Ran into an interesting issue yesterday.  Have decided that its just to cold at night to go running, like so cold you head hurts from the temperature, so after a little investigation the best priced gym (that I could find) was the one by work tube station.  Actually there was not much in really, there was the Shirokanedai Spa fairly close to the tube at home, (but in the opposite direction) and one by work.  One at home had twice the joining fee, but slightly cheaper monthly payments.  One at work had lower joining fee, but higher monthly payments.  Take two years into consideration and they both broke even.  Go figure.

Since we have had mild success with actually attending a gym which is close to work that was the deciding factor.  Gym itself appears to be very nice, will have more details after session today.  Then again considering its costing twice what i paid in London it should be nice.  Joining up did not cause to many problems, except for one small would it even cross you mind section.  You are not allowed to have tatoo’s unless approved by management!  Now generally on a day to day basis people are completely unaware that I have a tattoo, (picked up in Amsterdam, long story, but lets just say alot of thought had gone into it).  

Good thing about flipper and his location on the left ankle is that really no-one sees it.  However the gym would like me to put a white plaster over it when I go swimming (if more likely – found another rule that you have to wear swimming cap!), and they will happily provide said white plaster.  I am going to take a fairly confident long shot that its all tied up with gang affliations and yakuza.  (the give away was the next rule about gang affliations.  Even so, flipper has to go!

Interesting global point of view lesson here.  While our western culture seems to have gone ballistic with celebrity inspired/endorsed tattoo’s and everyone is getting one, in other cultures they are not as socially acceptable.  Most would argue who cares we won’t be living in Japan, but life does not provide a navigational map advising were we will each be in 5 years time, and the japanese culture is not the only one that may have issues with ‘body art’  

Before going and getting the lastest awe inspiring tatoo across some part of your body, it might be worth thinking where you could be in the future.  Maybe trying to get a gym membership?

One of those little constants in my life has been that Winter is always cold and wet. After a few winters in the UK this was slightly amended to cold wet and gray. Actually I don’t think I’ve every seen so much gray before, we are talking like not seeing sunshine for weeks on end. Someone did kindly point out that this is very good for aging or lack of it as no sun exposure to make wrinkles. Valid, but why else did they invent sunscreen? And it was still wet, oh how I miss the "its no use having an umbrella cos gravity doesn’t apply rain". This is the rain that comes down around you umbrella and magically reverses direction upwards and soaks you.

Tokyo has turned that all on it head. We certainly have cold, like very cold and I am sure if I ventured outside of Tokyo there would be snow all over the place! However there is nothing resembling rain. Actually stunning blue skies and bright sunshine, delightful. Whats not so crash hot is just how incredibly dry it is. All the wind of Sibera dumps its snow on the west side of the island so by the time it hits Tokyo is bone dry. Its compulsory to have hand cream on your desk bone dry. I’ve ended up with a very bad case of chapped hands dry. Two weeks of intensive hand cream/moisturiser have finally got it healing.

Still better than the rain. Which I am assured by everyone will be here with the rainy season of which there are 3. Yippee

Whoops its been a while since I wrote to the log, things have started to get a little busy for me, which is a very good thing.  The big news is that I am going home for the New Year to see family.  Really looking forward to it.  Have been advised that I will be picked up from the airport, driven home and presented with Lamb on the spit.  My mouth is watering already.  Anyway the family news is that my Dad is back in hospital getting his knee reconstruction done.  This is actually a really great thing as it will give him more mobility.  While it took a while for them to get around to it, suddenly it was all on.  Here are the two versions of email from home.

Hi
I’ve just been talking to your Dad.  I left him at Waikato Hospital this morning in the same day surgical unit, when a registrar came to look at him.  I think he went to theatre about 2 o’clock.  He had a spinal anaesthetic.  He’s just eaten his tea and is quite comfortable because the spinal is still working but there is a morphine pump all set up for when his bottom half wakes up.  He is in a room on his own at present so hopes to get a reasonable nights sleep.  So its all good
Luv Mum

And from my brother

Dad had his knee done yesterday – all is to spec.

One of my favourite new ‘toys’ went on strike the other day.  Actually its not really a toy, but rather a high tech house hold appliance.  I nicked name it Goosey Lucy, why, not a clue.  Anyway Lucy is actually a roomba discovery robotic vacum cleaner.  I am serious here.  This one get raves reviews from those that have them, and given that I have a smallish appartment, wooden floors in sounded like a great idea.

