Moog's meanderings

Hooray! ) We had a fairly uneventful flight. On time from Nagoya to Paris. 12 hours 20 minutes is a long time. I managed to sleep for about 90minutes (I had a set of 3 seats by a window all to myself – very convenient) stretched out. I read the Japan Times, a significant chunk of my current book (Book 3 of Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy) Ship of Destiny. Also managed to take a bit of time to just think, did a sudoku puzzle and failed to complete the Times crossword from 7th October (the day I travelled out to Japan).
Bought Foie Gras at Charles de Gaulle airport. Expensive, but worth every bite on some fresh bread!!!
Late leaving Paris for Brum, but made up the time on the way. Hubby picked me up from the airport and I slept like a log in my own bed.
Currently catching up on my enormous pile of snail mail, washing, unpacking, etc. while hubby is ‘working from home’ upstairs in the study/snug.
Back to work tomorrow….

Well, today is my last day in Iida. This afternoon we’re getting the ‘taxi bus’ to Nagoya airport where we’re staying the last night before flying home tomorrow morning. Hurrah!
I love Japan, and I have enjoyed my stay. The trip has been pretty successful from a business point of view (although we’ll see whether my boss agrees when I get back to work on Tuesday!!). However I am looking forward to seeing hubby and sleeping in my own bed.
Lots of plans for serious: reading, film watching, quiet contemplation, for the flight home. I did do one set of my Japanese homework last weekend, but that still leaves me 2 weeks behind. D’oh! Maybe I’ll do that on the flight too. Or perhaps I’ll just sleep…….

That’s pretty much what’s been going on for the last few days. Mostly been too tired and hectic to write anything. I fly back to the UK on Sunday, so we’re moving out of the flats on Saturday to go to Nagoya, we’re leaving all our household items from the flats at work on Friday so that when we come again we don’t have to buy everything all over again. Which means that today and tomorrow are the last two days of work. Things have been building up all week, the politics that are going on between our UK and Japan groups is unbelievable, and I am effectively stuck in the middle. Have spent many hours banging head against wall as regards work this week. Horribly frustrating.
I did manage to go swimming after work on Monday and Wednesday though. I love swimming, I generally just go and swim lengths and thrasing up and down the pool just gets everything out of my system. I do find though, that I end up thinking about all sorts of wierd things while swimming. Once I get going, I stop concentrating on the swimming and how many lengths I have done (though I do try to keep a rough count) and start going over everything in my head. Spent yesterday evening wondering what it’s all for. Is the work where God wants me to be, if so how does he want me to act in these especially difficult situations? I can see ways to try and ease the tensions between the two teams, but then will end up being seen as not supporting our side (and I am employed by the UK team and am going back there, so that’s not a particularly good situation to be in).

‘Onsen’ is a japanese word and it means hot springs. It is a very Japanese thing to go and bathe in natural hot springs, and Iida is renowned for having many in it’s surrounding mountains. That’s what I did this afternoon. While two of my colleagues went around a nearby attraction which I visited in January (Japanese village style set up, with shops and restaurants, some exhibitions including one about silk – in Iida high quality silk is made), I went to the Onsen (which I also did in January, with another colleague). How refreshing and relaxing. I really enjoyed it. The main issue with most westerners to visiting Onsen is that you aren’t allowed to wear anything when you go in. No-one really cares because that’s how it is. Personally I really enjoy visiting Onsen and today found that I came out feeling wonderful. There’s something exhilarating about sitting neck deep in steaming hot water while breathing in the fresh autumn air, listening to the birds and seeing trees and a waterful just metres away. Of course, there’s an indoor bath too, but that’s less fun interesting! All in all, highly recommended!!

What a beautiful Sunday morning! Having got up and dressed, I wasn’t really ready for breakfast so decided to go out and enjoy the lovely weather wandering around the part of Iida close to our apartments. I took my New Daylight with me, and stole a few moments in a shady spot to read and contemplate.
There are many things about Japan that don’t quite fit, to my British mind. There are many very traditional aspects to Japanese life and culture, especially the buildings. At the same time there are some, what a british person might call, monstrosities among them. Japan seems to be a haphazard mishmash of modern and traditional, with neon lights and colourful banners. The most interesting thing I have found, is these lovely traditional Japanese style houses with a whopping great solar panel on the roof!! But it’s great for the environment. You’ll also notice in the pictures below all of the pylons. The mountains around Iida are beautiful, but covered in enormous pylons. But then, I suppose that is Japan today.

