Just Differently Intelligent...

Bored

I think I just got tired of blogging... took me a while. I wonder where I'm going next.

Hell and Back Bear...

The story of this bear is cool enough. Some bears go to hell and back.

Rail Link to the Airport!!!`

Busy day today....
"TORONTO ó A proposed train service between Pearson Airport and downtown, with trips every 15 minutes and a one-way fare of $20, takes a big step forward today when SNC-Lavalin is named to build the $200-million project, sources say." Full Story

Amherst Island

Yuka and I are off for lunch, with mom, on Amherst island, somewhere off the coast of Kingston. Kingston Ontario, of course.

Off to Bala's Museum...

Yuka and I are going to visit Jack and Linda Hutton who run Bala's Museum for a day of Lucy Maud Montgomery activities.

Thoughts on the Dracula Conference...

This is the tough part... trying to encapsulate an entire week into a post. Of course I can't, but that won't stop me from doing something similar.

The conference:

This was a strange fish. The conference that is. It was hosted by the Transylvanian Society of Dracula (TSD), of which Yuka and I are now members. This is a global organization based in Romania. Many members are Romanian academics in the fields of botany, physics, history and folklore. I hope I can give some info on them in another post. Visitors from abroad included members from Germany, Scotland, England, America, and Canada. The anticipated Japanese participant withdrew for fear of SARS. He was worried that being Asian, people might think he was spreading it. But his paper was read on his behalf.

The conference itself was held in beautiful chambers in the Sighisoara town hall, one of the more august buildings in the citadel. The mayor opened the proceedings, and hosted us in a reception. The building is lovely, even more so for having a bar, nightclub and cybercafe in the basement at one side. And inside it looked like the most obvious hold over from the socialist era, down to the guards and the funky canteen. The meeting room itself was wonderful, and a bit over the top for a conference, but we lived up to it.

More than half the presentations were from the Romanians, and thus had to be translated into English for us. Most of this fell to Nicholae Padararu, our host, conference organizer, president of the organization and all around d00d. More on him later, but imagine that he's was the first to organize tours on both Count Dracula and Vlad 'Dracula' Tepesh in the 60s.

Here's a list of the papers and authors, in the order they should have, but didn't occur. Just reading them will get you a sense of the diversity of the participants. The papers will be published in Romanian and English this year. Assume that the Romanian sounding names are from Romania:
- Prof Elizabeth Miller: Setting the Record Straight: Bram Stoker, Dracula and Transylvania.
- Prof. Silviu Angelescu, Institute of History of Arts: "Fear of the malefic supernatural: the meaning of the vampire/strigoi."
- Prof. Mashimo Atsushi, Univ. Ritsumeikan, Japan: Oni in Japanese folklore and Literature.
- Alan Murdie, chairman of the Ghost Club, England: Scared to Death: the power of fear to injure and kill. [Alan's a lawyer, and conducts tours of the haunted Cambridge.]
- Dr. Lokke Heiss, USA: "Extensive research into Emily Gerard, author of Land Beyond the Forest." [Gerard lived in Romania and was one of the sources Stoker used. Little else is known about her, except by Lokke. We visited the city library in Sibiu, where she lived, and Lokke showed the librarian there her work on the shelf, and they didn't know it had anything to do with Romania. He's sending his paper.]
- Dr. Jason Nolan, Canada: Unearthing Early Vampire Stories in England: Fragments from De Nugis Curralium and Historia Rerum Anglicarum. [I got some very useful feedback from some of the members which will save me a lot of work in the future.]
- Alexandru Surdu, Romanian National Academy: "The Philosophic Approach to Fear."
- Dr. Mark Bendecke, Germany: "Is the death-penalty something that induces fear? - with references to what happens in the fear-struck brain" [Mark runs the German arm of the TSD, and is a Forensic Biologist. Most of his work was on how the human body decomposes, with a side bar on the medical aspects of impaling, with pictures!!!]
- Sorin Comorosan, Romanian National Academy: "The Deep Roots of Fear Derived from Mathematical Models" and "The Sublimation of Fear in Literature" [Sorin is a retired Physicist who was a fellow at Berkeley. He was probably the hit of the conference. This man should have his own talk show.]
- Gabriela Rusu-Pasarin, University of Craiova: "Estrangement and its dominance by Aesthetics"
- Professor Victoria Amador, Scotland/USA: "Fear of the Crone: American Actresses of a Certain Age"
- Dr Silvia Chitimia, Institute of Ethnography and Folklore: "A Disturbing Hypothesis Regarding the Role of the Strigoi/Vampire"
- Prof. Dr. Constantin Balaceanu-Stolinici, Romanian National Academy: "Fear, Anthropologically Speaking" [Constantin is the last authenticated living relative of Vlad Tepesh. And he's a retired neurologist]
- Prof. Dr. Constantin Rezachevici, Institute of History: "Fear in the Medieval Ages."
- Prof. Dr. Marioara Godeanu, Director of the Institute of Applied Ecology, Romania: "The Sentiment of Fear with Plants." [This was an insane and wonderful study on the science of plant screams.]
- Bogdan Popa (Doctoral Candidate), Romanian-German Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies: "The Vampire in the German Press of the 18th Century"
- Dr Massimo Introvigne, Director of the Centre for the Study of New Religion, Torino, Italy "Dracula, Go Home! The International Crusade Against Horror Comics, 1945-1955" [Massimo has 10,000 vampire comics, among other things.]

