Cuillin Hills Hotel

On the 22nd July, I made the drive from Inverness to Skye. As I was in Scotland for only one week, I wanted to maximize my time there and see my Granny as much as was practically possible. Therefore, the decision was made for me to stay the night in the Tongadale Hotel in Portree – this would allow me to see my Granny on both the 22nd and 23rd July.

I do not drive in Tokyo - cars are not really required for most day to day chores and are an unnecessary expense. I enjoy driving but can see not pleasure in driving on gridlocked roads.
As I have had little ‘behind the wheel’ action over the last couple of years, I really enjoyed zipping back and forth to places in my parents’ car. The drive to Skye on the 22nd July was a pleasure, and despite being the height of the tourist season, I found nice long stretches of open road which allowed me to drive at a heady pace.

After checking in to the Tongadale Hotel, I got back in the car and drove up to see my Granny. She was generally in good spirits each time I visited and we managed to talk well and reminisce over some past events. Once I had seen my Granny, I then had to decide what I should have for dinner. I decided to go to the Cuillin Hills Hotel to eat as I had been told that it had recently been renovated. The Cuillin Hills Hotel actually has a special place in my heart for a number of reasons…..the views from the hotel are lovely, I had a part time job there as a student between the ages of 13 and 20, and it was also the place where Yuki and I had our wedding reception. Visiting the Cuillin Hills is all part of the ritual of going home and if I ever failed to visit, it would be a sign my ties with Skye are weakening.

The renovations at the hotel were very well done and looked quite classy – almost something from the Jazz Age of 1920s America. There was a sympathetic extension to the front of the hotel, a nice long wooden bar, and tastefully decorated bar area. Despite being the height of summer, the hotel seemed quiet and as it was still light, I sat on the lawn at the front of the hotel and soaked up the views and memories from years ago.

As is clear, all was well and I was impressed with the renovations, the selection of beer at the bar (including Budvar), and the professional Eastern European staff. As I decided to eat relatively early (6pm) I was able to get a table beside the window with views of Loch Portree and the distant Cuillins. I placed my order (lentil soup and a lamb dish for my main course) and gently supped my pint of McEwan’s 80. Once the soup arrived, I dispatched it with ease and wrestled with buttering the crusty roll. The roll was not too user friendly and after I had finished my soup, my table and immediate surrounds looked like an eczema convention had recently visited.Anyway, after the very pleasant soup, I was really looking forward to the lamb. Unfortunately, the lamb was more akin to mutton and whatever the sauce was, it simply did not work. Poor quality meat made worse by a dish that seemed to have been put together by a Russian submariner. I left the dish half finished and considered complaining but decided that it was not worth the stress. Everything about the hotel impressed, but was sadly let down by the food.

After my dinner at the Cuiliin Hills, I walked into town and met up with a couple of friends. We had a drink in the Merchant Bar (which is starting to look a little tatty) and then the guys (Malky, Gareth, and Iain) decided we would like some drinks in a more refined setting. We returned to the Cuillin Hills Hotel and sat in the garden for a while before refraining to the bar. Nice to see some of the boys again and a pleasure to get the craic in.

Invigoration

In Tokyo I sometimes feel like a hamster stuck in a cage - constrained by concrete with any form of nature hard to find. The place where I work (called Makuhari) really emphasizes the discomfort and underlying tension of urban life with a sterile and charmless environment. Even the bird song that can be heard is artificial and emanates from hidden speakers........

That was why I was desperate to spread my wings and get a battering by a good Scottish wind and to let my eyes be massaged by some picturesque views. It was genuinely uplifting to head to the beach near Inverness and was a great bit of exercise for us all.

I walked along the beach and did not make the return journey on foot as I wanted to sample a couple of ales in the nearby hostelry. A lovely little walk and a satisfying couple of pints. It is nice to live a little.

Scotland

The day after Clara and I arrived, I went to Holm Mills to see Neil, my friend from the Isle of Skye. After a quick hello (Neil was working that day and Holm Mills always seems busy), I transferred myself to the cafe with my newspaper for lunch and a couple of 'holiday beers'.

There surely is no better way for an expat Scot to celebrate being home than to eat a plate of haggis. Despite the fairly unusual ingredients, I love it, especially with a bit of brown sauce.

