Venti

five facts about me

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:59:25 +0900

I was three time the British Tae-Kwon-Do association silver medalist for my age groups.
Almost all things, and all people are less important to me than football.
I once cooked a meal for Louis Theroux during my time working a a motorway service station.
I have an odd appreciation for the smell of diesel, vinyl and other oil based products.
I would replace ketchup and mayonnaise with tartar sauce in almost all cicumstances.

‘Five Facts’ was Originally posted by: sarazucker

福岡の天気はよかよ！

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:20:20 +0900

昨日から今日も福岡の天気は暑いになりました！昨日天神へ行ったし一蘭の博多ラメンを食べるし会社へ行きました。仕事はもっともっと面白いになっています。今アイフォンとイポッド・タッチーで使う方のウエブサイトの作ります。それは始めのアイフォン・サイトですが進むは早いだ。来月の一日まで終わるはずである予定です。短いですが俺はコンフェデントですよ！

今日授業の後に友人とテニスをする予定です！楽しみにするね！明日の晩は僕の友達、ウィリアムさんの誕生日パーティーすごい嬉しいになると思って。遊ばんね！

日本語書いてをすみませんですがよく練習で上手になるのために。

Tonight

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 06:06:16 +0900

Tonight I had my heart broken by a girl dressed as a thundercat.

音楽

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:40:00 +0900

So I played last night in a support slot for some of friends at a little bar out of the city and into the Fukuoka prefectural wilderness. Well, wilderness is probably unfair, but it’s really fucking far away.

The main act was a few people I know playing a mix of jazz and old pop classics. I dumbed down considerably to offer some Radiohead, Beatles and Belle & Sebastian - no gig is complete without it - and a few originals which have been waiting to see the light of day for a very long time.

The reception was good, I was told that I had ‘an energy’ which others lacked, and that I should try my hand at some more vocally challenging stuff. I think I will.

I also saw my English friend, who I’ve not been in touch with for a week or so, and apologised for my being a complete dick during that time. I promised to tell her what’s been going on just as soon as I can figure out what to tell her. The thing is, she has intimated in the past that she thought something was going on between me and that girl, and I had always flat-out denied it, mainly because it is she who is the subject of my true affections I suppose. But then, it turns out she might not be as straightforward as I’d imagined anyway. That’s for another day.

I ended up grabbing a cab after the show - mainly because the trains didn’t start running for another two hours - and meeting a friend in Tenjin for a couple of drinks and some late-night ramen. I got back here at around seven as the sun began to arc over the happy hills in the distance, and spent most of the day alseep. In short, it’s been the perfect Saturday. It’s really quite liberating to be free of the constraints of such things as licensing hours, and public transport which is untenable and often unavailable. The Fukuoka subway network is open in the AM before the bars even shut, making the drunken journey home a painless - though a little nauseating - experience. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve taken the 5:36am train bound for 筑前前原 from 天神 to 藤崎.

a week in Fukuoka

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:26:35 +0900

So I have a couple of my family members coming out to see me over the next couple of weeks whilst I”m on spring break, and I’ve trying to come up with cool, interesting things to do with them during there visit, preferably without leaving the city limits. This list might be of some use to anyone else spending a short time in our wonderful city.