Pandas part one

And here are the first of the panda shots. No text yet. Having trouble uploading them. Will add commentary soon.

[The pandas are YangYang (Sunshine) and LongHui (DragonSign), though they have Viennese names as well , I think.]

Romania part one...

Here's 30 pictures, slightly annotated from Sighisoara, Romania, where the conference was. These are just shots from around town, without any cropping or touching up, so they're a bit hazy. Click on them for full size. Will have the first of the panda shots up today as well.

Making pizza tonight, and bottling some wine, just to prove I'm home.

What comes next...

After a 9 hour flight from Vienna to Toronto, what can possibly come next? How about a one hour plus wait for our baggage? O' Canada. From European efficiency to Canadian whatever you call it. As Yuka rightly points out, better than being on Romanian time... slightly. But we arrived alive. No thanks again to Air Canada. We were bounced through over 5 phone numbers when we tried to confirm our reservations. And the number that we'd been given, for Austrian Airlines, who was actually flying the plane, politely told us that they had no reservation information for Air Canada flights. Oh, and that we couldn't book our seats in advance. No one could. So when we got to the airport, we were told that all seats had been pre-booked, except for the last two at the back of the plane. Of course others in the lineup to get on the plane told us that they were able to book their seats in advance. I guess I should give up and just stop complaining... I'm home, and that's where the laundry is.

Last call

Yuka and I spent two days with the pandas. Nothing more needs to be said. Two more days with vienna, and back to the local zoo. Everything else is bright and shiny!

Everyone's Gone

Just Yuka and I left. The last of the conference folks left this morning. Yuka and I have 2 more days here before the midnight train to vienna. I think it is the orient express. Wrote some long entries on my puter, but no way to upload them. They'll have to wait.

Had dinner in Vlad Dracul's house last night. We were shown about the rooms where his son Vlad Tepesh was perhaps born in. He was born in one of them. Many frescos have been found under the centuries of whitewash. The ones over our dining table were wonderful. Got pictures of them.

Spent the morning exploring the shops, the top of the citadel with the old church and the sprawling cemetary. Found many back paths down the hill to the village below. Mostly used by cows and sheep it seems. And kids. Got pleasantly lost in the mazes of paths and streets.

I feel like this is the wrong century. So not like any city I've ever been to.

Missing friends, but not missing home.

Reuters gets it right... not.

Reuters has an article on the Transylvanian Society of Dracula conference. Though rife with errors, it does mention Lokke Heiss and Alan Murdie. But it does say something about us. Seriously, it is all mostly wrong about dracula, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Bored on the Borgo Pass

Not! I'd heard that the Borgo Pass (the fictional home of Count Dracula) was somewhat bland and not the sublime locale described by stoker. It is. One of the most wonderful views and drives I've seen. Though true, it is not sublime in the manner that Stoker describes it, it is wonderful nonetheless. The Hotel Castle Dracula, built less than 30 years ago, was the first building in the area with electricity and water, and I don't think that the road was paved either. Now the land is full of farms and cottages. Imagine this. Borgo was written into existence by an author who had never seen it. Then through the influence of the fans of his fiction, it now exists as a thriving community... and aside from the hotel itself, not related to the world of the Count or Stoker at all...

Text is a powerful medium to create concrete reality.

Booked in for Vienna

Just got the picture of the apartment yuka and I have rented for the last week of our trip. Apartment Lise:


My sympathies to our house sitter.

Free Trips to Toronto

Got this from Rannie on the GTA BloggersList:

Jetsgo - Online Booking is giving free seats to Toronto each weekend, from Ottawa, New York, and Montreal.

Planning for Romania with Elizabeth Miller

Today Yuka and I went up to visit Elizabeth Miller (the coolest vampire scholar on the planet, if you didn't already know), to plan for the trip we three are planning next month to the Third World Congress on Dracula to be held in Dracula's home town of Sighisoara.

Elizabeth's giving the keynote speach, and I'm giving the second draft of my work on Walter Map and William of Newburgh called "Unearthing Medieval Vampire Stories in England: Fragments from De Nugis Curialium and Historia Rerum Anglicarum". I've found a number of new facts, found a couple of more books that reference Map and Newburgh, and have had a couple of errors politely corrected.

