The Faint Smell of Burning Toast

AM

Since the fire on Monday, our apartment has smelt like burning toast. The mornings though, have been freezing and early on Wednesday morning, I noticed that the hills toward Mount Kongo were dusted in snow. Once again, it's as if a switch has been flipped from Autumn to Winter in an instant. Incredibly, the number of women wearing real fur seems to be in plague proportions. It is striking, how despite global opinion, Japanese people seem to be happy and confident enough to do whatever takes their fancy. Again on Wednesday morning, I read a Japan Rail travel advertisement for Tohoku that included a bowl of whale blubber soup as one of its attractions. Later the same morning, I spoke to three women about eating whale meat and they professed that it's smell made their stomachs turn - as school kids they had all been fed a steady diet of cetecean flesh for lunch. On a more boring note, this morning was essentially ruined by a trip to the immigration bureau. Although I got my three year visa smoothly, the sight of the 'crats wading through the overheated room a snails pace made my skin crawl. At least I won't have to go back for a while.

PM

The freezing gale that buffeted my trip home on Thursday night, was a crushing addition to my doldrums after finding that Brutal Truth had begun playing just as I clocked off at Nakamozu. All afternoon, I had been cold to the bone. Unusally, the school was barely heated, probably in an attempt to save money. As the year draws to a close, the business at work seems to be waning, and as a result, folding promotional flyers has again become a fixture to my days. A rare highlight on Thursday was being asked what I found embarrassing about Japan. I'm still not sure what the question actually meant, but my reply included the fact that nude bathing is reserved for oddballs in Australia. It's probably another example of Japan's collective neurosis that people are happy enough to show the world everything on the outside but nothing of their inner lives. Frustratingly fascinating.

Gastronomy Versus Gastro

AM

Least: At nearly 8:20am, I awoke with a sore neck, a splitting headache and a stormy gizzard. The first affliction I have had for days, the second caused by beer and the third probably via kids at Rosie's school. The unpredictable nature of my malaise meant that I was confined for much of the AM period and less able to fight my other physical impairments. As the morning wore on, I began to question the foods the I had eaten in the last twelve-ish hours but I just couldn't bring myself to blame the sashimi, doteyaki, the octopus or the sanma. I finally settled on blaming a school environment teeming with virus's and imperfectly washed hands.

Most: By 9:30am, I had realised that Collingwood had in fact won the game of football that I had recklessly ignored last night. While speaking to my sister and niece is was strangely comforting to be able to give my comisserations to my Adelaide following brother in law. While AFL is pretty far from being interesting, this short skyped aside was a shining light in an otherwise dreadful morning.

PM

Least: Pretty close to 12:30pm, I paid a visit to the Nankai station branch of the MUFJ Bank to check my bank balance. Seconds later, I discovered that August's wild spending spree had taken its toll and worse, my pay had yet to be credited to my account. The dismal figure made me ponder where the money had gone. Expensive meals, taxis, pizza and an airfare to Malaysia. Hopefully this month's boring balance will be a cracking holiday in December.

Most: At about 3:00pm, Rosie and I browsed the shelves of the A-Price Supermarket in Namba. The shop is aimed at caterers with caterer-sized everything to sham your restaurant into respectability. Among the frozen fish and crabs was the whale section. Frozen packs of whale bacon and blubber called out from the freezer. Some of the larger cuts of meat actually had a picture of a humpbacked whale to assist with advertising and the biggest steaks were simply frozen flesh sawn into rectangular boxes. The supermarket also has an admirable selection of cheese.

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Food Note: At around 2:00pm, I ordered what I thought was fried seafood chunks by pointing at a photo. Unfortunately, the dim lights of the restaurant meant that I had actually ordered a sizzling skillet of horemon which consisted of asparagus stems and pig entrails served on a bed of cooked onion. With a sqweeze of lemon it was delicious and given my intestinal issue, I imagined that by eating intestines their strength might transfer to mine. Magic.