Eat some 博多ラメン (Hakata Ramen) The previous post should provide you with a taste of what to expect. Fukuoka is the home of Ramen, and 一蘭 (Ichiran) is as good a place as any to sample this delicious dish. The noodles are served in a garlic and onion broth, with optional pork cutlets and boiled egg. Excellent and affordable.
Scale Fukuoka Tower and the Marinoa city ferris wheel The tower based at Seaside Momochi is the tallest seaboard skyscraper in Asia, and offers stunning views both night and day of the city and the mountains behind it on one side, and the Hakata bay on the other. The Tower has two viewing floors and a cafe. The Marinoa City Ferris Wheel is the largest Ferris in Asia, and also offers great views of the city, albeit in a slightly more kitsch environment. Take a leisurely ride and grab some great night-time shots of Fukuoka.
Visit Dazaifu A train-ride away from downtown Fukuoka is the historic city of 太宰府 (Dazaifu). A popular tourist haunt, and a place for Japanese students to go and pray for academic success. This is what you’ll expect to see when you conjure an image of ‘Japan’.
Shopping in 天神　 Fukuoka is the largest city on Kyushu, and Tenjin is the biggest shopping area in town. There’s a bit of everything, clothes shops galore, and lots of places to find all of the Japanese nicknacks you’ll probably want to take back home with you. Lots of places to grab lunch around Daimyo, the shockingly cool part of town which is home to Bathing Ape, and a whole host of other boutique fashion stores and record shops.
A night on Oyafuko Oyafuko-dori is the place to go for a night out in Fukuoka. Lots of bars and clubs are crammed around a small street, with many buildings hosting several cool places for you to get some food, drink and dance the night away. Foreigner visiters can find solace in the company of fellow travellers in Fubar and Dark Room. Muso’s will enjoy Keith Flack, Decadent Deluxe and Early Believers. All within easy walking dastance of each other. Also on Oyafuko-Dori, Xaymaca offers delicious Caribbean cuisine and a taste of Jamaica offered by Allan, the bar’s owner.
A visit to Nokonoshima If nature is your bag, noko is a nice place for a midday stroll. The island park (bus ride from the ferry port) offers uninterrupted views of the Kyushu mainland, and the sea on the other side. You can feed rabbits, chickens, goats and geese. The park also has short-stay bungalows for groups wanting to spend a nght on the island with a barbecue and the promise of seeing the sun rising over Hakata bay. Ferry from Noko Ferry port ~　600円 return.

TO BE COMPLETED

Reason enough to love Fukuoka.

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:48:48 +0900

Reason enough to love Fukuoka.

Ethnic novelty as a weapon

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:29:18 +0900

My Englishness has been fleshed out here in longform on several occasions, and I’ve explained how it has both positive and negative effects on the life of a foreigner in Japan. One plus point of my being an Englishman here, I’ve yet to mention as yet.

It’s the same wherever you go, and for however long. People seek comfort in the familiar. For my American cohort, that means sticking within their own groups, and largely being impenetrable to local influence. For me, it’s slightly different. There is only one other Britisher at my entire university, and we don’t constitute a group in our own right. So, my solace in times of need, comes from elsewhere.

I have met a lovely English girl with whom I spend a lot of time, and we have in our friendship the opportunity to unwind and talk, like only two people of the sae extraction can. Through her - an English school teacher here - I have met several other English, Scottish and Irish people, and it’s become a pleasant escape from the American-ness of my home, and the Japanese-ness of… Japan. I’ll be at a gathering of these folks tonight for cocktails and Thai Curry in Hakata, before decamping to some bar or another on Oyafuko Dori - Fukuoka’s bar hotspot.

My own frailties as a human being tend to make these larger social gatherings less enjoyable. I feel that I am far better company in small groups, and tonight should prove interesting in that regard. I find it hard in those types of scenarios to impress upon people the kind of person I am, and usually seek solace with familiar faces.

I suppose most people are the same. It just depends how well you can cope in those sorts of scenarios. Some people become horribly extroverted in order to cover their complete lack of actual personality, some people hit the drink hard. Others - me included - retreat to the smokers corner and indulge in man chat to pass the time.

I guess that your ethnicity when overseas is like foreign currency. The American Dollar is waining, The Chinese Yuan is irritating in it’s unpredictability, and the British pound has a rightful sense of superiority which causes problems with international trade.

Heroes of the Week: Belle & Sebastian

You never just ‘walk down the street’ in Japan, for...

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:00:07 +0900

You never just ‘walk down the street’ in Japan, for fear of missing gold like this.

The matter of manners in various manors

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:52:00 +0900

日本に「ありがとう」と言うはどこによって違うばいね。！難しか！

PS: 今日博多弁を少し勉強しちゃった分かるの人と？

Translation:

Saying Thankyou in Japan differs greatly according to where you are. Complicated, no?

PS: Tonight, I’ve been studying Hakata-Ben a little. Can you understand it?

LIST

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:35:57 +0900

I’m currently enjoying, rather a lot - the following:

If the brakeman turns my way- Bright Eyes
Piazza, New York catcher - Belle and Sebastian
Insistor - Tapes ‘n Tapes
METAのTAME
Quommunication - Because it looks lovely.

THAT IS ALL.

二十三歳になって。

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:20:58 +0900

I turned 23 years old today. That doesn’t really matter so much as my increasing agitation at the slow progress I’ve made in the last five years at getting where I want to go. Still, a birthday is a birthday, and whilst I did the real - hardcore - celebrating over the weekend, I’ll be going out tonight with a few of my friends here in Japan for a couple of drinks and some food.

