Stars.

There's a lot of festivity this month! Next on the celebratory hitlist is Tanabata, the Japanese star festival on July 7^th. The legend goes that two separated lovers (the stars Altair and Vega) are allowed to meet each other only on this night... awwww... romantic huh? The occasion is celebrated with a summer festival, and people tying poems, prose or wishes to the branches of bamboo trees.

Our Japanese class decked out in Tanabata wear and lookin' spiffy. See the lady on the far right in the blue? That's Fumie my teacher who's slowly but steadily improved the level of my Japanese from 'non-existent' to 'existent but bad'. Quite the achievement.

Luckily, we had the staff of our Japanese language program to explain this to us, this week we forgoed our regularly scheduled lessons in exchange for a Tanabata party, allowing the girls to get decked out in classy kinomos and the rest of us to eat some traditional sweets and write out some wishes; my three this year are (in no particular order):

1. A pair of shoes that FIT.

2. The ability to control my kid's classes through sheer force of will.

3. World peace.

Really, I'll settle for one out of three. The most nerve-wracking part of the festivities was having to give a short speech in Japanese talking about yourself. Luckily I had my teacher Fumie to polish out my grammar mistakes and brief me on how to pronounce everything, domo arigato Fumie-sensei!

Post festival celebrations (the day after actually) I jumped on a bus down to Fukuoka to help Katy get her Birthday celebratory vibe on. Amanda pulled off some stellar organization and a fabulous array of Mexican food, we cracked out and carved up a candle laden watermelon (how Japanese huh?) Then we went down to the park for some more firework-themed shenanigans (wooo! I still have all my fingers, that's 2 for 2!) We stayed up sipping champagne and pontificating about life until the wee hours then eventually retired for some much needed kip.

Katy with her birthday watermelon (tea-lights included), tasty AND far healthier than the traditional calorie-loaded 'cake' alternative; Japanese ingenuity scores again!

I spent much of the afternoon hanging around Amandas place while she was out, taking the opportunity to read my way through some more Haruki Murakami, this time it was South of the Border, West of the Sun, which gets high marks from me for noirish atmosphere and visualization but lost out a little in the actual 'storytelling' sense; I'll still give it a recommendation though since you can read the whole thing in under 4 hours.

Getting festive in the park; we danced like nobody was watching. Unfortunately, someone was. Damn you Amanda! ;)

In the afternoon I grabbed a coach back to Sasebo to do dinner with Laura and Lani and reaffirm my testosterone filled manliness with a cinematic session of Die Hard 4.0, awesomely cinema's in Japan don't suffer hangups about allowing food or beverages onto their premises, so we grabbed a six pack and proceeded to sup our way through it as Mr. Willis got progressively more violent and blood stained in his pursuit of justice. Afterwards we went down to the local park and climbed onto a gazebo roof and watched the fish jump in the horribly polluted river while we philosophized. Very Dawson's Creek, no? :P

Now of course it's time to start another work week. Hooray. Yay. Woo AND Hoo. Pass the tie and call me 'sensei', I've got a whole bag of grammar, vocab and listening skills to teach before next Sunday!

Starlight and love,

Shaun.

Bring the Noise!

The fantasticness continues to amount; the Freaks and Geeks marathon continues, and now I'm down to the last three episodes- Yike! Hopefully the end of the series will purge the insane desire to listen to 70's music from my brain; it's kinda affecting my self-image.

I went down to town for some nosh and movie action, Peter and Juanita joined me in viewing Hot Fuzz which I'm glad to report is totally rockin' and most funny. It didn't quite beat out Shaun of the Dead in my opinion (not that I'm biased or anything), but the Spaced boys are still on the top of the Brit-com game. We also got to see the awesome trailer for Die Hard 4.0 (which apparently involves the still follicle-challenged Bruce Willis saving the world from computer viruses or the Y2K bug or somethin') and the not-so-awesome looking trailer for Transformers (ack! Can't the memory of those gimmicky toys just die in peace?)

