Another though on seasons

Touché mate, touché!

Last night I woke in the middle of the night thinking about Japan and the Japanese appreciation of nature and seasons. On Tuesday I had a brief interaction with my next door neighbour, it went something like this:
Neighbour: Beautiful day!
Me: Isn't it!
Neighbour: *Murmur mutter* autumn!
Me: I love autumn!
Neighbour: Me too!

It was the most meaningful conversation I'd ever had with him, I think because it was really obvious we both love autumn and I never really felt any connection with him before, though he's a perfectly pleasant person. This mutual season-loving conversation was really nice and I don't know if it was that or something I dreamed but I just woke up thinking about how in Japan, in the spring, they have cherry blossom parties. Japanese people would tell me that on a morning in sakura season a person in the office (every office) would be sent to a park with a blue tarp (so many blue tarps in Japan) and stake out their spot for the sakura party. The person would have to sit and mind that spot all day and then the rest of the office would come and join them to drink and enjoy the sakura when the work day finished. Can you imagine this being part of the Australian calendar. I mean it's awesome. In Japan in spring there are cherry blossoms everywhere and in the parks under those trees there are people on blue tarps everywhere. It's beautiful.

In the autumn in Japan if you tell someone you are going out of town they'd tell you the best places to visit to see the changing leaves. Or if you stay in town they tell you parks to visit to view the best autumn leaves. It struck me as a little strange until I walked through the forest in Kamakura in autumn and saw that the leaves really are beautiful.

I know that here on Miss Soft Crab we talk a lot about seasons. But on the whole I think Japan does it better and I just think we should take a leaf out of their book. A beautiful autumn leaf.

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Aquarius

February is 

Full of birthdays of loved ones

Happy birthday, friends

Heston 

Heston Blumenthal

You had me at vanilla

Cinnamon ice-cream 

Japanese

Japanese, the food,

You are always on my mind

 This week. And my lips

Friday Favourites: Flamingos (AM)

A few years ago while on holiday in Japan I saw some sort of nature documentary on a hotel TV and there were flamingos in it. There was this beautiful footage of a huge flock of flamingos walking across the desert and it was pretty mind-blowing. (I tried to find a photo on the Google for you guys but nothing compares.) And I said to LB (HB), "I love flamingos. They are definitely one of my favourite birds."

Later that holiday we went to the Ueno Zoo. They had so many beautiful birds there. Vultures! PUFFINS! A bunch of peacocks the likes of which I had never seen before or since! But you know what I could not tear myself away from? The friggin' flamingos! Seriously I could have stood in front of those bastards forever. Here are some photos I took of them.

 

Aren't they beautiful?!

Then a few days later I saw a gold pendant in a jewellery store. It was a flamingo pendant! I dropped some hints to LB that he may want to buy it for me, saying things like, "Hey, you should buy that for me." But he just didn't pick up on them.

Well I don't have that pendant but I do have a massive love of flamingos. Did you know that they are pink because of the food they eat!? It's prawns that make them look like that?! Did you know that one theory about why they stand on one leg is that half of there body sleeps at one time!? And did you know that they are one of three birds that do something akin to lactating?! This makes me really feel like we are kindred. Of course they make their "milk" in their throat and regurgitate it into their babies mouths. And the "milk" may be more like cottage cheese. But I don't care. I love flamingos so much. They are my Friday Favourite African bird! Fo shiz!!!!

Things I can't believe: the Japan edition

First, that crows have such big beaks in Japan.

Second, that artificial hymens exist, and are big in Japan (read the article guys, you won't regret it!)

Third, that the following description of all the hymen-damaging conditions which may qualify a lady for the artificial hymen is actually necessary:

• Female whose hymen was broken due to physical exercise (gymnastics, track and field sports, martial arts, etc.) 
• Females whose hymen was broken due to premarital sex (active or passive)
• Females whose hymen was broken as a result of childhood games 
• Females whose hymen was broken due to masturbation 
• Females with congenital defects of hymen

Too much exposition, article about artificial hymens!
Why couldn't you just say "The artificial hymen is suitable for crazy bitches without hymens"?
Right?

Things I like: Japan

I've been thinking about Japan lately.

Perhaps it is because I saw a large crow yesterday and Tokyo is full of those bastards. But in Tokyo they have freakishly large beaks.



In high school I had a friend who had a paranoia about seeing six crows in a day. This had never happened mind you but she got it in her head that if she did it would bring bad luck. She would not stand a chance in Tokyo. Those bastards are everywhere.

Maybe its because Strawberry and Quirk are going there and Strawbs sent me the link to their blog. They leave today, so of course blog so far is just about their plans. Which include what you expect of course.

The Asahi challenge for example.


And Tokyo Disneyland.

I bought LB tickets to Tokyo Disneyland for his birthday when we lived there and it was hands down one of the best days of my life. It was so friggin fun. I had never been on a roller coaster before. Can you believe it?! My childhood was deprived I guess. But that day I went on so many! Tokyo Disneyland is a dry zone. But not for us. We snuck in vodka and drank it mixed into some weird orange drink then went on Space Mountain and the Winnie the Pooh ride and watched the awesome light parade. We were so innocent then.

Maybe it's because my friend, let's call him David, sent me a link to this fascinating article on Japanese faux hymens.

Man, I love that crazy place!

Just imagination

Your first ski lesson sounds exactly like mine!*

The European instructor, the fact that snow is really slippery and people who can ski don't seem to appreciate how scary that is, the attrition rate of the class, the excitement of doing your first successful snow plough.

I bet you were loving it by the end, right!

I actually get lessons every time I go to the snow because I am quite bad at all sports, and I love all the Europeans who teach ski school. Having said that, my all time favourite lesson was not from a European at all, it was from a Japanese lady called Yuko.

Many years ago, Rib-Eye and I went to Queenstown and while he went off to carve up that sweet powder (is that right?) I booked myself in for a lesson. I started at the bottom level to work on my snow plough. By afternoon I was ready for more of a challenge, so booked a group lesson with Yuko to learn how to do turns.

Though English was Yuko's second language, she made a real effort to explain the art of snow turning to us. She explained that we have to lean our weight to one side if we want to turn, but struggled to convey that we lean the opposite direction from the way we want to turn. Stop me if you know this already, but you basically lean your weight to the right if you want to turn left, and lean your weight to the left if you want to turn right.

Anyway, folks were leaning this way and that and stacking in to each other left right and centre. It was hilarious actually, but I guess some people were not amused. Anyway, Yuko was not OK with what was going on, so after a while, she gathered the group together and said (now I hope everyone has their Japanese accents ready!):

"Imagine your ski have tiny tiny speaker on them, for music listening. On reft ski, the reft speaker. On right ski, the right speaker.

When you want make reft turn, rean crose to hear music from right speaker. When you want make right turn, rean crose to risten to reft speaker. When you want go straight, risten in stereo!!"

Yuko looked very pleased with this analogy, and rightly so.

But as if this wasn't adorable enough, she then said:

"Not real, just imagination!".

She was super cute and that was defo my favourite ski lesson.

*Well, that's not strictly true. The first time I ever had a ski lesson was on Year 9 ski camp and it was pretty much the worst day of my life. It was so bad that I prefer not to include it in the part of my memory reserved for skiing experiences, but keep it instead in the part of my brain reserved for things I never ever want to think about again. Tune in to MSC tomorrow for a full description.