take the stairs!

my school is on the 1st floor (2nd for the Americans), yet people still take the lift to go up or down. i don't get it. it's only one flight of stairs! and let's face it, some people really could do with the exercise. which is funny, cos my gym is on the 2nd floor (of another building altogether). people actually pay a membership to go to the gym to get or stay fit, yet take the lift up and down. seriously, what's the point?

studying

i did bring some material to Japan and Denmark and i did study some, but i ended up mostly reading up on related stuff, as it turned out i needed to look back at other chapters of the book (which i didn't take with me) for some of the activities. so when i got back, i was slightly behind my schedule and i hadn't finished the assignment either. so i basically spent every non-working hour of my time studying and writing. this took more time than planned, as it turned out that what i'd originally written for my assignment didn't all make sense, or at least, wasn't all going in the same direction, so there was a lot of rewriting to do. but i am finally back on track (more or less), and hope to be able to actually see friends in the very near future.

wow

i was doing some level testing at a client's place the other day when i had a total wow moment. this guy walked in and i was instantly attracted to him. i mean really. not just like when i see someone and think 'he's good looking', which quite amazingly happens quite a lot in that place, and not a weak-in-the-knee moment either. this was a 'wow, this could be the man of my dreams' moment. very quickly followed by a 'damn, he's also married'. typical. what a shame. ok, well, he would have been a student anyway, so that wouldn't have worked, but still.

back in the saddle again

i was barely back from my well-earned two-week break that i pulled a ten-hour day. generally, i work more along the lines of 6.5 hours when i'm not teaching, so it was a bit of a shock to the system, especially as most of that time was at a client's. i was doing oral placement tests, which is already a lot for the brain to handle, but i ended up staying an extra two hours with my contact there, to discuss how best to handle the coming year. it was a very important impromptu meeting, so it was good i was there, but i must admit i was glad to go home!

meeting of the seas

and so i made it to another meeting of the seas, after South Africa and New Zealand, here is that of northern Denmark where the north sea on the west meets the body of water called 'Kattegat', that lies between Denmark and Sweden, on the east. this time, however, i got to have a foot in (approximately) each sea...

the dunes

after she came to visit me last year, i finally made it to my Danish cousin's place while in Denmark. we had one day without the kids or the family, so we took a road trip to the northernmost tip of the country: Skagen. a bit south of the actual town is a massive moving dune. i had no idea you had that in Denmark. the biggest in northern Europe, apparently, with an area of 1 square kilometre and an average height of 40 metres (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A5bjerg_Mile for more information). it made up for not going to the desert in Morocco.

earthquakes

the first 3 days i was in Japan, there were no earthquakes. but then, there was one or more every day after that.

i've never really been scared of earthquakes, but what with the Japanese apparently waiting for the BIG one anytime now (a 9-pointer in March wasn't big enough - it wasn't situated right, that is, it didn't hit Tokyo), i got a bit worried. most of the earthquakes happened at night, so it was wake up, assess how bad it was (i.e., will it pass, do i need to get under a door frame, will i need the emergency bag?) and eventually go back to sleep. but when there were several in one night, it got a bit much. put another way, i didn't sleep all that much while i was there, as i was also disturbed by the aircon - apart from one night, it was too hot outside to have the window open so i kept trying to see if i could survive with it switched off after some time, but i always ended up putting it back on...

bamboo!!!

while in Kamakura, where we did not intend to visit a single temple or shrine, we ended up going to 4 temples. the last one was because K. had noticed i was keen on bamboo, so she took me to this little bamboo forest and it was absolutely brilliant! here's a shot.

monk food

my friend asked if i'd be interested in eating monk food. monk food? sounded like a great experience! what i didn't realise was that monk food does NOT mean eating a meal in a temple with monks. no. it means vegetarian food, monks not being allowed to kill animals. but it was great! it consisted in us being presented lots of small lacquered trays filled with lots of small bowls containing lots of interesting things - below you have silk tofu (it was yummy, and i don't even like tofu!), a plum (the round green thing), some kind of nut, regular tofu with red beans and a couple of small vegetables. and umeshuu in the glass (an alcoholic plum 'liqueur').

it was a great and fun experience. i recommend it, even to meat lovers. i didn't notice there was no meat until much later!

unreal sushi

after our road trip to Izu, we needed something to eat. i had never noticed, but it's not easy to find good restaurants open on Sunday nights in Tokyo. finally, we found this amazing sushi place, which does quite extraordinary sushi. seriously. i've been to the fish market sushi place, and that's divine. but this, this was art. they made sushi in a way i had never seen - not the usual matter-of-fact roll the rice, add the fish, put on plate routine. no, this guy made sushi with raw sliced wasabi as the 'meat', for example. i'd never even had raw wasabi before, only ever in paste form. it was good. the whole thing was also done at a very slow pace, which was very enjoyable. we were sitting at the counter, so we also got to chat with the sushi master. that said, there was no one else there... still, it was a great experience.