opinios

I love Japanese food.

So many flavours, with varying degrees of health and sustenance. Granted, I have yet to acquire a taste for natto, but the rest is pretty good - most of the stuff ending in an "ee" sound, anyway. Like sashimi, sushi, yakitori, onigiri, umeboshi, okonomiyaki, wasabi, and curry.

Yep, that's right - Japanese curry has its own distinct flavour. It's a little sweeter than regular curry but it's pretty tasty. And easy to come by.

But sometimes, you just can't beat the real thing.

Luckily, we have an authentic Indian curry house a short bike ride from home, and they do take out. Which is just as well because there are 6 seats. No, that's not a typo. A maximum of six people can sit down and dine at this place. It is ridiculously small, it is the size of the kitchen at my mum and dad's house. Before they renovated. If anyone's interested, it's on the main road about 5 mins away from Ikebukuro station, west exit. On your right. I forget the name but you can't miss it.

The good thing about it being so intimate is you can watch the chefs go to work. Flipping their nan dough like eccentric masters, throwing their tandoori chicken wings on a skewer like they are fencing in a Zorro movie before flamboyantly jamming them into the coals to roast. And jabbering away and making jokes in Hindi.

All ordering is done in Japanese of course: their English sucks, and I can't even say hello in Hindi. But the common denominator for two foreigners in Japan is the local lingo. Which is surreal. You can almost see each other's brains translating as you talk back and forth, all the while self-conscious of your mistakes in front of other Japanese people.

Jeez it's good tucker though! Happy New Year everyone!!

[Update 13/01/2004: The place is called Great India, it's next to Doutor on the west exit, opposite Marui. And it is hands down the best Indian food I have ever had.]

Our host, Digital Space, seem to be having some problems over the Christmas break. So far opinios has been immune, but poor old 35 Degrees (and my yet-to-have-anything-worthwhile-on-it magain.com) have been put through the wringer. First it was hacked, then 2 days later it was hacked again. Now the server is down.

So for all the 35 Degrees fans out there (and there seems to be a lot of them at around 300 visitors a day), you'll have to wait another day or so for Kinki's next update, as the tech support team are all on holiday!

It's tough choosing a company to host your web site with. I have always made the decision based on recommendations and have been lucky.

Up until now.

All the best wishes to everyone who reads opinios regularly, sends stuff in, leaves comments, contributes to discussions, writes to me to sympathise, empathise, encourage, belittle and correct me. You motivate me to keep posting, creating and expressing.

In a year that saw opinios get redesigned, migrated to a new host, hacked and go through an identity crisis, I am reasonably proud of the very random and eclectic collection of words and pictures on this site. A lot of them are not mine and so I extend a huge thankyou to anyone who made a submission to opinios this year; there were some really incredible photographs and prose sent in that I have been very proud to publish. I hope you felt the same element of pride when your name was in lights as I did being associated with it. These were some of the highlights.

Having said that, in its continual defiance of categorisation, opinios will be undergoing another re-organisation over the winter break, resulting in a site that will have a slightly different format and a fresher look and feel. I also plan to move over to Movable Type which should make it easier for me to update more regularly. And there are a whole bunch of cartoon ideas that I want to share with you too.

But you'll just have to wait for next year for all that.

Until then, enjoy the festive season and time with friends/family, don't drink and drive, and take some time out to think about some of the people out there who don't have a home to sleep in or food to eat on Christmas Day, let alone have access to the internet and other luxuries. You might even want to think about giving someone less fortunate than you some money to help them out with that food thing. It's Christmas, remember.

All the best.

Today's day at school with some loud and rabbity elementary school kids was my last work commitment for the year! Yaay! And it's just as well, because I will need a bit of time over the winter break to figure this one out.

The reason I haven't posted for a week relates to, yes you guessed it, my inner bulldog again (and not, contrary to popular belief, at all related to a certain end-of-year Xmas party where I supposedly drank far too much. They are all lies. All of them). I am working on a submission for the Zen Garden collection of CSS-based web designs, and am reasonably happy with how it looks so far.

In Mozilla.

This is why you shouldn't be using Internet Explorer: forget the deeper issues of it being a bad implementation of web standards, about the numerous browser-specific properties it allows (and therefore encourages) or the fact that it hasn't been upgraded in over 3 years (and therefore doesn't support any aspect of CSS-2).

No, that's nothing to do with it.

You should scrap using it and download Mozilla Firebird so that I don't have to stuff around writing hacks to make it work! Go on, go have a look at how it's supposed to compared to how it does, and then think about how much work I have ahead of me trying to trick IE into doing what it should be in the first place. It looks terrible when viewed with IE - paragraphs overlap, graphics don't line up properly, coloured boxes collapse to half their specified size and some text doesn't even display at all. And all because Bill Gates and his cronies didn't do enough testing on their flagship browser before releasing it to the public.

Sheesh. Do something good for your community (and yourself) this Christmas: download what is hands-down a superior web browser, and delete Internet Explorer from your machine (note: you'll discover that the latter is actually impossible, but it can't hurt trying!)

(By the way, if you are running Mozilla or some other relatively standards-compliant browser, and you notice anything particularly strange about my design, do please let me know! I know there are still a few bugs (eg spacing in Opera is a bit screwy, but it still looks semi-decent) and I wasn't going to advertise my design until I had it looking clean in IE, but I thought it was a good opportunity to highlight the problems IE creates! I am definitely on the home stretch anyway!)

A friend told me the other day that I should post more. You know, develop a regular reader base by keeping it fresh and making sure that there is always something new for people to read up on when they stop by. That way the traffic would increase and I could contend with the heavyweight blogs like 35 Degrees.

And of course they're right. I sometimes go for weeks without posting. And it's not because of some ideal that I have that revolves around "Unless it's quality, you shouldn't write for the sake of it". Oh no, I'm happy to crap on for the hell of it, yessiree.

It's just that when a technical problem crops up, I can't let it go, and until it is resolved other things get delayed. I don't call myself a programmer, even though if I wanted to claim being of that ilk, my pedigree would justify it.

It's just that I am a bull terrier when it comes to problem-solving. Someone like my cousin Nick is able to churn out the amazing cartoons and drawings that he does because he makes that the priority. But if there is something unresolved hanging around that needs looking at, I can't let it go. It will prevent me from sleeping.

The present distraction is the comments script that runs on Kim's web site. It is a simple Perl script that lets visitors write feedback. I can't use it on opinios because I run it under blosxom, and the script needs posts to be unique numbers (too hard). But Kim uses Blogger, and it is perfect for that. It is a straightforward process: drop the script in your cgi-bin directory, set a couple of values to tell the script where to store the comments files, and voila.

Well, apparently there is more to it as I can't get it to work.

And the frustrating thing is that it was working before. I can't pin it down precisely but somewhere between moving from my Windows box to the Unix box the script is getting screwed up and won't run. Oh, other scripts run fine. Just not this one.

And so a 5 minute process becomes an entire afternoon of pulling one's hair out and getting nowhere. Kim made me give up so we could eat dinner and watch a movie instead, but in the back of my mind I was fuming, and my mind was still ticking away at it.

This is exactly what makes computers so frustrating, and especially for "non-computer people" this is when they feel like the problem is stepping beyond what they are capable of. Out of their hands.

The reality is of course, that it's nothing to do with having a degree in IT or having cut your teeth in obscure languages like Smalltalk or Ada. It's all about problem-solving skills and patience. Take a step back, look at the big picture, systematically eliminate alternatives one by one, and eventually you'll find the source of your problem. It does take a certain personality to persist with it.

Look out, comments script, I'm coming after you. Maybe not this morning, or even today. But eventually, I will crack you.

Anyone have any frustrating computer-stories they want to relay? Leave them in the comments box. The comments here work fine.

Well then. Mark today down in my calendar as one of the weirdest I've ever experienced. Ever. Where to begin?

8.15am. Riding a packed Yamanote line from Ikebukuro station just two stops to Takadanobaba. For those who've never lived in Tokyo: yes, it is that bad. An insolent high school student had his backpack on, pushed into my face, while a boney fake-tanned doll with seven layers of make-up kept elbowing me as she reshuffled to get a good position amongst the squashed masses.

But that's not weird. That's normal.

What was weird was reaching up for the strap hanging from the ceiling and spotting a HUGE mother of a spider on my arm!!! Bigger than a daddy longlegs and beefier than Bob Sapp, my eyes widened and I had to squeeze through and apologize (Sumimasen, comin' through!) at the next stop to brush him off.

Do spiders signify death? I think it was a sign.

In the last year or so I have had to come to terms with the death of my grandfather and my dear little fox terrier Toby, while being completely detached geographically. It is weird when there is nothing you can do to make that seem real by being on the other side of the world. You can't go around to his shitty little apartment and see his absence, or throw the ball and call out his name to hear the silence and let it sink in.

But today the reaper seemed to be in my face, in all sorts of subliminal ways.

Tonight on the way out to my evening business class in Saitama, our train hit and (assumedly) killed someone. I was napping quite pleasantly (the Red Arrow Limited Express is much like a shinkansen, with its comfortable, reclining seats and ample foot room) when I was woken with a jolt. We had hit something and pulled into a station that isn't on the list of stops for the express.

The Japanese word for someone committing suicide by jumping on the tracks is jin-shin jiko, which literally translates as "person-body accident". The announcement came over and we were delayed for over 20 minutes.

