Smoking golden seaweed cherrys.

So here's another update. Been up to a bunch of little things here and there but nothing too spectacular.

Sakura viewing!

As you should all know by now the seasons here are different. So it's spring here at the moment! My town in particular loves Spring because we have many flower fields which brings many tourists to our little town. So i guess you could say that all the locals have a SPRING in their steps! (ROFL!)

Another popular past time in spring is going to see the sakura (or what we like to call "cherry blossoms" but i want to use the Japanese word so i appear to be more "japanese" and cool) While my town also has its fair share of sakura, there are other areas which are even better so we decided to head over to Kamakura to check it out (check out the chicken, chicken...) They are only in full bloom for a couple of weeks so you have to plan your trip perfectly but we aren't really all that into planning things so we ended up going a little early. But as you can see, it was still pretty freaking fab! Check it out (chicken, chicken...)

These were taken by Sarah's camera as i forgot to feed Snappy before we went so his batteries died :-(








I did manage to catch some local sakura action but didn't have Snappy with me so there are no photos. Oh, and when i say i was able to "catch" sakura i don't mean i literally caught the petals as they were falling to the ground, i mean that i was able to see them.


Seaweed cutting festival!

One of the things i love most about being in Japan are all the odd surprises you get. An example of such a surprise is when i was told we were going to have a seaweed cutting festival. Now Japan really do enjoy their festivals but one for cutting seaweed was totally unexpected but also very cool. Almost as cool as using Japanese words in your blog! Yes THAT cool!

So what happens is the students play a few games first then we head off to the beach and cut seaweed off the rocks which is sold as (very tasty) food at the market. And the money we make is used by the school to buy sporting equipment and stuff like that.

This time Snappy was fed and in fine spirits and caught all the action. So i'll let him take us through the events:




So before we got started the students played a few games. This is the volleyball game where the kids and to stop the ball from touching the ground for as long as possible




This is the tasty seaweed we want to cut. It just looks like some typical Aussie seaweed only it's growing on rocks rather than floating around your feet!


Here's the kids cutting da weed:



As you can see they do it with knives. Pulling it out by the roots is a no-no as the roots don't taste so good and it won't grow back if you do that you silly silly dumb-dum bumbly head!


The kids also managed to find some crabs, sea urchins, sea slugs (one metre long ones!), lobsters and octopus. while australia's beaches may look better, japan's beaches seem to be much more full of life. if you think about how small japan and it's coast is then it's population and how much fishing they do... well it's pretty amazing there is so much fish left! Anyways, i'm getting off track here. One kid gave me a Sea Urchin (or "uni" in japanese, yo i'm cool!) which i cracked open and ate. as you can see from the photos below they are quite spiky! and the spikes move around in the palm of your hand when you hold it!


The orange stuff inside is the tasty stuff. the rest is just guts. it's got a really good taste too... kinda salty but not too salty!

Below is all the seaweed we cut. It's not eaten raw, they cook it (i think!) so it's black when you eat it.





Golden Week!

For many Japanese this is the best time of the year. It's 3 consecutive public holidays (wed-fri) which equates to a 5 day holiday! And as many of you know, Japanese people work VERY hard! Too hard if you ask me but you didn't ask did you? Well i've answered anyway! HAH! So 5 days off is a big deal! But many people (including the teachers at my school) work anyway. But most people do get the time off work so they all go off and travel. I considered going to see some new wonderful part of Japan but hotel costs are very high during this time and it's also really crowded. For example, a 4 hour bus ride can take you 8 hours because of all the traffic!

So i decided to spend my golden week in a very Dave fashion. I went to Tokyo twice to go clubbing and chilled out the rest of the time. Great times! And for those of you who care, i'm gonna run through who i saw and what i thought of them:

Steve Bug (22/4/06)

OK so this was the weekend before golden week. Do you think i care? huh? I'm gonna mention it anyways.... This guy is a minimal house/techno DJ from Detroit who has been doing his thing for a while now. He's always been highly regarded and even deemed worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Richie Hawtin. But i just hadn't had the chance to see him in the right setting before this show. He played for almost 6 hours and it was brilliant! Played a diverse but cohesive mix of minimal with some funk and quirky moments to keep you on your toes. I'll give him a 9/10

Luomo (2/5/06)
Here's another guy who is very highly regarded by many (some claim he was one of the first to produce glitch-house) but i've not really been into much of his output. But he had a reputation for great live sets so decided to check him out. And i can see why many people love his work. It was a great live set but not exactly my sort of thing. Was still very enjoyable though. 7/10

Alex Smoke (5/5/06)
One of the hottest names in techno at the moment. His recent album has been praised by many and for good reason too. I'm not quite as into him as many others in the techno world but respect the guy a lot so decided to check him out. And i'm glad i did! This was 1 hour of intelligent and subtle live minimal techno that didn't impress everyone as it wasn't always overly dancefloor friendly but i really got into it! 8.5/10

Back in action...