Neil dropped by my table a couple of times to chat and after lunch we stood by the banks of the River Ness for a few minutes and did our best to catch up. It is always good to see Neil - I hope we will be able to meet again at Christmas time. Unfortunately, the timing of my visit to Scotland clashed with Neil's holiday plans as he was shortly to embark on a journey to the south of England and Wales. However, there is always next time.....

Conveniently for myself, Holm Mills sells a lot of great Scottish products and souvenirs. Just before I returned to Japan, I visited the shop again to pick up gifts for some of my colleagues, friends, and family.

As you can see, the first day of my holiday was a gentle reintroduction to Scotland and a solid foundation for the remainder of my time.

Getting Ready

Clara and I have started getting our cases organised for our trip to Scotland. All the presents are packed away in the case and some clothes are neatly folder and ready for the slightly different Scottish climes.

A list has been made for all the things we would like to buy in Scotland such as:
1. Tea bags.
2. Books, books, books.
3. Stock cubes.
4. Deodorant.
5. Work shoes.
6. Lea & Perrins.
7. Pickled onions
8. etc

Our flight leaves Narita at midday and takes about 12 hours to Paris. After a couple of hours wait in Paris, we catch the plane to Aberdeen. I'm sure there will be lots of holiday blogs in the near future.

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!!!!!!!!!

Shibuya

I went to Shibuya yesterday evening to meet Lindsay, an old colleague from Deutsche Bank, and her husband who are honeymooning in Japan. Unfortunately, I arranged to meet them on Saturday 18th June. Do you see the problem? Yes, Saturday was in fact the 13th of June. I was hoping that they would turn up at 5pm yesterday at the famous Hachiko statue but they never arrived. I guess they will turn up on the 18th June which in fact is Thursday. Unfortunately, I will be working then so it doesn't look like we will be meeting up at all.

After waiting around for 30 minutes on the off chance that Lindsay and her husband would turn up, I decided to head over to the book department in Tower Records. There is a comic strip series that I wanted to buy called 'Charisma Man'. This comic series gained cult status among the male expat community in Japan around the end of the last decade. Some of the situations, although exaggerated, accurately reflect the preferential and positive discrimination that Western males often experience in this country. A few samples below: Whilst receiving such attention and preferential treatment is nice, it does lead many Western males into behavior that would not be tolerated in their home countries. There are a lot of arrogant and charmless scumbags around who have come to the conclusion that they are special and deserving of the attention they get. For most of these individuals, they are just like Charisma Man, regarded as losers and dweebs in their home countries. A lot of them are in need of a good thump.

Unfortunately, the staff at Tower Records said that 'Charisma Man' is no longer in print, so I guess I will have to do a search on Amazon or eBay if I am serious about getting a copy.

As I was in Shibuya, I decided that I might as well get a beer before heading home to Kumegawa. Unfortunately, the whole of Shibuya was flooded with people....no room to breath, no space on the pavements, impossible to walk in a straight line, lines of people queueing outside every restaurant and bar. I decided to compromise and went to The Dubliners Bar in Shinjuku for a couple of pints of Kilkenny.

I am not really a fan of The Dubliners as it is often full of Charisma Man types whose favorite topic of conversation is usually themselves. However, I got lucky and talked to an old (75) British gentleman called Patrick who I have met a few times before and who has had a long and successful relationship with Japan. He has made his career out of importing British goods to Japan and seems to have done well for himself. He has also published a couple of childrens books and started marathon running. He told me he completed the Honolulu Marathon last December. It turns out he is also the Royal Air Force representative for the British Legion in Tokyo and will meet the British Defense Secretary on his forthcoming visit to Japan. However, Patrick is planning to put the pressure on the Defense Secretary as he is unhappy that some British politicians have claimed expenses in lieu of donations made to the UK armed forces benevolent funds.

Anyway, an ultimately unsuccessful trip to Shibuya as I was unable to meet up with my former colleague and Charisma Man.

In the meantime, another busy week at work beckons and the excitement is continuing to build for the trip to Scotland. Clara has a nice new suitcase and can't wait for her holiday to start.

Indian Food

Since it is Mother's Day in Japan, Clara suggested that we ate out tonight. We went to a new Indian restaurant called Noah's Ark that is about 1 minutes walk from our flat. Really great food made more delicious as we had a voucher that gave us 50% off the bill. A nice way to end the weekend before I make the trip away to Makuhari for another week at work.

