Give Me Presents

I have come around on socks.

And also pants.

So in order for mortals to buy each other Christmas presents there has a to be a well defined price bracket, which in turn means there are restrictions on what can and cannot be purchased for one another.  I cannot, for example, request a jet fighter for Christmas.

Well, I can request all I want.

The point is that socks and pants are lame.  Clothes are pretty poor Christmas presents, and pants and socks are objectively the worst clothes, so they are super lame.

But you know what's worse than socks?  Buying socks.  Who wants to do that?  It's one of the worst chores out there.  If someone could somehow invent a machine that connects to a global system of other machines that humans could interact with in order to remotely buy such items it would alleviate some of the hassle, but it's still terrible.

And because I cannot request jet fighters for Christmas I need a reasonable present idea that can be acquired by anyone.

As such, with a heavy heart, I must declare socks and pants a good go-to Christmas present.

A jet fighter would be cool, too.

It's Nearly Christmas

Christmas rolls around again.  I've got a small pile of boxes in the corner, containing (hopefully) many kilo's of chocolate and/or marmite - we'll have to wait for the 25th to find out.  In case you were wondering what Christmas day in Japan looks like the following pictures have a handy guide.

The girlfriend is annoyed that I appropriated a bed sheet to cover her present (too big to wrap economically).  I don't think she gets the Christmas spirit.

There are one or two parcels knocking around on the left hand side that aren't in shot - I found that spreading your presents out makes them look more voluminous than just heaping them up.  Top money saving tips on this blog!  This year I'm expecting lots of shoes, because almost everything came in shoe boxes.  The reindeer wrapping paper is bright and sparkly enough that it had to be kept out of direct sunlight; it was causing an 80's disco lighting effect around the room which tends to be distracting outside of a nightclub.  

When packaging your presents in stripes, remember that vertical stripes makes you look taller and thinner, horizontal the opposite.  Therefore accentuate your natural body shape or some such nonsense.

As you can see in the bottom right, Dean and Deluca sent something this year, which was nice.  I'll have to send them something next year.

At this point, some of you may be noticing the lack of a Christmas Tree.  Do not despair.

This is a typical Japanese Christmas tree accompanying the traditional Japanese Orange Juice that is drunk during the holiday season.  Don't forget the traditional Japanese Playstation Controller, used at this time of year.  This troika create a Traditional Japanese Holiday Scene tm..  

So there you have it, a small look into the world of a Traditional Japanese Christmas.

Please Waiting

So it was originally my plan to write about the weekend, which was rather different to the normal.

Instead, I ran around obtaining presents, preparing to send a big package to England, with some of the least imaginative, boring 'presents,' to ever be gifted.  It's exceedingly difficult to find presents that are interesting when everything is either vegetables (in my hometown) or prada (at the local outlet mall).

I also did a bit of teaching in-between, but don't worry, it wasn't a lot.

In the meantime, check out this advertisment that was taken down due to death threats.

You know it's going to be good when it's suffixed with 'deaths threats.'

Teachers Day

So Korea has a teachers day once a year.  Like mothers day, only for teachers.  Some of the students give presents, some give little letters and things of that nature; generally thanking you for your hard work and the fifty-odd detentions you gave them last week.

I've been working for a week, and I got a coffee mug, a percolator (plunger thing to make coffee with?), some chocolates (they didn't last long) and best of all - a pair of socks.  Awesome right?  I've only been there a week and one of the students gave me socks.  I guess I have an advantage  because they don't yet know what a hard-ass I'm going to be.  They pretty much all have tests next week, so I'm glad teacher day came up this week.

Socks aside, I've had three excruciating days in a row now.  Todays morning was terrible, there were dozens of things that went wrong.  The afternoon was okay, however I didn't get out of the office until 6PM, due to lesson planning.  To put this into perspective, school starts at 8.30AM and lessons end at  2.50PM.  Three days in a row.  That's not cool.  The overtime pay is pretty much illegal too, so there's no financial incentive, only the guilt tripping kind.

The gym closes at midnight though, so I managed to get in with plenty of time to spare, which is nice.

Anyway, I'm mega-pooped, so I'm off to bed.  Goodnight.

Running and the Post...

Please read to the bottom for a funny story I saw.

As has been typical lately, I went for a run.  Two things differed from the established norms on this occasion however, as I took a camera, and it there was snow in the air, and on the ground.

If you've ever run for more than twenty seconds on snow, you'll know it shares a similar feel to another unstable substance; that being sand.  Unless you've never run on sand, in which case you might like to know that it feels similar to snow.

So because of the inordinate quantities we've been having, I decided to capture a few more images.

I took these while running along, so forgive the camera shake.

Even after a solid pace I was cold, leading me to suspect that my thermal shirt, t-shirt, thermal undies, swimming shorts, bank robber woolly hat AND my fleece were insufficient for this weather.

