Narnia, anyone? Slightly spoilt by sad lack of Faun with packages, snow, and having to travel there by nasty smelly overcrowded commuter train, rather than wardrobe...

Had this come out, it would have been awesome... Don't stare at it too hard, it'll make you go dizzy!!

View from my window on a frosty autumn morning. For anyone who's ever been there, the building right in the back ground to the left of the church spire is the hexagonal one by East Croydon station... Nothing if not glam.

MisoMoose

In case you can't quite see, this was my scrummy bowl of Miso soup that I had the other day... got my first care package from Japan, for which I was extremely grateful - miso, senbei, and a load of other Japanese goodies. So I'm feeling a bit less disconnected and have been reminiscing about lots of Japan stuff.

Then, the guys at work came back from a business trip to Japan and brought a load of stuff with them - sweets, umeshu (yeh baby!) and my boss, bless him, even brought me sushi, somehow, which I had for lunch and was awesome!!

And then this week I finally got around to writing to my two brilliant Japanese teachers at Gosh class who turned out week after week as volunteers for three years... and had the pleasure of telling them that the stuff they taught me enabled me to get not just a job, but a potential career (this week I found out I've been accepted onto Westiminster's translation diploma prep. course).

I haven't really thought yet, what I miss most about Japan, apart from the people. I guess I've been busy enjoying the British stuff that I had been missing (without really knowing it) for three years... I just find it really impossible to focus on more than one culture at a time!! There is something a little bit isolating - if also a little bit smug!! ;) - about having gotten used to expecting things to be different, but at least I now have a perfectly valid reason for feeling out of place, and basically, I feel really lucky for having had the chance to get so submerged of another way of life. I still feel like it's too early to pull out a coherent list of "things Japan taught me", but in an incoherent way I go about life with those lessons informing the things that I do. Although most of that is not particularly Japan-related, but simple life-stuff like learning to put one foot in front of the other.

I did get a bit natsukashii when I heard it was snowing in Aomori though, and seeing Luke's pictures of the mountain, but with any luck I'll be able to see it all again sooner than I thought...

Have been finding it really difficult to take cool pictures here, not like Aomori where you have mountains and waterfalls and cool stuff... but this was the view of my office over London on Tuesday night, and am debating with myself whether it might count as cool. Am just gonna have to get out and practice more!

Dorset Countryside

Wildflower

Quiet eyes
You have always been my wildflower
Showing up wherever beauty's lost its way
Your heart must break

I was free
Until I heard the song you sang to me
Pulling me away from everything I knew
To be with you

And everything I know just fades away
And every time you go it hurts me so
I don't know why when I know we're free
Free to fly

Here we are
Burning faster than the closest star
Falling back down to the earth
I love you so it sometimes hurts

Closer still
You will find me standing on the hill
Waiting for you with my arms stretched open wide
Now, come inside

And everything I know just fades away
And every time you go it hurts me so
I don't know why when I know we're free
Free to fly

And everything I know just fades away
And where the wildflower grows it picks its space
And that's the way it is when nature plays its lovely hand
We'll understand everything
Everything, everything

Sheryl Crow

Famous People!!

WOAH -----!!

Ok, so I was walking home as usual this evening, just like usual, through the (now dark - clocks changed the weekend before last, ugh!) park, must have gotten to Hyde Park Corner shortly before half five. And as I was crossing the road, I noticed that this lone police guy on a motorbike was trying (with a whistle) to stop the cyclists (at which I laughed contemptuously - it's gonna take more than a whistle to stop the HP cyclists!!) Then I noticed that he was also blocking the traffic (Hyde Park Corner is like this HUGE three-lane roundabout with like a huge arch and statues and stuff in the middle - and this was in the middle of rush hour so no mean feat) and that no-one was moving. And I then twigged what was about to happen, having luckily read this article at lunchtime... through comes the Chinese delegation's limo, flag flying and all, with generous police escort, presumably on the way back from Buckingham Palace. OK so I didn't actually see Hu Jintao, but I was pretty close... I was quite, like, wow.

Other famous people spotted since I started working at Marble Arch are Jeremy "and it's goodnight from me, goodnight" Paxman, who walked past my phone box one lunchtime looking entirely bright and happy with the state of the world, and (this was a good one) Clare Short, who I practically bumped into coming out of the underpass near Speaker's Corner. She went off round the corner and I got about two steps up before it sank in, and had to fight the urge to run back and say "hello! you're Clare Short aren't you?!" of all the pathetic things... anyway I guess it just goes to show that famous people don't just exist on TV.

Weekend of YAY pt IV

Had a short weekend away at Steph's in Cambridge - good excuse to take more pictures, and drink lots of coffee...

Cambridge market

Cambridge street - (note herd of bikes)

PINK is the new... well pink. Steph loves pink even more than coffee.... hey, just imagine if they made pink coffee Steph!!

Parkers Pieces

Gt St Mary's

Christ's

King's

There was this random guy busking on the corner opposite where Woolies used to be. He was getting the dogs to bark in time to the music, which was certainly a first for me. I used to have an amp just like that one though!!

Then we went to see the fireworks on Midsummer Common (which lasted about 15 minutes... I really miss the Japanese ones where they make interesting shapes and stuff!) but there was a fun fair which was cool.

This was the ride that Steph and Ames went on - you can't actually see (it being a photo an' all) but it was spinning around really fast!

Motto of womanhood

How Happy Are You?

Ok, this is turning into a bit of a running-theme but anyway. Enough of moaning about other people's grumpiness, I have enough of my own most of the time!!

I had an experience this week that really spooked me out of my grumpiness. I am a bit of a one for moaning, especially recently, but when you reach a moment where it seems you are in danger of losing all that matters, it really makes you realise how good things are. I mean, things here are great - I have a great job, great colleagues, some really solid friends, a cute apartment, and I have control over my lifestyle, I have choices, possibilities.... if there's a weak link it's simply the fact that I am not trying hard enough.

At any rate, none of the things I regularly moan about are anything like as painful as realising that I might risk throwing all the great things away just by not being grateful for them.

I dunno if that means I am settling in, or what, but I guess this marks the end of my quiet little strop at life. It's the same life, the same ups-and-downs, but I have a feeling that a positive outlook could dramatically change the way I live it.