電話ボックス

Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became allergic to bleeding wheat


I was a bit concerned about my hideous hayfever, so I coincided a trip home with an allergy test to find out exactly what was setting me off. The results were a surprise, to say the least.

I am allergic to wheat and oats and prawns, but we don't care about that.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my undying love for bread and cereal is apparently my downfall. And has been for 22 years, without my knowledge.

Which does bring up an interesting question - Since I've gone for 22 years heartily consuming food that my body hates, why hasn't it told me by now? Or has it already, and I just wasn't listening?
In any case, I've been promised by various sources that even a month off the stuff and I'll be feeling great, full of energy, life of Riley, etc. etc. So, rather than let the Evil Wheat keep killing me from the inside (somehow), I'm going gluten-free. Don't have much of a choice.

Now, not eating wheat sounds fairly simple:
- Avoid bread
Sigh. Check.
- Avoid wheat-based (read: most) cereal
Check. Corn Flakes are still cool.
- Avoid pasta
bugger bugger I mean check.
- Avoid anything with wheatflour in it I mean anything
Check. As in, check ingredients.

It's only now that I appreciate how much wheat and oats have pervaded our lives. Some meat? Sorry, gravy has wheat flour. Let's go Japanese! Except not, because noodles and soy sauce are also wheatflour-based. KFC? They batter everything. Kebab? All about the flour-based baps and rollers.

Basically, I'm living off carrots, fruit and some ungravied meat, along with an unexpected saviour - Uncle Ben's. Rice, rice, rice all the way, with buggerall wheatflour involved. Loving it. And I'll have to be loving it for some time.

Oh well. At least I have an excuse to eat sugar - carb substitute. Honest.


So I'm dealing with it.
Didn't stop me crying like a baby when I threw out all my bread and cereal, though. It was like kicking puppies off a cliff.

So I was turned on to Kayleigh, by Marillion, about a week ago, and I have to say I'm rather addicted. If you haven't heard it, I recommend watching it before you read this. No really, it's an excellent song. Everyone should appreciate it. I would talk more about it, but I don't actually know anything about music and I'm afraid I'd get about 5 words in before I started making things up and telling you some ridiculous fact, such as that Kayleigh was actually a metaphor for the songwriter's pen and he was struggling with writer's block. So it was actually an ode to his pen to apologise for past misdeeds and request forgiveness, so that he could continue to communicate his beautiful mental images to music.

...actually, that does sort of make sense. But anyway.

Link to the song: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cwNVfNc1IQM


It was only upon actually listening to the lyrics that it occurred to me that some of them might be marginally less than sane. In fact, one of them very much so. But I'll get to that.

And now, as a glorious waste of your time (I'm good at that), I hereby give you the lyrics for the song, with a running commentary to put together the pieces of this outrageous story.

( Er, behind the cut, that is. )

This entry is dedicated to a Londoner friend who's about to bravely take the hard path and head off on the biggest journey of her life.

20:04 <@Mystie> paz: i won't join more, i swear!
20:04 <@Mystie> new group: oooh, anime with western/rare dialect, come see, come see
20:04 <@Mystie> paz: i won't joi--- oooh hougen~~~ *follows*

I just wanted to post this as an example of someone who knows me so much better than I do.

So I'm sitting here with eyes wide open, proactively ready to take on the world and raise productivity to superhuman levels. The downside? It's past 3 in the morning and I have work in a few hours. Insomnia is a terrible thing on a Sunday night, I don't know why it keeps happening to me. Maybe I'm cursed with Sunday night sleeplessness, sort of a reverse-Sabbath.

OK, I'll admit it, last week it was entirely my fault. I'd realised that I had little to no drinks in the house on Sunday night, and the nearest (open) place to stock drinkables was the garage, which would have required me to entertain the preposterous notion of going out and walking down the road. So I went hunting for anything that looked vaguely drinkable. The milk was there, still in date but not enough to fill a refreshing glass full of. Damn. But then my eyes fell on the teabags. And the milk. And the kettle. A plan had been formed. Which did seem like an excellent idea at the time.

Cut to 3am, and me lying in bed with eyes wide open like saucers, cursing anyone and everyone who had a hand in discovering caffeine. I did eventually drop off an hour or two later, then proceeded to unwittingly ignore my alarm until my body's emergency defence measures woke me up at 8am and I threw myself out the window to get to work on time.

And now, a week later, I'm revisiting my old friend Insomnia. This is ridiculous, I didn't even drink any caffeine today. Unless the potassium in banana juice has a 14-hour turnover, I'm fairly sure I shouldn't be doing this. To be fair, I did drop off for a couple of hours earlier, but even so I'm usually out cold by at least 1. And yet, after trying relaxing music, boring books/games and other assorted old strategies for forcing sleep, I'm still wide awake.

...I don't think I was bitten by a vampire. No hideous fang marks on my neck and my only current craving is for pints of delicious milk. So not that, unless a vampire cow found its way into my apartment.

I even turned to iTunes to find sleep-inspiring music, but all it's produced is music that gives me the feeling I'm about to be abducted by aliens. And as relaxing as that sentiment is, it's not quite my cup of decaf.



One productive thing has come of this, though. I found out that LJ really does support RSS feeds. I know that there are some casual readers of this who don't use LJ cough cough parents cough who always give out to me for never updating, then don't read anything when I do. Well! Now you can use this:

http://fuushu.livejournal.com/data/rss

and have no excuse for missing my infrequent nuggets of wisdom, because your browser will kick you whenever I post something.

So it's been a couple of weeks now, and the apartment's actually mostly sorted.

A couple of things I didn't mention last time were that the shower had no shower curtain, and thus basically flooded the apartment after every shower. Also, the washing machine is psychotic and tries to murder the rest of the kitchen in a furious rage whenever it hits spin cycle.

After angry emails from basically everyone across all of the translation teams, the Company was kicked into action and gave us a shower curtain, a dining table and shelves. Now, me being me, I still had the boxes sitting in the middle of the living room, so getting through to the kitchen wasn't as much a short walk as an obstacle course.

Enter my mother, who swept in with her guardian angel powers and poked me into getting to work. So together, we rearranged the kitchen to make it more workable, unpacked everything, bought stuff to make the place look somewhat nice, and ordered in a dryer to replace the tiny pathetic clotheshorse.

So now the place is livable! The washing machine still goes on vicious rampages, but I can set it to the less violent spin cycle now that I have a dryer to balance it out. The shower curtain plus makeshift lip stops it flooding, and the desk is still as beautiful as it was.

