Thailand - let see what you have?

Where do i start, where do i begin.... it sounds like nothing more than a chemical brothers musical sound track that i will link for you here so most of you understand what im talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba58cWjoRqI

Updating this blog from such wide spread moments is my own demise and i should do it more regularly in order to keep these thoughts i have current but they seem to be eluding me from hour to hour these days.

I have decided that a multi part saga does this more justice, and so with that i will throw into it...

im sitting in a Taiwanese airport currently with the time being half 1 in the morning and a small voice in the back of my head telling me to go and lie down but i fear my baggage will disappear as i drift off to dreamland and my conscious grasp upon the human race not being slaves to the dollar has all but been nullified as of recently so i grasp my luggage closely.

To be fair, I dropped in on Thailand recently with a small excursion to Cambodia, and as rough as Cambodia's infrastructure came across with pebbled streets and sandy main highways, the hospitality was wonderful. As far as Thailand goes i think a more assertive hand is needed when haggling with taxi prices, and looking like a tourist wins you no favors in location like this one.... in Phuket it got slightly better.

I will begin by saying i got off the plane and met Naiyer in Bangkok airport. Two intrepid travellers with very particular desires met and the journey began. We were shown to our first taxi and were delivered to our first address......

this is going well we thought, "hello" we greeted the hotel staff "do you have our reservation?" we enquired... with blank stares, we were responded with.... apparently they didnt know we were coming - "we cant find your reservation". After much confused deliberation and our reservation found, we were shown to our room..... with geckos crawling on the walls, out of cracks from the straining structure, the bed looked to inviting to dwell on this moment for long enough to worry about and our head hit the hay almost immediately.... nothing was waking me except for a tiny buzzing noise, like a nose clipper going off in you ear routinely, fixed with a makeshift tent under the covers!

First day there we ventured to the MBK shopping mall, things were bought and things were bargained but i dont think this was the area to be throwing your weight around when it came to haggling...

now day two was a different story with us heading to the JJ? shopping district. The heat beat down on us as we arrived before 8 and we knew it was possibly going to be a long day. Naiyer left me amongst the locals to go find food and not long after she left 8am arrived and some announcement came over the speakers - everyone stood still and upright? What the hell is going on i thought as i continued to sit amongst them all. The national anthem came over the speakers and everyone bowed there heads as it played. It was airy how the hustle and bustle of this market just halted, and you could hear nothing but the sound of a strung cat over the speakers, like a public service announcement to the members of some old German concentration camp. Naiyer return with a very puzzled look upon her face and asked "whats going on?" to which i could only reply "i have no idea" and as soon as it had begun normality returned and the locals went back to ripping each other off.

Naiyer went and did her "girl thing" and shopped (for me mostly) while i spent a good few hours watching a blind group set up a stage for a production, i later on found out that they were giving the show... i was sitting near the stage and held my breath most of the time as i have heard they have a freaky sixth sense when it comes to hearing..... i guess being blind it just makes it a fifth sense that is kinda freaky.

Anyway one of the guys setting up lost his amplifier button and i picked it up, i helped him find it and thought yay thats my good deed for the day as two other band members came fondling one another from around the corner. With the girls top half off and open i thought this was a good time to start breathing again and i drew deep breaths as i stumbled off for a meal of spicy roast duck.... in hindsight i now realise a heavy breathing slow moving character, probably wasn't the smoothest departure one could make for a slightly disheveled held girl in public..... oh well we left and Naiyer and I met again to ride a meter operated taxi home.... (far and few of these found).

Now my days get a little hazy here so im just going to point out high points i can recall - it doesn't help that it is half two in the morning either.

Right next stop a tour to the floating markets

but not before we are almost crushed by several tonnes of moving iron. We begun the day by meeting our guide named Nina who took us to a market that involved a slow moving train running along the track (which was also the walkway) that we had to scuttle (along with hundreds of others) out of the way, as it passed within centimeters of the products being sold,

as i am pulled off the tracks by one of the store owners as the train approaches i wonder who pays for this kind of a tour - fly covered food and a near death experience, im sure this is booked up for months in advance!

After the train track dance we head toward a drowning destiny (or so i thought) but instead i was quite pleasantly surprised.

You enter a boat the reminds me of something you might ride in Venice but instead of a stick on the bottom to push it along it is motorised and propelled and after we exit the chaos of bumper to bumper boats initially it was extremely peaceful riding the water at a slow pace passing the shop owners and low hanging mangroves as we ventured further and further away from the markets.

