Flat3D

Snow festival and more…

This is a little bit late, the Sapporo Snow festival finished last Wednesday…  But here are some photos from it!

Sapporo Snow Festival 2009

You can see some pretty awesome snow sculptures at the festival!  I got to go twice, once during the daytime on Saturday, then again on Tuesday evening with Alex, but a mix up in meeting and communications meant I didn’t meet Alex in the end, but still got to see a few of the sculptures all lit up…  The ice ones look much better by night!

Last Wednesday, a Public Holiday here in Japan, a Singaporean student at the language centre (Wan Jee) arranged for us to go to a Singaporean buffet-banquet at a hotel in Otaru.  It was delicious and we all ate far too much!  I had to leave slightly earlier than the others to prepare to give a speech on Friday morning.  The others went to the Otaru candle light festival in the evening.  My speech went well on Friday, it was all about electrocuting myself when I was little.  We have to do speeches each time we finish a section of the course in front of all of the students and teachers at the centre!

Then just the other day my internet began working!  The NTT (Japanese equivalent of BT) came and put in the line a couple of weeks ago, but it took Biglobe (my provider) a little longer to get it up and running.  The line is an optic fibre link to the exchange which promises a maximum ability of 100Mbps, but in reality it is giving 12-15Mbps downstream and almost as much upstream at the moment…  Which isn’t the 100Mbps, but still isn’t bad for a consistent connection speed.

The final bit of news is I am on Twitter!  If you are on twitter you can follow me at flat3d, I’d love to follow you too…  I’m building up my links (it’s all about the links…)
For those who aren’t or don’t know what it is, it is a bit like facebook’s status updates, but made viable.  In reality it seems to be a bit more like one huge chatroom, with a whole lot of conversations going on at once, the nice thing is it sort of tunes in your friends and tunes out everyone else, so you can follow conversations.  It’s also possible to use it to simply let people know what you are upto, which might sound pretty dull or dim, but I like the idea that I can communicate daily life to folk and friends at home.

The big surprise for me is that it is actually pretty big in Japan.  It seems to be filling (bridging?) a gap between the all out geekiness of IRC (internet chat) and the more mainstream social users of Mixi (sort of Japan’s answer to myspace or facebook…)  At the moment I am much to illiterate to make much use of it in Japanese, but as I learn more hopefully it will be a valuable resource in learning about the tech world/culture in Japan and even help me with studying the language!

I will sometime link it into the site here, a twitter updates jobby or something, but I am not sure the best way to do it yet, or even if it is actually worthwhile…  Some more thought required I guess…

Tags: alex, biglobe, facebook, internet, japan, japanese, mixi, ntt, optic fibre, otaru, sapporo, singapore, singaporean food, snow festival, Technology, twitter, 光ファイバー, 札幌, 雪祭

懐かしい (Nostaliga)

懐かしい。。。(natsukashii)
is what a Japanese person says when something from their past tickles their nostalgia bone.
In English we tend not to have these little outbursts with such coherence. Either we don’t say anything and keep these little experiences for ourself, we make some kind of a noise that signifies our emotion or feeling without saying an actual word and sometimes we have actually turned that noise into a word for this very situation… But life with the Japanese is filled with little personal narrations that let the world at large know what the individual is experiencing… おいしい (oishii – tasty), 眠い (nemui – sleepy), 寒い (samui – cold), 厚い (atsui – hot), 痛い (itai – painful), 気持ちいい (kimochi ii – feels good), 気持ち悪い (kimochi warui – feels bad, the first time I actually heard this I actually laughed out loud, it was someone expressing their feelings over seeing a rather portly chap in latex or something doing aerobics in a commercial) and the list goes on and on…
Now it isn’t that we don’t have these words in English… We do, they are mostly just plain old adjectives, but we tend not to use them in quite the same way… We tend to form sentences and only exlaim things that are useful to those around us. Perhaps expressing something expressly useful to others around us. But in Japanese they are going on all the time, often simply to give expression to the wider world of what you are currently experience.

But to go back to the top, 懐かしい (natsukashii) or “nostalgic.” I experienced this very feeling this evening as I was having a jeffries in iTunes and came across Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy show podcast. Now those of a similar ilk to me will remember Ray presenting Den TV on Network 2 (RTE) every afternoon after school, like RTE’s CBBC, featuring young stars such as Zig and Zag and Dustin the Turkey…
Well of course I signed up to see what the guy was up to these days and to my suprise (and delight) I was joining in just after a whole show devoted to Den TV!
If you remember Den TV and all the stuff on it, you might want to head over to Today FM’s pages and check out the episode…

Tags: adjectives, dustin, japanese, natsukashii, nostalgia, Ray D'Arcy, Zig and Zag, 懐かしい

Christmas!

