Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

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Recent Entries:

The Day That Wouldn't End
The Little Things
Cheers, Thelonious
Expo
Bureaucracy
Tuesday
First Day at Work
Jet Lag
Back in Japan
And Finally... On to Japan
Back to the Embassy
A Day with the Kids
Over to Guildford
Off to the Embassy
Travelling About
Nottingham
Friday at Mum's
I Thought You Were Changing at Crewe...?
Last Day in North Wales
Movement, with a Hint of Sod's Law
Mornington Crescent
Curry
Anelog
Not Much
Doing Dad's Network
Last Day in Abergavenny
Abergavenny Market and Eating Out
Uneventful Monday
Sunday
Gardening and Cooking
Abergavenny
Kev's Leaving Do

The Day That Wouldn't End

[Sunday 30th October]
I somewhat incorrectly thought once I started my new job I would have a chance to start getting settled a bit, after a long summer of constantly moving about. However after just one week in the job I was being sent off to America for three weeks, so yet more travel and disruption lay before me.
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The Little Things

[Saturday 29th October]
What's that phrase? Something like: Life is all the little things that happen while you're waiting for the big things to happen. I'm paraphrasing no doubt, but it is something like that. Today was like that - lots of little things that were just really, well, nice. It was the first day Chie and I had both been in Japan, and both able to spend the whole day together, for a good few weeks. Given that we'd both started new jobs, suddenly our free time was a lot more precious and, probably as a result, more enjoyable.
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Cheers, Thelonious

[Friday 28th October]
My morning was largely engaged with another feat of bureaucracy - getting a "re-entry permit". The type of visa I had apparently entitles me to multiple entries, but for some reason (I suspect financial) this had to be supplemented with an extra little sticker in my passport to let me go out and come back again. The immigration office was surprisingly difficult to get to - I somewhat mistakenly tried to save time by going to the nearest station and walking, rather than a station further away which would require a bus trip. The maps weren't that great, and I went down the wrong road for quite a way to begin with. This put me in a bit of a bad mood by the time I got there, but luckily I had my MP3 player with me, and found jazz was exceptionally good at calming me down.

When I eventually got into work, I seemed to have a mountain of "odd little jobs" to sort out, particularly given my impending trip to America. Having got used to working for a small company in my previous job, I am finding working for a big corporation is very different indeed. Right now the administrative overhead seems crippling, and I wonder how anyone gets any actual work done! In fairness though, no doubt this is severely accentuated because I'm a new starter, and presumably will settle down somewhat after my first few weeks.

In the evening Chie and I decided to go out, and went over to Kichijoji, a short train journey from where we're living, for a spot to eat and a couple of drinks. We dined at a place called Monk's Foods - nothing to do with monastic inhabitants, it takes it's name instead from Thelonious Monk, who is probably my favourite jazz musician/composer. As you might expect from the name then, the music in there was very much to my taste. Even better still, as it was a sort of "health food" restaurant, it also had a vegetarian option on the menu. It is quite rare for Chie and I to eat out and be able to eat Japanese food, so this was great. After this we "just happened" to find a whisky bar right next door (called something like "Shot Bar Page"). Had a great chat with the barman about a recent trip he had made to Scotland - taking in Campbeltown and Islay. It's amazing how Scotland, thanks to its most famous export, seems to have all these little outposts, all over the world (particularly Japan).
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Expo

[Thursday 27th October]
Went to an exhibtion in the afternoon called "WPC Expo 2005". It was very interesting to see the difference between this sort of thing in Japan and the UK. The Japanese one was a lot more showy - many of the stands had professional TV presenter types doing what effectively amounted to live adverts. There was a lot of music, bizarrely people on stage dancing, and an embarassing number of women standing around in uniforms that were, well, not ideally condusive to technical discusion. This really wouldn't have been acceptable back in the UK - but Japan still seems to be somewhat behind in terms of equality of the genders. There were almost no women actually visiting the exhibition, and I only spotted at most two other Westerners there too. This felt a bit odd actually - I have started to get used to being the only Westerner on trains etc, but to be in a massive conference hall with tens of thousands of people, and still be (pretty much) the only Westerner, was a bit of an odd feeling.
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Bureaucracy