I'm back! So why the long absence? I'm not sure really... i just never got around to updating my blog... I wasn't really inspired despite still having a great time and very much enjoying my time in Japan. Also, i somehow seemed to be staying busy while not having much work to do... not sure if that makes sense though!

One thing i'm sure it has done is lift anticipation for my next post. I've pretty much earned the reputation of the Axel Rose of the blogesphere and i plan to take advantage of this by posting some overhyped but ultimately unfulfilling and poorly spelt/developed rants. So yes it will be business as usual.

So it's been almost 4 months since i last updated so i'll just run over all the major stuff i've been up to since then.

Jan/Feb - Chirs visits!

My mate chris visited for around a month so we got to hang out a fair bit while he did his own thing in between. needless to say it was great to have him in town! One thing i managed to achieve while he was in town was get very sick! easily the sickest i've ever been. And i don't mean sick in terms of "awesome" (which i tend to be fully on an almost permanent basis) i mean the bad sick. Not sure exactly what was wrong but it was either a nasty cold/fever or maybe some sort of respiratory infection. It knocked me out for a week which really sucked but luckily Chirs (as he will now be known as due to the above typo that i can't be assed fixing) wasn't effected by it and we managed to go to Kyoto!

Kyoto used to be the capital city of Japan and for this reason there are many old beautiful shrines and temples there. It's definitely one of the #1 tourist spots in Japan and for good reason too! we went in winter which isn't really seen as the best time to go but it did mean there was some snow about which added to the beauty of it all. Snappy was there but as a homage to Chirs i've decided to use his photos instead. As you can see, he likes to include himself in the photo...









And here are some other Chirs related photos that i like:



This is me looking very excited about getting a chocolate banana

And these next two are of Chirs and I being tools:





Another highlight of the Chirs visit was seeing Sven Vath dj. He's one of the godfathers of techno and he most certainly didn't disappoint. and he managed to make that new tech/trance sound, which is fastly becoming a popular alternative to the minimal techno, actually sound good. one mustn't understate just how hard it is to make anything associated with trance sound listenable let alone enjoyable. Here's a picture someone took which you an see Chirs and myself in. quite a good pic actually! I'm the guy in the orange t-shirt with my hands in the air.




March/April

So lets jump ahead to late march (ie a few weeks ago) Why the big jump in time? Well i did do some interesting stuff in between but i'm gonna cut straight to the better stuff! And i didn't take my camera with me when i did the other things and i'm one of those bad writers who cannot hold somebodys attention (including my own) without gimmicks like photos and stuff like that.

A couple of weeks ago i travelled to Ishigaki and Iriamote. Where is that you ask? Well it's near Okinawa... where is that? Well Okinawa is a small japanese island that's popular because of it's warm weather and great beaches. However, one common complaint i hear about Okinawa is that despite its definite good points, it's getting a little overly urbanised. For this reason we decided to visit 2 of the smaller islands nearby. And to cut down on costs we camped! I went with Justin and Sarah, 2 other ALTs from my area. Luckily, Sarah has plenty of travel/camping skills and Justin has some excellent Japanese skills (in case you are wondering, the only skills i had to offer was stupid jokes and the ability to fart loudly) so everything went really smoothly... mostly because of my farting though. that was a vital! fartastically so... bwahahaha!

Anyways, i had a freaking brilliant time! Let's letting Snappy let tell the story.... let's!



This is the path we would walk down to get from the campsite to the beach. and those 2 people are justin and sarah. Yes that's right, we camped near the beach. Do you want to see the beach? OK snappy, you know what to do...


Here's the beach!


One morning i couldn't sleep so i went and watched the sunrise on the beach. I'm meant to be a macho guy who doesn't like walks on the beach and sunrises and stuff like that so i'm not going to comment on if i actually enjoyed the sunrise or not.



The smallest of the islands we stayed on was not only small but also full of dense forest that is too thick for people to enter. There were some parts we could see like this waterfall.



Both the islands were surrounded by coral and many tropical fish. You could pretty much take a few steps into the ocean and see dozens of them swimming around your feet! But rather than post a picture that is clear to see Snappy has decided to select this one that was taken from one of those glass boats. if you look closely you can see a clown fish (ie the fish from Finding Nemo) I don't have any proof but i GUARANTEE that that is actually Nemo from the movie. I did get him to sign an autograph for me but i accidently left it behind. So you'll just have to take my word for it.