I've been delayed by jin-shin jiko's before, but it was never actually the train I was on that was involved in the collision. It seemed more real and disturbing knowing that I was seated on the vehicle responsible for ending someone's life.

I was suddenly quite awake. The driver and other station staff were frantically running back and forth on their CB radios, probably trying to get hold of someone who knew what the process was for these kinds of incidents (one couldn't expect them to make any decisions on their own!). But chances are they have encountered this before - it happens all the frickin' time.

Some say it is the fact that there are less guns in Japan, that trains are an easy alternative to ending one's life. Others talk about Japan being a melancholy nation because of its Buddhist take on life and reincarnation. There are arguments for honour and pride (especially among CEOs whose companies are failing), while others think it is due to the Japanese losing faith in where their society is headed. Plenty of people blame the economy being in a slump for the cause of it all. And then others think the prevalence of porn, prostitution and an increasing lack of morals or wholesome role models is the root of it all.

Perhaps it is a combination of all of these. But there is no question that it is a daily occurrence in Japan. An epidemic perhaps? The family of these disillusioned souls is left with the price tag for the clean-up - it is different depending on which line you choose to jump on to - and it includes counselling those workers who have to physically deal with the mess. I don't know how much the Seibu-Ikebukuro line charges but there was another invoice written out this afternoon to someone.

I managed to put Jiro the Jumper out of my head for the duration of my class, but the book I began reading on the way home put him right back in there. No Reason For Murder, by Ayako Sono, is full of lost souls, set on snowballing paths of self-destruction, fuelled by a complete lack of any shred of moral fibre. During my train ride home after the lesson, one of the main characters strangled a high school girl after having sex with her in a dodgy "theme" love hotel because she was trying to extort money from him due to her being under the age of consent.

The author really gets into these people's heads and it is turning into one of the most disturbing stories I have ever read. I am beginning to wonder whether my choice of novels for venturing back into the world of literature after toning down my Japanese study was a wise one. A tear trickled down my cheek when every character I had encountered reached a real low but deceived themself into thinking life was grand. When I closed my eyes images from Requiem for a Dream floated into my consciousness. And I am only up to Chapter 4.

And of course to top things off, sprawled out on the staircase in the middle of a rush of commuters at 9.30 at night at Ikebukuro station was a salary man who looked like he had been walking along and suddenly had the life sucked out of him. There was something about his still form that was different from the sleeping drunks that choose to curl up to the side of the mass of people making their way home. He looked lifeless and a large circle of people had gathered to inspect the situation: some concerned, others curious. I stopped and winced. I spotted someone make a phone call. Pretty soon a policeman appeared.

There was nothing else to be done but continue home. Was he alive? Dead? I have no idea. Someone was taking care of it.

I turned and headed for home.

Well, I'm glad that's over, but the question of whether I passed the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test this year is one that will be harder to pick than a broken nose. I wore myself out last week studying for the damn thing, and then had to get straight back into the swing of a regular work routine, hence this delayed report...

It's not that I did badly. There is a small chance I might have passed. I was pretty pleased with the Kanji and Listening sections, and had to guess less questions than I expected to in the Grammar section. But it was the 7 pages of newspaper and magazine articles with comprehension questions in the Reading section that killed me. And I kinda knew it would, but never really believed that I would simply run out of time.

That's what shat me about the test. I mean, if you want to make a test really difficult, then fine. Throw in some obscure vocabulary, some slang and some difficult characters. Sort out the men (and women) from the mice with some hardcore confusing grammar patterns, like those ones that use double-negatives or combinations of the causative-passive voice, so that you get it all twisted in your head and don't know if the article is saying "the man took the picture of his friend", or that "his friend took the picture of the man", or that "they both had someone else take a picture of them" just because there is an extra conjugation of the verb form at the end... Like I was saying, if they want to put that shit in there then fine, go right ahead. It makes my head spin and I'll have to take a wild guess, but at level 2 you should be able to sort it out as it is how the language works, and I'm happy to acknowledge that I don't know something.

But why is it so unrealistically long, given the allotted time??? I consider myself a pretty quick worker, I have sat a lot of exams over the years (some of those engineering exams at Adelaide Uni were killers). And despite having to deal with distractions (like mobile phones going off and CD players left playing in people's bags, audible enough to piss me off but out of ear reach for the patrolling invigilators, can you believe it?) I have managed to get my reading speed up to a level that I am pretty proud of. And yet I still didn't get through half of the reading!

At the "there are 5 minutes remaining" announcement I began to despair as there were still 5 pages that I hadn't read through, and desparately tried to inhale all of this information in record time before jumping to the questions.

I mean, why not have a separate test for "Speed Reading", and let those who want to prove their Japanese comprehension ability do it in a reasonable time frame?

It was useless. I realised this at the 4 minute mark. I then chose to resort to some advice given to a friend that was relayed to me in the morning...

When in doubt, choose number "4" !

And filled in about 12 questions with the answer "4" without even reading the question. Still, if my kanji and listening scores manage to bring me up to the 60% mark overall, then I will be one delighted man. It won't be an earth-shattering score, it will be dead-on 60 and not a point higher. But that's enough for me. The results come out around mid-February next year, so it could be a pleasant birthday present.

And if I don't get over the line, well.

You know...

*shrug*

They can all go and get fucked!!

:-)

Anyway I think that Kim might have gone better in her first attempt at sitting level 4. She was thrown by the listening as it is not much slower than level 2, just using a smaller vocabulary. But it sounds like she aced the kanji and reading/grammar sections so fingers crossed.

Oh my god I can't believe how much friggin' study I have done this week. Honestly, I think the local Jonathon's family restaurant staff were getting ready to set up a bed in the corner of the room to call my own. Today I put in a very studious 10 hours - from around 10am to about 6pm solid (with Kim joining me for lunch and some question-answer time), and then I went back again in the evening for another couple of hours.

I'm almost excited about this stupid exam tomorrow. Excited about the fact that it will be over, regardless of how I go. Excited about the prospect of doing something in my spare time that doesn't involve committing strange characters and stranger grammar patterns to memory. Playing my bass, reading books (so much to catch up on!), doing some drawing, redesigning opinios, going for a swim! All of these things have suffered in my dedication to passing this damn thing. And for what really? A while back I was thinking of maybe teaching Japanese in Australia, but my heart is basically set on the graphic design/web design stuff, so if I do pass then it won't really mean anything career-wise.

But it will for me. I've basically been working all year for this thing, so fingers crossed. Yes I will be a bit disappointed if I don't get over the line. But I'm also realistic that I will be very close to that line, dangerously close. If I don't pass then the thought that I have learned all this useful Japanese will not really be enough to console me. But the fact that I will know that I couldn't have done any more will. I took this whole week off work and immersed myself in Japanese. I'm as well prepared as I'll ever be.

But I still have that clock to beat in the reading/grammar section. A friend Mark suggested that I tackle the grammar questions at the back of this section first as they are easier. But unfortunately as of last year the format has changed and the reading comprehension questions are worth more. I just have to plough through as fast as I can. I'll tackle it as it comes.

The listening in past exams was easier than I thought. I suppose it's obvious but I guess my ear for understanding spoken Japanese really has improved. It's weird when something like that takes a jump but you don't really notice it. And I did another last minute cram of the kanji that is on the list that I know I have problems with. I don't know where I would be without that Heisig kanji book that I mentioned a while back. Once this is over I have grand plans for a kanji resource web site based on the stories I came up with for the book. I am aware it is nerdy but I can't wait to get that all up and running, will be a good chance to teach myself how to interface PHP to a MySQL database.

Fingers crossed. Good luck everyone else out there sitting the Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken tomorrow!!! Gambarimashou!!!

Kim has put together her submission of photographs for the 26 Things photographic project. It is a very diverse collection and you should have a look through them! I think it captures a lot of Japan well, and also has an "on the sly" feel about many of them that captures the way she had to take some of the shots.

Great stuff Kimbo!

Well I have been studying like a mother f*cker for this Japanese exam, and we are getting very close. Naturally I am possessed by mixed feelings of elation at the prospect of getting it out the way, and deathly fear at how difficult it might be. Nevertheless, if things go badly I know that I will have given it my best shot. I have done nothing in the past three days but eat, sleep and study.

Oh, and write this blog. Hey, we all need time out.

Everyone says that the grammar section is always the hardest, so I have been ploughing my way through a few books to get my head around the different forms that you need to know.

I definitely recommend the Kanzen Master Series (1,200 yen) for its excellent example sentences and easy-to-understand explanations of each of the grammar constructs. I have also been steadily working through Grammar for the Japanese Proficiency Exam (1,460 yen) as it has lots of exercises, although there is no furigana for the kanji, so it's tough going and requires frequent visits to the kanji dictionary.

Of course both these books are all in Japanese and not a single book explaining grammar for the exam exists in English.

But it's the reading section that has me worried. Yesterday I sat down and did a past exam for the first time, including the listening section on the CD. Overall my score was about 65% (the pass mark is 60%). So there is some hope. Here's the problem though:

I took twice as long as the allowed 70 minutes to do the reading/grammar section.

I don't think the examiners will listen to me if say "Hang on a minute, I just want to read that paragraph one more time..."

Fingers crossed.

