Nothing much about Nothing

Haven't really got a lot to say, just trying to get at least 5 blogs in for October feel a little guilty about doing only an average of one a week, the fact that I'm finishing it off in November is not the point i started it in October so I'm going to post it as an October post. That being said I'm probably just going to waffle on a bit about nothing in particular so sorry if it boring. To any American that happen to stumble across this blog by the way waffle in this case means to talk a lot about not much and it's nothing to do with anything you eat.

I've had to work the last couple of weekends much to my disgust, at least i get paid for them so it could be worse, but think i would rather have the time off, hopefully will have this weekend off.

Actually I'm thinking about a quick trip to Korea as i still have my bank account over there to sort out if it wasn't for that would probably not go back for a while.

Not a lot's been going on although we are getting a few more people at site now, in fact in our office we have Germans, English, Japanese and Americans so quite international flavour to the office.

Just changing the subject was talking to my youngest son Joe the other day and he asked me why i'd only put a photo of the back of my head in the last blog to show my hair cut, so just for you Joe here you go.

Talking about international relations about every month I've been to to a little get together at what they call the international center over here, actually its a room they hire in the Utsunomiya library building for a couple of hours ever month but international center sounds better i guess.

It's basically gathering of expats, foreigners working over here and Japanese people, they have a few drinks snacks and organise events it's a pretty good way to meet people and it's not as bad as it sounds although i was pretty dubious at first as it just didn't sound like my kind of thing. I probably wouldn't have gone to the first one but my mate Razer who lives done the hall from me asked me to go and check it out with him. It turned out to be OK though the drinks were mostly soft like coke and green tea but the food was good, found out later that everyone is supposed to take something to snack on but we didn't know, maybe next time.

One good thing about these get togethers is that you can find out plenty of local knowledge and stuff from the Japanese who go and all speak English, helps with finding out the everyday mundane things like what you do with your rubbish. Talking about rubbish everyone recycles here and i mean they do it with everything, seems like a dustbin wagon come round ever day, one day they pick up food waste the next paper and cardboard, the next bottles and plastic the next scrap metal tins and stuff, lo and behold if you get caught throwing the wrong thing away, a foreigner can probably get away with it on account of not speaking Japanese though.

The other thing that never seems to stop over here is the post office or getting mail delivered. Not sure how many mail deliveries we have in the UK now probably only one or two a day but over here seems like they do it 27/7. The other day i bumped into the guy posting mail in the boxes in my apartment and it was 10pm on a Sunday night, Ok Ok i may be exaggerating a bit it might have been 8 pm but it was Sunday night and they do that all the time it wasn't' like it was a one off event.

The other big event this week has been the fact that I've finally gone and bought my self a gas grilling thingy so i can do some cooking. Have been after one for a while but been trying to get one second hand without any luck though, so i bit the bullet and went and splashed out on a new one much as i didn't want to pay full price and it went against the grain. So like i say finally decided enough was enough and went to the local home center and bought one, 17,800Yen band new about 100quid at today's exchange rate. So got it and took it home unpacked it but didn't realise that i needed a gas pipe to do the hook up to the gas supply. Off i pop back to the home center for a gas pipe it was only a few hundred Yen but it took me over about 3/4ters of and hour to go and get back again because of the traffic so i was a bit frustrated when i finally did get back home.

Anyway I'm back with my bright orange gas pipe and my gas burner now it's time to hook it up and see if it lights. Over here and in Korea for that matter they don't have big ovens in most houses like we do the norm is usually a couple of gas hobs and a fish grill which you hook up yourself.

In the UK you would have to get a Corgi registered gas fitter to hook anything up to a gas supply for you (in theory you would anyway) would cost you plenty and you would have to wait for the privilege. None of that rubbish over here just push the connecting hose on the end of the supply pipe and on at the burner end fit the clips they send with it turn on the supply valve and Bobs your uncle you have a working gas hob. Actually it was as simple as that took all of about 5minuets to connect up and it lit the first time, next thing to do is to get some food for a meal and see if i can remember how to cook.