well it's been a busy week. we've been preparing for our christmas kids party, and also christmas craft week. now, i know i haven't mentioned the band for a while. i'm delighted to announce that we have our first (and probably ONLY) gig coming up, to a guaranteed crowd of 120 people. and we even have a name now. yup. we're called senseii-tional (with tongue firmly in cheek), and our 40 minute repertoire includes such stadium-pleasers as jingle bells, rudolf the red nosed reindeer, i'm dreaming of a white christmas, you are my sunshine and another japanese song, unknown to me at this point of time. of course, all of them with a cool little twist . jingle bells has a funky little dub rythm, rudolf has a screaming pace that would make all modern west coast US punks proud. white christmas is a hilarious extended croon, and you are my sunshine has a pleasant reggae sing along, complete with hand clapping interval and doo-wops.... we're going to be stars. the kids are gonna love us. or else they'll all be sitting there politely bemused and race out the door the moment we finish our last note, in typical japanese fashion.

on the way to work after morning band practice on thursday, aki and i had the dubious pleasure of driving smack bang into the middle of a yakuza funeral traffic jam in one of gekoji's tiny little side lanes. there we were in the big white van, with aki wearing his big puffy white michelin-man coat, stuck behind and in front of a long line of big expensive black cars with full blackened windows and maybe about 100 middle aged tough guys lining the street. we both felt dangerously conspicious.... like a nervous dove trying to edge it's way through a huge flock of crowing erm... crows.

we were already late for work. aki started to giggle nervously, "they'll kill me if i blow my horn". i was kinda excited by the whole thing and pretended to reach for my camera just to freak aki out. it worked. he nearly choked. there were even security guys with earpieces looking furtively up and down the lane. we found out later that they were all attending the funeral of some high level yakuza dude at the cemetary behind our school.

for those of you who don't know already, the yakuza are japans (male) organised crime families. they have a lot of money and a lot of power, and manage to have the entire population scared shitless of them. they are mostly just a bunch of over-weight, unfit, patriarchal bullies in bad track suits.

today was a glorious day. i had to do some christmas shopping, and had decided to visit the shops around behind fujiyoshidas very cool amusement park, fujikyu highland. it boasts the world famous rollercoaster, fujiyama, with the following world records:
highest: 259 ft; longest drop: 239 ft; fastest: 86 mph, and a number of other cool coasters called the dadumpa and erm....i forget...sorry. anyways, the train stops right at fujikyu's gates. i just couldn't resist.... i've been there before, but mostly late at night, after work, to go bowling or ice skating. it was cool to roam around in the day. i was excited to see that the ice skating has started up again, we'll have to organise some more after-work expeditions. it's very cool at night - they have this huge water and fire fountain, about every 15 minutes, it throws huge gas-powered flame jets through equally huge water fountains and an amazing lightshow. spectacular.

can't believe that it's almost christmas. it's the middle of gaddamn winter, fer gawds sake. we had our first snow forecast on thursday, the whole town was abuzz with the news. but it didn't quite get cold enough.

where did the year go?