Hello from a toilet, Nabe Season and Other Things

Lately I’ve had the pleasure of catching up with various friends during their various visits here. I’ve been very fortunate that schedules have matched up nicely enough to give me enough time to show them around Kyoto at various points.  It’s hard to know what to follow up an emotionally charged entry with. So I’ll…

Not Much To Say, But Everything To Talk About

This entry is brought to you by several beers and one coffee shochu. For the record, a coffee shochu is coffee liquer mixed with shochu (Japanese spirits) The facts are these – I haven’t updated this blog in a month. I can’t even tell you why. There have been so many things happening it’s hard…

New Year, New Post

I started holidays from work on December 27th. The night I returned home after my  last day at work for the year consisted of one end of year party. Here’s the rundown. Dec 27th – end of year party Dec 28th – end of year party Dec 29th – drinking with a friend Dec 30th…

Winter, Gravity, Haircut

If the title of this post didn’t have commas included, you could mistake the title for some new form of fad whereby your hair is styled to withstand both winter and gravity. Instead, these are just the things that I have been involved in recently. And basketball. I’ve lucked out and managed to find two…

Avocado Doritos, Kiyomizudera and Reactions

Right. So this post is going to contain a lot of photos. Less wordy, more snappy (Yep. Picture puns is now what I am reduced to). First and foremost! Yes, those are avocado and cheese flavoured Doritos. Verdict? Would snack again. Perhaps with salsa next time. Taste? Slight bitterness but an unmistakeable avocado finish. The…

The Chilli Commander

Sometimes, life gives you lemons. At other times, it gives you ridiculously hot chilli. How hot, you ask? Well, dear reader, no less than 1.2 million on the Scoville scale. This is an origins story of an ordinary man who came to be known by the title ‘The Chilli Commander’. That ordinary man is me….

The Running Man

First things first, another panorama shot of the Kyoto I see every day that I walk to work. Remember to click on it to see it in its full glory, people. On the topic of glory, I reacquainted myself with the glory of potentially the greatest film of all-time, The Running Man (1987) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But…

Visitors, Entokuin Temple, Taste Bud Assault, Illuminated Crab

I learned a very valuable lesson over the last week or so. What may seem like an immunity to the impact of consuming copious amounts of alcohol is no guarantee that you will actually feel ok the next day, or the day after that, even if you weren’t intoxicated. Especially if you’re out until 5am…

Six Months, Kodomo Keisatsu, Buckaroo Banzai, NBA

To celebrate having been in Kyoto six months, Greg, Uwachan, Nakamura-san and I all headed out for dinner to one of my favourite kushikatsu places in Kyoto. The idea that I have more than one favourite “deep-fried everything on sticks” place may seem a bit odd, but I know no less than 5 places that…

Coffee, Halloween, Jidai Matsuri, Nabe

Finding out that a cafe (insert all-too-brief plug for Kiln here) I regular is open until midnight on Sundays was a pleasant surprise, so I decided to kick back after a long-ish week and put some words on the screen. This city keeps finding ways to impress me and I’ve only barely scraped the surface….