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My brother showed me this and I can’t stop watching it. I love the British accents and the little baby.

I’m back in the UK and experiencing some reverse culture shock:

Bowing every time I say thank you or sorry.
Mourning the lack of vending machines.
Pleasantly surprised at everyone’s politeness.
Seeing differently coloured naturalhair
Marvelling the open size of the bins on the street
Seeing cherry blossom on the street
Admiring the general greenery. Even in London.
Trying not to say, “Ah there’s a foreigner over there”, every time I see a Western-looking person.
Feeling the gap before I start eating where I should be saying “Itadakimasu” (I humbly receive)
Taking off shoes the moment I enter a house.
Shocked at paying the same price for a drink in pence in England as I paid in yen in Japan.

I’m also infuriating myself and I’m sure many other people by starting every statement with, “In Japan…” or, “When I was in Japan…” I guess that I have little knowledge of daily British affairs recently that I am compelled to do this. I hope Japan interests my friends enough that they don’t tell me to get over myself.

But I’m glad to be back.

It’s one week until I go back to England to look for a job. I’m burning through my social insurance before it runs out with trips to get fitted for contact lenses - they’re tricky to get used to - and I hope to go to the dentist before I go back. Things like that are a lot cheaper here than in England so I’m using it while I still can.

I’ve bought suits for interviews. I try to spend allotted computer time searching for jobs on agencies but that can be pretty overwhelming. Plus a billion interesting pages are available through a quick detour via Digg or Del.icio.us or equivalent.

I’m trying to spend some time with the baby and wife. I have a couple of farewell parties from friends and students.

I’m also giving my books and CD’s away and decluttering. At least in theory. It’s a good time to work out what is important to me. What can fit in a suitcase and a couple of international parcels and what can be left, thrown away or sold without too many tears shed.

A Stormtrooper. In Japan. Dancing.

I like signs. I like Japanese signs. And I like Lightroom’s colour presets which turn an average photo into a slightly mystical average photo.

Japanzine has a great guide to the Best of the Web 2008.

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I’d never heard of Barbapapa before I came to Japan. This is the same with Hello Kitty and slightly more obscure characters like Doraemon and Anpanman. My baby is obsessed with him. At least I think he is.

I’m not sure whether it’s her who’s obsessed with him or my wife. She buys everything Barbapapa - We have a diary, cup, bento box, fluffy toy, a book in French, another in Japanese, piles of bottoms, tops, suits and more.

Thrust anything in front of my baby and she’ll play with it (or my wife and she’ll buy it). She seems to like it though. Barbapapa is easy to say for a 20 month old baby and she’ll happily babble Barbapapa for hours on end.

This is from the winter vacation down to Kyushu.

This photo taught me that if it`s cloudy outside and you`re near a window, take a portrait and it usually comes out well.

Thanks to the people who told me my RSS feed was broken. I would never have known otherwise. You can subscribe again at the RSS feed.

I delinked my twitter stream from my blog as it didn’t really work. Some of the things I wanted to say didn’t fit in with a full blog post although they’re ok through the widget in the sidebar. You can follow me in the sidebar or by going to my twitter stream.

Please resume normal operations.