Things that made me happy today...

Rainy season is fast approaching; over the last few days there has been a fairly constant drizzle interspersed with heavy showers. This being Japan, things only exist on schedule - so technically, we can't call it rainy season until the end of next week. But it still feels like it to me.

This time of year tends to get me down. So I'm trying to stay all kinds of positive and find beauty and joy in the things around. To this end, here are some things which made me really happy today:

These magic chopsticks outside Ueno Station make me inordinately happy whenever I pass them. I guess they bring back childish, Mary Poppins-like dreams of inanimate objects coming to life.

With the rains of May and June comes lush green growth and a fertile energy - even here in the city. The rains also signal the blossom of beautiful hydrangea. I think the blue of these flowers that I spotted in Akihabara is one of the most beautiful colours I've ever seen.

How could you not be happy being welcomed by this little guy at your front door every night?

Tully's White Chocolate and Hazelnut donut is the best donut I have ever tasted. And their coffee is the nicest of the big chains over here, too. So Japanese that they give you a fork to eat it, don't you think?

My friend K. now lives in Singapore and we never see each other and (as you all know) I'm rubbish at keeping in touch. But whenever I'm feeling low I just think of a sentence she taught me and it cracks me up every time. It's probably one of those 'you had to be there' things, but we were talking about needing to go to the bathroom and she said, "Ooh, I've got to go - I've got noogie knocking at the back door!" Maybe it's an Australian thing.

Finally, I've sent this picture to a few people already - it made the newspapers here a couple of months ago and I just think it is incredibly cute. It's like some kind of Pavlovian therapy - I cannot feel in a bad mood looking at babies in buckets, especially looking at the expression of the black-haired kid to the front right.

Johnny 5 is alive

Well I´m happy to say that I made it through the 100km hike alive and unscathed, save for a few small blisters and some muscle and joint stiffness. I learned a lot from the experience, good things and bad.

Firstly, I learned yet again that it is an incredibly small world. So there I was 800 metres up a minor mountain outside Tokyo with 700 or so other climbers all spread out at different intervals over the peaks, when who should I find myself walking beside but a French woman who worked at a desk opposite mine in the same bank in Luxembourg. And to increase the randomness of the encounter, it´s not like she lives in Japan or anything - she´s now based in Sydney and just happened to be here on business. The best part of our exchange: I remembered her full name and she couldn´t remember mine！ Brownie points！ That usually never happens to me.

Secondly, I learned that I am physically fitter and stronger than I thought I was: I was almost never out of breath, despite the incline; and during the daylight climbs, when I wasn´t slipping about in the rain, mud and darkness, I was able to attack the mountains at a very respectable lick. I guess I have hot yoga to thank for this.

However, finally, I also learned that I am mentally weaker than I would like to think. If any of y´all ever need to torture me, don´t waste your time waterboarding me. Go straight to the sleep deprivation and you´ll get your goods. We finished the 100km in 43 hours but that only allowed us two sleep stops - one was 1.5 hours, the other 2 hours long. More than thirst or cold or hunger or pain, it was the lack of sleep that nearly broke me a couple of times.

There were some funny side effects to my exhaustion. I don´t like to swear and I made a personal vow several years ago to try never to curse again. I´m usually pretty true to this promise, but during the hellish overnight climbs I was swearing like a trooper！ At one particularly low point I asked an organiser in very polite Japanese, "How much longer to the next rest stop？" From our map we´d calculated about 5 minutes. His answer - 1 hour - caused me to let out a long, low, guttural "F#%K！" It startled even me and cracked him up... the F-bomb heard around the world.

It really was tough going at night in the dark and rain. I spent so much time tripping on exposed roots, as my headlamp was necessarily spotlighting the track ahead, that I became covered head to toe in mud. Even strangers made bitchy comments about how dirty I was. Having said all that, I honestly did enjoy the bright dry days. It was an amazing challenge that I´m so glad to have completed. I´m getting pumped now starting to think what the next feat might be.

It took a good night´s sleep for that euphoria to kick in, mind. My finish line photo shows a man who´s about one more posed victory shot away from going Bjork on the photographer´s ass.

P.S. I know I said I was all about the next challenge and already planning what my next adventure might be. But Freudian analysis might beg to differ. You see, I left my bloomin' expensive hiking shoes at the entrance to the bathroom at the finish line and have heard nothing back from the Lost and Found since!

I've put up some photos now - the rest are up on facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=257353&id=858385093&l=ee5690ac57

Death Walk's Eve

Well, this may be the last ever entry I get to post.

You see, tomorrow is the Death Walk - hiking through 100km of mountainous terrain in 48 hours. I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to take part in this event. I'm a-scared!

And of course, my renowned rain-dancing powers are in full effect: the weather today - sunny, blue skies and about 30 degrees; the weather tomorrow - RAIN! Please say a prayer that I and all my team make it through safe and sound.

Where's Heidi at?

I went on a hike on Sunday with two colleagues from work. It was part of my training for the 100km Death Walk that I will be doing in two weeks' time. We only covered 10km on this hike and I was plenty tired. I'm kinda starting to get the flop sweats when I think about the 本番 (honban - loosely translated as "the big day"). Sunday was pretty much the first day of summer - it was at least 27 degrees and humid enough for my supposed "dry" technology t-shirt to be ringing wet by the time we reached the peak of the first mountain. The good weather made the scenery come alive, though. I think you can agree from the pictures below that we're just a yodelling Heidi away from the Swiss Alps. Not bad for only two hours south of my beloved Tokyo.

