Movin' on up

You have probably noticed the large yellow box near the top of the page. If not, you might want to consider seeing an eye doctor ...

For over a year now I haven't touched, looked at, much less considered updating this blog. It's not that I haven't done anything, I've traveled around Japan a bit more, I've done things, seen stuff and even experience one of the largest earthquakes Mother Nature has tossed at our little planet. So it's not because I haven't done anything, it was always the manner in which I HAD to update.

In the past I had always needed to be at my pc in order to update this, same with photos. I had to be near my pc to upload and edit my photos. There have been times, for example, that I am out during the day and have something I want to share but by the time I get home several hours later the motivation was lost. Updating had become an inconvenience, I was "home pc locked", there was no easy instant fix button.

When something moves from the realm of fun and exciting to being a chore, a tedious task that you do not look forward to you lose all motivation. That's why a lot of people have trouble doing something that is overly repetitive with out instant gratification. If you have ever joined a gym, quit, joined again, you know what I am talking about. I had lost my blogging mojo. Finding a way to get your groove back is no easy task. Let's face it, most people might never get it back and they move on and try something new.

For me, well I usually just totally abandon something and leave it to rot. Bad Kris I know. I had considered using a laptop, they are light(ish) and can do everything that I need, can do my photos and I can update, no wait I can't update I don't have internet everywhere ... well crap. What's that you say, "Kris, don't you live in Japan, technological capital of the world? Surely they have internet EVERYWHERE!", sorry they don't. There are services but they can be limited and most often in rather inconvenient places, for example only on Train Platforms, or the Pay-For-Free Service offered by many internet companies (which seems to be shrinking now, my area used to have many of these "hotspots" but no longer. Free Wifi you mention, not in Japan and that is not a bad thing. Almost every wifi spot is encrypted with security and lets be honest in this day and age of Identity Theft, Credit Card Fraud, and hackers screwing with companies, we could all do with a bit more security on our internet. Plus laptops are not overly portable, the do what you want whenever you want idea companies sell you is bullshit. don't believe me, try lugging around a laptop, two cameras, adapters, a book on a hot Tokyo summer day and you'll see what I mean.


I wasn't left with many or any options ... but a solution did present itself ...
What kind of solution? Well head on over to the new site, remember that yellow box at the top, go ahead scroll back up, click the link and you can find out.

Shizuoka Day Trip

What am I doing with a picture of a strawberry? Well you see, a couple of Sunday's ago I ended up going on a day trip to Shizuoka Prefecture to visit an area that is apparently quite famous for it's strawberries.

So late that afternoon I found myself in a decent size green house, with a container of condensed milk and one hour to eat as many as I could. Unfortunately, I had just eaten a massive tuna-bowl (raw tuna on top of rice) and wasn't very hungry, I ate as many as I could before I felt sick.

The other reason for this strawberry is that I have recently picked up a new camera and it has an awesome macro zoom on it, it's a little tricky at first but after a couple of tries I seem to be getting the hang out it. Occasionally I still get the wrong object out of focus, I'm still working on what function does what, but it seems to be a promising camera.

For the camera nerds out there, and I know there are some, it's a Ricoh CX3 10.7 optical wide zoom lens, sturdy metal casing, LARGE LCD screen, and more options that you can shake a stick at! Best of all it's pocket size which is a major advantage over my other camera which is a larger bulkier Fuji Film camera. This new one is much easier to carry around and I bring it with me all the time, now only if I could get over my aversion to using it in public I would be set!

The rest of the gallery, if you click on the strawberry (should work), is from the same day visiting a shrine to the First Shogun in Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, you can google him I won't go into a boring history lesson, since I pretty much ignore any pamphlets that are giving to me and spend most of my time with my eye through a view finder.

Hope you enjoy!

March 11, 210

Since I haven't posted anything since August of 2009 (which was just after my trip to Canada last year ... yikes a long time) I should have oodles of things to say and loads of pictures for everyone to look at ... but alas I have used my time unwisely and haven't accomplished much.

(insert useless promise to do better)

I'll get around to putting some photos up when I get the right burst of energy. The weather in Tokyo has taken a turn for the worse recently, by god it snowed the other day and it was like 3 cm or so, and it's been colder than I care for. I hope that once the weather starts to turn warm I'll end up being somewhat productive and actually spend some time working on the things that I claim are my hobbies.

Best I can do at the moment is say,
1. I am alive.
2. I am doing well.
3. Yes, I am still in Japan.
4. Watch for updates .... soon

August 27, 2009

It's been a while since I've posted anything, I've been writing just not getting it on here. In the last months of summer I have spent a couple of weeks at home in Canada at my parents house, but I won't say much about that, I want to get my photos up and do that justice.

There are somethings that I don't care to do during the summer and unfortunately one of those things is something that I enjoy, cooking. This week the temperatures have started to settle down and the evenings have been much cooler. There hasn't been a need for the AC for the last couple of days, still need a floor fan to move the air around, but at least it hasn't been over hot or muggy.

So for me that means it's time for one of my favourite times of year, the temp drops and I am once again able to try my hand at cooking. I think that there are two types of people, those who can toss a meal together with out much thought, and people who follow a recipe, I usually belong to the former group. Though I follow a recipe I tend to fail more than fifty percent of the time, and until I started to do some reading of other peoples experiences in the kitchen I never knew what my problem was.

My problem, and probably many others out there, is that we tend to rush the cooking experience. As amateurs in the kitchen we often cook at an insanely high temperature, which can result in bad flavours / no flavours or everything being over cooked or in the worst case burnt to a crisp. I'm starting to understand that until you are absolutely comfortable with a recipe and have everything prepped and ready to go you won't be able to cook at high temperatures. As with most things you should take time, slower cooking will hopefully mean better results.

For my first test of my new kitchen philosophy, I started off marinating some meat and veggies and spices in some wine for the last 24 or so hours. It's done marinating now and I'm starting to bring everything together as I type this, it smells good, lets hope that it tastes good as well!