I saw on NHK news tonight that Tetsu and Tomo, those two rambling fools (a kind of Japanese version of the Scared Weird Little Guys, without the songwriting ability or any of the wit) who are responsible for the ridiculously overplayed Nan de darou? song, won a special award for the friggin' thing. No, not the song. Just the phrase.

That's right folks. The Japanese have a massive awards ceremony at the end of every year to recognize the most popular new phrases for the year. The ryuukou-go (fashionable words) are chosen by Jiyu Kokumin Sha, a publishing company, and for some reason this makes headline news.

Quite often they are political or social terms that have been coined. Past winners have included Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's seiki naki kaikaku (nothing is exempt from reform) and the phrase commonly adopted to mean 'mad cow disease', kyou-gyuu-byou.

WHAT THE FUCK?

There are people being blown up in Iraq (seriously people, the war finished ages ago) and this is what makes the news? I mean, honestly, can you imagine this happening in Australia? Taking the Japanese approach, the news item would be something like this:

And making headlines this evening, Prime Minister John Howard has been presented with a major award in this year's Most Popular Phrases awards ceremony. He is credited with inventing the phrase un-Australian, which was widely adopted in the mainstream media. This phrase was selected as the winner overall because it was seen to be applicable to a wide range of viewpoints, from being anti-war to pro-immigration to not really getting into the cricket.

Other winners included Pauline Hanson's Please explain!, Kylie Mole's She goes... she goes... she just goes! and Telstra Corporation, for their catchy phrase Not happy Jan! taken from a popular television commercial...

There are a couple of livewires in my first year class at junior high school this year. Two boys in particular are uber-genki. It's not that they're bad students - they always do pair-work activities and pick things up quickly. In fact, they're great.

They're just LOUD.

It's hilarious - when we are drilling new language, they pipe up in silly deep voices and make a laugh out of it all. Some would say they are taking the piss, but they are not distracting others, but actually making the lesson more fun. I think they just love being attention-getting clowns. And it makes everyone laugh and the whole lesson a bit more enjoyable (let's face it, how exciting can listen and repeat get?)

Anyway, today after class as I was walking down the staircase on my way back to the teachers' room, I heard a loud bellow of "MASHUUUU!!!!" and looked up. My two favourite little loud boys were at the top of the stairs, screaming enthusiastically at the top of their voices.

Mashuuuu!! Nan iro? What colour? What colour?

The boys had their legs spaced widely apart and were grinning as they eagerly pointed to their groins.

Ahh yes, thus our young curious scouts stumble upon the age-old and oft-speculated question that must plague Asian kids daily, from Timor to Thailand:

What colour is the pubic hair on a foreigner who doesn't have black hair?????

And thus one of the mysteries finally gets solved. Boys, it's flourescent pink. And yes, it glows in the dark.

I mean, honestly.

Today I taught a couple of classes at an elementary school in Katsushika, and in one of the classes was a boy who couldn't sit still.

I mean, he was hyperactive or something. A kid whose mind worked slowly in terms of traditional learning, but whose body wouldn't sit still. He had a full-time teacher by his side to try and keep him and calm and help him focus his attention on what I was saying. But all he did was squirm and writhe and try and run on the spot while the special-ed teacher tried (with moderate success) to pin him down.

I don't know how she did it.

My job was easy. I only had to play games with the other 32 kids, teach them some simple English expressions, show them how to make the letters of the alphabet using their body, and generally goof off and have fun. "Normal" kids that age are easy to keep entertained. If there is some game going on, everyone wants to be part of it. In particular if there is some element of competition between teams, then you pretty much have the whole class in the palm of your hand and hanging on your every word.

But her job was to control this little boy who refused to be controlled. At one stage I heard her let out a muffled yelp as his flailing arms whacked her when he tried to break free and run into the centre of the room and disrupt the class in the middle of a game of "Duck, Duck, Goose". I really felt for her.

But it barely showed on her face. The entire 45 minute lesson she was beaming a huge smile which rubbed off on everyone, and when her hands were free she would join in the clapping of hands and try her darndest to get her young companion to do the same. She was amazing.

My hat goes off to all the special education teachers out there who spend their full time job giving extra attention to those kids who need it. I sure as hell couldn't do it. I don't know how you do what you do every day, but the rest of us (especially the parents of slow learners, I am sure) are certainly grateful for the job you do.

Jeremy has sent through a "best of" collection of photos from his time in Mount Buller this winter, and there are some beauties. We haven't seen too much in terms of fast action from Jeremy's camera in the past, but these skiiers and boarders show us how the backside-air-reverse-flip showtime is delivered, Oz style, and Jeremy captures it all magnificently.

Incidentally, Jeremy is exhibiting some of his work at Photophilia, an exhibition "for lovers of photography" that showcases the works of some of Melbourne's most promising artists in both colour and black and white photography. The exhibition is on at:

Collingwood Gallery
292 Smith Street
Collingwood, Victoria
November 21 - December 4, 2003

The gallery is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 7pm, so if you live in Melbourne, go and have a look!

There's a reason I have been quiet for a while. My employer had me revamp their web page, and while I worked on it for most of the summer, the approval process in Japan can take a while and as a result the release date was somewhat delayed. So when they told me last Thursday that it was time to go live, things were a bit out of date and I had to bust my gut over the weekend to get things ready to go.

Anyway, after a few dramas and plenty of late nights, I turned the big switch on Sunday morning and they seem to be pretty happy with the result. While the perfectionist in me is not completely happy with it (I have learned so much about the benefits of CSS and table-less HTML in the past couple of months!) functionally it does what they ask and I take solace in knowing this:

It looks a hell of a lot better than it used to.

Anyway, I have had a few excellent submissions come in and will be posting them very soon, so stay tuned to this space!

I am indeed a sucker for punishment.

I had the misfortune of going along to see some rakugo this afternoon. Rakugo is the Japanese equivalent to stand-up comedy, but obviously the style is quite different. In the West most stand-up involves at least some element of being rude. Eddie Murphy, Billy Connolly, Rodney Rude, Steady Eddy. Even Jerry Seinfeld's snippets had the occasional snippet of innuendo. The goal is to have the audience in fits for the majority of the time they are sitting in down.

It seems the goals in rakugo are a little different. I'm not quite sure what they are, but if you can imagine going along to a family reunion and hearing your great grandpa Ralph relay stories from "when I was a lad", from dinner until the early hours of the morning, then you would be getting close. From what I had read, the stories are generally set in the Edo period, and involve the performer assuming different roles and basically acting as the medium for these different characters to have conversations to facilitate the story. The smells, sounds and images of Edo-Tokyo are supposed to come washing back from the past.

I had three reasons for attending this side-splitting (ahem) performance. One was because one of the performers was a guy who works at my school. No, not as a teacher - Yoshizawa-san works in the office. I don't have much to do with him except at the end of the month when he approaches me for money for the school lunches I eat there every day. But he's a nice guy and had mentioned that he was performing, so I said I'd come along.

The second reason was, of course, to tick it off the list. Seeing some live rakugo is one of those cultural things that, like Sumo, Noh and Kabuki, one feels obliged to experience at least once while living in Japan.

And thirdly, it was free. Say no more.

Nick Pal had expressed an interest in joining me, but was running a little late. I was looking forward to it though (it couldn't run longer than an hour or so, surely) and so I settled into my seat at the Fukugawa-Edo Community Centre. I suddenly realised that not only was I the only foreigner (as expected), but I was also the youngest person in the audience. By about 40 years.

I desperately sent Nick a text message on the phone, requesting that he bring beer.

The first storyteller began his ramble, and although I actually understood more of the Japanese than I had at my school culture day, I still couldn't put it together. The audience chuckled here and there. His facial expressions and staccato arguments that he had with himself were comical enough to draw a smile from me, but basically most of the dialogue went over my head.

Fifty minutes later I realised that I could be in trouble. My Japanese listening muscles were prepared to sit through an hour, maybe an hour and a half of Edo period rough slang, but it looked like there were going to be four performers, and if each was going to run for that long, well... you do the math.

Nick arrived half an hour in and we both sat patiently, straining our ears and trying our darndest to comprehend what was going on. It was futile though.

As soon as the first performer finished, we cracked our tall cans of beer open and began to chug-a-lug. I think it was the fastest I have drunk 500mL of anything. Once both cans were downed we gave a silent nod to each other and hastily made our exit.

Here was my dilemma though - I had seen Yoshizawa-san on the way in to the hall, and said hello, so he knew I was present. I had to watch his performance, but who knew how long away it was. We asked the lovely ladies at the front desk. They empathised with our situation (Muzukashii, desho? - I guess it's difficult hey?) and informed us that at 3.30, Yoshizawa-san, the star performer of the day, would be taking to the stage for our laughing enjoyment.

Nick and I took our time, dined on some sashimi at a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and sobered up. Half a litre of beer with no lunch really goes straight to the head. It was good though, we hadn't caught up for a while and had a good chat before preparing for the final show.

We snuck in at around 3.30 and eagerly awaited Yoshizawa-san's humorous antics. He took his place on the sacred cushion on stage and began rambling. And rambling. And on he went. I picked up bits and pieces but even what I could understand wasn't funny. It just wasn't. No-one in the audience was laughing either. I panned around.

They were all asleep.