Right that over with i was rather happy with myself, i had dodged a train and not drowned at the floating markets - whats next Naiyer? "Lets ride an elephant and go swimming with it?.............. why not?"

We turned up and were greeted by "Full Moon" which apparently was one of the nicest elephants there, before boarding the huge vessel (can you call an elephant a huge vessel?), we fed her. The trunk was so huge and leathery as it fondled about our feet looking for bananas to scoop up and eat... not single bananas but bunches at a time and devouring them was like inhaling them. 7 bananas at a time gone in the blink of an eye. we hopped on the huge animal and it slowly moved down hill to the water.... ok Kane a certain death you're looking at now, if its not squished by a train or downed falling out of a boat then its going to be crushed by this elephant. We went down to the water and the big fulla(ress) took us in... we were asked if we wanted to go under and just at that point two big piles of animal dung pass us by we yelled out yes but just let them pass as the guide jabs me in the back then laughs and motions for me to look behind.

Arrrrgghhh feces river! Im going to be swimming in feces river! Just then the elephant attempts to throw us off - well Naiyer puts up a good effort but i pull her in with me.

We splash and play with this gentle beast as many tourist pass us by mostly staring and wondering the simple question of why, then we return to the hotel. Today i played with an elephant i thought, wow, today i played with an elephant - ten years ago i didnt envision that.

We decided that if crocodile wasn't on the menu then watching them perform was more in order. We went to a crocodile farm where a plucked chicken strung to a long pole greeted us and we hung it perilously over the edge while snapping teeth attempted to not only eat the chicken but pull hard enough that we might follow the same fate.

The crocodiles performed and i never thought i would see a show that would make me nervous until the bloke stuck his head between the jaws of this prehistoric bone carving machine...... take your head out, take your head out you egg, i do not want to be witness to and chewed up version of you... This is NOT the story im returning home with, ohh look over there a dog in the lion cage, what a tough doooo, whats the dog doing? The dogs having sex with a lion? Crush his head! EAT HIM CROCODILE, EAT HIM!!!!!

The next day we left for Cambodia. The taxi was an interesting way to choose to travel but the buses we found out were fully booked on arrival to Thailand. At the border 4 or 5 hours later dusk had started to set upon us and it gave the beaten path an even more eerie feeling. We crossed the border departing from our ride not knowing what we were going to. We were helped at the border crossing a young man who looked like he had starred in one of the Indian Jones films as a kid, and now had grown up. Crossing the border for lack of a better word was slightly disturbing. I thought i was prepared for most of it and that i had seen it all but i hadnt seen it all and at that time of the night all things looked much worse. Children lying on the ground covered in flies begging for money while other children surround you screaming "excuse me mister, excuse me mister, have you got a dollar" quickly sent running by our friendly fellow who would soon after ask me to check my pockets and reassure himself that im ok. About three check points later and we find ourselves on a bus with 6 other locals and a promise of transportation several hours from the border, all in broken English. The locals disappeared from the bus one by one, and Naiyer and i looked one another with a shared feeling of "wolf creek" echoing through both our minds. Unsure of our ability to secure our destination in there was a sense of panic that i have no problem admitting to. We got there eventually arriving in our rusty old Honda accord. The tuk tuks had changed form and the roads had become much worse there was a feeling in the air that had me holding my passport tightly, but everyone we had encountered had been lovely to us so far.

Ju roku ban - dont speak out of turn, and always know best before dates.

Hello long lost friends....

This update (should, like the last) satisfy some of you but, I also await the comments that read "that was the worst blog i have ever read" ha ha ha - a rushed blog isn't a good one, aye?

Getting into things here - I had my parents visit me this time round and a shout out to my cousin and his wife who recently got married, i had a visit from Naiyer again and i spoke my thoughts in front of a crowd under a bridge.

Well my parents came over in what almost seemed like the hottest month of the year - im sure we cracked 40 degrees (Celsius for you American readers) and i heard Okayama was happily placed number one in the country when it came to having sticky ice cream run down your fingers. It was hot. My air conditioning unit had a workout.

While my parents were over we visited the Okayama gardens, the castle, we ate out and my parents became accustomed to the taxi cabs and self closing doors. I was pretty lucky as both my parents had their birthdays while visiting here and dad turned a grand six ohhhh.

Now the castle, the gardens etc, that was purely local while Kyoto (with its temples), Nagasaki (its gardens), Tokyo (its towers) Hiroshima (and its bomb) all got a look in also.