[Wednesday 26th October]
Had a bit of a frustrating day, thanks to a mixture of governmental and corporate bureaucracy. It felt like I spent the entire day doing nothing but filling in forms - and generally just writing the same details over and over again.
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Tuesday

[Tuesday 25th October]
My second day at work. Again all went pretty smoothly really - hardly anyone in my team was there, and it was generally very quiet. Also today Chie got back from Malaysia, where she'd been on holiday with her parents for a week or so. We hadn't seen each other for just over a month so it was very nice to get back to my flat after work and find Chie waiting there for me! Went out for a spot of dinner, to a very Japanese style pasta place just round the corner from the flat. I had "Mountain Spaghetti" which seemed to involve an assortment of Japanese vegetables and spaghetti in a soy based sauce. More like a stir-fry with noodles than a conventional pasta dish really.
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First Day at Work

[Monday 24th October]
Today was my first day in my new job, which went fairly smoothly. Spent most of the day setting up my PC basically. I've got a decent desk, the office seems pretty good, and perhaps most importantly my "co-workers" seem like a nice bunch of people.

To mark the occasion, I went out in the evening to my favourite spot in Tokyo - Quercus Bar. Watanabe-san wasn't there unfortunately, but instead I was looked after expertly by the ever entertaining Irita-san, and also enjoyed a chat with my favourite bar fly Osawa-san.

The whisky was good too! For a change I started off with a beer - amazingly they have Old Speckled Hen. After this I went for Watanabe-san's own bottling - a Quercus branded 27 year old Glenglassaugh, which was very heavily sherried. It had been released specially to mark the bar's birthday this month (four years...?). Next I had a really superb Caol Ila bottled by Blackadder - it was like being beaten about the head with a peat shovel - fantastic. I then finished off the evening with a Clynelish, which Irita-san rather expertly described as "yaki ringo" - by which he means burnt apples. I couldn't have put it better myself.

I find myself counting my blessings that I have discovered a place like this in Tokyo - where I can just turn up unannounced, all by myself, and seemingly guarantee to have a really good evening of it. Getting into whisky has really opened doors for me!
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Jet Lag

[Sunday 23rd October]
Spent the day pottering about in haze of jet lag, trying to get myself into a fit state to start my new job the following day.
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Back in Japan

[Saturday 22nd October]
Today was my first day "back" in Japan after a month or so "back" in the UK. The use of the term "back" here is clearly going to cause some confusion - I guess it is hard to determine where I am living right now.
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And Finally... On to Japan

[Friday 21st October]
After some initial concern about whether or not my visa and passport would be ready in time, today I finally flew to Japan. Yet again I seemed to end up with an indirect KLM flight (via Amsterdam) despite being determined for a change to fly direct. Still, I think I am developing something of an affection for the Dutch airline, and if I have to go indirect, this seems to be the best way to do it.

The first connecting flight from London to Amsterdam was heavily delayed. They said it had something to do with having loaded on somebody's luggage who wasn't actually travelling - so after leaving the gate they had to go back and off-load it again. Usually when flying with KLM there's a couple of hours hanging around in Amsterdam, this time it was basically just enough time to walk from one gate to the other!

The long haul bit from Amsterdam to Tokyo wasn't bad I suppose. It was a big double decker jumbo, which I have now learnt means it isn't going to have screens in the back of each seat in economy. Still, the films on the main screen were surprisingly not that bad. I found Madagascar highly enjoyable, and also found some Japanese film called something like "Going Home" was surprisingly watchable. In addition there was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was just awful enough to be watchable. A combination of the films, the meals, and a bit of Sherlock Holmes made the time pass.
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Back to the Embassy

[Thursday 20th October]
I have to admit to being a tad nervous this morning, and not having slept that well the previous evening. Given that availability was not that great on flights towards the end of the week, it had been necessary to book (and pay for) my flight before I had my visa, or risk not being able to get to Japan in time to start work. This was a bit of a gamble - if for some reason there was any delay in processing my visa, and it wasn't ready today, then I would lose the price of the flight, as not only would I not have my visa, I wouldn't have got my passort back either.