Hero of the Week: Me

Detached

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:08:53 +0900

I don’t mean to keep coming here and writing the same thing over and over again with new words. But for every brief - simulated across wires and airwaves - piece of contact I have with the girl I left at home I find myself desperately trying to find the right way to express the sadness I feel for not being able to hold her hand and tell her everything could be okay if she wanted it to be.

I want to tell her that I would commit my every moment to her if she would let me, and that I would be for her, everything I know she is looking for. The sadness is that I can’t offer her that option, or hope. I’m too far away from her not only a geographical sense, but also in terms of where we are in our lives. I’m still a student, and will be for another 15 months. She is working, and quite possibly moving to London, where a girl of her undoubted beauty, intelligence and class will not stay single for long.

But you know what? Even if it meant I never stepped foot back inside my university and that I spent the next twenty years of my life paying off my student debt for no tangible benefit, I’d do it to be hers. I’d do it knowing the sheer stupidity of it, and I’d do it realising that I’d be stepping off one very secure footing into an altogether less ‘sure’ situation. But I’d do it all just on the off-chance that this is the one.

love. probably.

touching

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:27:28 +0900

I’ve spent a week with my new - and hastily jailbroken - iPod Touch, and so far, I’m in love with it. I’m using it far more than any previous iPod, even though it has only half of the capacity of my 5^th gen, and thus, only has half as much music on it.

It’s really outside of music and video playing though, where the liberated iPod Touch becomes an altogether more important device. With the addition of native Maps, and the same Mail client enjoyed by iPhone users, It feels very much as if the mobile phone is finally free to return to it’s intended purpose of making calls. The iPod Touch does all of the other ‘mobile tasks’ so elegantly, that I can’t see myself ever wanting to check my email, or leisurely browse the ‘net on my Cell Phone, ever.

The one flaw in this gadget fuelled dream of course is the sporadic availability of wifi internet access, and I can’t help but think that apple will - at some point - see fit to release an iPod Touch with which you are free to sign-up to a data only plan with one of their ‘mobile partners’. The wifi situation - oddly - is less favourable in Japan than in England. I could quite happily wander around Liverpool sniffing open Wifi on my Nokia E61, and plomp down somewhere comfortable with my Macbook Pro to get some wrk done. But in Fukuoka: Free, open wireless access is less common, and I’ve yet to pick up any non-domestic, free spots in the city. Something I’ll continue to investigate.

But back to the point: the iPod Touch is a wonderful device, aesthetically - it screams apple, but it is within it’s ring-fenced potential where the device really shines.

Going lo-fi for GTD

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:29:47 +0900

I’ve tried countless ways of ‘getting things done’ better in the past. Starting off with online applications to manage to-do lists and appointments, before moving to application based solutions on the mac. But I always have the same two week burst of enthusiasm for using a new system before leaving it to gather dust.

So, I’ve gone lo-fi. And it’s working. I’m still hideously lazy and cavalier about the majority of my (mainly academic) commitments - but at least now it’s my own failings as human being at fault, and not the frailties of the way I’m keeping things organised.

So, here’s what I’m doing now.

I have a white-board hanging from my wall, a small thing on which I pen down three or four pressing tasks which need doing within the next day or so. I can’t avoid it, since it’s hanging right there in front of me for most of the time when I’m at home.

For more detailed or distant tasks, I’ve bought a lovely little diary, which allows me to be a bit more verbose. I make a habit of writing out my tasks once a week, and checking them off when they’re done.

In order to remind me that I have noted down things to do, for every item written in my dairy, I make a small mark on my desk calendar, which lets me know that a task has been filed under a specific day. It’s unobtrusive, and thus far, effective.

I think the tactile nature of the system is what appeals to me. Software and web apps are all well and good, and good ones even evoke a desire in me to use them, but there is nothing like opening up a diary - full of lovely type - and printed on great paper, all bound in a wicked looking leather trim to get me involved in GTD for real.

I now rarely leave the house without my diary, and never without a cursory glance at my whiteboard to make sure I haven’t missed something of critical importance. Granted, somethings will be delayed and overlooked, but as I said before, that is because I am essentially quite apathetic about most things, and not because this new workflow is itself, flawed.

