私は日本に住んでいるのを待つことができない

I'm on the final countdown. Ten days till I move to the land of karaoke, salarymen, mamacharis and bento boxes. My prefecture has the highest percentage of home owned karaoke machines. Eeeh!

Down by the river

I unearthed some pictures yesterday from way back at the end of summer when we drove out to Kaitoke park, lay on the hot rocks, ate eclairs from the french bakery and splashed around in the ice cold river. Bring back summer!

I'll eat your fingers, I'll eat your toes

One of my best friends James once got bitten on the face by an irate girlfriend who he was (thankfully) in the process of dumping. He had an amazing round bite mark on his cheek for weeks. It was weird and hilarious. The situation would been much worse (or better?) if he had been one of Giuseppe Archimboldo's characters.

I've never been able to get over how amazing he is at mashing a pile of food together to create simultaenously likeable, grotesque and comic works of wonder.

When I was little my school had the human fruit and vege competition where you shaped a person through the inventiveness of carrots, peas, artichoke or whatever your parents happened to have handy. I was never very good, producing a pile of non descript food and submitting it as an entry. My brother on the other hand was magnificent, carving characters through a fusion of melon, cauliflower and potato. Giuseppe Arcimboldo would have beaten my brother for sure. Look at those pear noses!

Weekend

Ladies of love

Photographing inside variousTokyo love hotels, Nathalie Doust uncovers a whole lot of weird fetishs, interesting costumes, strange rooms and a glimpse into the lives of the woman who work there.

Today

Today I'm 25.  I'm theoretically quarter life,  and no longer 'post teen'. Today I am at a 'firmly in your twenties' age.  

Today my Grandma was cremated. I only realised at 2pm and it made me feel really sad. We'll take her ashes to be with my Granddad's. She looked so nice at her funeral. They didn't do her up too much. 

Today is 18 days till I move to Japan. I am so nervous and excited. I dream about Japan a lot.

 It's been such a strange day. I had office colleagues awkwardly sing me happy birthday and I got so embarrassed I turned and faced the door slightly. 

Chocolates were left on my desk and I got lots of kisses and hugs from my friends at lunch and tonight they're coming for dinner so we can drink wine and eat good food cooked by my boyfriend who is better than me in the kitchen although I don't like to admit that. 

It's been a nice day. Birthdays make you feel like putting on your shiniest pair of shoes or a ribbon in your hair. If today was a song it would be 'new slang' by the shins. I think that's the only way i can fully explain it.

Pizazz

I wish my life was a technicolour dream, much like old children's movies. I watched the 1940 version of Fantasia the other day and it blew my socks off.