okay, but what do they DO with all of it?

You have to understand something: the Japanese cannot hold their liquour. Can not. We are talking American tribesman "fire water" level of can't-stably-drink-alcohol. So when you see something like this…

mudane update

I really need to start working on doing at least one interesting thing a week; having the blog running and then not having anything cool for folk to read kinda bugs me.

kee kee!

The dorm has bats!

interlude: mini-expedition

Well, today started out as a plan to go to Tsuruga, which is located fairly straight north of Lake Biwa on the coast of the Sea of Japan.

dreamin’ and schemin’

When I was here at Ryukoku last year, I decided to take a trip up to Wakkanai more-or-less on a whim. It was the furthest point from me on my map of Japan; I had a one last weekend coming up; and I wanted to actually -do- something besides look at old statues in 100-degree weather and 98% humidity.

So this time I'm thinking about walking to Tokyo.

in the interim

And like so many web-loggers a'fore me, my initial sporadic updates have become.. sporadic-er. Go figure.

Been spending a lot of time with the harp. There're a few songs I can't quite do justice to cos it lacks the necessary bass strings (are there bass harps? I want one… google returns funky and irrelevant results) but otherwise.. verrry happy with it. I keep coming at it like a keyboard and programming, which is exceptionally geeky but seems to work for me. Now if I can just find a copy of the Andy Stewart/Silly Wizard song book I'd be set.

After the expedition hiking I basically just slacked for three days; went out for short whiles Saturday and Sunday evenings, crashed early on Monday, worked on random stuff around the apartment during the day. Most of the classes looked pretty meh before the more-or-less-two-weeks of vacation, and getting myself up and out the door on Tuesday was agonising.

Otherwise, life is life; which is good, since that's been the main objective for this stay. Next adventure I'd like is to find some nigh-abandoned mountain shrine and camp out there for a few days. We'll see what kind of leads my ninja contacts can dig up for me. . .

expedition one + two

The goal: reach the peak of a nearby hill-mountain, as seen from the other side of Lake Biwa.

odds and ends

completed: PhoneQuest. Lacks handy infrared data transfer, but does have English menus and a GPS interface

nigh-completed: first Torque game build.  

mostly-completed: http://errantoceanknight.googlepages.com

in progress:  expedition to nearby mountains