The People's Page...

Mr Hori Sensei... Mine's another sake!

Heeeeyyyyyy Marrrrk! She makes the best pancakes and invented flushtones... (we all love her)

Bretto dude...

She's more Japanese than your average Japanese person... in fact in her previous life she was Japanese...

Crazy Brit girl Jen...

And sensible Brit guy Matt Baggins II

He can sing a great version of Seasame Street with a French accent.... Christoph


Closet Coldplay fan... Tokyo Tim

My great friends at Onoda Kougyou (Matsuda Sensei and Hiromi Sensei)

Vorsprung durch teknik...

My new car...

That's one sexy mean machine!! Unfortunately I have to wait until the end of November to collect it as the current owner is moving to China.... Damm :(

Nerdy facts:

0 to 60 mph: 4 minutes
Top speed: Not quick enough to outrun the Japanese Police
Model: Sabaru Impretza scaled down roadworthy version called the 'Vivivio' (something like that - even Japanese people havent heard of it)
Gaijin pulling power: 6/10 (this is no ordinary box shaped compact Japanese car - look at that sleek sexiness!)
Gaijin bargaining power to buy the car: 9.5/10 (£250 discount through my good looks and British cheekiness)
Primary concerns: Why was it so cheap? and why is the owner fleeing the country?
Things you might find on the back seat: A screwed up Chinese restaurant menu, another Chinese person trying to get back to China!
Fluffy dice or nodding dog: Nodding dog

Live Fish Meal...

To the untrained eye this looks like a nicely presented fish on a plate in a restaurant. Well, you'd almost be right, except this fish (we'll call him Berty for the sake of this entry) came to a short end just before ending up on my plate. Well, that isn't strictly true because Berty was still alive and kicking on my plate! Unfortunately I lost the movie file that I took on my phone, but trust me, his head was still flipping... Having done my best to eat what I could, picking with my chopsticks, I looked down and noticed a tiny heart beating in the soy sauce. I guess this was like an acid bath ending for the poor guy (SORRY!). It was still warm too ... RIP Bert. Do I like sashimi? The fresher the better :)



Not content with eating live fish, crazy Japanese people then enjoy the carcass remains deep fried which is quickly bought back to you... Time to leave said restaurant methinks. The acquarium sized fish tanks on the way in should have started alarm bells ringing! I kid you not this really happened.

I will add this to my list of crazy food to try in Japan including: raw horse meat (expensive and overated), whole deep fried miniture crabs (yes shells and all - very tasty), nattou (small globulous brown sticky beans that smell like pooh and taste like earwax), fish guts (rank smell, rank taste), Whale (sorry if this is controversial, but man it tastes good if not highly priced).

Yamaguchi Kencho

It's so hard being an ALT. You have to visit kencho in Yamaguchi every so often.

As long as they are willing to keep paying me to go to conferences, I will attend.

A Day Out in Shimonoseki

Followed by a visit to the awesome Kaikyo Yume Tower...

Unfortunately it was difficult to get pictures from the top, but the views were stunning, looking across to Kyushu and back across at Yamaguchi. The windows badly need a clean!

Nerdy facts:

The spherical glass-covered observatory at the apex is the first of its kind in the world.

The diameter of the tower's sphere is 21m

8,700 sheets of glass were used in the construction of the tower (I wonder how many of those got broken in the process?)

The tower has 611 lights

The transparent elevator travels at 120m/min

And a lost in translation moment on the way back... We think this was supposed to read 'food halls' judging by what was inside.