It has been a pretty good weekend. I had a quiet night at home on Friday and was asleep by 10.30pm. On Saturday I spent a long time cleaning the blinds in the living room. Although they looked okay before I cleaned them, I was a bit shocked to see the cloth turn black as I wiped away the 5 years of accrued dirt and city grime. They are now in tip top shape and should be ok for a couple more years. On Saturday evening I went into Shinjuku, the center of Tokyo, to meet a Hungarian friend and a Scottish friend who used to be in my primary school in the Isle of Skye. Today (Sunday) Clara and I washed the doors to our balcony, another big job but fun to do it with Clara and a good chance to bond. Quite a productive weekend and hopefully I am now in Yuki's good books.

I'll probably book my flight back to Scotland next week. Clara will stay in Scotland for 3 weeks while I will stay only 1 week. I am starting to look forward to several nice long ambles through the large Tesco supermarket in Inverness and will shortly start writing my shopping list: deodorant, tea bags, shoes, stock cubes, brown sauce.........I don't really miss many things from Britain and am quite accustomed to what is available in Japan. The only thing I really miss is the bacon - you cannot get comparable bacon in Japan.

Work has been fairly busy of late and next week we are holding our yearly conference which will mean a welcome change to the routine. Right, I'd better start packing my bag for another week away in Makuhari. Bye for now.

Fishing - Okutama / The Tamagawa River

As I was working over Golden Week whilst every other person in the country was on holiday, Yuki and her family (plus friend Megumi) decided to have a day out fishing over the weekend, on Saturday 2nd May. We went to Okutama, about 90 minutes drive from our home in Tokyo. The countryside was surprisingly nice and reminded me of a cycle that I once done to a place called Kaneyama. I was expecting there to be hundreds of other people there due to our proximity to Tokyo, but it was not as busy as I had feared and it was generally a relaxing experience.

The only disappointment was that it was fishing Japan style. I was expecting the traditional battle of man against nature. The hunter against wily fish who knew the best places to hide and were discerning with the bait they went for. Not to be - every hour or so, a couple of blokes would come along with buckets of tiddlers and empty them into the river. I suspect that Japanese rivers have no actual marine life whatsover. Little wonder due to the damming of every single river in Japan (bar one in Shikoku) and the fondness for bulldozing river beds and covering them in concrete. Grrrrrrr!!!!! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you are interested in scenery, flora and fauna, there are plenty of other countries you should visit before Japan. Sorry Japan, that is the way I and many other foreign residents feel.

Despite confirmation that the only marine life in the river originated from plastic buckets, we did actually have a nice time. We had lots of food and drink, and relaxed in the warm sunshine beside the burbling Tamagawa River. Very civilised! The pleasant day was further extended when we stopped off at a popular noodle restaurant for some curry noodles and another glass of beer.A lovely day out, but a cloud was hanging over my head as I knew that while I would be working the following week, every other Tom, Dick, and Harry would be on holiday.

Footsal

A couple of months ago, whilst drinking in my local bar, I met a guy from Indonesia who owns a nearby Indonesian restaurant called Makashi. As a fan of Indonesian food, a couple of weeks later Yuki, Clara and I all went to the restaurant for a lovely meal. I then went to the upstairs bar called Samasama for a few 'shandies'. It turned out that the owner of the restaurant has organised a Footsal tournament on the 26th April and I was invited to play for the restaurant team.

As I have never played Footsal before, I was a bit worried about the rules. However, the apprehension was unjustified and I was soon to discover that Footsal is essentially 5-a-side football. I was pretty excited to have the chance to play football again after a long hiatus, and was keen to show off my skills. However, things did not go as well as planned, I pulled a muscle after 20 seconds, was exhausted after 1 minute, and the limited footballing skills I thought I had were nowhere to be seen. To add insult to injury (my pulled muscle), all the other Japanese players were fit and displayed some great skills. Despite the fact that the actual football did not go as well as I had hoped, the after match party was a lot of fun and I met a lot of really nice people. Makashi is a great place to eat and drink and I am sure to be a regular visitor there in future. Good fun.

