh and they still have those vibrating belt machines which supposedly wobble off fat. They had those machines in gyms in Korea, and people used them.

Kamakura

Kamakura lies about an hour out of Tokyo, and is a hotspot of temples and shrines.



Many armed Buddha.



Temples, like churches, often have cemeteries attached.



I don't know what this is but it's cool. You can see a fox spirit at the bottom.



This seems to be a Jizo, a god dedicated to children.



These guys seem bored by hanging around all day in a temple.

Origami Cup

I'm sure you may have some idea how to make an origami cup from a square of paper. If not, try it out, it's quite handy and easy to learn.



Bek got this particular origami paper with her health check papers. If you want health insurance in Japan you need to undergo a yearly physical. Of course a physical requires some analysis of your body. At least some parts of your body. And if you note the colour of this paper and it's prescribed use you may guess that there is also some analysis of your bodily fluids.

The instructions ask you to use this cup to hold your early morning urine. Bek at first thought they meant to carry it from home to the doctor's office in this cup. A mighty feat on the Tokyo subway, to be sure. Of course that seems unlikely. However I think it's amusing that your origami skill somewhat dictates your ability to collect your sample. And the square seems quite small, resulting in an even smaller cup.

Luckily I'm allowed to be unhealthy as I like without having to pee into a tiny, leaky square of folded paper.