Darlo's World

So the temperature up in Leeds has dropped somewhats, and along with me having to do a complete factory reset on my laptop, I’ve now had to faff about in fairly deep snow if I want to go outside. Those of you who follow me on facebook will have already seen the little video I whacked on there from my webcam, but on my way about town and through Hyde Park today I took a few pictures for all to see. Now this is how many people would like to see Christmas.

The graveyard at university really reminds me of A Christmas Carol.

The view from my bedroom. Last night this poor lamp post was hit by a car and a rubbish collection truck.

The road towards Leeds city centre looks a bit bleak.

Glad I wasn’t under any trees when they shed their loads.

Hyde Park was the deepest snow area I walked through, with areas of virgin snow coming to just a few inches under my knee caps.

In yonder distance yee can see, a humble snowman who hath yet to be.

These guys were making an igloo. On my way back it was really impressive, but I didn’t want to take my camera out as the snow was coming down heavy again.

I shall name him … (looks around room to found a random and somewhat obscure name) … Leopold.

This may look like a spherical sculture covered with snow, but I can tell you this … I don’t remember it being there a couple of days ago (recent … ish … google maps pic), and there was a mysterious looking trail of missing snow, grass and mud leading to it from the park.

Evergreen trees … the laziest of all.

This little house and garden area really go well with a snowy environment.

The Queen Vic.

The UK has four seasons which seem to merge into one another at a fairly standard rate, allowing you to slowly adapt to the coldness of winter after the few good days of summer and vice versa. Japan on the other hand is slightly different. Yes it has it’s basic four seasons of Autumm, Winter, Spring and Summer, but it also has a rainy season (or two). Just a few days ago I was walking to uni wearing full fleece-hat “oh my frickin’ ass it’s cold” clothing, whereas now I’m finding myself wishing I’d brought more (any) shorts (that are wearable outside). For an excellent description of the seasons themselves, read Joshua Zimmerman’s description, The Five Seasons.

The seasons here seem to change with the subtlety and tact of kick to the groin and a pie in the face at the same time. Definately agreeing with Joshua about stepping off the plane into a wall of heat and water, turning to winter seemed to happen overnight with me being thankful that my AC would also function as a heater, and now that it’s warm again am thankful for the AC once more.

It’s going to get a lot warmer in Osaka, so I guess along with books and other things I’ll be sending back early, I’ll have to start thinking about my warmer clothes too and getting them home … the heavy buggars.

Right you ‘orrible lot, this doesn’t happen very often but today I’m going to write about what a good day it’s been, generally speaking. So if you’re in a bad mood and don’t want to hear about it, you might want to naff off and come back tomorrow.

To be honest when I crawled out of bed with a stiff neck at about 6:30 this morning with a stiff neck, I thought I was in for one of those days, but around 15 minutes later I found I suddenly a nice bout of energy. Breakfast wasn’t fantastic, fried egg with ham slices and salad, but the egg had a hard yolk (just the way i like it) and best of all, NO MAYO!

Setting off we soon encountered something we hadn’t in a good few months. The weather was nice. It was sunny, with a very gentle breeze and a temperature that was neither a sweltering heat wave, nor it a Japanese version of the North Pole. It was just … nice. This good weather lasting pretty much until I got back in through the door tonight.

Nothing particularly special at uni today. I had my usual tutoring session, being a Tuesday, so this accounted to my one time to really practice Japanese out of class I usually get a day. The conversation was good, it was funny and entertaining, and I managed to use some of the new grammar points we’d covered on class.

I left campus much earlier than usual today, mainly due to the fact that there were even less Japanese students about than usual. However, the Spring Break will end soon and speaking practice will resume. Leaving early meant that I got to enjoy sitting down on the trains back to Osaka instead of standing.

This day, and this feeling, could only have been made better if we had curry rice for dinner.

And so we did (pork curry rice!!! EPIC!). My simply perfect day (ish) has been complete. And so to leave you with a video clip. Here’s the opening sequence to Baccano. Even though it’s just the intro, it’s still pretty intense, so I hope you enjoy it.

Previously I have wrote about how fate is cruel and how irony loves to give you a kick in the arse not only when you’re down, but when your down belly flat on a pile of broken glass and rusty nails. Well add that to a shot in the nuts and thats what I had to handle today.

