It’s a flood of blogging! Can I call that a flogging? I mean, not three years ago did anyone have a web log, and suddenly everyone’s got at least 4! (Well, I have 4, don’t you?) As my favorite news aggregator put it (when speaking about the blogging trend): “Early adopters were eventually joined by late adopters in an event that has been dubbed as ‘popularity.’” But I don’t update those others anymore - in fact, they only have one entry saying that there won’t be any more. So, on with the writing. (and off with the self-aware commenting - blogging about blogging, or some such nonsense, is truly that - mundane and easy. You don’t wanna see what a self-aware blog can do.)

My new iai training gear came yesterday! I now have my own (a) hakama, (b) keikougi, and (c) obi! I’m now completely using my own equipment (after about 10 months of iai). But, it’s an expensive dedication. The practice sword was US$250, and my recent tests were US$200, and this last order was US$140. Plus monthly dues at the dojo puts me at US$300. Just shy of a grand! I’d never thot that I’d be spending so ‘frivolously’ a year ago. Simplify, simplify, simplify. HHH

That is all, you may go about your standard browsing. If you’ve never been, I suggest checking this out.

Another adventure into the Big Room yesterday. Someone changed the wallpaper - there were white spots on the walls and all over the ceiling! At least, I certainly hope it was wallpaper - I couldn’t imagine anyone painting that. The last time I painted a room like that (in purple), I developed temporary arthritis for a few days (I could hear my finger joints when I moved my fingers). At any rate, met some new ALTs (Bradford, Brent, Natasha, Kath, and Andy) for some onsen madness.

Turns out in Nishi Yaizu (not a 20 min cycle away) there is some famously popular (like that repetitve redundancy, the double iteration?) onsen. And my god (not that I have one. lest it be electricity) was it heaven (not that there is one, lest it be here). Very very large and relaxing, with all sorts of different pools:

(*) standard hot pool (40C)
(*) milky-white mineral pool (40C)
(*) a shallow pool to lie down in, with a chilled head rest
(*) electric shock pool
(*) bubble pool (40C)
(*) single person-sized basin pools (you feel like you’re in a jar)
(*) a tea pool (that’s right, bathing in hot tea)
(*) a dry sauna
(*) a cold pool (17C)

Marvelously fantastic, and that was only the half of it (uh, the evening). After that, I wanted to show them my favorite Izakaya in Nishi Yaizu (Negiya with the killer tofu caesar salads). So we walked in that direction and arrived only to find that it was closed (the universal Monday = holiday trend for food places, German bakeries included). Uf. So I remembered that way way back I ate at an average izakaya right outside the station. So we head.

Before we get there tho, another place catches our eyes. We duck in and it can’t seat six people together it’s so small. 4 at the table and 2 at the counter (with room for about 3 others, if they were to come). We struggle to decipher the menu for a while before the friendly chef/owner/only guy there points out the most popular menu (the top 5 ordered dishes at his place). So, there being six of us, we take one of each and double up on one that sounded especially good.

The food arrives and it’s utterly amazing (could be the tea-pool doing my head in tho). The chef was really eager to talk to us, and we tried our best to speak Japanese, and he English. What we gathered was that he creates all the food on his menu, full stop. All the recipes are his own, and he changes the menu for every season!

His influences are South East Asian cuisine and does it show. Really great sauces and delicate flavors. Amazing seafood (thanks Yaizu!) and tropical music. He has friends or family in Singapore, so when he visits, he gets new ideas to try. He absolutely loves his work, and it shows. We ate so well.

Definately have to go back. And soon.

A trend of beach parties. Went to Atami this time (half way to Tokyo, still in my prefecture) to meet up with a lot of the new ALTs. This was a mid-day affair, tho. Afternoon swimming and relaxing - I brought some frisbees and ultimate and plain-old tossin’ broke out. Other randoms joined us and we had a good laugh.

In the swimming area, they’ve rigged some floating platforms. You swim out to one, climb on top, and then dive or play king of the hill or whatever. It was pretty fun. Once dark hit, there were fireworks! I’m starting to get my fill, but we were really, really close this time. Practically under them and it was good and scary. There are photos (only 2 additions this time), too.

