I found a shop that sells Chilean red wine. At £3.50, bring it on!!
Category: random (Page 3 of 4)
(Veggie and Vegan advisory: contains meat lyrics)
We stopped off at a small town to buy some groceries and something for the barbecue. Even though the Mongolian staple diet is meat, potatoes, milk and flour we’ve found it hard to buy meat in the small countryside shops. What meat they all have though is salami and spam (in tins or rolls) and sometimes frozen chicken. The chicken works fabulously on the barbecue; especially after I’ve spiced it up with some chilli, coriander and olive oil.
There is a really bad litter problem in Eastern Russia and Mongolia. Even in the most beautiful riverside and lake locations there are countless empty vodka bottles, plastic water bottles, millions of cigarette butts and general litter blanketing the ground. (Two litre bottles of Coca-cola seem to be the main suspect.) It’s widespread, utterly depressing and so unnecessary. Even by Lake Baikal, one of Russia’s most beautiful assets, and a UNESO site, there is litter everywhere.
Right let’s put this into perspective first. Japan is the KING of toilets. They make a noise to cover up any untoward noises; they have heated seats; they can wash front and back bottom areas with various modes of spray; they release deodoriser and they flush as you arise…..they no doubt do even more marvellous things if I could only read Japanese. So…yes….we’ve been spoilt:)
There are sit down toilets here that vary in degrees of cleanliness and hygiene. However, most of the toilets, particularly in the more rural areas, are squat toilets – not the ceramic flushing ones but the hand built ones. These consist of a pit dug into the earth and then a building, of wood or brick, built up to provide shelter. Some of these are utterly gross: with pooh splattered everywhere, discarded used loo roll and they stink as a lot of the pits are getting filled up. At a visit recently Captain was greeted by a big pooh that had literally been curled out at the entrance – he went no further.
Six tried and tested methods of execution:
#1 Mr Miyagi – (1984 Karate Kid) – when it looks like you are only grabbing handfuls of thin air, but, as you uncoil your hand, you have actually caught a mosquito in mid flight and crushed it to death in one swift movement. This method is no doubt the coolest and deserves utmost respect.
#2 Nosferatu – (1922 vampire film) – when you splat a mosquito mid meal leaving a smear of blood on the skin. A bitter sweet ending maybe?
#3 The Guillotine – after splatting a mosquito on the wall you realise that you have cleanly and neatly dissected him into two or more neat parts.
#4 Splat-and-Smear – when a mosquito is flying between the roof of the car and the mosquito net. From a lying down position, with palm facing upwards, you splat. And then, not even sure if you have got him, you nevertheless smear by dragging your palm some three or four inches in any direction. This does have the downside of leaving an unsightly mess on the roof but is so worth it.
#5 The Stun-Gun – when you have splattered the mosquito and he literally falls, like a lead balloon, into the abyss below leaving no residue or trace behind.
#6 The Tweezer – you must merely stun the mosquito first and then, holding him in your fingers and being careful to not crush and kill him, you slowly and sadistically pluck each body part off him one by one. Enough said.
Enjoy 🙂
At school I sometimes do an exercise with the children where you recount a story or an experience in 20 words or phrases and then you have to reduce that from 20 to 10, and then finally whittle it down to only 5 words/phrases that sum up the story/experience. You have to be quick and go with the first words and not think too much about it. So Captain and I did one the last morning of our seven day drive around Japan. I’ll do his first and then mine 🙂
So our time in Japan is nearly at an end. After 5 years living in Tokyo we are moving on to the next chapter. I have LOVED living here. As an expat/foreigner/gaijin/immigrant – Tokyo offers so much. I felt it was now time to put my musings about my time in Japan into some written form. I hope its not too crass to divide these into two sections…and do please take these with a large pinch of salt 😉
Nestled in-between news about the hospital car park and a local slurry leak, Frome Times have written a lovely little article about us.
Read the article at the Frome Times site.
Thank you!
In true Japanese style we got some (slightly tounge-in-cheek) meishi made up to hand out to folk we meet along the way. This’ll be a lot easier than trying to find a pen and paper if someone wants our details. It’s also comforting to know that we’ve never had a business card for work…..the first time we get some is when we’re both leaving work. Nice:)
Today we switched on our new logo!
This amazing piece of artwork was made for us by our very kind friend, Jamie. Not only does it look spot on but, amazingly, Jamie’s managed to slim me down by about 15kg.
Thank you Jamie-san!
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