Wedding Special

Hi there.
Long time no see. First of all, I must say....

Happy Wedding Mr. KS

Mr. KS is a good friend of mine who lives in India. Yesterday was his wedding reception. I was supposed to be there to celebrate it, but unfortunatelly I could not manage to visit India.

I saw some weddings in India when I was working in Delhi, that was some posh ones in the hotel yard. It was quite impressive as even two elefants were there to celebrate.

But let's face it. It would be 100 times more interesting and enjoyable, if it was a wedding for someone who I know. So it was the greatest regret that I could not be there. I have asked him to let me know well in advance as it could be tricky to organize trip to India. So he gave me about 6 months notice. He did what he should do and I could not do my part, therefore I feel bad.

There were 3 reason that I could not fly to India this time.

1. Flight ticket was too expensive than I presumed
2. Preparation (visa for India etc) was delayed as I was busy everyday
3. Something I do not want to mention in details here happend arround myself and I was (still am) busy trying to sort out

I just very much hope that it was the most wonderful wedding for him.

So my holiday is still valid and I ended up staying in Ireland whole week during my holiday. The weather is awful and cold and windy here. Why should I be here instead having a party in warm happy India?

I do not have many good news recently. While I was whinging like above, I received a letter from my school where I was studying in the evenings.

Dear Hidekis, I am happy to attach a statement of the successful result of your reecnt examination....

....
...
..

Hideki got a Diploma (for web diveloping)!!

This was the only good news recently, but I am quite happy. As I am hoping to work for IT related job in the future, this was a first step for me, and I passed it.

Banzai!

Hmm, I am now more and more motivated. What do I want to learn next? I will probably take a course for either Computer Graphics or JAVA language.

Well, not much more news to say at this moment.

Take care all..

Happy new year 2007

I hope the year 2007 will treat all of you nicely.

Hello from Dublin. Today is 1st January. The weather in Dublin is absolutely horrible (almost always, anyway). It is definitely not the sign of whatever comes in 2007. Just relax.

According to Analitics, there were 3 people visited my site on the new years eve. Wow. I know it is such a small number of people, but I was expected "none".

Well, anyway I will continue to update my diary from time to time. Not as often as my Japanese page. Why? Because ever since I changed my job in May, I became extremely busy (excuse, excuse).

My page is owned by google as you might have guessed. Good things about google page and google blog is that there are no banner ads, and also no limit of file memory. Google will probably run until I die, thats another good point to have one's own page (sometimes some free sever itself disapears overnight).

Now negative thing about this service is that there is not much freedom to do a lot of things on your site. For example, you can not upload files via FTP which is critical for me. Or there is not much pre-loaded feature such as calender, labels (category), PHP capability.

So I was thinking to rent a server and to leave google soon.

Recently I found a post on bloggers page.

"We’re excited about the new version of Blogger, both for what it can do now (which also includes access control for blogs and better input fields for post dates) and what we’ll add to it in the future, now that we have a new, stable, powerful infrastructure to work with. We’re done with “beta,” but we’re far from done with the new Blogger."

...they can read my thoughts??

I have already got a new sever, but never mind. I like overall Google project. So this page will stay the same another while...

Christmas season in Dublin

Greetings from Dublin.

Welcom back to Hidekis Blog Page. For those who have been waiting for the update particularly in India, and for those who don' care anyway, thank you for visiting my page again. After a few month of fighting against the phone company, I have now the internet connection resumed.

Whether you like it or not, Christmascomes every year. Like every other year, Dublin city centre is absoluitely packed with people. I just wonder where all these people come from. Even I do not like crowd, as my office is located near the centre, I went to take some photos to show you how it looks like.


Dublin's famous pedestrian shopping street"Grafton Street", still is crowded after 7PM. If you say it is much crowded in Shinjuku, or Shanghai, don't forget that it is in Ireland. Usually it is much quieter after dark in Dublin.


Off Grafton Street. It usually looks dark and boring here, but now it is very bright and looks much alive.


They spend a lot of effort and money on the show window of BrownThomas shopping mall. This year, for me it is quite difficult to comment on it. It does not look Christmas, but does look quite something.


Big Christmas Tree in front of General Post Office on the O'Connel Street.

I was a little embarrased to take photos in the crowd but there were lots of people doing the same thing.


After the photo session, I and my friend went to a Chinese restaurant. My favorite dish here is

Double Cooked Pork.

It is widely know in Japan as "hoy koh roh", but Chinese lady would not understan the way we say in Japan. Last time I was here, I asked to the same lady how to pronounce this dish. "hui guo rou" is how you say it.