So I got a train into London from Guildford in the morning, and headed over with some trepidation to the embassy. Luckily though my fears were somewhat unfounded - my visa and passport were all ready and waiting. This put me in something of a good mood - finally it was all sorted out. The visa application process had taken just under two months in total.

I popped into Gendai again to pick up the tickets for my flight, and then headed over to the whisky society for a celebratory lunch. Headed back to Guildford after lunch, and spent the rest of the day there with Adrian, Liz, and the kids.
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A Day with the Kids

[Wednesday 19th October]
I had nothing particular lined up in my schedule for today - my visa would not be ready for collection until the following day. So I was free to spend the day in Guildford, helping (?) Liz to look after my niece and nephew. A brief visit to the park to go on the swings was curtailed in the morning by the onset of rain. So instead we went to what my Dad would probably call a "fun centre" (this needs to be read in a particular tone of voice to get the full meaning across). It was one of those sort of indoor playgrounds for kids, with foam things to climb on, and little plastic balls to industriously remove from the pit where they belong.

After this we went to the supermarket to stock up on provisions, wherein we bought, amongst other things, the ingredients with which to make cakes. On our return to the house I spent a while with young William making little fairy cakes, which was a lot of fun. It brought back memories of making Paddington Bear shaped biscuits with Mum when I was probably not much older than William is now. I wonder if he'll remember the afternoon in 25 years time? You never know.
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Over to Guildford

[Tuesday 18th October]
Had lunch with Simon W in Reading station - an unusual location, but one that suited both of our movements well. After lunch I took a train to Guildford, where I would stay with Adrian, Liz and the kids for the last few nights before going to Japan.
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Off to the Embassy

[Monday 17th October]
Spent the daytime in London, sorting out my visa etc, and then returned to Reading in the evening for a few beers with a few friends.
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Travelling About

[Sunday 16th October]
Stayed at Russ's house the previous evening, as getting back to where Mum lives from Nottingham is nigh-on impossible late at night. Russ kindly gave me a lift back to Mum's, where Mum and I had lunch together, before heading off to Derby to get a train down to the South East.

Arrived in Reading just before 8, and was very kindly put up for the evening by Simon and Vanessa. Had a much appreciated quiet night in, with a couple of beers and a pizza. Lovely.
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Nottingham

[Saturday 15th October]
Spent most of the day in Nottingham. Went for a walk around Wollaton Hall and Park with Mum and Keith in the afternoon, after which they dropped me off at Russ' house. Spent the evening out on the town in Nottingham with Russ, which was jolly nice. We went on an ad-hoc tour of Nottingham's olde wurlde pubbes, taking in a number of fine establishments, and also managed to fit in a spot of Japanese food for dinner at Skinny Sumo's.
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Friday at Mum's

[Friday 14th October]
Spent the day at Mum's in the Midlands. Popped out at lunch time for a couple of beers at the Cross Keys in the village - incidentally the pub my parents used to run when I was a toddler. It hasn't changed a great deal.

Also today my "certificate of eligibility" thing arrived - this meant I was just a trip (or two) to the embassy in London away from being able to return to Japan and start work.
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I Thought You Were Changing at Crewe...?

[Thursday 13th October]
Travelled to Mum's today, where I was going to spend my last few days in the UK before returning to Japan.
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Last Day in North Wales

[Wednesday 12th October]
Yesterday's news of the issuing of the visa certificate had meant that wheels had been set in motion. It was now time to start preparing for my return to Japan (and a life of employment). I had planned to spend my last few days in the UK with Mum, so this meant I would be leaving North Wales imminently.
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Movement, with a Hint of Sod's Law

[Tuesday 11th October]
After days of inactivity, everything sort of got moving today. It was, I suppose you could say, a "Nodal Tuesday". I heard that my visa certificate had been issued, so at long last I could actually start my new job (subject to a visit to the Japanese embassy).
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Mornington Crescent

[Monday 10th October]
So inactive had my brain become, that I spent the majority of the day playing Mornington Crescent on the internet, and often with myself. Didn't leave the house, didn't really do anything really worthy of reporting.