And I think that’s the problem all GTD applications will forever face. People put things off, prioritise, and (intentionally or not) fail to do things. That’s just human nature, and you can’t replicate that sort of hap-hazard, on the spot decision making by turning it into a deliberate action within a software application. A feature allowing me to ‘postpone a task’ in a GTD app is just another task l’ll likely fail to complete, not one which will replace actually committing to getting things done, which after all is the entire ethos of the genre.

nb: I bought all of my stationary from the wonderful Loft Store in Fukuoka.

Kawabatas Japan

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:07:00 +0900

An early perspective on a subject in vogue.

On receiving the nobel prize for literature in 1968, Yasunari Kawabata appeared before his audience dressed in Kimono, to present (in Japanese) his lecture ‘Myself of Beautiful Japan’. In it he made reference to the classical Japanese poetry of the 12th Century, and the female-penned Heian texts which are to this day regarded as the finest works of Japanese fiction.

He was a staunch traditionalist, his attitude summed up with just two words Inheritance and Preservation. Even in the late sixties, Kawabata had observed the degradation of what he felt was Japan - Distinct, unique and unfaltering in it’s sense of pride as an Island nation set apart from it’s continental and global neighbours.

The late sixties were a time of great mutual influence, particularly between Japan and the US, with thousands of troops still stationed in Japan, and with the hippy movement of the time seeing in Japan something which it could adopt as it’s own. The Zen ideal, the reverence for nature, and the complete faith in a peaceful state. Kawabata however, saw this for exactly what it was, the commodification of something he felt could not be appreciated in the godless west, and without the extraordinary beauty of Japan as its backdrop.

Kawabata is out of fashion in modern Japan, his literature thought by many to be too strictly nationalist in its message. He was unblinking in the purity of his work. Nowhere in ‘Snow Country’ will you see western terminology used in place of traditional Japanese words. He simply ignored the closing of the classic era of Japanese Literature in favour of the new, modern age. He longed to be a part of the Heian literary age, and even adopted the ‘feminine’ writing system used by the courtesses some seven hundred years before him.

The war-weary world which awarded him his Nobel Prize was quite probably a little miffed when he appeared before them to condemn the west, and to try and make them appreciate that Japan was not some theme-park like exotic nation, from which they could pick and choose cultural nodes to take back home. Japan, for Kawabata was:

In the spring, cherry blossoms, in the summer the cuckoo.
In autumn the moon, and in winter the snow, clear, cold.
Buddhist Priest - Dogen (1200-1253)

Fifty years from an uprising

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:51:33 +0900

I’m a big believer in the theory of cyclic social attitude. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot since coming to Japan. In particular, it is the paradoxical viewpoints of the ageing and young generations of Japanese towards the west which leaves me thinking that this country is falling slowly towards what I suppose is most easily - though not entirely accurately - labelled as nationalism.

This is a country of contradictions, I’ve said that numerous times here and elsewhere. And the generation gap provides the human face of it. The older generation, those who grew up in the aftermath of the second world war, and the subsequent American occupation are resentful of the western influence on Japan, from the dilution of it’s military power, to the lessening role of Shintoism and Buddhism within it’s societal make-up. Travelling into rural Japan as a gaijin provides ample examples of an unabashed anti-American sentiment which undoubtedly stems from this. The big cities - like those elsewhere in the world - are of course less cut-and-dry, the omnipresence of foreign visitors and residents has gone some way to eradicating the teeth grinding disdain for westerners even amongst the grey generation.

And on the otherside of the coin are Japans youth. Obsessed with myriad western nodes, from American R&B and British rock music, to European fashion and western diets.

So, in another twenty years time, when the generation who quite understandably loath what they still see as their conquerers and oppressors are dead, Japan will be further entrenched in the battle between Japanism and the culture of the world on the cinema screen.

Even now, only 55 years after America officially handed Japan back to Japanese control, the west is an ever present. The shopping districts where the brands you know and love in New York City are much coveted. The fast food which is in decline in the UK sells like hot cakes from the countless McDonalds, KFC and Wendy’s outlets.

So what will this become? Saturation. When Japanese no longer recognise the Japan from The Tales of Genji, when they stop visiting their local shrine on NYE (favouring a bar and a piss up), my opinion is that the inevitable result will be a rise of aggressive nationalism and unrest, the likes of which have - since the student riots of the sixties - not been seen in Japan.

For a foreign resident, Japan is a increasingly easy place to live. English is often spoken, even by the staff of the local convenience store, food is no longer the fish and rice based boredom you remember from all of those holiday shows. But as great as it might be to be an ignorant outsider in Japan right now, the risk is that the identity of a people whose country is built on their unblinking belief in their uniqueness will suffer from the influx of just about everything they can consume from American and European shores.