In not so awesome news I booked in at the dentist for this Friday, which is probably a smart thing to do pre-travel, but also makes me tremble slightly and produces a metallic taste at the back of my mouth when I think of visiting. I need to get myself in for a haircut sometime soon too, not that I don't like my proto-'fro, but it's pretty high maintenance, and I'd rather not have to worry about seeking out commercial quantities of anti-frizz shampoo in another country. Anyway, I can still take suggestions in terms of colours, in another stroke of irony AEON allows employees to sport electric-blue hair- just as long as it's neat, clean and not accompanied by a daffy-duck tie.

Ok... bedtime, something I probably should have done a while ago, but guzzling movie-sized quantities of diet-cola seems about equivalent to putting a thermos of coffee into your system. One day I'll quit caffeine for good: probably about the same time as someone finishes reading a touching eulogy over my Nescafe-sponsored tombstone.

90% Inspiration, 10% Inovation, 26.2% Fluffy Bunnies

If you try hitting that 'next blog; button at the top of this page, chances are you'll rapidly be amazed, flummoxed, annoyed or incredulous; there's a dizzying array of purposes and personalities out there.

Of course, I'm hardly the first (or probably even the thousandth) person to start a blog about going to a foreign land. The novelty of the concept itself has assuredly vanished, and if you read enough of them even the content seems to repeat itself; rants about language barriers, jokes about vending machines, photos of bizarrely translated (or just plain bizarre) English signage.

All the same, some of the musings of these people manages to provide an engaging reading/viewing experience; I've collected some links to what I think are the most engaging such sites out there; Think of them as my 'esteemed contemporaries':

An Englishman in Osaka : He's English, he's a man and he's in Osaka. He also happens to have a great website devoted to his quirky (and very English) perception of Japan's second largest city. His photographic finds in particular are priceless.

Gaijin Smash! : You've possibly heard of this one before, seeing as it's something of a minor 'internet legend'; and possibly the 'original' (or at least most well known) 'American guy in Japan' blog. It probably helps that it's also really well written and consistently interesting.

Sushi and Maple Syrup : This one has a particular resonance with me, since Mr. LaFleur also served time as an AEON employee, in his two years he made a bunch of friends, skied a lot and got married. Yikes! :P Obviously that kind of adventure makes for some great stories. His photos are also excellent.

Tokyo Times : Ok, this one is technically cheating since it's not a 'blog' per-se, still it's far too hilarious to not mention. Few websites as adroitly highlight the 'uniqueness' of Japan as well, and I'd wager that none offer the same laugh/jaw-drop to wordcount ratio that the Tokyo Times does... check out their youtube links if you feel like taking a real head-trip.

As for me, time continues to tick by... the Japanese consulate in Melbourne still has my passport held hostage while they (presumably) verify that I've never been convicted of anything that wasn't a parking offense and/or laugh at my not-exactly-awesome passport photo. The facial holograms built into the new passports are probably a great anti-counterfeiting measure, but they aren't exactly flattering, in fact staring at my own blurry visage makes me feel slightly nauseous. I wonder if that's how I look to people who are inebriated? If so it certainly explains why they would choose my shoes to vomit on.

I went out with my parents to see Miss Potter tonight, and surprise, surprise it actually turned out to be rather good! Not that I have anything against Beatrix Potter (like generations of children in the U.K. her stories formed a cornerstone of my bedtime story material), but period-pieces aren't generally my thing. Ewan McGregor again demonstrated his amazing ability to make just about role interesting, and just about any film watchable (to me, he will forever be remembered as the man who saved Star Wars by steering episodes 1-3 into a controlled crash instead of letting them crater completely). Anyway, the point is, if you like cute bunny drawings, the English countryside, pinafores and Renee Zellweger then check it out, you won't waste your 90 minutes, and if you're one of those people still obsessing over Moulin Rouge then you also get to hear Mr. McGregor sing for a few more seconds... yay! (?)

Right, I'm off to bed, 'cause I have this thrilling plan to start a new book tonight; I'm tossing up between Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata and White Teeth by Zadie Smith... choices, choices...