Well, not all of them. But definitely a majority. I even heard a snore coming from the back row. This was supposed to be comedy! And I had yet to hear a single laugh. Poor Yoshizawa-san, I really wanted to support him. But I just couldn't take it any more.

I sculled the rest of my Yebisu beer, turned to Nick, and got a nod of agreement from him.

And we got the hell out of there.

I've been browsing the web a bit lately, looking for different resources available to improve my knowledge of web design, standards and illustration packages. And I came across sessions.edu, an online school offering all sorts of design and multimedia courses for varying degrees of cash.

I was just getting my head around the different combination courses and curriculum of each of them, when all of a sudden up popped a chat-box, out of the blue:

Hello there, how are you this evening?

I was quite taken aback. I didn't respond. This was all a bit The Matrix.

My name is Shiraz, can I answer any questions about any of our courses?

I hesitantly wrote back and thus initiated a conversation with the sales rep who was on hand to "make finding course information more interactive". He professed to being a current student of sessions.edu, but it was obvious that he had had some serious sales training. He was smooth.

Sessions.edu uses Groopz, a Java application that allows vendors to:

...proactively contact and initiate dialogue with the prospects on your web site. Only Groopz allows you to actually SEE ALL OF THE VISITORS on your web site RIGHT NOW, and SELL THEM, RIGHT NOW".

I don't know, but I always thought the reason a web browser was called a browser, was because it allowed you to do just that - browse. Is the luxury we have enjoyed until now of being able to peruse and gather information uninterrupted (thanks to pop-up blockers like the one built in to Mozilla Firebird, or the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer) under threat? Is Google going to have to extend their pop-up blocker to include a "chat box blocker" to stop pesky sales people from confronting you with inane sales pitches while you are in the middle of reading a web site?

And what kind of a stoopid name is Groopz, anyway? It sounds like a 1980s boy band...

So I have basically decided that I want to get into web design seriously when I go back to Australia, but I can't believe the can of worms that a bit of research opens up. It's not enough these days to have an eye for aesthetics and some HTML skills. These days design studios require applicants to be familiar with expertly proficient in a ridiculous array of difficult-to-learn software. Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, InDesign, Flash, Fireworks, not to mention actual technologies like Perl, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, Java, SQL, Apache, Flash ActionScript... the list goes on. Most of them are easy enough to do simple stuff in, but when you try and do something that might look, gasp, semi-professional. Well...

Luckily there are countless online tutorials to work my way through. Am even considering paying money for a course when we leave Japan next year.

Maybe one of these days I can give old opinios another overhaul to make it use CSS properly (folks, this stands for Cascading Style Sheets and refers to a way of coding HTML pages to separate the content from the way it is presented).

In the mean time, my buddy Ben has also turned his had to web authoring and helped his uncle get his collection of (impressive) oil paintings online. www.donrankin-art.com.

I attended the first half of my junior high school's anniversary festival today. I get the impression that one doesn't normally get invited to these kinds of things (I didn't last year), but I have established a good rapport with the teachers at this school and felt like I should do the right thing and make an appearance.

I rocked up (9.00 on a Saturday morning, mind you) not quite knowing what to expect, and took my seat in the gymnasium in the area reserved for teachers, off to the side of all the students.

And thus the music begun.

It must be that Japan is a karaoke-culture that so many kids have no inhibitions about just getting up on stage and belting out a number. Ikeda-kun from the 3rd grade did it while playing a guitar and harmonica, and he sounded good. The girls from 3B didn't quite hit the high notes of their soppy number, but credit to them for having a go (they still sounded better than I would have had I tried to sign in front of a few hundred people). I really enjoyed listening to the different styles that were performed, from pop rock to love ballads to brass-band instrumentals.

But the problem for me was that after the music finished, the rest of the day was full of plays. Music is a universal language. Japanese is not.

Before I continue, let me clarify that I tried really hard to understand what was going on. I had drunk a Dekavita C genki drink with my breakfast to pep me up in preparation for a long day. And for quite a while now I have felt confident enough to carry out a conversation in Japanese with anyone about pretty much anything. If you don't know the word for something, you can always say it another way and be understood.

But hearing native speakers speak amongst themselves and understanding what is going on is an entirely different ball game. I have definitely made ground lately in terms of comprehending the Japanese I hear around me, and I'm sure if I watched more television understanding would improve. Unfortunately I'm just not much of a television watcher.

And so it was useless. The speed these kids rattled off their lines, using all kinds of variations and rough phrases for when people get angry or are frustrated made comprehension impossible. The play lasted about 45 minutes and I understood about 10% of it. I was proud to see my students up there, so naturally acting out some drama about... well I actually have no idea what it was about... but I was still proud to see them up there on stage and in lights. But that's not enough to get you through 45 minutes while sitting in an uncomfortable chair. The audience laughed at punchlines, gasped at shocking turns of events, and cheered at heartfelt speeches. And I clapped politely.

All of a sudden I felt incredibly lonely. Here I was, sitting on my own in a big hall surrounded by a constant stream of a foreign language coming at me, with no reprise. I've been in this country for over 2 years and really made an effort at studying the language and immersing myself in as much of the culture as I can, and I basically understood nothing. It was a frightening realization.

The festival runs all day. The afternoon is full of plays, and as much as I wanted to "do the right thing" and stick around, I had to excuse myself. I used the word yakusoku, which means that I had a promise that I had to keep.

Not a complete lie - the promise was with myself, and involved having some solo time, before I have to go into Japanese mode again for the dinner with all the teachers from 6.00 tonight. At 6,000 yen a head, it better be a damn fine meal.

Never since arriving in Tokyo have I wanted to be surrounded by English so much. Not a good frame of mind to be in for studying for my exam. Hence the question: is it better to be completely ignorant and not speak any nihongo, so that you don't get invited to all these things and don't have to struggle through the frustrations of understanding nothing? Probably not, but it would certainly be a hell of a lot easier...

Isn't that how the saying goes? Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door or something like that. Anyway, the Japanese did it, but someone forgot to tell them that the phrase included provisos like "humane".

Yes, we have a mice problem. Had a mice problem. Martine tried to warn us after staying over one night, but we were in denial for quite some time. I think the conversation went something like:

Martine: Hey, you guys. Did you know you have mice? I saw a huge one climb up the wall over there.

Us: Pah, it must have been a cockroach. We get them every now and then. I've already set baits, don't worry about it.

And then we continued to hear shuffling in the night but refused to acknowledge that we were sharing our apartment with some freeloaders who weren't paying rent.

Until they started getting stuck into the bananas. That was the point at which we decided we had to get rid of them.

I searched high and low (well, the high and low shelves in the pharmacy down the end of the street) for your standard, painless, set-the-cheese-and-wait-for-the-snap trap that ends the varmint's life instantly, but you just don't seem to be able to buy them in Japan. The alternatives were poison, or the incredibly inhumane glue-pad, a sticky surface that the poor little thing sticks to and can't move from. I bought both (we were getting desperate, ok?)

At first we tried the poison. Judging by the cartoon on the cover of a rodent licking his lips holding a knife and fork, these were supposed to be tasty little sacks of scrumptious nastiness that the little critters couldn't help but chow into, but made them feel dehydrated so that they went outside to quietly die (out of sight, out of mind!)

The mice must have played hacky-sack with the damn things, because in the morning we found them scattered around the kitchen floor but otherwise left untouched.

And so, we resorted to the gluey walk-on-this-and-you'll-never-leave approach. We lay the trap with a piece of banana (I figured we should make its last meal its favourite food) and left Saturday afternoon for an overnight trip to Nikko, and just got back this evening.

Unfortunately, it worked. Extremely well.

Lying glued to the cardboard adhesive mat, whimpering in its own shit, urine and vomit (and some other green mucous that may or may not have been its brain) was not a mouse, but a very sizeable rat. Up until now I still hadn't really believed that they had existed in the apartment because we had never seen one. Well, here it was. And the little fucker was panting and looking woefully up at me.

The bastard almost looked cute.

I had to shield our catch from Kim and bundle the whole package - trap, banana and rat complete with excreted accessories - into several layers of plastic bags, take it outside and stomp on it to put the poor bastard out of its misery. The neighbour was sitting in the gutter having a cigarette, and watched on quizically. I didn't bother trying to explain. I was too full of pity and kept seeing its face looking up at me whenever I closed my eyes.

We are so getting a cat when we get back to Australia.

Ha! That's right folks, the university-student style protest tantrum thrown by senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle in front of President Bush at Parliament house yesterday made the front page of the papers... here in Japan! In a country where front page articles are usually about the latest political or corporate scandal, this is unprecedented exposure for the Greens party. Way to go Bob!

Unfortunately the online reporting by the Japan Times does not keep up to date with print editions, but The Age did a better job of covering it anyway...

Up in the rafters, US journalists could be seen gaping in disbelief as they encountered their first experience of Australian parliamentary behaviour. Bogong moths - the meaty, furry insects that invade Canberra at this time of year - wheeled crazily over Dubya's head and slammed into light fittings.

Prime Minister John Howard turned an odd, magenta hue.

"To be honest, sophisticated observers had serious reservations about the scruffy travellers who founded our two countries," remarked President Bush, persisting gamely with his speech. Condoleezza Rice, watching from the wings, maintained an impeccably groomed expression of neutrality, but must have been thinking: "I hear you, brother. Scruffy? Scruffy is fine - these people are certifiable!"