Gonna need a new TV at some point, though. Hrm.

Not updated this much lately, I've really beem meaning to.

Well, the big news at the moment is that I'm moving. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Yep, the glorious apartment and brilliant location really was too good to be true and Nintendo have decided to move us all to one general area on the other side of the city. We were significantly loud in our resistance, but nothing we could do, since it's one free apartment to another.

So we went to take a look today, having waited almost 3 hours to get our keys from the landlord at the office.

And yeah, step-down is a gross understatement. It might just be me overreacting, but my god is it awful. It's kind of like living in a mental institution or a high-brow prison. Z was thrilled, since he's been living in a one-room flat since he got here, but the rest of us were very suitably unimpressed.

But it's done now, no going back. I'm moving in there tomorrow morning and won't have internet till Monday. So wish me luck not going insane!

There comes a point in every man's life when he has to move out of the next and brave it in the cold, hard world. The Real World of Work and Responsibility.

Which is fine, I'm having no issues with The Real World so far. We seem to get on pretty well. My main enemy, however, has reared its ugly head. Yes, boys and girls, cooking.

Cooking is a delicate art, one created by cavewomen in an attempt to stop the recent invention of fire being used for mass indiscriminate arson sprees. It is an almost sentient creature, one that passes through history in a display of torment and torture of poor humans that could ironically be likened to a mass indiscriminate arson spree.

Of course, none of this is known to the public. The people who discover the truth and attempt to draw the world's attention to it have met rather sticky ends at the hands of kitchen implements. A famous example is Sylvia Plath, who was victimised by her entire kitchen for years on end until her own oven finally offed her, the poor woman.

Naturally, every youngling who leaves the nest, whether by a carefully-calculated leap of faith, or a carefully-calculated flying kick delivered by its loving parents, has to come up against this horror. And of course, they are all silent about it; who wants to be asassinated in the night by an army of teacloths?
Eventually, they see the light and declare that cooking is Very Safe, and Actually Quite Convenient, Really. For these people there is no return. They have been caught up in the endless cycle of life, death and reheating. And they live out their lives, never knowing true freedom.

The Japanese, recognising this terrible fact of life, attempted a brave countermeasure in the form of sashimi. A novel idea indeed, for a time casting out the foul demon.
However, it did not quite go according to plan. One fateful day, a man had a remarkably convenient idea planted into his head: combining this raw fish with rice. Naturally, the rice would have to be cooked, as raw rice is inedible.
By this time, the meaning of the raw fish had been lost in the annals of time, concealed in cryptic messages left by the peoples of Nara in their poetry. However, by the time anyone could decipher their unique poetry, the damage was done and Japan was lost.

But what their efforts did grant us was hope. Centuries later, the efforts of both the Nara poets and great literary geniuses such as the late Plath have been deciphered. Their lives have not been in vain.

Only we, in this era of automation, can halt this terrible demon. Food dispensers. Automatic cookers. Cooking robots. The list goes on.
Only we can stand up to this plague controlling humanity. Only by removing the terrible pain that cooking causes us can we truly be free. We must step forward, all of us. United.

And if not, there's always arson.


---


So I've been branching out lately from my 3-week dinner diet of oven pizza and microwaveable pasta into actual proper cooking. It was an effort to broaden my horizons and get in touch with my true inner self. It had absolutely nothing to do with me running out of pizza.

The first thing I did was about a week or two ago, when I did chicken, spuds and carrots. You know, the usual farmers' dinner.
It went well enough. The chicken tasted heavily of More, although the potatoes and carrots were slightly on the overdone side. I was told afterwards (isn't that always the case?) that you should toss them in halfway during the oven time.
Cooking #1: Moderate success.

Yesterday was decreed to be a Pasta Day, which was the most recent thing I had made back at home ("Oh crap, I'm moving out, quick, teachme2food") and was relatively easy to make.
The garlic oil was divine (although a bit strong, using less next time) and the bacon bits really added to it except when they decided to collect in a big snobby group at the bottom of the bowl grr.
So, cooking #2: success.


Today was undecided. I had chicken, potatoes and carrots, but I also had eggs, bacon and pasta. So I flicked through my Student Bum Recipe Book, and it suggested scrambled eggs with bacon. Which I duly followed.

Doing something I hadn't done before, however, comes with its risks. The fact that it's me doing it only serves to double the risks. So I popped chicken et al into the oven as a backup, just in case my dinner tried to eat me back or something.

The result was interesting. I'd used 2 eggs and possibly a bit too much milk in the blend. And halfway through the process, the eggs decided that they would rather actually be an omelette. Which, given my omelette track record, I wasn't about to argue with. So it ended up being an omelette with 2 extra eggs which was milky on the bottom and very, very eggy on the top. Interesting.

Chicken still tastes like More. Potatoes and carrots are still overdone. Sign. You can't win 'em all.

So it's been a relatively packed week. Outside work that is, which is, um, exciting. And groundbreaking duties that mark me as a productive member of society. Clearly.


---


My dad was over the weekend before last, and we spent the time being brave adventurers, exploring the area surrounding Bornheim to discover the potential mystery locked behind the walls of the city called Frankfurt.

Yeah.

A lot of it was spent following the pointer of a mysterious yellow sign marked "LIDL". Now, I had no idea there was a Lidl anywhere closer to me than the Zeil, so this intrigued me. Because while I have an Aldi around the corner, I quickly discovered that over here, Aldi is vastly, vastly inferior to Lidl with regard to the special offers.

I will interject here for the sake of the ignorant, clueless or otherwise American readers to explain that Lidl and Aldi are examples of discount supermarkets, that mostly specialise in own-brand stuff and have weekly themed special offers, starting on Mondays and Thursdays. And they often are really good offers, hence the people queueing up outside them at 9am and kicking and screaming to get to the parts of the supermarket with the offer they want.
Hell, half of my fleeces are Lidl jumpers.

Anyway, the hunt for the Lidl continued. We found ourselves out on a big open road thing, and approaching a big blue skyscraper that was totally out of place (buildings are not large in Bornheim), and using it as a landmark to not get lost with. I mean, obviously we are manly Irish men and do not get lost ever. But, you know, the crafty wiles of Frankfurt, streets moving, shops sneakily changing their window wares as we pass so they can no longer be used as signposts, etc.

We never did find the Lidl. After winding up back on the Bergerstraße, we just gave up and had ice-cream. From an Italian place that is so nice omg I have to go back every day or I will die you know how it is.
Then we went exploring the southern half of Bornheim, but our perilous journey was cut short when we were both not as much called as screamed at by Nature to return to my apartment. Thus, the adventure ended...for now. To be continued at a later date.


