Hakone and Fuji-san

On the last day before we flew to Australia, we zoomed off to Hakone to get a photo of Mount Fuji. Using a combination of bullet trains, ordinary trains and busses we managed to get to the resort town of Hakone - all of which worked effortlessly with Japanese precision.

Hakone is a resort town - full of tourist traps, boat trips, health resorts, cable car rides, thermal springs and nature walks. But we didn't really have time for any of that. Instead we focussed on the task at hand - photographing Mount Fuji.

We were lucky that day. It was a crisp day in winter, and one of the few days that Fuji-san is not covered by cloud.

In fact we showed the picture to the hotel conceirge that had helped explain how to get there and she was so happy. Apparently she had been there 10 times, and had never seen it look so good.

Back at Tsukiji fish market

Well I'm back a the fish market again. Remember my previous post where I found whale meat?

Now it is both Bridie and I, braving the world of wholesale fish - dead and alive.

For example this is the tuna auction. These guys have already been auctioned off and are heading towards a table soon. And this is the reddest animal I have ever seen.

And for the squeemish, some small fish in a large bucket.

Charlie the Unicorn

I couldn't resist sharing this.... if I start quoting this it can keep Steve up all night!

Shopping is bad for you

Friday night and Bridie's out shopping. On the way into a change room she slips on a deadly trap made out of little plastic blocks. Resulting in Bridie going to the hospital. Not a good way to spend Friday night.

My MBA Project

My big MBA project is due on Monday!

So this is the last weekend to work on it, and I'm wasting time on blog entries.

Just like exam preparation, except I'm not cleaning my room, preparing a study timetable, or even reorganising my books. Time wasting is something childish that we learn early in school, yet never really goes away. And somehow we forget the pain of the mad panic at the end.

If only there was a degree in procrastination... Though I'd probably get a D- in it.

More Fuzzy Mohair Catsuit fun

Once a year I seem to post something about Isobel at her fuzzy catsuits. Yet somehow 22% of the traffic to this blog is from people who found our site through a search engine whilst looking up fuzzy mohair catsuits (or some variant).

Clearly there is a gap in the market, or I don't post enough other stuff.

Promotional link to Isobel's site:
http://www.mohairknitter.com/Home.htm

And yes, I realise that I'm now reinforcing this by posting again.

The backup

Not travel blog.... xkcd

Sorry... geek joke.

And this one:

Tsukiji fish market

Wanna buy some fish at 5am?

Last week I was in Tokyo to meet some customers. A twelve hour flight, a one hour nap and into the office. I could barely stay awake. My body clock was still in Heathrow being scanned for a suspicious ticking... It was going to be an interesting set of meetings.

But I'm not here to talk shop.

I did manage to skip out of work early one day and visit the Tsukiji fish market - the biggest in the world. Here there are rows and rows of fish, crabs, prawns, mussels, mammal, and more fish fish fish. If it comes from the sea it is on sale here.

... did I just say mammal?


Guess what kind of meat is for sale under the picture of a happy whale...

Yep. That meat there is a product of intense research by the Japanese whaling fleet. Research that is served on a plate. Still grappling with how I feel about that.

But Tokyo isn't all endangered species. I spent a bit of time wandering around visiting gardens , temples and shops. The photos, of course, are on the website

Near the fish market is garden, the Hama Rikyu Detached Palace Garden. Since I was up early for the market, I was there before opening. I wanted to go to a Japanese garden, and this is one
of the most highly regarded. But it wasn't what I expected. All the ones I had seen would cram a lot into a small space, while holding zen truth: flowing water, rocks, sand, miniature maple trees, etc. This was a pretty garden with lakes, a tea house and lots of different areas. Quite enjoyable at 9am before the crowds turn up. Google-map-o-vision.

Onto Ginza - shopping mecca. Yet it is full of the usual big name international brands (Apple, Louis Vuitton, Zara, etc) so there is almost no point going there. If you're buying a present for a loved-one back home, nothing says Japan quite like Burberry. I spent four hours wandering the back streets trying to avoid the international capitalism, and my feet bore the burden.

Off to Asakusa Shrine (also called Sensoji temple), a fantastic working shrine; people getting fortunes, coating themselves in incense and cleansing their hands and body. Important note - do not spit back into the trough. The area was cheapened somewhat by the amusement park, tourist shopping strips and video game parlours.

