General

I left Tokyo today and headed to Nozawa Onsen, where’d I’d be working for three months.  An hour on the Nagano Shinkansen, another hour on the local train, fifteen minutes on the local bus.

I met an Australian girl, Kat, on the bus, which was really good.  She showed me how to get to the Villa, which was awesome, because I’d gotten off at the wrong stop and had no idea where I was.  Seems silly in a village so small, but anyway.

I met Luke, his sister Renee and his girlfriend Mariko at the Villa.  It was good, they showed me the attic room where I’d stay and then Luke drove me around town for the grand tour.  It’s so pretty!  We’re the only staff so far, and I think there was maybe one guest, so they were mainly cleaning and getting ready for the start of the season.

Before I went on to Nozawa Onsen, I spent a week in Tokyo and Yokosuka.  It’s always fun in Tokyo – I went to all my favourite places – but it was weird (ok, lonely and quite boring) to do it by myself.  But even despite this, I will always adore Harajuku and my new favourite shop, Forever 21.

A weird discovery from my week was the fact that Odaiba (the outlet mall island built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay) was actually reclaimed using big piles of … garbage.  Odd, but I guess that’s pretty good recycling.

I also spent a couple of nights in Yokosuka and caught up with the Nishiie’s.  I did alot of wandering around town and they took me to the Paddington Bear theme park.  It would have been absolute rubbish if it weren’t for the “Christmas Illuminations”, which essentially meant that the entire place was draped in fairy lights.  Fairly effective when it’s an entire hill.

Well, I have to be honest.  My first night in Japan was quite depressing.  All that travelling made me realise that whenever I’ve done it before, I’ve always been with someone and even just that made everything more exciting.

But it’ll get better.

Click it… you know you want to.

View from the bus on the way to Ceduna.

View from … uh… a big hill on the Sunshine Coast.

Best television show ever…

“True Beauty”  bunch of stuck up nutters stuck in a house together supposedly competing for the title of “America’s Most Beautiful Person”, when in fact they’re being judged on their inner beauty.

Except none of them have any.

In one challenge, Ashley lied about collecting money for charity so she’d have more to spend on clothes, walked straight past someone who was actually collecting for charity, took a guys watch (who’d gotten it for volunteer work to do with aids) and then didn’t help a bike rider who stacked it right in front of her.

Yup.  Evil.

But really, really good television.

I’ve had this ugly grandma cardigan for ages.  My friends used to always pay it out.  Now all the cardigans and stuff have come back into fashion, and people keep asking me where I got all my daggy cardies from.

I’m cool.  That’s right. 

Mainly though I’m just looking forward to when they go out of fashion again and I can buy lots for cheap.

Don’t use superglue.

Ever.

We had some fairly crazy weather lately, with big waves coming in, which left erosion and… foam.

Well, I thought it was cool.