So i've limped my way through my first blog entry in 4 months... Will this have broken my duck and allow me to blog freely from now on? Or will it be the only BuBBleman bleep on the Blogesphere radar in 2006? Who knows! I do have golden week coming up in early May followed by a seminar in Tokyo for all teachers who are staying here for a 2nd year like myself. So there is much funness to be had and therefore things to write about. but i do like being lazy so maybe you'll be hearing from me again in around november or something or longer...

So i hope you all have a great easter and Christmas over 2006 and 2007. I'll see you all in around 2017 or something

this post is crap and boring

The title says it all really... Just thought i'd update it and give the people what they want... But this is what happens when i update my blog when i have nothing interesting to say... I just ramble on about nothing and it's really boring. So i hope all you BuBBle-hatters learn your lessons from this... Because this post is going to be boring!

I had a couple of weeks off and did some interesting things but nothing significant enough to report on. Hung out with the other english teachers who had stayed in japan on christmas which was good. Hung out at a friend's place for new years eve... And just had a good relaxing time. Got my friend chris heading up in a week so i can do some more exciting stuff then.

And that's all i got to say really. I'll have something more interesting to say later on i guess...

Snappy has some things to add so i'll get those out of the way then that will be it.




Here's a picture of me after not shaving for a little while. I was going to go longer without a shave but one of my younger students said i looked scary and intimidating so i didn't want to freak all the kids out once i got back from holidays. Also, it was itchy



It's not meant to snow in my town but check it out! It's one of the coldest winters ever here. I think before this winter it had snowed 1 or 2 times in the past 3 years but it's already snowed over 5 times this year. And that's before feb which is supposed to be the coldest month of the year! So yeah, it's like really cold and stuff.

I told you this post would be boring... But don't worry i'll get some inspiration soonishly.

A post about music in 2005

Well as i (sorta) promised here are my favourite albums of the year. As you will see, i did listen to a fair bit of new music and i thought some of you maybe interested in what i was listening to exactly... But i'm also aware that most of you won't care in the slightest which is fine! I'm kinda bored at the moment and i decided doing this would entertain me for a while.

You will notice that there is a fair bit of techno and metal on the list. This is mostly because 2005 was one of the best years for this sort of music for a very long time. Many of you know my love of techno but black metal might come as a surprise. Just keep in mind that the whole "i listen to negative music because i'm a negative person" line of thought is pretty much a load of crap. I listen to metal music sometimes for the same reasons why i might watch an action or scary movie sometimes... it's able to take a hold of you and really engage you which is what i love about it. So don't worry, i'm happy and positive!

This isn't all i listened to this year, i also listened to a lot of late 70s / early 80s punk and electronic music. And some classic rock stuff as well... But when it came to 2005 releases, techno, metal, ambient and experimental were the often the way to go.

So here it is, and with some descriptions too! Let's see if you are capable of reading the whole thing without falling asleep ;-)


1. Jamie Lidell - Multiply
A pasty white guy from England who is somehow able to sound like a genuine American soul singer... Has an amazing voice and managed to string together 10 perfect tracks to make the best album of the year. Highly recommended to everyone... anyone could grow to love this sort of music as it's so accessible and uplifting and fun! Brilliant stuff!

2. MIA - Arular
A Sri Lankan rapper who has spent most of her life running from terrorists and racial oppression is able to make a party album that gives the mind and the feet something entertaining. Probably the most unique album of the year but also very poppy.

3. Isolee - We Are Monster
Best techno album of the year. But this is techno for listening to at home as well as the dancefloor. Manages to put guitar and other traditional sounds into the tracks but in such a subtle way that it sounds natural rather than forced gimmickry. Will be remembered as one of the all time classic techno albums...

4. Audion - Suckfish
Now this is techno that is more for the dancefloor! Really nasty acid techno with some industrial and minimal techno moments too. I'm a sucker for anyone who can get noisy bleeps and frequencies and place them into a more traditional aesthetic which is exactly what this album does.

5. Broadcast - Tender Buttons
I've always loved this band but up until now they hadn't been able to make a truly consistent album. Think 60s lounge/rock with some electronic noodlings and bursts of My Bloody Valentine shoegazer fuzzy bits. And some beautiful melodies and female vocals.

