29 September 2004
We've been wondering where to go for an upcoming 3-day weekend in October. We've finally settled on Nagasaki. I've heard lots of good things about Nagasaki. It has a history of foreign influence and trading, especially with the Netherlands, and now they have a kind of Dutch themed park that's really famous. It's about an hour away from Nagasaki City by high-speed boat. We found a great deal on a flight/hotel package that will let us stay at a high-class hotel inside the park. All the buildings are authentic (looking) 17th century Dutch-style, and the grounds just look fantastic. I plan to take a few photos. Last night Kumiko and I watched Animal House on video. John Belushi is so funny without saying a word. The high points of the movie were watching him run down the stairs, and watching him pour mustard on his chest. It's raining now, but I'm hoping it will stop soon so I can ride over to Hattori and pick up my photos. I've waited long enough.26 September 2004
Last night I met Kumiko and Ueda-chan outside USJ after work. Kumiko and Ueda had been there all day, just watching shows and riding rides. I don't know how Kumiko can stand to go there on her day off, but she likes it. I only had to work until 5:40, so I had plenty of time to get there and meet them for dinner. We went to Hard Rock Cafe. I'm guessing that it's the world's most expensive Hard Rock Cafe, barring any there might be near any Tokyo themeparks. The location makes it easy for them to charge whatever they want. I had a bacon cheeseburger and two glasses of beer for 3,600 yen. It was a great cheeseburger, I'll admit, and I got to see Warrant's pants in a frame. I had a day off today, but didn't do much. I did some internet research on my new camera. The Fujifilm Klasse was a Japan-only camera, so there's not much information available in English. It's the same camera as the Rollei AFM35, however, which was sold in the US. I found a PDF instruction manual for that one and learned a few helpful details of operation. I'm going to find out if I can order a case from Fujifilm, but if not I'll order the Rollei case from New York. This evening I went back to Satsukiyama. It was much easier hiking with the Klasse and a mini tripod, than with all my gear like last time. Can't wait to see the pics!23 September 2004
I had a major project tonight trying to organize about four months worth of film negatives. I'd been letting it go for way too long, so I had stuff all over the place, but now everything is filed into special binders, and labeled by date and subject. I calculate that I've shot about 300 rolls since coming to Japan. I should just open my own photo lab. Tonight I had unfrozen gyoza for dinner, along with a nice salad that Kumiko made last night. I made our lunch for today, but lately I've been falling down on my part of the cooking. Better shape up.21 September 2004
Today is our Hawaiian wedding anniversary. This is the important one for us, even though we were officially married at city hall two months before Hawaii. We've spent a relaxing day at home. We just watched an interesting new show on Fox called "24". It stars the incomparable Kiefer Sutherland. We missed the first 15 minutes, so it was hard to figure out what's going on. Luckily they're going to replay episode one on Thursday. Yesterday I bought a new (used) camera. It's a 35mm point and shoot Fujifilm Klasse. I really wanted it when it was released, but it was too expensive (around 50,000 yen), so I went without. I found one used yesterday for only 20,000, so I decided to follow my heart. It's just a little better than your standard point and shoot rangefinder. It has a faster lens (f2.6), and manual control options for focus and aperture. It also has a "bulb" setting for the shutter, and some nice flash options, and it looks cool. Rollei marketed it under their own badge as well, but both have stopped selling it now. I don't think it sold very well, but I like it. I'll test it out tonight. We're going to "Sanda-ya" steakhouse in Kobe for dinner. I'll give Kumiko my special, homemade "paper anniversary" gift. I only finished it an hour ago.18 September 2004
