Golden Week
It's a rainy Sunday; a rather dreary end to the Golden Week holiday. With a full nine days off, it'll probably be my longest holiday this year before Xmas, which makes me sad to think it's over now, but it's been a very nice break. There aren't so many photos this time, and I'm sure you don't want to hear the minutiae of my time spent doing nothing, but there's a few highlights I thought I'd share.
The peak of the week came early, with my birthday. Of course, here it's a national holiday, which used to be called Green Day (Midori no hi), and is a celebration of nature in general and plants in particular. Green Day has been moved to May 4th as of this year, but the original day has been renamed Showa Day, since it was the birthday of the Showa Emperor (Hirohito), which should guarantee that my birthday remains a national holiday, so I'll always have the day off here!
I've had three parties so far, with one more to come after those who went away for Golden Week come back. The first was Friday night at my favourite bar in Nagoya, 59's, where the owner and the regulars all know me. Tomo, the owner and manager, got a bottle of Lagavulin (20 year old single malt scotch - and my favourite) in, and twisted my arm with free shots of it all night. Needless to say, I don't remember much of the rest of that night...
The second party was organised by other friends, who own a Mexican bar/restaurant called Desperados - another place I frequent, originally because it was close to where I live, but also now for the food, friends and occasional free shots of tequila (the good stuff, too, which is pretty good) - on the Sunday, their day off. We started with dinner at Murasaki, a very reasonable izakaya in Sakae, then on to Red Rock, the only genuine Aussie bar in Nagoya, where, as the birthday boy, I enjoyed free Cascade and Coopers. Then, as is almost inevitable for a night out in Japan, we ended up in Karaoke until the wee hours.
They even got me a cake!
Tuesday night, we had a little get together, this time actually at Desperados. A little more low key, and mostly just my workmates, but fun nonetheless.
Most of the rest of the week has been spent doing very little: sleeping in, riding my bike around shopping, catching up on DVDs, etc., etc. However, I finally got some pictures of a certain local phenomena - the black vans. Thursday morning I had just got up and was sipping a coffee, when I heard their approach, which is always easy, since they drive around in black cars, vans and busses with loudspeakers playing marching music from the 40's. Yes, these are the uyoku, the ultra-nationalists and extreme right-wingers, who it seems are still a mite unhappy about how WW2 ended. They come buzzing my neighbourhood pretty regularly, since there are a lot of foreigners here (mostly Korean, Chinese, Thai and Philipino), so this was nothing new, but this time there was a whole convoy of them, so I managed to get a pic out my window as they scooted by the gap between the buildings.
And a close up...
...and if anyone can translate that for me, I'd be most interested. Actually, they're less annoying than the bosozoku, the motorcycle gangs made famous in the anime Akira, which come by here (usually after midnight) revving their engines, sometimes with the police in tow with sirens blaring, politely requesting them to cease and desist.
Finally, yesterday was a rather pleasant day, with perfect weather and a festival in Central Park to check out. After pigging out on free samples of food at the farmers' stalls, we went to an exhibition of ukiyo-e paintings at the Aichi Prefectural Museum. Of course, I couldn't take any pictures of the artworks, but there's a great view from the tenth floor, overlooking the park, Oasis 21, and the TV tower.
Alas, I'm feeling human again, only to have to go back to work tomorrow, but at least I can remember now what it feels like. This week is going to be really heavy, since it's the last week of the session, and the students have had enough time to forget everything - we'll see how it goes...
The peak of the week came early, with my birthday. Of course, here it's a national holiday, which used to be called Green Day (Midori no hi), and is a celebration of nature in general and plants in particular. Green Day has been moved to May 4th as of this year, but the original day has been renamed Showa Day, since it was the birthday of the Showa Emperor (Hirohito), which should guarantee that my birthday remains a national holiday, so I'll always have the day off here!
I've had three parties so far, with one more to come after those who went away for Golden Week come back. The first was Friday night at my favourite bar in Nagoya, 59's, where the owner and the regulars all know me. Tomo, the owner and manager, got a bottle of Lagavulin (20 year old single malt scotch - and my favourite) in, and twisted my arm with free shots of it all night. Needless to say, I don't remember much of the rest of that night...
The second party was organised by other friends, who own a Mexican bar/restaurant called Desperados - another place I frequent, originally because it was close to where I live, but also now for the food, friends and occasional free shots of tequila (the good stuff, too, which is pretty good) - on the Sunday, their day off. We started with dinner at Murasaki, a very reasonable izakaya in Sakae, then on to Red Rock, the only genuine Aussie bar in Nagoya, where, as the birthday boy, I enjoyed free Cascade and Coopers. Then, as is almost inevitable for a night out in Japan, we ended up in Karaoke until the wee hours.
They even got me a cake!
Tuesday night, we had a little get together, this time actually at Desperados. A little more low key, and mostly just my workmates, but fun nonetheless.
Most of the rest of the week has been spent doing very little: sleeping in, riding my bike around shopping, catching up on DVDs, etc., etc. However, I finally got some pictures of a certain local phenomena - the black vans. Thursday morning I had just got up and was sipping a coffee, when I heard their approach, which is always easy, since they drive around in black cars, vans and busses with loudspeakers playing marching music from the 40's. Yes, these are the uyoku, the ultra-nationalists and extreme right-wingers, who it seems are still a mite unhappy about how WW2 ended. They come buzzing my neighbourhood pretty regularly, since there are a lot of foreigners here (mostly Korean, Chinese, Thai and Philipino), so this was nothing new, but this time there was a whole convoy of them, so I managed to get a pic out my window as they scooted by the gap between the buildings.
And a close up...
...and if anyone can translate that for me, I'd be most interested. Actually, they're less annoying than the bosozoku, the motorcycle gangs made famous in the anime Akira, which come by here (usually after midnight) revving their engines, sometimes with the police in tow with sirens blaring, politely requesting them to cease and desist.
Finally, yesterday was a rather pleasant day, with perfect weather and a festival in Central Park to check out. After pigging out on free samples of food at the farmers' stalls, we went to an exhibition of ukiyo-e paintings at the Aichi Prefectural Museum. Of course, I couldn't take any pictures of the artworks, but there's a great view from the tenth floor, overlooking the park, Oasis 21, and the TV tower.
Alas, I'm feeling human again, only to have to go back to work tomorrow, but at least I can remember now what it feels like. This week is going to be really heavy, since it's the last week of the session, and the students have had enough time to forget everything - we'll see how it goes...
posted by Ia Ftaghn at 6:32 pm
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