Wednesday 25 September 2013

Nice car ...

Saw this beauty outside my local 7Eleven this morning ...


I'd say that's most of the cast of Anpanman, a kid's cartoon. The driver was a middle-aged office worker who gave me a sour look when she saw me photographing her car.

Come on, let those cuddly little bread-men cheer you up ...

Chris Ward
Sept 25th 2013

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Munchin' the Bugs ...

Another day, another bizarre happening here in Japan. We had a little festival in our part of town yesterday, so pre festivities we went over to a neighbour's house for a bit. There, I was plied with beer, and once suitable drunk, I was required to eat "inago".

Inago are deep-fried locusts.

Yum ....

About to enter the mouth ...
In it goes ...

And the reaction!

They don't actually taste that bad. Pretty much like deep-fried anything. The most annoying part is that the legs get stuck in your teeth. I was still pulling them out an hour later.

Here's a few shots of the festival to show how we party round my way. To be fair, the fireworks were pretty impressive.






Chris Ward
24th September 2013

Friday 20 September 2013

Construction a-go-go part 1

Next to my modest little house there used to be an overgrown wasteground area that my cat loved to hunt in. A few months back it was sold off and now it's being turned into a construction site. I'm rather sad about this but it has been fascination to watch it all change from trees, flowers and weeds into concrete and mud.

Here are a few pictures of the change so far.

 In this first picture you can see how it was before, looking from my house. All the houses in the background have now been torn down.

  
 And a sprint picture from a similar angle. That white house is to the left of the line of four in the first picture. All this (except the white house) is now soil and concrete.

 My cat, Miffy, might not appear too disgruntled, but I can assure you she is.


 The trees and vegetation has all been scrapped away and now they're preparing the land to put in big lumps of concrete. That little house with the red roof is where I live. Neither writing nor teaching are making me, the wife and the cat rich, but I enjoy both. It belongs to my school.

The digger shows up.

And the destruction begins. All these houses are coming down so they can build an access road. No idea where all the tenants went.

That line of four houses is now gone. The fifth, detached, one on the right is still there, although the tenants are gone and its been gutted. I assume at some point they'll pull it down too.



And the current state of play. The houses are gone and they're putting in drainage ditches or whatever they're called.

They're making a ton of noise outside as I write this. I'll post some more pictures in a few days.

Chris Ward
21st Sept 2013

Sunrise over Tokyo


Just got back from a little holiday in the UK and these are a couple of pictures of the sunrise over Tokyo, taken around 6am from the Haneda Airport monorail. Got back to Nagano to find that it's around 30 degrees still, quite a shock after getting to the mid teens and the endless rain back in the UK.





I guess it's nice to be back. I always get the usual longing to go home again (long term) straight after a trip home, but I think that's more to do with missing the family. Still, hopefully it won't be too long before I can get over again. Need to sell some books ...!

Chris Ward
20th September 2013