Canon EOS Kiss X5 / 600D

Proud to say that after breaking my old Olympus DSLR on the ferry across Hong Kong harbour, I have now found a replacement. As per the title of this blog, it is the Canon 600D, known as the EOS Kiss X5 in Japan.

I have to say that it is a fantastic camera which really does take my breath away. In comparison to my old Olmypus, the photos appear much better and despite the size, it seems a little lighter. I have not had time to read the manual yet, so it will be on automatic mode until I find out more.

Mark and I have visited Inverness Airport a couple of times and have managed to get some great shots. Further updates to come shortly.

Camera for Scotland

Looks like we will all have a quiet weekend at home. Now it is only 2 weeks until Clara and I fly off to Scotland - we are both excited to be going back and it will be great to escape the stifling summer heat for a while.

Clara will stay in Scotland for 3 weeks so she needs a simple point-and-shoot camera to record all the things she gets up to. We bought a Panasonic Lumix FX-40 today and I have to say it looks pretty good and seems to have a high spec. I may start neglecting my Olympus SLR if the new Lumix works as well as it looks.

We are all going out tonight for monjayaki (a savory type Japanese pancake-like dish) so I may take along the new camera and see if it works.

::"#$%&!!¥ - GOD!!!!! The camera only has a Japanese language option.....arghhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Olympus E-500

I'm hoping that the quality of pictures on this blog will dramatically improve as I'm now the proud owner of a new Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera. This camera was a gift from the Minami Aizu education office for my 3 years service in the JET Programme. Unfortunately, the manual is in Japanese so it might take me some time to work out how to take a decent photograph.

We had our official goodbye party on Friday night in a place called Baichikan in Tajima Town. Along with my camera, I received a certificate and a bunch of flowers (which I promptly gave away to another English teacher).

The party was nice enough but a bit of an anticlimax. After the party, all the other ALTs and myself headed off to karaoke for a short time and then it was time to go home.

This will be my final week at Shimogo JHS before my contract comes to an end. I'll be sad saying goodbye to the students but I'm sure I'll bump into some of them during my final 8 months in Shimogo.

This week has started in a relaxed fashion as today is a Japanese national holiday called Marine Day. Japan has a total of 14 national holidays - Marine Day is the newest and started in 1996 as a day to celebrate the sea.