---


And last weekend was spent up in Düsseldorf with the great Lisa and an army of weeaboos (read: cosplayers). It was Japan Day up there, so I was recruited to attend. Of course, as soon as I found out there was takoyaki sold there, my train tickets were magically sold.

So I confidently hopped on the U77, after the map assured me that it would take me to the station I wanted. And I sat, waiting for the station to appear on the list. And I hit the last stop, and it was not there. It was then that I realised I was indeed on the right train, it was just going in the wrong direction. Yup. Go team.
So I went back on the line to the real stop, and humbly followed the weeaboos to the Rhine promenade, where Japan Day was being held. And it was like a huge city-sponsored anime convention, cosplayers everywhere.

Most of the day was spent in the cinema, watching Nabbie no koi, a wonderful Japanese film about an old woman named Nabbie on a small Okinawan island, and her family and the island community. It was nice and slowly paced, one of the very rare times I didn't get frustrated with slow Japanese film. And her husband was hilarious. Must find this movie again.

I emerged to be told that apparently it had rained pretty badly while I was inside, which had wiped out most of the weeaboos. Naturally, I was inconsolable after hearing this.
I then brought Lisa to partake in wonderful takoyaki. Unfortunately, she was marginally less excited about the prospect of eating octopus than I was, and it didn't go down quite as well.

Next stop, Straelen. Pronounce that. Go on.

No, really.

Say it.

Well, you got it wrong, sorry. It's pronounced "Strahlen", because apparently in oldish German script, the "ae" is a long "a" sound, and it still lives on in place names to torture the Germans. Much like the neighbouring city, Duisburg, which is pronounced like it reads, but is a nightmare to pronounce for most Germans, because they don't have the "ui" combination.

Nordrhein-Westfalen is apparently famous for its asparagus this time of year. And after eating it, I can see why. it is so nice i need more now I am now questing in Frankfurt for asparagus.
Her mother also likes rhubarb, and apparently the rest of the family loathe it. And we all know how I feel about rhubarb. I think her mother was thrilled that someone finally shares the same taste buds as her.


---


So my adventures in and around Bornheim and Düsseldorf have inspired me to get a satnav, so I don't get ridiculously lost. so I ordered one on Amazon, which I'm sure will be delivered sometime this month.


But what did get delivered today was my package from Amazon Japan! Whoo-hoo!

- .hack//G.U. novels 1-4 (Whee novels! More walls of text for me to agonise over!)
- .hack//G.U. + volumes 3+4 (For work. Clearly.)
- .hack//XXXX volume 2 (Whee work.)
- .hack//Alcor volume 1 (Totally work.)
- .hack//4koma volume 1 (I'm not obsessed!)
- .hack//CELL novel 1 (Not sure why I got this. Potential work?)
- .hack//Epitaph of the Twilight (I won't even pretend here. Holding this makes my fanboy insides melt and swirl.)
- 方言の地図帳 (Dialect maps of Japan EEE EEE EEE)
- 声に出して読みたい方言 (Japanese classics rewritten in dialect and recorded on CD)
- 方言すらすらブック (General dialect book. I saw this in Japan and overlooked buying it. Now it is mine.)
- 日本語教科書の落として穴 (The Pitfalls of Japanese Textbooks. A book outlining all of the things Japanese textbooks and classes etc. teach students that don't quite mesh with real Japanese. I've heard people rave on about this wonderful book, so now I must read it.)

The German language irritates me in many ways. Let's take an example, question words!

Wo = Who
Wer = Where
Wenn = When

...

...is what you'd expect, right? I mean, German is ridiculously close to English anyway, and they share a common root, so they'd obviously have similar words for things.

Wrong.

The correct order is this:

Wo = Where
Wer = Who
Wenn = If
Wann = When


This naturally leads to frequent headaches for learners of German such as I was in school, and awkward situations for unfortunate English speakers like me who make the Wann/Wenn mistake a few times a week.

Colin: If you open until?
Innocent Stallholder: ???


There's also the fact that German, like every language, is subject to Sod's Law of Foreign Languages, which generally goes along the lines of "The language you learned in school doesn't actually exist and is in fact a big fat lie." This is something that everyone who's ever been abroad discovers, and a lot of people I know personally experienced upon arriving in Japan ("What's an ore?").

This applies equally to German. One of the most basic words that you learn is "nein", meaning "no". And even people who don't know/care about German know that no is "nein", right?
Guess what! The Germans don't! I have not heard the word once since I arrived. It's all about the "nee".
The same happens with two, where "zwei" becomes "zwo" for some reason, although I'm told it's mostly a South Germany thing.


All of these pitfalls unite to make German an insidious language to learn. Japanese is one thing, because it's so different that there's very few instances of "oops, sorry, that word honestly doesn't mean 'stupid spoiled whore' in English..." But German is actually treacherous, because it has so many false friends who take you out to the best dinner you've ever had, then leave you to foot the bill.

So, Germany. Yep. Very German.

Finally got all my packing done by 1am this morning. By which I mean, I put stuff haphazardly on the bed and my dad worked his ridiculous magic to make them all magically fit in the suitcase. Without any of the vaccuum bags we were planning to use, I might add.
This was followed by bed, which consisted of 2 hours of fretful insomnia and 1 hour of sound sleep followed by aggravated bouts of narcolepsy which I like to believe I fought off valiantly. Followed by forcing my parents out of bed and flying to the airport (see what I did there? Haw haw). Thus followed madcap adventures of Colin going to the wrong gate twice, before fleeing back to the proper one. Really, I might as well not have bothered, because it was delayed by half an hour anyway. I was drifting in and out of sleep before we took off, but there was something about a missing passenger, followed by what I swear was the plane running back and forth along the runway (practice run?) before the actual taxi.

Landing in Germany, I immediately found myelf surrounded by German. As you do. I, having not even looked at German since first year, was suitably out of my depth. Still am. Haven't spoken a word of German since I got here except my address. Which isn't as bad as it sounds, given that I've talked to a sum total of three people.

So my apartment. Wow. When they said it was fully furnished, they weren't joking. Kitchen! With cutlery! And iron! And ironing board! Bed, with linen! And towels! TV! With satellite! Internet connection that got set up on the same day that I arrived! And my only bill is the internet bill. Amazing.
Also, every building in the vicinity is at least five stories. This is both awe-inspiring and somewhat claustrophobic.