Yuka's checking out Romania on Japanese web pages, so she'll be able to fill us in on all the details. But I can't wait to just get over to Europe again, and run around like a tourist. In between presentations, of course. Elizabeth and I are also presenting in Budapest towards the end of the month at another conference, more info to follow.

Driving Miss Salmon

This is a picture that I took about 5am somewhere outside of Texas, when Katherine and I were driving to Austin last month. It is the only picture of us together the entire trip, I think. Driving at night is such a beautiful thing.

Jason in the Swamp.

I was out in the mangrove swamps taking some pictures for a children's novel that I'm working on. I need the pictures to show to an illustrator so that she'll get the idea of what the main character has seen. Took about 300 so far. Here's one that will give you a feel of the place. So beautiful... and haunting.

But on the way in, I had the strangest experience of my life:

That is the nose of a manatee. It is over 4m long!!!

You can see from its back that it has been pretty badly scarred by boat propellors. Ugh. But it looked liked they'd scarred over well. I have been told that if they scar, it is not much of a problem. And if it doesn't they die.

I was so busy taking pictures that I got a little too close.

He's (or she) actually swimming under my kayak. It got really scary when I actually bumped into him! And when he took off, my kayak nearly tipped over.

I wasn't worried about me, as there was another boat around, but poor camera would have been toast. But it was worth it.

Paper done... Ft lauderdale tomorrow

Got my conference paper done. And I read it over to folks over for dinner tonight. They said that they could follow it. WHEEEEEEE! So, just a few typos to fix up, and another time check to see if it fits into 20 minutes, and I'm DONE!!! I think 3800 words will fit into 20 minutes. I finally got to relax after that. And I went for a swim, and then walked out to the ocean and stood in the surf for a bit drinking a scotch. Since I've been here two days and haven't really left my room, just typing, it was nice to get out, even if it was midnight.

If you're worried that I'm roughing it, here are two pictures. One from Dad's place looking out at the ocean, and one from the beach looking back.

I'll post the paper if it doesn't suck.

Driving in the night... a Glog.

Here's a short 800k video of us driving through the night. Katherine's driving, of course, as I'm collecting video. We take a break at a texaco.

Made it...

Salmon and I completed our drive to Austin in 30 hours. Stoped for about 2-3 hours over all. Nicely enough my jetlagging helped. I couldn't sleep all night, so I drove. Stopping for a 2 hour break when Katherine drove. She did the bulk of the work. Clocking something like 65-70% of the driving. I just did all the nastiest stuff... All across the south they're fixing the roads. And so it was down to 2 lanes, compressed to the width of two semi-trucks. Imagine weaving through them at 120km/h (that's the speed limit) boxed in by transport trucks. Just the thing to keep one from getting bored of the flat night. I even have a quick time video of it somewhere.

Doggies

This is just for yuka... I had to hide my camera and set it to autoshoot to catch this miraculous shiba inu!

Fire and Ice

I had the luxury of spending most of my free online time over the past two days using iChat to talk with Yuka, so my posts have been brief. Chatting with Yuka is much more interesting than filling my blog up with information regarding what I've been up to... and anyone of you who've met Yuka will indeed agree.

Larry was so busy with marking, that he actually snuck into his office so that he'd not have to deal with me, camped out in the student area. I was happily working away chatting with yuka, and Simsim and JuliaD, checking out Sarah's blog, and learning about kameshibai from Bob Seberry (another of the FUN crew) who had been in New Zealand exploring kameshibai in a maori context. (Check out http://kameshibai.com for info on what they are.) I had a thought that KAT! and Mudsey could perhaps teach students kameshibai via flash as part of their next summer duties.

Today I got a package from her as well, via Larry and Atsuko. It was a belated Valentine's Day box of maple sugar candy. Sweetness personified. With her permission I shared at with some of the faculty on the 5th floor (the Communication Department). Some of Atsuko's students were lucky enough to partake. Unless I got it wrong, women buy men valentines presents. That works for me. Guys have no excuse for leaving presents for one day of the year. They should be at it more often. Well, in that's from a hetronormative perspective. Suffice it to say that the partner in a long term relationship who is responsible for keeping everything stable and sailing forward should be deluged with a myriad of presents. And the partner most in need of steering should be doing the presenting.

Did I mention that none of the roads are salted or sanded here? Perhaps not. But that was what I was thinking of as I slipped and slid my way up to FUN this morning. I've seen more cars adrift on the roads than anywhere else except in the midst of a blizzard.

