Well I’ve got to admit my first week back at work has not exactly been the box of fluffly ducks that I would have liked. Unfortunately the most expedient method of dealing with some problems also tends to carry a mandatory life sentence for murder one. It was just so much easier in the UK with all those convienient hidey holes for the inconvenient dead bodies of the people who woke up and decided that their mission for the day was to irritate the shit out of me.

But to my point of this particularly entry. The art of time travel, well, have you ever wanted to go back in time and change things? Sure of course we all have, but would you really change things? Sometimes events happen because they are supposed to, well I believe they do. A simple small change in the past may have profound effects on your present. This can include the bad events in our lives. You will have to trust me on this one, but there are a couple of events that I’ve not ready to talk about that while highly traumatic, violent and something I would never wish on anyone, are also key to why I am who I am now.

Five years later I still dread the month of November, while the mind has accepted what happend, my body still remembers the physical shock and reminds me of it. But again I am wandering slightly. Would I go back and remove this event. No, to many great things have happened since.

But now imagine if you could go back in time and just re-live some of the good events of your life. I remember clearly sitting on the back of the boat one holiday from the UK, feet in the water, eating a raw mussel that dad and I had just collected, looking up across the water back to the farm and realising that I wasn’t in the UK, I was home. I re-live that moment in my mind often it was so raw and real.

I would also like to re-live some of last week as I was so incredibly happy for reason I’ll write about another day. Everything seemed to be coming together at last for me, and it still maybe is, but recents events have crashed some of the rememberence.

So the art of time travel, pick the moments that you want to re-live. Or as those of us without access to a time machine can only do, hold onto the memory of the great and happy things in our life. Hold them tight when the storms of reality seem to be trying to blow them away. Cherish them and nourish them by re-thinking them.

It not possible to go back and change the past, but we are built from it components. Take the good building blocks with you.

The theory still needs to be proven but maybe the idea of finding a big brick and using it smash some knowledge into my head may have had merit. As was fairly sure the conversation that I had with myself in japanese whilst in the shower this morning was reasonable accurate.

But then how many people think they can sing in the shower!

Anyway am positive that for todays lesson will need decidedly larger brick.

Well I think that the first language lesson today has proved that I am thick as pigshit and that the best way to install more than one word into my head and actually have them stick would be to use a brick. Preferably a really heavy one. Strongly suspect that even then the results will still be marginal.

I was supposed to use the train time between Hiroshima and Tokyo today to complete a set of short stories. However the events of today have overtaken this and the following story is the result.

Today the tourist gig was to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park, the guardian of foolish travelers and tourists was smiling as the day was gloriously leafy and sunny with a light breeze to cool the skin and bring the trees to life. It was poignant reminder to the total death and destruction unleashed at 8:15 6th August 1945.

I remember when I was at University there was course called Social on Moral Philosophy. (its was an excellent course by the way) one topic we covered was the morality of nuclear weapons. All the arguments furnished for the pro’s are rendered a pile of shit when you are face to face with old black and white pictures of the Nakamura family and see on the scrolling list of the dead that the entire branch of Nakamura’s is no more. Gone!

During our walk through the park we came across the children’s memorial which was inspired by leukemia victim Sadako.

“When Sadako developed leukemia at 10 years of age she decided to fold 1000 paper cranes “ – she died before reaching this goal, but to this day paper cranes from around the world are sent to the memorial and displayed in glass cabinets there. As were we passing a class of Japanese students had turned up to pay there respects to the memorial and present their paper cranes.

The stunning reality of this simple presentation was that you didn’t need to understand Japanese to know what was going on, and it appears that tears can easily cross the international language barrier. It was an incredibly moving experience and I hope the teacher understood my thanks of appreciation.

Left Kyoto for Himeji and a tour of the castle weather is now nice and sunny. And the crowds seem to have gone. The castle is as normal spectacular and nicer for the lack of throngs of people. The city itself benefitr from full spring greenery and sunshine. Onwards now to Fukuyama and the unknown of Japan. This should be interesting.

A while ago when I first moved here I found this great website called www.bento.com, which listed resturants in the Tokyo area. And also in the Shirokanedai area.

Well after a little read I was rather taken by the one called Karashi, for a couple of reason. 1. It sounded dead cool!, 2. The food sounded even better and 3. According to the address it was right next door to me!
And thats the bit that really was getting me intrigued! I’d been walking up and down that street quite a bit by this time and there was nothing to indicate said restaurant existed. Careful checking of address and map booked concured that it had to be on the main road one block up from me! I’d found AnBai, but this one was elusive.