Having finally forced myself to actually leave the place, I went for a look around. There's a farmers' market every weekend right around the corner, but the German intimidated me, and I didn't have a bag with me. So I just went straight for the familiar, an Aldi down the road. Without a bag, of course, and unable to find the bags, I ended up carrying an armful of shopping (bread, jam, fruit juice, milk...the essentials) home, while people looked at me in an alarmed way. First day in Germany, and I'm already being judged.

As odd as it is, I'm homesick for Japanese. At least with Japanese I know where I am. It's been years of painful toil and constant kicks in the teeth to learn it, but now that I'm in Germany, I'm getting heavy withdrawal symptoms. Mainly because my German brain (very small) needs to take my Japanese brain aside and explain kindly but firmly that German would not be better off with "ka" or "korekara" or other such ridiculously useful Japanese quirks. Because every time I try to focus on German, Japanese comes in with its trademark flying kick.

In any case, I'm here, I'm settled and I have internet. Next step, food supplies!

I have decided that I have a new goal in life. I am going to introduce violent changes to the world that will rock it to its core.
And by violent changes, I of course mean that wonderful system of balanced holidays.

In an effort to get myself adjusted to the wonderful world of work, I've been researching German holidays in advance (Priorities are important, and I do try to turn laziness into an art form), and this is my finding, sourced from the Great Encyclopedia of All World Knowledge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Germany

Now, it looks pretty OK. 16 holidays per year, right? Look closer.
If you look at the bottom total, one state has 13 holidays. And that's Bavaria, and we all know Bavaria is the German equivalent of Saitama.

One quick glance will show you how these holidays are generally distributed. Depending on your state, you'll have 6-7 holidays in the first half of the year, and then...they dry up.
Summer? What summer? You have a maybe 40% chance of having Corpus Christi, and a further 60% chance of the actual thing falling in June. After that, nada till October when you get Isn't It Awfully Nice To Be A German Day. Then, if you're in one of the 10 lucky states, you'll have a holiday around Halloween. Followed by Christmas.

Basically, you have 6/7 holidays in the first half of the year, then about 4 in the second half, if you're lucky. Now, I'm sure it's not just me when I point out that that is very bad planning. Shame on you for being tight-fisted and top-heavy with your super-holy days, Christianity.

Further study reveals an even worse situation in Ireland: 9 public holidays, although they at least pretend to be balanced.

Let's look at a non-Christian country: Japan. No less than 15 (yes, fifteen) national holidays, none of which are overly religious and are very evenly spaced out, with a few forming a week off in April/May.
To reinforce this: Japan, the country of rigidly obsessive workers, has almost twice the public holidays of European countries.


This needs to be rectified, quickly. I can see two ways of doing this:

1) Drop a couple of early holidays (who celebrates Ascension Day any more, really?) and pick up a few towards the end of the year. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th December would be nice, although it may bring up some awkward questions about exactly how long Mary was pregnant for.
(I have since been informed that this is when Mary was conceived. Although I still fail to see why this is immaculate, the only reason she's famous is basically as a human test-tube.)

2) Forget the religion and just add in new ones, especially in the second half of the year. Take inspiration from Japan, add a Children's Day or a Greenery Day, always nice things to have. Harkens me back to my childhood when I was so annoyed that mothers and fathers had a day and we never did.


I vote for option 2. Because a) you can never have enough holidays, as Japan shows, and b) workers would totally burn out without them. Think about the workers, Europe.

I need to get into diplomacy so I can rise to the highest levels of the EU and force more standard holidays.

So, my dissertation, the shadow that's been haunting me for months and months, is done and handed in. I am free! Hooray!


So, timeline for this month:

8th - Oral exam. More on this later.
21st - 2pm, Japanese translation exam.
23rd - 9:30am, Japanese language exam.
24th - 6:50am, flight to Frankfurt.
26th - 10am, first day of work.

My goals for this month up to the 20th:

- Get up to date on Chi's Sweet Home.
- Get enough Ghost Hound done to tide people over.
- Catch up on D.Gray-man and do more awesome TC skypings, with hopefully a parody episode!
- Play through Twilight Princess (Japanese, at least. Maybe English.)
- Read a couple of Deaver books.
- Lose 5kg (not gonna happen)



So, oral exam.
Oh god I can't speak Japanese help me. Seriously though, I need to work on cobbling together something to keep Midori talking, so Kozo doesn't attack me with questions about Japanese literature or ads or something. Although, I should probably get something together for the environment too, because as we all know, the environment has come back to haunt me in every single exam ever.

- Exhibit A: German Leaving Cert exam. What picture story didn't I like? And what one came up? Environment!
- Exhibit B: First year German oral presentation. Environment!
- Exhibit C: Third year Japanese. Of course, the environment was the most prominent and most difficult topic.
- Exhibit D: Fourth year Japanese. Two separate lecturers bringing up the environment in two separate ways. Curse you all.

So it's basically confirmed that the environment will feature heavily into my oral exam. And the main exam. And I bet whatever game I work on in Frankfurt will also be environmental. Wii Recycling?


I'm sure it was noticeable above that I finish an exam on the 23rd, then fly off early on the 24th. Giving me basically half a day or so of guiltless freedom, which will probably be taken up by packing.
I'll also have a short gap when I get to Germany before I set up my internet, which means I'll be missing:
- Lost finale
- Doctor Who
- House (maybe)

Watch as I start eating my furniture in frustration before I have internet again.

So today, as it was The Day After The Last Day of College (*sob*), I naturally found myself...in college. Why, you ask?

Well, Wii Fit was due out today and I absolutely *had* to get it. Seriously. According to the internet (which never lies), preorders had it sold out pretty much eveywhere ever. Thus I had decided that my only option left was to hold up a shop arrive at opening time. Opening time being 9am. You know, in the morning.

So, in I went with my mother like I do on most college days.
If you don't know how my mother words, she starts at about 6:30-7. Meaning we leave at about 5:30. Meaning I'm up at about 4:30, a time that usually means "Go away, it's still nighttime."
But for once, I didn't have a dissertation to do! Well, OK, I do, but not the point of today's early morning. So in I went and conked out. 2 hours later, I was on the way down to HMV to avail of voucher-powered purchasage. I'd expected to have to trawl around the shops like a bum because of the earlier-mentioned preorder fever, but the first HMV I went to had it! Lots of them! So, in I went and: "*points* mine plz"

So, right.
The box itself is rather large and cumbersome. I fully expected to put in the game and have it tell me "Well done, you have passed the first exercise: getting your Wii Fit Balance Board into the house!" Yeah, it was rather heavy and awkward to carry.
The box is also emblazoned with "Wii Fit" in ridiculously large white and green letters on the side, along with some green shadow figure thing doing a yoga pose. Now, I'm fully aware Nintendo likes its flashy bright advertising. This is nice. It's cheerful. It's also the kind of thing that makes you absolutely mortified walking through the city with. Especially if you're male. Males carry around big manly things like...gym bags. And women slung over each shoulder. Even a Metal Gear box would be fine. Just not a big green yoga person. I could practically feel the eyes boring into me as I walked past people in the absolute knowledge that each and every one of them was judging me. I ended up turning my coat into a big thick cover for it, to hide the shame.