So this time I said proudly "I would like to have hui guo rou please"

? ? ? ? ?

Hm? Isn't it hui guo rou?

? ? ?

hui guo rou hui guo rou hui guo rou

She was thinking every possible dish she could remember, out of my poor pronounciation.


Ah, you mean hui guo rou? OK OK, no problem.


That's what exactly I was saying.

My father who studied Chinese used to say to his son that "what's most difficult while studying Chinese is how to speak". It is much harder than I thought....

Tired of waiting

It has been, I believe, about 6weeks with no internet connection at home. It seems that we are gonna have one pretty soon. I had so many things to wright. As it was so many, I have forgotten most of them...

I have moved!

Long time no see, guys.
I have moved to a two bedroom house. Less people more comfort.

One thing I am not happy is that I do not have an internet access at home yet. There was an argument between two telecom companies "Eircom" and "Smart telecom", and things are so disorganised there.

My blog, both in English and Japanese are not updated for a while, unfortunatelly...

The earth is rounded 6

United800 bound for New York, is climbing up to 33000 feet. Seat belt sign is turned off, and drink service is now begun.

I asked for a glass of red wine, and then took a look at the on-board entertainment guide.

Let's see...

Channel1 Something New
Channel2 Eight Below
Channel3 Big Momma's House2
Channel4 Last Holiday
Channel5 Glory Road
Channel6 The Perfect Man
Channel7 The Pink Panther
Channel8 Disney Channel
Channel9 short programs


...well, could be better, but never mind. I would then may be see Eight Below and The Pink Panther, I think.


The plane reached the target altitude of 37000. The announcement from captain says "please keep the seat belt fastened while seated, just in case". Then the movie resumed.


Do you agree that it is kind of annoying when annuoncement interrupt the movie? The screen paused, and sometimes the volume of the annoucement from your headset is just too laud. When the movie start, you just remember it was a very nice scene and now you are spoiled.

The announcement is now from the captain, explaining the weather in New York and telling what route we are taking etc.
I have been waiting for the long announcement finish as it was in the middle of the movie.

Yes finally.


The movie resumed. 10seconds later, suspended again.

"(in Japanse) Ladies and Gentlemen, there was an announcement from captain. He said......."

Oh, Come on.

"Bla bla bla....."

Oh, enough!

"Blaaaah bla bla blalaaa...."

(Sigh)...what can you do?

"....so please sit back and enjoy the flight. Thank you."


Finally. Shall I rewind the movie or not? I am tired of waiting.

The movie sould resume in any moment. I had a sip of the red wine.


The screen remain paused and...

"搭乘的大家先生ー"

What? Chinese??

I forgot about it. This flight is a one stop flight. It came from HongKong or Beijin, stopping Tokyo once to pick up more passengers. Oh God, help me.

"座椅安全??常?地勒?．．．現在的現地的天气．．"

Just....please...


If you think about the time when there was no such a long range plane such as boeing 777 that can fly over 12000Km. For instance,

Tokyo to Paris via Hongkong, Dhaka, Delhi, Dubai.

Announcement start with Japanese, then Chinese, Bengali, Hindi, Arabian, English, and France.

Better stop thinking.

A movie finished. Where are we? Let's take a look at the satellite map.


Long way to go...

The earth is rounded 5

Did I travelled in the economy class, or did not travel at all? The answere is here.

Not bad.


By the way, the photo is a smoking area of Narita Airport. What you can see at the center of the photo is the cigarette lighter. Just like the one you can find on the car. Passenger who flies to the States can not carry a lighter. Therefore the airport provides it. That's logical. But I have never seen such a thing anywhere else. It is just great to have little things like this.

Good idea, well done!

Well, I am now on board, already having a welcome chanpagne. What I do next is to tune Channel 9 of on board entertainment.

United's channel 9 is wonderful for person who likes aviation. You can listen the communication between the cockpit and traffic control. I always listen to it at take off and landing. It is interesting and sometimes funny.

For example, some months before, I was about to leave London Heathrow. The taxi way was a bit of traffic jam. Following was from Channel 9.

----------------------------------------

Ground Control: "Speedbird(call sign for British Airways) 314, turn right next and follow All Nippon Boeing747(says carrier and aircraft type for visual check)."

BA314: "Roger. Turn right and follow All Nippon Boeing747. Speedbird314.(Repeat order and identify his flight)"


Very serious and professional communication


Ground: "United959..."