6. Eluvium - Talk Amongst The Trees
Best ambient album i've heard for a long time. Comprised of 10-20 minute long tracks which contain long melodic drones and string samples. The kind of music that makes you feel like you are floating and makes you lose track of time. Perfect for the Japanese winter too!

7. Sunn O))) - Black One
Here's the first of the black metal albums i was talking about. in one track the singer is locked in a coffin with a microphone then placed into a hearse! but gimmicks aside, this album has everything you need from a drone/black metal album... just don't play it at night time unless you really want to scare yourself!

8. Magik Markers - I Trust My Guitar Ect
Some good quality noisy garage rock with heavy influences from the late 70s No Wave scene. So there is plenty of lo-fi noisy distorted guitars which i love! The amount of raw energy the band generates is really amazing... much more than any of these modern so called "punk" bands you hear nowadays.

9. Matias Aguayo - Are You Really Lost
Another techno highlight. This is full of those slow burning tracks that roll along nicely. Matias manages to make a varied album using a rather narrow niche which must be pretty hard to pull off. So cohesive... one of those albums you just have to keep playing once you start until it's over.

10. Roisin Murphy - Ruby Blue
Singer from Moloko teams up with Matthew Herbert and the results are surprisingly brilliant. Excellent chilled jazz/soul tracks with hints of glitch and house. And the songs are very well written too. Get this along with Jamie Lidell and you have your summers covered... Roisin for the nighttime and Jamie for the daytime!

11. Richie Hawtin - Transitions
Best techno mix CD of the year... Manages to play snippits of 150 or so tracks in 90 minutes! Richie is the new guru of techno.

12. Gang Gang Dance - God's Money
Mixes tribal music with freak-folk and hazy ambient soundscapes... and the singer sounds like Kate Bush! great combination!

13. Pier Bucci - Familia
One of the new techno producers from Chillie comes out of nowhere (well to me at least) with some brilliant glitchy funky minimal techno

14. Optimo - How To Kill The DJ Vol 2
Imagine 2 guys with ADD and a really varied music taste making a mix CD. Plays everything from classic punk to techno to children's choir music!

15. Animal Collective - Feels
Already well established New York "freak-folk / psychedelic / whatever" group release their best album yet.

16. Birchville Cat Motel - Chi Vampires
One man band who combines ambient with drone and black metal on an album which is beautiful but also a little haunting

17. Chris Liebing and Speedy J - Metal 3000
The best thing i can say about this album is that it's ALMOST as good as seeing Speedy J live... and that's a big call. Banging techno at it's best

18. Mu - Out Of Breach (Manchester's Revenge)
Mu's 1st album is my favourite of all time and while this isn't as good it's still freaking amazing. Imagine a much crazier Yoko Ono backed by a band of malfunctioning robots on halloween... Yep, it's that good!

19. Abe Duque - So Underground It Hurts
Yet another excellent techno album. This one combines minimal techno with house and acid music... Also a contender for album title of the year.

20. Marc Leclair - Musique Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes
A concept album inspired by the various stages of pregnancy. Music is mostly ambient with moments glitchy techno and Chain Reaction-esque melodies.

21. Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower - Love in the Fascist Brothel
Take a hardcore punk band and a jazz band and get them to jam together and this is what you get. It's very weird (but in a good way) to hear a punk track with a sax instead of a guitar solo!

22. Black Dice - Broken Ear Record
Sounds like the music a tribe of those T1000s from the Terminator movies would make. Plenty of metallic drums with industrial noise. Very tasty!

23. Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
Best silly pop album of the year. Remember that "d-d-don't stop the beat! come on everybody and move your feet!" track? this is their new album! and with a member of the B-52s! So naturally, it's fantastic!

24. The Magik Markers - Feel The Crayon
2nd album from these guys to make my list. This is like their other one but more lo-fi and noisy. Actually, i think it's their original demo they set to record labels...

25. Various Artists - The Sexual Life Of The Savages
A compilation of Brazilian punk groups. Apparently punk music is really popular there... and with good stuff like this you can see why!

26. Konono - Congotronics
Afro-beat group from the Congo who are so poor they have to make their own speakers out of old cars! Really great drumming and the textures they get out of the speakers adds another dimension to the music.

27. Alex Smoke - Incommunicado
Techno with a strong sense of melody... so much so that this album is definitely more suited to home listening than at a club

28. Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
Good crooning vocals with some jazzy chilled music. but there is something about it that makes it better than other jazzy chilled stuff... can't put my finger on what exactly...

29. Khanate - Capture / Release
Really dark and tormented black metal. Apparently the vocalist has been known to pass out when he sings because he screams so loud! really intense stuff.