In any case, we had our screen translation yokey to submit and I had to sign for it, so into college I went to do just that. After a frantic computer room search, a frantic text and a frantic second search, I found the cunningly concealed item in question and proceeded to break two pens in a row trying to sign it, before disgustedly pencilling in my signature.
I then ran into friends from my course completely at random, and we went to the canteen to talk about the end of college, life in general and mostly about our years abroad. And even more people saying the same thing about Germany - "Oh, Germany is great. It's the Germans that you need to keep away from. They've all the tact of a sledgehammer and they don't seem to know/care when they're being hurtful." Interesting. Also, apparently the "Don't mention the war" thing is a big fat lie - they do it all the time.


So, having got a lift home with the great Geraldus Magnificus, we started to give Wii Fit a try. I quickly discovered a few important things:

1) I have all the natural grace and poise of an epileptic mammoth.
2) I need to lose weight. Well, I knew that, but confirmation.
3) oh my god my legs

A lot of the games have a red dot showingg your centre of gravity, and then a yellow circle showing how far off you're allowed go. Needless to say, falling off the board is not exactly recommended procedure, and usually follows with the game telling you pedantically, "Oh, don't worry, you'll get better as you go along." And this is coming from one of those in-game trainers who, like all personal trainers, are rather Wii Fit, and thus provide heavy motivation through pure jealousy. Except for the whole being-made-of-polygons business, I can get past that.

There are four sections:
1) Yoga - This is supposed to be easy and relaxing. It was when I did it! But Wii Fit dispenses with the "into te cobra" business and goes straight into "stand on one leg for 40 seconds in this murderous pose".
2) Muscle training - This is slow and doesn't involve many reps at the start. And as we all know, it's much easier to do these things when it's fast. But when it's slow, you really have to feel it and get it right. And oh god, do you feel it.
3) Cardio - Stuff like hula hoops, jogging, step aerobics, etc. The hula hoop thing is actually really good, the sensors work very well for it. The step aerobics are awkward though, with the on and off and left and right and argh. I need better coordination.
4) Balance games - As stated above, I apparently have zero natural balance. So you have games like ski jumping, tightrope, etc. to remind you that your balance is all over the place.

As a finisher, I decided to do the jogging. Yeah. I'd previously unlocked the second of three level in that, so I went for that. And bejaysus, my legs were raw after that. Like, burning. Like, the stairs were an insurmountable obstacle.
But the great thing? I never would've gone that far if it weren't for the game! So yes, it is definitely worth it. For now.

"Feel that burn! I know I am..."

So, two days left to dissertate and two chapters left. 3500 words. A lot less than a few days ago, but still a decent stretch. Probably because I've been getting up at 4:30 every morning and getting home at about 10pm every night getting the thing done.

So far, I've said "This is what people think about dialects" and "this is how these 5 translators have handled the dialect". Now it's just "why they did that" and "wtf does Venuti fit into all of this" and I've saved humanity from a terrible crisis of misinformation.

Well, maybe not.

But dialect awareness shall be spread, I swear it!



In other news, things Germany-wise are going well. I've booked flights and I know where Nintendo are based, I just, er, don't know where I'm based. Which makes everything slightly more complicated, eg. travel, internet, fooding, etc.

It's funny, I've spent half a year with the absolute assumption of "Yep, I'm going back to Japan. A JET am I! Backup plan? What does that mean?" And I had everything planned out and all, and then I took the job in Germany and it all went down the toilet. Because I know nothing about Germany, and it's far more difficult to research than Japan. Ironically.

Oh well, life goes on. And I'm sure they'll crack eventually after the daily emails of "GIB ME NEW ADDRESS PLZZZ"

So, it's confirmed. I got my JET acceptance letter yesterday, and am writing a polite email on Monday to decline the position.

Thus, from the 26th of May I will be taking off to live in Frankfurt for, at first, 5 months. Which actually ends on my birthday. And will be translating video games full-time. Dream job, hello.

God, I need to learn German again.




In other news, most people have been noticing my fascination with the Eurovision this year.
Well, I was in a community with people who rated a song a day (rather harshly), and given that most of the songs were very listenable, I decided I'd...listen to them. And I'd say a good 60-70% are listenable, and some are [i]very[/i] good.

My top three are thus:

Switzerland
Paolo Meneguzzi - Era stupendo (lyrics)
Listen to his voice. Wow. And the song has a very definite flow, carrying you from an easy beginning into a lively second half, and just catching you up in the whole thing.
Could do without the dancers, though.

Sweden
Charlotte Perrelli - Hero
She won the Eurovision in 1999 and is still going strong. I like the simple performance and upbeat nature of the song. And from watching their Melodifestivalen, they do produce actual talent.

Iceland
Eurobandið - This is my life
Great throwback to 90s dance. Pity the dancers are kind of creepy. And so is the dodgy lead singer. But still, good song.

Other random comments:
Finland - Same heavy rock as before. I'm sorry, you are not Lordi.
Turkey - I'm not as resistant to it as when I first heard it, close fourth.
Bulgaria - Nice concept and underlying tune, but the execution is somewhat lacking (read: the video is awful). And will probably not be exciting on stage.
Georgia - I had so much hope when I listened to your song, which was very good, but apparently you can't deliver live. And are very very creepy.
Czech Republic - As above. Why? Although much less creepy, pretty much the polar opposite of Georgia's performance.


I'd better have TV in Frankfurt, because I don't want to miss this.

So, since me going back to Japan is currently less of a "brb nihon" and more of a big question mark floating over my head (which does make sleeping slightly awkward), I'm rebooting the old journal. More on the "Japan or not?" thing in another entry. Suffice to say, Germany is involved.

Quick catch-up for those who don't know (who doesn't?):
- Yeah, I got home fine.
- Started back at college fine.
- First semester ended fine.
- Second semester going fine-ish.
- Post-graduation prospects are, er, going.

