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A traditional New Year’s celebration…. well, kinda. The countdown to midnight isn’t anything big here, but it is considered good luck to be eating soba noodles and listening to the temple bells at midnight.

The next day, New Year’s Day, is much more important. Then, you head to the local temple to pray.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to do either of the traditional celebrations, on account of being ratsick. Soba noodles will just make me throw up again, but I might be able to make it to midnight (it’s about 10.30pm now), thanks to NHK. That’s the national TV broadcaster here. Every New Year’s Eve, they have a Red vs. White music competition (Kohaku Uta Gassen) which is an amusing way to suss out Japan’s music scene, as well as all their celebrities (Bulgarian sumo wrestler and cross-dressing cheerleaders).

Tomorrow, if I feel ok, I plan to go to Harajuku where the Meiji Shrine is. It’s the most popular temple to visit on New Year’s Day, and apparently the crowds are so large that you’ll never actually make it to the offering box, you’ll have to throw your coins from several metres away and hope it gets in O_o

My students recommended wearing a hoodie so I can catch some flying coins XD

Ah well, if I don’t make it as far as the shrine, I’ll still go visit the crazy kids on Omotesando.

Will report back tomorrow with photos.

p.s. Happy New Year!

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I’m on a short holiday from work until January 4th. I spent most of my first day on holiday sitting on my balcony watching a trio of crows. We live in a …well, I guess it’s a small valley. There are hills surrounding us and an ocean of houses and apartments in the gaps between the hills.

So, looking out from my balcony to the valley, I could see these three crows flying closely together, chasing each other. Behind some trees, under the power lines, round the temple…are they fighting? Territorial war? But they aren’t cawing and believe me, you can hear them when they’re cawing, even from a kilometre away.

Well then, are they mating? Spring is coming. But…three of them? I know this is Japan but surely the sexy hijinks are restricted to land animals (Note: I didn’t say ‘restricted to humans‘. I’ve seen the manga they have for sale here!)?

So maybe they’re just doing it for fun? It’s a nice day - winter days in Yokohama are almost always bright and sunny, albeit frikkin’ cold. The crows are just having fun, running…errr, flying around, enjoying the holiday and feeling warm in the knowledge that I don’t have to put up with Hiroshi’s spittle and bad breath for at least a week!

Um…. Yes.

I should be like these crows! Take my friends out and run around enjoying Japan while we still have time to enjoy it together!

Our first plan was to go to Nikko, where there is an Edo-themed park, a la Sovereign Hill, but with ninjas! Hell Yeah!

Then we realised that would involve getting up at 8am, and after a hard night of karaoke, that didn’t really appeal. So, we went to Akihabara instead, where I managed to spend the ¥20,000 I had budgeted for an overnight trip to Nikko. Heh.

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Today, after trying unsuccessfully to buy stuff in Nakano, the Jump Shop and Akihabara, I decided to treat myself a first class ride on the way home. It’s a costly way to get a guaranteed seat but I’d had enough and I wanted a reclining seat that was facing forward, not side on, where I often feel sick.

The last time I’d ridden Green Car, it was more or less empty (price tag too hefty?) so I had an empty seat next to me and I was expecting the same again today. But instead, it was that awkward situation where one of each of the double seats were taken, so I had to choose one person to sit next to. Salarymen with newspapers spread out everywhere wasn’t appealing, so I settled for this tiny woman who only took up half of her own seat and was turned towards the window, refusing to look away.

She was sighing a bit and at first I thought “Fuck you, bitch! There’s two seats here for a reason!” but after a while I realised she was heaving more than sighing, her eyes were closed and she was holding a plastic bag to her mouth.

Ah, so she’s sick. Well, at least she has her sick bag.

The train trip wore on. Yokohama is a 50km from Tokyo, you know. The woman looked pretty sick and I felt pretty bad for her.

*splutter* *gak* Aah, there she goes. Yummy.

No mess anywhere. She was well prepared with tissues and a plastic bag with (thankfully) no holes. There wasn’t even a smell. But there was the sound. Yummy.

She kept going too, there must’ve been a good litre of vomit in that bag. I started moving the bits and pieces from my plastic bag (ok, so I bought some stuff) into my Yodobashi Camera paper bag (ok, so I bought a Sanyo Xacti C6) and gave her the plastic bag in case she needed another.

“Aah, sumimasen, sumimasen, sumimasen“. She was pretty embarrassed.

The salarymen around us were glaring at her like she was some dumb bitch with a hangover, but I think she was genuinely ill. It was about 8pm and she was well prepared for someone who was feeling seedy.

I think she felt better once she had finished though. She dug around in her bag and handed me a jar of strawberry jam, gabbling something in Japanese. At first I thought it was the reason why she was sick, food poisoning or something, but then I realised it was a gift.

Thanking me for a plastic bag? She didn’t even need it! Maybe she just felt bad that I had to sit next to her on the train, listening to her be sick.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was silent, til I got off at Yokohama, telling her “Genki da ne?” - Take care, ok?

Damn, this jam must’ve been expensive. You can see the chunks of strawberry! The crappy puree stuff that we bought cost ¥740! This must’ve been over the ¥1000 mark…

Sugoi.

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This blog has been pretty empty, I know. But, I’ve finally fixed the IE bugs (at the expense of Addictions…hmmm) and have added a gallery. It has every photo worth looking at that I’ve taken since I bought my Xacti C5. Many are pictures of leaves…they…well…look, they just are.

Am slowly typing out all the blog entries I wrote while I didn’t have internet, so you may notice some backdated entries appearing out of nowhere. So, you know, please bear with me. I get easily distracted by shiny objects and the…ooh, my BLEACH download has finished!

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