Shibuya


Yoyogi-koen


Rainy Harajuku


The Ginza Line


Yodobashi, Shinjuku

I leave Japan in exactly one month today! I can hardly believe it.

I spent the weekend with some friends on Iki, a small island roughly half-way between Japan and Korea. The island is famous for its uni, known in English as raw sea-urchin. And despite being pretty open-minded when it comes to food, I have to say it was pretty awful stuff. It looked disgusting, smelt disgusting and tasted disgusting. I know many Japanese will completely disagree with me, but I personally thought it tasted like manky sea water mixed with industrial sewage. It was definitely one of the most horrid foods I've tried in my three years in Japan.

As expected the weather was very wet seeing as we are in the middle of Japan's rainy season. In fact the word 'wet' would not do justice to the weather we experienced on Iki. At times it was like whole oceans full of water were hitting the ground at any one time. But my friend Jo (currently visiting from the UK) and I had a lot of fun and we'd just like to thank Shawn and his lovely students for inviting us to join them for such a fantastic weekend trip!

ありがとうございます！

The plans for my trip home when I leave Japan are now beginning to gather steam and fall into place. I now have my Chinese and Vietnamese visas and I have just bought tickets for the three trains I'll be taking from Beijing to Moscow. What's more my Russian and Mongolian visa invitations have just arrived so now I'll be able to apply for those visas too. The planning for this trip has been a nightmare so far, but hopefully things will be all sorted sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I've just discovered that the Russian Embassy in Japan does not accept visa applications by mail, only in person, and with the closest embassy or consulate being in Osaka it looks like I'll be making a rather unexpected and quick dash up to Kansai within the next two weeks.

As for the trip itself I'll be leaving Japan at the end of July and flying to Singapore via two-day stops in both Taiwan and Hong Kong. Then I'll be taking the overland route all the way back to London from Singapore, a distance of around 14,000 km by train and bus. The journey will involve passing through at least fifteen countries and should take around six weeks to complete.

Shibuya at night


The backstreets of Shibuya


Ginza

There's been a lot of debate in the UK and international presses recently concerning the thorny issue of whaling. As the Japanese are among international whaling's strongest advocates, it's no surprise to see Japan being heavily criticised this week for their efforts to push for a return to the practice of global commercial whaling.

At risk of being contoversial I'm going to side-step my own personal views on the issue as much as possible. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that a lot of the people complaining so vehemently in the west have completely failed to understand the role whaling has played (and continues to play) in countries such as Japan. Whalemeat has long been part of the Japanese diet and to demand the Japanese refrain from eating it is perhaps a little unfair. How would certain western countries react if they were told they had to stop certain food practices which other countries deemed cruel or innappropriate?

Although more through social obligation than personal choice, I do admit to having eaten whalemeat here in Japan. Does this make me a bad person? In fact, many of my older colleagues not only grew up on it but still eat it regularly. And they are certainly not cruel or evil people like some sections of the written and electronic press are making them out to be. Sure, they may be somewhat un-enlightened, but then again who isn't?

I'm not saying whether whaling's right or wrong, but it's hard to criticise something if you don't know the background or the reasons behind it.

I got back to Fukuoka last night after four days in Tokyo. It was a fun and, of course, expensive few days. I suppose a long weekend in Tokyo is never going to be cheap!

I spent most of my time hanging out in Shinjuku and Shibuya, but also made visits to other parts of the city including Harajuku, Ginza and central Tokyo. As many of you will know the city (or should I say metropolis?) has so much going on it's hard not to walk around it with your ears and eyes constantly peeled in anticipation of what's coming next. But as curious and intriguing as it is, Tokyo is at times an uncomfortable visual and audio assault on the senses which can leave you feeling physically and emotionally drained at the end of the day. And then after all that there's Tokyo's renowned nightlife to contend with, surely one of the most vibrant and diverse in the world, which will do a great job of sapping the little energy you might actually have left. I can only imagine what it is like to actually live there, but in the end I felt quite happy returning to my little but peaceful apartment in the Kyushu countryside.