The vacum cleaner I brought over from the UK was not going to cut the mustard as the voltage was all off, and even at half power not alot of dust was being relocated so another appliance went on to the shopping list. (the collection has grown as practically nothing from the UK will work here, computer being one exception).  When it comes to household chores there are some I completely detest, and vacuming is sitting in prime position at the top of the list.  (follow closely by oven cleaning, but hey no oven!)  A robotic vacum cleaner sounded like the solution to all my problems.

Now being rather good at self justification for aquiring new toys the list ran as following.
        –  I need a new vacum cleaner  – and some a bloody expensive over here.
        –  Detest vacuming.
        –  Current vacum cleaner lives in closet and takes up storage space, and a replacement one would as well.
        –  How often do you vacum under your bed and I have a raised one!,

Reasons for Lucy Goosey.
        –  Replacement Vacum cleaner
        –  Will live happily under the sofa on charging station.
        –  Will zip under the bed easily
        –  Meant to be great on wooden floors.
        –  Automatic – Horay.

End result is obviously Lucy taking up residence under the sofa and me getting more storage space as old vacum took a nose dive into the rubbish skip.  Well let me tell you after making sure the floor are reasonably clear (which is great reason for picking up after ones self) I walk out of the appartment and turn Lucy loose.  On arrive home the floors are spotless and Goosey is snoozing under the sofa on her charging station.  (did I mention she has a remote control as well, I don’t even have to climb under the sofa to press the start button.).

Making a short story longer, Lucy managed to find the cable of a power transformer the other day and tried to digest it.  I got home to find her sulking in the middle of the floor with a Sony power cable wrapped in her innards, and a soft red light warning me of her temper.  After free the brush and returning her to her hidy hole I thought nothing more of it.  Unfortunately the next day when I set her off to efficiently keep my house dust free, her normal dulcent tones were decidely croaky.  Her little sweepy brushes had stopped there sweepy business.  After checking everything I was lucky to remember that I had kept the warrenty card.  Last night she returned back to home for repair.

In the meantime the dust is backing up something cronic and it going to be back to manual sweeping.  So Lucy, get well soon and I miss you.  When you arrive back I promise I won’t leave Sony power transformers on the floor.  The bloody irony here is that the transformer is actually a 240v only and is destined for the dustbin.  

(Update in 2007, is that Lucy is still going really strong, her battery may need replacing after two years of dedicated service).  I did have to get a small normal vacum cleaner for extra ordinary cleaning, but Lucy still rocks and has been joined by Scooby do!)

I forgot to send write something yesterday, whoops.  Meant to clean the bathroom as well, but ended up on the phone to London for a few hours.  Anyway todays topic is something that I have been meaning to write about but others things crept ahead of the list.  It has all to do with currency and sex!  (got you attention there).

How many of you have coin jars, you know what I mean, the jar that you empty all the coins out into when you wallet is getting to heavy?  I’ve had one of some sort all the time, it also seems to aquire alot of foreign currency as well.  The UK’s love of having prices £2.99 or similar means you are forever getting handed 1 and 2 penny coins, and they are just to much effort to do anything with.  Didn’t help when the company stopped the vending machines from taking them as well, as that was always a useful outlet for them.  May take you a forklift to get 50p worth of coins to the machine for your coke, but think of all the calories you burnt lugging that metal so you could have you sugar ladened drink (and don’t even start me on what Diet Coke does to you, I am still frightened from being told).

So back the coins, well after moving to London I needed another coin jar, actually it ended up being a water bottle with its top cut off.  Odd I know, but once started it seems wrong to change it.  Naturally it started getting filled up until one ill advised one night stand which resulted in me trying to figure out where the hell my coin jar was two days later.  I had to reach the conclusion that my ‘friend’ had decided to take a little reminder of me.  What really made me giggle about this was that I had actually raided said jar for practically all it decent coinage (10p and above) just a few days earlier.  Said companion probably saw a sprinkle of silver on the top and thought it was treasure time.  Instead it was basicaly a very heavy cointainer of 1p coins.  Sometime I absolutely adore karma.

(oh after that little incident I aquired another coin jar – water bottle, yep – and when I left London it yielded a very respectable £130 )

So now that we have dealt with the sex part the main point of this blog was that in Japan you routinely walk around with about \10,000 of folding notes in your wallet.  I was slightly perplexed to see in the shops products on sale for \237, but figured some type of rounding system was in action.  Imagine the shock when the bill was added up and I was handed back my change included \1 coins.  This was going to require a very very very large coin jar.  Yet some how I have not aquired one, and not for lack of suitable water bottles being around.  I have in a small box from Syria a few \10 coins, and I’m actually going to do something very odd and that load them back into the wallet.