Melbourne based MC Raw-B has served up another collection of rhymes that you can hear shaking and rolling in your head when you read them to yourself and cotton on to the groove. I just saw Eight Mile on DVD and it reignited my appreciation for rhymes and hip hop lyrics. Put some drum and bass on in the background and let Raw-B dance around in your head for a bit! I think Intentions is one of my favourites of his to date - buddy, we've all been there.

Infinite Juxtaposition of Destiny | Patience | Intentions

Hammy has made his first submission with some snaps from his globetrotting that made him chuckle. Whilst not the most arty of shots in the traditional sense, I think you'll agree he has perfected the artform of finding innuendo on the streets of every city that he visited...

24 Minute Parking - Reno, Nevada - must have quick appointments
Bad Shop - Dresden, Germany - they sell baths
Chinese Restaurant - Copenhagen, Denmark - no offence Coco, but it about sums it up
Danish Bike Lock - Copenhagen, Denmark - at least they didn't steal the bike
Fart hinder - Stockholm, Sweden - speed bump ahead sign
Hypo Bank - Vienna, Austria - service with sugar
Rambo's Pizza - Bronx, New York - even the pizza has attitude
Skum Land - Copenhagen, Denmark - they sell creamy products
Stop - outside Reno, Nevada - almost too much snow to see the sign which is of extra height
Suck - Malmo, Sweden - don't know what they sell but the Saab gives them away
Utfart - Stockholm, Sweden - means "way out" or "exit"
Willy Janke - Hamburg Hauptfriedhof - poor bastard given the name of "Willy Yanker" - what were his parents thinking?

Before I go into it, I never usually do this. Really. Ok, I might have done it once before, but I swear it is not something I do regularly. I was tired at school today - one of our sliding doors was rattling in the early hours of the morning and I couldn't sleep, so I got up at about 4.30am, and the resulting fatigue hit me after lunch.

So I snuck into the staff toilet and sat down in one of the cubicles (lid down, pants up). The cubicle is so small that I could lean forward just a little bit and it was the perfect place to have a little nap. I needed the catch-up, ok? There was half an hour before my first afternoon class and the kids were making a racket running up and down the hall, but I was able to shut most of it out and pass out for a good 10 or 15 minutes.

Until I got sprung.

It came unexpectedly - someone was shaking the door that my head was leaning against, from the outside. I got startled and stood up immediately, my mind rapidly searching for the Japanese for "I'm nearly finished!", when I realized that there was no-one there.

From a few snippets in the hallway I managed to hear the word jishin (earthquake) a couple of times. Of course.

It was Mother Nature who sprung me. After the sizeable quake in Hokkaido last week and the large tremor in Tokyo last weekend, I should have almost expected it.

Not that I felt any less embarrassed at being sprung...

Well, I am studying like mad in the countdown to this year's Japanese Proficiency Exam. Having flown through level 3 last year I am taking a crack at level 2 this December. But the only flying to be done this time round is likely to be my hands in the air (out of frustration, not out of joy).

Yes, the jump in difficulty from level 3 to level 2 is enormous, and I am beginning to ponder the wisdom of my decision. But, I've paid the 5,000 yen entry fee and on the off chance that I might scrape through, I'm going to give it everything I have. If I was to sit the exam right now I would guess that I would probably get about 20%, but there is still (a bit of) time. Kim is also having a crack at the exam this year - level 4 - and has a much higher probability of passing as her nihongo has really come along lately (surprisingly, since she actually started doing the occasional bit of study!)

Because I won't be thinking about much else, over the coming months I plan to write mainly about Japanese study: books available, methods, useful internet resources and the like.

The most interesting part of studying Japanese is the kanji character set, so let me start with one of the best dedicated kanji study sites, kanji clinic.

Although the design is terrible (really Mary, yellow on black is hard on the eyes), the author writes a column for the Japan Times about studying kanji, and scrolling through the archives of these columns there are lots of useful tips and links. I find kanji characters fascinating, but there are so many of the bastards, so reading as much as possible about the different methods you can approach your study of the kanji with is imperative.

Another great site is rikai.com. For the student of Japanese, this web site is honestly amazing. You can input the URL of any Japanese web page, and it will spit out a version of the page which provides the reading and English meaning of all of the kanji characters on the page. [Note: for people who can't read any Japanese, this doesn't mean it translates the page into English. You do need to be able to read hiragana and have some knowledge of Japanese grammar to get the full meaning, but you can probably get the gist]. There is also a great kanji flashcards page on this site too, very comprehensive and complete!

For studying in the wee hours of the morning though, a computer simply cannot beat a good old-fashioned book, and after trying a few different ones, I have become an evangelist for James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji 1, the best-selling seminal text for teaching kanji characters through mnemonics.

Although it addresses over 2,000 characters (almost enough to read a newspaper), this book only teaches you how to write and understand the meaning of each character - not any of the Japanese or Chinese readings. So once you have completed the book, you will then still have to do additional study to learn how to read them (that's where my precious electronic dictionary has come in handy). However, for those who live in Japan and have a higher level of conversational Japanese than written Japanese (usually the case), this task then becomes simplified: each time you happen on a new character on the way to work, there is less learning to be done because you have the meaning under your belt already. I have found this true for many of the characters that appear in day-to-day life, such as on advertisements in the train and in signage on the street.

I actually bought a similar book a while ago entitled Kanji ABC, by Foerster and Tamura, and worked my way through creating stories using their method. However, I found their method to be massively flawed, for reasons I will detail another time. In short, if you are interested in learning all the kanji (an ominous sounding task), then I firmly believe Heisig's method is the only way to do it. Buy the book.

More late, back to the study! I am only up to character number 1,201. And after that there is the readings of each character, vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, listening...

On the whole Japanese summers are horrible. The heat and humidity are unbearable; houses and apartments are not built with any insulation so the energy costs escalate as air-conditioners run 24/7, the cool air dissipating from the building as soon as it is released. And even worse, many buildings such as public schools don't even have any ceiling fans, let alone air-conditioning, so that lessons become a real trial. And this year the summer has come late, so even though it is September we are still suffering.

But there is one thing that I have really enjoyed about this summer, and that is the cicadas. Growing up in Adelaide, the sound of summer at dusk was the much quieter call of the cricket, so hearing the brash and noisy chorus of cicada trills everywhere I turn is quite a novelty for me. And they can be loud.

Once I got over their likeness to the scary moths from Silence of the Lambs, I became fascinated with these peculiar insects, and did some reading about just how such a small thing can make such a racket.

It turns out it is only the males that make the call - the females make no sound (no contrast with the human species shall be drawn!) The male cicada has a membrane attached to its abdomen, and by flexing a muscle it can cause the membrane to buckle up and down, emitting a loud buzzing or shrilling sound, to attract females during mating season.

The membrane is similar to that toy that was so popular in the 80s, the pop-ball. It was like a rubber tennis ball cut in half, which you turned inside out and placed on a flat surface. After a few seconds it would make a loud "pop" and fly up into the air, returning to its original shape. You could also "arm" it and drop it on the ground, where it would immediately pop up back up again. Hours of fun.

BUT the most amazing thing about cicadas is their lifecycle.

Can you believe that these guys burrow into the ground for between 13 to 17 years, just to eventually surface for less than a month to breed and consequently die? Their sole mission in life, the one thing that they must think about constantly during that extended period of eating sap from roots, is to pro-create. That's it. Hide away and build it all up so that you can emerge, sow your seed, and succumb to death, leaving a former shell of yourself behind (literally). Amazing.

Also interesting is that:

Musical instruments have also been inspired by the cicada's membrane.

Cicadas have no sting.

In Shanghai, cicadas are eaten as a delicacy.

Bob Dylan's song "Day of the Locusts" was inspired by the cacophany of cicadas he heard while receiving an honorary degree from Princeton University, even though cicadas and locusts are in different entomological families.

There you go, a bit of trivia for the day.

A bit of a longer post than normal, skip to the photos on 35 degrees if you can't be arsed reading the whole thing.

Climbing to the top of Mount Fuji through the night to watch the sunrise is one of those things that most foreigners have on their list of things to do before they leave Japan. I don't know if all of them manage to tick it off, but I definitely did this weekend, and I would have to say it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.

And one of the most brutal.

Getting reliable information on climbing to the top of Mount Fuji out of season is like trying to convince your buddy Albert that he will need to take warmer clothes when hiking at 3,700 metres: damn near impossible. The information on the city of Fujiyoshida web site claims to list official information on things like buses, toll gate open times and the like. But it conflicts with the times that officials tell you over the phone and again with the signage on the way up to the fifth station. Anyway, if anyone else tries the climb during the month of September, the toll gate is definitely open til 9:00pm. I can't vouch for any other month of the year - try calling the Kawaguchiko tourist information centre to check. Not surprisingly, you can't believe everything on the internet, no matter how pretty a font it is written in or how official-looking a page it is retrieved from.

Officially, the summer season for climbing the mountain closes on the last day of August, and with the close of season comes the close in support for the thousands that still want to do it - including public transport. In September the last bus from Kawaguchiko to the fifth station during the month of September leaves at 1:20 in the afternoon. Considering the severe state of disorganisation that we were in at 9am on Saturday, getting to the base of the mountain from Tokyo by 1:20 was distinctly out of the question, and for a while there it looked questionable as to whether we would get there at all. But luckily I was able to apply my irresistable charm to some friends who live in Fujiyoshida (Martine we owe you one!) to arrange a last-minute ride to the fifth station, and from there everything else fell into place.

