And I just realize this week is only three days old!

Childbearing machine

Japanese politics is to often to sad to talk about. The number of political scandals has increased significantly after prime minister Koizumi ,who apparently thanked his position to his hairdresser, left office. The main scandals of this week. A court ruled that prime minister Abe didn't censor the national broadcasting corporation. He just pressured them to leave certain parts out of a documentary on comfort woman. I guess I didn't really get the meaning of the word censorship. Second scandal; the minister of health called woman childbearing machines who should do their utter best to get many children. Apparently woman do not need a man to get children. Hey to independent Japanese woman who can raise kids on their own and do not need man at all.

Chocolate bar

Maybe the letters on the chocolate bar are a bit tiny. But I would like to share them with you.

High Cacao

There is no accounting for taste.
So choose your own.
Experiencing deliciousness
Made me a slave to taste.

capitalism

Living in a Capitalist world we have learnt to feel happy after buying stuff. Especially if it is new and not really necessary. Buying stuff in Japan, a country significantly more capitalistic than the Netherlands, is fun. Besides there is far more useless stuff in this country, the motto in this country seems to be; build shopping malls and thou shall prosper. So I bought a digital camera so I can show you everything I buy.

The first two pictures I show you from my new camera. First; Joerg who just proves that the red eye reduction function of the camera is perfectly in order. Secondly; two recent purchases, a bar of chocolate (instant happiness) and one of my two synthetic furs that keep me warm during the night.

NHK Japan Broadcasting something Kyoto

I guess that at some moment I have told that I am in Kyoto to study Japanese. Today studying Japanese consisted mainly out of sitting on a chair in the library, sitting on a chair in the computerroom of my dorm, sitting in a chair in a classroom and sitting on a chair in a NHK studio. At the NHK studio mister Kanuma, one of the anouncers told us evrything about his job and the local public Japanese broadcasting station. I tried to watch the news program of NHK Kyoto but I failed in locating the station. Anyway, I still have the NHK Kyoto pen and the small NHK notebook, with pictures of the mascotte of NHK.

Belcampo versus Akutagawa

A story by Akutagawa made me google good old Belcampoさん。 What I didn't now yet is that Belcampo wrote a part of the Deluge story in the Bible that was still missing. Gods revenge on the fish. Maybe this is going to sound a little bit to much 'Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy' like but he also addressed the question; Who was god before god god was.

I certainly do would like to see god his résumé.

Dharma Tower

Shinichi shared pictures with me from our trip to collect Dharma in Kamakura.

Dharma is quite cheep in Kamakura. Where as one has to pay about 500 yen to enter a temple in Kyoto, in Kamakure it will cost you only about 300.

And as a bonus there was Natsume Soseki his gate. (my hero in Japanese literature)

So I posed for a picture.

Although it also could have been this gate. Which was actually free of charge!

And there was more free Dharma

It makes me think of Shinichi's idea for a Dharma tower. A place where one cann collect Dharma twentyfour seven. You ought to be able to cycle against a lot of wind, have a lot of rain, falling cherry blossoms or red and yellow leaves. But first of all a library.

visual pleasure

I am not much of a photographer lately. My camera does not work properly so I didn't bother to bring it with me on my winter holiday. I visited Shinichi in Yokohama. We went to Kamakura the old capital and Ochanomizu (Thee water)where there is books (sory for my Japlish, I came to like it).

Since I don't have nice pictures of Yokohama, Kamakura, Ochanomizu, Nikko and Fukushima I will postpone posting about it for a while. It is so nice to be lazy.

I did find a nice picture on amazon.co.jp to be enjoyed by your eyes.

I am back

Happy New Year. This would be the moment to summarize al the events of last year. You are probably not in the mood to read it. Besides I am to lazy to type it all down. I will limit myself to summarize yesterday for you. Which wasn't part of 2006 but is just easier to remember at this hour than last week;

Train

To double the size of my summary;

Local Train

To make it more specific

6.30 get up, eat breakfast kindly prepared by Oyuki’s grandmother; to Fukushima station with my backpack, a backpack heavy from a couple of visits to bookstores in Tokyo, presents from Oyuki her family and one kilo mandarins from her grandmother (so I will not get hungry in the train);
8.38 Train from Fukushima to K something yama;
Train from K something yama to Kuroiso;
Train from Kuroiso to Utsunomiya;
Train from Utsunomiya to Omiya;
Because of a small delay I miss my train from Omiya to Kozu;
Train from Omiya to Tokyo;
From Tokyo to Atami;
Atami to somewhere;
From somewhere to Toyobashi;
Toyobashi Ogaki;
Ogaki Maibara
From Maibara to Kyoto !
23.20 Kyoto station, For the first time I realize the busses don’t go at this time anymore.
23.45 Last metro to Marutamachi.
From Marutamachi I walk home with a brief stop to get dinner.

I lost the count of the number of speed trains that passed me. But then again I got to see many trains and travel 800 kilometres for just 2300 yen (about 16 euro).