By the later part of this century, Japan may very well be an altogether less comfortable place for people whose cultures are again diluting this ancient and proud nation, though this time round it is Will & Grace, not ‘Shock and Awe’ doing the damage.

Is scared. Needs guidance

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:34:29 +0900

The last few days I have been involved in conversations with a few different people about age, and life after student-life, and I have to tell you - I’m fucking terrified by the whole idea of turning 23 in three weeks time, and of graduating in 18 months, and of being a 25 year old recent graduate with no job, no wife, no children and no prospects.

What the fuck am I going to do? By the time my dad was my age, he was running his own business, had a wife, three kids, a mortgage and two cars. Granted, my parents didn’t have it easy, but still, at least they had their paths laid out before them by the time they were my age. The thing that bothers me the most is the uncertainty of it all. I don’t know where I’ll be living in two years time, and when I say that, I really mean, I don’t fucking know. It could feasibly be anywhere in the world. And that raises the bigger problem. I’m living now in Japan, I’ll be living in six months back in England, then after a year I’ll probably be leaving Liverpool and moving somewhere else. How the fuck am I supposed to try and forge a long term relationship with a person when I’m moving around so fucking often? Please, help me out here.

Lets say - for arguments sake - that I met someone here in Japan, and that I like her, and think we could be good together, how can I enter into a relationship with them knowing that in June I will be moving to the otherside of the chuffing planet?

Fuck it. Fuck it all. I”m over being a student, and being too fucking pre-occupied with my own situation to really fucking enjoy living. I’m 23 this month for fucks sake, and I’m beginning to sound like a 35 year old man. I must be getting old.

Good good-byes

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:41:29 +0900

Time is precious, I know that, but take for granted the brevity of my time here in Japan. This week marks the end of the first half of my academic year here, and that means around 25% of my cohort are leaving and returning back to their various corners of the world.

Four months is a flash of a film lens, but when you are spending your days and nights with a person, you quickly become invested in them, and depend on whatever influence they have over your fragile existence. I’ve said goodbye to people who I’ll miss dearly, and others who I won’t, but the overriding sentiment, and resolution is to try harder to foster relationships with people regardless of the knowledge that we will inevitably go our separate ways shortly. People are generally good. I honestly believe that, and need to put that ethos into practise more rapidly in the future.

To my friends in the air en route to Rhode Island, to Hawaii, to Paris, North Carolina and Georgia. Thank you for sharing a slice of your life with me, and for sharing a piece of mine.

I like your songs, I can sing along, but where's the number one?

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:28:26 +0900

I met an English girl in a bar. We talked about England and Japan, and how we thought that the shared language between us and the Americans masked a greater cultural divide than we have with our French, German and Italian neighbours. We listened to old Placebo songs and laughed at how drunk (and young!) all the people around us seemed to be!

We caught a train to a friends bar out in the countryside, I played guitar and sang songs for her, I bid her goodnight and promised to call her.

I did, and we took a boat to an island, drank orange juice and rode a labouring bus to the park at the summit of the slope. We fed an army of rabbits, stole some oranges and plotted our next adventure.

Hero of the week: Pelle Carlberg

Rut

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:25:46 +0900

The last couple of weeks have been possibly the hardest of my time in Japan. I’ve been having increased contact with my family back home, and that combined with the time of year, and my well documented longing for a certain someone back home have had me stressed out and uninterested in partaking in all the usual fun we have here.

That was until Wednesday, I was out for the birthday party of two of my friends - one of whom I count as one of my very best friends, we’ve lived together, travelled together, failed together and now we are both out here living in the same place in Japan - that sort of history isn’t to be sniggered at.

Anyway, it was just such a good night, with lots of people I count as friends gathered in one place, all with the sole intent to a good time. I met a friend-of-a-friend who I’m going out with again this weekend, so I’ll update on that score depending on how it goes on Sunday. She is English, nice, witty and has excellent taste in music, I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.

In other news, I’ve pretty much decided that ‘Kings of Leon’ might just be my favourite American band in this post-pumpkins (yes, I know, but it doesn’t count) world of ours. They constantly pump out masterpieces which seem to go unnoticed by America and the music press at large. LISTEN PEOPLE!

Hero of the week: Uniqlo