Happy New Year! あけましておめでとうございます。今年もよろしくお願いします。All the best for 2009.

So, I saw through the New Year at my grandparents place in the countryside, in Japan, for the second consecutive year. I have a vague recollection of standing on Westminster Bridge to see the fireworks in 2007 but I don’t recall anything before that. This New Year was the first new year that I celebrated as a resident of this country. Having complained and stressed over the commercialisation and couple-ism of Christmas in previous posts, I actually prefer the Japanese style New Year over the Western version. I guess it’s because it has a lot more tradition, be it, eating 年越しそば (toshikoshi-soba) at Midnight, to signify long life and good health for the coming year. Eating おせち (Osechi) and お雑煮 (Ozouni) over the first few days of the New Year. Visiting the Shrines for 初詣　(Hatsumoude). Other more modern traditions include watching 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku uta gasen) on Eve, which despite being littered with unknown artists is a delight to watch. This year’s highlights included a 25 Year anniversary medley of music from films produced by the Ghibli Studios pairing of Hayao Miyazaki and Jo Hisaishi. Songs from films such as Totoro, Nausica, Laputa and the latest film Ponyo, which I have yet to see!

I got to see Mount Fuji on Eve and also on New Year’s Day, which some may interpret as bringing good luck in the coming year – I really do hope so!

It wasn’t all good fun though. I barely got any rest at my grandparents place, as every day they woke up early and made me do chore after chore. I didn’t complain as it’s not every day that I get to do 親孝行 (Oya-kou-kou), which apparently translates as “filial piety”; I have no idea what the English means, but the Japanese can be roughly translated as “making your parents happy”, by looking after them, doing something nice for them, etc. In my case it would be “Oba-chan kou-kou” as Oya means parents and Oba-chan means grandmother. Anyway, my point is there’s only really me that spends time with them regularly, and especially this New Years, I was the only 孫 (mago, grandchild) there.

On what turned out to be my last day there. I woke up around 9am, when my grandmother complained that they were waiting for me to wake up so we could have breakfast together. She asked me if I was feeling unwell as I hadn’t woken up – Yes, clearly, waking up at 9am means I’m unwell and waking up around 8am means I’m fine! I guess on the plus side, it doesn’t feel so bad getting back into work mode as I don’t have to wake up earlier than I did during the break!

At last something worthy of blogging about…maybe?

This week I had planned to take my grandparents up to Tokyo for one of those open top double decker bus rides around some of the sites. However, as the weather has somewhat deteriorated, i.e. pissing it down with rain, the last few days, we decided to head to the Manazuru (真鶴) peninsula for a brief walk and dinner. The trip there took around half an hour on a couple of local trains, followed by a 10-15 minute taxi ride from the station along the coast.

Before sitting down to eat we headed up into the wooded hills to see the “Three Stones”, which looked more like a cluster of 10ish stones from up close. There was also a cat.

The restaurant specialised in fish with sushi making up a significant portion of the menu. We were recommended the boat of fish, with a selection of different fish. When it arrived it totally freaked me out as the shrimp head and the fish head were still moving. With born fish and shrimp practically having their bodies chopped open and gutted, it was not a pretty sight. The head of the fish was right in front of me and every time I dipped my head down to eat a mouthful of something, I’d lock eyes with this fish head with its mouth opening and closing and manically twitching. I have a really poor quality video which I’ll try and upload somewhere.

Once the boat was moved down the table slightly to fit some more plates I could relax somewhat. The food was absolutely delicious. There were a couple of snail-esque sea creatures which were pretty bitter and not very tasty but otherwise I don’t think you can find better quality sashimi anywhere. I went to Tsukiji last year and had some sushi there, but this was on another level. The fish here is actually fresh whilst the Tsukiji fish is near fresh with a high probability that it has been frozen for transport.

I’m sure all of you would have run away. ^^

Having switched to the Calendar view in Thunderbird for the first time this week, I realised that the multi-week view now menacingly shows the final week of April. You all know what that means? There’s less than 3 weeks left – the first exam is looming.

I know I said I did not like to talk about this stuff at all but my life is, and will be for the next month, consumed by it so I don’t really have much else to talk about. Also, I have been known to be slightly hypercritical! Skip to after the break if you want to read about other stuff ^^

Student Life

So, I originally intended to only have two phases in my revision. The first phase being just a quick glance through everything to refresh my memory as to what I needed to learn, and the second phase being to actually learn it. Phase two has ended up becoming the “refresh”as the first phase contained a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen before!

I was thinking of doing a revision blog post a day on a random topic that I’d looked at during the day. I have no idea what I’d write about but maybe it’ll be a nice way to recap what I “learnt”. Actually, it probably won’t be helpful at all…

Anyway, so, despite the extensive hours I’ve put in so far I have actually yet to learn anything at all. Well, apart from what every student learns at this stage – there’s a Himalayan mountain range of stuff to learn and I’ve only worn a t-shirt.