Eclipsetastic! (Forgive me, I think I may have accidentally taken a double dose of allergy meds this morning.)

It was cloudy but they very thoughtfully broke up a bit so that we could see the eclipse. Turned out I could see it from my balcony if I sort of leaned a bit so that is what I did. My homemade (not by me) viewer worked really well, or at least I don't seem to be any blinder than I was before. I'm very glad I got to see it, as the odds of me being in such a good spot to see another one in my lifetime is probably fairly slim.

(Please note: that is not my picture, but it's pretty much what I was looking at. I did get to see it right at the dead centre, too, which was awesome.)

Now I am back to my normal mundane life, which is mostly me cursing out the pollen. Today I was telling Andy that I was about ready for the rainy season to start, as that usually results in my nose drying up (even if the rest of me then starts growing mold), and when I walked out of the store it had started raining. Very funny, Mother Nature. Har dee har har.

Years ago when I was visiting the Sasakis, Masami handed me a ceramic and glass rectangle that he'd made and said it was for viewing solar eclipses. I remember being slightly puzzled at the time as there were none coming up but now it is coming in handy. Or will do, if the event isn't covered by clouds. My plan for tomorrow morning is to get up far, far earlier than normal, hopefully (safely) view the eclipse, and then fall back into bed.

Last night Kylie and I went out for belated birthday drinks. We were supposed to meet up the week before but her birthday plans got downgraded from champagne out in Hamamatsu to a game of tennis and wine at home and even further into a dvd and supermarket pizza. So yesterday I introduced her to the bar Devochka, a very un-Hamamatsu-like joint done up all fancy with inexplicable nekkid lady mannequins on the walls. (The one over the bar dispenses alcohol from one boob. This place really has to be seen to be believed.) The bar has an annoying habit of charging a cover charge and justifying it by giving you one saltine each with a smidge of cream cheese and an olive slice on it, which I dislike, but they have soft cushy couches to sit on and you can buy champagne by the half bottle and wine by the bottle so it is a nice place for fancy occasions.



Kylie was insistent that she had to catch the 10 o'clock train home as she had to get up at 8 the next morning to play tennis, but (shockingly!) at about 9:30 she remembered this little dive bar she used to frequent and of course we had to go check it out. It is one of those places that is open until the morning so it is pretty empty before midnight and we were the only customers. They make one hell of a long island iced tea, I'll tell you that. The only problem with drinking a long island iced tea is that you feel pretty good immediately afterwards and may think that a second one is a good idea. Generally speaking, you are wrong at this point.

We made it to the train/bus station and that's when I realized that I'd missed the last bus by literally one minute. I was very, very annoyed, as if I'm going to pay nearly $30 in taxi fees I'd like to have made it worth it, but Kylie had to catch the train and anyway, more drinking was not really an option. Being forced to catch a cab in Japan makes me all ragey...they are so cheap everywhere else in Asia and are a viable alternative for getting around but $30 for a 15 minute ride? Not cool. I am on a strict budget and I had other plans for that money.

So the evening did not end on the best of notes but overall it was fun. Today has been rather more low-key...I finally bought some plants for the balcony and went to the gym and that's about it. The next two weekends will mostly involve a lot of yoga, which will probably be better for me but I will miss the champagne.

Stuart has finally, after over a year of working on it, finished his pizza oven. He is now on a quest to make the perfect pizza, much to the delight of his family. How picky is he, you ask? Well, first of all, there's the fact that he built a pizza oven. That should be your first clue. Now he is concerned about the "leoparding" of the pizza...that's when the dough gets those crispy black spots on them. On my pizza, that would just mean a burnt pizza, but if done properly in a pizza oven, that leoparding is what you want. Currently the spots on his pizza are the wrong colour. This cracks me up, as I picture him holding up Pantone chips to his pizza and muttering things like "Not enough ebony, too charcoal!" Once he has worked the kinks out, there will be a pizza party. And I will totally be going, as I got an invitation from Ewan today to come over and eat pizza.

Ewan has an extra reason to be excited about the pizza oven...it has a chimney, which means that this Christmas, Santa will be able to come down the chimney all proper-like, which he hasn't been able to do before. If you are wondering how exactly that plays out, apparently Santa will come down the teeny tiny pizza oven chimney, crawl out of the pizza oven, dust himself off, and then walk around to the front door and ring the bell on account of how the pizza oven is outdoors.