Well, though the do scrape the worst of the snow off the roads and some of the sidewalks, they by no means create a safe environment. I've found that trying to walk across intersections to be the worse, due to the black ice that looks just like asphalt. But walking up to FUN is no fun matter either. The daytime sun is hot, and the sidewalk is black... so everything melts. That is until the sun goes down and every thing turns to ice. Some of the sidewalks are worse. You walk through slush when the sun is up, then all the bicycle tracks and footsteps turn to ice. Hakkodate must have the most sure footed octogenarians on the planet. I certainly see enough older folks about to know that they don't all stay indoors for the winter, or go to Guam. I thought of taking some pictures, but I slipped and fell while trying. Not really. I'm a sure footed semi-octogenarian myself.

The strange thing is that in a country that is so organized in certain contexts, others seem to slip so spectacularly between the cracks. I think this is just central planning at it's best, and not much of a cultural comment on Japan. The rules are made in Tokyo where the snow and ice never stay long enough to get around to dealing with. It is, however, a comment on globalization, and the inability of someone far away to ever be able to have even a slight sense of knowing what's really going on elsewhere.

Hillel's meeting with the networking police soon, and will probably be getting me access to the server outside of the FUN firewall, so that I can replicate all my work setting up stuff (PhP, MySQL, Perl, OJS, MoveableType, PhPNuke) that I've done with larry's server. A bit repetitive, but that's how things seem to work around here. I hope that they will decide that I'm not qualified, and choose to set it up for me.

Today is Feburary 18th, and I'm heading home in 10 days. I'm going shopping this Saturday, down town. Early in the morning. So that I can see the fish markets. Perhaps I'll be able to get Atsuko to take me tea shopping, as I need someone to help me to get the best stuff.

Camping with Kenny.

I've been going camping with Kenny for almost 20 years. Most always to Algonquin Park, sometimes to my mom and larz' place at Eagle Lakes. Sometimes even with our partners, though Yuka and Angela have supreme good taste and usually prefer that we go off on our own.

Well, it has gone too far. We're sitting in my apartment in Hokkaido, Japan. And we realized it was back to our old camping lifestyle. Which means sitting around, making coffee by the fire. Hanging the bear bags. Foraging for firewood. Making stupid comments to one another from our sleeping bags in the dark. This morning, we're drinking 'Blendy Coffee' from bowls, eating Hokkaido camembert with baguette, and oranges. Ken looks supremely relaxed. Or asleep.

Last night we went out to an isakaya (Japanese pub/eating place) and had this strange stuff in a pot. I forget what it was called. But chicken, leeks, fish, shellfish, cabbage, mushrooms. Plus a big plate of yakitori and other yakiStuff (yaki == BBQ). (see previous entry for picture.)

Yesterday we went up to the university, and Larry gave Ken the tour while I played (skip to next paragraph if you don't want compspeak) with the bits of Redhat/Linux 8.0 that are totally wacked. It has changed a lot since system 7.2, and some of the tools I'm used to using aren't there, like linuxconf. And some don't work, like the firewall setting tools!!! So, the frigging firewall's up, and I can't use the tools I'm used to to reset it. Can't even find tripwire!!!!

Luckily, Hillel brought professor Nakauye to visit. He's from Mukogawa Women's University's Department of English. And we talked about MOOs, Blogs, and Slashdotty things. It turns out that he's teaching unix tools to students as tools of learning and reflection. Teaching text editors (not word processors), grep functions and FTP. To English majors. So very cool. Anyway, he wants to get involved with some of our projects, and was helpful when Hillel went off to a meeting with the system admins about getting them to support some of our projects.

Kenny had brought some of his strange distractors. Like his "Listen to the Paper" activity. You'd know about it if the doof would get a web site up. That an some of his other acoustic ecology projects. Larry and Hillel are interested in adopting the ideas for some of their projects. I was expecting them to find kenny's stuff interesting.

Today's a national holiday... though about what, I don't know. It's 9:45am, and kenny and I will soon head downtown, probably walking the 6k, if bus service is too slow. Not wanting to pay 2000 yen for a cab. I am so cheap. Then we'll hook up with larry this afternoon, and perhaps go out for a bite.

Who knows. I may even find an internationally able phone, and give yuka a call!!! If it wasn't for instant messaging on the computer, I'd have had no contact with her at all. Sad. But the trip's 40% over, and a lot has been accomplished. Enough to consider the trip both a success and worthwhile.

Japan has people!

Will it ever change? I'm at larry's office. It is sunny and snowing outside. Still playing with MySQL, MoveableType and now SlashCode. He wants it all... But I have revenge... first of all I put up a small web site: FUN (Future University) with Larry. And second, I'm making him download Linux 8.0 and install it on his dell server with only my words of encouragement, while I blog and eat green apple Mentos.

Cooked for myself last night. First time I've had the chance since I was here... so, it was yakisoba! (Fried soba) with green peppers, garlic chives and bokchoi. And larry lent me a Python DVD.

Oh, and someone, aka Yuka, said that I didn't have enough pictures of people on the site. So here's Larry and his daughter Ayaka, and Atsuko.