30. Kraftwerk - Minimum Maximum
Live Kraftwerk album that has all their best hits that have been tastefully modernised without losing any of the goofy electro cheesiness.

31. Sebastian Tellier - Politics
Imagine Air (that french band) but a little more unpredictable and unstable. Mixes soft french rock with retro 80s cheese and lush strings.

32. Various Artists - Run The Road
Compilation of "grime" music which is like England's answer to the American hip hop sound. Very unique and intense... lets just say that these British guys have a lot to say

33. Edan - Beauty And The Beat
My favourite hip-hop album of the year. Some really good tracks with some excellent use of sampling.

34. Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering
My favourite "traditional" folk album of the year. I love her vocals and the use of harps and strings makes it all very lush and nice to listen to.

35. Optimo - Psych Out
Mix CD that combines old acid techno with 70s psychedelic and some more modern tracks... and all these genres manage to gel nicely.

36. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
My favourite indie rock album of the year... Great emotive music and it's a concept album that doesn't come across as overly pretentious too which is a bonus.

37. Autechre - Untilted
One of my all time favourite groups has a partial return to form! A little patchy in parts but has some of the best experimental electronic music i've ever heard.

38. Adolf Noise (aka DJ Koze) - Wo Die Rammelwolle Fliegt
Renowned techno producer under an alias reserved for his quirkier relaxed material. Covers many genres but remains cohesive.

39. Koenjihyakkei - Angherr Shisspa
Oddly enjoyable. Mixes sped up prog rock with opera vocals and chants. Both enjoyable and amusing, always puts me in a good mood

40. Stewart Walker - Grounded in Existence
One of the gurus of minimal techno branches out into live instrumentation (well it sounds live to me) on this album. Nice stuff

41. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples
Another great ambient album. Mixes guitar drones with various electronic modulators and other effects.

42. Boris - Akuma No Uta
Japanese black metalists who i've always intended to get more of. After hearing this album i'll make sure i get more of their stuff next year and perhaps see them live!

43. Superpitcher - Today
A mix CD that focuses on the moodier and more melodic side of minimal techno. Nothing spectacular but plays so smoothly which i think was the point of it in the first place.

44. Tujiko Noriko & Aoki Takamasa - 10
My favourite Japanese singer/songwriter is back! This isn't her best work but better than her last album. As some really good moments.

45. Richard Davis - Details
Some very lush tracks that sound like the Pet Shop Boys gone minimal techno. Really good use of vocals too.

46. Cristian Vogel - Station 55
Frustrating album as it's so varied and all over the place but there is no denying that there is some genius at work here. Some of the best tracks of the year can be found on this

47. TBA - Annule
Georgian (the country not the city) wife of one of my all time favourite techno producers (thomas brinkmann) Think Bjork gone ambient techno.

48. Earth - Hex: Or Printing In The Inferno
One of the all time metal greats put out an album that is anything but metal. this is more like post rock a la GSYBE and brilliantly executed too.

49. Deerhoof - The Runner's Four
Filled the gap left by Fiery Furnaces this year for quirky "kiddies on red cordial" indie pop/rock. All over the place but very enjoyable.

50. Thomas Brinkmann - Lucky Hands
Not his best album but still got more than enough quality "classic brinkmann" moments to keep me happy.


I can't be bothered describing the others but here they are:

51. Bob Drake - The Shunned Country
52. Kevin Blechdom - Eat My Heart Out
53. Tod Dockstader - Aerial
54. Gustav - Rettet Die Wale
55. Ladytron - Witching Hour
56. Kill Memory Crash - American Automatic
57. DJ Koze - Kosi Comes Around
58. Paavoharju - Yhä Hämärää
59. Justus Kohncke - Doppelleben
60. Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep

61. Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - Days Of Mars
62. Ferenc - Fraximal
63. The Juan Maclean - Less Than Human
64. Tujiko Noriko - Blurred In My Mirror
65. Fiery Furnaces - EP
66. Kompakt - Total 6
67. Panico - Subliminal Kill
68. Robyn - Robyn
69. Dominik Eulberg - Kreucht & Fleucht
70. Kanye West - Late Registration

71. Biosphere - Dropsonde
72. Sakerock - Life Cycle
73. Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
74. Menomena - Under An Hour
75. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die
76. M.A.N.D.Y - Body Language
77. Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel The Illinoise
78. Murcof - Remembranza
79. Jesu - Jesu
80. Jan Jelinek - Kosmischer pitch

81. Keiji Haino - Black Blues (soft)
82. Misc. - Like Morning In Your Eyes
83. Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno - Iao Chant from the Cosmic Inferno
84. Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak of it Again
85. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
86. Kano - Leave Home
87. Orthrelm - OV
88. Dandy Jack & The Junction - Los Siete Castigos
89. Why? - Elephant Eyelash
90. Jackson & His Computer Band - Smash

2005 - a tooth hurtyorama?

