Domo arigato, Mister Sciboto

Thank god 2009 is gone. It had its good parts, and there were some pretty bad parts, but now, now it’s a new year, a new decade so time to move forward and get on with things.

I’m not going to give you a list of resolutions though, because 1: that’s my business, and 2: no one ever follows their resolutions, so if I had something i wanted to change, I’d just change it, not just hope that a new year will make me not change back or something like that.

I do have to figure out how much longer I want to stay in Japan for. It’s a pretty big decision, not because I’m fully entrenched in the country, but more of “is it the right time to leave? What will I gain or lose by leaving? What do I want to achieve and do here? Have I done them yet?”, and of course that decision goes hand in hand with “What next?”

It’s been great being here in Australia, and the appeal of coming back and hopefully continuing my career is pretty strong. Seeing my friends and family progressing with their lives has given me an odd feeling that I’ve been living in limbo in Japan – having a great time, but not really doing anything or having any strong goals.

The other side of the coin is that I could go to Europe or America or somewhere and do that for a while, but I’m not really sure about that. Europe would be my #1 choice, France or Germany maybe… but I’d have to figure out what to do for a job.

Regardless, 2010 is going to be a solid year, where things are going to act as a base for the next 5 years or so. It feels pretty good to be planning things again, rather than not really worrying about much beyond whatever I’m doing on the weekend.

I’m currently lying on my cousin’s couch, idly staring at the perfect blue summer sky, enjoying the afternoon sea breeze rolling through the top-floor apartment.

In my belly is one bbq’d chicken sandwich with sharp cheddar and homemade coleslaw, topped with a bit of Dijon mustard mayo and BBQ sauce, all on fresh whole grain farmers loaf bread.

That’s sitting on top of the french toast and bacon with mixed berries, maple syrup and a large cappuccino I had for breakfast.

It’s *really* good to home. I needed this, badly. (and not just the food)

In the meantime, one of the cats, Cheese, seems to have draped herself across my legs, which means it’s naptime. Night.

Right, well, yet another 6 weeks has gone past and I have to reread the old posts to figure out what I’ve included. Maybe some dot points will help:

• I really love the area I’ve moved into. It wasn’t bombed during the war, so it’s full of old, interesting buildings and dark little shopping malls and fruit stands crammed into tiny corners, along with the requisite temples on every corner.
• Yes, still battling with the mites. This is starting to be just plain confusing because nothing really seems to work. I’m now trying Diatomaceous Earth; to curb the little bastards. Unfortunately it makes my apartment look like a coke fiend’s paradise with white powder everywhere. Mixed results so far, but it’s supposed to take time to really do its job.
• So I’ve had roughly 3 weeks off from work and I’ve chilled and reversed my sleeping patterns and caught up on movies and tv shows and done some travelling around Osaka itself. Also, I visited Koyasan, a 1,200 year old monastry complex on top of a mountdown, down in Wakayama Prefecture. Incredible place.
• I’ve also started really getting into the guitar again – I’ve been given an acoustic and an electric (with an amp too, cheers Lux, even though you probably won’t read this), and I’ve been getting back into that pretty seriously. It’s good, because the last time I did this was roughly 1995, so I have 14 years worth of music to draw from to get me into the zone.
• Summer has been pretty brutal – mostly due to the humidity – but now it’s starting to cool down. When I went outside this morning, it was actually cool. I was kinda shocked. I love summer, but considering the flatmates I currently have, I’m happy for the humidity to pretty much take a running jump the hell away from me.
• I don’t know if it’s because of Summer or the mites or what but for the past few months, I’ve felt very different to my normal self, which has been frustrating as hell. Imagine making 4 months worth of important decisions to resolve an ongoing problem and not one of them working – it takes a toll on you mentally. It’s affected the way I act to everyone, which I hate… but things are getting better and I can feel my old self coming back. I missed me. I missed me bad.
• Thanks to the move and the heat and the commute I have now, I’ve lost 4 kilos. If I watched what I eat (ha!), I could probably dip below 100kg. I haven’t done that since I was in my teens! Needless to say, I look hot.
• I have an IH cooktop in my apartment, and it’s taken some getting used to. Basically it uses a magnetic field to make metal get hot, and so replaces a flame – rather than a flame making the metal hot, the metal makes itself hot. Takes a bit of getting used to, and since it only works well with some metals, I have to get a new frying pan. Balls.

That’s really kinda it for now. I’ve been doing bits on this blog now and then, like the new banner up the top which will become a bit more auto- and ani-mated over the next month or so. Just another one of my projects… I should really find time to study Japanese, or wash clothes, or do something other than stare at a computer screen…

When I first came to Japan, I knew almost no-one. I knew a few people via JET and Japan forums, but for the most part, I was on my own.

Now, 20 months down the track, I’ve made a ton of friends, but many of them have decided this is the time to leave, which is sad… but thank holy Christ for things like Facebook or I’d be bummed as hell.

