what do you see?

I tried to post this last night, but had some problems so it didn't publish...

Well it came down, quickly. Next time I looked out after that last entry, everything was white. It's still snowing, and there's probably 5-6 inches on the ground now! We just went out for a walk in the park and it was amazing. So this is the first proper snowfall of the winter...I think it will melt again but soon after that it will come back for good...here we go again!

It's officially cold. Just come in from the post-office, and now I'm watching a snowstorm blow in - I can literally see it moving across the city like mist, and it's just about to engulf our building...

Woken up at some unearthly hour (around 3.30am) by an earthquake this morning - it didn't feel too strong, but it went on for a long time. It turned out to be a 7.1 on the Richter scale (stronger than the bad Niigata one recently) centred quite a way from here, where a lot of them seem to be, off Eastern Hokkaid. It was about 5+ in Kushiro and 3 or 4 on the Japanese scale here in Sapporo apparently. For some reason, just one of the closet doors in the bedroom was rattling, and then after a bit a particular couple of large plates stacked in the kitchen started too. The oddness of quakes.
If you want to read the official reports, try Japan Today, and it even made it onto CNN news this morning - but it's really not that exciting! TV news showed the usual pictures of bottles lying smashed on the floors of convenenience stores...we always thought they'd have some special shelves as precautions against that kind of thing here, but it seems not.

Some of the illuminations in Odori park...BIG flowers. Made of lights. 

The TV tower earlier tonight (at 6:19 I suppose) 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, time in Japan continues to tick by at it's own unique rate. Outside it's chilly and very windy with some snow flurries, but patches of blue sky incongruously show through at unexpected moments.

If you're studying English, you might like to read the advice on how to study English at UK Strollers...OK so I wrote the tips this time, but that's not the only reason I'm telling you about it! Have I mentioned how good that site is? Well it is! There's a permanent link to it above too.

It's been a bit of a slow week so far, but that's given me some chance to catch-up on stuff, tweak the site (I changed the nav. bar above, again) work on some new designs, loll around...and start studying in earnest for the JLPT test (level 3), on December 5th! Only a week and a bit away now, uh oh.
Got to get to the library now.

Lady Grey, cheese on toast. Public holiday tomorrow. Again.

yawn.

OK, I get the hint ;-)
If anyone else wants any special stocking fillers, please let me know.

Also, take a look at the Japan page of my site, where I've updated slightly and more importantly published Sylvia Taylor (AKA my mum)'s account of the recent trip to Japan online for all the world to see! Read and enjoy.

I just saw this today, new "Green Tea" KitKat, Japan only I assume. It's green coloured green-tea flavoured white chocolate on the outside, usual wafer inside but with green-tea flavoured cream between the layers. Pretty good.
Japan seems to get a lot of special editions. KitKat also sometimes does lemon cheesecake, a powder-chocolate covered type, occassionally pineapple, and also melon (Hokkaido only of course)

Well the car's gone now, at last! That's one less thing to think about. Now, how long until I start complaining about not having a car...? Clock's running...

Did you like that one? Well I've also put some more pictures of Yamagata on the pictures web-site, please follow the photos link above, or since I assuming you just asked nicely, you can click here. I've got a lot of faith in you all you know! Actually, I also added some pictures from our recent trip to Kyoto to the old Kyoto and Nara album on that site too!

mysterious stairway...

I will I will, but right now I've just got time to tell you that it's very cold and snowy here again. We were woken in the night by howling winds (there go the rest of the leaves in the park), and it's been snowing on and off all day, but not really settling though.

We got back to Sapporo on time at 9:18am, and came home to see snow on the distant mountain tops - our nearest one, Moiwa, is still snow-free but there's a little snow forecast for the next couple of days...
We've had some coffee and more breakfast and are just relaxing and getting ready for a little work later this afternoon. As you maybe saw, I posted a few times from my phone, I've not edited those posts, just put them in italics. That tunnel journey (through the Seikan Tunnel between Hakone on Hokkaido and Aomori in Honshu, which is actually the world's longest railway tunnel, as well as the deepest) was not the most comforting part of the trip - I'd read it was mildly unnerving - well make that downright haunting when you're half asleep looking out of a tiny, partially steamed up porthole window from the top-bunk at 1 on a November morning!
Anyway, as always, this is all getting mixed up and bitty...I'll write an attempt at an interesting account of our whole weekend, which was really excellent by the way, and post in on here sometime today as well as sorting out the best of the pictures we took.