Next, Ueno Koen Park. My feet hurt quite a lot now, but since I changed trains here, then I may as well get out and have a look.

Finally onto the Imperial Palace and the famous bridge photo. But by the time I got there, it was too dark to take anything sensible and my feet feel like puddles of fire. Crap. Shouldn't have wasted time at Ueno park.

All up, a mad day in Tokyo.

iPhone lust

Bridie has a new dream toy.



I managed to get my hands on an iPhone for a few days through work. I, as a geek, had to evaluate it for performance and file transfer throughput.

Bridie managed to cajole Steve into bringing it home. Bridie, as a Mac fan, was naturally drawn to its curves, groovy interface, ease-of-use, and all-round sexiness.

It is going to be an expensive Christmas this year.

Bridie's photos (mostly of China)

Check out
http://web.mac.com/bridie.mann

Dependency analysis in a software compiler

Once upon a time I thought I should get a patent. Seemed like a good thing to have the old resume; there is some geek credibility in patents. Unless it is an attempt to scam the patent system with a worthless entry and clog up the whole system. Hopefully mine is one of the former.

The abstract reads:
A method comprising automatically processing data to generate a software system, the data including a plurality of components and a plurality of references defining dependencies between said components for generating said system using said plurality of components, the method comprising the steps of: i) analysing the references; ii) determining the age of each of the components; iii) sorting the components according to age; iv) processing the steps determined in i) using means for interpreting said dependencies and means for generating said system following the order determined in step iii).

Which is pretty abstract.

What does it do? Well there is no need to write something complicated if I just explained it here, is there?

First post on YouTube

I was out at a friend's stag night yesterday, playing a little drinking game called Glowworm. Basically you dip your finger in Sambuca, light it from someone else, pass the flame on, and put your burning finger out in your mouth. And repeat.

... you'll see from the vid.



But this is my first post to YouTube. Which I thought might be a little bit too Gen-Y for me. But it worked out ok.

Ascot 2007. In the Chav Circle

It seemed like a great day out. Royal Ascot is the pinnacle of horse racing, where the world's richest people come to bet on the "sport of kings." Or in this case the sport of queens, as the Queen had a horse running today.

We had Silver Ring tickets for Ladies Day, thanks to Symbian, and we were going to use them.


But it seems Ladies day was also the pinnacle of the chav day out. And the Silver Circle is where they all congregated. Girls of all ages were tarted up in their brightest-pinkest-fluffiest dresses, put half-a-chicken's worth of feathers on their heads, loaded on the makeup and then got drunk on Pimms.

A good rain and soft turf meant that eventually it turned into a bit of a mud fest. So whatever good footwear we had turned brown - with special grass inserts. Many shoes were ruined today. It wasn't quite Glastonbury, but people were wearing gumboots.

Eventually the shortage of somewhere dry to sit gets a bit much - and chair stealing starts to occur. This is the fight that broke out in front of us.


The best bit was the guy who came in waving a tomato sauce bottle, threatening the girls with a good dousing. Unfortunately nothing came of that - it could have been a great photo.

Overall, an exciting day out. One that I'm not keen to replicate. But now Bridie wants to do Royal Ascot properly - from the Gold Circle. Damn.

Photos of our trip to China

I have uploaded some of our photos that I took with our happy-snap camera to our photo site. Click on the big doggy above to see them. (This doesn't include the much better 2500 or so photos that Bridie took - we're still sorting through them)

In addition, here are some much better photos than mine, taken by our fellow travellers
Ally's photos
Lydik's photos
Sumitra's blog and photos

Chinese burns

Well, the weather in Beijing did last week...

With temperatures in the late 30s, early 40s, Beijing was a welcome relief after the cold wet start to summer in England. Steve's MBA was going on another jolly, you remember the one in Argentina, only this time Bridie got to go too!

So while Steve spent most of his time in the hotel conference rooms, Bridie roamed Beijing and Shanghai...and fell in love with China. That is, despite having her handbag stolen in the Forbidden City.

China is extraordinary - a place where someone with curly hair is chased by people with camera phones, where the people just want to talk and practice their English, where people get paid the equivalent of $5 a month and are expected to live on it and where there are more cities with pollution than any other. A country where, due to progress, a rich and vibrant culture is steadily becoming westernised for the sake of progress - if you want to see China, be quick...it is literally disappearing before our eyes.