Finding that fine line between not carrying too much but not having too little is a tough one. I pretty much used everything I packed so was pretty happy with the selection. There are a few lists out there of recommended things to take on the hike, but here is another one (I fit it all into a 35 litre backpack). I started off in shorts and t-shirt as it was a mild night, but that was to change after the seventh station.

Matt's list of things to take to climb Mount Fuji:

Gore-Tex waterproof and semi-windproof pants and jacket

Thermal underwear t-shirt

Neck warmer (bought for the Hokkaido ski trip last winter)

Fleece

Those snowboarding gloves I bought last winter

Cargo pants (a bit too trendy but very useful because of the pockets)

Beany (Australian for "woollen hat")

Spare t-shirt to change into the next day

Thick socks that I forgot to wear on the way up but turned out to be useful for changing into the next day for the ride back to Tokyo

Petzl head-flashlight (plus spare batteries)

Broad-rimmed hat ("Terry Towelling" style, for the trip back down in the morning as UV rays up top are harsher than below the clouds)

Sunscreen

Sunglasses

A 2 litre bottle of water plus a couple of 500 ml sports drinks

Scroggin (fruit and nut mix often referred to as "Trail Mix" by North Americans)

Video camera

oni-giris that we bought on the way

goggles (I didn't take them but wish I had)

If we had have climbed in October or in one of the spring months, I probably would have taken another fleece as the summit would probably be even colder and windier than it was. I can't imagine trying to do it in rain.

At about 7 pm on Saturday our friends dropped Nick, Al and me at the fifth station, said goodbye and good luck, and drove back down to the warmth and comfort of the real world, leaving us stranded in the soullessness of the car park.

Being such glorious weather and given the number of people that climb Mount Fuji even after the season is officially over, we were counting on the restaurants at the fifth station to be open. They weren't. And all we had was a grab bag of oni-giri, some chocolate bars and a kilo of scroggin.

We managed to text-message some other friends who were going to join us for the climb to ask them to bring some bentos for dinner for us (it involved walking half way back to the toll gate and holding the phone up high in the air to get reception). Unfortunately, they were even more disorganised than us and didn't make it to the fifth station until the next day. So we were stuck with a less-than-ideal dinner as preparation for the big climb. The signs were ominous.

One of the difficult things to consider was what time to start off - we wanted to arrive at the top in time for sunrise, but not too early. Shivering our nuts off at the summit for two hours wouldn't have been the ideal prelude to that golden ball rearing its head to mark the start of a new day.

But waiting around in the car park at the fifth station listening to the running engine of a bus certainly wasn't an option either, so at about 8 pm we began the short walk to the sixth station in the hope that a more peaceful place to kill time would avail itself. It was an easy stroll, and just around the corner we huddled down in such a recess, away from the wind and with a stunning view of the city lights below. It was then that we wished we had a pack of cards, as we were about 9 hours from sunset with only 5 hours hiking ahead of us.

Much to our surprise, even though the fifth station had been a ghost town, the rest of the mountain was still alive all through the night. Entrepeneurial mountain hermits were selling overpriced Snickers bars, instant coffee, cup noodles and futon space, and the price went up proportional to the elevation (500 yen for a Pocari Sweat near the top!)

Rest points further up the mountain gradually became dictated by the increasing numbers of tour groups - there is nothing more frustrating than being stuck behind a group moving at snail's pace, with their ridiculous souvenir Mt Fuji wooden staffs jingling bells. And the rocks became more and more treacherous, too. Not to the point of having to do any actual climbing, but considering it was the middle of the night it is no wonder people die every year making the climb. I just kept feeling incredibly lucky that it wasn't raining.

Each stage got relatively steeper and our bodies fought hard against fatigue, sleep and the increasing cold, but the stretches were pretty much in keeping with the estimates on my map... except for the last leg. The suggested ninety minutes for the slog from the eighth station to the summit took us about two and a half hours; admittedly we had to contend with the crowds (and I thought we would avoid them going off-season!) But a "false peak" shattered our hopes when we thought we were nearly there, and in the wind it just felt like it was going on and on forever.

When we finally reached the summit it was upon us before we realised it (after the previous letdown we were naturally a bit skeptical). And wasn't it worth it - when hiking by torchlight we hadn't paid any attention to the view behind us, but when we arrived and turned around it took our breath away (what was left of it, anyway).

I have to say a few words about young Albert: even though the foolish bastard did come ridiculously unprepared for such a climb (he thought that his Eastern Canadian heritage was enough to get him by without a hat, gloves, jacket, scarf...) Luckily Nick and I had some excess clothing to save his freezing arse, but at least give the man credit for making it to the top in a pair of shorts!

We got our pole position for the show that was about to unfold, and the pictures tell the rest of the story. Sure, being in a plane is a similar view, but it's not quite the same as feeling like you're on the top of the world, surrounded by a dense cloud cover that extends as far as the eye can see. As it ever so slowly unveiled itself for the shivering, red-eyed masses, our sun looked every bit the heavenly entity that so many cultures have worshipped it as over the years.

When the sun was high in the sky, highlighting the fluffy cloudscape in bright yellows, we wandered over to take a peek inside the crater. The wind was intolerable though, volcanic dust flying through the air like miniature wasps with our eyes as their target. I can see why people bother to lug goggles all the way up just for the time they spend on the summit. We decided to pass on making the 60 minute trek around the edge of the crater and started our descent, still on a high and in awe of the view before us.

Once out of the dust the only distraction I had from the magnificent view was that karaoke favourite "Top of the World" running through my head.

The descent to Kawaguchiko was quick (2 and a half hours) but the terrain is not as fun as many like to report. There are plenty of nasty rocks to break up the momentum from sliding through the gravel, and although physically we just had to slog it out, the view of the clouds stayed with us for an amazing two hours before we hit the cloud line to distract us from annoying rocks and near tumbles. Albert and I took time out to appreciate the view for one last time while Nick pressed on ahead, and when we passed into cloud everything became enshrouded in mist and the magic that it creates.

Nick had beat us to the bottom and was looking as weary as we felt. But there were high-fives all round as we congratulated each other, headed to the nearest restaurant for a ramen and beer breakfast to celebrate, and consequently passed out at the table.

An artist from Belgium by the name of Schaaflicht has submitted this very clever piece, which he calls simply Rosita. If you are interested in seeing more of his work then check out his collection of photos here.

Crikey, Jehovah's witnesses are getting sly. I have had a few come to the door in the past - the first over a year ago trying to preach the good word in Japanese. Back then, playing dumb with gomen nasai, wakarimasen (Sorry, I don't understand) was enough to baffle them and send them on their way.

Then they started sending witnesses who spoke English. I am not a dismissive person by nature so it would usually take a few minutes of nodding politely and letting them get their spiel out before interrupting, apologizing and wishing them well as I shut the door on them.

This morning I was sitting around with nothing but a towel around my waist using the computer in between getting out of the shower and getting dressed, when I heard a tap tap on the door. I asked in Japanese who was there, and the response, in English, was:

My name is Michiko, I want to have few words with you about something.

I knew that meant they were Jehovah's witnesses. I considered telling them through the door that I wasn't interested, but there's just something in me, the way I've been brought up perhaps, that prevents me from dismissing people rudely. I blame my mum for that one, she has trouble saying no too. So I grumbled that I would be a few minutes, threw on some clothes (slowly) and eventually opened the door.

Michiko had brought a friend with her.

Sabrina must have been about 7 or 8 and was half-Japanese, possible Michiko's daughter. She was a beautiful kid. They were both holding their bibles, open to the same page. I looked up at Michiko.

You know since 9/11 in the America, people have threatened... terror...

She tried to spit it out but struggled so I helped her. People feel threatened. I could see where this was going. Yes, it's terrible, isn't it.

So how do you feel about that?

I sighed. I had been up since 5.30am, spent three hours at work and had only just got home to relax. I was exhausted.

Um, Michiko that's a pretty heavy question for a Saturday morning.

She smiled in empathy. But before I could pre-empt her and profess to not being terribly interested in a discourse on the problems of the world, Michiko asked if she could just read one passage from the bible for me, then be gone. I was about to tell her politely that she needn't bother, when she dropped the clanger:

Sabrina will read for us.

I looked down at Sabrina. She was all innocent smiles. How can you tell a gorgeous little kid that you don't want to hear her read?

Sabrina began to plod through something out about the kingdom of God saving us all, about the coming of the end, and although she mangled a few words she did a pretty decent job of it. I was patient til the end, but it made me furious. This was a new low, using cute kids to preach the word! I didn't let it show - I put on my funny-guy elementary school teacher's face and applauded.

Yaay! Good job Sabrina!

She beamed back at me. I saved my stern response for Michiko. I told her very politely that I appreciated what she was doing, really I did. And that I respected that this was very important for her, but to me religion was a very personal thing, and that I really needed to find out what I believed on my own.

