Monday, January 29, 2007

Quick Update

Nothing groundbreaking in the last few weeks, but heres a very quick rundown.

Did my two 6 day working weeks and as such didn't have much time to do anything else, I've had another week of work and am now back to my two days off a week for at least the next 6 weeks , YAY!

I finally got my hair cut after 3 or so months of avoiding trying to explain what I wanted done to a Japanese hairdresser. I got one of my school managers to come down with me and explain as it was in the same building. One benefit is that you don't get the usual hairdresser chat. It was limited to him asking if I was American (in japanese of course 'Americajin des ka') and then later telling me that he was giving me a Jenson Button haircut! I'm not sure what one of those is, but I think that most Japanese people must go to the hairdressers with a picture in their hand or a a famous person in mind as a lot of people suggested I do that. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Jenson has a better hairdresser than this guy, I won't be going back...bit uneven and I had to get someone to tidy it up a bit for me...aight now though.

The intensive course I did last year isn't on this year as nobody signed up and as such I have a 3 hour gap in my timetable on a Sunday. Occasionally this will get filled up but quite often I get to finish a bit earlier. One such day I went to watch some professional kickboxing. Nice small venue so very close to the action. Few of the fighters came down in strange stuff, one in a cape and a mask, one guy was a typical Shibuya boy (area of Tokyo where lots of these late teen/early 20 year olds gather with long 80s hair, too much tan and what look like ladies clutch bags) but the best was a guy who came out dressed head to toe in a spiderman outfit! to the spiderman theme...the old one...not from the newish film. He won too, then did spiderman shooting webs type poses for the camera men around the ring.

Been out a few times too, spent too much money :-(.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Budda


Happy New Year! Back to work this week and I start the year with two 6 day weeks! Nothing too exciting to tell as yet, but I'll post the last of my holiday pictures.

Went to Kamakura to visit some of the umpteen shrines and temples there. I'll probably edit this entry and add a bit more info but in the meantime heres the link to the pictures...

Monday, January 08, 2007

New Years Eve



Only a week late! i'm catching up at last. Also realised as I was getting the pictures ready for this that there has been very little reference to other people I know here in Japan or pictures of them. I'm not living the life of a hermit....honest! I'll put a bit more in my next post explaining who these people are, no time right now.


Heres a few pics of the night. Went out fairly late, about 11pm, met with a group in Shibuya had a few drinks then went to the busiest crosswalk (pedestrian crossing) in the world for the countdown. Then wandered around talking about going to a club before finally settling in a bar...we stayed there until 7am! Pretty good night. There were a couple of latex masks around in the bar, we took the horse one from the bar and Simon wore it on the train home...few funny looks there.

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/New%20Year%202007/


Christmas Lights


Despite most people following Shinto or Buddhist religions over here Tokyo still manages to put most of our Christmas lights to shame. Far from the switching on of a few piddly lights by C-list celebrities such as the Chuckle Brothers, self styled commoner Kerry Katona, Mr Blobby or the latest X-factor rejects, Tokyo has rows of lights, trees, strobe lighting, and geometrical shapes that would be strewn across the floor and used to garrote fellow revellers at home.

Phew, bit of a rant there eh? never mind, i'm back in the Christmas spirit now. I went to the Tokyo Dome on route back from Akihabara, there's a few pictures on the link at the end of this post so you can see the lights yourself. The dome is pretty big and is regularly used to host baseball games etc. The K1 final is held there in December but the prices are stupendous and the nearby Korakuen Hall regularly holds kickboxing matches so i'm planning on nipping to one of those in the near future.

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Tokyo%20Dome/