Despite that China is beautiful and full of wonders...


A rare (for China) twin pagoda temple in Suzhou, south of Shanghai.



The tallest hotel in China, if not the world - Grand Hyatt at Jinmao Tower, Shanghai.



East meets west - neon lights highlight a traditional tea house in Shanghai.



A night market in Beijing...anyone for grasshopper?



Steve on the Great Wall - we had dinner on the Great Wall shortly after this photo.



Nanjing Road, the Las Vegas of Shanghai.



The Peony Pavillion, a short Chinese Opera.

Boo Hoo for you

This might be a bit shameless, but...
Recently Symbian celebrated shipping 20 million phones in Japan. And they created this video to go with it.

Anyway, to find out more, get a ring-tone, and win a phone go to
http://www.boohooforyou.com/

Impressions of Giverny

Back in March we had tickets to Paris to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Unfortunately the Eurostar had other plans, and cancelled our holiday. Thus we broke our tradition of having an anniversary in a different city each year.

Undaunted, we rebooked for the May long weekend.

We had Bridie's new digital camera, so the first stop was the unicorn tapestries that we have visited many times.

But we also wandered into the Musée de l’Orangerie. Where they have a huge display of Monet's Les Nymphéas

Captivated by the water lilies, we decided to visit Monet's garden in Giverny, where they were painted.

We battled the French overcrowded train system, rode pushbikes and walked for ever. But we were rewarded with a pretty little town and garden. The return wasn't so successful, as the 6pm return train was overcrowded too. So we were stuck in the town of Vernon, on a virtual public holiday, for 3 hours until the next train. We resorted to a bar and a pizza restaurant to pass the time - even watching the French presidential election.

All up a great day in the sun. One that our feet will long remember.

Photos on our photosite

sucked into Facebook

No bandwagon would be complete without me jumping on it. I embraced Linkedin, but now I have a new toy: Facebook

In case you haven't tried it out yet, it is a social networking site. And you get to waste vast amounts of time just looking for friends, their photos, and sending silly messages. Fantastic.

Anyone would think I was avoiding my MBA studies.

Anyhoo, you can find me in there - among 36 other namesakes.

The Infinite Cat Project

Pictures of cats look at other pictures of cats. And repeat.
http://www.infinitecat.com/


And just a cute cat vid:

Happy Easter

Wishing everyone a happy Easter and hope the bunny was kind....


Steve certainly seemed impressed with his 1kg Lindt bunny - so... who wants to place bets on how long it will last!!

Some people just can't keep their pants on when battling evil

Just got back from Rome, where we celebrated Bridie's birthday. Hooray!

We did all the tourist traps we could imagine; Trevi fountain, Pantheon, Forum, Colloseum, Sistine Chapel, etc. And we even saw the pope!

Photos are here

Or, if you feeling like a virtual flyby, check out Birdseye Tourist

Argentina photo links

A few of the students have photos of Buenos Aires somewhere on the web. I thought I would collate them all here

Cass propaganda (actually using my photos)
My happy snap photos
Ally's got a new toy
Lydik's take on the world

Chicken Police

One of my fav youtube moments.



Especially the chicken at the back. Just before walking away it does a little "and don't do that again."

Beam me up.....Ariel

What a combination! Patrick Stewart, Royal Shakespeare Company and The Tempest - WOW!



The Tempest at RSC

Actually, we tried to see this production in Stratford last September - we had third row tickets in the stalls, had booked a convertible Mini for the drive to the country and were booked into a fab country house - then Bridie's kidney stone decided to have a case of bad timing and put her in hospital. We were lucky, because the the tickets were soooo good, we managed to resell them and the country house and hire car company were sympathetic to the emergency and didn't charge us - and who said customer service didn't exist in the UK!

Anyhoo - "the play's the thing..." We got tickets for the London season and went along last night to be dazzled. Despite knowing that Forbidden Planet was inspired by The Tempest, Steve still felt the need to hit the internet before the night, just to make sure he knew what the story was about.

What can one say, of course it was amazing! The scene, closer to an Inuit island, than Mediterranean - the entire play dominated by the tempest for which it is named, with massive multimedia screenings of the storm between acts.