While they were here my cousin wed his partner in traditional fashion and we all got to witness a less than plastic wedding. The bride looked stunning, while the groom looked equally (and literally) as hot wrapped up in however many layers of clothing that were required. It was a day of tradition that i was so glad to be a part of. There was one small moment in the car where things got a little hairy for me. I had to ride with 3 other women up to the ceremony, we all got in the car and about halfway there my nostrils started to tickle.... i didnt fart, oh jesus one of these girls did and it smells like a cat crawled up there and died, what should i do - of course they are gonna think its me, so wind the window down i thought........ no then that confirms for them its you arghhhhhhhh JUST DO IT NOW. So i crack the window and like a dog with its tongue out of its head i suck back the fresh air. Yep good one Kane, one person here KNOWS it wasnt you, while two others are pretty sure it was, all the while all of them think you're an idiot.

Either way we arrived and were treated to a wedding not worth forgetting.

Naiyer poked her head around these parts and we rented a car once again....... budget rental cars, like Naiyer said - "they almost feel like a second family, we have visited them so much". I think the look of shock or horror comes from us either returning cars bashed up, scratched to pieces or late as opposed to smiles of glee as we enter their realm....... most of the incidences i am guilty of, so Naiyer has that as her saving grace.

There was one morning i woke with the day off, and determined to satisfy this girls desire to see the red faced monkeys i thought back to my Tsuyama trip........ I know where there are hundreds of monkeys! After hiring a car (the shock and the horror, oh those poor people) we began our 1 hour journey to Tsuyama (which quickly became two hours), upon arrival i bounced out of the car and eagerly made my way up the hill to the payment office, with pictures of monkeys stuck to it I puffed out my chest with pride and lead Naiyer up the hill so happy with myself that i was going to be the master of satisfaction......... but as we neared the top i knew something was off.

Was the air too cool or was it monkey nap time?

Where were they?

"Oh great" i thought - just my luck, my awesome last minute plan had failed........ "but they so often work"?

No monkeys and a disappointed girl to contend with - ohh look at the waterfall though i thought, it looks wet and watery..... i had nothing. So it only seemed appropriate that we should miss the turn off, drive another 30 kms out of our way and return the car late.

Two days later though i was saved in Kyoto as we saw monkeys, a Geisha, and a Zen garden that was awfully rocky.... oh not to mention our budget rental car buddies.... shame.

My friend Manabu rung me up and invited me to a bbq, i thought excellent and agreed. A nice quiet gathering around at his house would be rather comfortable so lets get involved. He picked me up and drove me to his place with our limited speaking skills in action. We arrived and i went to get out "STOP, stop, stop you wait me get camera" he says ummmmm ok. He returns and i realise this bbq is not actually at his house but im not sure where.

We arrive near the city center, and by a football field that has 20 or so people cooking food under a bridge, and more people arriving as we do.

I enter the event and think "meh, just get amongst it" - i am introduced to Toshi who i have met before and he introduces me to Yoshi, a small smile comes over my face but then Yoshi turns around to Scochi and introduces him..... the silent straight face cracks for me, i just met Toshi, Yoshi and Scochi, this is gotta be some candid camera setup or something, it must be a make fun of the foreigner episode.

We all ate and i was the center of attraction with everybody wanting to try their English out on me. It was mostly below average but they were so eager to please and such nice people. Everyone was getting up and giving speeches as we ate and i didnt suspect i would be called. But sure enough a call for Kane comes over the microphone.... what the F....?!

I walk up and attempt to satisfy the masses with at least 60 eyes peering at me in anticipation of my impending social doom. I am aware English isn't the spoken language, but i give it a crack anyway.

I say how wonderful the event is and how grateful i am to meet everyone - i try to finish it at least four times with a 0 response...... oh god, i bite my bottom lip hoping the pain transports me somewhere else...... I say the magic words "thank you" and the crowd recognises this and erupts! YAY i think - a moment to dash.

I sit with the crowd some more and eat while they drink and converse...... its at this moment that it hits me - where am i and what am i doing? Siting under a bridge eating a bbq out of a half cut barrel surrounded by a language i am not fully competent with - ahhhhh ignorance is bliss i thought.

Ju Go Ban - white weddings and an urban awesomeness.

Wow im having a real spell of regularity here it seems. Im talking about my blogs, not my bowel movements thank you very much.