In restrospect I'm not sure it was an entirely wasted day - I look back now with some pride at what I created. The first game of MC I initiated (see here) was on a fruity theme, and, whilst this has no dobut been done before, it did serve to create some truly dreadful puns, as did the second cheese based game (see here). It was very pleasing to see other people joining in (although Steve, I have to admit, was a figment of my imagination) and so deftly continuing in the same awful, awful vein of puns that I had started.

As some bloke in the bible once said, "...he who is without puns, let him throw the first rotten tomato".

Or something like that.
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Curry

[Sunday 9th October]
Got up late, again, and after lunch went for a short walk with Dad and Yates "around the block". Upon returning I spent the majority of the afternoon cooking, preparing a small Indian feast for dinner. We started with poppadoms, as standard, and in addition to some Brinjal and Lime Pickle I knocked up a quick raita (mint sauce comes in handy!) and that oniony salad thing. For the main course, I did a big vegetable madras, a very simple daal, some roasted bombay potatoes and saffron rice. It all came out rather well, even though I do say so myself.
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Anelog

[Saturday 8th October]
Went out for a walk with Dad and Yates around a mountain (well, big hill really) called Anelog, which is by the coast, towards the end of the Llyn peninsula. Naturally some nerdy jokes regarding the name ensued -
"Had it been digital the sides would be much steeper!" (mnph, mnph, mnph) etc.

It was the first walk I had managed since coming back up to North Wales late Wednesday night, and although it was a bit cold it was fantastic to be in the great outdoors, etc. There were some great views to be had, but despite me being really snap happy my camera didn't seem to be co-operating much, and many of the resulting photos are a lot duller and flatter than they looked in real life.

Dad also collected some wild mushrooms en route, which formed part of our dinner that evening - he roasted a selection in the oven, and they were quite delicious. Frightening, but delicious.
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Not Much

[Friday 7th October]
Didn't really do a great deal, and as with the day before, didn't really get out and enjoy the countryside, which was a bit of a waste.

Went out in the evening to Dad's nearest pub (still a fair drive away though) and had dinner there. They've got a very good selection of whiskies - over 100 - so naturally we availed ourselves of some of these. I had a G & M Connoiseur's Choice Port Ellen, a bit disappointing. Followed this with a Rare Malts (I think) 21 year old Caol Ila at Cask Strength, which was a marked improvement. Finished off with the Laphroaig Quarter Cask, which was very good too.
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Doing Dad's Network

[Thursday 6th October]
I had retreated the previous evening to the remote rural idyl of North Wales, where my Dad lives in a tiny little village, just a stone's throw away from some truly beautiful coastline. This is one of the least populated areas of England and Wales, where the impact of man on the landscape is distinctly less noticeable than elsewhere. We had arrived late, the night before, to clear skies, and, given the almost complete absence of street lights I saw more stars in the vast expanse of the cosmos above us than I had seen in years. It is not difficult to spend days on end here without seeing another person or car, and the silence is only broken on occasion by tweeting of birds, mewing of sheep, or, if the wind is in the right direction, the gentle sound of the sea.

So as one would expect, given that I was surrounded by all this wonderful bounty of nature, I spent the first day there entirely indoors, setting up a network. None of this wireless nonsense, this was a proper old-fashioned cable job. Given that we had to cover more than one room, there was even some drilling involved, and, as always, the trusty kebab skewer proved a vital tool in assisting this operation. I had finally managed to bring my old ADSL modem/router box which I used to use back when I was living in England (thanks to Kev for looking after this the last few months!). This made for a much more convenient network setup, which was very gratifying...

...but it would have been nice to get outside a bit!
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Last Day in Abergavenny

[Wednesday 5th October]
Spent most of the daytime shopping and cooking for dinner. Dad called in for dinner, on one of his mammoth journeys around the country, the plan being to pick me up and take me from there back up to North Wales.

