Oh yeah, I live in Japan...

I was NOT in the mood for yoga tonight. So instead, to get my heart rate up, I dragged my lazy bones out for a night-time power walk around the neighbourhood. After all, I have to get in training for that 100km dealio in May.
My circuit reminded me what a cool area I live in. There are so many great little bars and restaurants that only come alive after dark. I'm such an early bird that I tend to completely forget about the city's nightlife.
I was especially taken aback when I walked right by a kimono-clad and fully made-up figure heading out for a night of geisha-ing. I shouldn't have been so surprised - I was in Ginza after all. But in all my years in Japan, I've never actually seen a geisha leaving for work before. It was spitting rain, so she even had the traditional red paper umbrella; just like the one you got, little bro.
I wish I had had the wherewithall to take a picture - it was one of those 'one moment in time' things that you could only experience over here. But, it probably wouldn't have been appropriate anyway.
That little encounter really made me stop and think, "Oh yeah, I live in Japan. Ain't that great!" It's a surprisingly easy thing to forget as you go about your daily work routine and pursue mostly the same activities on the weekends that you would anywhere else in the world.
You see, even walking can be a form of yoga - my little stroll ended up bringing me completely back into the now. Oohhhhhhhmmmmm...

Kit Kat

During the university entrance exam season in Japan, sales of "Kit Kat" chocolate go through the roof. This is because the name sounds similar to the Japanese expression "Kitto Katsu!" This could be translated roughly as, "You'll definitely pass!"
Japanese consumers are crazy for nothing if not new versions of an old standard and regional specialties. Thus, a whole array of unusal Kit Kats go on sale around this time of year... strawberry, cherry blossom, orange...etc. etc.
However, I think the makers outdid themselves this year: I give you "Green Tea Kit Kat" and "Soy Sauce Kit Kat" (available only in the Osaka area). They were both surprisingly good - the green tea was definitely not for sweet tooths; it was yummily bitter. And the soy sauce gave the white chocolate a salt and pepper vibe, not unlike those posh 3-euro pink-pepper corn chocolate bars so popular in Ireland before the economy imploded.

Cirque du Soleil

The performance of Zed was fantastic - not as mindblowingly good as Allegria, but I think nothing they do will ever top that show.
Among all the amazing feats, the scariest had to be the tightrope walking. They do that stuff with no safety net or wire! I was sweating and my heart was in my mouth - and I was the one sitting down.
By the way, my seats kicked ass. Considering the tickets were a bonus gift to employees from the company, I expected my nose to bleed profusely. But there I found myself 10th row and centre right on an aisle.
This turned out to be the exact spot where the clowns come and do their schtick while the audience take their seats. So correction, the clowns were by far the scariest thing in the show: the spotlight follows the clowns through the crowd and lands on the poor members of the audience they choose to humiliate to keep the masses entertained before the performance begins.
My advice to those intending on seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance some time in the future? Don't sit at an aisle in a if you are allergic to either bright lights or clown groin. Enough said.

Best danish ever

So as is my wont, I arrived obsessively, compulsively early for the Cirque du Soleil show. The new purpose-built theatre is right beside Tokyo Disneyland, behind the Disney Ambassador Hotel.
With plenty of time to kill, I headed to one of the many overpriced themed restaurants in the resort. I am usually kind of against the whole Disney experience; I find the whole "Happiest Place on Earth" thing forced, plastic and somehow creepy.
HOWEVER, the hotel served the best Mickey-shaped (teehee) strawberry danish I have ever tasted: fresh out-of-the-oven pastry, lightly sweetened vanilla custard and oodles of fresh strawberries. Not a dollop of sticky jam or rank jelly in sight.
I would go back just for the dessert... oh, and the self-playing grand pianos, which I always think are really cool.

One of these kids is not like the other

I saw this photo and a little part of me died inside. I'm the eejit on the end, by the way. I don't know why I allow myself to act the fool around coworkers and bosses. At the time, it's all about cracking myself up, but then the consequences of my actions come back to haunt me when the photo threatens to be published in the company magazine that gets sent not just to our 800 employees, but to all 6,200 in the group.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, I went skiing in Iwate last weekend!
It was not as deathly cold as had been predicted - we just barely went down into the minus double digits. In fact, it was outright warm when we arrived. I have put lots of photos up on facebook showing how the place got progressively more snow-kissed as the weekend wore on. I think you should be able to view them at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219098&id=858385093&l=c1cbe
It's a pretty amazing slope up there in Appi Kogen. It's so long that it takes accomplished skiiers about 30 minutes to complete. Getting up there in the gondola, I told the others it felt like we were going to heaven. In the end, I really enjoyed myself, despite the cold, the wet and the occasional terror. I'm going again at the start of April. You heard right, April! The ski season is so long in parts of Japan, that some slopes don't even OPEN until that time of year. Crazy.
This year is all about trying new things for me, and I have a lot of fun challenges in the works: next weekend, I hope to take my first trampolining lesson; my friend will join me if I promise to try an air rifle class with her (cue headlines of crazed Irishman going postal in downtown Tokyo); and I've commited to do a charity hike for Oxfam in May - you have to hike a 100km course around a local mountain range in less than 48 hours. Needless to say, some training is going to be required for that one.
So what with work getting busier as busier - they're starting to trust me now with a wider variety of roles and with a little more resposibility - and all these new activities on the horizon, I'm going to be one tired little bunny.

Ume no hana... It begins!

Well, blossom-watch 09 began for me today. I was walking to a museum to see an exhibit of Japanese teacups (as I said to my friend just now, could my life get any more rock and roll?) when I decided to take a detour via this park that has a famous slope lined with plum trees.
Man, it smelled so good being downwind of all those blossoms. The weather had been mank all week, so I was overjoyed to wake up to a perfect blue sky and crisp Haru Ichiban winds.
Anyway, I will now be obsessed with tracking the progress of various flowering trees for the next few months. It's a cultural thing.
As, I guess, is being woken up to an earthquake (this morning) and just opening one eye to see which way it was shaking (huge difference in threat between side to side and up and down) and then rolling back over to sleep again. Oh how I've missed that churning post-quaker stomach! Just as well I've got the emergency back up and running again.