what do you see?

Ah, there's more info about the crazy campaign laws here which explains what I was talking about yesterday...

"The regulations stipulate that each candidate can only distribute 35,000 postcards and 70,000 leaflets during the official election campaign period. TV and radio spots can be used by parties, but not individual candidates.

"The law effectively bars all other media, preventing candidates from using the Internet and e-mail to disseminate images, and parties and candidates from updating their Web sites until after polls close.

"Critics say it's time for an update."

(the full story is here)

So, general election fever is gripping the country at the moment, here in Japan. Rowdy campaign vans are out on the streets (they are allowed to use their megaphones from 8:30-5:30 apparently) being largely ignored by most of the populace as usual...but here's a quote I really don't get though, from Mainichi again:

"The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) deleted a summary of a policy speech that leader Katsuya Okada made.....after the official campaign kicked off on Tuesday...
"...The law prohibits political parties and candidates from conducting campaigns on the Internet during official election campaign periods."

Why? Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the campaign period when you should be allowed to conduct campaigns? Or is the point that doing it on the Internet is not allowed, only from rowdy vans with megaphones which are largely ignored by the populace...?

What's the consensus on talking on your mobile in a bookshop? I mean, it's not a library, but still it's quite a faux pas right? So, I was killing some time browsing in Kinokuniya again today (the really nice new big one to the west of the station) when this little incident happened...
A moustachioed balding man, possibly Canadian, was browsing nearby when his phone started to ring. Not only was it not on manner mode but the ring tone was a very loud, strange version of that piano tune everyone in England knows how to play but seems not to have a name, with the dah-dah bits replaced by a strange dog-bark-like sound (kind of like "dee-dee-dum-ARF-ARF dee-dee-dum-ARF-ARF dee-dee-dum-ARF dum-ARF dum-ARF-ARF...etc. etc."). He did that kind of panicked fumble for the phone, I thought just to shut it off, but actually to answer it and then proceed with the following conversation:
"Ye-es?........Hell-o?!....Hello!"
......
"Why are you over there?! "
......
"Well I'm here, in the corner"
.....
"Why did you go there?!"
.....
"Can't you come over here?"
.....
"But can't you come here?"
.....
"I found something I want to show you!"
.....
"You'll have to come and see it"
.....
"No, you come over here!"
.....
"You have to come here first"

At this point I made my hurried escape.

Very nice, very warm, very sunny.

(PS - If you write a comment here or on Nana or Miwako's blogs you'll now have to do a security thing where you enter a sequence of letters. This is to avoid spam comments which have started popping up around the place quite a lot recently).

Here's a mysterious story...I couldn't find mention of it on most other news sites - apparently an English teacher went missing in Hakodate last week. Let's hope they find him soon.
- Although I've just found a web-site findandy.org that it looks like has been set up by his family and friends. Might be worth a look.

Since we're stuck indoors waiting out a major downpour (about time too) I'll take the opportunity to write something...now what was it...
Oh yes, in case anyone else is wanting to start Japanese study, the book Colin mentioned is called Talk Japanese, it's here on Amazon. It's a good starter course and teaches some good basics - the only drawback is that it's all in romaji so doesn't help much with your reading skills. When I got it, in the good old days of course, it came with tapes as the one listed also seems to, but according to Colin it seems they've modernised to CDs since.

While I'm here, did you know about the "bug boom" in Japan at the moment? Everyone (well, a lot of kids mostly) is obsessed with these giant beetles, I think because of the popularity of an arcade/card came called Mushi King (The King Of Beetles). There's more about the game on the Japan Times site. Needless to say there's a lot of merchandise available too, including Mushi King curry(!)...still, better giant beetles than Korean dramas, that's what I say!

Thanks for the kind words Colin! I bought a preparation book at Kinokuniya the other day, which concentrates on grammar and is well difficult actually. I decided to practice what I always preach, and use an entirely-in-Japanese book.

I'm enjoying my nice office at the moment; a big step up from being in a corridor as I have been up to now!

The JLPT is coming again! That's the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (Nihongo nouryokushiken). I passed level 3 last time, and really feel I have to take level 2 this year. It's only once a year, which is kind of annoying. It's quite a big step up from level 3 and so seems a bit soon to try this year (on December 4th to be precise) but then again it's just too long to have to wait until next year. Blimey, I'd better knuckle down to some serious studying. Help me if you can!

Quake alert. You might have seen reports of an earthquake "in Northern Japan" - it was a pretty big one centred around Miyagi and Sendai - a swimming pool roof collapsed there apparently. It was felt "as far away as Tokyo" and also as far away as here in Sapporo. Although it was only about 3 on the Japanese scale (shindo) where we are, it was very long with a lot of sideways movement. To be honest, I didn't feel it personally as I was outside at the time, but sources who were in the apartment at the time said our laundry rack almost fell over...also, a dog started acting very weird outside about a minute before it hit.

There's news about the quake here on the Mainichi news site.

I'm annoyed. The phones that we wanted are unavailable, at least in a reasonable colour. We had settled for white ones, as the other almost-black was no longer available. But then a call from the earnest Docomo lady to say that white had also "stoppu". So rather than pink or a too bright blue we'll have to look for a different model all over again...*sigh*

OK. That's it now. Finally. We never have to go back to the Immigration office again after this! Went today to get our multiple re-entry permits in our passports again. Actually it was very hassle free, took only 10 minutes. A very different story from when we first did that in Tokyo.

Yesterday was the annual summer festival in our area again (maybe it was for tanabata, given that they celebrate it on August 7th in Hokkaido according to Nana) - a small affair with a karaoke competition, some food stalls and a portaloo. We could hear the karaoke very well from up here, a good range of entries from quite old people singing enka to a small girl known as Ai-chan (not the table tennis player) trying some kind of show tune.

We've decided to get new mobiles, as ours are a little tired after 2 years. We have to wait for the ones we want to arrive at our local shop as that model is on offer and popular at the moment. At last we'll have camera phones, so you can expect more frequent, candid pictures to appear here and in the vicinity soon!

It's a good honest hot summer's day today - around 30C, sunny but not so humid and with a bit of a breeze. Nice. Virtually all of Japan is over 30 degrees at the moment it seems, in fact most of the Northern hemisphere is perhaps.

4 days into August without a post, that's no good! It's been a very rainy and humid week so far, uncharacteristically warm at night too. Although maybe it's not so uncharacteristic - last year about this time was maybe even hotter...anyway, the weather leads to lethargy and not a lot of excitement to write about...

We've been in this apartment (and in Sapporo) for just over a year now by the way. A good year all in all.