Dinner went rather well, although I say so myself. Started off with an artichoke - a just steamed it and served it with vinaigrette. Chie had made this for us once and I have since become mildly addicted to this simple yet sophisticated dish. The main course was a roasted vegetable lasagne. This was quite an undertaking, and with all the precision preparation of all the assorted vegetables, plus the cheese and tomato sauces, it probably consituted about three hours of preparation time. It was, however, rather good, even though I do say so myself.

Dad and I left Abergavenny after dinner for a four hour drive up to North Wales, as you do.
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Abergavenny Market and Eating Out

[Tuesday 4th October]
Vera and I went for a wander around Abergavenny Market in the daytime. It was quite good - in places - I liked the foody stalls, but unfortunately markets everywhere in England always seem to attract a lot of cheap crap as well which slightly spoilt the ambience a bit. In the evening me, Vera and Robin went out for dinner to a place called the Malthouse, for some Italian food. It was pretty reasonable I suppose.
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Uneventful Monday

[Monday 3rd October]
Didn't really do much, and Vera and I generally found the day a bit boring. Time seemed to pass very slowly indeed, particularly around 4 o' clock for no apparent reason. The 30 minutes between 4 and 4:30 seemed to last an age. Ho, hum.
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Sunday

[Sunday 2nd October]
Didn't really do much in the daytime - there was talk of going to a garden centre or something but this didn't really materialise. Instead Vera and I wandered into the centre of Abergavenny, visited the supermarket to get one or two groceries, and that was about it really. In the evening Louise and Ian (my aunt and uncle) came over for dinner which was jolly nice. Had toad in the hole for dinner, superbly English.
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Gardening and Cooking

[Saturday 1st October]
Spent the day with Vera and Robin in Abergavenny. Stayed in until late afternoon when we went out and commenced a bout of gardening.

This was surprisingly fun! V and R have recently had their back garden landscaped, but at present there are four large beds with soil but no plants. So we planted a few shrubs etc, and inevitably also had to dig a few up and move them again when the collective design senses of Vera and Robin determined that the overall aesthetic was not quite what they had originally intended. It's funny, I don't recall having seen plants been uprooted and replanted on programmes like Ground Force. Clearly Titchmarsh et al do not have the same deep understanding of the complex interplay between shape and texture that members of my family do!

I made dinner in the evening - I had a strange desire to make rosti, and also was keen to have a go at recreating a combination I'd had on my recent trip to Amsterdam - Portobello mushrooms with pear and brie. This all came out rather well, I'm pleased to report.
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Abergavenny

[Friday 30th September]
Stayed at Simon's house the previous night, and he gave me a lift into town in the morning. Got on a train just after 9 to Newport, and from there got a train to Abergavenny - I was at Vera and Robin's house before midday. Didn't do much the rest of the day really. Vera made a nice vegetable soup for lunch, and we spent some of the afternoon sorting through Vera's little red box of old photographs. Dinner included a particularly nice dish of potatoes dauphinois, followed by some pasta etc.
In other news I have decided, as an experiment, to start taking vitamin supplements today. This followed recent discussions with a number of people, chief amongst these the Dutch Biochemists who gave us a lift back from the wedding we went to in Hamburg. Apparently a lack of iron can lead to tiredness etc, and I've been told this is a common problem for vegetarians. So I bought a little tub from Boots, specially designed for society's moral elite (that's vegetarians by the way), which not only contain no ingredients of animal origin, but also have a slightly different mix of vitamins etc, to concentrate on the things vegetarians are often lacking in. There a thirty tablets - one a day - so I will try this for a month and see if I notice any difference.
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Kev's Leaving Do

[Thursday 29th September]
Spent some of the daytime slobbing around at Rob and Kate's house, where I'd stayed the previous night. Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while I was there, which was jolly nice.
Headed over to Pangbourne in the afternoon, and popped into my old office to meet up with Kev et al. Today was Kev's leaving do, which involved the traditional few drinks and a curry. Started off at the Star, then headed over to Pangbourne Tandoori (or is it called Miah's or something now?) for dinner, and finished up the evening at the Cross Keys. Not sure what else to say about the evening really - I guess it's just a good point to say good luck to Kevin in whatever he chooses to do in the future!
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