With pride on the line I was determined to find this place when Claire and Graham were over, unfortunately what stupid had not accounted for was that while I many not have had much success being able to find the place, everyone else had! And bookings are essential if you want to eat at the counter. We settled for An Bai that night which was delicious (Ooishi).

Now that I knew this place was tucked down the end of long yellow corridor with only a single sign displayed at night determination was to get a booking for me and Sue on Sunday night, and if we wanted to sit at the counter 6pm would do the trick. Well it was worth all the effort of tracking down! We were sitting where the couple in the picture are, and I suspect our host/chef had an excellant understanding of english because he knew we were drooling over the lobster being prepared and it certainly arrived dramtic flourish and rather large shit eating grin on his behalf which caused us all to burst out laughing. He so knew we wanted it to be out dish. – (to explain we order the meal for two, so didn’t really know what to expect).

Now back to that lobster, he was entitled to the shit eating grin, as it was/is probably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life!. I think the words expressed were "I am never putting anything else into my mouth again". Damn it was good! Actually there was more put in, "the rest of that lobster".

Reservations are being sought for next friday!

There is a new public enemy or at least there is on Davids shit list. And while this one does have two legs and does not speak english, it also has wings! The medium sized bastards have declared my deck planters to be there new playground.

Now when they pulled out one plant just after I had put them in I thought it was rather charming bordering on cute. When I came home the other day to find that the had totally mowed the best planter back to just green I now understand how my Mum felt when the cows run ramage through her garden!.

In Japanese they are called Karasu, and we call them Ravens. Big black birds that are everywehere here, make lots of noise and now my sworn enemy.

(It may not look it, but that planter was actually all flowers and really nice! This picture is few days after the deed so its recovered a little).

I wonder if the hundred yen shop stock water pistols. Could be effective and hopefully the neighbour below won’t be to annoyed.

I am guessing that the translation dept at the fashion police need some recruits and that none of the general fashion flash memos are getting through either. Well at least for the men.

Why do I say this, well please examine one the crimes committed and captured via phone photo evidence on the metro the other day. Image slightly blurred due to disguising the culprits identity and hey the train was moving!

I wonder in this still male dominated society if the mail really is blocked or if the more elegantly and stylishly dressed other half of the population are having a quiet laugh at the expense of there bullish betters!

I’m beginning to think the seasons may have gotten a little mixed up here. This is a picture taken this morning from my apartment, and the weather has been like this for days. There have been some periods of sunshine, but these periods of sunshine are such that they make the english summer look like a the med!

It not exactly cold, nor is it exactly wet, wouldn’t call it damp, doesn’t really seem to rain, and it not bursting out sunshine either, its just well, the pictures somes it up. Leaky! Fairly sure its giving my arthritis hell as well. Have been saying its not attached to the weather, but a suspicious piece of my mind is beginning to put two and two together and oddly enough it actually came up with the number 4. Me thinks its the mild cold nights that are doing the trick. Fool you into thinking that spring had arrive and summer is around the corner, the a quick slight of the hand it cold again!

Suspect the rainy season is going to be a huge bundle of laughs based on the current pattern of weather! Oh, and not sure if anyone has been paying attention but we have been having a very very very large number of earthquakes the last couple of weeks. Me worried. Nope, bring on Typhoon season I say!. Yeap you read right.

On my recent trip to Kyoto we came across this chappy selling fish in the park, yep they are whole fish being grilled. The lady off camera eating one assured us they were delicious. My cousin in New Zealand commented on the picture and called them trout on a stick and asked what they were like. The following is the excerpt from my email reply.

Put it another way, the trout on the stick looked positively fantastic compared to another place we went to where you can could get grilled.

– room of pig, or was it pig uterus, cannot remember, but you get the drift.
– outside of beef stomach
– sparrow skewer
– cod milt (actually that’s sorta reasonable, given we smoked fish roes as all).

All I can say is thank god that menu was in English otherwise we could have been in all manner of trouble, and just how many sparrows do you need to make a skewer (I have the address if you want to try and find out).

My new mission is working through one of the books on Japanese charactors and getting to the menu section, just so I can safely surf the menu again, you know Beef, Chicken, Fish, without the internal organs attached or grilled or fried or pickled in, or any otherwise. Perhaps I’ll cheat turn to the index and find Tofu, it can be very tasty and has a zero internal organ count.