Goodbeer Faucets in Shibuya. 40 real ales on tap.
Goodbeer Faucets
February 8, 20122011 in review
January 1, 2012The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Foot Pee!
November 24, 2011
The mind boggles…
Working late
November 14, 2011
Recently I’ve been working quite late, but one day last week managed to get out of the office while it was still light outside.
Special Event PORK
November 14, 2011
Special Event PORK at Dean & Deluca.
Tokyo Tower
August 15, 2011
Some photos from around Tokyo Tower. I didn’t go up the tower itself because there was a big queue and I didn’t want to wait…
Japan visa renewal does not include re-entry permit renewal
August 14, 2011When I renewed my visa I naively assumed that it included an extension of the re-entry permit.
I didn’t find out that this is not the case until I was at Narita airport going through passport control.
Passport control officer: “So, you’re not coming back to Japan?”
Me: “Of course I’m coming back, I’m only going on vacation.”
Passport control officer: “So where’s your re-entry permit? This is expired.”
Me: “Here it is look, I renewed it in April.” *points to the new visa*
Passport control officer: “This is your visa. You also need a new re-entry permit!”
Me: %$!*
Luckily they issued one at the airport, but only for a single entry. I have to go back to the immigration centre to get a new multiple re-entry permit.
Summer holiday
August 14, 2011
While we were back in the UK for 3 weeks, we spent a week down on the south west coast in Devon (Paignton, Brixham, Sidmouth).
Photos: Holiday in Devon
Daibutsu
June 28, 2011
At the weekend we went to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu (“big Buddha”).
It wasn’t as big as we expected. A bit disappointing, really.
Earth / Arse
June 8, 2011
In Japanese, the word “earth” when written in Katakana sounds the same as “arse”.
Peacock
June 6, 2011
A peacock at Yumemigasaki Zoo Park.
Silkworm Cocoons
May 10, 2011
I can’t comment on how they tasted, because I didn’t actually try them.
ATM opening times
April 14, 2011
The ATM near my house only allows cash withdrawals between 8am and 11pm on weekdays.
At other times it only allows credit card transactions, with a fee.
This is really annoying.
Japan visa renewal
April 8, 2011My visa expires next month so I went on Google to find out what forms I need to fill in. Annoyingly most of the hits are to forum discussions and professional visa application services, but not to the actual information on the immigration service website.
Eventually I found them, and hopefully if I post the links here it’ll help anyone else who is looking for the same information in the future:
Life in the post-apocalypse wasteland of Tokyo
March 28, 2011
Reading some of the media reports over the past couple of weeks you’d think we were living in some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
In the 2-3 of days immediately after the earthquake, it was difficult to get essentials like bread, milk, eggs, and rice, but there has always been plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. Two weeks later, we can get the basics, but in limited amounts.
There has been a bit of a scare about contamination in the water, but that has pretty much passed now. The government’s warnings sparked a wave of panic-buying bottled water, which looks set to continue for a while. There’s been no bottled water in any of the shops near us for the past week or so. We’re just drinking the tap water and giving the kids bottled water that was sent by a friend in another part of Japan.
As for the rolling blackouts, they’ve been cancelled almost every day. We’ve only had two so far, and they were both shorter than planned.
At work they’ve introduced an electricity conservation policy which means we have to work shorter hours. I can live with that.
Overall, everything is almost back to normal.