On the weekend, Kim and I went to dinner to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my friends, Andrew and Alaina. There was 10 of us, and Sam had arranged for a private room in a very funky restaurant, Bleu, overlooking one of Osaka’s 5 billion rivers.

The food was good, the company was excellent and the wine… er… well… I was extremely hungover the next day. Oh god, it was pretty bad. Top 5 hangovers contender at least.

To be honest, I’m very very sad about Andrew and Alaina leaving – they’ve been two of my closest friends since I’ve been here, and both of them are my friend – not just “Oh, I’m friendly with her because she’s my mate’s girlfriend” – I could happily spend an afternoon with either of them…

But, this is the price we pay for the lifestyle I have here and they’re not going forever. Besides, they’re from New Zealand, so whenever I settle back in Australia, I’ll definitely be visiting.

It makes me think about when I’m leaving this place. At the moment, my contract ends in August 2010, and I really think I’ll be done then. I have a year to really get what I want out of Japan – visiting all 47 prefectures, for example – so yeah. (Still got to do my roadtrip around this place too)

Mites are still around, but I bought a dehumidifier and they seem to be… calmer… now. What I don’t understand is where they’re coming from. Yesterday, I put my futon out in the hot sun, gave it a good belting, etc, washed all my bedlinen, and I was *still* crawling when I went to bed.

I guess that’s what’s really frustrating me the most – nothing I do seems to work really well. Only vacuuming two, three times a day and the dehumidifier have had the biggest effect, and even then, it was a lessening, not a reduction.

Japan’s rainy season ends in a week (officially), so we’ll see what happens when the natural humidity drops.

Also we had the San-in Beach Party up in Tottori last? weekend – good fun, but it rained on and off. It was also the second time for me and I knew very few people there, but it was good and Kim had a good time, so yeah. Not too bad at all, but I dunno if I’ll go again… friends make it fun and next year, I’ll know even less people… but we’ll see.

Finally, I’m happy about this – after 8 years of driving in Formula 1, Australian Mark Webber has won a grand prix. I’m a rabid supporter of his, so I’m giddy as hell over it.

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/7/9610.html

In the beginning, God created the World, and all that was on it. Trees, water, fish, people, cats, dogs, sloths, penguins, Eskimos and – for some unfathomable reason – he created mites.

Mites are tiny creatures, related to spiders, that are less than 1mm in size, breed faster than rabbits and cause various allergy problems in humans.

They have also changed the course of my life rather drastically in the last 10 weeks.

I currently live in Japan, so roughly around April or May, the weather warms and everyone is happy – unfortunately, the local tatami mite (aka “dani”) population explodes, and explode it did in my old apartment. For 10 weeks, I have itched and scratched and cleaned and fumigated and fought long and hard against these mites, to no avail. I even stayed with a co-worker for over a week in an effort to have a break from them, get some real sleep and figure out what to do.

In the end, the last ditch effort to rid myself of the wee beasties was to move apartment.

Unfortunately, this came at a bad time financially, but I’ve made it work, and I have a new place in the city.

Sadly, the mites did make it here with me – I suspect eggs in my clothes, even though I nuked the hell out of them in the industrial dryer at the laundromat.

Regardless, the Rainy Season will end soon and Summer will heat up and the humidity will drop away and hopefully the mites will, to coin a phrase, politely fuck off. In the meantime, I have a new life to adjust to… which is why I’ve revamped my blog.

Firstly, a few things:

• The theme may change a few times. I’m fussy about that sort of thing.
• It’s no longer a “Japan” blog, per se – but obviously it’ll still have various Japan-related stuff, because, well… I live here.
• I plan to update more, but more in what the pundits call “micro-blogs”, like Twitter, or the Facebook status updates.

So, there we go.

I now live in a place called Tengachaya, which is about 5 minutes out of the middle of the city via train or 25 minutes by pushbike. I also have a 45 minutes commute, but I don’t mind, for some reason. It gives me time to wake up and sort myself out before I walk into work. Normally, I’m walking in half-asleep, sucking down a can of coffee.

My new apartment is brand new – finished in April ’09 -  so is all impressive: glass, steel, concrete, etc. It’s “New York” style apartment which features track lighting, exposed concrete surfaces and all the modern devices everyone in Japan needs, including an IH cook top and a heater fan in the bathroom to dry towels. (Sidenote: When I was looking at apartments, the guy wanted to show me apartment 305 in this building, which is the same as my old apartment. Then I found out the building number is the same as my old building number, and to cap it off, the rent is exactly the same. I took it as a sign, but I took apartment #302 because it had a side window.)

It’s a slightly older area of Osaka, so there’s lots of weird alleys and old folk who have been living here for 50-60 years, but it’s interesting and I like it. Considering the circumstances I’ve moved here under, I’m doing okay so far, although I hate sitting in the laudromat for hours. Fucking mites.

So that’s where things stand at the moment. New blog, new apartment, new phase of my life.