A cleaner Paris for Yu and Ai

This photograph from the Raw Japan blog by Reuters shows a Japanese volunteer holding out rubbish collected from the streets of Paris.
Not another fetish. The volunteers just seemed to think it could be cleaner. I suppose it could.

The Reuters blog offers an interesting range of Japan based stories, and a wide range of blogs on other areas.

Arrows

Succeoの皆さん、一年間ありがとうございました。（ちょっと遅いけど、ね）

Spring comes to the garden

R U KY?

Was asked how to say "KY" in English (as English as those letters may seem, they are also used in Japanese). Interesting article here about the acronym culture in young Japan.

Be Prepared

It has been beautiful for the past few days. You can feel the hot summer coming, but it's not here yet and neither are the insects.

As the season changes, we change the contents of our emergency backpacks. These are the bags that we hope we will have a chance to grab after the quake that we hope our building is strong enough to stand up to.

Lighter clothes, a change of bottled water, larger nappies and dammit, I forgot the bottle of Scotch!

Mochi

An evangelist meeting? Day of the dead? Not at all. On the day when a North Korean missile was fired over the north of Japan, a small town in Aichi had a Mochi catching festival..

Mochi is cooked rice beaten into a thick paste and formed into small cakes. Today's festival was held at a local shrine where local people gathered to catch mochi cakes which were thrown from a raised stage.

I went to the Honen Festival a few years ago and as rock hard mochi rained down from the skies, someone grabbed my shell toe trainers thinking they were mochi and nearly sent me flying. These events get a little hectic.

As the crowd dispersed and the last mochi bagged, we noticed that one bag of mochi was stuck in a tree. Some very energetic throwing. It was a vary happy young farmer's son who caught them when they were eventually prised free.

Nice To Meet You

This is a self introduction from a friend Ben.
はじめまして。
benと言います。
私のblogは何気ない日常を切り取った写真を載せています。
気ままに知らない街を散歩しするのがとても楽しみです。
たまにイラストも描いています。
blogからリンクしてますので、ぜひ覗いてみてください。
コメント大歓迎です。
Hi.
I'm Ben.
My photo's are from my wanderings around town. I also have an illustration blog which is linked to the photo blog. Please have a look and make a comment.
See Ben's photos HERE.

Dusky

Smorgasbord Of The Day

Lens/sensor dirt on blossom shot. Time to clone! Today was a dash from a meeting at school to meet the photography club members and their multitude of cameras. Some nice shots, some so-so, but the real highlight of the day was chatting to four elementary schoolgirls who wanted to see my photos of the carp.

"Say something in English!"

"(in english) O.K... What do you want me to say?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means 'What do you want me to say'."

"I don't understand. Are you foreign?"

Fantastic! I worked for five years in Japanese Elementary schools and had forgotten how enjoyable it is talking to that age group.

Thank you, Esther.

My sister told me that it was impossible to see the one that got away in the last post with the picture at such a small size. Here is a blow-up.

While I was using the photo software to trim the picture, I thought I'd give the auto adjust feature a whirl and this is what came out.
After looking at this, the original seems very dull. A bit like living on un-seasoned potatoes for years then discovering cup noodle. The MSG of the photography world, which a nature photographer friend swears that they never use.

The one that got away...

Look carefully.
Taken in Central park (a stip of concrete with some water and trees and a damn big tower) in the middle of Nagoya yesterday.

Gasshuku

Guest's slippers lined up outside the dining room in a Japanese hotel (Ryokan).

The school year in Japan begins in April and ends in March. From April this year I will be a full time member of staff at a private high school in Nagoya. Responsibilities and the exciting chance to do lots of unpaid overtime abound! I have been asked to develop some form of international communication/exchange (more on that in another post) and on top of many other things I must take part in the various committees and meetings that exist outside the classroom. One of these is the 青年部 (sei-nen-bu = young teachers group).

I was 36 this march, but the sei-nen-bu does not concern itself simply with age. Most new teachers to the school have automatic membership and the purpose of the group is to support these new members using the perhaps over relied upon 'Senpai-Cohai' (senior-junior) method. Last Friday, the group went on it's end of year 'Gasshuku', a drinking session cleverly disguised as a training meeting, where teachers old and new discussed their successes and failures throughout the past year in front of the new staff (four nervous looking university graduates).

It's an exciting time for me. I always wanted to know just how far I could get on my own ability, not just selling my foreignness. The photography studio work was one experience that proved to me that some people just think about the way you work, not just about your nationality. Now I have a job with roughly the same contract as the Japanese teachers again given to me on the basis of hard work not just nationality. In the current economic climate I thought that this was a very brave move by the school. I am a little sad that I had to drop the studio work, but having a child changes things dramatically and there are always opportunities in new situations.

I arrived late for the meetings. My lift was held up at school with re-tests, whereas my one re-test student finished by 10am. The dinner and the after dinner party were fairly routine but good fun. I look to the new year with some trepidation but mostly with the feeling that here is a chance to learn and produce something worthwhile.

Bathroom Colours

St. Patrick's Day Parade?

The Nagoya St. Patrick's Day parade takes place on two roads in the covered shopping streets between Osu and Kamimaezu. The parade starts at Osu Cannon Temple and heads east, then makes a U-turn and heads back.
While walking east, I decided to skip to the parallel street and skirt the crowd to get to the front of the parade. Instead, I ran into the 'Free Tibet' march being held in the same shopping arcade at the same time as the parade. "What would be the chance of them bumping into each other?", I thought.
Sadly the Tibet group passed by the road that the St. Patrick's group were to exit from two minutes too fast for there to be a meeting. I think that the Tibet march leader started walking that bit faster when I asked him about the likelihood of an encounter. I must have sounded too much like a culture/political paparazzi.

And then the final mystery, the Indian film crew. One guy with a digital movie camera and an actor using the parade as a backdrop, walking around and looking bemused/aloof/mystical etc etc. What were they attempting to suggest with this location? Never got time to ask, but one of the assistants told me that the Japanese girl who was sometimes in shot was the (ex?) miss Japan. More mystery.

Ultraman to the rescue

In response to the PRK's (supposedly) forthcoming missile test, Japan has unveiled it's latest in a new series of micro missiles, the Ultraman 1! This will in turn destroy any airborne threat and give the cute factor to this whole ugly arms business. A crowd-pleaser all round!

Gocchi

The economic slump is hitting the home-grown fast food market it seems. I am sure that the Gyu-don O-mori is smaller than it used to be. Boiled strips of cow meat flavored with onions and sauce on top of a bed (futon?) of rice. A raw egg mixed in for the extra flavor. The chain 'Yoshinoya' even has a stamp card to reward loyal customers. They must be the people we hear about so much on T.V, those sufferers of 'Metabo' (Metabolic Syndrome).

Me? Just late home after the full day then a part time job, making the end meat.

Uniqlock

Annoyingly watchable, the Uniqlock from Japan's clothing chain Uniqlo. Best viewed without sound.

Generations

Mum wanted to come and visit. Couldn't wait for us to go to England. We took a train down to the inlaws a few days into her jet-lag.

My feelings do not matter

Partial portraiture. A teacher sits during his students graduation.
"My feelings do not matter in the slightest degree. If they did, I should not have become a teacher." (Magister Kegel - The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald)

Taisho