It’s been a while since I last posted..  I wonder how often I start a post with that kind of thing?  But it has been a while, in fact it is almost Christmas!  And it is snowing!  I have been reliably informed that usually by now there is a good bit of snow, but this year it has come, gone, come again, gone again and has now come for a third time (maybe it came before I got here and this is the fourth…. I don’t know!).  This time it might stay however, the temps for the week are cold, there is a bit of rain in the forecast midweek though, but that could also change…

Anyways! Yes it is nearly Christmas!!!
I have been thinking about Christmas quite a bit this year.  I had a Christmas party in October at Steve and Emma’s place, organised by my friends in good ol’ Norn Iron.  Then in Singapore they were lighting up their Christmas decorations – it is hard to believe a month ago I was in 30 degree heat, sweating profusely while soapy, fake snow was blown upwards to sting children’s eyes and make them wonder why people think avalanches are dangerous…  And now it is this week.  This is the Sunday before Christmas.  Traditionally at this hour (6:30pm) I should be practising carols with the band at church and getting ready for the (super heated) service in the church buildings…  School or uni would be over, exams would seem far enough away to be insignificant, many Christmas dinners would have been consumed with the best yet to come, Indiana Jones and James Bond would feature heavily on the week’s TV schedule, the GCD day of Halo 3 would be fast approaching (a 2 year tradition for me, but a good one none the less)…

This year only one of those is true.
School has finished and we are having a party tomorrow…  But for most, Christmas in Japan is pretty much a normal working day, sure there is a commerical hype, but it feels like the same kind of hype that mother’s day or father’s day might get - people trying to make money from products that under normal circumstances would see them sell nothing and lose their lively hood because of their foolishness in buying bulk lots of winter scene greetings cards, small plastic trees and red socks…  But on Thursday in Northern Ireland kids will be up early to see what they got from Santa, mothers will be up putting a turkey in the oven while everyone else will sleep in.  Here everyone will be up early, kids going to school, business men to the office, shop keepers will open their shops as normal…  Banks, post offices, buses, trains, pretty much everything will run as normal!

So it got me to thinking what the big deal was about Christmas?
Christians here celebrate Christmas for the same reasons that Christians at home do - Jesus coming into the world for our sake.  Christmas is like Easter.  It’s about Christ.  Sure there is a slight secular commercial blitz around it, but it really doesn’t seem to attempt to link itself to a meaning of Christmas.  But in the west, it is also about family, goodwill, sharing, giving, receiving, eating, drinking…… etc.  The true meaning kind ofhas competition.  Sure they are all good things…  Many of them even stem from the true meaning, but for too many people they expand and replace it…  Why is that?  And what about me, why is Christmas always such a more prominent event in my mental calendar than Easter?

Well…
Christmas in the UK is much more than simple commercialism for non-Christians.  It is a big festival in winter!  At Christmas time the depressing shortening of days has come to an end and they are going to get lighter from now on!  It is a holiday after such a long spell with no bank holidays or public holidays…  The last time everyone had a weekday off was in August!  And it is a time to let go for a bit and enjoy rich food, warming flavours, heartening traditions, family time, fun with friends, giving and receiving presents even when its not your birthday… etc etc etc…  When I really thought about why I like Christmas so much I realised that it isn’t just as a Christian that I enjoy it.  But I love all of the other aspects as well.  Well most of them!

So what about Japan?
Well in Japan they have another winter festival.  New Year is a huge thing here, people get several days off work (a big deal here!) go home to their families, spend time together.  There is a religious aspect to it, people going to shrines and temples etc.  But I will happily ignore that side and focus on the chance to have fun with friends, eat good food, give and receive etc…

I guess the bottom line is that Christmas is about Jesus, but the rest of the stuff (within reason) isn’t necessarily wrong or bad unless we allow it to push Jesus out of the picture, or we don’t have Him there to start with.  I think for me, being in Japan will mean that it will be easier to keep Jesus at the centre of Christmas…  The paraphernalia can wait til New Years…

 

It’s turned out kind of like an interview hasn’t it?  hmmm….

Tags: asian, christmas, commercialism, east, japan, new year, northern ireland, tradition, west

Landed, luggage and language!

I am in Sapporo!

I arrived here on Tuesday and luggage came too.  My big box from the UK hasn’t got here yet, it is taking it’s time through customs with a complication or two…  But DHL is keeping me up to date and I hope it will be here next week!
I have moved into my new apartment.  It’s great!  Actually larger than I expected and really nice…  I will post pictures sometime soon I promise!

I also spent some time today talking to Miriam Davis, the language co-ordinator here.  We were discussing the syllabus and how things work for me in terms of language study.  I was also introducted to Saito-sensei who will be teaching me Japanese for the next while.  I will start before Christmas with two lessons a day, including some kanji (the chinese characters) and going up to three in the new year…  I am really looking forward to this part now!  I think I will enjoy language study!

While I was on the plane from singapore I saw an episode of Flight of the Conchords and this song made me laugh.  So practise your french with the Conchords!

Tags: apartment, arrive, conchords, flat, french, japanese, jlc, luggage, sapporo

Japan – Land of the refreshing air!

It’s nice to need a jumper in November!

I have arrived in Japan!  The plane landed in at around 5pm, I got through immigration and customs, Met Wolfgang Langhans (the Field Director here) and we arrived at Japan HQ at around 7:15pm!  Now one very tasty dinner (with Wolfgang and Dorothea) and a short dander around Ichikawa later and it’s almost time for bed…

It’s great to be back in Japan, the train ride back from the airport already brought back the sounds and smells of Japan!  And some of the sights, even thought it was dark…

Leaving IHQ wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be as it was early so my brain wasn’t working yet!  OC was something I would rather have done without when I was looking forward to it.  But in reflection it was a very useful time, getting to know people who are going to different places, getting to know OMF as an international organisation (getting to know the bit inbetween the homeside and fieldside) and getting to kow the people who are working at international HQ

Tomorrow Emiri and her parents are coming!  Emiri is in Ibaraki at a friend’s wedding and she is going to come to morning worship at the Chapel of Adoration here tomorrow! They are going to arrive here quite early and so I will leave it at that and head to bed!

Tags: chapel, emiri, ichikawa, japan, OMF, plane, travel