I don’t know why it works over here, but everyone gives the closet change they can, all the way down to the last yen. Or if thats not possilble sort out the small stuff.  Perhaps it because you are given time to rummage around in your wallet to try and find suitable coins to give, with no withering looks from the clerk.  After a while you get completely used to searching for small change and don’t just empty it out into the coin water bottle.  End result is that all the coins seem to stay in circulation and waterbottles get recycled!

Finally got through to Mum and Dad today, firstly to give them the good news that I’m coming home for a week, and secondly to figure out why they had not been answering the phone.  I knew that they were off to my cousing 25th wedding anniversary so that would account for most of the weekend, but I was starting to get a little worried. After the series of events earlier this year I always get a little worried if I cannot get hold of them.

Ended up that the phone system was down because of the nasty storms that have hit the North Island, it odd that in a time of modern instant communications the house is still connected by two bits of copper wire strung up and over the hills.  Been there for the last 37 years and likely to be there just as long again.  They are really happy that I going to be able to come home as am I.  The one drawback of global communications is that for all the good news that can flow across the electrons there is also the bad news, and today was to be another one of the times that I wish I had gone all the way back home as I feel so remote now.  Jan Smith died during the weekend, oddly I never think of her as Jan Smith, from the age that we could first speak she and phil have always been Aunty Jan and Uncle Phil.   They were not even related to our family, but as one of the original families of Papa Aroha they have been a part of my life always.  

As we grow older we stop using the childhood affectations that we grew up with as part of asserting our independence and establishing ourselves in the adult world.  So they became Phil and Jan, but for some reason I never think of them that way, Uncle and Aunty just roll off the tongue more naturally, maybe the affectations stuck because they are a reminder of times of innocence when neighbours were more than just people living next to each other.  In the small valley of Papa Aroha neighbours worked and socialised with each other, they were each other friends, companions and colleagues.  For us children it was an extended day care system with a gang of children wandering around turning up in who knew which kitchen for lunch or dinner.  We never knew that we were almost always under the watchful of someone within this extended family.  

Now as the seasons change faster than I can keep track of the season of autumn is approaching those who were there watching me grow up.  Living in a country where the change of seasons is revered and spectacular I cannot help but reminise that perhaps we should slow down and appreciate.  Good bye Aunty Jan I will always remember you.

I’ve always believed (and written about somewhere) that one should always steal the best holidays and make them their own. Songkran (Thai New Year) is brillant, and if you like a good water fight loads of fun. Actually 3 whole days of water fight fun, no way you can stay dry. Thanks giving is also another one of those holidays that should be adopted.

Its a great excuse to get together with friends or family, or both, cook really great food and eat it all together! Thanks to all those american friends I picked up I can no longer eat turky without cranberry! And cold turkey sarnies that next day, with mayo and cranberry. Yum stuff. It didn’t seem right to celebrate thanks giving with raw tuna (which I love), so a turkey hunt was in order.

Perhaps I should have thought about adopting this holiday a little earlier, or at least prepared for it a little earlier. I did finds my Turkey, but he was frozen solid, like industrial strength frozen, and there is just not the demand to have fresh turkeys on hand incase some silly New Zealander turned up to buy one for thanks giving (which in theory New Zealanders have never heard of such a holiday)

Careful reading of the instructions showed that either 24hours in the fridge, or 2 hours in water would result in a cookable turkey. As time was passing buy and turkey needs a nice slow roast I would like be eating at 3am in the morning. Not quite what I had planned. Solution turned up in the form of a fresh chicken, some sweet corn, sweet potatoe, instant mashed potatoe, brocolli and carrots.

Pleased to report microwave oven on the oven setting does wonderful job of roasting chicken. So now that I know where to buy my meat, I am going to plan christmas just a little bit better!

19 Nov 05

Well missed the friday posting as I was at home and did not feel very inspired to do anything, but thats another story. Saturday dawned bright and clear so the plan was to do a little shopping and get a hair cut.

Now I can hear you all saying, what the big deal with getting a hair cut. Well firstly I don’t speak Japanese, and alot of japanese people don’t speak english. They learn it as written at school, but speaking it is quite another thing. Second I am a little bit fussy about my hair as being rather fine it can be turned into a dogs breakfast with very little effort on eithers half. Thirdly I had been thinking of growing it out, so didn’t want them to cut it too short. With all these silly thought running around in le brain I ventured out my front door, walked 10 metre, and entered the local hairdressor! Wow how is that for convenient, and I thought have one at the top of the road in London was pretty easy.

