House Of Pain.

The view from room '1001' in the Route Inn Hotel, Tokuyama!

With a Shinkansen train pulling into the high level station.

The rear of Tokuyama train station.

A drink Sir?

Tokuyama docks.


Tokuyama harbour mouth.


Lean on the armco at your peril!

Some big ships.

A Kite doing what Kites do in the fluffy clouds!

That could hurt from the rear!


The 10th floor vista.


No one could have believed that in the first half of this morning I initiated such a contradiction, (Juxtaposition if you want to be posh about it!) between the House of pain, Jump Around and Jeff Waynes ‘War of the Worlds’!

I could and it was what wanted I to listen to in that order, after circumnavigating Tokuyama docks, JR railway station, the local shopping Ginza’s and my friend’s wife hair saloon; after being asked to vacate my room so the maids could clean it. I don’t know what they think I get up to in my room but judging by the amount of beer cans that have been cleared out of other rooms this morning, I must be a parody of clean living compared to the other inhabitants of the hotel! I tell you one thing though; they never put the bog seat down after they have cleaned it! They will never get a cleaning job at my house.

The local cat’s were giving it some this morning, while I was walking around the back streets. This one cat, a scruffy looking individual and to be honest quite likable with it’s disk like laser green eyes slit peering at me, dared to bandy looks with me. It obviously noted that I was not a local geezer, so it gave me a wide berth and slinked off into a hole in the wall. At least this particular cat had a tail, (It could possibly tell a tale or two too!) not like many of the others I see on a daily basis.

I ended up going to the docks and watched the Kites dog fighting or spelling out their language of love in the sky. I would not argue with a small Kite, let alone one of these huge sod’s I was watching and to be honest, when they do actually land after having a good old squawk, they are quite statuesque. When they see you are eating, they come un-unnervingly close but I doubt they would come close to me, as I make most people around here look small!

Earlier though, before I left the hotel this morning, the cleaners had left the fire escape door open on the tenth floor. (I am in room 1001. Oh do you remember '1001 Dry Foam'? I hated that advert.) So I took the opportunity to get some ‘high up’ pictures.

Big mistake!

I don’t know what the maid thought I was going to, ‘Harry karri’ or some thing but she was not impressed with me stepping outside of the hotel onto the fire escape. It was only when I got it out, the camera that is, she calmed down and left me to it. I think the maid was the one I asked last year to go onto the fire escape, on the other side of the hotel, so she realised that it was a photography moment. I might ask for room ‘1004’ next time though, definitely better or should I say different views from the room compared to my diminutive pad.

I should have brought the big camera out!!!!

An English Rose

In answer to your question, The lady I met about three weeks now, (An English Rose.) showed me in a couple of meetings, that life is for living and not for worrying about the past! (Although do be mindful of what has gone before!)

I will not go into specifics but a lovely woman and I hope to meet somebody in a similar guise soon, or could it be you?

Pills, I don’t go there, I would rather stay up for hours and make my self naturally tired, if I can. Although I did go for a good walk again today and I think my sleep pattern will improve, as I feel quite normal for change, whatever normal is!

I am giving the ipod some use tonight, listening to Shania Twain; I am trying not to look at the video too much, as it can be distracting. Shania has ultra good bone structure but I am trying not to look to deep, do not want to destroy past impressions, etc. And Desley wants £50 for repair bits for the suitcase, so that will teach me! Stupid boy!

Well tonight’s evening meal is Japanese muesli, dry of course, straight out of the packet. A little dry but flushed down with a good old bottle of dodgy fruit drink. You should try dry muesli; the milk takes away the flavour from the fruit inside!

There is only so many Yakitori’s you can do! (A Google web search will sort that understanding out!)

Now listening to ‘Rogue Traders’, She is a bit hard looking in severe type of way but she scrubs up OK! Have you ever watched “Voodoo Child”, she has super lips!

The ‘lost nothing' Approach!

A few weeks ago, I met a beautiful person who taught me lots in a very short period of time.

Since then, I have reviewed a number of facets of my personality and I have decided that a new approach is needed in a number of areas! ((If you exclude joining an Internet dating agency) I could but hope not to regret that one!)


1. Always be happy. (Even if your suitcase has annoyed you!)
2. Never give up! (I used to be like that anyway but it disappeared for a while.)
3. Try anything, within reason. (Skiing is off the menu though, a novel way of committing suicide.)
4. Buy decent cloths. (Should have done it years ago.)
5. Look deeper into what’s surrounding me. (I do not know how to explain this one but I know what I mean, honest! I know I do it at work, I just need to cascade it into my private life.)
6. Just be me! (It always hard being me but it’s getting easier now.)
7. A faint heart never won a fair lady. (The "lost nothing" approach. Basically, stop being so shy!!!!)
8. Thinking about this one but possible thinking about it too much, so I have already got the answer on this point!

What I hate the most about travelling to Japan.

1. Joining the ‘wide awake’ club at ‘01:30’in the morning!

I did not have brilliant sleep last night or the night before but tonight or should I say this morning, I have woke up and now I cannot get back to sleep. I have just plugged my ipod into some speakers in my hotel room and I have started watching music videos. Unlike last night, I think nobody is in the room next to me, (No snoring coming through the wall!!) so I don’t mind listening to music.

I did not realise how stunningly pretty Alanis Morissette is! (She always looked geeky to me before!) I usually just plug ‘n’ play but this time I actually watched the music video (Crazy) and not only does it have a superb beat but I saw something in her that I never saw before! I have recently started, to try and look beyond what somebody looks like and to try and see if anything else is there! This might appear at first to be an odd concept but when I really looked into her face, I saw a totally different person and not the person I thought I had seen many times before.

This little phenomena I have developed for myself, started about five or six weeks ago after I decided to do thing differently for a change and I have re-looked at various faces and I now see the depth of the person and not just a face I originally recognised! It actually makes them look totally different, even though they have not changed. I have even being doing this with other pictures of people I don’t really know and it works there too.

You get lots of time to re-organise your thoughts when you spend significant amounts of time on your own and some really simple things that others probably do automatically, I have only just realised. The observation above is a classic for me and I now do all sorts of things that I would not normally do, I just have to think about them for a while, then I end up doing it as well. (Nice things though!!)


2. Leaving my keys to my suitcase in England!!

Stupid boy!

I left my suitcase in Kasado works for my last trip back to England, as I could not really see the point of carting it back to England only to bring it back to Japan again and again, etc. What really annoys me about this bit of stupidity is that I had the key in my hand before I left my house on Sunday morning. I picked the key up, decided I would not need it and left the house. It did not cross my mind for one minute that I had double locked my case!

So, Tuesday morning I picked up my suitcase from the office in Kasado works and stuck it in a corner of my room in the works. About four hours latter, I just looked at the suitcase for a brief moment and it dawned on me what I had done. Getting the first lock open was dead easy, getting the second locking arrangement open was a different matter and I then realised why I purchased such good suitcase in the first instance.

What a performance, not only do you need a specially shaped key, it must have a bloody (An expletive needs to be used here!) magnet inside it too, to allow the lock to be raised before you turn it!

Making the specially shaped key was relatively easy, if not time consuming to the cheery delight of the surrounding people, but realising it needed a magnet as well, was the last straw. So, yesterday morning I had to brake the locks open to get clean clothes to wear and now I am a proud owner of a knackered case, a very expensive knackered case!!!

Hmm, not impressed with the latter, even more so than the former.

‘Stupid boy’, to coin a phrase!