So we are winding up to the end of the year... and just in time for the holidays i've gotten sick! but this isn't really such a bad thing as i didn't have much planed for the 2 week holiday anyway! so now instead of feeling like a loser being stuck at home i can be stuck at home for a reason! so i get to be all uncool at home yet still be cool. pretty cool huh?

hold on, this is my chance to be all dark and deep. i will spend christmas alone in my apartment! away from family and stuff. isn't being all reflective and depressing one of the more common things to do in blogs? so why am i being all positive? ok i'm going to try this again:

ooh wow i'm, like, really sad and stuff. the world hates me but i hate it too so who cares. my life is awash with blackness and bad thingies and stuff like that. and all this is really bad n stuff. it makes me feel torn apart and hate things. because i'm, like all dark and deep. wayyy too dark and deep for anyone to understand. So now that i've clearly established that i'm deeply depressed lets reflect on what i've been up to over the last 2 weeks:


I'm arty!!

As many of you may know, i suck at art. How many people get a "D" in art even if they try? In year 9 i did. I actually painted/sculpted/drew/whatever all the stuff i was supposed to but they were all so amazingly crap that i got a D. I'd go as far to say that i'm the worst artist ever.

But the school don't know this so they got me to make a poster of Australia. So how did it work out? I'll let you (with Snappy's assistance) decide:



It's not so bad don't you think? Worth much more than a "D" huh? I'm happy with it! It's colourful and educationful! Fully full of goodness! YUM!


Bonenkai (sic?)

You may recall me talking about my first "Enkai" a while back... for the forgetful readers out there, an Enkai is a Japanese drinking party. I had one with my fellow teachers after Sports Day. Well this time we had a BONenkai! My Japanese still sucks so i'm just going to assume that the BON means BIG! Actually i know for a fact that is wrong but i'm going to pretend that it is for the moment... so i had a BONenkai! That's right a BIG party! This is the sort of thing that most schools will have towards the end of the year. And it's soooo BON (ie BIG!) that it's too BIG (ie BON) for just a night out. We had this BONenkai at a traditional japanese hotel. Check out the room i had:



It's a traditional japanese hotel room apparently. i really appreciated being here because while my house is very BIG (ie BON) it's not very japanese. And check out the absolutely BON (ie BIG) feast we had!





And the food was really really good. Fully full of yummy goodness actually. And we had some quiz that i managed to play a part in my team winning:



Yeah who da man! Who number one? Me!!!

I managed to drink a little without getting too drunk and generally have a great night. Good times.


That's it for me.... I'm clearly scraping the bottom of my 2005 barrel to find something interesting to say/post... errr.... ahh i'll show you what i cooked for dinner last night. experimentoramas in the kitchen didn't take off but i should still prove that i can (almost) cook!



See that doesn't look so bad does it?? OK that's it... i'm spent! Merry christmas and a happy new year everyone!


Will perhaps post my top 50 or so albums of the year if i get bored... And as we all know, my music taste is really good, much better than the rest of you guys so you NEED me to tell you what you should be listening to.

Cya!

Toki Doki's trilogy

So what have i been up to recently? Bloody heaps actually! You see folks, i went to Tokyo 3 weekends in a row and on each occasion had a marvelous time. So there will be a lot to take in.... are you all ready? Just like any AFL side, we are going to take it one weekend at a time. So here we go... look below.... don't be slow.... whikka whikka row!


Weekend 1 - Dance Drink Techno Salad!

You all remember those very cool looking folk that were at my party? You know? The ones i WOWED with my badass party hosting skillz? Well i took a trip down to Saitama which is like the inner suburbs of Tokyo (which, due to popular demand, we shall now call Toki Doki's for the duration of the post) to hang out with many of the Aussies and Yanks who traveled to my little town and were WOWED by my badass party hosting skillz. Yes that's right, they were WOWED. But i was WOWED in return because Tokyo has many places to visit that are just as badass as my party hosting skillz. I know that's hard to imagine but it's true... and i have evidence to back this up! So read on haters/doubters before you get all in my face and stuff.