Had I not left for Japan, and were I still those many kilograms heavier, I feel a pair of briefs would have sufficed.  Now that my bones are a mere skin-depth from the elements, the cold holds a much greater fear for me.

As you will have no doubt spotted, my camera thinks that snow makes the world blue.  While it does depress everyone on the news, it takes it somewhat more literally.

Hopefully the next photograph will dispel the myth that I live underwater.

This one does manage to take us away from the seabed, but it does give the impression that the (n)th apocalypse is coming.

Again, taken on the move, I should probably stand still and take one at a later date.

At the time of writing this, it's -5 degrees outside though, so as you can imagine, even during the day with the ample sunlight (evidenced by this picture) present in England, standing still for more than ten seconds is hazardous for ones' health.

I had to include one with a little motion blur involved to show you the tremendous speeds I was travelling at this stage.

The lateral blur is indicative of a shaking hand, possibly moving from right to left in order to increase the feeling of speed...

But of course, that cannot be confirmed.

This is the long and lonely road I tread to the stomping ground of fitness that is a disused green belt, surrounding this here town.

It functions as a... as a... as something.

It also has plentiful pull-up, dip and sit-up facilities (if one uses his/her imagination!) to increase the overall efficiency of a workout.

It is however, and I'm not making this up, (in a 'the fish I caught was thiiiiiiiiiiis big kind of way) ruddy steep.  You run down all the way there.  Great workout.  Even better for the mind, as you must overcome this fact on the way back.  Food for the body, mind and soul then, this running malarky.

I don't know whether this one is in focus.

I don't care.

It has lots of snow, and the wrong colour sky.  It wasn't this colour.  No filters were applied, apart from the rose coloured kind fostered by love.

Of course I'm in no such state, I can only surmise therefore, that my camera has had a funny turn.  If it were a horse, it would be dog food or glue by now, but such is the way of electronics that they cannot be put out of their misery quite so easily as a shotgun to the face.

Yes.  Horses have faces too.  Think of that, the next time you try to glue something to another thing.

And when I happened upon the about-turn area, I also came across a few giant snow people men.

It's quite interesting to see the level of craftsmanship involved.

Nary a detail was missed, and it's great to see the artisans of snowcraft are thriving throughout the town.

It's also funny to imagine the (statistically speaking, rather likely to be) fat kids trying to lift a mere fraction of their own bodyweight in snow above their heads.

This is actually taken at an approximation of the correct angle.

The wicked Michael Jackson style Gangster Lean, as it shall now be known, looks set to end this mans' life  prematurely.

I shall find out, dear reader, if this snowman survived, when I go for my next run.

This family lacks the individual quality of the solo Gangster member, but does hold something of the wonderment that is christmas.

Well, to anyone who thinks that the biggest box will have the best presents, this picture is christmassy.

You need a sense of scale to appreciate how much effort went into these bad boys.

(Children avert your eyes)

I understand that this photo is awful.  I also understand that, side-on, I look something akin to a kipper on the ocean floor.

I wasn't even pretending to be short when eyeballing this guy, he really is that well made.

Kudos to whomever chose to dedicate their time to such an endeavour!

One more of the family and its' terminally ill falling son.

Hopefully he'll find his legs someday.

The footprints of an unidentified creature.  Any trackers out there who want the chance to hunt the famed yeti, here it is.

Or it's a rabbit.

Rabbits aren't as good for hunting based tourism though right.

----------------------------------------------------

We switch gears now as I received an early present from Japan.

What could be inside this bag?

If the person just off-camera would stop asking, they might live through the night.

Anyway.

Inside this case was...

This bear porch.  (As written on the customs declaration)

It's a bag, presumably a pouch of some kind.

I simply must ask this question.  If you're a mid-level learner of a language, why would you know the word 'pouch' sufficiently to recall it?  Spelling aside, I estimate a forty year lagtime between now, and me knowing the equivalent word in any language.

Exceptional, if somewhat redundant, knowledge is on display here.

Inside the pouch was a small keyring adornment that plays the '1-up' tune from Mario.  Random?  For you this may well be the case.  For me and those involved however, it is only slightly less random.  Crazy, but simultaneously, crazy-awesome.

Best christmas card ever!

Sorry, but no amount of tinsel, or annoying shimmering flakey stuff can make up for the ten thousand mile trip this card took.

Fine wines age, christmas cards that voyage assume a similar air of importance!  Cards cannot be accused of being pompous however, which is nice.

Many pictures today!



And here is the funny story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8424836.stm

This is the reason why the world laughs at America.  Those who are there now, seriously, be careful.  Once people become deathly afraid of snow, you have to ask yourself whether the money present in America is worth your life.  Seriously.