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Goodbye Nihon, Hello Singapore
And so, to leaving. It’s still hard to believe I don’t live in Japan anymore. I’m writing this from Singapore, where I’m staying for a few days with my cousin Alan, his wife Aneta and his kids Sarah and Stephanie. I was lucky enough to be seen off at the airport today by three of […]
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Shou Ga Nai
Despite my various recent excursions around the local area, I’ve still somehow found time to do the important things too. Cancelling things is always a pain, but it hits new heights, bordering on excruciating, when trying to do it in Japan. What with gas, electricity, phone, bank transfers and posting stuff, it’s a wonder that […]
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Mountain Town
Magome is a small town in the mountains on the border of Gifu and Nagano prefectures that sits on the old Tokaido route which was heavily used in the Edo period. It was originally built as one of a number of rest posts for weary travellers making the long and dangerous journey from Kyoto to […]
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Out And About
Despite my best intentions, I was worried that I wouldn’t get round to seeing much of the country in the last few weeks before I left because I’d been in kind of a rut lately, doing not much other than working and sleeping. Luckily, there’s nothing like leaving a country to create a list of […]
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Done And Dusted
And just like that, my two year teaching ‘career’ has come to an end. It’s hard to put my feelings into words as they alternate rapidly between the joy of revelling in new-found free time and a kind of emptiness, which I didn’t really expect. I guess suddenly stopping anything after a long time is […]
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Over-Efficient
Japan is known, often erroneously, as being a very efficient country. But today I realised that sometimes things can be too efficient. Having settled on checking out Australia, I’d originally booked my flight to go to Melbourne after staying for a few days with my cousin Alan in Singapore. But, on the advice of a […]
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The End Is In Sight
Seeing as the cat’s already out of the bag after the comment someone left on my last post a few days ago, I suppose it’s time I mentioned my big news. In a few weeks I’m leaving Japan and I’m going to Australia. My contract expires at the end of March and I decided I […]
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Fit For A King
Munching on king crab’s legs in Sapporo, which are bigger than my hand!
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Biting The Snow
It couldn’t last really, could it? With 13 days of riding under my belt and no injuries beyond feeling a bit sore, it was probably high time that I got something a bit more lasting. Luckily for me, it was only small, practically nothing really, but it could have been a lot worse; one of […]
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Hot Srar?
Looks like a hasty fix to avoid a lawsuit to me, but maybe they are just rebranding…
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Happo-One Ijiruna
The day dawned bright and sunny as expected and so we headed for Happo. I’d almost forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve, but was quickly reminded when I saw the hundreds of people queueing for the gondola. Apparently this is just about the busiest day in the Japanese Snow Calendar and you could tell. […]
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Snow Time Like The Present
Working at the weekend, combined with a natural laziness imbued during my days of general lethargy at university, has conspired to turn me from the county hockey player I was into the unfit programmer that I am. My shape hasn’t changed, but I still feel out of shape. I’m thankful, therefore, that I found snowboarding […]
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White And Blue Christmas
I was sitting in McDonalds before listening to a weird techno and drum and bass Christmas medley and couldn’t help thinking Christmas isn’t going to be much fun this year. There’s 100x more snow and cold and generally wintry weather than England here (I found myself in the novel position of having to de-ice my […]
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Hottaimoijiruna
Much is often made of how foreigners mangle English in a variety of amusing ways, so it was funny to find Japanese people attempting to bridge the gap between the languages in some small way. This week, my teacher introduced me to ほったいもいじるな (Hottaimoijiruna), a site (mostly in Japanese) which seems like some kind of […]
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Now Is The Winter Of My Discontent
Two and a half months ago I was complaining that I was too hot and didn’t have an air-conditioner. Then, you couldn’t blink without breaking into a sweat and I cursed every hot, muggy, sultry day and a job that made me wear a collar and tie. How naive we are when we’re young! In […]
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Bounenkai
I just got back from a Bounenkai (literally, an “end of year party”) held for some of the teachers living in Gifu, which was lots of fun. It was nice to unwind after worrying about a test (which I swore I wouldn’t worry about) and not have to think that I should be studying. Most […]
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Board Buying And Eye Spying
The weather’s been a bit rainy since I came back from Whistler, so I used that as an excuse to go and buy some snowboarding gear for the coming season. I got a board, boots and mitts. The sheer amount of choice kind of overwhelmed me to be honest, especially buying a pair of boots, […]
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Really Long Haul
At least I think it’s the 27th. Being served breakfast at the equivalent of midnight is a bit weird, and even though the apartment clock says about 2pm, I’d swear it was 5 in the morning. One thing I am sure of is I’m never ever flying through the US again. I might fly to […]
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Hello Goodbye
So this is my first entry for 2 months. This is partly due to laziness, but mostly due to the fact that I moved house and lost the internet again. I’ll probably write about that a bit more when I get a chance. The good news is that now I have a lovely fiber optic […]
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T-Boned And Shaken
I was crossing a small side street this morning on the way to work, when a car pulled out of a blind side-road and hit my bike side-on. Neither of us were travelling too fast so it wasn’t a big collision, but I was knocked off and my bike was crushed pretty badly. Fortunately, apart […]
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Dancing In The Street
Obon is a traditional Japanese festival at which time the spirits of your ancestors are said to return and visit you. It presents a rare opportunity for Japanese families to come together, as just about everybody in the whole country has a few days off at the same time. Apart from visiting graves and praying […]
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Bright Lights And Big Bangs
After Mum departs, I head out to watch more fireworks.