After establishing that yes they could speak a little english and I would like to get my haircut now (in future on Saturday and appointment might not be the worst idea floated), and if I could wait a little bit they would sort it all out. oh and the price would be 5000\, which given I’ve paid more in the Gentry at Canary Wharf didn’t actually shock me. Its surprising how fast you adapt to expensive prices.

A few more conversation via an interpretor determined that I didn’t want it cut to short, and yes it had been quite a while (two months) since it was last cut, then it was off for the hair was. Some confusion arose as chair is fully automatic and with a touch of a button you are lowered, straighted and positioned for a hair was, a delicately smelling cloth/tissue over you eyes and nose to stop splashing and put you in your own little world. A folded towel over your knees and the shampooing began. Well what a shampooing, my hair must have been cleaned to within an inch of falling out, and I am positive I’ve gone a shade blonder. The shampoo, massage rinse must have taken a full 15 minutes, and i mean really great head massage, not a quick we’ll rub your head a few times and call it a massage western style, I am talking putty by the time I got out of the chair.

Even today on Monday my hair has never felt this clean (and i shampoo everyday). Back to the cut, the girl did a fantastic job and not rushed as all like other places, then it was back for another shampooing, then back to the chair for a full back massage. When I walked out of that place I was so relaxed I didn’t even mind that the price had gone up a little. For an hour of being pampered and getting a haircut, Totally worth it.

I was on the phone the other day to my mum about pictures of the boat and got asked about internet security and should someone unplug there modem. After a little thought I put together the following information to try and clear up some of myths.

Broadband vs Dial Up.
Most of the “security alerts” that you will hear about these days are related to people who have PC’s with a broadband connection. Broadband is defined as high speed always on connection. “Always on” means that you are permanently connected to the internet in some form. Even this can be a little misleading. Lets define this even more that always on means:
Your internet connection equipment (USB ADSL Modem or ADSL Router) is powered on.
Your computer which is connected to the above equipment is powered on.

For example if you have a broadband connection but you have turned your computer off then you are “safe” from hackers. Safe is a relative word which I will go into later. Modern computers do have the ability to be woken up by remote control, but this is not used in the home environment. Turn the power off a the wall if you want to feel “extra” safe. No one can hack a computer that’s got no power!

When you have broad band and your computer is turned on extra precautions over and above dial-up need to be implemented for safe and responsible computing.

A dial up connection is literally just that, you computer must dial a phone number to talk to an internet company, then spend some time “negotiating” how they are going to talk. After this you are connected to the internet. It is during this time that you are connected to the internet that you need to be protected from hackers and I make some suggestions later.

Many myths with some facts abound about hackers particularly over dial up. Firstly hackers do exist, but going after dial up users is hardly worth their effort as they have to “wait” for you to dial up and connect. Second, they have to be fairly sophisticated as each time you dial the internet you will be allocated a different IP number which a hacker uses to track your information. Third the volume of data that can be transmitted over a dial up connection is very limited compared to broadband, if a hacker was able to install a program to grab information from your PC its going to take a very long time to transmit it all back to them.

Now some facts. It is possible for malicious persons to inadvertantly get you to install spyware/dialup software onto your PC. A very common trick I saw in the UK was to replace the internet dial up number from being free phone to premium rate. I don’t know if this existed in NZ but a couple of simple precautions are always be very careful when a site (particularly if it looks a little dodgy to start with) asks you to install software. Second set your dial up conection to always ask you when it wants to connect to the internet. This way you are always in control of when your computer is connecting to the internet and it will also show you the number its calling.

Dial Up Protection.
Always, always have a decent anti-virus software package installed and do keep it upto date. Many can be set to automatically update there virus signatures. Don’t pirate a copy, go and buy one, they are not that expensive and you will get support if you need it. Protection from viruses is the number one security problem faced by the IT industry.

Keep upto date with security patches from Microsoft. The last few years has seen a huge number of security patches released and is the bane of large IT deparments responsible for patching hundreds of computer. For the home user life is much easier and with Windows XP it is almost automatic. Under you security settings you can tell Windows to automatically update your machine. Even nicer is that it will do it in the background over a period of days slowly downloading the patch in the background.

Install some spyware software. I recommend for home users the product below.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Its small and simple and does the trick. Microsoft have launched there own anti spyware program, but the verdict is still out on how good this will be when fully available.