School Time

Went out for sushi last night with Larry & Atsuko (and chibi-chan, Aiya? Not sure how to spell it.). I can see why Atsuko wants to move out of a small town like Hakodate. There are some people who seem so un-self-aware that you wonder how they remember to breath. Then there are others who just dropped in to say hi, on their way between walking the Silk road alone and trying to culturally relocate Edward de Bono in a Japanese context. (Just pretend I said "Between two interesting and wildly incommensurable things.) Aiya can hold her own against two parents who are chastising her simultaneously in Japanese and English, and is as fluently bilingual as any eight year old can be. She and I left the restaurant poking at each other and muttering "Tsun! Tsun!" Which is, of course, the sound that poking at someone with your index finger makes. She's very much at eight, what my niece Marie is at 12; an independent soul in Japan. And as with both, the question is how parent can nurture it.

Foood: The sushi was excellent. Garish and noisy and family restaurant like. Line-ups, 6 shouting sushi chiefs in the middle, and a beltway of delicacies circling them. The shouting was as people requested special things. The sushi was like sashimi that had been mistakenly dropped on a few grains of rice. Ate mostly things I knew: squid, octopus, salmon, tuna, maguro (minced tuna belly, with green onions), crab, and cucumber (a favourite). Probably more, but we just kept piling up plates. And my gracious hosts entertained me with chat and stories. I don't usually feel that relaxed with people I've met so recently. But Larry and I have chatted so often, though usually for brief periods, online for the past couple of years, that it was easy to slip into casual. Atsuko, as mentioned, would be someone you could strike up a conversation with during an earthquake.

Then larry and I went out to a coffee shop for some brewskis. I had 25 grams of blend B in 150 mil of water. Larry and 20 grams of B in 150 mil of water. It was about 50 € (70¢) more for the extra, but I wanted a boost. Excellent coffee. If you don't know, in Japan, you pay premium for coffee, but that's really just a charge for the opportunity to have a quiet place to chat unmolested. Just like the extra charge for first class peace of mind when traveling, rather than standing all the way.

And I got 5 full hours of sleep, getting up a 5:30. Going in to see larry's uniZoo in about an hour, after finishing some yoga, and more microwave rice.

Today was fun. Forgot to take pictures, but I do have some of the university that I took yesterday when I walked by. Larry has more computer toys that I've ever seen anyone have. It is just insane. Every little toy and gadget. I fixed up some problems he was having with his previously unused iPod, getting 18 gigs of mp3s off a computer. I'm going to wipe this puter and set up moveable type and PHP nuke, and mysql on it. And maybe OJS (Not Orange Juice Simpson). It's a nice g4 mac. Then we'll drag in the Dell server from the other side of the firewall room, and set it up for MOOOOOing. It will take for ever to download and apply all the patches, but it should give me a list of what I need to do for Achieve when I get home. It's behind on some of its patches.

Larry introduced me to one of his colleagues, and I met some staff, watched a pile of student presentations (some more tomorrow too) and then I got my picture taken and got a space in the visiting scholar's wing. I'll probably spend most of my time in Larry's office, because more of the hardware is there, but when I have to retire somewhere to write, I know I've got a private space.

But the highlight was Atsuko's decision that we were going out for Ramen!!! I love ramen more than sushi. It is a Japanese adopted chinese dish of noodles. I've always heard that the best ramen was in Hokkaido. And it was really really wonderful. No shit. It was a great bowl of noodles. Probably the best since 1988 when I was in Yuka's home town... another special area for ramen. Figures that they're the two parts of japan that have had some of the most non-japanese contact during the shogunate.

Hakodate apartment at 6am

I've been up for about four hours. Nothing new for me in Japan. The jetlag frog has me in its clutches. When I've been over in the past, I've always woken up early for the first couple of days. But usually I'm staying at my sister-in-law Yoshie's house. There I can creep out of the house, and grab a hot canned coffee or two from a 24 hour vending machine at the side of the road, and go for a walk. Usually, I'd go out among the rice fields, and stop at a shrine or temple, or just polk about the town. Once, I remember calling Yuka after I'd been out for 2.5 hours. I'd walked through town and up into the mountains, and I needed instructions regarding which bus to take to get home.

Apartment pictures: hallway, bedroom 1, bedroom 2

Not this time. There's work to be done. I finished transcribing a couple of chapters of William of Newburgh's Historia Rerum Anglicarum that Ben needs to have so he can translate it for our vampire conference. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't photocopy all the pages I needed. So I wrote an email to the always lovely and ever talented Mudsey to grab the book out of my office and to photocopy, and hopefully fax, the missing pages to Larry's office.

Of course, I was watching TV, and saw the pictures of something streaming across the sky, accompanied by the words NASA and Texas, and bits and pieces of the Japanese from the announcers I could figure out. Strange feeling, as I was sitting alone in a bachelor apartment typing back in 1986, just before I moved to Japan for a year, with the radio on behind me, when I heard about the challenger disaster. My uncle was a senior engineer on the space shuttle program, responsible for the heat shield team, and he'd passed away the previous summer. So I've always had a special interest in the space shuttles, even though I find the whole space exploration thing a real problem.