This month has had its moments but i must keep this blog entry brief, or i run the risk of sitting awake far too late on a school night.

This month found me driving the streets of Okayama with a random stranger and an ongoing miscommunication being suffered with the locals.

There is a photo processing place a couple of blocks from my house, and i have been venturing over there once a week in order to have some of my photos developed....... and blah blah blah.

WHOA!

ok....... I got off to a good start and i was keeping it regular, but i was distracted and ohhhh look a stray dog, you never see stray dogs here in Japan..........

ok ok ok i really have to stop this - its the little things that throw me off and last time i was here i wrote all of one sentence and was side tracked by a roaming canine.

Right so i met a random person named Manabu who gave me a lift home and we ended up eating together and i have dined at his house with his house mates for a little, we are keeping in touch and he appears to be a sound bloke. I could go into great detail about how we met but recently i have other insights i wish to cover in this rant.

I needed to get to the hospital the other day......... except i didnt know how to say "hospital" in Japanese and the word "hospital" is like hearing "take me to gobble de goop" to a Japanese person. So im sitting in the back of a taxi trying to direct the driver to a location im not 100% sure of myself in a language i barely know while both parties are getting frustrated at one another's presence.............. We got there eventually ($40 later) and you would think it would motivate me to learn the language............. sadly no - it motivated me to just learn how to say "hospital" in Japanese.

I went up to Tokyo recently for a mates wedding. Wow its big. A landscape that stretches with an urban jungle for miles and miles.... as far as the eye will let you see. I will get to that shortly...

I went to this wedding and was sitting with the grooms brother before the ceremony began, we joked casually about how everything was so white and pure and how childlike it made you feel. The Japanese put a real emphasis on the idea of a white fairy tale wedding, which with first impressions makes you giggle slightly. A harp player in the corner, with a quartet supporting her,

and dolphins diving toward one another, projected onto a huge white curtain, that spanned from corner to corner of one side of the room to the other, it was uncomfortably cute. But the ceremony began and the bride floated into the room to be greeted by the groom with myself only momentarily distracted by the white curtain retracting and an astounding view of Tokyo appeared to back drop the focus of everyones attention. We ate well and i met some amazing people, there was one family that took me out for an evening in Tokyo the following night that i owe greatly for their absurd levels of generosity.

While in Tokyo i visited the fish markets (overrated smell fest) but had an ulterior motive that arrived later that day. I welcomed Naiyer and was pleasantly surprised......... all be that the methods used in order to meet her were initially a little unconventional inside my own head........ but times have changed and the process means nothing when smiling about the result.

We went to Tokyo tower with the Kimura family and out to tea that evening. I tried to pay the bill, which didnt sit too well with them, although im sure they appreciated the gesture once they understood my desire to do so. It was at this point in the evening that you started to miss making your point while having an English conversation.

The next day arrived, and we went back to Okayama on the train. It was without real event, but not knowing if the train we were getting on, was in fact the right one was a little concerning.

Back home we went out to a "Yaki-tori" restaurant here and i had to bust out my Japanese skills while ordering a meal........... as far as i we know i got everything i ordered and the local cat wasnt cut up and fed to us that night! Yay Kane!

Next we hired a car and ventured south/west to Miyajima, the deer roamed free here and seemed friendlier than my time spent in Nara, so friendly that one decided my cup of flavoured ice i was holding was his, and later the oyster we were eating, was a good start to the $20 dollar bill that the deer in question decided to chomp on.

Again we ate out and to the surprise of the couple sitting near us we acted like full blown children while dining near the site of the atomic blast. Who says i shouldnt be eating dairy and then goes and orders a cheese pizza in front of me?! In her defense - i played it up fully and i shouldn't even be writing about it as it was a non event but it made me smile.

Kurashki called us amongst other moments and we decided to catch the train there. 3 stops too far and i figured it was about time to start paying attention. We back tracked and made it there. Wow what a pretty little village, i have been before but you soak up so much more of your surroundings on a revisit. We went to a museum that had works by Picasso and Fredricks to name a few names inside.......... What strange Japanese names i thought. The day was filled with moments of candid daftness and i asked some posing kimono girls for a photo, the response to this was midly amusing. I took my photo and was asked to pose with them.... "you are super cute and cool too...... i like you" how can you say "no" to a photo request like that ha ha? So after hearing "one more please" more than once, and having 6 or so girls demanding shots with you we left to head back to Okayama, on the wrong train.