I got the scanner yesterday, only 4 days after ordering it. That's amazing speed. Last night I noticed that the moon was in a good phase and position for taking some dusk shots with mountains and clouds and little evening lights. Unfortunately I didn't have the firepower or opportunity at the right time. This morning I checked the forecast before going in and decided to bring my best camera and bank on the slim chance of non-overcast skies in the evening. I finished work at 5:45 and walked down the street looking for a nice view, but like every place in the city, the view has too many obstructions. I decided to get to higher ground, which meant the apartment building across from the station, which just happens to be the highest building in Nishinomiya (31 stories). Of course it's a real frou-frou rich kind of place, so it was crawling with bored security guards and surveilance cameras. I did, however, manage to get to the top floor unmolested. What a view! The clouds were semi-cooperating, and the mountains looked fantastic. There's a great-looking mountain called "Kabutoyama" (helmet mountain) in Nishinomiya, which was flanked by unknown others, as well as "Satsukiyama" (May mountain), from which I photographed Ikeda City recently. All the mountains were studded with lights, which was really nice. I wish I could go back there again when the sky is just right, but it's not easy. I did take quite a few shots anyway. Can't wait to scan them!14 September 2004
We had the craziest weather today. Huge, huge rain, possibly the strongest rain I've ever seen fell for about 30 minutes amidst crashing thunder. Immediately after, the sky cleared to a dazzling blue with just a few white fluffy clouds, but a light rain still falling in the sunshine. Then nothing but clear blue for the rest of the day. It made for a rather disturbing backdrop to an already disheartening day at work. I felt like everything was stacked against me today. Glad it's over. I've ordered the film scanner, a Konica-Minolta DiMage Scan Dual IV from New York. Just like Fuji brand film, this Japanese product is cheaper even after international shipping charges, ordering from the US than buying it right here in Japan. Japan can be frustrating. I'm getting more excited about photography these days. Rather than falling asleep thinking about what I'm going to do in the garden, I now think about locations and film and projects.12 September 2004
I spent some time at the garden today. When I arrived, Natsumi, a little girl who lives nearby and whose parents have a garden plot as well, was there and wanted to help. I let her harvest whatever okra was ready, while I prepared a bed for some turnips and bokchoy. I mixed in some white, powdered stuff that I got at Conan. I don't even know what it is, but everyone else seems to use that in their gardens, so I thought I'd take the cue. Natsumi's friend came along soon after, and she wanted to do stuff too, so I let them do the actual planting. Natsumi handled the bokchoy, and Minami did the turnips. They were good helpers, and I'm not so embarrassed about the state of the garden anymore. It's full again. I came home again around 2:30 and goofed around a lot on the computer. I'm very close to buying a film scanner. Scanning each frame one at a time on my flatbed scanner takes forever, and it has trouble picking out the borders of the frame on dark shots. All that computer goofing (mostly putting together a Tokushima photo gallery), made me want to go out and take pictures. So I packed up my Contax and my tripod and headed to Satsukiyama in Ikeda for the sunset. I hadn't gotten my fill of photographing city lights crawling up mountainsides and positive-negative partly cloudy twighlit skies (for example), though I've really been going at it recently, and this was the perfect place to satisfy that urge. It's close by and has a pretty spectacular view of Ikeda city from the mountain. I took a lot of pictures, but the sky wasn't as colorful as I'd hoped. A dark, obscuring cloud was slowly creeping over the valley as the sun set, so I'll have to go back. It'll be a pleasure. I had to pick my way back down the mountain in the dark, but I made it without tripping. Kumiko and I are planning to do two great things tomorrow: 1 - go to Kyoto, and 2 - order a pizza. I'm looking forward to both.10 September 2004
I'm getting a little embarrassed about our garden plot. It seems that everyone has exercised some forethought and planted autumn and winter bearing crops, mainly potatoes. I have not. So I've got a lot of blank space right now. I'll have to get something in there as soon as possible to save face. I've added a second photo gallery, 20 mouth-watering images, to the K-Trucks page. Since so many people have been clamoring for it. No earthquakes in the past 24 hours. Fingers crossed.9 September 2004