---

So the big thing looming over us this semester is the dreaded dissertation.

You either do a translation yourself with commentary, or do a theoretical paper on some aspect related to translation. I chose the second.
And I'm sure we all know what I picked. It is not rocket science. Anyone who knew me in Japan will already know exactly what I'm doing.

Yup, dialect translation. 上智大学の方言オタク (dialect nerd of Sophia Uni) strikes back with a vengeance.
So mine is based like this: I'm taking a Japanese novel with dialect parts and 5 English translations of it, and comparing how the translators handle the dialect.

The novel I've chosen is Botchan. Now, if you're Japanese, you will probably know this inside out and upside down because I hear they make everyone read it in school.
Now, Botchan is about this guy from Tokyo who goes to live in Matsuyama to teach there and the big culture clash there. The thing is, the main character is, I think, supposed to be a stalwart postmodern Edo hero thriving in the face of oppression from the close-knit country folk. Interesting idea and all, but it would've been nice if he hadn't written the character as someone I generally want to stab in the face every time I turn a page. He's just so ridiculously ignorant, arrogant and full of himself and his own values.

So, I think the novel is aimed at two audiences:
1) the Tokyo/[insert big city here] reader who can gloriously read about the triumph of a stalwart postmodern Edo hero thriving in the face of oppression from the close-knit country folk.
2) the close-knit country folk readers who enjoy a personification of the typical brash city kid who demands that the world work his way and constantly makes derisive comments about a world that he doesn't understand.

When you think about it, it's actually a great political commentary about the world following the Cold War, and especially in recent times. Which is amazing, considering it was written in 1906. Human nature doesn't change with the centuries, apparently.

But yeah, I'm just using it for the dialect and its translations, some of which are decent and some of which are hilariously bad. You see, part of it is a pun entirely based on the dialect. And we all know how incredibly easy it isn't to translate a pun. Oh, but they try. They do try. Except one, who's like "Look, there's a pun here but I have no clue how to translate it, so LA! Footnote!"

..well, I find it interesting. I wish you wouldn't point hurtfully like that when you're laughing at me.


Now, the concept of comparing translations seems like an excellent and doable idea, right? Of course it is.

So, with that happy thought in mind, I selected three excellent dialect scenes, and prepared to compare them. It was at this point that I noticed the scenes were in books. Not on the computer, where they should be.

And thus, I spake the words that the devils themselves dare not utter: "Oh, bollocks."

Cue montage of me propping books open with torches, laptops, other books and whatever else was available to type, getting frustrated every 15 minutes and running away to fansub something. Yes, I am a responsible human being.
I even elicited help from my mother, dictating to her as she typed (she types faster than me), but that also ended in frustration and abandonment.

Cue me discovering Vista's inbuilt speech recognition.
And cue the angels singing out in immaculate chorus.

...and cue me spending the rest of reading week sitting with my feet up in front of the computer like a pleb talking my book into a computer.
"This old woman knew far too much for my liking full stop"
This old woman knew far too much fits to my liking.
"Correct 'fits to'." "for."
This old woman knew far too much fits to my liking.
This old woman knew far too much for my liking.
"Vista, I love you."
This old woman knew far too much for my liking. Vista, I love you.
"...delete that."

20 minutes later...

*bored and thus unclear voice* "I didn't know whose side I should be on full stop"
I hit the road whose side I should be on.
"Correct 'hit the road'."
I hit the road whose side I should be on.
"...correct 'hit the road'."
I hit the road whose side I should be on.
"...I said correct 'hit the road'!"
I hit the road whose side I should be on. I said correct hit the road
"DEATH"
I hit the road whose side I should be on. I said correct hit the road depth

Yup, it's been a fun week.
(Disclaimer: The above examples are exaggerated somewhat. Vista's speech recognition is the most brilliant thing ever and all should turn to its divine light of happy.)



More tomorrow!

So Fumi's was pretty much the same as before (again), except substitute freezing cold for blazing heat, and bugs tend to like getting into the house when you open windows and doors, which his family seems to like doing.

And again, as before, it took about 3 days before my patience started to wear thin and a good 5-6 days before I started wanting to make a single human sacrifice to whatever deities might be listening at the time.
Fumi is great and all, but in measured doses. After an extended period of time, he turns from being great to starting to grate on your nerves.


So on the 23rd, I took a trip up to Tokyo to see the WSKF worlds, since it was on and all, and it'd probably be the last one I see for obvious reasons.
And god. It was a *mess*. Seriously the worst organised competition I have ever been to in my life. WSKF aren't usually known for being all that disorganised when it comes to events, but this was a nightmare.
Taking events from seemingly nowhere and putting them on, it was like they were pulling them from a hat. And the girls got shafted, their events were always shoved aside, and at the end of Day One they finally held the cadets girls kumite. Well, half of it. And tried to put on the jiyu kumite at the same time without considering that everyone in that event was already competing in the other event. Sigh.
But at least I got to see everyone. And by everyone I mean those who weren't blanking me. Mmm, the politics of switching organisations aren't pretty.


Coming back from Tokyo, I'd only a week left in Shikoku, so I'd already planned to go straight travelling. So I got out from the night bus in Matsuyama to hop on a train to Tokushima, realising that I could've got off the bus a few hours earlier and been a few hours closer, but dismissing that because it made too much sense.
I also met a guy there who was travelling around Japan while working on organic farms on the WWOOOF program. It's an interesting idea, must file it away for possible dialect study later. I was talking to him for 5 hours and three trains, and I still don't know his name. Ah well.

HIM: I've been on the road since 10am this morning and I'm absolutely wrecked. How about you?
COLIN: Since 8:20 last night.
HIM: ...OK, you win.


Finally hit Tokushima and crashed into my hotel (but not before spending half an hour trying to find an ATM to pay the hotel deposit). Nice place once you dig out the plug sockets. Even has a hot water boiler and green tea sachets, wow.
And I had the most fantastic bento dinner ever. Rice, egg, sausage bit, some long fish thing that I devoured, chicken, a little potato salad, and something else I can't quite remember. Oh, and a teriyaki burger I bought separately. Divine.


Next day was set aside for sightseeing around Naruto.