Went wandering round shops, bought one or two christmas presents as well as general food shopping. After lunch, I went back shopping with my other two colleagues (both lads) so we ended up browsing electrical shops looking at mp3 players and the like. I managed to restrain myself and not buy anything. However, I have discovered the most fabulous invention – the Massage Chair. In Eiden (the large electronics shop I bought my digital camera from) there is a section with about 12 demo massage chairs. Wow!!! They’re amazing! Just what I needed too, after feeling a little sore from sleeping and fidgeting overnight 10 minutes in a massage chair has really helped. I then had a play with one of the foot massagers. That was also fab. It also means that the only thing that gets lashed out at if my feet tickle is a machine (as opposed to my husband – who is an excellent foot masseur when he puts his mind to it). We may have to go back there again before the return to the UK….

Well, I did have a fairly productive day yesterday apart from having a bit of a bug (must have been something I ate) that caused me to feel terrible in the evening and go to bed at 8pm. Didn’t get up until after 8am this morning, so have had a much needed rest (though these beds are pretty hard and an odd shape so I’m a little sore too!). I have put my washing on, and am off to wander around a couple of shops for a bit.
Two of my colleagues have gone to one of our other factories for the day to try to get information to enable them to solve a machine we’ve got back home, so it should be a quiet day today for the other three of us. Maybe I’ll get around to doing my Japanese homework…

Well, the other day with the sunshine was good. Extremely useful actually, from a technical and work-related point of view. The only trouble was that we didn’t actually leave work until about 8pm. I have discovered over the years that working more than half of the 24 hours in a day is not a good thing to do on a regular basis. As a result I overslept this morning. Not in the sense of being late, but in the sense of not being able to collect my work e-mails as the server in the UK does an overnight backup from 10.30pm, which is 6.30am in Japan, so if I want to check them and have a chance of replying I have to log on at about 6am. My alarm went off at 6am, I turned it off to get up, and the next thing I knew it was 6.45am!! D’oh!
I am looking forward to a rest at the weekend. But as I am returning home to the UK next weekend, this weekend is the last opportunity for sightseeing (well, for this trip anyway) so will have to have a think about what to do that’s not too strenuous.

It’s beautiful this morning! Work this week has been pretty drawn out and extremely frustrating at times. Plus, it has poured with rain solidly for nearly 2 days (so much so that I took one look out of the door yesterday and immediately decided that my rubbish could wait until Friday to go out), so imagine my joy when I went out at 6.45am to take my plastic for recycling. A gorgeous fresh, sunny morning. Hurrah! And I just had a pretty good night of sleep (probably the best since being in Japan) which puts me in a better than usual frame of mind. God does have a way of showing beauty in the world when you have reached a point that you’re too bogged down to notice anymore. Thank-you Lord!

Hurrah! I have managed the wonders of technology to get those pictures off my phone and onto the laptop. I have totally given up on bluetooth – far too complicated. Tried Infra-Red instead, just turn PC Infra-Red on, point phone at PC, select pictures and choose ‘Send via Infra-Red’. Would that life were this simple across the board! And it actually seems faster than Bluetooth too. Double Bonus!!

It was an amazingly peaceful place to be, in spite of the crowds of people visiting on a Bank Holiday Monday. The Temple belongs to the Tendai Buddhist sect (a Branch of the Enrakyu-ji Temple in Kyoto) and was founded in 860 AD, in the reign of Emperor Seiwa by holy priest Honsei. At Kozen-ji the Buddhist deity Fudo-myo-o is enshrined as the principle image of Buddha, but it is forbidden to show the statue to the public.
Becuase there have been many fires at Kozen-ji over the years, much of it has been rebuilt at different times (the gate was most recently re-built in 1944) .