Now as most of you know, i'm horrible with names of people and places. So i can't remember what this place was called... Actually, no that's not true! I, err, am doing this as a test! yeah, that's it, I wouldn't forget the name of this place! Do you think i'm stupid or something? No way! Not me! So this is, like, a quiz, and this is question 1. So you can post a comment here and if you guess the place name correctly you win, like, prizes and stuff.

But as you can see below it's a shrine and there are also heaps of shops where you can get all sorts of stuff ranging from yummy rice crackers to tacky yet cool toys to authentic yet expensive gifts. Twas a great place indeed. Smashing in fact. Smashingly smashing. The level of smashingness achieved was smashingly smashing.



So next we will have question number 2 in the quiz. I remember the name but i want to see if anyone else knows it... It was a big park, like Melbourne's Botanical Gardens but with shrines and stuff like that. And being autumn, we were able to see some dead leaves. Why is it that we find trees with dead stuff on them so pretty? Sure, the colours are nice but i can't think of any other time when people enjoy looking at dead stuff apart from watching zombie movies. Zombie movies are badass. As are autumn leaves... So it was great to be able to visit the park at this time.

Here are some pictures of things dying at the park.




We then went to Odaiba (remembered that name... ha!) which is one of those trendy places all the cool cats hang out. Why is it cool? Here's why:



How many places do you know that has the Statue Of Liberty? Well have you ever heard of a little place called New York? And isn't that place cool? If you answered yes then you are correct. If you answered no then you are not cool. So Odaiba is cool. Badass actually. Smashingly badass.

But it also has a ferris wheel! It's the biggest in Japan actually! Check it out:


Now for all those doubters and haters out there, keep in mind that this photo is not, i repeat, NOT to scale. So while it only looks about 10cm tall in the photo it is actually much bigger than that.

And we got some badass photos when we rode it too. it seems that if you are high up and take photos they start to look all cool and professional and totally badass. So we took some absolute rip snorters!




and as if this wasn't cool enough. i found the coolest random sign i've seen in Japan yet. "Dance Drink Techno Salad Rock n Roll" Man i love this sign! And this isn't the last you'll hear about this place... stay tuned and you'll see!



now those hardcore Snappy fans out there will notice that some of this pictures are not Snappites at all! This is because the aussie crew i was hanging out with (the very same crew i WOWED with my badass party hosting skillz) all had cameras of their own and we exchanged photos. As you'd imagine, Snappy is quite upset about this. But he was up against some superior cameras with badass zooms and lenses and stuff so what help did he have? I think his ego has been bruised quite substantially but i think he was starting to get a little arrogant don't you agree? But to avoid a Snappy strike i'll include a photo he took of the sunset as we were catching the bus to Toki Doki's:



so that's week 1 finished in the Toki Doki trilogy. let's move on the week 2....



Weekend 2 - We're Ointment!

So weekend 1 was a tourist adventure. But weekend 2 is a music adventure! It just so happened that 2 big concerts/raves/festivals/whatevers were on the same weekend! So let's start with friday shall we?? Friday was a dance festival called Electraglide! Which is like a smaller Big Day Out but with electronic artists... I guess you could say it's pretty close to Two Tribes in Australia. Here's who i saw and how i felt about them:

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Autechre - Brilliant! As you'd expect from the ae boys there was much splintery noise, fractured beats and warped melodies and it was all executed perfectly. But what surprised me was the structures they used were quite accessible and danceable despite all the craziness going on. Even the cute little j-kiddies with their glowsticks were getting into it! I've been wanting to see these guys for ages and they didn't disappoint.

Tiga - 3rd time i'd seen him and he was as good as always. If i was going to throw a party at my house and was able to spend all the money i wanted on a DJ i'd pick this guy. He's the perfect party dj as he plays cheesy, fun, poppy yet cool dance music with a few unexpected twists to keep you guessing. His set didn't quite have the consistency and flow of his previous efforts but it was still quality all the way! Made me dance my ass off :-)

Some crappy dj i forgot the name of - he was crap. really, really crap. let's not talk about him anymore ok?