She started to explain herself, No, no, we will not try to convert your religion... but she didn't get it. They never do. They don't understand that people can't be pushed into religion, that while they feel they are going around saving people, most of these people really just don't want to get that philosophical at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning with a stranger; that they don't know whether they believe in God or not but would rather not think about it too hard because the last time they did it made their brain hurt; that as much bad as good can come out of organized religion, and primarily - that happiness is actually possible without having God in your life. And that even if he is, it doesn't mean that you want to talk about it with a stranger.

I don't think she would have agreed with me and I wasn't interested in getting into an argument with her in front of a young girl in 30 degree heat. I was done. I gave a friendly goodbye wave to Sabrina and backed up.

I wonder how much of the exchange she was able to perceive and whether she will question any of it when she gets older, or whether she'll just blindly believe that continuing on the mission of converting everyone is the only answer...

Finally, my aunt Claire has gone and got herself a web presence! And a super one at that - a comprehensive history of how she came to paint, what she paints about and an impressive collection of scanned photos of her brilliant paintings (and I'm not biased, they are amazing!) Check out www.clairesoutergallery.com.

Yes, I'm still alive. Working hard over what is supposed to be the summer vacation, trying to find relief from the heat that has finally kicked in. Tokyo summers are killer and today was no exception. At least it is interesting work - redesigning the company web page. But today I just couldn't get my head around the cgi scripting and mountain of other stuff I need to do, so played with some more pop art. Thanks to Razor for the two finger salute, and to Kim who actually took the photo that I bastardized.

Also, check out my dad's little effort at touching up a photo of him hard at work in the sculpting studio! Holy shit, my father is a terminator...

Mie wondered if she wasn't making contact with him on purpose, perhaps willing the masses to sway in her favour, "accidentally" leaning on him against her own volition. Partly it was true - she couldn't really avoid it. But she knew she was lingering, staying to feel his warmth, and when the crowd leaned back again, her hesitation turned a brief touch into a signal, a sign of intimacy yearned for.

For three stations she let herself lean forward, supposedly unable to do anything about this circumstantial union of their hands. Mie closed her eyes and savoured the energy she was deriving from his touch. Images of kindness, warmth and happiness flooded her heart and she began to feel excited at the thrill of new prospects, new love, a new connection.

Ok, I have been working on a big piece of writing that I hope to finish soon, but in the mean time this came out of my disturbed mind. Maybe it is all the rain we have been having lately. Definitely don't read this if you are looking for a pick-me-up, but if you are curious about what living in a big city can bring you to create, check out Balance, my latest perverse work of fiction.

It was a clear fresh day and the sun shone crisply and Geoff, being unemployed, had a lot of time to enjoy it. He was still standing in his dirty underpants, fresh from bed yet fusty and unshaven, a crop of ginger hairs poking through his chin. He had just finished his first cigarette of the day and tossed the butt into a used coffee cup. He then went outside and sat in his small garden and shut his eyes. The sun pressed on his face so that inside his eyelids burned red. His mind wandered toward Bosch's last request and the red and blue sports bag that lay inside the kitchen door. As he dozed a little fly landed on his arm and walked between his hairs in short jerky sets. Quickly he slapped it flat and flicked off the pancaked corpse. "What did it matter?" he thought, "Bosch was dead. He wouldn't ever know whether it happened or not. Surely he couldn't care. He was dead, right?"

I am very excited to present the latest piece of writing from Nick Prothero. I think you will agree with this effort he is really developing a mastery of the craft of short-story telling. Click here to read Last Request, I guarantee you will enjoy it.

Tom is a cartoonist originally from Germany who has submitted one of the hundreds of humorous cartoons that he has penned over the years. Click here to check it out, and if you like it then explore his portfolio to have a laugh at more of the same...

Oh, by the way - take a look at the latest graphic I came up with after playing around some more in Photoshop. I am in the process of redesigning my company's web page, and was playing around with their logo this morning. But I guess I got sidetracked and came up with this bizarre mish-mash of colour that I actually quite like (although I might have a hard time convincing my boss that it would look cool on the company site!) I call it Bubbles Of Nothing - click here to check it out. Art principles on appropriate use of colour and "ensuring your piece has a focus" be damned!

Of course after a drought, when it rains, it pours! Kinki extends the chase by returning Hammy's lob with a healthy dose of top spin! Who will take the plunge next? Click here to read the story to date...

Hammy has come to the party by submitting the second part of the collaborative story. The search for Josh is on, but no-one knows why. And where was he last night, anyway? Check out the plot as it unfolds here, and have a think about what might happen next... it's up to you!

Contribute to the story by emailing the next instalment to canvas AT opinios.com.

So after that little wander down a dark alley let's get back to it.

Here is a little poem that I wrote the other day while I was seething in anger and frustration at a person who I have to teach with. Honestly, I don't understand how this person ever became an English teacher. She is quite simply the most disorganized, clueless person I have ever met. And although I can usually forgive such flaws, to top it off she is a control freak who insists on making last minute changes to my lesson plans and is unbelievably stubborn about it, even on days when she has completely forgotten that I am even scheduled to teach at her school. Get your act together!!

Aaarrrggh!

Ok, so I need to take a step back and look at the whole picture once in a while. But I'm not asking for any sympathy. I'm just going through the process. I think unleashing every now and then is all part of the thought process. I do have some people in my life who I value for giving me reality checks though. You know who you are, thankyou for the much-needed slap in the face.

But I definitely am happy with the idea of this voice becoming a more personal one. It's all very well to only want to offer up quality when contributing to culture, but things evolve and I need somewhere to vomit my brain's mixed-up musings. I do hope there are not too many angst-ridden posts like that last one as a result, and I worry that my motivation for doing all this is just for the feedback - I profess to need only the outlet, but then if visitors to the site drop off I get disillusioned... why should it matter?

So, when feeling blue just create some more, in any medium. Or at the very least reshuffle your wardrobe. Nothing drastic, but the banner and the sidebar got a bit of a shuffle (kudos to J for the guitar photo I messed with!), I moved over to a new system, and the archive got rearranged in a way that makes maintaining stuff easier for me. The dates are all screwed up but, you know, I'll get to that eventually.

This web site is currently the closest thing I have to holding onto any element of technical skills that I will no doubt have to fall back on for at least a while when we eventually go back to Australia - it's not like I am going to find any work teaching English. And if I want to pursue anything else (current realistic options are: Japanese teacher in a school or self-employed web site designer, less realistic ones are full-time musician or writer) it will require some kind of qualification that will take time and... well weddings and houses and stuff all cost money. So not only is this web site important to me creatively, it is my only link back to an IT job in Australia.

Oh, it's so much easier to pretend I'm never leaving Japan, pretend that I can continue getting paid good money to teach kids how to speak English and play games with them and never go home. In some ways the parallels between Japan and Never Never Land are remarkable (and we haven't even been to Tokyo Disneyland yet!)

At least I do have something to fall back on though. And a loving fiance and a terrific job while living a dream I have had from since high school of living in Tokyo, so it's not all bad. I can't help but let the creative process overwhelm me every now and then though, it will always be there as both a lover and a demon, an unpredictable acid trip. But life hardly sucks. It just sucks me in from time to time.

Still, having a good old vent does feel good, even if no-one wants to read it. Try it some time.

There are times when I hate this blog. Is it even a blog? Let's analyse it.

It professes to be a portal to encourage creativity. But because of that it doesn't have any real focus. Is it about writing? Drawing? Music? Photography? Film? Expressing opinions? No, it's about all of them. And it's also about none of them. It's a half-arsed attempt to be all of them that fails because it is too ambitious a task, so it meanders around trying to offer up tidbits from all over the place. And when its readers just want to do that, read something, and not rack their brain to create something, then it tries to prod them into writing when they probably don't wanna. I can hear them out there, stumbling onto opinios for the first time looking for a new blog to add to their collection of daily reads, and screaming: "Bugger off! You write this story! That's why we came here, so we can read it!" Next!

And then there is the content. Dribs and drabs from people around the world. Some cool stuff in there. But why? I mean honestly, if people want to express themselves they will just make their own blog. And by handing over the content to the masses I'm starting to feel like I can't get angry, or mad, or express myself, because it doesn't fit the context. Look at this post! Despite the wide context I've given myself, it's unrelated. It's just a rant that people might say belongs on the discussion board. It's not writing. It's not art.

In short I feel like it's not mine anymore. I feel like any writing I put up on the site needs to fit a certain category now, and whinging about how the web site is not evolving in a way I had planned doesn't fit any of those categories. I am second-guessing that my audience doesn't want to hear it (probably correctly) and that is preventing me from expressing myself, which is the whole driving force for the site in the first place. Self-imposed restrictions perhaps, but they are restrictions nonetheless.

Well, fuck that. opinios is getting opinionated.

Like I've mentioned, I spread myself pretty thinly. But I wonder if I should give my writing more focus than I have been. A book I'm reading called The Right To Write talks about how writing is good for the soul. How we actually need to do it. And that when we sit down to do it we shouldn't censor. We should just listen to our inner voice and let it come. A friend of mine last night mentioned that he finds it cleansing. I think he's right. Music is fun to play. A drawing looks good after you've finished. Photos look cool on the wall. But I think writing is good for me.

So, here it is. Up until now, the focus of opinios has supposedly been express yourself. Well, we're going back to roots ladies and gentlemen. Rants, tangents and opinions all over the front page. And mostly mine. Yes, it might mean making opinios more like the trazillion other blogs out there who scream Me! Me! Me! and complain about getting writer's block or laugh at the old man down the street with a yappy dog who watches the passers by. But hell, I'm paying for this damn hosting. If you want something with more of a focus, you should read 35 Degrees - it's actually about something.