Hey, that's our flight!

Ground: "...keep going and erhh..."

Hah? What's happening?

Ground: "arh...just follow that NICE BLUE PLANE."


....He couldn't remember the aircraft type, I guess. Then I heard,

United959: "Roger, I follow NICE BLUE PLANE."

in a serious manner. I spread the water all over with laugh as I was about to drink.

Ground: "You are right. Ouah-ha-ha-ha-ha...."

Sir....

------------------------------------

Anyway, not so crowded Narita Airport, we are almost at the Runway.

Ground: "United800, you are cleared for take off."


See you Narita. United 800 taking off with full throttol (please switch off all electrical equipment...)

The earth is rounded 4

The beginning of "The earth is rounded vol.4" was really for Japanese people, talking about how you get to central Tokyo from Narita Airport with various transport. I'll skip on that.

My stay in Japan on this trip was only for 6days. My jet lag is getting worse and worse now a days, and I don't want to believe it is due my age. Well, a holiday like this short, I spend my time with Irish time zone. Therefore I do not suffer jet lag when I get back to Dublin. I was up until around 4a.m. and get up at noon while I was in Japan.

I haven't done much in Japan this time. I spent time with family most of the time. It was a bit too late for Cherry blossom season, but it was nicely not too cold, not too hot. I went to Onsen spa, and went to some place to eat nice food.

About my stand by ticket, what happens if the flight was totally full? No prob. You can change flight and destination. Problem on that day was that I definitely needed to arrive in New York on that day and there is no other way to be there without using a non stop flight. If full, then I had to ask captain to give up his seat (Ooops, that called hi-jack).

UA800 / destination New York JFK

This plain is quite often full in Business and First class, and empty in Economy. I have travelled in Economy class on this flight (for 13hours) before, and it was absolutely disaster. Hmmmm, which seat am I gonna get on? I have to wait the result at the gate.

By the way, today was the day the new terminal opened in Narita Airport. This terminal was to integrate all the Star Alliance airlines to be in one terminal. There was TV cameras everywhere and even Maiko miodels.

Hidekis without check-in baggage, went straight to the Electric check-in machine, and that was done within 1 minute. Received a boarding pass (without seat number), I proceeded to the security hall and passport control.

As I entered the passport control, I almost screemed


Empty...


The passport control hall in Narita airport usually filled with full of people queueing and my job was to find out which queue is moving faster than others. It is important to see how each immiguration officers handling it and you know, the shorter queue sometimes moves slower than others.

But today, there is not queue in front of probably about 6 conters. I don't have to worry about this kind of crap. Biggest benefit of the new terminal.


Viva new terminal!


Now as usual, I wait in front of the gate of UA800 until all the passengers get on board, then my name will be called, if not full flight....


Brand new self check-in machine. One machine can handle a number of different airlines system.

The earth is rounded 3

If you see the earth from North side...



The blue routing is for normal person. Hidekis took the red routing. You can see how foolish it is to take the red routing which is almost twice the distance than the blue one.

Anyway. Why am I sitting in the business class? Most of airline employee has so called "Flight benefit". As long as there is a seat available, employees can fly very cheap with stand-by basis. Airlines do not lose money with it.

Amongst airlines, American companies are generally good on benefit. The company where I used to work put employees in First class. If not available then business class. The european airlines I used to work before gave only economy class as customers are the priority.

Well it does not have to be like that. Most of the no-show occurs in the higher class as those expensive tickets have no restriction for changing flights. So higher classes would likely have empty seat in the end. So why not assigning employees in there? I would not agree to upgrade economy customer to business class usless airline disservice such as over booking occurs. The difference between economy and business on the longhaul flights are usually more than a few thousands euro. They should not upgrade customers easily. That would disrespect paid business customers.

How do I justify employee to sit in higher classes? Well, airline employees do not get good salary in general. So they deserve it. OK?

So today, Hidekis was lucky that there was only one seat left on UA845 and that was the business class. My flights today were:

Depart Frankfurt at 08:25 --- arrive Chicago at 10:27. Journey time 9h27m

2h32m waiting time

Depart Chicago at 12:59 --- arrive Tokyo at 16:15 (next day). Journey time 13h16m


Changing planes in the state is unpleasent. Even you do not stay in the States, you must go through the immigration. Furthermore, after September11 incident, security became tight and everytime you go through immigration, they take your finger print and photos that makes whole process very slow.

I do not have a good luck in Chicago every time. This time I see it would go smoothly, but about 10 people before my turn, they stopped the visitor line and let US citizen go first as the queue for US citizen was longer. So all the visitor had to wait more than a half an hour.