Vitalic - He's produced some incredible tracks in his time and hearing those was a great experience. The crowd absolutely loved him too! Only problem was that some of his lesser tracks were a little uninspired in comparison and his transistion from track to track was a bit sloppy. But those highlights were so good he can be forgiven for that

Carl Cox - Much better than i expected. He's been around for ages now (maybe 20 years?) so he's got some excellent skills but his track selection was a little too vanilla for my liking. Still nice enough

Tower Tei - Saw a bit of him but wasn't impressed. He's responsible for Kylie Minogue's "German Bold Italic" and that "Groove is in the Heart" track so he isn't all bad. but his djing didn't do much for me

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and that was the night. as you may all recall, i was quite fustrated by the crowd at the 2 events i'd been to in the past in japan but i'm happy to report that the crowd at the festival was excellent! They were all so enthusiastic and there was no annoying disruptive behavior. Overall it was a great night and one of the highlights of my time in Japan so far :-)

So that was friday... Saturday was spent doing some CD shopping in Shibuya before heading to Unit which is the club i went to for my first clubbing experience. This time we went to see Roman Flugel who is a popular german minimal tech dj. As i've said before, this minimal sound is very popular right now so many djs are playing that sound but Roman manages to have his own unique sound. His set was spectacular! Well structured, varied but with good flow and interesting tracks that i'd never heard anything like before. He was well and truely ointment and the highlight of the weekend. And like the night before, the crowd was excellent.

So that was my 2nd weekend! More for the music buffs out there i guess, some of you may have found that boring but it's my blog so i'll post whatever i feel like! now onto weekend 3....


Weekend 3 - Pixies!

I finally did it! I got to see the Pixies live! Until the Velvet Underground reform, or John Lennon and George Harrison rise from the dead, the Pixes are the most important band you could see. This is because they influenced so many people! If it wasn't for the Pixies you wouldn't have Nirvana, Radiohead, Pearl Jam... or anyone else who uses that soft verse / loud chorus formula! They are the closest thing my generation has to The Beatles... and i got to see them... LIVE. I'm so ointmently badassly smashing!

Just like Autechre, i've been wanting to see these guys for ages... and i had high expectations too. And i'm happy to say that they were able to meet these expectations. They were absolutely brilliant! I loved every minute of it :-) Yet another highlight of my time in japan so far!

And i was able to sneek snappy in and take some photos! check them out:




and guess where they played? at the "Dance Drink Techno Salad" place! So i just had to get another photo of the sign... but this time i chose another part of said sign: "Pasta Rock Pizza Club Appetizer Blues"



This sign is pure genius! i could make at least 3 band names out of this sign! "Techno Salad" "Pasta Rock" "Appetizer Blues" GENIUS! Badass genius. Smashingly badass genius.


So there is another post out of the way... I'm pretty happy about this one actually! And i'll have another in a couple of weeks time so stay tuned!

Snappy presents: Shirahama Junior High School - Photodyssey Deluxe

This is Snappy's long awaited debut of Snappy's photo album. So any comments should be directed at him... But keep in mind that he is quite sensitive (in case you haven't noticed already!) so be gentle.

First, some background. My school is quite old and pretty big considering how many students go there. There used to be almost 500 students in the 60s but now there are 150. This isn't because of the quality of the school, it's because people have been moving away from the small towns and into the cities... It's happening all over Japan. The school looks like a bomb shelter which i think is no coincidence as the school opened in the mid 1940s. So the architecture is fantastic (well i think so anyways) It's so unique! Especially for a Japanese school as apparently almost all schools look exactly the same: One big building with 3 or 4 floors. But my school is a heptagon. That's right, a 7 sided polygon! (and i remembered these names without checking google... honestly i really did! errr... maybe i did...)

Considering that Shirahama is on the far south coast and where many ships would go near to enter Tokyo it would make a lot of sense to want to protect it if there was a war situation. So i'm pretty sure my school was some sort of mini version of the USA's Pentagon. Which needless to say is really cool!

OK Snappy is getting cranky because i'm hijacking his post. So lets see the photos Snappy!!



Let's start with the staffroom. That desk on the right with the chair sticking out is my desk! This is where i spend my time when i don't have any classes.



this is one of many hallways... Snappy would like you to note that the hallway isn't straight because of the shape of the building



Here is a classroom... There are 6 main classrooms and 3 spares. Junior High School has 3 years... 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year which is like 7th 8th and 9th grade at an Australian high school. Each year has 50 students and they are split into 2 groups... So what you are left with it 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b. Each year also has a spare classroom. All the classrooms look exactly the same apart from different posters on the wall and things like that. There are also special rooms for classes like music, computers, woodshop, home economics... you get the picture (i hope)



This is the main staffroom... I go here for meetings and to eat lunch but spend most of my time in the other staffroom.



This is a board full of stuff about what is happening at the school that i (obviously) cannot read



and here are some photos from outside the school. i find think they are fantastic but some of you might think it's ugly... ahh well! in the background you can see mountains... gives you an idea of how small my town is! on one side is mountains, on the other side is the beach. you can hear the beach from the school quite clearly actually which is cool. makes me think i'm on holiday!






the end

i will post some stuff about visits to tokyo soonishly