You probably don't care about my reminiscing about this. What about the cool apartment Larry and Atsuko (larry's partner) arranged for me. I've got a tiny apartment about 15 minutes on foot from Larry's house, and 25 minutes on foot from the university. Views one and two show the inside of the main room, and view three shows the entrance way. It is about three times larger than the one I had when I lived in Japan in the mid 80s. So it is luxury plus. TV. Washing machine. Japanese style bath. Everything looks brand new, and the heater keeps everything toasty. Only the main room is heated. The kitchette, bathroom and toilet are unheated... wise. Of course the toilet seat is heated.

Larry took me out to a 100 yen store, and we picked up some necessities. Bowls, cups, glasses, chopsticks, cutlery, and the sort of foods you can get for 100 yen. Dried seaweed soups and stuff. I have some rice in the microwave as I type, and I'll probably sprinkle some soup mix over it, and that's breakfast! Nummy.

It is friggen cold outside. Not like it has been in Toronto, but I want to go out and explore here, and just walk about. I know it will be a challenge today, but as soon as the sun's up, I'll head out, probably in the direction of the university, to see what I can see. Larry's going to call me this afternoon, and I'll probably go out with he and Atsuko for dinner.

And tomorrow, I'll start in at his office, to see if I have some workspace. He told me that they've approved my internet access, so I'll be able to post these blogs in rapid succession, and get email sent out. What fun!

Just got back from that "little walk when the sun's up" but it took about 5 hours. Didn't get lost. That would be too easy. Walked the 2.5 km up to the university. More on that when I recover. Then walked back. Then continued on downtown for another 3km. Looking for something to eat, on a Sunday at 10:30am besides eating from a 7-11. Ended up with KFC, which is better here than in Canada. Did some real shopping: carrots, peppers, satsuma (oranges), bokchoy, fresh noodles, bottle of wine. I can start eating civilized.

Larry called me on his cell that he's loaned me to say we're going out for sushi tonight! And asked if I wanted to go to a snow festival. I need some sleep though. Got 3.5 hours to do it.

Day Two: Saturday: Handea Tokyu Hotel.

Oops. Didn't need that 6am wake up call for the 7am shuttle bus to catch that 8:20am flight. It's a 2:20pm flight. Was looking at the return flight, not the outgoing one. I forgive myself in the name of laggedness. That was after getting to the hotel. Shared the bus from Narita airport to Handea airport (90 min) with an Austrian woman named Britta. She was with the 2012 winter olympic committee. Or 2010. She spent the entire trip, when not explaining the intricacies of olympic committees, alternating between trying to make her cellphone work in Japan and wedging a wad of swedish tobacco under her upper lip. I remember it as snuff, but she had another name for it. Just the thing for long journeys.

I think I watched Spider Man 3 times last night. Made it worth the 1500 yen it cost to see it, but I just couldn't sleep, after not sleeping for the last however many hours it had been since I had last. Did get some down time between 11 and 3 local time. I think hotels are all about maximizing usage. I guess that's why I don't make an ideal guest. Had to have a shower and a bath. Watch a movie thrice (well, I think I saw it in sufficient fragments to count as merely two in total.). If I'm charged 1700 yen ($24) for breakfast, I might as well have three of them. Strangely enough, I did. A western one, then a Japanese one, then a fruit and salad one. Oh, four. After being so good, I had a plate of sausages and french fries (the Japanese version).

[Pictures: hotel room, view from buffet, Mount Fuji from the hotel, out my hotel room window, Haneda Airport, Cyber Cafe 1, Cyber Cafe 2]

It is now 8am. That is 6pm Canadian time. And I've got 3 more hours to poke about until checkout. Time to find an international telephone and let yuka know I've arrived safely. When I talked to Alan last night (he's in Tokyo) I asked him to email yuka to let her know I'd arrived. But still... can't call too often when abroad. Especially since I totally suck at remembering to send postcards. (Though if you want one, email me your snail mail addy!).

Yuka! I called Yuka just now. And she got the email from Alan telling her that I arrived. Not too much has changed in Canada over the last 24 hours. She seemed to get a kick out of my observations on being back in Japan, for the first time since 1995. I'll get to the observations later on, but they're joyful and sympathetic observations... not the "gee, they don't do it like this at home" sort.