Tokyo Tower and Metropolitan Govt Building

We had a really nice day out yesterday (Saturday 11th April). Clara had requested to visit Tokyo Tower and climb up the steps. Up until yesterday, I had never been inside / up the tower so Yuki and I thought it was a great idea. It was also a beautiful day with blue skies and a nice cool breeze - spring is well and truly here and the summer heat is just around the corner.

The last time I visited Tokyo Tower was with Neil, a friend from Skye. We decided against climbing the tower because of the very long queue of people waiting to enter. There was also a long queue yesterday but as we were not taking the lift to the top, we could enter straight away and start our climb up the steps. Good exercise for us all and some nice views from the main observatory.

I was a bit peeved at the way the operators tried to squeeze every last ¥ (yen) out of us. I had thought that our initial entrance fee would allow us to climb to the very top, but it only got us to the main observatory. To climb to the secondary observatory would cost an additional ¥600 each. I really wanted to get to the highest possible point but really was not going to pay any extra.Still the views were still very interesting and I was reminded what a monster Tokyo is - urban sprawl stretching as far as the eye could see. Clara also had fun playing on some of the amusements at the base of the tower and beat me at a game of air hockey.

After Tokyo Tower, Clara and I went to a cafe while Yuki did some shopping. We then went for some dinner at an Italian restaurant which we all enjoyed. Clara was full of energy and spent a lot of time running around outside the restaurant after dinner. The restaurant is in a kind of amphitheater below a large office building so we could watch her running around like a lunatic and exploring. The exercise was really needed for her as she managed to eat a massive margherita pizza followed by a piece of chocolate cake.

Yuki then suggested that we visit the nearby Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Building, popular with tourists and locals alike for the views from the top. As it was nighttime by then, we were treated to all the colourful Tokyo lights. Tokyo is pretty by night and ugly by day.

All in all, we had a great day together and I will have some fond memories to keep me going through the week while I am away from home. Golden Week, a week with 3 or 4 national holidays beckons towards the end of April and the start of May. I will probably have to work most of it but will try and get a day off so that we can all go fishing together. I'll keep you posted.

Tokyo Tower

Cherry Blossom Time (again)

It's cherry blossom time again - another sign of the relentless passing of the years in Japan. Cherry blossoms fill me with equal amounts of pleasure and sadness. Pleasure at the fantastic beauty of it all and sadness at how fleeting the appearance of the blossom is. A metaphor for life itself for many Japanese people (and the long term expat community).

I'm glad I have managed to sample a brief moment of the cherry blossom mania that grips Japan each year. Yesterday Yuki, Clara and I went to Koganei Park, a short journey from our house, to have our own little hanami (Japanese for cherry blossom viewing party). We bought some snacks and a couple of beers and lazed around in the park for an hour or so along with thousands of other people. Yuki told me that there are about 1,700 cherry in Koganei Park so it is obviously a good place to visit around cherry blossom time. There were various stalls selling food and games for the masses. A local pizza company even had the ingenuity to walk among the crowds taking orders - good idea but how on earth they would manage to deliver the correct pizzas to the right group has been vexing me for the past day. Must have been chaotic.After sitting on our mat, we took a stroll and then Clara and I played tennis for a bit. Sora (our little mutt) was very popular and got a lot of attention.

After we returned home, we had dinner together and then I went into Shibuya to meet an old colleague and some former students from the Japan Bank of International Development (JBIC). We had a good time chatting and had a few beers at TGI Fridays. After that we went to karaoke for an hour and then there was a mad rush to the station to catch the train home.  With work and family responsibilities, I rarely venture into town and am a bit of a hermit these days. Quite a change from my life back in Britain, and not a positive change in my opinion. I really should make an effort to socialise more......

Today there was the local Kumegawa cherry blossom carnival. We are really lucky that our balcony overlooks the street where the mini Rio-esque style parade takes place. Great to just stand there and watch the scantily clad ladies jiggle by. 

And now work beckons once more. Last week was really busy and I have a pile of work waiting on my desk for me to get stuck in to. 

Hope all is well with the readers, if indeed there are readers. Will post another blog soon.

Weathernews - Foreign Staff

The President of Weathernews has recently been nominated for some international award. As a result of this, he wanted to have a picture with the non-Japanese staff at Weathernews. Quite a motley crew! Staff in the photo are from a number of countries - Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, USA, Germany, Scotland, Korea, China, Poland, England, Italy, and Indonesia.