Patrick Stewart played a bitter, but benevolent Propero, who was, as always, an inspiration. He imbued the bitter and usurped duke with a humour and love for Miranda, his daughter, bitterness and vengeance for his enemies followed by his humbling forgiveness that closes the play. Yet again we were struck with his presence and talent.



Of particular note was Julian Bleach, who played Ariel, we first saw him in Shockheaded Peter (Shockheaded Peter website) in New York and at the interval last night, we were scrambling for the programme because his voice was so familiar! He played a strange, raspy voiced Ariel, one that was both menacing and poignant - not to mention he had the best entrance in the play - emerging from the stomach of a seal as a bloody bird!



As we walked back to Waterloo over Waterloo Bridge, it was a beautiful clear night - St Pauls and the Oxo tower on our left, the London Eye and Big Ben on our right - wish we had had the camera - we had one of those moments where we realised, yes, we are in London and aren't we lucky.

Look what I made

For Christmas, Steve organised for me to attend a one-day silver smithing class - it was last Saturday. After a bunch of hammering and banging and hammering and banging, with a bit of fire, acid baths (the pickle), etc. I made these...



Not bad for my first efforts. I know what I want for my birthday now - the next class!

London at night

London has recently woken up to the fact that they don't have a festival of light - so they quickly put one together. Although pretty lame, it was still cool to see some of London's landmarks 'up in lights'...



As we walked away from the blinding Tower Bridge we came across something funkier...



Just goes to show that London can be pretty at night, even when it's not trying!

Still pretty...

While everything is melting, it doesn't stop it from being really pretty. I had a wander around the area and our local park (South Park) at lunch time...











Oh yeah - we got outclassed by the neighbours!

It's melting

Well.... it never does last long.

It's snowing!

When Steve and I were both away from the UK, it was then that it snowed - on Australia Day! We were both gutted when we missed it.

Then the rumours started, around Tuesday, maybe earlier; there was a big snow coming - Woo Hoo!

And here it is - overnight the world suddenly turned white and pretty. I can say that - I'm working from home today. Poor Steve had to brave the English public transport system - who knows, it could be the wrong kind of snow.



Just to prove that not everything falls apart in the UK when it snows - our milkman still made it through!



Naturally we found the time to make a new friend, before I logged into work and Steve trudged off...

Why you shouldn't fall asleep at dinner...

This is Mark.
Mark fell asleep at dinner.



This is Steve and Karen posing for photos.
Mark doesn't know these photos are destined for the internet.

Back from Buenos Aires

My brother collects coke cans. "Bring one back from Argentina," he asks.

No problem. There's a shortage of space in my luggage, but I managed to buy one on the last day and stuff it in a corner.

Unfortunately it exploded in the hold.



Of course this can was in with the new suit, the presents for Bridie and a bunch of stuff that really shouldn't get wet, much less brown goo all over them.

I learnt a lesson about air pressure. And Bridie learnt never to put my luggage on her lap.

Having fun down under - sunny Queensland

Mum and Dad have been showing me around sunny Queensland - naturally my mum took me shopping and I had to share this place - it's a shopping centre built over a small river - you can even hire paddle boats to get to the other side!



We also spent a day travelling around the Queensland hinterland where I found this fantastic moth on a tree and some amazing views.





In keeping with the native wildlife theme, I manage to find a galah or two - though not flamin'!

Having fun down under - saying hi to Melbourne

Bridie spent the weekend in Melbourne with family and friends; checked out old haunts and discovered some new ones. Our wonderful, fabulous friends, B and Emily organised and hosted a party for me while I was in town and we had a fabulous night.

I also spent the day with my brother and his family and got to visit my favourite boy - Puck! He's looking particularly evil in this photo...



I tested out my new camera (a digital SLR) on Southbank at night - Melbourne is a particularly pretty city and more so at night...



I spent my last morning in St Kilda, having breakfast with more friends, getting a wee bit of sun and checking out the gardens outside Luna Park - and what did I find but some of our gorgeous wildlife (rainbow lorekeets) hanging around upside down in the palm trees...




One last look around Melbourne and I headed down to the St Kilda pier where Melbourne's ever changing weather started to roll in...



And finally, for all our friends in England - this is what drought country looks like - so brown and dry because there is almost no water to be had - we're losing more bushland than ever before to fires...