I'll keep it under my hat...

I may have to start rethinking my policy on the following:



P.S. I was told by a colleague the other day that my new haircut makes me look like President Obama! Go figure...

Tokyo's Bronzed Naked Ladies

Bet that got your attention! This city is full of statues of naked women. I've taken note of this phenomenon before, but yesterday was the first day I started gathering evidence. Really, way more so than in any other city I've been in, you'll see these oddly similar works of art dotted throughout the city.

'Bare' in mind that these photos are just the small sample I came up within a 24-hour period and a 2-km radius of my house. Seriously, the naked female form is clearly the go-to inspiration for corporate artists in this country. I should give 'Our Laz' a call and have her try get a commission. If there are any artists out there reading this that do end up getting paid a big lump of money by some Tokyo patron, don't forget to cut me a slice of that action. I'm going to start adding art consultant as a line on my CV.

I will keep my camera with me over the coming days and snap some more, if I remember.

Found another two on my rather soggy walk today - seriously did the city government just buy a job lot or something? The second woman from today's batch looks like she was caught unawares by the artist in the dressing room, poor thing. And then they had the audacity to just plonk her outside a Mini-Stop convenience store!

I found another one right by my office after work. Dear City Planners - please try harder!

One station - a total of four naked ladies between two statues. Ueno, you're outdoing the rest of Tokyo!

And it's not just Tokyo - the disease is spreading. Here we a double-whammy in Tokaimura in Ibraki Prefecture (where we have a research centre). Two naked ladies in one shot - fore and background. Not bad for a small, regggional village.

And in the interests of fairness, I present the first Tokyo Bronzed Naked Man that I have come across.

New boots and foaming soap

Mam, these are the new boots I was telling you about. With rainy season fast approaching, I needed a work shoe that would be water proof and practical. This being Japan, where you take your shoes off all the time, having a zipper on the side as well as laces was a major motivator in buying this pair. Because they're hand-made, they come with this special service where they can be resoled at a discount within a certain period of time. I'm still a little hazy on the details. Needless to say, thinking about how much they cost actually makes me feel sick. I hope they'll be worth it.


I can be pretty stingy about personal finances, as many of you know. I think I will be reminded to my dying day of my money saving tip to 'let gravity do the work' when pouring out the washing up liquid. None of this frivolous 'squeezing the bottle' carry on. But I have a new one for you. 'Foaming' hand soap dispensers are all the rage over here. Of course the 'foam' refill is like twice as expensive as the regular hand soap refill. And you can't use the regular soap in the 'foaming' dispensers because it clogs them up. But do you know what I figured out - and this is why I think I may one day end up being some evil corporate master mind - the special 'foaming' refill is just the regular old refill watered down. That's right, get the customer to pay twice the price for a watered down version of your original product. Man, where would we be without the old capitalist profit motive.

Obaachan behaving badly

The right-wing nutjobs were out in full force today: it's 憲法記念日(Kenpo Kinenbi - Constitution Day) so they were all rolling around in their black vans hollering about how the disputed islands north of Hokkaido need to be gotten back from Russia by hook or by crook.

I was making my way through town wondering why all these cops were stationed at every intersection decked out in serious riot gear - they looked like full-on modern samurai. Once I approached Kasumigaseki (near the parliament) and heard the ruckus and the blaring 'patriotic' music, it all became clear.

I gotta tell you, if those guys stationed themselves outside my shop or office or apartment - as they sometimes do in areas where there are large populations of foreigners - I'd find it intimidating as hell. I'd also probably fall for the bait and be provoked into some sort of aggressive retaliation... like blaring Celine Dion on a loop right back at them (which, in all honesty, I'd probably enjoy just a little too much).

Anyway, I tried not to think too much about these wingnuts and went about enjoying my day. I went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. There were two major exhibitions on. One was a collection of photos of sacred religious sites around the world...

And one was a kind of grotesque display of grannies gone wild, doing their thing with crazy abandon.

Can you guess which one I ended up seeing?

The new lighting scheme for Tokyo Tower

Over the last few weeks, they've been rocking a few different lighting schemes for Tokyo Tower. I'm not sure if it's more eco-friendly to have it this way, but I'm also not sure whether I like it. This landmark holds a special place in my heart and I'm sensitive to them messing with it. What do you think?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6669543&l=52350372a9&id=858385093

Here's the old version:

I've managed to turn yoga into a contact sport

When you do some yoga poses, you can increase the resistance (and therefore the effectiveness) by using a Theraband - it's basically a thick rubber rope.

I guess I wasn't paying very much attention this morning, as I let the band slip from under my feet and the recoil hit me full force in the chest.

I don't know if you can actually see from the photo, but I actually now have a large welt under my right man boob. It hurt like hell and definitely killed my yogic calm.

If it doesn't go down, I'm going to just embrace scarification, tattoo it orange and yellow, and turn it a big old racing stripe.

In case you can't see the image (I don't know how well the uploads are working on this new blog), you can click on the following link. But beware - it's semi-NSFW - I show nip!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6669541&l=861c71a579&id=858385093

This is for my sister...

And for anyone who has ever gotten a frosty reception from me on the telephone after a certain hour.

You see, it's just common sense.