I have often have had to stop myself going off on my eating tirades, but we went out for a final meal at the sushi house i had previously devoured whale at....... i dont know why i thought this would impress the girl who had previous recommend the movie "The Cove" to me. We did however eat well and it was nice to pull your chosen dishes off a tray without fear of having to converse in the foreign language im surrounded by everyday.

Well that was the short version of Nai's visit and wedding dramas - im going to pick my parents up now. I thought the last two week were a moment in time, i guess here is another one of those that im not going to forget quickly.

Ju shi ban - now it is golden.

I find myself wanting to start this update as I always start, by habitually claiming that I am sorry for the lateness of the update and eluding to the idea that I have nothing to write about. Neither is true this time (and probably the latter statement is only in part true inside my own head).

This last month has found me on an island, by a river and under a waterfall....... with zero drownings.

We begin with............ Awesome land. Its a small island of the coast of Inujima which is a small tourist destination off the mainland of Japan..... before we arrive at Awesome land I better describe the journey there.

A ferry ride over to Inujima is where my trip begins and im sitting there surrounded by 30 other Japanese folk all with the same initial intentions...... to make it to Inujima without having to swim any of the distance. As the captain appears, he is looking like he just got out of bed and would rather be somewhere else, I notice he is wearing a "Jamaica" top with a massive marijuana leaf on the back........... im almost certain, unlike most places in Japan, that he is saving money on uniforms, and based on our intentions, the previously mentioned outlook is bleak for all of us.

On the ferry I met an English speaking bloke called Nobu. He was a very nice chap who attempted to translate for me to another couple of old fellas and then he invited me over to his island cafe of on Inujima (that is if based on our transport choice, we ever made it).

We arrive at Inujima without injury and the initial fears were nothing but a distant memory. I said farewell to Nobu only to find his cafe 5 minutes later and greeted him like a long lost friend with a whole hearted konichiwa! We sat in his cafe with a beer in our hands sharing stories of meetings and travels we had both taken..... which reminded me that I had a prearranged rendezvous point and shouldn't be sitting around drinking with a new acquaintance.

I left Nobu to wander the streets of Inujima and make my way, ever so nonchalantly, across the island to my meeting point, to be kayaked across to Awesomeness. On my way I enjoyed the flowers of spring and ran into one of the old chaps from the boat. He was rambling on about a mirror and how it would be a good photo and angles and what not......... pff like I really knew what he was saying - I took another picture of what he was pointing at, thanked him, and said see ya.

I made it to the rendezvous point and sat down with a certainty that it had been too easy to find.... this certainty led to me wandering about and asking a woman (in correct Japanese I might add) while showing her a map - "Where am I?" She had no idea what I was going on about.......... so I just waited in the sun.

I had been correct all along, and a friend Ross arrived not long after to ferry me across to the island in his kayak (after him and Haydn madly kayaked from the main land). We arrived to meet Haydn who was enjoying a spot of fishing as I soaked up the goodness of this little widely unknown secluded environment.

I would find it tough to describe the island in full, so I shall leave it at a most memorable moment. It was around 11pm at night and the ocean lit up with every small but breaking wave. Ross pointed and yelled to Haydn (whom had both been before) "look its happening, its happening again, that glowing shit is here!" Now I was aware of the "glowing shit" but both Haydn and I assumed that with a skin full of beer and wine, Ross had begun to see things, but I speak for myself when I say I doubted him yet I entertained him and went to the waters edge to inspect.

To his credit - he was right and I stood there in amazement as the water glowed like someone had dumped a heap of nuclear waste in the water. It was very strange to say the least and would only light up and react when you touched it. There was no moon and no nuclear power plant nearby so I failed to explain it.

The next day arrived and the night before had left me feeling a little worse for wear but we had to depart our camp and farewell the wild things on this land of secludedness.

The Asahi river is a major river running through Okayama and an enjoyable location for those who like to do nothing (me) to sit on the banks of, and those who like to kayak (Mariko and Haydn) to paddle away a Sunday afternoon.

As the other two floundered about in the water I took a stroll and photo graphed a duck and a boat amongst a million other photos of god awful birds.... it was a good day sitting in the sun but I didn't enjoy reviewing a literal thousand photos of birds doing stuff like flying and sitting, when i got home...... yeah birds with wings not the other type of bird, that wouldn't find me complaining.

As a small consolation to a day of bird (with feathers) watching I did managed to capture the sunset.