Only three additional earthquakes since the two we had on the 5th! What is going on? I'm worried that all hell is about to open up, break loose and pour forth. After work last night I passed by a small takoyaki truck (as usual), and noticed that the old takoyaki man was singing along to some great old enka music. Enka is a kind of cheesy folksy musical genre, roughly equivalent to country music in America. Old people love it. I'm starting to like it. It's so predictable that it's comforting. The music coming from the takoyakimobile was a cut above the standard stuff, so I asked the old gentleman who it was. He told me "Okawa" something or other, so I went to the rental shop and checked out two of his CDs. Kumiko thought I was nuts. I'm listening to him now. He's great.6 September 2004
I've added a new photo gallery of cell phone shots.We had some pretty scary earthquakes last night. There were two magnitude 4 quakes in Kansai, one at 7:07pm, followed by another just before midnight. I've felt a few quakes before, but I'd never felt frightened by one until last night. I thought some of the pictures were going to fall down, but only a couple of things fell off the bookshelf. It felt like being on a small boat at sea. Kumiko was frightened too. She thought that might have been the biggest one since 1995. I stood in the door jam. I learned that safety techinque from the Spalding Gray monologue "Monster in a Box". I really liked Spalding Gray. I saw him on stage at the Paramount Theater in Austin, and another time in a more intimate theater, "P.S. 122" in New York. My friend Dusty introduced me to his work via Monster in a Box (on video). Sorry to hear of his passing (Gray's, not Dusty). Anyway, no real harm done in the earthquakes. Today we went into Umeda to watch a movie - "Thunderbirds". It was good clean American fun. I'm looking forward to the sequel. We also visited the Pokemon Center in Osaka (at Kumiko's request, believe it or not), which looked big and cool from the outside, but was rather dissappointing on closer inspection. All I bought was a Mini Pez for my friend Mike. I bet there are less than four people who will read this who haven't met Mike. We ate "Mosburgers" before the movie, and then had a couple of beers and some izakaya stuff (edamame, ika tempura, and onion salad) afterwards. At the restaurant, Kumiko asked me when (and where) I would want to be reborn if I had a choice. Interesting question. My answer was 1910 in America (state unspecified, but Texas is fine), so I could witness the 1930s in my youth. I love the style and art and cars and architecture and stories of that time. England in a slightly earlier era, perhaps 1890, would be interesting as well, but I don't think there are many people who would really want to change nationality. Kumiko chose early Showa-era (around 1920) Tokyo, because of the style and the early popularity of western culture. We're curious to know how other people would answer that question.
5 September 2004
I made some pretty rockin' basil alfredo sauce last night. I had it for lunch today on rice. The ingredients: a cartload of basil leaves all chopped up, a block of soft tofu, milk, parmesan cheese, two egg yolks, salt and pepper. I went to Ashiya tonight, but it was unfortunately raining, so my pictures will come out more gray than blue. I think and hope that I may have gotten some cool shots of bats flying. If I didn't, I'll keep trying until I do. There's some good potential out there over the Ashiya River. Tonight Kumiko washed one of the tupperware dishes I'd left at the office for two days. When she told me about it, I realized how much I love to hear about other people having to smell terrible things. That really cracks me up. Couldn't stop laughing. Why's it so funny?4 September 2004
I put up a few more fireworks pictures. There's a staff sayonara party tonight for one of the office ladies. I'm debating whether or not to go. I really want to go to Takarazuka to shoot pictures of lights on the surrounding hills. The lights of houses and apartments climbing up hillsides really fascinate me. I finish work at 6. Perhaps I can do both. I'll try to get the lights in Ashiya, rather than Takarazuka, then swing back to Nishinomiya for the booze-a-thon. Good idea...by me.3 September 2004
The garden came out of the typhoon okay. The climbing trellis is warped so it looks like a ship's hull, but that's not such a bad shape. I'm considering re-doing the whole garden in a maritime theme. Today I noticed the first goya fruit is forming. I wonder how far into fall it can produce. I picked a truckload of basil this morning, so I may make some kind of pesto-like sauce tonight. It's way past my turn to cook.
