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Is there anything more dangerous to a baby than a kotatsu? Similar to a coffee table but used (at least in our house) for everything from eating dinner on to studying.
Perhaps it’s not the kotatsu itself but the items left on it. Steaming bowls of miso soup or tea, knives and food are all within easy grasp of a baby able to prop herself up when supported.
We’ve had near misses with the soup and last night she pulled over a cup of tea. Fortunately it had cooled down.
You might thing that a conventional table would be just as dangerous thanks to the height from which they could fall. Whilst this is true, my baby seems to be a thrill seeker hellbent on experiencing the most danger possible in her as yet short life and she could find a way to make anything deadly.
If you look through my blog or my flickr stream, you will see that whilst there are plenty of pictures of rust, temples and statues, there are very few photos of the people of Osaka.
This is a great shame as the people of Osaka, especially the ones that hang around the Americamura and nearby Shinsaibashi areas of Osaka are very unique. Colourful, loud and original.
I`m too much of a coward to go up to people and stick a camera in their face so I used my broken camera that I fixed with an elastic band and held it at hip height and took pictures.
I was mostly surprised as some of the shots came out better (albeit a little dark on occasion) than if I had taken the time to frame and compose them.
However Reiko thinks the next stop is up women`s underwear.
There is a British comedy show called Little Britain. In it a gay man in a small village in Wales is sad that there are no other gays in the village he lives in. The joke is that there are hundreds but he chooses to avoid them.
Reiko has been telling me that I think I’m the only gaijin in the village. And I guess she’s got a point. I moan at the way things are done here. That I’m the only one who can see it and how to fix it. In fact I like thinking I’m the only one who sees it and is able to fix it when there are other gaijin where I live. May I dare say hundreds?
Bill Bryson once wrote that being an American in England he was defined as an American. When he went back to America, he joined the 300,000,000 other Americans and lost that part of him. Do I secretly cherish my gaijin status?
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a diary entry and I think they give a rounded perspective of my life so here’s one:
Sake shop on way home from work.
Downsized my bag from a rucksack prepared with rations for any situation to a small over-the-shoulder bag. It’s compact but still fits my wallet a moleskine, 2 moleskine cahiers, a small camera, iPod and pens. It’s bit tricky dealing with less space and has taken a bit of adapting to. Sometimes I have to juggle things in my pockets as well.
There was a massive yet short rainstorm this morning. The weather was different in each of the English lessons I taught and the answers changed.
I walked to the station after school in warm sunshine. The high school on the way back was emptying its children at lunch. It seemed like the whole school was leaving. A man smoking on his bike slowed down by the students blew a lungful of smoke into my face. I don’t think there’s anything ruder in the world than that.
All the students on the train this morning were studying from English textbooks. On the way home a salaryman had a TOEIC textbook too.
I found a digital camera I broke 2 years ago. The latch for the batteries wouldn’t close properly so I fixed it with an elastic band. I have a ghetto camera now.
I decided to try out Twitter, a sort of microblogging instant messenger tool. I`ll be using it in conjunction with this blog. This blog will still be my main focus and contain the meaty posts.
I`m enjoying using the twitter one as the character limit per post is 140 characters which provides a medium for more conciseness.
My twitter page is also turning out to be more personal and more of a “What I have seen and am actually doing each day blog” whereas this blog has morphed from that into a “How I see Japan blog”.
I went on a school trip today with the first graders to a park. For a part of it I sat with a sweet girl and we started talking.
After work I caught the same bus home with her and my colleague. She told him I told her I walk the path of hell and the pathway to hell is in England.
I can’t imagine how she got this. I don’t even know how to say the pathway to hell in Japanese.
In Osaka, the local Kentucky Fried Chickens like to dress their statue of Colonel Sanders in a seasonal outfit instead of his white suit he usually wears.
I first noticed this last summer at the Tenjin Matsuri where the Colonel is dressed in a yukata - a traditional festival going costume.
Fast forward to Christmas and Santa has magically appeared in front of KFC.
The next two blew me away however. I got these with kind permission from The Shock
Every March there is the Hina Matsuri dolls festival in which it is believed dolls have the power to contain the bad luck from girls.
Here is a picture of a typical doll
and here is a bearded one:
April sees the children start a new year of school and the coming of the new first graders. To celebrate that, the Colonel is decked out in a brand new school outfit.
May sees the Children’s Festival and a fat bearded man is once again in disguise riding a panda.
I’m amazed at the amount of times I’ve seen children sitting in the front seats of cars without any form of restraint on.
The other day I saw a baby of no more than 3 months resting on the knees of the mother who was driving. A few hours later a car passed me with a kid standing in the front seat with his head out of a half open window like a dog being driven to the park.
This is truly unbelievable. I hope that the parents reconsider their actions before their children’s face hits the windscreen at 60 miles an hour.
I’ve never understood adverts for positions that say, “We are looking for somebody with a burning desire to work in Human Resources.” or something similar.
What kind of person comes out of their mother’s womb with the life goal of working in HR?
I say this because I’m pondering my next career move. I’m scouring adverts half heartedly. There’s plenty for sales, graduate positions and HR. But these largely do not interest me.
This blogging malarkey has given me a taste for writing. If I could blog full time, I’d be in heaven. Until then there are other avenues for me such as Journalism, Publishing or the like.
Many bloggers are using their blogs as springboards for careers in writing or the media. Use it to show your authority on a subject they say. This is fine if you’re writing about blogging for money, a niche tech interest or digital cameras.
But on a good day I can draft posts for an hour in my notepad. And it doesn’t seem like work. I do it because I enjoy it. There’s got to be something good in that.