COLIN: Oh yes, need to grab my camera. *looks in bag* Where are you?
CAMERA: Here! *waves*
COLIN: ...Not in the front pocket. Damn. Gah. *digs deeper* Where are you?!
CAMERA: I'm...right here.
COLIN: Argh! I had it in Tokyo! Did it get stolen? Was it the Russians everyone warned me about?! Did I drop it somewhere?!
CAMERA: Dude.
COLIN: *falls to his knees* Forsooth! Wherefore hath thou abandoned me, my sweet camera? What doth squirm in the hearts of men that causeth them to take my sweet, darling camera from my loving care?
CAMERA: Dude. Wake up.
COLIN: ?
CAMERA: I'm here, in the front pocket. You just weren't digging deep enough the first time.
COLIN: Oh.

This, followed by...

COLIN: This may need a charge later. *looks in bag*
CHARGER: I'm not here.
COLIN: Aha! I was fooled before, but not again! You are here, you vile instrument, and I shall not fail to seek you out and put you to the use that you were desig-
CHARGER: No, really, I'm not here. You left me at Fumi's.
COLIN: Oh. Damn.

...pretty much describes my morning.

Took an early-ish train to Naruto, the main plan being to visit the Great Naruto Bridge and Ryozenji, the first temple of the Shikoku 88 pilgrimage. Unfortunately, the line split right before the station near Ryozenji, so I headed there first, since I knew I'd spend ages in Naruto and I didn't want to go to the temple late.

And wow. I can safely say that Ryozenji is the nicest temple I've ever been to. Forget Kyoto's shiny Kinkakuji and huge Daitokuji, Ryozenji's the winner. It's small-ish for a temple, but wow.
OK, you walk in and the first thing that you see is a pond (with fountain and fish) and a little wooden bridge over it. Next up, you have the Daishido on your right and on the way is a mini-waterfall of water trickling down rocks. It looks amazing. You have the three-storey pagoda on your left, then up to the Hondo, the main hall, is all covered by trees on each side of the path. The building itself is fantastic, and there's a small shop to the side that sells all of the pilgrim gear.
To be perfectly honest, the temple blew me away so much that had a sufficient amount of money conveniently appeared in front of me and had I not a visa that would expire in four weeks, I would've dropped everything there and then and started walking. The next two years cannot pass quickly enough.

Next stop, the Great Naruto Bridge. And is it great or wha'. You get to walk about 500 metres along the first section of the bridge through a walkway on the very bottom, 65 metres above sea level. Meaning when you hit your first glass floor, you start twitching and jumping back. Until you get used to them.
I happened to arrive two hours before a big whirlpool was due, which is around when activity starts, so I went down and stayed an hour, then took off. And narrowly missed the bus. Death.

One hour later, and I'm back into town and on the train, on the way back to the hotel. Have to leave early tomorrow to get to Fumi's, damn. And am badly in need of a shower, I sweated buckets today.

And thus, here I am after a rather disastrous journey.

First, the ferry. OK. The boat was ridiculously posh, much more so than the ones at the port I worked at. As in, it had TVs. And a bar. And posh seats. And a kid sitting next to me who had a DS, and thus I spent the journey owning him in Mario Kart.

Next up, getting from the ferry to the station. This was where the disaster lay, since there was no bus for at least an hour (I didn't plan on waiting for one) and the map made the train station seem about 10-15 minutes' walk away, so happily walked I down the road to the train station.
The station was, naturally, nowhere near. It was, in fact, an hour and a half walk away. Probably would've been shorter had I not been carrying three huge heavy bags. So yeah, people kept staring as they passed by in their cars. But of course, nobody offered a lift to the foreigner walking along in the 35 degree sun with three big bags, because he's a Demon Foreigner and To Be Avoided.
In any case, finally reached the station where I hung up my T-shirt and switched T-shirts. Because it was basically a platform in the middle of nowhere with nobody around, so I could do that.

Train to Matsuyama, then next train down towards here. Tis was pretty uneventful, apart from the trains themselves. This was a one-man train, meaning no driver and conductor, just one person going back and forth up and down the train doing both jobs. It was also a regular train, not a rapid or express or anything. Thus, I was slightly taken aback at the fantastic seating inside. Again, much luxury and adding further coal to the fire of my train theory.


Today I started working on fixing Fumi's wireless router. It's strange, all of the settings are fine and it SHOULD be working perfectly, it just refuses to broadcast a wireless signal and I can't seem to figure out why. We'll ring up the support for it, probably tomorrow.
But this DOES mean that there's internet here, through LAN cable! I am connected to the world again! Er, as long as I stay in the family room, but still. Thus, I've upped my entries for the last two weeks so if you're up for some light reading, they start on the 1st of August.

Headed off with Fumi's dad today to help package up his tobacco plants. There were other people there too, and they were talking back and forth in their dialect while I was there like YES YES CONTINUE. Mmm, dialect.
And for lunch, I had potatoes. And carrots. And meat. With rice and fish, but still! Real food! Yes!

Phew. I'm upstairs in my room dying of the heat. Seriously, I fell asleep twice just to stop feeling it and am now smelling smells not dissimilar to those that you usually get from an oven.

Been blown off my feet the last week, so not had any time to write, but now on my last day here, I do. So where was I...


We came back that night to meet The Family. That being his youngest brother Kei, who's lived in England since he was six and was sleeping pretty much the entire time ("jet lag"), and his mother.

Given the aforementioned sleeping, the first one I actually met was The Mother. And wow. As first impressions go, mine was generally decidedly negative here, but I won't go into that for fear of ranting. In any case, she arrived and instantly got her hands dirty in the running of the house. This blew me away at first, and I kind of got the impression that she was overly controlling.
It wasn't until over the next few days that I realised how much the house really did do better with her around. Gone were the meals of two-days-old-toss-it-in-the-fridge-and-it'll-be-fine and in came some real cooking. Now, she studies bioscience and has very definite Opinions of Steel about what people should and shouldn't be eating, especially her family.
So, in addition to being a vegan (minus fish), she only works with organic food and ingredients, a massive suitcase of which she brought over because they're so much cheaper over in England and harder to get here. She's strongly opposed to food grown with any kind of chemicals and containing any kind of additives, which I initially translated as Anything That Tastes Nice, but then she managed to prove me wrong yet again by working magnificently with what she had. Although occasionally I got a distressing fish-with-head that I poked around the plate for a while.

As for The Brother, he, given where he lives, considers himself English and only partly Japanese, the Japanese part being at home. Where he speaks Japanese with his mother. So he's pretty much fluent in both, although his vocabulary's a lot more limited in Japanese BUT STILL. Don't you hate those people?
However. Despite his mother's efforts to educate him, he still can't read for crap, especially since he's had no real exposure to kanji or anything apart from his mother trying to teach him. So at least I can read a newspaper while he can't read signs. Go team.
And although he, like his brother, plays a lot of Ultimate Frisbee (GB national under 17 team!), he, unlike his brother, knows how not to talk about it all the time. But yeah. Still pretty impressive, both of them getting so high in frisbee. I bet it's all the organic food and the Balanced Meals his mother's such a fan of.