Back on the train to Sapporo now after a really good weekend...more tomorrow...

I'm writing this from somewhere in about the middle of the world's deepest railway tunnel, and I'll send it if we ever get to the other end...well if you're reading this I suppose you know we did...
...then I'll try and get some sleep until about 6. I hope the alarm goes off, I really don't want to wake up in Tokyo!
(PS - still in here after 40 mins...)

Just had a really good, proper shower on a moving train!
Yep we're in our pretty big room on the Hokutosei now, should be at Hakodate in under an hour. Time for a little sake...

Thanks for answering my (sort of) answer...and don't apologise, it's what blogs are all about right?
I should apologise for not trying to give a halfway decent answer. Oh well.

It's reached that most drear, oppressive time of day when the silence weighs down with terrible discord. Turning on a single lamp seems only to emphasize the greyness of the shadows in the far corners of the room.

I'd never seen the video for Motorcycle Emptiness before, so I didn't know it was filmed around Japan, and ends with the band driving a Cadillac around the night time streets of Tokyo.

We're off to Yamagata tonight as I told you, until then I've got a lot to do. I'm basically working from home today - and looking forward to a MusicOnTV Manic Street Preacher's special...that takes me back, they were part of the soundtrack to first year at Nottingham University, 1996...anyway, until then I have to put up with The Waiting Game (Swing out Sister!)

I've been and I will continue to be tweaking and changing this blog template bit by bit - I think I'm going to change the navigation and make it a bit clearer and better looking.

to answer your question mr anonymous (mrs, miss? anonymous-san?), apart from trying to avoid answering questions like that in order to get a job :-) I can't think of any apt reply. but out of courtesy I'll tell you two of my pet hates:

- eating toast with damp hands
- getting an itchy nose while washing up

Pretty cold today. After church, and church lunch ("pig soup" and "cod-egg and seaweed rice" which shows why it's best not to translate Japanese food into English, because it was really good!) we went into town to pick up a few necessities and then had (new "winter offering", Hotness) macha-lattes and onion rings in Freshness Burger to get warm.

But here's something a tad strange, we bought some stuff in Matsumoto Kiyoshi which happened to come to 999 yen. OK, just a chance, a pretty uninteresting conincidence eh? Then we went to the grocery market part of Seibu and bought a few more things. Which came to

999 yen.

I can hear the chorus of "That's also a pretty uninteresting conincidence too Phil, just shut up and stop wasting our time". But, anyone who knows Japanese will know that 9-9-9 (kyuu-kyuu-kyuu) is not too cheerful, meaning things along the lines of "urgent first-aid" depending on how you translate. It's a really good job we are Christians and not superstitious, or we'd be worried piles of gel by now.

St-i-r crazy. Stir crazy.
Kind of.

Well OK we're only just getting ready to go out, and it's 6:30pm but we did quite a bit today. Christine's been producing Christmas cards at a fair rate and I've caught up on some work and done some adjustments and new bits on some of the website pages. Have a look if you care to, the teaching section has finally been grabbed by the lapels and brought in line with the rest of the site too.

And what's more we're going to Yamagata next weekend, via Sendai. By sleeper train(this link is to a pretty cool panoroma picture of the train, the other pages I found were Japanese only)! A life-long ambition of mine actually, there'll be some stories to tell and pictures to share I'm sure...

I love autumn. The gingko leaves falling like snow in the park, the chill air, the bright sunny afternoons and early-falling dusk. Vairy nice.

Oh yes, if you want to learn English online, do it through my page at Globalchat! You don't even have to pick me as your teacher!

Mysterious rainbow