To reduce any of those stress, Hidekis never bring checked baggage. I bring small enough bag for carry on (if you change planes in the US, you need to claim bags and re-check in).

Chicago O'Hare Airport, the world NO1 busiest airport has 4 terminals and 8 concourse.
My UA883 bound for Tokyo leaves from Terminal1. Arriving at Terminal1 by airtrain, I quickly had one cigarette, then to gate. Busy, busy.

I know this flight is busy flght. I know it. But still not happy. The boarding pass I got shows "Economy class".

At least my seat was in the Economy plus area that has extra legroom in it. But economy is still economy. I used one special cushion for my back and another one for neck to sleep.


13hours later, UA883 is now at final approach. Senery below is difinitely Japan. I departed toward the opposit direction than other Japanese people I saw in Frankfurt, but here I am, back in Japan somehow.




UA883 was in the boeing777 old livery. Average opinion says the old colour is better than the new one. I actually like the new one. What do you think?

The earth is rounded 2

Near the place I stayed...



A smart way to park smart.


Anyway, the next day I woke up at 5:30, I headed to the Airport. Very convenient to go to the station which was just one minute walk from the accommodation.

Frankfurt (Main) International Airport. Of course, it is 10 million times bigger than Frankfurt Hahn.

I arrived there early. Had some chat with friend who works at the airport, then went to the gate.

Despite smoker-unfriendly-Europe, this airport is the exception. There are smoking area everywhere. You don't have to smoke in the cage-like smoking room like Narita or Helsinki airport, here you just stand in front of smoke eater (machine). It is easy to observe what is happening at the departure gate when you are smoking.

Today, the gate area where most westbound flights leave, was crowded. Me as stand-by passenger, have to wait until every passenger get on board. Yes, people who are still hanging around the gate are quite likely the airline employees travelling on stand-by.

The one I take today is United Airlines (guess what, it is the airline where I used to work until recently) UA945. Gate agents are Lufthansa(Star Alliance Group) handling agents.

Around the time when I thought I will be called momentarily, a lufthansa femail agent shouted,

"Mr. Hidekis?"

That's my name. Finally!

But strange. Instead of giving me a boarding pass, she passed me an emergency mobile phone that usually used by airport staff. What a.....

"Hullooo..?"

I answered powerlessly as I was so hoping to get on board, sit back and relax as soon as possible.

"Ah, Hidekis? Long time. It's Maria(fictional)"

Ohm? After flashing quick thought, I now remember an ex-colleague who were transfered to London.

"Oh hey, long time. Aren't you supposed to be in London?"

She explain that she was transfered once again as she speaks German well.

"By the way, the flight you are taking is very full. All passenger has boarded and there is only 1 seat left that is Business class. I hope it will be yours."

Oh. I thought it won't be busy flight as midweek.... Who has priority for employee stand-by traveling? It's Seniority. There are a few people hanging around the gate. Knowing there's only one seat left, I was watching those people in an agressive way..

"Mr, Uh.... Hidekis?"

Not too confident how to pronounce my name, but Yes, that's my name. I jumped and showed my happiness.

I threw myself into a nice, confortable Business class seat, and of course, asked for Champagne.



New livery United Airlines Boeing777 pushed back on time...

The earth is rounded 1

Sometime in the late May, I was at Dublin airport in the early morning. Temperature was 2degree, my appearance was absolutely winterlike.

This was already my last large holiday of this year. Hidekis who used to work for an airline company has a set of free ticket to Japan left. Only one thing I do not like is that I have to take flights via USA which takes twice longer than the ones via Siberia.

Anyway, this time I have some additional destination within this holiday, and the first one is Frankfurt, Germany. I was to meet old friend there to have dinner. My ex-ex-work place was an airline company who does not opperate between Dublin and Frankfurt, so I had to buy a ticket.

It was about a month before the holiday, most of the airlines are already expensive, I dont know why. So the conclusion was to take Ryan air to Frankfurt Hahn. I did not want to take it but did not have any more option.

Frankfurt Hahn is not in Frankfurt. That's a chatch. It takes more than 2hours buy bus to go to Frankfurt city.


Arriving at Hahn, there's absolutely nothing. In the air side, there was just an Aerofloat cargo DC10. I got on the bus to the city and waited for departure. A poor old lady who believed that she bought a flight ticket to Frankfurt Main (international) was complaining to the bus driver. Of course it was not driver's fault.