Weekend soon so Yuki, Clara and I plan to go and have some Indonesian food on Saturday night. Really looking forward to that and I may let you know how that goes. Bye for now.

Adatara Forest Park

We just got back from a long weekend at Adatara Forest Park in Fukushima Prefecture. Friday 20th March was a Japanese national holiday to to mark the spring equinox. Although the days will get longer, I really fail to notice when living in Tokyo.

We left at a Kane-friendly time of 9am on Friday morning and arrived at Adatara in the early afternoon. To be honest, there is very little to say about our visit there. It was lovely to escape the concrete of Tokyo and also visit a new place. I visited the onsen a couple of times and also had a sauna which was quite revitalising.

The evenings were spent eating, drinking and chatting. As you will see from the photo, the lodge that we stayed in had a wood burning stove. I appointed myself chief fire officer and busied myself lighting, fueling, and cleaning the fire. The main drawback of the fire was having to pay an extortionate amount of money for wood to fuel the stove. Not only was the wood extortionate, but the standard bundle would only be enough to burn for 3 or 4 hours. Feeling slightly cheated, I resorted to scouring the surrounding forest for free of charge firewood. Not only was this wood free, but it also burned strongly.And now only a few hours of the long weekend are left. I will again have to pack my bag and think about work again on Monday. Work has been quite nice over the last 2 weeks or so. I have been leaving around 6pm every day and managing to enjoy myself one way or another. I'll try and go to the gym a couple of times next week and am thinking about watching the new Tom Cruise film (Valkyrie) which has just been released in Japan.

iPhone

Hello everyone. I am the proud owner of an iPhone. Here are my new contact details.

09094288503
kanedavidson (at) i.softbank.jp

I will leave these details up for about a week and then remove from the blog.

Cheers
Kane

Ready, Steady, Cook

On the Saturday 28th Feb, we all visited the Ecole de Cuisine et Nutrition Hattori in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Yuki's brother, Kentaro, used to work for a credit company but grew tired of office life and decided to throw caution to the wind and train to be a chef. He's been training now for the last two years and I think will soon start work at a French restaurant. 

Saturday was an open day where the students got a chance to impress visitors with the fruits of their labour. There were a lot of people there and a lot of displays to get through - I felt a bit like Alan Partridge at Swaffham County Fayre. Kentaro's creation is the picture at the top of the page.

There were a lot of oddities on display which always adds a bit of interest. The oddity that caught my eye was this roast chicken, which looked like it should be behind doors in Area 51. A bit odd!Still, there were a lot of great exhibits that obviously took a long time to complete. A lot of the students presented 'French' or 'European' style food, but I was much more impressed with the simplicity of the Japanese foodstuffs.

Perhaps my favourite display was that of a Japanese garden. As you can see below, the detail is quite fantastic! Rice for gravel, sushi for the river bed and path, red fish for flowers, and small cuts of sashimi for paving slabs. Very impressive, even if I do detest fish! I would love to know how many hours were spent preparing that. Clara began to tire of traipsing through the many rooms of food, so we decided to wait outside while the other members of our group finished the inspection. As we were making our way out, we stumbled upon a display of wedding cakes, my favourite being the cake modeled on a horse racing course. Wow! Anyway, that's it for now.

Books and Art

My silence in the blogosphere accurately indicates a lack of things to report. Work is busy but enjoyable, Yuki has had a bad cold this week but seems to  be getting better, and I am coming to the end of a long weekend after having had the day off on Friday.

It is rare for me to visit central Tokyo, so it was nice to hop on a quiet midday train on Friday and make the journey into Shinjuku. Whenever I visit Shinjuku, the first location to visit is always Kinokuniya Book Shop. The shop has a healthy range of titles and I usually pick up a few books on each visit. On Friday though, nothing much seemed to inspire me and I was loathe to spend ¥2,000 on a book that risked being put down after a few pages. A lot of books can be fairly expensive to buy in Japan, so you really need to be sure you want to read one before making a purchase. Nothing really grabbed my attention but I ended up buying 'Kidnapped' by Robert Louis Stevenson and a book called 'In the Company of Heroes' by Michael Durant, a helicopter pilot who was shot down and captured in Mogadishu, Somalia. Both were pretty inexpensive, especially 'Kidnapped' which was only about ¥400. It was interesting to note that a lot of the old classics sell at a considerably less price than books recently published. I will be taking advantage of that fact next time I make a visit. 