That basically does it security wise for dial up users. Broadband users have a different set of problems due to the fact that generally they are always connected to the internet (remember connection and computer turned on). This makes them far more susceptible to attack as they will have a known IP address and the hacker has time and access on there side. The addition of firewall software will go along way to stopping an attacker.

Without explaining indepth about firewall, ip addresses and ports, let just say that the internet knows how each type of application talks across the internet. ie your email program (port 25) talks differently from your browser (port 80). There are 1000’s of these ports all recognised internationally. What your firewall does is block those ports that you do not want to use. This stops hackers from accessing your PC. Windows XP now has a firewall built in and it seems adequate, there are other 3rd party products such as Zone Alarm and Black Ice.

When you install a new program onto your PC which need to access the internet (for example MSN Messenger) your firewall software will typically ask you if you want to allow the program access.

That covers basic internet security, if I remember more I’ll write it down. One other piece of advise is do not store bank account numbers with passwords on your PC. ie do not create a document called for example “passwords.doc” then store your bank acccount access number and password in it. Thats not secure in anyway, and I mean burglers or any dishonest person with phyical access to your PC.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well actually I’m eaten it, and i do not mean McDonalds. Now over the last 6 weeks some of my comments may seem rather harsh on Japan. If they are, well I am sorry, but its not been easy for me adjusting here and culture shock is not something easy to deal with. My later comments are now more along the lines of observations of just how different things are. This is similiar to my observations on Britian and Ireland when I lived there. Observations and inevitably drawn from comparisons and I would just like to be clear that these comparisons should in no way been taken to infer superior/inferior status. Just different.

So on clearing that up how about a positive note on Japan. Well I have one huge one. The Food is FANTASTIC!! We will leave pricing for another day, but back to core fact, we all need eat and this is a country that know how to eat. I don’t mean in huge quantities like certain american food chains I recall, I mean in sheer quality and variety.

Lets take for example the humble, ever available bento box. Now I get mine from Pororoca across the road, its a supermarket chain here that also does loads of ready food, think waitrose salad bars and deli bars etc, but much better. The selection of different boxes is impressive, but get this, they change on a weekly basis depending on the season. Okay, rice is rice is rice (or is it, another time on that one), but what you sprinkle on the rice can change, at the moment the special is crab rice which is totally yummy, then you get the protein selection changing all the time. Its never huge, but more than adequate. A typical box will contain a pork ball, a piece of salmon, a chuck of chicken, and something else. All in convenient two/three bite sizes. All for the princely prices of £3. When you have finished paying for it you can nuke your tray in one of the microwaves provided in store, if you time it right the box is still hot when you arrive so no nuking required. Talk about fresh.

And they taste fantastic, thats why 6 weeks later I am still getting my lunch there, the variety and taste changes so just when you think you might be getting a little tired of something its been replaced. No more pret-a-manger standardisation, (no wonder they failed here), where the avocado chicken sandwich you had today tastes like it did 4 years ago!.

Today lunch was slightly different with tempura prawns on rice with octapus, cucumber/seaweed pickle. sooo soo yummy, and hopfully healthy! So yep I am Lovin it, and I’ve started to learn how to cook Japanese style myself.

Lets take for example the humble, ever available bento box. Now I get mine from Pororoca across the road, its a supermarket chain here that also does loads of ready food, think waitrose salad bars and deli bars etc, but much better. The selection of different boxes is impressive, but get this, they change on a weekly basis depending on the season. Okay, rice is rice is rice (or is it, another time on that one), but what you sprinkle on the rice can change, at the moment the special is crab rice which is totally yummy, then you get the protein selection changing all the time. Its never huge, but more than adequate. A typical box will contain a pork ball, a piece of salmon, a chuck of chicken, and something else. All in convenient two/three bite sizes. All for the princely prices of £3. When you have finished paying for it you can nuke your tray in one of the microwaves provided in store, if you time it right the box is still hot when you arrive so no nuking required. Talk about fresh.

And they taste fantastic, thats why 6 weeks later I am still getting my lunch there, the variety and taste changes so just when you think you might be getting a little tired of something its been replaced. No more pret-a-manger standardisation, (no wonder they failed here), where the avocado chicken sandwich you had today tastes like it did 4 years ago!.

Today lunch was slightly different with tempura prawns on rice with octapus, cucumber/seaweed pickle. sooo soo yummy, and hopfully healthy! So yep I am Lovin it, and I’ve started to learn how to cook Japanese style myself.