Driver: "Have a look around, madam. There's nothing. This is so called -Middle of nowhere"

...Well, did he have to assure that? I don't know.


The place where I stayed that night was just near the Hauptbahnhof (central station). How close was it?



It was litterely in front of the station. So convenient.

But I want to speak up here. I can not at all imagine it is the place where World cup take place. The signs in front of the station is nothing to do with soccer. It was so calm and boring. 4years ago when the world cup was in Japan, there was Adds everywhere in Tokyo. People were excited about that. Even in New York where I visited later of this holiday, in the States where soccer is not very popular, it was like a photo below.



Well, I was a bit dissapointed about it. But the food in the restaurant I went with my friend was very very good. So I forgive you (who?)

Coming next: unimaginablly long flight journey...

Back from Japan

Hi there.
I am back from Japan for holiday. I will not going back to Japan until next year, so I wanted to do as many things to do as possible.

I will be writing about the trip for a few weeks and show you some photos. For now, good night...

Escaping a reality

Well...I am really sorry that I have not managed to update my diary so far. My new job is really killing, but the problem is that I really like it so far. It is a shame that I can not tell you what it's like.

Dublin now is again wet and dull. Farthermore tonight it goes down to 3 degree. Un believable. And even amazing twist is that tomorrow is forcasted to be 24degree for high. I will go mad with these extreme weather.

I will fly back to Japan for holiday via the States this week. After this, I probably won't go to the States for a long time. As I do not work for an american company, I do not have a reason to go to the States. Hopefully in the future I could work for an airline company that flies to Japan via Siberia so the benefit will be good for me.

Anyway Japan. The most I would like to do there is to go to Onsen, a hot spring. I only have a week in Japan this time, but I want to go to Onsen at least twice.

There is an Onsen near my place. Rather in the city though. When you go there, a Yukata is provided. You go to the hot spring then get out with Yukata and eat or relax. After a while, you go back in to the bath again. This is how you spend almost half a day there. It is very relaxing and especially good for your blood circulation.

I believe it is one of the most important to keep a good blood circulation on an adult body condition. So many problems caused directly and/or indirectly by bad blood circulation. Tense, headache, joint etc.....

I will for a while forget all about Dublin life in order to success total relaxasion. Will see how it worked when I come back to Dublin.

Take care all.

My new gorgeous

Sorry, it's been a long time. I have been quite busy now a days.

My flatmate found a particular camera I wanted with a good discount in Japan. So now I have it. This camera is just so gorgeous.

So I have to take some test photos. What shall I take (looking around my room)?



No! Definitely not. I do not drink every day....

Well, this is one of my favorite scotch whiskey. Came this far, why not tonight?

Spring has come

Spring has come suddenly. Dublin here now is 18 degree and sunny. I woke up at 7 in the morning although I am off today.

It is nice to sleep longer, but when I sleep longer, I would not wake up until noonish time. Then I know what I say,

Urrrr, half of my precious day off is over

No, I do not want that. So went down to the kitchen, had a morning cofee, started washing machine, had shower, check email..... Everything has done before anyone in the house got up. All I have to do is to hung the clothes once machine finish. Great. No fighting.


Yesterday afternoon, the weather was beautiful. I decided to cut grass on the garden. Starting grass mower, my flatmate bursted out of house and said,

How could you murder these floweres???

I cut grass in this season every year before the garden turn into a jungle. After that we can lay down on the green under the sun, read a book with beer, or chat with friends or have a berbecue party.

But when I looked at those flowers, I thought pity of cutting them all. So I agreed to leave half of them until there is no more flower. My flatmate was happy in the end.

Spring makes people happy and peaceful. This is the end of Dark, Windy, Wet and depressing season.

As being a customer servise of Finacial company, even though it is a beautiful Spring season, there are a lot of unhappy professional complaint makers talking to me nasty way.

But this is the end of it. I found a new job. This was one of many CVs I have sent before I got my current job. Several of them replied after I started this finance job. So I did not attend interviews. But this time, I was alredy thinking about leaving the company anyway so I went to the interview and they liked me.

So why not?

My new job will be completely different area. I would not know if I will be happy or unhappy, but at least interesting. Will have to see how it goes...


--Important Note--

From now on, I will not disclose my work in this home page. Any comment by someone who know me that can publisize what I am doing for work, will be removed. It does not mean that I work for secret agent or illegal organization. My new job is a healty job. What my concern is the publication effect to annonimous people, including myself and my collegue. Thank you for understanding.