It’s finally here. Germany 2006. Let the festivities begin!

But first, I must apologize for the inevitable football-talk on this blog over the coming weeks. I am actually going to try my best to limit my writings (warblings??) on the world cup so as not to bore everyone into submission, but if something happens which really excites me then I’m afraid I’m going to find it very difficult not to talk about it. Sorry.

Anyway, it wouldn’t be right to end this post without giving you all my pre-tournament predictions. So here goes…

Mr.Scudamore, my art teacher in secondary school, always said to us ‘Watch the Dutch, just watch the Dutch.’ So, we did. And I always liked the way they played, although it was hard not to when they had such great players like van Basten, Gullit and Bergkamp. They’ve often had strong teams and whilst this time they’re not really one of the favourites, I’ll still be taking Mr.Scudamore’s advice and watching the Dutch! If I were you, I’d watch them too!

My perennial favourites are Italy. I admire their strong defensive qualities and I love their national anthem. I even downloaded it the other day to get into the spirit of things. It’s funny how some national anthems can get those little hairs to stand up on the back of your neck. And whilst Italy might not possess a player of true matchwinning quality this time, I imagine there won’t be many teams getting the better of them at the back. If England don’t win, I want the azzuri to win it.

Or Spain, of course.

Well, I could go through all the teams but that’d be too much even for me, so I’ll just stop here and say that England have their best chance in years, Germany and France should do well, Argentina and Italy should do better than four years ago, Spain will disappoint again, the African teams will spring a few surprises, the Asian representatives will likely be heading home early, the Dutch are worth watching, the Swiss are not, the Aussies will out-do themselves and, finally, Brazil are probably going to win it again (I really hope they don’t but it’s pretty hard to look past the samba boys).

As for the players, I’d like to see Raul, Zidane and Del Piero roll back the years with some vintage performances, but now they’re all past their primes I don’t envisage them doing great things in this competition. Instead, apart from Ronaldinho, I expect great performances from Drogba, Robben, Henry, Kaká, Ronaldo and Gerrard. But my player to watch is Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Once labelled a one-trick-pony, he has a bewilderingly accurate rocket-like shot which is hard for any keeper to stop, plus an amazing ability in the air from set-pieces. If he performs well, Portugal could go a long way.

And then there’s lanky ‘Robocop’ Peter Crouch! It’s hard to believe that the bean-pole forward is in the England team after those disasterous few years at Villa, but what are the odds now on Crouchy finishing top scorer at a world cup?

11-2, you say?

Not the best odds, but bring it on!

The hot weather is here. The humidity is rising and that sweaty feeling is here to stay. If you've ever been in Japan during the summer then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

I had a good time at Concert on the Rock this weekend and if you're interested to know what I got up to then have a look at my music and photo pages (the links are in the sidebar). As well as performing I was asked to be one of the official photographers so in between all that and enjoying a few drinks I was quite busy.

Apart from all that my mind has been occupied recently with plans for my trip home. On Monday I collected my Chinese visa from the consulate here in Fukuoka and then I immediately sent it off Tokyo to get the Vietnamese one. And booking tickets for the train out of Beijing to Mongolia is proving tougher than I would ever have imagined. Hopefully I can get this sorted out as quickly as possible.

And with the World Cup only days away, some of my kids are going crazy. For some reason most of the third grade have taken to calling me Kaká. For those of you who don't know, Kaká is a midfielder in the Brazilian national team. I don't really know why they started calling me Kaká but I suppose it must have something to do with the silky skills I displayed on the school field recently!

This weekend I'm performing at the Concert on the Rock music festival in Oita with my good friend and colleague Shannon Helgeson on violin. Last year we performed there as a threesome with Jun on piano, but sadly Jun's in the UK right now so this year we'll be appearing as a twosome! For me it's one of the most eagerly anticipated events of my final year in Japan and I'm hoping to have a great time up there on stage. I'm sure there'll be a few stories to share with you all next week! Rock on!

I love stuff like this! I took this one the other weekend at the Avispa match.