The last thing I have decided to talk about is the waterfall near a place called Tsuyama. Coming from New Zealand I didnt expect much and when we arrived I was pointed toward a dribble of water over a rock and was told that it was the waterfall.......

not expecting much I said it looked great but had a resounding scoff noise echoing in my head. We walked up to just past where you buy your tickets (tickets for a god damn waterfall??!??!?!?) and I soon realised the shaking bushes were full of monkeys! We round the bend and follow the stream only to discover not ten but hundreds of the little buggers walking about and grooming themselves amongst us people folk! Oh and there was one monkey who had staked his claim to a rock and was defending it with his life.

We continued up the path, passed the fish, passed the monkeys, and to the waterfall. Upon arriving I couldn't help but find it humorous that one little boy was checking his brochure just to make sure he hadn't been lied to, and that the picture in the brochure was in fact of the actual waterfall.

Monkeys are cool, waterfalls are nice and the sun is warm. It was a good day again so I was happy.

I will end it here but finish with a parting thought. This time was mostly spent during golden week, which is just that - one whole week of time off for everybody and I think New Zealand should look into this.

Until next time - behave padres.

Ju san ban - don't complain about the events at the temple, when you're guilty of the same at the supermarket.

Well its been one year, one month and four days and I still hate karaoke (although recently I have found myself strangely enjoying it - the more you drink the better you become it seems).

*photo missing

My last update found me in another country, enjoying the festive season and I thought the story was good enough to last me for at least 12 months........ but once 2 months had passed I knew it had gone over its best before date and now 4 months down the track I realise - the longer I leave THIS update, the more effort I will have to put in later.

I have successfully completed a year of teaching and I am very sad to see the children move on...... We finished with a graduation ceremony where the older kids donned graduate caps and gave a farewell speech... Not much to say here really about it all except it was good/bad day. Good that the kids had achieved something and bad that it rained.

Well with that being one of the more recent events that I feel I should mention, I shall now return to events that happened earlier this year.

The first was a supermarket incident that I need to get off my chest (there is always a supermarket moment). It was the fruit and vegetable department late on a midweek night. They had started to clean up and there was a trolley full of asparagus sitting in the middle of the isle. I needed to get asparagus I thought, and so grabbed a bag to fill. The supermarket assistant immediately came over barking orders at me while pointing to the shelf behind me. I knew she was saying "don't take those, there are some fresh ones behind you" but instead all I heard was "ooga booga ooga booga booga" with which I smiled and cheerfully responded with "konichiwaaaaaa"...... it was at this moment that she stopped and looked at me like I had two heads and backed away slowly, like it had just become apparent to her that I had contracted airborne rabies. I kinda don't blame her, to be working away, and see an opportunity to point a customer in the right direction, only to be met with an overly enthusiastic "HELLO" would probably weird me out also. My only explanation is that I just had a brain melt down and in my fluster I responded with a knee jerk response, now I shop with headphones on and music blaring.

Last month I turned 30. As much as you expect things to change overnight and a sense of maturity to come over you........... it doesn't. That person passing the mirror still occasionally pulls stupid faces at me and makes me laugh. The way I see it is that he is just a little older looking.

So anyway as I was saying I turned 30 and celebrated the event with a small group that bought me a computer, covered me in cake, feasted on 'Yaki Niku" (beef barbeque) and screamed ourselves stupid at karaoke..... well I did anyway, and gee did I sound good! It was just like someone had put the CD player on...... another beer please!

Recently I have been gallivanting around taking photos of anything and everything. Ever since I grabbed my cousins camera a couple of years ago and pointed and clicked, the feeling just captured my attention and so I went out and bought a Nikon something something. I wanted to immortalise spring here, as it seems so short lived, and just the idea of entertaining the tune "turning Japanese" comes to mind.

I have missed plenty out and am going to hate myself for these lost memories at a later date........ but the fact that I have remembered not to record them here should help me recall them later on....... yeah Kane good work - thats definitely how all brains remember stuff you egg.

I will finish with a quick moment that happened to me as recently as two days ago. I went down the local temple (like the local dairy in NZ - there is at least one on most corners near your house here it seems, but they have less going on and they appear a little more well maintained than the dairy's back home) to photograph the blossoms that have started appearing. There was another school floating about that seemed somewhat interested in my presence but happily ignored me also it seemed. I snapped away merrily and became almost oblivious to their presence. As I sat down on a low concrete verge (just to the bottom right of the photo) a teacher from the other school approached me. He asked me where I was from and and what I did for work amongst other things.......