Wow. I overheard a great conversation from some guys explaining how to get from the hotel to Akihabara (do a web search), the greatest electronics shopping district in Japan, and probably the world. Alan's promised to take me through his favorite haunts if I can get back down to Tokyo during my trip. This guy was explaining how he was able to get from here to Akihabara for 390 yen. Everyone else was paying 1200, so they gathered around to hear. Turned out that he was from the Cook Islands, and the other two were from the Philippines and Brazil respectively, in for a conference on Airline security. A real growth business. Don't know much about the Cook Islands, beyond what you get from high school geography, so it was a neat discussion on comparative cultures. They use New Zealand for all their foreign affairs, and all that.

Then it was time for the bill. First time I've ever paid $291 for an evening's stay (though that included the luxury of a single beer, breakfast and a movie). No wonder people can't travel if it is not on business. But then again, I guess I AM on business. Not looking forward to next year's tax time, that's for sure.

That's enough for today. I want to keep every day's post under 500 works, otherwise no one will bother to read them.

Day one. Airborne

No idea what time it is, but we are just going over the international date line. SO, no matter what time it is, it is now tomorrow. We're at 37k feet, and it is -61 F. 4:37 from Tokyo. It is 3:36pm, 7:36 in Toronto, and some other time in Tokyo. And I wonder why I get confused. It would be nice if it was the same time everywhere. But then it would no doubt cause a large number of people to go insane.

I'm sitting in seat 24A, and C. The lady who was in C ran away as soon as I arrived, with barely a nod. She's now in 23 D, E, and F. Plane's not filled, as you can guess. Mr 24 D (and only D for this sedentary gentleman) is on the way to meet his girlfriend in Thailand. But everyone else is stretched out and snoozing.

Just finished watching the Bourne identity. Stupid movie. Watched Vin Desel in TripleX earlier. A less stupid movie. Strangely enough. Bourne recognized nothing beyond how cool and dangerous the CIA is. Fine. Be that way. Europe's just a place for us to play politics, right. Ugh.

Triple X at least gets intertextually confused. Not merely is Vin a guy playing a superHero robinhood Xtreme sports hunk, who gets to pretend to be a spy, but he says that he learned his skills by playing video games. As Ben says, "It's a rich tapestry."

Going to read an Anne Rice novel. It is a tradition. Back in 1989, I think, before flying to Japan with yuka, it would have been to meet her parents (first time for me), we stopped at the Coles bookstore (now part of the Chapters/Indigo hegemony) to get something to read for the trip. Yuka (seriously, it wasn't me) pointed towards two books: Interview with a Vampire, and The Vampire Lestat as something that we might both read on the flight. I'd never read, to my knowledge, any vampire stories then, and I was reticent, knowing the types of people who read that stuff. When I was in teacher's college Sue had traded me one of Rice's works of erotica as collateral for an Astronomy textbook. It was a very bad trade.

I read one on the flight, and almost finished the second. Read them again in Japan, and got "Queen of the Damned" while I was over there as well. Rice isn't much of a writer. And the stories are pretty stupid. Actually, she writes like a late medieval writer... all about food and clothes and the luxuries of the rich and undead.

Still, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read one more. Pretty much the same story about a bunch of queer vampires who fight over straight women. I know the term 'faghag' but I don't know the reverse term. At least Rice is more honest this time... Merrick's a witch from NewOrleans who manipulates the codpieces off the poor vampires to get what she wants. And what she wants is to be 'one of the boys': "All my life I've been afraid of things, as a child and a woman must be. I like about it naturally. I fancied myself a witch and walked in the dark streets to punish myself for my doubts. But I knew what it meant to be afraid. And now, in this darkness, I fear nothing. You can't know a woman's vulnerability. You can't know the sense of power that belongs to me now." Finally, a character who is not a frock-coated ponce crying over the mean twist of fate that has separated him from mankind with this 'dark gift'. But I'm sure that in the next novel she'll go back to focusing on her lamenting lads. The romantic period is so lame. And to be a romantic, period, for all eternity is just punishment.

Oh, then the plane landed. I tried to call Alan to arrange dinner. And got no answer with all the various permutations I tried. Found out later that I'd written it down wrong again.

Greetings from Haneda Airport

Yay!Excuse the typos. I am challenged when it comes to a japanese keyboard, especially when it comes to punctuation... but here I am!
I am at the Yahoo!Cafe, in the airport. Took a picture, and I'll upload it in a bit.

Using computers at the cyber Cafe's free. That is free internet access, as long as you buy a drink, and don't stay too long. And actually paying 350 yen for an iced late is not much more than you'd pay at Starbucks, and cheaper than anything at Toronto Airport.

I just realized, as I was looking out at the airport, and the water beyond, that I'm flying out of Tokyo without ever seeing it... except as a haze in the distance.

I've written two proper length blog entries, which I'll upload as soon as I'm online at Larry's office tomorrow (Sunday in Toronto). Gonna go and check my email now, and see if I can log onto Achieve.

