昭和の日 / Showa day

Today was Showa day here in Japan. Showa day is a national holiday originally started to celebrate the birthday of Emperor Hirohito, and therefore is something of a controversial subject. But to me it just means *no work*!

As the weather was somewhat clement I decided to go on a little cycle tour of Nagoya, going west from my home in Hirabari, through Yagoto, Imaike, Sakae, Tsurumai, and back home again (also taking in lots of other places most people reading this will probably never have heard of).

I also thought I'd give the new camera a work-out...you can view the results here. They're not enormously interesting but they might give you some idea of my surroundings. Plus I've been too lazy to work out how to use my camera properly so I just jammed it into "simple mode" and let it do it's own thang.

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大掃除 / Spring cleaning

春だよ！　晴れだよ！　ビールだよ！　よしっ！　（でも、もうすぐ夏になっちゃう。。。実を言ったら夏、あまり好きではないし。。。頑張ってね、アンディーさん　-_-; )

で、僕のアパートがすごいゴチャゴチャになっちゃったら、「大掃除をしよう」っていう気がしてきた。　今やっているところだ。。。（無精）

ちなみに、新しいデジカメをゲットした　^^ 　もうすぐ、無暗に写真を貼るかも！

リサイクルショップで、ヘンな形のラジオもゲットした(写真は下記）。。。ちょっと怪しいかな。。。

Spring has most definitely sprung here and my apartment is a complete tip, so I have requisitioned an emergency sort-and-file on its ass. Therefore I am too far up to my elbows in suds 'n' grime to post much.

Also, I have (finally) bought a new camera! My previous one steadfastly refused to take non-blurry photographs in anything other than outdoor, daylight conditions...so expect a plethora of photographic wonderments to be posted here!

And finally...not to sound like a bad submission to "That's Life" but I was poking around in my local 2nd-hand store thing this evening and I found an AM/FM radio of a somewhat peculiar design...not to offend readers of a somewhat more delicate sensibility, but upon viewing it I was immediately reminded of a certain personal hygiene implement, the name of which begins with "d"...I present a photograph (together with instruction manual) for your perusal below...

The speaker is on the underside, and the, er, "nozzle" serves as an FM antenna.

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Hanami ・ 花見

Went to Tsurumai Park in Nagoya last Friday with a group from work for the annual hanami celebrations. Hanami is a traditional celebration of the annual blooming of sakura (cherry blossom). Nowadays this celebration usually consists of going somewhere with lots of sakura trees with a group of friends and/or workmates, sitting beneath said trees, and drinking large quantities of alcohol. Which, if you ask me, is as good a way as any of ushering in the spring.

Whilst indulging in a good deal of "nommunication" I was informed of something of which I wasn't previously aware...namely that the Japanese see the sakura, which is only in bloom for a number of weeks, as metaphor for the transient, ephemeral nature of life, possibly reflecting the Buddhist influence on the Japanese belief system. Also, the symbolism of the sakura was exploited during WWII, as a means of representing the transient nature of the lives of kamikaze pilots.

My workmate Ikeda-san took some fantastic photos of the proceedings, which I have uploaded here for your viewing pleasure (it's all in Japanese but you should be able to navigate OK).

While I'm on the subject...I went to Nakatsugawa to walk a part of the Nakasendo (an historic road-thing) with my lovely workmate Ikeda-san (a different one...I work with 3 separate Ikeda-sans) and her parents...I took some photos on the way, they're not as interesting as the sakura photos but I've put them here if you wanna have a look.

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Fun with commuting

Here's a video that's somewhat painful to watch! (don't worry it's not pr0n)

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

An extreme example of course, but still...apparently the average daily commute of those working in Tokyo (I'm assuming that's Tokyo in the video) is around 2 hours. Once again I am thankful that I live and work in roughly the middle of nowhere (somehow I can't quite picture the good old Meitetsu Toyota-sen (the line I take to work) ever getting quite that bad) and that I work for a company open-minded enough to operate flex-time (meaning that I can avoid busy periods, and also meaning that I can spend those precious, precious extra minutes/hours in bed in the morning).

Haven't had a dumb cat picture in a while so here's a pile of the bastards:

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Word o' the day

Adding weight to the old maxim that the Japanese have a word for everything:

ツレション　(tsureshon) : (noun, vulg) accompaniment to the bathroom; group urination (short for 連れ小便)

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