I responded with im a teacher from NZ and I didn't understand his Japanese sorry, to which he called the school over to introduce themselves in English which was quite daunting. Im sitting lower than the 20 seven year olds all surrounding me screaming "hello im ..... " while a Japanese teacher is instructing them on how to introduce themselves in English properly and I am having to respond to each one with Hello so and so, while the teachers gasp in amazement as I respond to each child with his/her correct name that they had just told me.... it was weird/wrong/horrible event and not how I had wanted to spend my day off. Im not going back to that temple in a rush.

Till next time - stay cool till after school.

Hung, drawn and Qatarised.... I digress.

The problem im currently facing stems from the idea of, how do I make this blog sound less like a literary slide show about my holiday to Qatar in Doha and more like an entertaining report on the living life of a kiwi lad outside of NZ....

Doha has a flag which is half maroon and half white separated by a jagged edge of 9 serrations whereby each serration represents one of the states of the United Emirates leading up to to the aforementioned 9th state being Doha...... the white colour is representative of the peace this country abides by and the maroon represents the blood that was shed prior to achieving the peace......... stop stop STOP - Kane its not a general knowledge lecture, try again.

So we landed in Qatar (which felt like a perpendicular landing to the runway) and we exited the plane to a winter that was nothing like the winter we had left in Japan. I quickly realised upon arrival that a "scarf" was a non essential item.

I could rave on and on about my experiences in Doha, but for most of you I fear a loss of interest so I will just outline some of the highlights.

Firstly we will cover driving - so I thought Japan was bad ha ha ha - not even close. Everyone in Qatar seems to think they are a formula one driver, and arriving at there destination with the fastest speed possible will win them the Qatari/Le Mans championship title. Now at all costs is their individual race going to be won, and no man shall stand in the way while negotiating this quickest possible route............ Taxi courtesy in regards to a comfortable safe ride is non existent here.

My driving is average at best but you're safer in a car with me touring France than you are riding as a passenger with a local in Qatar. So we shall leave the driving at that.

I went to the local museum of Islamic art with my father...... the museum was full of old stuff (dont know what else I was expecting) but the nice new looking exterior tickled my fancy... it was good to just wander around with my father for a while and talk about how big the place appeared and how old the stuff inside it was. Sadly my art history appreciation failed me this day and I was more inspired by the buildings exterior and lavish entry way decked with palm trees and a mesmerizing water feature that ran from basically the front door, a good hop skip and a jump down the stairs away from the building.

My cousins (Haydn and Oliver) along with partners (Mariko and Jess) and I joined one day for a night in the desert. Prior to our evening in the huge sand safari that was surrounding us we had the pleasure of some off road shenanigans.

Now for a moment think like a young 16 year old kiwi lad with a new drivers licence, he has the keys to his parents four wheel drive along with a property that is backed onto the local beach filled with sand dunes, his mates want to be wowed by his "mad driving skills" and if he damages anything its ok because his rich grandfather will always bail him out. These guys seem to have made a business out of this concept and have started taking people on their tours. It was a well worthwhile little moment of madness.

After we had experienced the desert at 140 kilometers an hour, traveled swiftly behind a fishtailing SUV followed by a brief stop that had one member of the accompanying group throw up due to the motion sickness.

We arrived at camp and enjoyed a bacon free BBQ while puffing on the local shisha pipe. We settled into our air conditioned tents (air con was not needed at this time of the year luckily, but I just wanted to mention its availability, as the

air con decked out tent impressed me) and we slept well in the knowledge that we had endured a day of high speed car recklessness in the desert and we were now just left in the middle of nowhere. The next day we were picked up and driven back into town and I must say the whole experience has me smiling even now which is weeks later - hats off to these lads with what seems like a simple plan to them, but a great moment in time for me.

In my opinion food is a big draw card when visiting somewhere new, and the dates in Qatar were fantastic! A flavor that oozed freshness and a size that dwarfed the standard bagged up weirdness we get back home.

Oh yeah and while on the topic of food the baby camel I ate smelt like it had been shoveled off the road out the back of the restaurant we were dining at one night....... however it was super tender and once you got past the aroma it actually tasted a fair bit like very well done but gamey lamb.