This week was pretty low-key. Stayed home most of the days and programmed. tovid saw another release (good OSS theory - realease early and often!). I didn’t even leave Yaizu. I started calling outside the Big Room (I mean, it even has a door!). I built Marutomo a new turlte home (or just did some remodeling). He’s got the equivalent (for a palm-sized turtle) of an olympic sized pool now. He loves it and spends all day swimming and relaxing and generally being happy.

In other cool news, my brother is well on his way to being a radio DJ. He had his training session/show tonight, and prolly will have his own slot in a week or two. You can listen online.

Huttah for Herbie. Really good music. He has a way of picking musicians that do things in a new way. Amazing and refreshing.

Also, a DJ party right after! Got in a cab, told him to go to this park by the beach, close to Haneda airport, and waited for them to set up. Aroop knows a DJ in Tokyo and he invited us to the party. Beer and snacks were only the start. They played amazing music for 7 hours, even kept going after the sun rose!

While I was away, my compy was busy testing tovid. Another 3000+ data points measured. Good ol’ lappy. Now only if I could get ALSA and OSS to play nicely together, then I could use Skype. Seems my debian upgrade mixed some old with new.

Drop by the gallery for more pictures.

Spent this week trying to set personal records for the least time spent at work. Been going pretty good. Consistantly under one hour.

What have I been doing with myself? Well, coding of course. I’m learning the depth of mpeg2enc and a few other video utilities in the mean time. I’ve joined a sourceforge project [tovid], and now I’m learning CVS and DocBook. Take a look at my little section.

This weekend offers a big change, tho. Jazz. Aroop and I are off again to Tokyo for a good weekend of music. Specifically, we’re going to see Herbie Hancock.

Been a while, ne?

Well, Rachel from New Zealand came out for a visit. We promptly began finding all the dense gatherings of fun left in neat, organized, pre-arranged piles in Japan (as Japan is neat, organized, and pre-arranged). In fact, some of the piles were cleaned and wrapped in plastic, for our safety!

What’d we do? We played in Tokyo and Yokohama (swing dancing, temples, shopping, eating great Chinese food). We played in Kanazawa, too. Kanazawa was amazing. The place is on the west coast of Japan, on the Sea of Japan. It was never bombed in the second world war, so all of its historical bits are still in tact. We saw Japan’s most famous garden (Kenroku-en) in the very early hours of the morning. We were the first people in!

Also saw the ninja temple - a rouge temple used to defend the castle back in the feudal days. The rulers declared that no building could be higher than 2 stories, so they broke the rules and built a 4 story building in the space of 2 stories. In addition, they squeezed another 3 layers in between a few parts and suddenly, the place is a labyrinth of 7 layers/stories.

Hidden staircases and tunnels, secret rooms, double-use doors, all sorts of smoke and mirrors! Really really unique and very different from all the other temples.

Kanazawa also has a geisha district. So we toured a house and saw the tea rooms used to entertain the wealthy merchants. The roads and houses were basically only retrofitted for plumbing and electricity. The style remains unchanged.

Same for Kanazawa’s samurai district. Just a few updates, and little remodeling. We toured a samurai family’s house, whose samurai owned a lot of the farmland back in the day. The garden in the back was utterly amazing.

We came back after a few days and did some touring around in Shizuoka, too. The world’s longest footbridge, Mt. Fuji (shrouded behind clouds), and the tea mountains of Kawane. That area has many suspension bridges, so we picked one and crossed. Very fun and very high. Also stopped by an onsen for some relaxing and dinner.

Took my Ikkyu test in Iai. Passed! In March, I can test for Shodan. いいね！

I also had a business trip to Kakegawa - training the new ALTs in how to improvise. Met a few jazz fans and one tap dancer. The new lot are just as excited as I was, but a little more prepared with Japanese. Should be good fun this year, if I can be bothered to go out. I likee programming!

There are pictures, of course.