May

Oops, looks like my plan to keep a journal of my golden week activities didn't quite come to fruition. Probably because I ended up not doing anything remotely interesting, and it rained. Oh well!

I have been doing remotely interesting things since golden week though, including going to numerous parties, playing guitar at a session thingy in a town called Tsu (great name, I think) and general hanging out...so I do have a social life! Honest!!

I also went with a couple of friends to a weekend long rawk festival on the beach at Mikawa-Toba, near Toyohashi (which is kind of near Nagoya) which was a lot of fun...but it rained. Oh how it rained. In fact on Saturday it did nothing but rain, hard.

I have some photos on Facebook but I'm not sure how to show them to regular internet folk without e-mailing them individually and I'm too lazy to work it out. Can someone tell me?

I got to hang out with rock stars last Friday when some members of US band The Graves Brothers Deluxe came to Nagoya to play a show with two Japanese guitarists and I somehow ended up drinking with them until early the next morning. Get me and my showbiz connections. On the right we see the impressive coiffure of Kawabata-san from Japanese band Acid Mothers Temple. And someone called Yoko, who fell asleep and who I didn't get much of a chance to speak to. Sorry Yoko.

On sunday I am thinking of going to Tokyo for the day. A friend of mine told me about this rather delightful museum. I'm definitely getting t-shirts!!

I see from their access page that there's a restaurant right across the road...I'll bet they do a brisk trade!

Golden Week Day 1

I've been enjoying a belated easter thanks to my lovely sister Nicola, who sent me lots of chocolate. Thanks Nic!

She also graciously enclosed a card, the envelope of which I have scanned for posterity's sake and posted left. It may look like a Beat Happening album cover drawn by a borderline psychotic but it is in fact my sister's hand-rendering of my immediate family. Either way I'm very touched and I'm sure she'll be honored to know that it will now live on in digital form. Thanks again Nic, and I particularly like Dad's Simon Cowell-style trouser action.

Today was the first day of Golden Week, i.e. three public hoildays, i.e. I'm off work until next Thursday. I spent it by sleeping until roughly midday, then going out and about, first to a Golden Week record fair in Kanayama. I went to the same thing last year so if you can be arsed looking up my posts from last May I probably wrote something about it then. If you're interested in record fairs in Kanayama, that is. Which you're not.

After several hours of "digging" I went to a second-hand bicycle shop and after several hours banter/rambling with the lovely proprieter got a new (old) bike. It beats the creaky-momochari-with-flat-tire-that-I'm-too-lazy-to-get-repaired that I've had until now hands down (it has gears! gears!) so tomorrow I think I'd quite like to go a-cycling somewhere. I just don't really know where yet. Or what kind of time I'll be able to drag my sorry carcass out of bed. Still, watch this space.

In fact (and NOT because I have nothing better to do...honest) I'm quite tempted to give you all a day-by-day account of my Golden Week goings-on. So stay tuned and I'll see you again tomorrow!!!!!!

My dad is holding a sponsored "moonlight stroll" through the streets of Oxford in memory of my mum and in order to raise funds for her hospice (which is run as a charity). Should anyone be so lovely as to want to sponsor him (it's a very worthy cause!), go here:

http://www.justgiving.com/rayfarmer

Go on, I'll give a you hug if you do. (geographical location permitting)