The port this week has been a big blur of hecticness. Obon's hit, and it's hit hard. EVERYONE wants to go home, because the ferry is one of the main routes down to Shikoku for people from the west end of Japan, and there's nothing actually in Shikoku so most people move away to work. And then come home for New Year and Obon and give us headaches.
And people continue to be stupid. The first question you always ask is where they're going, because they could be headed for either island and that makes a difference in how you sort them. And the responses...
Question: どちらに行かれますか？ (Where are you headed? And note: Jacqui, we used へ too. XD)
"The poison gas one." （「毒ガスの・・・」）
"Island."　（「島」）
"The ferry."　（「フェリー」）
"Over there."　（「あっち」・「あそこ」）
"I want to cross over."　（「渡る」）
"*points vaguely out to sea*"
"*says nothing, turns to in-car navigation and pokes it for a minute before coming up with the answer*"

The last one was especially hilarious, because I could see from her license plate that she was from Ehime, so she was obviously going to Omishima. But I had to ask, and she had to go poking at the navi.
They also point out that it's hot a lot. Yeah, we're sweating buckets, we kind of noticed. I've taken to wearing two layered T-shirts now, it's hotter but it means you don't have a T-shirt covered in sweat.

I've also developed a liking for fishing, inspired by Tatsuma taking me down to the port to fish with him. It's a pretty boring thing, maybe catching four or five fish in two hours in good conditions, sometimes getting nothing, but when you do get a bite it's the most exciting thing in the world.


I had a day off on Monday during which I was planning to go to Matsue (finally!), but alas, when I got to Kurashiki I had to pay extra for the limited express, since local trains would give me about 45 minutes in the city before having to go back. Which meant seeking out an ATM. Which, of course, was a difficult thing to do at 8am in a place you don't know and I ended up missing the train.
So instead I went down to Takamatsu, the main city in north-east Shikoku and not that far away from where I was. To get there, you have to cross the Great Seto Bridge, which is either the longest or tallest bridge in the world, I forget. In any case, crossing it in shining sunlight gives you the best view you ever have seen in your life. And one that a camera of course refuses to capture.
Takamatsu itself is well-known for its two big parks, one that has one of the only waterside castles and the other which is massive and takes an hour just to walk around the prescribed route. Which gives you 60% of the park and has you pass at least 5 food buildings, which sell ice-cream and thus conquered me. And the one near the entrance has the best shaved ice in the entire world, recommendations to any and all.
It also has a shopping arcade much like Omni at home (I think. It's a covered street with shops, anyway, I can't think of any other examples besides Kyoto) except for the minor fact that it's 2 kilometres long. Yes, that long. Not including the side ways that branch off. 2 kilometres of shopping. It's insane.


So, it's my last day here. And it's been a blast, I really honestly wish I didn't have to leave. I'll be back for one night later, but that's not really the same. I'm going from a place with a fairly modern-ish family who laugh and joke around all the time and a great (hot) job down at the port where I get to talk to people, to a place out in the country in the middle of nowhere in a town full of old people. Ah well, you never know how things turn out. And I know I'll be back here again some day, especially given my new vow to take all of the Shin-Shikoku pilgrimages over Japan in the name of righteous dialect study.


And tomorrow morning, I get paid. Yay! And Ryoma's uncle's getting a name stamp made for me as a present. Yay! Which means I sat down with his mother, the genius of naming, to come up with kanji. It's so overly complicated, you can't just pick random kanji because some have hidden meanings, and you have to take the total stroke count into account too, because, say, 14 is a horrible one to have while 13 means intelligence and 15/16 mean peaceful and open, that kind of thing.

So, after consulting three kanji dictionaries to find good names, we finally came up with this:
胡棆
Total of 21 strokes which is a good amount for men because it means success and fortune but said to be too strong for women.

As for the kanji..
胡 - arrow, also symbolises courage
棆 - the kuromoji tree, which is hard and sturdy, but when you bend its branches they give out a sweet smell. My dictionary gives me spicebush, but I don't know how far to trust it given the whole hilarity over the "beefsteak plant".


This time tomorrow, I'll be in Fumi's. Hum.

So Leon, the Dutch guy from the dorm who's over two metres tall and clearly the tallest person to ever set foot in Japan, arrived here on Tuesday afternoon right after we finished work. And of course he was shown to everyone, with accompanying gasps and fainting. He's also one of the most straight-talking and dirty people I know, but still not quite competing with my lovely mother for that title.
And for his first day here, he was sick of being cooped up in small (for him) trains, so we of course went mountain climbing! Off up Shirotaki, which has one of the best views of the area you can have. Especially at sunset, except when there's interfering clouds in the way. Grr.

Yesterday me and Leon went to Okunoshima while Ryoma worked the morning. And wow. It is the *ideal* holiday spot in summer, no wonder so many people flock to it every day. It's got beaches, open areas, camping areas, a hotel, a mountain with a summit that I have declared the greatest sunbathing spot in the world, everything.
It's...also got one of the most disturbing histories of any island, as the hollowed-out old creepy stone building and the poison gas museum don't quite let you forget. Really, going in the museum is extremely creepy, from it talking about how the people on the island were forced to work and not told what the plant was actually making, to detailed lists of the disturbing effects of the poison gas on humans. And the workers at the factory, who had to use inadequate rubber suits which developed gaps and cracks so the poison seeped in and they ended up developing a variety of severe medical conditions.
It also mentions that not much is known about what the poison gas was used for. Which, when translated from Japanese Museum to English, means "We did a lot of horrible crap and destroyed countless lives, but we don't want to tell you that." The photos of the people in gas masks walking through Shanghai was enough to imply how they were used, thanks. The photos of the soldiers in gas masks really did give across the image of Japanese soldiers as worse than any terrorists the world could ever create.

And on that happy note, we headed back to the mainland sunburnt and slightly disturbed, and headed for the Japanese gardens by the airport. Which are fantastic by the way, it's like palace grounds there. Huge lake in the centre, full of fish. You can buy fish food to feed them, but then they get all aggressive and you've even got a couple of ones crowd surfing on the surface of the water.
Next up, into the airport for okonomiyaki, which is apparently the best in the area. And having eaten it, Colin heartily agrees.