If people want to still send stuff in, awesome - I'd love to put it up. But creative portal? That's too vague. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Josh's apartment was not really an apartment. It was more like a wide broom closet with a sink. It was minimally furnished with a wobbly grey table on which plates, utensils and breakfast cereal boxes performed a balancing act for an empty audience. An army-issue camping mat was rolled up in one corner, and on the opposite side of the room a well-travelled suitcase lay open, its contents scattered about the room like a collage of clothes. There were no windows.

Ok, here is a little experiment to make opinios even more interactive. You guys shape the story. I want submissions for how it continues, and as they come in I will update it. Who are these people? What happens to them? Humour and silliness are welcome but if it gets too crude I won't post it. How good can this collaborative story be? It's up to you.

If two people happen to send in continuing paragraphs at the same time then I will choose the best one. Let's make each submission, say, a minimum of one paragraph, a maximum of three. Maybe we can finish it in ten, maybe it will go on forever.

Click here to read the opening paragraphs. I have kicked it off, how it evolves is up to you... Contribute to the story by emailing the next instalment to canvas AT opinios.com.

The nightwind has a voice. It speaks softly in song. Lie still in tall grass and feel the planet breathe around you. The universe is a thing of life; of creation. We are moved by the planets for we move like them. Circles large and small, we are all part of the same cycle, we propel the same wheel. In and out of darkness, our seasons change and our hearts yearn as the tides turn. We grow what we can. The nightwind has a voice.

Ray steps up to the plate to throw a bit of futurism, a solid serve of politics, some serious soul-searching and some masterful metaphor into the mix for our digestion. Click here for an insight into his take on the world from the point of view of... well, you be the judge.

Dad has been busy with the bronze again. I remember years ago on a family drive through the countryside when he spotted a dead snake on the side of the road. Well, that snake has (to Mum's disgust) been in the freezer all this time, and only now has he been immortalized in bronze. A few years for the vision to be realized, but finally, here it is, larger than life.

Jeremy breaks the dry spell with some black and white portraits of a couple of posers. (Luke, it's always nice to put a face to a submission!) On that note, I will be adding a 'mugshots' page to opinios very soon. So if you have submitted something in the past and want your mug on display with other contributors, send me the headshot that you want used - it can be flattering, artistic, whatever.

(Warning: if you don't send me anything I may have to resort to my personal collection, and you don't want that photo up there...)

Kim shows her versatility with a couple of poems that I somehow overlooked when bringing over the original opinios content. Both powerful, but written from starkly different viewpoints...

My Little Mad Turns | Two Pieces Of The Same Puzzle

You see, tea is an institution. When you roll up at someone's 'ouse, and without saying nothing, they pull out a brew just how you like it; milk and two, milk no sugar, just black, half a sugar and a little bit muddy if you're fussy. It's like you really know someone if you know 'ow they like their tea.

Nick Prothero sends another quality short story through, with his trademark quirky characters described through the delightful voice of the ever trusting British postie on his round, in the search for a quality cuppa...

Kim captures some of the many contradictions in and around Ikebukuro in central Tokyo, and then gives them an old school colour touch-up. Stopsigns and sleaze mingle with lanterns in the breeze. Hey, I should be a poet.

Click here to check out her photos.

Ok I had an awesome holiday in Australia and downed countless Coopers beers and wonderful wines with friends and family which you can read all about on 35 degrees. I see the discussion board getting out of control in my absence (is that a good thing?) but let's flip it back to the creativity with MC Raw-B:

maybe i'm mistaken for giving without taking, heart breaking, love making, soul shaking, it's all the same in any existing relationship, when love defines your existence, hard to stay persistent and not miss em n crawl back to that space of resistance, pick up missions where no-one listens n just gives sympathetic expressions, so you count your lessons and old love letters, create other memories to forget her, hoping jealousy will hurt her, but this space feels murder...

Melbourne-based MC Raw-B, otherwise known as Luke Brown, submits some run-on rhymes that roll and punch, hip hop from the soul. Look out for his EP out soon under the awakenings record label.

Fine Lines | Lucky Stars | Walking

If you haven't caught up with me lately you might not have seen the extent of which my hair has gotten out of control. I decided to take advantage of its expanded state to create a gratuituous tribute to the founder of pop art (I bet it took him longer than it took me in Photoshop!) Not that I have been discouraged from writing songs just coz REM do it better. Well...

PS. Here is the original!

I have tried to sit down a few times and write some poetry that captures how I feel about what is going in Iraq at the moment, but it always just ends up sounding biased and unjustifiably accusing.

But then a buddy of mine pointed out that Michael Stipe from REM had written lyrics to a song that seemed to capture it all better than I could have anyway.

As I raise my head to broadcast my objection
As your latest triumph draws the final straw
Who died and lifted you up to perfection?
And what silenced me is written into law.

Click here to listen to REM's new song, The Final Straw, a timely release and a simple but powerful message (plus it's a good song to boot - thanks Al!)

Jeremy writes:

Took a few black and whites on the weekend, apparently I stumbled across celebrations in honour of Harmony Day, an event I knew nothing about until Saturday! Turns out it's an annual thing and appears to be celebrated annually, on or around March 21st. Whatever the occasion, it was a fun gathering of people from a wide range of cultures, gathered together in Federation Square (Melbourne) to sing and dance and produce music with drums and other instruments and enjoy the multicultural mix we have here in Australia. I also have a feeling that it's not just Australia that celebrates Harmony Day -- perhaps someone else may know something more about this interesting occasion?

Jeremy's black and whites certainly captured the festive atmosphere and produced some great portraits.

Dancing Queens | Drumming It In

PS. The Australian Government's official Harmony Day web page indicates that it is an Australia-wide event to celebrate multi-culturalism, held on the 4th Tuesday of every month. However I do know that Singapore also hold a Harmony Day on July 21 to commemorate race riots that occurred there in 1964.

Apparently the theme for Harmony Day in Australia this year was "You + Me = Us". If anyone else made it to the festivities in Melbourne or other parts of Australia or the world, let us know!

I've always been fascinated with memory. How it works, why we remember some things and not others, different techniques people use to remember stuff.

One of the most effective methods for remembering information is to use mnemonics - easy-to-remember phrases or stories that act as a link to the less-easy-to-remember information. For example, learning 2,000 Japanese kanji characters would be impossible without having a little story to remind you of each one.

Since starting to play music again I have been going back over some music theory - modes, chords, scales etc - that I have a vague recollection of once studying back in high school when I was playing the clarinet. But this time round I am applying mnemonics wherever possible, to not only make the theory easier to remember, but more fun as well.

Here are the mnemonics that I have been using, a collection of old classics and some originals too (with apologies to my aunt if she has gone off grapes lately!) If anyone else knows of some great mnemonics please add them as a comment!

For remembering....                   Mnemonic
----------------------------------    ----------------------------------
the strings of a guitar,
top to bottom: E B G D A E            Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter

the distances between notes in a
major scale: Tone Tone Semitone,      To The Second Tier, Take Ten Soldiers
Tone Tone Tone Semitone               

the notes on a music stave
(treble clef)
gaps:  F A C E                        The word 'face'. Easy.
lines: E G B D F                      Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit

(bass clef)
gaps:  A C E G                        Aunty Claire Eats Grapes
lines: G B D F A                      Great Bassists Develop Finger Acumen

the Circle Of Fifths
clockwise: C G D A E B F# C#          Come Get Drunk And Eat Bad Fried Chicken
anti-clockwise: C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb    Cats Fight Back Even After Dogs Growl

the modes: Major (Ionian), Dorian,    My Dear Parents Love Me A Lot
Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian,
Aeolian, Locrian

The Chinese have a traditional teaching method that has developed over the last 5,000 years. Ba zhe shou jiao - that is, 'teaching by holding their hands'. The idea behind this method of teaching is that the child will happily continue to come back for more by carefully molding and shaping absolutely everything they do throughout their childhoods and adolescence. As a result of this careful molding and shaping however, the child does not learn how to be creative, the child does not learn how to think independently or creatively for themselves. To be totally honest, the child actually doesn't learn how to do ANYTHING!

Nick Souter delves into some of the problems children in post-Mao China face when trying to catch up with the rest of the world - as made evident by their approach to studying English - and how he is doing his little bit to help them break free from Big Mama...

Click here to read more.

A few minor updates to the site, including a much-improved archive. Browsing past submissions to opinios is more intuitive and useful than before, with a direct link to the submission being the major improvement. I have been wanting to stick a graphic in the top right-hand corner for a while too.

So check out some of the earlier stuff if you haven't had a browse yet.

And if you haven't been following the discussion forum, some interesting topics are being thrown around, so register a user name and speak your mind!

i wonder if next time
she pass by
i don't just smile
and give my brothers high five
don't just dip my feet
but take a dive
forget the lines
and get myself
someone nice

Nick Palubinski presents to us some of his typically cruisy lyrics that masterfully capture the flow of commuters in a big city, the flow of winter into autumn, and the flow of red wine as Miles Davis plods away in the background... great stuff.

Strange Fish | Song For Autumn | Listening To Kind Of Blue