Next topic, Hair cuts and beard upkeep. This was a part of my trip I strangely fell in love with - I don't know if it was the neck cracking massages, the adrenalin rush I got from someone holding a blade so close to my throat or the price tag of $15 for a shave and a haircut compared to the $80 I had to pay last time I was back in NZ! My little obsession (more so with the shaving and general bearded upkeep) found me in the barbers at least once every 2-3 days and I was quickly becoming rather attached to the ever so well trimmed facial hair that I had sworn to shave off on the first day of the new year. These barbers I miss tremendously.... however with more thought I think I just liked someone else having to take care of my shaving routine that didn't involve me doing anything more than just sitting there.

Moving along and onto wrap up mode, one of my final days had me travel to the north of Doha to see some old town ruins. Walking through this place I couldnt help but wonder who had been here so many years before me but the bag of rubbish sitting next to me suggested the garbage man had dumped his load off recently. The concept of "long term" and "environmental damage" like myself seemed foreign to this place. Out from under the bag a beetle ran chasing what seemed to be my shadow. He was a grunty little sucker that soon realised my shadow was moving and that he was safer under the bag from which he had come. I managed to get a shot of the guy before he departed and he reminded me of those beetles off the film "The Mummy". As happy as I had been playing dodge the giant unknown, possibly yet unlikely, harmful creature, I turned and left him at peace in his ruins.

Its at this point that I shall stop myself for now (we havent even touched on health and safety (or the lack of it) for which you can see in this last photo, with the construction worker nicely modeling a non existent hard hat and safety cable, perched perilously on top of some random building).

It was a good Christmas and New year with my mother, father, auntie, uncle, cousins and partners - I enjoyed meeting some of the local residence (like the millions of madly breeding cats that just roamed the street until (and im assuming) were being stewed up and labeled as baby camel for some flash restaurant in town) and teachers at my parents school.... the holiday ended though and I returned to a rather chilled Japan and an internet free household because someone hadn't paid their unreadable internet bill......... yeah I should sort this language thing out ha ha.

With that said and done - Qatar, it gets a thumbs up from me.

Ju Nee ban - childhood memories are not for destroying.

So I didn't post a blog last month....... I broke the rules apparently and I apologise....... are we cool now?

So over the last couple of months on this over populated yet lonely island, I have still managed to engage in a couple of activities that not only give a sense of nostalgia but also enrage, and I have come across oddities for which are referred to as "entertainment" here.

Today we begin with the re-discovery of PEZ! I remember it being different...... really to be honest I remember it being fun. This time - it wasn't. I know, I know....... we should leave the kids stuff to the kids - but it was PEZ! As a child, I spent a few years of my "life discovery" living in the fast paced, high intensity rural township of Dannevirke. I remember there was a small grocery behind Dannevirke high school that used to sell PEZ. A friend and I used to buy them and then go and play down the back of his house in the river and trees while eating the "make believe" pellets of energy from our "make believe" energy dispensers which just so happened to be the PEZ unit itself. 20 something years later, those good times PEZ memories are just that - "memories". I was in my local supermarket the other day and spied this PEZ unit - for those of you who are completely unfamiliar with PEZ (are you amish?) it was the small toy pictured that you loaded with candy, and when you pulled the head back, it would dispense a single unit of one of the loaded candies. Wow, to begin with I don't recall the loading process taking a good half an hour! Obviously my fingers are not as small as they used to be. Holding the unit open with one hand while trying to drop a candy in, without the candy falling on its side, with the other hand was a harder process than I remember......

anyway after a good half an hour of sitting on my couch getting awfully frustrated with incorrectly loaded PEZ candies I finally finished! Only to eat them all less than 5 mins later....... PEZ tastes great..... even better out of the dispenser but not great enough to entice me to load it 3 more times, I thought this as I sat there eating the candy straight from the packet giving the dog faced PEZ unit a horrible stare........

geez I was just plain straight pezzed off!

I turned the TV on a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't get used that often - due to my inability to understand much of whats been said, and the last time I turned it on it wasn't just the language I had trouble comprehending! It was an afternoon show with a very attractive Japanese girl sitting on a stool answering questions, and as far as I could tell, regardless of a correct or incorrect answer, she would get smacked in the head by another Japanese bloke with a giant air filled plastic hammer. It was mesmerizing to watch and just odd. It seemed like a dating show whereby the contestants were competing for a moment of humiliation by an unknown old man....... I'd talk about it further....... if I had understood it - but I didn't.

Well at this point I am going to finish but leave you with a final discovery. While in the supermarket the other day I came across a box of crisps that reminded me of a youtube video made in tribute to an accent of the country I love so dearly.

Sometimes I feel beached as guys!