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X-Position Expose
An outing to the Japanese Expo, taking in some of the major pavilions.
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Kyoto Revisited
My second visit to Kyoto, this time with Mum, taking in the Golden Temple and Gion.
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Arrival In Megacity
Arriving in Tokyo to meet Mum and Jan, I was happy to find they’d brought British food!
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Family Ties
Preparations for Mum’s arrival in Japan.
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Big Babies
A gaijin day out to the Nagoya Sumo Tournament, where we see large men with better acceleration than me slap each other silly.
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Not Dead
An interruption of service to the Internet necessitates some explanation.
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Ghost Town
A bike ride out of town goes further than planned and takes us to an almost-abandoned theme park.
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Meeting With The Mob
In which we meet a gentle old man in a park who turns out to be a retired mafioso.
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Castle Day
A day trip with Jo-Anne to see what castles we could see.
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Beer On Sticks
The regular Sunday sojourn to Ogiya for beer and yakitori with Nova teachers.
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Evangelism And Equestrianism
Another religious encounter, though again a lack of hard-sell. And the strangest pamphlet ever.
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Self-Congratulations
In which I am able to find my keys using only the power of Japanese, but then fail to order dinner in the same tongue.
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Two Certainties In Life
In which I am hit up for taxes, and lose yet another set of keys. Sigh.
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Great Balls Of Fire
Cormorant fishing is a tradition in Gifu, so a bunch of Gaijin headed out to see what it was like.
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The B’s Knees
A birthday to remember, with karaoke, burgers and awesome music.
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One Year Older, Still An Idiot
In which I celebrate a birthday in Japan by failing to have the correct change for public transport.
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Italian Whine (And Port)
Nagoya Port and Italia Mura, a mildly amusing diversion for the day.
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Swings And Roundabout Routes
A day gone wrong turns out alright.
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Floats And Stalls
As festival season draws to a close, I take a look at the largest and most local one, Ogaki, right outside my branch.
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Biwako And Hikonejou
A day trip out to Biwa Lake and Hikone Castle.
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Fuji, Queues, Running, Scared
I can’t get enough of themeparks, and this one even has a view of Mt. Fuji. On a clear day.
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Festival Fever
I managed to get along to another festival today, making two in a week. The Ibigawa Town festival was in large respects similar to the Tarui festival I saw on Tuesday, having several large floats on which kabuki was performed by children, but it was still worth seeing. Ibigawa is only a small town and […]
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Moveable Priests
Festival time again in Japan and we head out to see a local town festival.
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Flower Power
A flower festival in Gifu, with the simultaneously least blue and most blue blue rose I’ve ever seen.
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Not Addicted
A misspent day, spent misspending hard earned coins on pointless gaming. Fun though.
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Forward Planning, Sitting Pretty
Getting the best spot for a cherry blossom party involves some serious forward planning.
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Sakura
The return of cherry blossoms signals the return of cherry blossom parties.
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Strike Night
Keen to get out of the apartment, a bunch of us go bowling.
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Howdy!
Technology and travel stories from a global roaming, kangaroo loving, sake drinking gaijin pom.
Check out my projects and my resume, take a look at some code on Github and feel free to contact me.