Buildings bright

Buildings thin

Pigeons are grey doves

Snow and neon

Two floors of plants

Adventures in Banking

I've been mising my bank book for a few weeks now, and so today I decided to get a replacement, before the New Year's break. After filling out the forms came the time to sign, or rather stamp, and I realized that I didn't have my hanko with me; I told them that I'd be right back and rushed home. Upon my return home, I began searching and tore my whole room apart several times looking for it, and on the thrid go round I stumbled across my bank book. Book in hand, I rushed back to the bank and explained what had happened, but he still wanted me to stamp the forms that he had prepared for getting a new bank book. It seems the the act of carryiing out a transaction supersedes the relevance of it. But, I explained that I wasn't able to find my hanko, and we expressed various amounts of dismay at the fact after which he asked me to tell him if I wasn't able to find it. I'll be looking, but I'm not holding out much hope.
In other news I'm going to Osaka tomorrow for New Year's break, going to visit some friends and friends of friends. I'm really looking forward to getting out of Ube.
To explain my desire to get out, let me relate a story. One of our students is moving to America, to do research at a university. The University of Alabama. In Tuscaloosa. Now, imagine you met this person, and he said, "I'm moving to America", to which, naturally, you would reply, "Oh? Where?" And, upon hearing his answer, your recation would most likely be the same as that of a Japanese person who heard "I've been living in Ube, Yamaguchi." I am looking forward to a change of scenery.
But, speaking of Alabama, I had a doctor in my class recently and we were doing a lesson on health advice. In part of the lesson, he had to pretend to give advice to people, and I asked, "What would you say to this woman, who can't seem to find time to relax." His reply was, "I would tell her to try to drink a little alcohol after work."

Play time

Christmas Sunrise

The lighter side of identity theft

Have you ever had to pretend to be someone else to solve a problem?
The internet at my place went out recently after a power outage; the account is in the name of a person who hasn't lived here in two years. In order to get anything out of the customer serviced center I've had to pretend to be "Samuel Bawden", and they believe me without question. All I needed to supply was the account number off the bill, my address and his phone number. The phone number was the tricky part, as he hasn't lived here in two years it took some serious digging to come up with. But, thanks to an English tech support number a helpful staff, I have been able to wrangle a solution to this problem, but it'll still take three or four days to get my internet back. The scary thing is that while, with this little information I was able to solve this problem by convincing them that I was Sam, that's all it took to convince them. A name, an address and a phone number; with these one could cause an immense amount of trouble for someone else.
Also, it was interesting being on the other side of the call center. That is, I believe these people that were answering the phone in English were based in America. Although it's not terribly surprising, it was interesting to encounter this outsourcing from the other side of the globe, not American calls to Asia (India), but Asian (Japanese) calls to America. Globalization and outsourcing work in all directions.

View of the top

The view from the top

Graffiti is universal

Temples in Hagi outside . . .

. . .and in

A visit to Hagi

Last Friday I went to Hagi with Lindsay; we've ben planning this trip for a while now, originally Jim, my roomate and other coworker, was going to come too, but his upcoming trip back to America unfortunately overoccupied him. We set out at the ungodly hour of eight-thirty in the morning so we could get there by noon. This was not very enjoyable, nor easy, as we had had a nicely boisterous bounenkai the night before. Upon arrival in Yamaguchi city we changed from the uncomfortable and reasonably crowded local train to being the only passengers on a richly upholstered bus. After a pleasant and nap-filled journey through the beautiful countryside we arrived in Hagi. I was immediately taken with the city, aside from its pottery, historical significance and abundance of temples, it had forest covered hills. I felt like I was back in Bellingham, it was beautiful. If there was a Nova branch in Hagi, I wouldn't have to think about transferring. We had ramen for lunch, then struck out for the castle, pausing at temples along the way. Walking down the beach we found ourselves observing rugby practice in the bitter cold and wind. I admire the teams dedication, but envy them none.
After collecting some seashells, we reached the end of the beach and the castle wall - all that's now left after the castle was destroyed as a symbol of feudalism at the start of the Meiji Restoration. I was amazed though, that they had a photograph of the castle before it was torn down in 1874. I suppose we all know that photography has been around much longer than the turn of the twentieth century, but it never seems to click until you see really old photos. Even with just walls and a moat (two acually), the castle was still quite impressive, and the walls were good for looking out from. From there it was a look at the castle shrine and a hike to the top of the mountain (read hill) where there was a view and more ruins. The climb, while short (the hill is 730m high), proved good exercise. It was worth it though, the view from the top was amazing.
After leaving the castle we went into the old samurai neighborhood and saw some medieval walls and bought some pottery. Hagi is known across Japan for its pottery, hagi-yaki, and thus has, it seems, more pottery stores than bathrooms. The one we chose was a nice little corner store which also contained the owners residence on the upper floor. It was a nice balance between the giant tourist oriented stores by the castle and the gallery style stores in the shopping district. As we walked in the owner served us tea and candy and made some small talk. I think that's one of the best sales tactics if you own a small shop: serve your customers food and thereby guilt them into buying. It worked.
We walked back into town and had an hour to kill before we met our friend for dinner, so we had a cup of coffee and wandered while talking about how cold and tired and hungry we were. When our friend finally got ahold of us we meandered to an upscal izakaya where we had, of course, a great variety of food. Among the things I'd never tried beofre were raw fish liver (great texture. terrible taste) and freshly made, still bubbling tofu (tofu texture, no taste). After this, our day was over. We were tired and full and it was time to go home.

I don't want to bike to work today

Urban decay doesn't have to be ugly

A big, writhing bin of . . .?

Learning life skills through observation

Fresh Fish = Live Fish

I went to a fish market today with Lindsay, one of my coworkers today. We're going to Hagi tomorrow so it was a stop on the way back from checkign the bus schedule. Quite an interesting market, all the people with small boats would unload their catch directly and put it live into bins and sel directly to the public; the men were unloading the boats while the women would sell, gut and tend to the fish. There was almost every conceivable type of sea creature for sale, octopi, squid and cuttlfish, crawfish and shrimp, crabs, eels, lots of halibut, one or two types of rays and some things I couldn't identify. You would walk along and the women would point at various fish anouncing their edibility and price. It's been a unseasonably cool here, so I was amazed at their resistance to cold, sitting there, no gloves, hands soaking wet with sea water, filleting and sorting fish. The prices were quite reasonable too, ¥500 for a small halibut, but I think it was gut it yourself. That's fine of course for regular fish, but I would have no idea what to do with a shrimp or octopus. I think that sometime though I should like to go down there and get the fixings for a seafood dinner, but perhaps I should find someone who could help first. Someone who knows their way around a fillet knife. On the way home we stopped at a French (seeming) bakery, Quatre Saisons. I got a curry donut. Tonight is the bounenkai (end of the year party) with karaoke of course. Tomorrow, a trip to Hagi, which I'm quite looking forward to.