Well arbour day Papa Aroha style. Every year my extended family gather back at the farm for what is now called Arbour Day. It started as one of my mothers long term projects of re-planting the beach with native tree’s and has sort of grown from there.

Its turned into quite a success and many trees are now growing well and it gives the family a excuse to get together. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to attend these gatherings and only get the pictures from them. The last set of pictures included one of my father and his grandson (the two Toms), planting a kauri tree. For those unfamiliar with New Zealand Kauri click here. Suffice to say the trees live for over a 1000 years so its a rather special photograph.

This year my cousin suggested that the another reason is to celebrate the return to health of my parents. Personally I can’t think of a better reason, now I just wish I could be home.

Have been watching on and off the Antony Bourdain travel program on the Discovey Channel here in Tokyo. This one episode he is talking about having a laksa for breakfast in Malaysia and it sorta got me to thinking. Just how many different types of breakfast have I been fed/eaten in my travels around the big blue/green thing.

To be truthful I’ve really lost track. All I know is that while some of them may have been a little odd, they were all very tasty. I do recall Roti-kanai in Malaysia which is a sorta pancake served with cold curry sauce. Its actually very tasty! (ordered many times!) Then there is the Laksa, Noodles in Thailand. Olives, Tomatoes and hard boiled eggs in the middle east (yummy) and dried fish here in Japan! (and cold chinese in the UK, and yes it does happen), oh and lets not forget Champange breakfasts!!!!!!

So basically my breakfast these days does not conform to the normal western diet. While I have no issue with a bowl of cornfakes, and yes I brought bread the other day for toast as it was something I’ve not had in a while, the menu is now very different!

I guess one of my lessons from the wanderings is that what you are given on your plate is the food to eat, and unless you like going hungry you eat it!. And hey, 98% of the time its really nice! The 2% is seaweed in the morning, not quite got there yet. Have eaten it, but not exactly going to go running back for seconds.

oh and yes. Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, the full English (minus black pudding thanks), the full Irish, Scottish, Welsh, oh yeah, we still have them at home in NZ. (grilled and healthy), but yes, I do like them. However the mind and taste buds are still open!.

d

The Rain! I’m guessing that calling it the ‘Blucky Season’ would not have sounded attractive so someone thought, well it rains a little, so lets call it the rainy season. It does have a sort of exotic sound to it and makes people think, oh well, its just rain. If you advertised come in June to the ‘Blucky Season’ the tourist figures would be down I’m guessing. So what exactly is blucky, well no sun, moderate humity, about 25 degree’s heat and fairly damp since it always looks like its going to rain, but doesn’t quite.

Odd as before the official start of the rainy season it was piddling down with rain regularly. Now that we are in the middle of it, not a drop has fallen. Go figure. Still trying to get all the things done before the heat really kicks in as you can feel it building everyday. Walking out of the buildings now you can feel the heat and humidity hit you. Not drastically yet like Singapore, but I am sure it will be there shortly.

Watch for the big puddles!

And organic to boot! Have discovered a great place to have lunch near work called ‘Mothers’. Its an organic shop/cafe and for 1260Yen you can have the lunch time organic vege buffet. A very diverse range of vegetables cooked in both western and japanese style, and totally delicious! So we have put it on the list of once a week for lunch to make sure we get our 5 a day vege count!!

If this book does not exisit then perhaps it needs to written in english

One thing that has become really obvious during my time here in Japan is the quality of the food. Not just the food in the supermarket, or the purely Japanese food, but all the food you can get. Its all excellant.

The pictures here are a little place sure and I went to down on the coast of the inland sea run by the guy in the photo. He had just opened the place and we were his only customers. He cooked us the most amazing spaghetti, I would rank it better than spaghetti that I’ve had in Italy! Sue agreed with me completely. Maybe we were hungry, but I don’t think it was that.

Or more precisely the Celtic and Zen! If you have been reading things have been a little up and down for me lately. I dipped my toes back into the murky pool called relationships, and sure enough, it hasn’t changed much from last time. Water is still full of sharks, water snakes and other assorted amoeba’s. After being rescued by friends, dragged back to the beach, and resucitated, I’ve spent the last few weeks retreated in a Zen garden watching the rain come down (literally). Well, the sky is clearing now and while part of me is remaining in the zen garden on the hill I’m back out there again. But this is where the East meets West bit comes in.

I am full New Zealander, born and bred, but also my blood is celtic derived on both sides of the familly. So why is a celtic boy in Eastern Zen gardens searching for enlightenment?

Wow, the last two months have been odd, a period of ups and downs, just like the japanese spring. Hot, cold, sunny, cloudy, dry and wet. There are bits of it that are still unresolved and I’m still waiting to see where the pieces fall from it all. Certain blogs I wrote have been shelved pending time. Patience is not one of my strengths I’m afraid.

The great news is that my Dad is healing really well and getting better by the day. I’ve had a great holiday with my best friend and seen some amazing parts of Japan. The japanese lessons are progressing slowly and the rest will just have to pan out as time progresses.

The rainy season is basically upon us here in Japan and the humidity is going up daily! It sucks, strongly suspect that I’m going to turn into a puddle soon. Oh other good news is that I’ve been given all clear on the ankles and knee’s. No damageat all!, and now hopefully with the new treatment for the kidneys we can stop it happening in the future. fingers crossed.

So having I been standing in the rain, well, been caught out it enough the last few weeks! Can’t claim to have seen too many rainbows, but I’m back to being the optimist again so will keep searching. dd. (and yep it is actually a picture of canary wharf, but who cares, you get the gist – the sun will shine soon)

As mentioned many a blog ago I sometimes have to change trains at Shirokane-takanawa to make sure I’m on the right line to get to work, its not really a challenge when required, just walk across platform onto waiting train – job done. For the last six months I’ve managed to execute this without a hitch. Today didn’t quite go so well thou.

Today we took a half day off so was travelling at a different time, but suspect major reason for glitch was the new video Ipod and TV comedy called ‘Kitchen Confidential’, never heard of it before, and had downloaded it. Was actually mildly entertaining, well entertaining enough that I was at Mita station before I realised that I’d forgetten to switch trains, so had to double back, change platforms, wait for trains, and basically turn a 10 minute journey into a 30 minute one. Mind you did get to watch the whole program and begin the next episode, plus check out the inside of Shirokane-takanawa station (was well high on my list of things to do before leaving Tokyo let me tell you). Personally I’m blaming the whole thing on the iPod, which i guess I am falling in love with.

I finally gave up waiting for Sony to fix its Sonic Stage, and now re-vamped Connect software. They tell us that at the end of the month we will have new version that should make it at least equal with iTunes.

The reason I have always stuck with Sony is that I love the hardware and the battery life of the units is well impressive, 40+ hours in most of them. However the downfall has been the software that they bundle with it. Now I’m always open to trying new software, but quite frankly Sonic Stage sucks and always has. The new version of connect was a total nightmare.

My PC froze and it just would not load the music to my player. They are promising us a new version but time is frustrating to have decided to get an Ipod. First impressions are nice, but the battery life sucks. However the ability to play video’s is very cool and I can carry my whole music collection to work. Now if we could just have the Sony hardware with the Apple software, or a blend of the both it would be a killer!

Will keep you posted on the progess of the whole sordid affair.