After Kinokuniya, I walked back towards the train station and stopped off in the Dubliners Bar for a few pints. I don't really like the place to be honest, but it is convenient and lets me enjoy an overpriced pint of Kilkenny. 

The unexpected highlight of the weekend was visiting the local Higashimurayama Town Office to look at selected art work produced by local children. There are tens of primary schools in the area and therefore only 2 children from each class had their art work displayed. Clara was one of only two kids selected from her class to have a picture displayed and was therefore feeling a bit proud of herself.

As the pictures will attest, some of the art work was fantastic. It was hard to believe that some of the work was produced by primary school students. Perhaps I was more impressed than most of the other visitors as I have always been appalling at art. In my final year of mandatory art classes at Portree High School, I was ranked 116th out of the 117 students in my year. Number 117 was off sick for the year. When I return to Scotland and meet some of my old school friends, they often make a passing remark (along with a smirk) about the art work I used to produce. Perhaps my finest work was a packet of digestive biscuits.

The weekend is almost over and therefore I will be taking the usual early morning train across Tokyo to my job and small apartment in Chiba. I have been enjoying my work recently which is refreshing although I do not relish having to sort through about 300 emails when I return. 

I'll try and do an update soon. Although the long weekend is over, in less than a month we will all spend 3 days in the Fukushima countryside at a log cabin which has a nice onsen nearby. Not too long to wait until then.

The Leopard Man

I would have perhaps have hoped that the Isle of Skye would have been on TV in Japan for the scenery, wildlife, history, food, or locally made whisky. However, Skye hit the small screen for an altogether different reasons last week. The popular variety TV show The Best House 1-2-3 did a feature on the Leopard Man of Skye. I have always thought that the whole story was a bit creepy and that has not changed.Fortunately, it seems the Leopard Man has finally been tamed and now lives in sheltered housing in Broadford. I will have to buy him a pint in the King Hakaan Bar sometime.

Tokorozawa Aviation Museum

We all had a thoroughly enjoyable day today. Yuki, Clara, and I paid a visit to Tokorozawa Aviation Museum and the adjacent park. The weather was lovely - clear blue skies and a warm sun which made ambling round the park quite a pleasure. Sora seems to be learning how to walk properly on the lead and even had the self confidence to growl at a couple of passing dogs.

I was really pleased to get an aviation 'fix' and I really enjoyed seeing the YS-11 (left) aircraft which was domestically produced in Japan and also seeing a C-46 Commando (top) for the first time. Ever since I was a kid, I always thought the C-46 was a cool looking plane and I can now add it to the list of aircraft I have seen first hand. After looking at the YS-11 and C-46 which were displayed outside, we went into the museum and looked around inside for an hour or so. Clara liked looking inside some of the aircraft and having a shot of the flight simulator. On my turn on the simulator, I did a kamikaze attack on the airport control tower - not sure what the people who were watching me thought......

To cap what was a very enjoyable day, the three of us went to a monjayaki restaurant near our house for a cheap but delicious dinner. Admittedly, it does look like a pavement pizza, but I am sure it is much more tasty. Now I am debating whether to pop out for a couple of beers to put the icing on what was a great Saturday. No big plans for Sunday but I predict it may be a bit of a lazy day. Next week will be slightly easier as I will have a 3 day weekend so hopefully more fun and games to follow soon.

New Year's Day and beyond...

A welcome change to recent New Years in Japan was the fact that the whole family (including Clara) stayed up for the countdown to New Year. That felt a bit special, although I am never in my best form during the Festive Season in Japan as I feel like I am missing a lot of fun back in Scotland. The next Festive Season will be different though, as we will all return to Scotland for a couple of weeks as Joep will be 60 years old on 28th December. Even though that is a year away, I am starting to look forward to it already.

However, New Year's Day was nice nonetheless and it was spent relaxing, eating, drinking, and singing karaoke from the new microphone and software bought for the Nintendo Wii. My excuse for not singing was that I had a sore throat. We ate the traditional soba on New Year's Day (thank you Satoshi) and then slowly worked through the rest of the food and wine.