P.S. If you want to know what my new job is, please ask. I will email back to you.

Happy chap

Why am I so happy?
First of all, my holiday on late May has been aproved. I will go back home in Tokyo.

On the way home, I would like to stay one night at Frankfurt to meet my friend(s) there. It would be very nice to get together.

On the way back from Tokyo, I will go to Philadelphia to see a concert. I just bought a ticket for it on line.

In fact, I was planning to see them a year ago, but one of the people in the group got leukaemia and had to cancell all the tour schedule.

They are 60's folk group and one of the oldest existing and active group.

This person recovered and the group has started touring again, as if to sing is their destiny.

I will not miss the chance to see them this time. I will not. This probably once in the life time event makes me excited these days, and I just can not wait for it anymore.


Today, my flatmate is coming back from Japan after a long 3weeks holiday. He will bring my new digital camera (-of course it is Canon. I only buy Canon digital. I love them).

So this is another reason to be happy today. Weather is lovely in Dublin. Sunny and 15degree. In 2hours, I will be off to the airport to pick him up.

Happy weekend.

Pink Season

April is one of the most beautiful season in Japan. For only one or two weeks, cherry blossoms makes a full power of blooming around. Everywhere is pink. Every little towns and villages have local festivals.

My uncle emailed me about cherry blossoms season, I realised that I have not been back in Japan in this season for over 6 years.

In Dublin (you know what I am about to say), it still goes minus degree at night and I think this year is unusual. Can someone help making a weather better here?

I would like to share Japanese Sakura (cherry blossoms) view with you guys. Let's see... How about these links?

Japan Guide

Wonderful night view of Sakura

You might ask "when is the season? You said it is only one or two weeks."

Well thats the thing. It is different every year depending on how quickly Spring comes. So TV shows Sakura Forcast in Japan. Even though the forcast in Japan is reliable, some times it comes unpredictably sooner than forcasted. But these festivals needs to be planned in advance, and they sometimes miss it.

I have seen some times in my local town that Sakura Festival turned in to New Leaf Festival as it was not pink anymore....

New job

Some of you already know but I have found a new job recently.

I have been working in Travel industry more than 6 years. Now I am in Financial industry. This is a drastic change of industry but not so big change in a sense of being a customer servise person.

I am still not sure if it was a right decision to be in a finance company. In fact, there is not much opportunity to work in travel in dustry. It is either no position, or too low income.

I would like to do something creative. It is hard to know what exacty I really want to do though. Finance was not an option in my mind in the begining but gradually I expanded some more options to search for a job, as it is getting too long to be full time on holiday.

I would stay in my current job for a while until the time I can judge myself to know if this is the place for me or not.

One of the biggest change is that I have a chance to pop in to supermarkets. Previous work was just 30minutes walk, but there is no supermarket on the way. Now I am taking a train everyday and I could buy fresh vegitables everyday if I want to.

Another thing is that I do not do shift work. So now it is easier to join a course after work for example. I might start learning something.

Well, lets see how things goes on, and how I feel in about a few months time.

An annual Japanese meeting

There was an annual Japanese get-together on Saturday. I did not count exactly but probably over 25 people showed up at a pub in the city center of Dublin.

It is interesting to get to know Japanese people who decided to come to Dublin to live. As majority goes to UK, they have stories to tell why they come to Ireland.

Some likes Irish music like me, some do not like too popular places among Japanese such as London. Some even like specifically Irish accent.

This time, I was a little silly. I kept drinking rather stronger German beer in the pub and rather quickly I was quite pissed. I remember that I was talking to 4 or 5 people, but no more. What was wrong with me? I don't know.

So I did not get to know many people this time. Ah, shame on me.

Oh, I remember I was talking to a French guy in English there (he was a boy frend of a Japanese girl). I found it was easier to speak English. There is certan way to talk to someone for the first time in Japanese. I talk sometimes too frankly I guess in Japanese to anyone. And I can feel that sometimes people think it is too much or I am a bit strange.

Anyway that's beside the point. The following day I wasted half a day to recover from hungover. Never again.

Well I am going to bed now, once I finish my beer. (Will I ever learn?)

Playing with animation program

One day, I was playing with GIF animation program. I have published to my friend's website for limited period (5years aniversary of his home page). Unfortunately his page is completely Japanese, but you can still evidence the silly design which I made.

You can click HERE to see it.

The picture of the page was taken when we recently travelled around north west of Ireland. See the contrast of the road sign and the car beyond. We laughed so much when we saw it and even turn our car back there to take a photo.