To stay alive in Japan you need this little thing called money, and recently things had been looking up financially. My student loan payment was coming through and the exchange rate had been on the up, hitting 140 yen to the pound a few days ago. Fast forward to this morning when the cash was actually in my bank account and you’d be forgiven for thinking I would have been a happy and relieved chappy.

First task this morning was to give 67% of that to Uni leaving me with me “good luck living on that” loan. Second shot came when I went to check the exchange rate. It had sunk to 130.7 yen to the pound (right now it’s at 130.3). Companred to the 200 yen to the pound I had when I first got here. So once again I’m left in the dilemma of whether I withdraw money now, or wait a bit longer. Risky.

My walk to Shirakawa (aka the original Higurashi village) might be back on. In February we have a week off which would give me time to start the walk. Only trouble is (and the reason I said start) is that I think it’s going to take longer than one week to get there. I’m going to have a word with my teachers about the possibility of me missing a class or two should I take too long, as this would be my only real chance to explore anything away from a class activity, unless of course I get a nice lottery win … though I don’t do the Japanese lottery.

However, this may also be marred by the fact that I didn’t estimate how the weather in Japan changes. Up until now I thought we’d had the worst of the cold and come February it would start to warm up a little. According to my Japanese friends this is not the case. In fact, where we are is going to get even colder, meaning December probably would have been the better time after all.

I leave you with a video that somes up the cold and the irony – Ironic by Alanis Morissette

After leaving the new version of Lotaku in a reasonable state after pure destruction, I looked out the window and saw some incredibly fine looking weather. The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky and it looked genuinely warm. The weather for Osaka was predicted to be cold, but since I saw no signs of that I took it to be a balls up on the weather man’s behalf. Dressing lighter than I had been later (eg without a scarf) I headed out and realised it wasn’t quite as warm as I’d let myself believe. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t as cold as it had been, but I could definately feel the nippiness.

Making my way to the local shrine where the Ebisu Matsuri was being held (check the last entry for details on that), I gave a small offering and prayed to Ebisu, participating as much as I possibly could without having a clue as to what I was doing. I was happy to see some of the things I’d learned in my religion class in practice, such as the Kagura and why the shrine maidens were performing it.

I then went for a look around the usual festival stalls, as usual lots of different foods were on offer as well as a range of games and souvenirs for sale. Having known how most of these games ‘work’ I decided to try my luck at the shooting gallery. After shooting off a few light-boxes winning myself some sweets, I had a crack at the impossible stuff. I knocked over the marker for a Nintendo DS, but the rule is that it had to fall off the shelf rather than just fall over. I didn’t mind, of course, I had my sweets.

Winnings – 1 x Milky, 1 x Choco Ball (yoghurt flavour), 2x Fuppii Ramune

I then proceeded to walk south to meet some friends at Osaka Castle. I hadn’t been there before and only had a brief idea of where it would be, so this was definately another one of my fun adventures. Unfortunately for me the glorious sunny (yet frickin’ cold) weather that had been brightening the day went behind some clouds and the cold really started to kick in. From checking the temperature daily on google I knew that last night it was actually colder than back in Telford, but I wasn’t preparing for the snow that began falling from above.

Yes, this was the last thing I was expecting for Osaka. Hmm … well, maybe not the last thing, I’ve still not seen any … um … well, moving on. I rang a friend in Kobe and discovered that it was also snowing there, and from the sounds of it it might have been snowing heavier. Just as quick as it started though, the snow ended. Not even leaving any damp patches on the floor. This was a snowfall for the moment, for the memory.

I met my friends at Osaka Castle but because I decided to visit the shrine (and faff about on a website) beforehand, they’d already been up and around. Not wanting to spend money to run around it while they waited, I made myself pleased to be able to take some awesome photos. Even though this was the first time I’d been to Osaka Castle, it’s a walkable distance from the dorm so I can always come again another (warmer) day.

I decided to have dinner at Matsuya again tonight having with hands so cold they make ice get jealous made using chopsticks a nightmare. Thankfully a spoon was on hand as I’d ordered my old favourite, curry rice.

Going back for a second, I noticed when I was doing the new Lotaku site how easy and useful Wordpress was. This being the case I’ve decided to make Darlo’s World a wordpress site. I don’t know when I’ll convert it over, I don’t know when I’ll have time, but the end result will definately be a nice touch.