Today's edition of bad Engrish T-shirts:

"Nothing Venture, Nothing Again"
"I don't like French Kissin"
"I cannot withstand eternally armed conflicts"

and best of all...

MEGA GAME FUN

Me: Do you know what the nintendo famicon was called in America?
Student: Family Computer?
Me: No, it was called "Super Nintendo".
Entire Class: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA really?
Me (slightly puzzled): .....yes. (?!)

Picnic in the park part 1

Two Heads and Webbed Toes

Me: So, any last questions about the lesson?
Student: Yes... What do Tasmanians look like?

Japanese Mysteries #1

Japan is seen by many as a somewhat enigmatic society, with social codes and mores that are indecipherable to an outsider. Having now lived in Japan for over a year, I think that's true to a certain extent. For how else could you explain Japanese Mysteries #1....

Why do they only sell sports drinks in one flavour?

When it comes to most snacks, the Japanese are suckers for variety. Just yesterday I bought an あずき　flavoured kit kat (sweet red bean paste!) and a pineapple fanta (I have three teeth left now, thanks for asking). But when it comes to sports drinks, you're limited to what might best be described as 'generic' flavour, a kind of grapefruity translucent mix that tastes like sweaty cordial.

As a discerning sports drinker, this came as something of a shock. I'm used to giddy neon bottles with drink names like (pick any two of the following) bolt! crush! berry! guzzle! lightning! quench! blue! electric! smash! so imagine my surprise when I went to pick up a bottle of BERRYBOLTSMASHQUENCHER! and all I could find was a bottle of pocari sweat. Yes, that's right, they have a sports drink called sweat. Awesome-o power!



As far as I can tell it's a perception thing: Consumers won't trust anything that doesn't look or smell serious to rehydrate them after vigorous exercise. That, or maybe there's just a big tap hooked up to the sweaty armpit of a cordial drinking gorilla in Tokyo, at which all the sports drinks companies fill up their bottles.

Pictures of Shoes

湯の山温泉

Well it's Golden Week again which means it's probably time to blow the cobwebs off the blog and upload some photos of me standing with a stupid face next to a statue of some description.

Why is a stick insect playing a guitar whilst standing on a sundial?

Sally and I decided that we should go and visit Yunoyama onsen, I mountain/hot spring resort that's about an hour or so out of Nagoya. This afforded me the opportunity to indulge in my two favourite holiday activities: taking photos of running water and getting my nude on in public.



One of Yunoyama's main attractions is a rather long cable car (or 'ropeway' as the Japanese prefer) trip to the top of the mountain. Apparently this is the longest ropeway in Asia; thankfully for the sake of my frazzled nerves, it was not particularly rickety or terrifying.



At the top of the mountain we wandered about, vainly trying to satiate Liz's goat addiction (sadly no goats were forthcoming) before deciding that the afternoon would be best spent jumping up and down on some precariously placed rocks.



After such vigorous physical exertion, it was now well and truly time to get my nude on.