Happy Fluevog Day! Yes, that's a thing. Yes, it's pretty much a store promotion to sell more shoes. Whatever. You celebrate your holidays and I'll celebrate mine.

Sadly, I am not really celebrating. I want to buy shoes so, so much (and international shipping is 50% off!) but the fact that the ones I am eyeballing don't fit true to size is holding me back. I would hate to spend a gazillin dollars and not have them fit properly. I did contact the Fluevog staff (purely for research purposes) and they recommended going half a size down but I still remember the heart attack I had when I got my boots and they didn't zip up around my calf. That, at least, could be remedied, but a too-short shoe would just make for a very expensive mantelpiece decoration. And I don't even have a mantel.

All is not entirely lost on the shopping front, though. On May 22nd, for 24 hours only, this t-shirt will be on sale. It was designed by our very own Flash (or "toobe", as he is apparently known elsewhere on the internets. Toobe. Heh.) and even if you don't watch/are not a fan of The Big Bang Theory, you have to admit it is adorable. And totally work-appropriate, which is a good thing in a t-shirt. Not that I have a lot of naughty t-shirts, but sometimes you just get tired of explaining what "boyfriend schmoyfriend" means and opt for the cute shirt with the cartoon sushi on it instead.

One more class to go and I'll be done for the week. I do like my job...it is fun teaching kids, my coworkers/employers are all great, and although I took a pay cut last year when we opened the new school, I am still getting paid a shit-ton of money for the amount of hours I actually put in. Still, my two weeks of holidays wasn't nearly long enough and I would love to be still back there. Any of the three parts would do, really.

Seoul was good fun, relaxing as always. I hung out with my parents and we actually did some sightseeing, working on the theory that they are probably not coming back so we should probably do something other than just sit in the apartment and attempt to make a dent in my brother's booze collection. It was a reluctant decision but we stuck with it. It was pouring on our last full day there and mom suggested we just stay in and "drink all of your brother's alcohol", but that would have killed us all. Literally. So instead Paul took half the day off and we went to see the fish market, or as I like to call it, the poor man's aquarium. Then we went home and sat around with our various kindles and computers and ipods and spent some quality family time not actually talking to each other.

I escorted my parents to the airport, which meant I was massively early for my flight. Usually I show up two hours in advance so I don't have a lot of time to kill but after I'd said goodbye to them I still had a good four hours and there is only so much Dior nail polish one can buy in the duty free, so I entered the magical world of the pay-in lounge. $35 US for unlimited food and booze and wi-fi, all in comfy chairs? Yes please. Mind you, the food was mediocre at best, but it beat paying for mediocre food AND drinks separately, so hey.

Hong Kong was great. I did not do one lick of sight seeing or anything remotely cultural. Pauline and I just spent the entire time shopping shopping shopping. I'd actually forgotten how much fun shopping for clothes can be when the stores carry sizes that fit you. It's so much better than eyeballing cute stuff and realizing that you could maybe have fit into it back when you were 8 and then feeling like a large lumpish gorilla and then going "fuck it" and buying shoes because shoes never make you feel fat. Of course, I did still manage to buy some shoes in Hong Kong, and I have a new favourite shoe store. Fluevog is still number one but Millie's in Hong Kong is a close second.

Next time I need a new wardrobe I am just going to Hong Kong instead of trying to make Uniqlo work for everything.

I could have kept on shopping but my plane ticket insisted I go to Tokyo instead, where I stayed at Andy's and drank rather a lot of white wine and bubbly and ate pizza. The weather was iffy but thankfully it was lovely on Saturday, which was when we had our picnic. I also discovered that my so-called magic pants (so-called because they are light weight and fast drying and super comfy and the perfect warm-weather travel pant) are even more magical than I had thought...if you drip red wine on them they don't stain. I know, I know, I should have bought six pairs when they are out but I didn't know then how great they were! Hindsight, etc.

We are currently in that nice weather spot right before rainy season creeps up on us and makes everything all soggy. This weekend I finally want to put in some balcony plants and see if I can get a small coriander crop harvested before the weather turns foul on us. I suppose it will be nice to just have a weekend at home but I wouldn't say no to a repeat of any of the last three weekends, either.

I lied on Facebook when I said I was all shopped out. What I meant was that I was out of time and had to leave Hong Kong. I could totally do more shopping. Specifically over at the Fluevog store...