Going to Peterborough

Off to the land of the liftlocks tomorrow. Just for the day. I'm sure you won't miss me. And some of you may wish me luck. I just hope that I can get my presentation done in time. :)

Vampires in Budapest

Going to Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil 22nd May - 24th May 2003 Budapest, Hungary. Going with Yuka and Elizabeth Miller. Presenting on the stuff Ben and I are working on...

Why Kat Should Be Institutionalized

Catspaw's Guide to the Inevitably Insane presents Extreme Sledding. Of course this is something Julia's been whining about not doing. I think she and Kat should hang out.

Vampire bat saliva may lead to new stroke drug

The Globe and Mail: Breaking News has an article about Vampire saliva. Sounds like something that would interest Blake, who in his past life was making articifical blood. And is now a cosmetics god.

Marie and Yoshie Visiting Canada!

I just put up a couple of hundred pictures (about 500) of the visit by Yuka's sister and our neice, Yoshie and Marie. We travelled around Toronto, Midland, Bala, Algonquin, Ottawa, and Kingston last august. And I just got the pictures up now... wheeeee...

More pictures... kingston summer 2002

My summer trip part 3 (don't know where one and two are at the moment) to Kingston2002 [Yuka made me take this link off. You're not allowed to see pictures of her.]. With Yuka, her sister, and her sister's daughter... the insane Marie :)

Off to NYC

Yuka and I played host to rochelle late last night. She flew in, on a bus. The only person I know who can do that. It has something about karma and attitude. Then she and I wizzed over to the bus station to buy her ticket for NYC.

Now (7:15 am) she's doing her morning ablutions, Yuka is sleeping, and I'm making tea. The bus leaves in an hour!

Off for the weekend

Masako's cat sitting for us this weekend as we rush to Ottawa to see Sankai Juku: Hibiki

Sankai Juku: Hibiki: On their long-awaited return visit to Ottawa, Japan's Sankai Juku performs Hibiki (Resonance From Far Away) an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning work of unparalleled simplicity and beauty.

Home coming

Catching the 5pm bus from Midland to toronto. Should be home by 7 or 8. Productive visit. And great to spend all this time with my dad, with no one else around. I only get to see him 3-4 times a year, and will probably not see him again until May/June.

I did not spend enough time just staring out into the lake. But that's good, because I should have been working. And I was.

[KMD1000 students: I'll be in my office from 12-4 tomorrow, and the same on Monday if you want to come in to talk about your assignment.]

And Saturday, Yuka, Ben and I (And hopefully Rochelle) will be going up to leaskdale for an LMM event. We're not quite sure what is going on, but Yuka said that we should be there by 10am. So I'm picking up the car at 7:30.

Writing writing...

Got my job application sent off to Dalhousie today. It was a facinating exercise. And I heard that at least one of my letters of reference is out the door.

Working on my blogging article for Barry. Only 500 words!!!! My god it is impossible. Then typing and typing and typing. Working on editing a secret project.

Other wise it is lots of quiet by the lake. Not alone as I'd expected, but quiet nonetheless.

Holiday Pictures #1

Climbing in Canada I is pictures from when I took everyone rockclimbing in Toronto. Unfortunately it doesn't include the pictures they took of me doing a backwards Mission Impossible pose.

I'm back!

Just got in with the crazy three-some from our tour of Midland, Bala, Algonquin Park, Ottawa, Kingston (Eagle Lake) and home. More news to follow. Lost no one. Crashed no cars. Took lots of pictures. Ate lots of Japanese food... wait. Something's strange here.

On the road...

Hey. I'm sometimes answering email for the next 3 days, but I'm on the road. Been in Midland for the last two days, staying with Dad. Yuka, Yoshie and Marie have the boat house. I got the floor somewhere. Marie went horseback riding wiht Cats, Emilie and Danny yesterday. And today we got out kayaking, using the Janta's kayaks. Loads of fun, but Yoshie only goes in circles.

Tomorrow we're off to Bala for 3 nights with Jack and Linda Hutton at their Roselawn Inn. We'll visit their Bala museum as well. And hopefully go for a boat trip on the Seguin around lake muskoka.

Then we're off to algonquin park with the help of Algonquin Outfitters. We're going to Lake Opeongo, and plan to play about for 5 days. Then we're off to Ottawa, hopefully to visit Kenny, for 2 days... followed by 4 days in Kingston visiting Mom and my niece Siobhan.

Taking lots of pictures, so expect a flood when I get back. I'll post something from kenny's house, or perhaps from Bala, but not much, as this is a holiday, and I didn't bring a computer.

I'm using Cheryl's cause she wanted me to set up the internet connection properly,and I forgot that I'd not told anyone I left.

And yes, Mutsumi's taking care of Mota and my plants.

Be well.

J

Incoming

My sister-in-law and neice:



AND


are here now! Abandon hope all ye who enter.
They're over on their first visit to Canada, to see the sites, pet the animals, and to generally cause trouble. Good chance for me to practice my non-existant japanese.