The best part of my 9 days off was simply spending time at home. I now spend most of my time working at Weathernews and then by myself in my small Makuhari apartment. The time spent at home was greatly valued.

On the 2nd January, we all went to Hon Kawagoe to make the yearly visit to a temple to pray/wish for good fortune throughout the year. Clara's wish was that I would find a job closer to Kumegawa so that I would not have to live in Makuhari. That really is pressure!

Happy New Year - 2009

Belated Happy New Year to you all! Apologies for not posting an update sooner. My 9 days off work between the 27th December and 4th January were fantastic and the only holidays I have had since June. As is usual, the 9 days disappeared in the blink of an eye and I now find myself back at work with the pressures building. The first half of 2009 promises to be a tough period at work so I will have to steel myself and get on with it.

We travelled up to Shimogo on the 27th December and were all looking forward to seeing Minami-Aizu again and meeting up with some old friends. I really used to love the harsh winters in Shimogo. The heavy snow made each winter day feel like an adventure and created picture postcard landscapes. During the course of our drive to Shimogo, Yuki and I came to the conclusion that we would both happily live in Shimogo permanently if we could secure jobs like the ones we have in Tokyo. A dilemma that is probably common around the world.

Our first task upon arrival in Shimogo was to meet up with Miyu-chan, one of Clara's best friends from Shimogo Nursery School. The meeting was very brief, but they had 5 minutes or so to chat and exchange presents. I hope Clara manages to keep in touch with some Shimogo friends as the time she spent there was a really important part of her life.

After Clara's rendezvous, the three of us killed a little time and went to a newly opened coffee shop in the 'center' of Shimogo. Yuki and Clara stayed a short time and then drove to their hotel at the nearby hot spring resort of Ashinomaki. The lady in the coffee shop was very chatty and kind and did not mind me mooching around for another 2 hours while I waited to meet up with Tomo and Satoshi at 6pm. Despite me being the only customer there, and perhaps being the only customer she had all day (judging by the lack of footprints in the snow leading to the front door), she gave me a free pizza.

There seemed to be a handful of new restaurants since our last visit to Shimogo. Apparently, since a new road has opened which links Shimogo to Shirakawa, the local economy has improved. I have my doubts whether there will be any long term benefit and suspect that Shimogo will only see more through traffic with few visitors stopping or staying for the night. I have my own personal reasons for disliking the new road - it has been built along one of my favourite former cycling routes. The countryside along the route was really special and gave me a chance to escape all the construction that has blighted other parts of the area. Now, there will be the usual juggernauts billowing out sooty smoke and rubbish strewn along the road. Anything new that has been built using concrete is termed "progress" in Japan. It doesn't matter what cost there is to the environment. I know I sound like a broken record, but if the Japanese countryside is to have a future, then it needs to remain special. These projects are another nail in the coffin of rural Japan.

Just before 6pm, I left the cozy coffee shop (with nice log fire) and trudged up to Wakatsuki restaurant in the thick snow. Feeling like Scott of the Antarctic, I was glad to make a return to Wakatsuki to meet up with Tomo and Satoshi. The only problem was that I had to return to my minshuku in Yunokami onsen at 10pm. This is the latest that a taxi is available and meant only having 4 hours to catch up on the Shimogo gossip. However, Satoshi phoned his sister who kindly agreed to drive my back to Yunokami at midnight. That was much appreciated and allowed me an extra 2 hours of time in Wakatsuki.

After being dropped off at my minshuki (Ebisuya), I went up to my room to find it freezing. I had planned to read for a while but it was so cold I got straight into my futon. I didn't sleep well to be honest - the room must have been sub-zero!!! It was only when I got up the next day that I noticed the heater in my room. Doh! The best part of any hotel, minshuku or ryokan in the local area are the onsens (hot springs). The onsen at Ebisuya was satisfyingly scalding and removed the chill from my bones which had built up during the night. Lovely!! The photo was taken from my room just before Yuki picked me up - an ever thickening blanket of snow.

And that was that! A short visit to Shimogo, but a pleasant visit none the less. I have no idea when we will visit next - perhaps I can arrange a hill walking or camping trip sometime in the summer with my old colleagues.